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http://www.nytimes.com/1982/02/01/business/advertising-magazine-quits-auditing-body.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20111001223300id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1982/02/01/business/advertising-magazine-quits-auditing-body.html
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ADVERTISING - ADVERTISING - Magazine Quits Auditing Body - NYTimes.com
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20111001223300
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Scientific American magazine has resigned from membership in the Audit Bureau of Circulation, one of the most important organizations in the print advertising field. Even the two publishers who have been the magazine's supporters consider it a bad move.
The letter of resignation from Gerard Piel, the publisher of Scientific American, cited book, chapter and verse of his continuing displeasure with what it considers A.B.C.'s negligence in not properly audi ting the demographic editions of the newsweeklies, whichcompete with Scientific American for corporate advertising.
George Green, president of The New Yorker, and James J. Dunn, publisher of Forbes, who have stood with Mr. Piel in the past and still agree that Scientific American has a legitamate complaint, both expressed disapointment and disagreement with Mr. Piel's move.
Mr. Piel said that in the future, his magazine would have its circulation audited by Business Press Audit.
Illustrations: Photo of Gerard Piel
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Scientific American magazine has resigned from membership in the Audit Bureau of Circulation, one of the most important organizations in the print advertising field. Even the two publishers who have been the magazine's supporters consider it a bad move.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/29/china-ironore-vale-idUSBJB00395620100929
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http://web.archive.org/web/20111025195546id_/http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/29/china-ironore-vale-idUSBJB00395620100929
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Vale sees China steel demand revival by early 2011
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20111025195546
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DALIAN, China, Sept 29 | Tue Sep 28, 2010 9:18pm EDT
DALIAN, China, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Steel demand growth in China, the world's biggest steel market, will revive by early 2011, Jose Carlos Martins, executive director of ferrous metals at the world's top iron ore miner Vale (VALE5.SA), said on Wednesday.
Martins said pricing iron ore on a quarterly basis, which began this year after the decades-old system of annual pricing collapsed, was working and acceptable.
He also said Vale needed a reduced tax burden to help it cope with the strong Brazilian currency, which made investment harder. (Reporting by Ruby Lian and Lucy Hornby; Editing by Ken Wills)
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DALIAN, China, Sept 29 (Reuters) - Steel demand growth inChina, the world's biggest steel market, will revive by early2011, Jose Carlos Martins, executive director of ferrous metalsat the world's top
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http://www.aol.com/2011/10/25/phoenix-hospital-to-name-_0_n_1030420.html
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Phoenix Hospital To Name Room After Poison Singer
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20111026212743
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PHOENIX — A Phoenix hospital is injecting a little Poison into families waiting for sick loved ones, thanks to a donation from 1980s hair band singer Bret Michaels.
The Poison frontman plans to announce Thursday that he is donating TVs and sound systems for a waiting room at the St. Joseph's Barrow Neurological Institute, where he was treated in April 2010 for a brain hemorrhage. The equipment will allow families to relax and listen to music.
In return, the waiting room will be named after Michaels.
He was also treated at the hospital earlier this year for a procedure to fix a hole in his heart. Doctors discovered the hole when they treated him for the brain hemorrhage.
Michaels says in a statement that the room will be "warm and hip."
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PHOENIX — A Phoenix hospital is injecting a little Poison into families waiting for sick loved ones, thanks to a donation from 1980s hair band singer Bret Michaels. The Poison frontman plans to announce Thursday that he is donating TVs and sound systems for a waiting room at the St. Joseph's Barrow Neurological Institute, where he was treated in April 2010 for a brain hemorrhage.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2011/11/02/end-era-filene-basement-prepares-close/zTeGmXSB0wR7wmPBhCKdeK/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20111105233315id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2011/11/02/end-era-filene-basement-prepares-close/zTeGmXSB0wR7wmPBhCKdeK/story.html
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End of an era as Filene’s Basement prepares to close
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20111105233315
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Filene’s Basement, the historic Massachusetts discounter, has filed for bankruptcy protection for the third time in just over a decade and will shutter for good after the holiday season. Filene’s Basement is owned by Syms Corp., which purchased the company out of bankruptcy in June 2009. Syms also filed for Chapter 11.
The liquidation of Filene’s Basement and Syms stores is expected to run through approximately January 2012, Syms said in a press release. The schedule for store closings is to be determined as the liquidation of merchandise is completed.
In a statement, Syms chief executive Marcy Syms said that fierce competition, along with the “worst economic downturn in our lifetimes,” were among the reasons for the move.
“The filings today are the result of a process that has been taking place for several months,” Syms said. “Our board has conducted a rigorous assessment of all the strategic options and alternatives available and after careful consideration has come to the conclusion that a bankruptcy filing and liquidation is the best way of maximizing value for all stakeholders.”
Syms interim chief financial officer Gary Binkoski, in Chapter 11 documents filed today, said the brands have determined they are unable to reorganize on a stand-alone basis and concluded the “best way to maximize value ... is a prompt and orderly wind-down of the retail businesses that will capitalize on the upcoming holiday shopping business.”
Filene’s Basement has about 21 stores and roughly 1,555 employees, and a distribution center in Auburn. The Chapter 11 filing in US Bankruptcy Court in Delaware listed between $1 and $10 million in assets and between $50 and $100 million in liabilities.
The demise of Filene’s Basement also means the end of its popular “Running of the Brides” event, where hundreds of frenzied brides-to-be rummage through racks of wedding dresses at discount prices.
The top creditor, with an unknown claim amount, is the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. The brand Phillips-Van Heusen Corp. is owed nearly $850,000. Syms hired a financial advisor earlier this year to examine strategic alternatives.
This is the company’s third time around with the US Bankruptcy Court, which “is a highly unusual scenario,” according to Brandy Chestas, a senior editor at New Generation Research, Inc, which runs bankruptcydata.com
But the filing is not exactly a surprise. In recent weeks, the chain has been announcing plans to shut some stores, such as two Filene’s Basement stores in Ohio and Maryland and four shops in Massachusetts. About 2 1/2 years ago, Filene’s Basement was purchased by Syms Corp. at an auction.
Before Filene’s Basement filed for bankruptcy in 2009, it shut down 11 of the chain’s locations.
Edward A. Filene founded Filene’s Basement more than a century ago as a way to sell excess merchandise from his father’s department store upstairs.
The basement pioneered the concept of bargains when it devised a system of automatic markdowns, where merchandise is discounted on a set schedule that customers can track.
Syms chief executive Marcy Syms had said in past interviews that she was committed to bringing Filene’s Basement back to Downtown Crossing, where stalled construction has left a gaping hole at the site of the former Filene’s building.
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After surviving two bankruptcies and the loss of its flagship Downtown Crossing store, Filene’s Basement will be making its final markdowns as the century-old discount chain prepares to close its stores, unable to fend off larger rivals and new competition. The legendary bargain discounter filed for bankruptcy protection yesterday with plans to liquidate all shops during the holiday season and shutter the entire chain by January. It’s a disappointing, but not unexpected turn for the struggling Boston merchant that claims to have invented the bargain in 1908 as a place to sell excess merchandise from the Filene’s department store upstairs in Downtown Crossing. The planned shut down of Filene’s Basement reflects the chain’s failure to turnaround operations, improve buying power, compete against bigger rivals, and fend off a growing number of challenges from outlet stores and online merchants like Gilt City and Rue La La, according to retail analysts.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/01/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-corporate-st-idUSTRE5304GB20090401
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http://web.archive.org/web/20111106155246id_/http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/04/01/businesspropicks-us-findlaw-corporate-st-idUSTRE5304GB20090401
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Corporate Structure: Directors to Shareholders
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20111106155246
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Wed Apr 1, 2009 10:07am EDT
A typical corporation's structure consists of three main groups: directors, officers, and shareholders. The roles and responsibilities of these groups are described in more detail below.
One of the first steps a new corporation will take is to name the members of its board of directors. Usually, directors are identified in the "articles of incorporation" and/or "bylaws" of the corporation, or are selected by the person who takes the initial step of incorporating the business (sometimes called the "incorporator"). Once the corporation is up and running, directors are typically elected by shareholders at annual meetings.
As suggested by its name, the board of directors "directs" the corporation's affairs and business path. The board of directors also has ultimate legal responsibility for the actions of the corporation and its subsidiaries, officers, employees, and agents. A corporate director's duties and responsibilities typically include:
*Acting on behalf of the corporation and its best interests with an appropriate "duty of care" at all times;
*Acting with loyalty to the corporation and its shareholders;
*Participating in regular meetings of the board of directors;
*Approving certain corporate activities and transactions -- including contracts and agreements; election of new corporate officers; asset purchases and sales, approval of new corporate policies; and more;
*Amending the corporation's bylaws or articles of incorporation.
The number of directors serving on a corporation's board usually depends in part on the size of the business and its holdings, but this number is typically stated in the corporation's articles of incorporation and/or bylaws. A small corporation might have one director (who may also serve as the sole officer and shareholder), while a large corporation may have 10 or more people serving on its board of directors. For voting purposes, a corporation with more than one director should keep an odd number (3, 5, 7, etc.) of directors on its board.
The corporation's officers oversee the business's daily operations, and in their different roles they are given legal authority to act on the corporation's behalf in almost all lawful business-related activities. Officers are usually appointed by the corporation's board of directors, and while specific positions may vary from one corporation to another, typical corporate officers include:
*Chief Executive Officer (CEO) or President. The CEO has ultimate responsibility for the corporation's activities, and signs off on contracts and other legally-binding action on behalf of the corporation. The CEO reports to the corporation's board of directors.
*Chief Operating Officer (COO). Charged with managing the corporation's day-to-day affairs, the COO usually reports directly to the CEO.
*Chief Financial Officer (CFO) or Treasurer. The CFO is responsible (directly or indirectly) for almost all of the corporation's financial matters.
*Secretary. The corporation's Secretary is in charge of maintaining and keeping corporation's records, documents, and "minutes" from shareholder meetings.
Keep in mind that in smaller corporations, one person may serve as the business's sole director, officer, and shareholder.
A corporation's shareholders have an ownership interest in the company, by having money invested in the corporation. A "share" is an apportioned ownership interest in the corporation, and the value of a single share can range from less than a 1 percent interest in the corporation, to 100 percent.
When a corporation is first formed, its original owners are usually its first shareholders, and in smaller corporations these initial investors may remain the sole shareholders throughout the corporation's existence. A smaller corporation's few shareholders may consist of those involved in day-to-day business operations (as owners, managers or employees). Remember that in smaller corporations, one person may also serve as the business's sole director, officer, and shareholder. Where larger corporations are concerned, private investors (or members of the general public if the corporation "goes public") may decide to invest money in the corporation at any time, and will become shareholders. Whatever the number of shareholders in a corporation, each shareholder usually receives a stock certificate from the corporation, identifying the number of shares held by the investor.
Corporations are usually required by law to hold annual shareholder meetings, at which the shareholders will elect the corporation's directors. Special shareholder meetings may also be held in rare situations, when significant corporate actions require shareholder approval -- including major transactions and changes in the corporation's stock plans. A corporation's articles of incorporation (combined with state law requirements) usually set forth shareholder voting rights and procedures.
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A typical corporation's structure consists of three main groups: directors, officers, and shareholders. The roles and responsibilities of these groups are described in more detail below.Board of DirectorsOne
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2011/11/04/globe-host-knight-mozilla-fellow-digital-development/L3em9TS2FWMwmdyRwAZH7N/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20111110103510id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2011/11/04/globe-host-knight-mozilla-fellow-digital-development/L3em9TS2FWMwmdyRwAZH7N/story.html?emtaf=aritcle
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Globe to host Knight-Mozilla fellow on digital development
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20111110103510
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Knight Foundation and global nonprofit Web group Mozilla announced the first group of Knight-Mozilla News Technology Fellows.
The five software programmers, announced at the Mozilla Festival in London, will spend one year helping newsrooms develop prototypes to deliver news and information digitally.
Each fellow will work on a specific issue at each news outlet and then find solutions that will help promote that organization’s journalistic values.
The news outlets are The Boston Globe, The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, BBC and Zeit Online. The Boston Globe fellow is Dan Schultz, a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab who was awarded a 2007 Knight News Challenge grant to write about “Connecting People, Content and Community.”
“This first cohort of Knight-Mozilla fellows is an impressive group, and well positioned to add real value - both to their partner news organizations and to the journalism field in general,’’ said John S. Bracken, director of media innovation at Miami-based Knight Foundation, in a release. “At Knight, we see great promise in these intersections of technology and journalism.”
Said Jeff Moriarty, vice president for digital products at The Boston Globe, “We expect our fellow to be a great addition to the BostonGlobe.com and Boston.com development efforts, contributing to our work with HTML 5 and advanced browser-based features.”
The other fellows are: Mark Boas, cofounder of entrepreneurial Web agency Happyworm, who will work out of Al Jazeera English; Cole Gillespie, a JavaScript developer, who will be based at Zeit Online; Laurian Gridinoc, a former researcher in semantic navigation, who will be at BBC; and Nicola Hughes, a former digital producer for CCN, will be at The Guardian.
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The Knight Foundation and global nonprofit Web group Mozilla announced the recipients of the first Knight-Mozilla News Technology Fellows. Five software coders will spend the year in newsrooms including The Boston Globe to develop solutions to better promote the outlet’s values and Web.
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http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2011/08/nepals-politics
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Every faction for itself
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20111114000133
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Aug 15th 2011, 7:41 by T.B. | KATHMANDU
THE resignation of the prime minister, Jhalanath Khanal (pictured right), Sunday evening did not come as a surprise. Nepal’s premiers rarely last much longer than a year in office and Mr Khanal’s seven-and-a-half months had been marked by particularly fierce opposition. He came to power following a majority vote in parliament and promising to deliver progress on Nepal’s stalled peace process. However, unable to secure a consensus among parliamentary forces, he proved incapable of keeping his word.
Nepal’s political process has descended into feuding, of a dismally familiar sort, at a particularly sensitive time. In 2006 the country ended ten years of civil war between the army and a Maoist insurgency, starting a peace process based on accommodation between the existing political parties and the former rebels. In 2008 there were elections to a Constituent Assembly that was to draft a new, democratic constitution. The assembly’s first act was to abolish the monarchy that had become a common foe of both the Maoists and the other parties. They have been able to agree on very little since.
The comprehensive peace agreement struck in 2006 envisaged an all-party government until the new constitution was complete. Instead there have been four prime ministers from three different parties since 2008, in a series of majority-coalition governments. While in opposition, each party has been willing to boycott and obstruct the process at every step. All sides’ failures to abide by commitments have left the peace agreement threadbare.
To make matters worse, the largest parties all suffer from bitter internal divisions. Among Mr Khanal’s greatest opponents were members of his own United Marxist-Leninist (UML) party, who were taking their revenge after he helped to topple the previous prime minister, Madhav Kumar Nepal, who belongs to a rival faction of the UML.
Analysts compare these dynamics to the period of unstable coalitions that characterised the kingdom's politics the late 1990s, when politicians were determined to prevent their rivals achieving anything that could be presented as a success. Meanwhile, ministers used their fleeting control of government resources to plunder the public finances and reward their supporters. Many of today’s political leaders are the same people who dominated that period—it seems that they are unable to move on.
The new constitution has yet to be drafted. The mandate of the Constituent Assembly, which also functions as an interim legislature, has been extended twice in frantic midnight negotiations. The latest extension expires at the end of August and will require a new deal between the party leaders if the country is not to be left without an elected assembly. Although some progress has been made towards the new constitution, several fundamental questions have not been resolved. Any draft charter that could be put before the public still seems some way off.
A critical issue stalling progress on other fronts is the fate of the Maoists’ former fighters. Five years after the end of the war they are still languishing in camps. The other parties accuse the Maoists of being unwilling to lose their military wing. However, details of a package that would integrate some of them into the national-security agencies and others into civilian life already have been agreed in private, at least in broad strokes. Since then the issue has been used as a bargaining chip by all sides to slow down the process while advancing other agendas.
Now, once again, there is a chance to form an all-party government and complete the process. Although substantive issues remain, a resolution would seem to be within reach—if only there were co-operation between the parties.
The Maoists, who have twice as many MPs as the next-largest party in the assembly, are once again asserting their right to lead the next government. Their candidate for prime minister—the widely respected Baburam Bhattarai—says he will only lead a unity government. But the second-largest party, the Nepali Congress, is also claiming the prime minister’s job. There is a struggle within their party over who the candidate should be.
After the prime minister who preceded Mr Khanal, Mr Nepal, resigned last year he remained acting premier for another seven months, while the others struggled to settle on his replacement. On that form Mr Khanal may linger in office for some time yet.
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THE resignation of the prime minister, Jhalanath Khanal (pictured right), Sunday evening did not come as a surprise.
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http://bostonglobe.com/business/2011/12/11/book-readers-still-choice-for-bookworms/8TGskGiZDiBhis76Mbp8hJ/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20120107232755id_/http://bostonglobe.com:80/business/2011/12/11/book-readers-still-choice-for-bookworms/8TGskGiZDiBhis76Mbp8hJ/story.html
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E-book readers still choice for bookworms
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20120107232755
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Some tech gurus predicted that the tablet computer, with its versatility and color screen, would kill the standalone e-book reader, with its focus on books and its black-and-white screen. But Consumer Reports’ latest ratings reveal that the e-book reader has endured, even thrived, by providing an increasingly optimized book-reading experience at steadily lower prices.
Consumer Reports ratings include a number of new models, including an $80 version of the latest Amazon Kindle that scored above competitors costing more than twice as much. And most of the rated models, new and old, are lighter and easier to read than tablets (especially in bright light) and have much longer battery life (weeks rather than days). So although you can read e-books on tablets, an e-book reader is still the gadget of choice for serious bookworms.
This is a good time to buy an e-book reader, for plenty of reasons. Here are some:
Prices are dropping. All of the newest models from both Amazon and Barnes & Noble have lowered the entry-level price for a high-quality e-book reader. The new $80 Kindle is very basic, with no touchscreen, physical keyboard, 3G connection, or even an included charger. And the $80 version, a Best Buy, comes with ads and special offers on its screen saver.
But Amazon’s first touchscreen reader, the Kindle Touch, starts at $99 for a Wi-Fi version with special offers and ads. (If you aren’t willing to put up with ads and offers, there’s a Kindle Touch for $139.) And its Barnes & Noble competitor, the Nook Simple Touch, costs $99 and has no commercial content.
Want color? New choices emerge. A few models in the ratings trade the black-and-white E Ink screen of most readers for a color LCD screen. That allows them to emphasize magazines, among other content. But color e-book readers are less compelling now that Amazon and Barnes & Noble have introduced new tablets that are comparable in size and price to the readers yet offer more. Amazon’s $200 Kindle Fire tablet has the same breadth of content as the $200 Nook Color e-book reader, plus streaming video and music. And the Nook Tablet offers a faster processor and more memory than the Nook Color for only $50 more.
Touch is spreading. The names of the models in the ratings show the growing prevalence of touchscreens. The Aluratek Libre Touch and Sony Touch have joined the Nook Simple Touch and Kobo eReader Touch. And there’s the Kindle Touch.
Touch capability tends to add to the price of an e-book reader. But on the best models, it provides crisp page turns with minimal effort. It also allows you to use a virtual keyboard and other onscreen controls that are bigger and easier to press than the small physical keys and controls on some nontouch models.
The under-6-ounce reader is here. The new Kindles and Sony Reader each weigh a little less than 6 ounces. That’s at least 25 percent less than their predecessors, and it’s 50 percent less than some competitors.
Color capability adds weight (the color models CR rated weighted at least 11.9 ounces). The circuitry needed for 3G connectivity also adds weight, although more modestly.
Library lending goes wireless. The ability to borrow e-books from more than 10,000 libraries nationwide has been a feature on a number of e-book readers for a while. For the first time, every model in the ratings has that capability.
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Some tech gurus predicted that the tablet computer, with its versatility and color screen, would kill the stand-alone e-book reader, with its focus on books and its black and-white screen. But Consumer Reports’ Ratings reveal the e-book reader has endured, even thrived, by providing an increasingly optimized book-reading experience at steadily lower prices. Most of the rated models, new and old, are lighter and easier to read than tablets and have much longer battery life.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2011/12/08/steward-enlarges-its-footprint-mass/msi5A88QEM1mZepnpKRAKK/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20120108040408id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2011/12/08/steward-enlarges-its-footprint-mass/msi5A88QEM1mZepnpKRAKK/story.html
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Steward enlarges its footprint in Mass.
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20120108040408
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Escalating its competition with other Boston-area hospital chains, for-profit company Steward Health Care System has again lured away a major doctors group from a rival, this time grabbing a large South Shore practice from Partners HealthCare.
Deep-pocketed newcomer Steward said yesterday that Compass Medical will join its network, a move that could shake up patient and provider relationships in communities south of Boston.
Compass Medical includes 90 doctors in eight offices between Braintree and Taunton, and over time, doctors there probably will refer more of their thousands of patients to nearby Steward-owned community hospitals for care, including Quincy Medical Center, Good Samaritan Medical Center in Brockton, and Morton Hospital in Taunton.
The change is a loss for Partners, a powerful provider network that includes Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s hospitals, which has been affiliated with Compass for 16 years.
Steward’s partnership with Compass comes a month after it scooped up 150 doctors in Whittier Independent Practice Association in Newburyport, which had been aligned with Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s physician organization.
The new affiliations strengthen Steward’s chances of long-term success in Eastern Massachusetts, showing it can win the confidence of doctors despite initial concerns among caregivers that investor-backed hospitals would be more concerned with profits than with providing high-quality medical care.
“Physicians are not only the folks who do the work in these health care factories we call hospitals, but they are also the key sales force,’’ said health care consultant Jon Kingsdale, managing partner in the Boston office of Wakely Consulting Group. “You kind of depend on them to fill the beds. The way to generate new revenue in a hospital is to recruit more patients through physicians.’’
Neither Jamie Barber, Compass’s chief executive, nor Christopher Murphy, a Steward spokesman, would comment yesterday on whether Steward agreed to invest money in the Compass practice, or about other financial details of the partnership.
The Whittier doctors estimated that, as a group, they could earn $1.8 million to $3 million more next year under a Steward insurance contract with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts than they could under the Beth Israel physician group’s contract with Blue Cross - although Steward disputes those figures. Steward also agreed to pick up the cost if the Whittier doctors ran over their budget under the Blue Cross plan, according to a Whittier presentation.
Compass doctors are switching networks primarily because they want to better coordinate patient care with community hospitals, Barber said. Steward owns community hospitals in the suburbs south of Boston, hospitals to which Compass doctors already refer many of their patients, while Partners does not own any hospitals in that area. Compass and Steward, for example, plan to create software that will allow their doctors and hospitals to share patient records.
“Care needs to be a lot more coordinated and integrated than it is today,’’ Barber said. “What we need are community hospital partners.’’
Compass began considering its options in advance of the Jan. 1, 2012, expiration of its contract with Partners, he said.
Compass doctors send many of their patients to the Brigham for advanced care, and doctors intend to continue that relationship, Barber said. But if Compass and Steward are successful at better coordinating care, that “will mean some shifting relationships’’ and that patients might migrate away from Brockton and South Shore hospitals, for example, “depending on patient choice,’’ he added.
Dr. Thomas Lee, president of Partners Community HealthCare, the organization’s physician network, said Partners executives talked to Compass leaders earlier this year about how to create a closer relationship, perhaps by hiring the Compass doctors as employees. “For some folks who really value their independence, that arouses anxiety to hear that’s the potential direction,’’ Lee said. “That issue was probably part of the story here.’’
Lee said Partners is “disappointed. They’ve got a lot of good doctors, some of whom are my friends.’’
Steward has become a growing presence in Massachusetts health care by capitalizing on a shift toward so-called accountable care organizations, networks of community hospitals, doctors groups, home care organizations, and hospices that work together to deliver care closer to home, said Jim Conway, lecturer at the Harvard School of Public Health.
“They’re a serious factor in the market,’’ Conway said. “People are going out and trying to lock up the best relationships. And you can’t do anything without having very good relationships with physicians.’’
But not everyone is happy about Steward’s growing influence. In a Nov. 23 letter, the Massachusetts Council of Community Hospitals, some of whose members compete with Steward, asked state Attorney General Martha Coakley to investigate Steward’s contract with Whittier. The council said that the contract violated assurances Steward would not take “predatory actions against community hospitals.’’ Representatives from Coakley’s office are scheduled to meet with leaders of the community hospital group next week, but an office spokesman would not say whether an inquiry is planned.
Steward, a for-profit chain owned by New York private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management, insists it is buying and strengthening financially weak community hospitals that might otherwise have closed.
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Escalating its competition with other Boston-area hospital chains, for-profit company Steward Health Care System has lured away another major doctors group from a rival, this time grabbing a large South Shore practice from Partners HealthCare. Deep-pocketed newcomer Steward said yesterday that Compass Medical will join its network - a move that could shake up patient and provider relationships in communities south of Boston.
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http://bostonglobe.com/business/2012/01/02/tax-levels-field/hPG1UAagThqGzbS2M2xUcI/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20120111173800id_/http://bostonglobe.com:80/business/2012/01/02/tax-levels-field/hPG1UAagThqGzbS2M2xUcI/story.html
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E-tax levels the field
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20120111173800
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Excerpts from the Innovation Economy blog.
In Boston, we have a long history of rebelling against taxation. So I guess I should not have been surprised last month after I wrote about Amazon.com’s plans to set up an office in Cambridge.
Most of the e-mail I received was not about how to get a job with the pioneering e-tailer, but about sales taxes. Namely, whether and when Massachusetts residents might have to start forking over the state’s 6.25 percent tax when they buy stuff from Amazon, since the company would have a physical location here, which could force them to start collecting the tax.
The particulars of the Amazon situation are not clear. The office has not opened, and the state Department of Revenue has not shared its position on whether Amazon will need to start adding the tax to the tally.
But the bottom line is that state sales taxes could be added to all e-commerce transactions soon, for any company that chalks up more than $500,000 in out-of-state sales a year.
A bipartisan bill introduced in the US Senate in November, the Marketplace Fairness Act, calls for collecting an estimated $23 billion a year in state and local taxes, money that today does not get collected. The bill would leave it up to each state whether to collect the taxes, while attempting to simplify the process for e-tailers.
No one likes paying more taxes, but here’s why I’m in favor of adding the sales tax to online transactions.
First, this is not a new tax. It is a tax we were supposed to be paying all along. Whenever you buy something from a website or catalog, you’re supposed to pay a 6.25 percent “use tax’’ to the state.
How many of us do that? About 1.6 percent of Massachusetts tax filers, according to the state. Who are those people? I suspect they must have plans to run for office.
Second, in the early days of e-commerce, it seemed unfair to saddle small start-ups with the burden of figuring out the proper tax rate on each purchase, collecting it, and handing it over to the right agency. Plus, in the late 1990s, we wanted to encourage the creation of e-commerce businesses, not over-regulate them. Today, it would take a millisecond or two for a Web store to take your ZIP code and consult a database of tax rates - the same way it calculates shipping costs - and add the right percentage to your purchase.
And it isn’t the online merchants who feel like fragile seedlings in need of protection any more. For the 2011 fiscal year, analysts predict that Amazon, the biggest online retailer, will have raked in about $48 billion in revenue, up about 42 percent from 2010. In 2011, Borders, a once-successful bookstore chain that had been in business for 40 years, closed all its stores. The last year it turned a profit? 2006.
Third, states need the money.
In Massachusetts last year, legislators had to deal with a budget shortfall of $1.9 billion. That forced them to cut funding for higher education and healthcare for the poor and elderly, among other things. Collecting state sales tax on Internet purchases would not have erased the need for cuts, but it would have provided about $268 million in additional revenue, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Finally, continuing to give e-tailers a free pass will have a big impact on our Main Streets and malls. Those old-school toy stores, clothing boutiques, and furniture showrooms pay rent and support local jobs.
Massachusetts has been the birthplace of great offline retailers like TJX Cos., great online retailers like Wayfair, and great hybrids like Framingham-based Staples, which operates more than 2,000 stores and is the number two online merchant, behind Amazon.
I think our position ought to be that we want to create a level playing field where small, independent retailers can continue to be part of the fabric of their towns, where e-commerce start-ups can grow, and where new retail concepts can develop into the next Staples.
And that means all of those players, on the Net or on Newbury Street, ought to be collecting the appropriate taxes from their customers.
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In Boston, we have a long history of rebelling against taxation. So I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised late last month, after I wrote about Amazon.com’s plans to set up an office in Cambridge.
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Etsy Founders Launch New Company: A Ping.fm for Business
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Etsy is quietly one of the world’s most popular websites. Buying, selling, and talking about crafts and handmade items is apparently big business. Behind the scenes though, it’s been rocky. After drama over Etsy’s leadership in August 2008, two of its founders, Haim Schoppik and Chris Maguire, left the company along with a number of employees. Since then, we haven’t heard much. So what have they been up to?
Building a social media company, it seems. We were recently informed about a new project by Etsy’s Haim, Chris, and David (former Etsy product manager). That project is Postling, a “tool for small businesses to market, listen, and respond to their customers using social media.” So what exactly have the Etsy founders built?
When we first arrived on Postling, one company immediately came to mind: Ping.fm, the tool that lets you update all of your social media accounts all at once. Postling performs a similar function. The goal of the new social tool is to simplify social media for businesses by making it easy to post to not only a company blog, but to Twitter, Flickr, and a range of other social media websites.
Postling seems to provide a rich media interface to create, edit, and build blog posts. After they’re published (WordPress, Tumblr, TypePad, Blogger, and others are options), you can then update your status on Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere in one swoop. The last step is that you can post your photos to Flickr from the interface.
That’s really about it. It doesn’t have the FriendFeed ability to receive information from these social networks, something that would make the service a lot more useful. It’s essentially a beefed-up version of Ping.fm for business, which is why they don’t offer this product for free. Postling costs $9 a month.
Postling’s good….but not great. Is the service worth $9 per month to a business? Probably. However, if they know about the free options, then there’s really no point to Postling at the moment. Still, it boast an all-star team with venture backing and it has only been a week or two since it went live. We hope Postling steps up its game and makes a more compelling case for businesses to spend their hard-earned cash on its services.
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Etsy is quietly one of the world's most popular websites. Buying, selling, and talking about crafts and handmade items is apparently big business. Behind the scenes though, it's been rocky. After
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A growing number of African American pastors in the Washington area are embracing the Occupy movement.
On Faith/Local Network: What area leaders are talking about
The city’s new flexible scheduling for special elections is important for the religious community.
This week's message from the pulpit
(Silvina Frydlewsky / for The Was)
“Our job is to derive wisdom from the past, not to be chained to it; our job is to humbly move forward with the insight we have gained.”
Looking for a choir to join, food festival, or family fair, find it here.
See On Faith for a global conversation on religion and politics, including blogs Under God and Guest Voices.
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A forum for local news and opinion on religion, faith and politics in Washington D.C., Virginia and Maryland from the Washington Post
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Clint Eastwood as VP? George H.W. Bush Considered It
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George H.W. Bush, left, and Clint Eastwood are shown in these 1988 file photos.
George H.W. Bush, trailing Democrat Michael Dukakis in the heat of the 1988 presidential campaign, briefly but seriously considered Hollywood renaissance man Clint Eastwood to be his running mate, a former Bush aide says.
The revelation comes from more than 350 hours of audio interviews with 50 senior officials from the George H.W. Bush administration released today by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and Bush Presidential Library Foundation. The decade-long oral history project documents the life and times of the 41st presidency.
“When we were way behind. Honestly, [Eastwood] was suggested in not an altogether unserious – Well, he was a mayor. He was a Republican mayor,” former Bush campaign chairman and Secretary of State James Baker said.
Eastwood served one term as mayor of the conservative ocean side community Carmel, Calif., from 1986-1988.
AUDIO: James Baker describes consideration of Clint Eastwood
“Anyway, it was shot down pretty quick. But we were looking at an 18-point deficit,” Baker said, suggesting the campaign was looking for a boost from its VP choice. Bush, who also considered Sen. Dan Quayle, R-Ind.; Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan.; Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo.; and Rep. Jack Kemp, R-N.Y., ultimately settled on Quayle.
Quayle was “maybe not the most qualified, but he brings other attributes that are extraordinarily important,” Baker said of his initial reaction to Bush’s choice.
The interviews, conducted by a panel of university scholars between 1999 and 2011, paint an intimate and detailed portrait of Bush and his team as they navigated the 1988 election campaign and transition to the White House, legislative affairs, two Supreme Court appointments and later a series of foreign crises, including the first Gulf War.
Some additional highlights from the tapes:
PANCAKES & PRESIDENTIAL DAILY BRIEFING. The interviews reveal a president who took a serious and active approach to national security and defense, regularly involving himself in the minutiae of the issues, even over breakfast. Aides describe Bush as a religious reader and analyzer of the presidential daily briefing. “On the Saturday before the coup in the Soviet Union [in 1990] we were in Kennebunkport, and the president and I were sitting on the deck of his house at Walker’s Point, looking out over the Atlantic and eating pancakes and he was reading the briefing,” said former CIA director and Bush national security advisor Robert Gates, “and the last item, the article in the briefing was CIA’s view that there was very likely to be a coup attempt… I’ll never forget the president turning to me and chewing on his pancakes and saying, “Should I take this seriously?” And I said, “yes, and here’s why.”
SETTING POLICY ON THE FLY. On at least two major foreign policy positions, Bush made impactful public pronouncements without consulting with his staff ahead of time. Gates recalls the first time U.S. support for German reunification was articulated came in an off-the-cuff comment by Bush at a Helena, Mont., press conference in 1989. “I called [National Security Adviser] Brent [Scowcroft] right after that and said, ‘Brent, we now have a policy on German reunification.’ He said, ‘What is it?’ I said, ‘We’re for it.’ He said, ‘Who says so?’ I said, ‘The President.’ He said, ‘Oh, shit.’”
After Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991, Bush famously drew a line in the sand and said, “This shall not stand.” Vice President Dan Quayle says that comment came out of the blue, ahead of a full U.S. assessment of the situation to determine whether Saddam Hussein might withdraw. “He came into the Oval Office first, and I was there… He said, ‘How’d I do?’ and we said, ‘Oh, good.’ Brent [Scowcroft] said, ‘Where’d you get that ‘this will not stand’?” He said, ‘That’s mine.’ ‘Well, yes, but, where’d you get it?’ He said, ‘Well, that’s what I feel.’… Not that he was wrong in doing it, but he just caught everybody off guard a little bit because it was so definite and so dramatic.”
TAPPING CLARENCE THOMAS. Bush famously called Thomas, his second pick for the Supreme Court, “the best qualified person” when nominating him to the bench. But Bush administration Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, who says he did a “double take” at the characterization, clarifies that what Bush really meant “was that this was the best qualified African-American candidate we could find… He desperately wanted to make an appointment of an African-American. But he wasn’t going to appoint a Democrat…. So, that’s the best – he was saying it’s the best we can do.”
TENNIS SHORTS & THE OVAL OFFICE: Bush revered the Oval Office so much so that he refused to wear anything but a coat and tie in the room. On one occasion, aide Barbara Kilberg says she met Bush at the tennis court and wanted to walk to the Oval, but he insisted upon changing clothes first. “He said, ‘where are you going?’ and I said, ‘I’m going to your office.’ ‘No, no,’ he said, ‘I’m in tennis shorts.’ I said, ‘So?’ He said, ‘No, just wait, I’ll be back.’ So he went into the residence, got dressed, put on a coat and tie, walked into the Oval Office, handed me the paper and left. But he would not go into that office in tennis togs. He didn’t believe that was appropriate.”
AUDIO: Barbara Kilberg describes Bush reverence for Oval Office
REGRETS OVER ‘NO NEW TAXES’ PLEDGE: Legislative Affairs director Fred McClure says Bush “didn’t do a very good job” communicating why it was necessary to suspend his famous “no new taxes” pledge. “I think it may have contributed to what ultimately happened in the election in 1992, but I don’t think it was a defining moment,” McClure says. “I think in retrospect, the defining moment for him, at least from a policy standpoint, was the whole Persian Gulf thing.”
WATCH GLANCE IN ’92 DEBATES: When Bush famously glanced down at his watch during the 1992 debates, his critics slammed him for appearing restless, agitated and eager to get off the stage. But Phillip Brady, assistant staff secretary, explains that Bush was really sending a signal to moderator Carole Simpson about a long-winded Ross Perot. “If you watch the tape, you’ll see he looked at her then his watch suggesting clearly, ‘Hey, Perot’s time is up’ – meaning he’s filibustering,” which is exactly what Simpson forbid before the candidates took the stage.
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George H.W. Bush, left, and Clint Eastwood are shown in these 1988 file photos. George H.W. Bush, trailing Democrat Michael Dukakis in the heat of the 1988 presidential campaign, briefly but seriously considered Hollywood renaissance man Clint Eastwood to be his running mate, a former Bush aide says. The revelation comes from more than 350 hours of audio interviews with 50 senior officials from the George H.W. Bush administration released today by the University of Virginia’s Miller Center and Bush Presidential Library Foundation. The decade-long oral history project documents the life and times of the 41st presidency. “When we were…
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Washington Redskins Tackle Foursquare
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Football season is here, and while NFL teams take to the field and battle it out each Sunday in the hopes of becoming the next Super Bowl champion, another battle is brewing off the field — the location app battle for fan checkins.
While the Minnesota Vikings and New England Patriots employ SCVNGR for fan challenges, the Washington Redskins are siding with Foursquare. The team just launched a location-based campaign designed to encourage fans to check in and unlock an official Redskins badge.
Redskins fans can opt to unlock the badge by either checking in to FedExField or checking in on three separate occasions at featured Redskins bars in the Washington D.C. area. Fans that play the Foursquare game will also uncover tips from the team.
Fans not lured to Foursquare by the promise of a new badge may change their mind once they find about the grand prize — two loge tickets and pre-game field passes. Also included is a tailgate party with the GEICO Caveman. Who doesn’t want to party with that guy?
Looking at the bigger picture, it’s interesting to see NFL teams embrace new social platforms so quickly. The obvious benefits include social exposure and the chance to convert more fans into ticket buyers. This season should shed light on whether or not location-sharing applications can be powerful recruiting tools. The service of choice for each individual team could also influence fan adoption of a particular app and possibly level the playing field.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Kevin Coles
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The Washington Redskins just launched a location-based campaign designed to encourage fans to check in and unlock an official team badge.
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Business group comes out vs graphic cig labels
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(AP) RICHMOND, Va. — The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, weighing in on a lawsuit over graphic cigarette warning labels, says the federal government has no legitimate authority to take space on a tobacco company's packaging or advertising to persuade consumers not to buy the product.
The pro-business lobbying group filed a friend of the court brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington late Monday in the lawsuit brought by some of the largest U.S. tobacco companies, including R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Lorillard Tobacco Co. The suit challenges the Food and Drug Administration's plan to require that graphic new warning labels be placed on cigarette packs later this year. The labels include the sewn-up corpse of a smoker and a picture of diseased lungs.
A U.S. District Court judge in November blocked the labels while deciding whether they violate the companies' free speech rights, ruling that it is likely the cigarette makers would succeed in the lawsuit. The FDA has appealed that decision and oral arguments are set for April. Oral arguments on motions for summary judgment over whether to bar the new labels are scheduled for Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
In its filing, the group that represents the interests of more than 3 million companies and professional organizations in the U.S. wrote that that allowing the warning labels would be a "radical departure from traditional government efforts to regulate speech insofar as they force commercial enterprises to disparage the very products that they are lawfully marketing."
The chamber added that the labels are "expressly designed to provoke adverse emotional reactions and inspire fear above and beyond any factual disclosures related to the hazards associated with smoking."
The tobacco companies have questioned the constitutionality of the labels, saying the warnings don't simply convey facts to inform people's decision whether to smoke but instead force the cigarette makers to display government anti-smoking advocacy more prominently than their own branding. They also say that changing cigarette packaging will cost millions of dollars.
Meanwhile, the FDA has said that the public interest in conveying the dangers of smoking outweighs the companies' free speech rights.
The FDA last June approved nine new warning labels that companies are to print on the entire top half of cigarette packs, front and back. The new warnings, each of which includes a number for a stop-smoking hotline, also must constitute 20 percent of cigarette advertising, and marketers are to rotate use of the images.
One label depicts a corpse with its chest sewn up and the words "Smoking can kill you." Another label shows a healthy pair of lungs beside a yellow and black pair with a warning that smoking causes fatal lung disease.
Joining North Carolina-based R.J. Reynolds, owned by Reynolds American Inc., and Lorillard Tobacco, owned by Lorillard Inc., in the lawsuit are Commonwealth Brands Inc., Liggett Group LLC and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company Inc.
Richmond-based Altria Group Inc., parent company of the nation's largest cigarette maker, Philip Morris USA, which makes top-selling Marlboros, is not a part of the lawsuit.
The free speech lawsuit is separate from a lawsuit by several of the same companies over the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. That law, which took effect two years ago, cleared the way for the more graphic warning labels. But it also allowed the FDA to limit nicotine and banned tobacco companies from sponsoring athletic or social events or giving away free samples or branded merchandise.
A federal judge upheld many parts of the law, but the case is now pending before the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati.
While the tobacco industry's latest legal challenge may not hold up, it could delay the new warning labels for years. And that is likely to save cigarette makers millions of dollars in lost sales and increased packaging costs.
Tobacco companies are increasingly relying on their packaging to build brand loyalty and grab consumers. It's one of few advertising levers left to them after the government curbed their presence in magazines, billboards and TV.
Michael Felberbaum can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/MLFelberbaum.
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Business group comes out vs graphic cig labels
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How to boost creativity
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Ford Motor Company (F) is full of smart, experienced engineers. But like every other company in the world, they want their workforce to be more creative. New ideas, better designs, smarter features: All this drives sales and customer satisfaction. But every company in the world struggles with it. So when Ford was able to increase its new inventions by 17% in under one year, attention had to be paid.
The experiment was the brainchild of Bill Coughlin, CEO of Ford Global Technology. He'd been inspired by Tech Shop, a new business headed by Mark Hatch. Recognizing that the cost of prototyping machinery has plummeted, and that the software has made it easy to use, TechShop was created as a place where anyone with an idea can figure out how to turn it into reality. It isn't just the equipment that works the magic. As a welcoming, open environment, it is full of people with experience, enthusiasm and encouragement who can both instruct would-be inventors and bring a lot of insight and guidance to their ideas.
"A light went on in my head," Coughlin told me, "because we had a brainstorming week at Ford but I've always wanted to take it to next level: Prototyping. So when I read about TechShop I thought: Maybe I can get them to come to Detroit and build things with them."
TechShop runs on a health club model, making money through selling memberships. When Ford guaranteed a certain number of members, the deal was worthwhile. And to get the creative juices flowing, Ford offered incentives to the workforce: Anyone who submitted a good idea would get a free 3-month membership.
"When people start thinking innovatively," Coughlin enthuses, "it is hard to turn off. Problems become opportunities and they start challenging themselves. In TechShop, the equipment is attainable and that builds confidence."
By training, Coughlin is a patent attorney, a profession not popularly celebrated for its creativity. But Coughlin decided to try some of the tools and lessons himself.
"Can I as a mere mortal use this stuff? That's what I wondered. And I can! You know how IKEA is famous for its flat packs? Well I wondered if I could do better by making a table that needs no connectors, screws or glues? So I took a class in how to use their automated router and I built a table that requires no tools to assemble it! Now, I don't have any plants to go into the furniture business - but from the creativity standpoint, I would never have thought that I could do that."
Coughlin calls himself "just one humble example" but his example proves an important point: We are all more creative than we usually find the opportunity to demonstrate. That's what TechShop provides: The chance to explore and discover just how innovative anyone can be.
"If we can get some of our inventions into cars and trucks that might not otherwise have made it, Ford wins," says Coughlin. "If we can help the community launch new businesses, we all win."
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TechShop proves: Even patent lawyers can do it!
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Internet security
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Feb 16th 2012, 11:26 by G.F. | SEATTLE
ALICE and Bob wish to speak privately. Eve wants in. She cuts the phone wire between Alice and Bob and splices in two handsets. Everything Alice says, Eve intercepts on one of them and repeats to Bob using the other, impersonating Alice's voice. She repeats the process in reverse for Bob's responses to Alice. That, in a nutshell, is what cryptographers call a man-in-the-middle attack.
Web security rests on the premise that Eve—cryptographic literature's common stand-in for eavesdropper—cannot pretend to be Alice or Bob if she lacks the right credentials. Without them, neither Alice nor Bob will tell her anything. The web's trust infrastructure relies on what are known as SSL/TLS certificates issued and validated by a few hundred anointed firms, called certificate authorities (CAs). It has been battered over the past year. (This newspaper has reported on the suborning of the internet's naming system and the theft of certificates that Eves and others could use to hoodwink Alices and Bobs to reveal sensitive information such as credit-card details.)
Now, it seems, CAs just got another knock. One, called TrustWave, has admitted that it issued a certificate to a corporate customer that allows the firm in question to impersonate any SSL/TLS certificate issued by any CA anywhere in the world. In a blog post, TrustWave explains that it provided this certificate to allow the firm to "re-sign" SSL certificates for "data-loss prevention". In other words, the company forged secure web identities in order to snoop on its employees. In theory, though, should such a certificate leak out and fall into some malign Eve's hands, it could be used to spy on, well, just about any Alice and Bob on the internet.
American federal law affords little protection to a firm's staff against examination of data stored on or passing through company-owned hardware. TrustWave required the network's internal users to be notified that encrypted communications would be tapped. Yet it is unclear why it did not offer its client a simpler, local technique: creating a certificate that only works within the company's network, and which requires the installation of a paired document on all computers and mobile devices under a company's control. That would achieve the same result without jeopardising international security.
TrustWave offers several explanations. It says its client was not a government, internet service provider or law-enforcement agency, which could use the certificate to snoop on dissidents, citizens or customers. The certificate was installed by TrustWave into a particular piece of hardware in a way that the firm says is irreversible and unrecoverable; its client could not access the certificate in question to see its secret contents or copy it elsewhere. The certificate thus cannot be used outside of the client's network, it claims. It has revoked the document along with all other similar ones. And it will never issue another one again.
More worryingly, though, in a statement picked up a discussion on a newsgroup devoted to internet security relating to Mozilla, the maker of the popular Firefox internet browser, TrustWave apparently let it slip that it is common practice among CAs to issue the same skeleton key of a certificate. (No such statement is to be found anywhere on TrustWave's website at this point.) On the same forum, representatives of other CAs claim that they refuse customers' requests to issue similar certificates. In a statement e-mailed to Babbage Mozilla says that it is "pleased" by the revocation and "encourages" other CAs to disclose these practices and revoke certificates. Moxie Marlinspike, a hacker-turned-internet-security-boffin, says it is prudent to assume that CAs issuance of such skeleton-key certificates "is a constant and routine part of their business".
TrustWave now faces the spectre of a "death penalty" meted out by Mozilla, in which the root certificate that the browser maker has included in its list of authorities would have its "trust bits" cut off, meaning Mozilla would flip a few switches and declare it anathema in its list of CAs. (Mozilla has yet to make the final decision.) No central body regulates or approves CAs. Each firm that makes browsers or operating systems decides on which CAs to include. Several effective solutions, like consulting certificate notaries developed by Mr Marlinspike and others, or incorporating security information into the domain-naming system have been proposed.
But the many stakes nailed in the heart of the current system of unverified, unlimited trust in the last 18 months have yet to kill it. Mr Marlinspike is gloomy: "We're locked into trusting them," he says, "And they know it."
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ALICE and Bob wish to speak privately. Eve wants in. She cuts the phone wire between Alice and Bob and splices in two handsets.
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Catching Up with Her Pal Kevin Costner : People.com
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Whitney Houston and Kevin Costner
In the 20 years since Kevin Costner locked lips with
, his career has been all over the place: fronting a country band, working on environmental engineering, owning a minor-league baseball team. He's even done a little acting.
But for Costner, 57, who is scheduled to
on Saturday, his biggest recent job has been as a
to three young children, Cayden, 4½, Hayes, 3, and Grace, 20 months.
"It's noisy, really noisy," Costner said last year of his family with Christine Baumgartner, whom he married on his Aspen ranch in 2004. "The one thing I pray for in life is not success, but being able to raise my children and that nothing happens to me in the next 20 years."
Of course, some of the noise around the house has been created by Costner himself. In 2005, at Baumgartner's urging, the Oscar-winning director of
started a country rock band called Kevin Costner and Modern West. The group is scheduled to kick off a 15-date tour in Lakeland, Fla., on March 28.
In addition, Costner is producing and starring in the cable miniseries
for History channel, which begins airing Memorial Day.
that separates oil from water came to national attention after the tragic oil spill off the Gulf Coast.
But in the hearts of many fans, Costner will always be Frank, the intrepid bodyguard sworn to defend Rachel, the pop star in peril played by Houston. Costner fought for Houston to be in the movie, and even suggested that she try the Dolly Parton chestnut "I Will Always Love You" for the soundtrack.
"She got enormous support from Kevin on the set, the film's director Mick Jackson told PEOPLE this week, "[With]
, we were able to catch her at the peak of her life and the peak of her ability. We caught the person and we caught what she does best.â
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The Oscar winner is set to speak at Whitney Houston's funeral on Saturday
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Gabby Giffords' husband to write children's book
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Former astronaut Mark Kelly, the husband of former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, has written a picture book for kids, Mousetronaut:A Partially True Story.
Mark Kelly, right, the husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, left, will write a children's book about a mouse that goes to space.
Mark Kelly, right, the husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, left, will write a children's book about a mouse that goes to space.
Paula Wiseman Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, says the book, illustrated by C.F. Payne, will be published Oct. 9.
Kelly, 48, a veteran of four flights to the International Space Station, commanded the final mission of space shuttle Endeavour in May 2011 -- four months after his wife was severely wounded in a shooting spree near Tucson that left six people dead.
Giffords and Kelly co-wrote Gabby: A Story of Courage and Hope, which hit No. 23 on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list last year. The book was written in collaboration with journalist and Jeffrey Zaslow, who died in a car accident Feb. 10.
Mousetronaut is inspired by Kelley's first spaceflight in 2001, when he flew with 18 mice that were part of an experiment on the effects of a gravity-free environment on bone density. The publisher says the book imagines a little mouse who works as hard as the bigger mice to show readiness for the mission and is chosen for the flight. In space, the astronauts are busy with their mission when only the smallest member of the crew can save the day.
Kelly, in a statement, says, "After traveling in space over 5 million miles with these very small space explorers, I take great pleasure in telling their story. While astronauts get all of the credit, we are really just part of a larger (or in this case smaller) team."
Giffords resigned from Congress last month to focus on her recovery.
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<i>Mousetronaut: A Partially True Story, </i>based on Mark Kelly's space shuttle experiences, is due in October.
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Coakley blazes path as advocate for homeowners
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Three years ago, a multistate alliance of attorneys general brokered an $8.4 billion settlement with Countrywide Financial Corp. over the lender’s role in the subprime mortgage meltdown. But Attorney General Martha Coakley of Massachusetts refused to sign off on the deal, saying it let Countrywide off too easy.
About 18 months later, under pressure from Coakley, Countrywide relented. It allocated $3 billion more in mortgage assistance and made a $22 million payment to the state. That success and others like it have so far netted Massachusetts hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution.
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Attorney General Martha Coakley’s work has cemented her position as a national leader on behalf of homeowners caught up in the long-running housing crisis.
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Olympus risks foreign backlash with new board line-up
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Olympus Corp proposed a new board of directors on Monday in an effort to recover from a $1.7 billion accounting fraud, but the line-up could face a hostile reception from foreign investors when it goes to a shareholder vote.
The maker of cameras and medical equipment said it had nominated an insider, executive officer Hiroyuki Sasa, to become president and former banker Yasuyuki Kimoto as chairman, subject to approval at its April 20 shareholders' meeting.
Kimoto was formerly an executive of Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, Olympus's main lender and a unit of Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc (SMFG). He is now president of Japan Research Institute, an SMFG think-tank.
That falls short of major foreign shareholders' demands for fresh, outside talent in these two key positions and could also stoke fears among some investors that Olympus' creditors will use the chairman's role to call the shots in the boardroom.
"We are extremely disappointed with the composition of the proposed board," Josh Shores, senior analyst and principal at Southeastern Asset Management, one of the largest foreign investors in Olympus, said.
"While suggestions that the board be entirely new individuals, with a split chairman and CEO role have been taken into account, the clear creditor orientation of the board is unacceptable," he said in a statement.
Olympus also nominated as a board member Hideaki Fujizuka, a former executive of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, which is another Olympus creditor and a unit of
Current Olympus President Shuichi Takayama told a news conference that shareholders, including foreign investors, had not proposed alternative board candidates.
Olympus noted that the new 11-person board would include six outside directors, more than the current three. None of the existing board members have been re-nominated.
Olympus itself is suing for mismanagement five of its eight internal directors, including Takayama, and one of its three external directors, leaving it in a vacuum until the new board takes over after the April shareholders meeting.
The company has not nominated a CEO and declined to say whether Sasa or Kimoto would take on the position. The CEO's role is usually held by either the president or the chairman.
"According to Japanese tradition, you must have strong support from your main bank, and I think they needed (Kimoto) to be able to ask for the continuous support of Mitsui Sumitomo," said Yuuki Sakurai, head of fund manager Fukoku Capital.
"We know that some foreign investors are not in line with those ideas, but having said that, they have one man that is from Olympus and one who is from the supporting financial side, so to the Japanese point of view that is a good balance."
Foreign shareholder Indus Capital has said creditors such as Sumitomo Mitsui Banking could push Olympus into a big, dilutive sale of new equity, which would be a comfort for lenders but not necessarily for existing shareholders.
Indus and Southeastern Asset Management, both U.S.-based, are the two largest non-Japanese investors in Olympus.
"Looking at capital raising, to have a representative of the bank there as the chairman will only frustrate and alienate any independent foreign shareholder, and I'm sure shareholders in Japan," said former Chief Executive Michael Woodford, who was fired in October after he raised concerns about the firm's dubious book-keeping.
"It's completely and utterly wrong," he told Reuters by telephone from London.
Olympus's balance sheet has been weakened by the fraud, used to hide investment losses from its investors for 13 years before it was uncovered in October. But Indus and a few others believe it can recover without a big new share issue.
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TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's Olympus Corp proposed a new board of directors on Monday in an effort to recover from a $1.7 billion accounting fraud, but the line-up could face a hostile reception from foreign investors when it goes to a shareholder vote.
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Christian Siriano, 'Project Runway' Shows Kick Off Fashion Week In New York City
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NEW YORK – New York Fashion Week brought its cutting-edge style uptown on Thursday, opening its spring-collection previews in a new location at Lincoln Center.
Gone are the tents at Bryant Park where hundreds of designers had launched runways since 1993. Instead, an estimated 100,000 buyers, editors, stylists and celebrities will visit the new home of Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week.
While most shows will still be in tents, located just southwest of the landmark fountain that usually welcomes opera and ballet lovers, the facilities (and the faux marble facade) have a feeling of permanence.
It was time for fashion to take its place at a New York institution of fine arts, said Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former Vogue employee who now is serving as Lincoln Center's liaison to this new community.
"Fashion designers are truly creative people. It's not just a business when it comes to these collections," she said.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg visited the site on Wednesday, taking the newly christened No. 1 "Fashion Line" subway there. The new name is temporary, lasting only through the eight days of fashion shows from designers such as Diane von Furstenberg, Zac Posen, Tommy Hilfiger, Carolina Herrera and Vera Wang.
"Project Runway" and one of its alumni, Christian Siriano, were the marquee shows on opening day.
New York Fashion Week, which extends into other neighborhoods, "creates major excitement that ripples through the city," Bloomberg said. He noted that fashion is responsible for 175,000 jobs in New York, and that the two fashion-show seasons have a $750 million impact on the local economy.
Bloomberg then reported that he bought his tie at Hermes, shirt at Paul Stuart and underwear at Bloomingdale's.
Christian Siriano fans know from his "Project Runway" days that he has a flair for the dramatic, but what's winning him praise with the sometimes tough-to-please crowd at New York Fashion Week is his sense of his customer. He successfully juggled the two on Thursday.
First out on the runway was a buttery caramel-colored safari jacket with slim-fit white trousers -- an appropriately luxe, chic outfit for women of many ages and many climates -- while the finale gown was a bright-red, one-shoulder tulle gown that looked like a walking bed of roses.
Every look was paired with crazy platform shoes with cone-shaped heels that will be offered by the mass-market Payless.
Leather looks, especially a cognac wing-sleeve jacket and thick belt worn over a strapless organza pleated gown, were a highlight, and so were his modern treatments of metallic tweed, giraffe-print taffeta and snakelike embossing. A red-print cocktail dress with draped sleeves was a pretty, refreshing alternative to the usual little black dress.
Asymmetrical flounces -- reminiscent of a pageant sash -- were less contemporary, though.
Jessica Simpson took her seat as guest judge at Thursday's "Project Runway" show at New York Fashion Week in a super-short, sparkly silver minidress, but she had nothing on the models, who wore an extraordinary number of hot pants.
Ten aspiring designers showed their collections to Simpson, Heidi Klum, Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, although several knew they already didn't make the cut and won't be the Season 8 winner. Extra designers needed to participate to keep secret the winners and losers of episodes that haven't yet aired on Lifetime.
Opening the show, Klum, wearing a bright red menswear-style pantsuit and blouse, said she was particularly fond of this group. "I have never gotten so emotional or attached to the designers."
She promised the audience, which included singer Jordin Sparks and designer Betsey Johnson, that they'd see color and fantasy on the catwalk. The crowd also saw an uneven mix of runway-ready, masterful looks and gimmicky ones -- especially those micro mini shorts that don't typically garner the best reviews when top-tier designers bring them back.
Johnson said she saw "sparks of talent" among the designers when she judged a challenge to turn party supplies into wearable clothes. "It was not up my alley, but there definitely was talent."
Richard Chai was feeling the vibe of Lincoln Center, turning out a spring collection for his Love label that mimicked styles favored by professional dancers and the students at the Juilliard School.
Layers, hardly new as a trend, were tweaked and freshened with sheer, sand-colored underpinnings, ribbed cummerbunds and soft, silky running shorts with contrast piping. The silhouettes were loose and flowy, but decidedly feminine thanks to the soothing neutral palette and strategic draping.
In his notes left for the stylists, editors and retailers, Chai quoted Martha Graham: "All that is important is this one moment in movement. Make the moment important, vital and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused."
Loose leggings were worn under shorts and dresses as the new take on tights, and a silk-poly-metal fabric blend used for jackets and a pair of chic trousers was stiff yet slouchy. Chai also brought back the wide-leg palazzo pant, an easy choice for a warm-weather vacation, often pairing it with an appropriately crinkled jacket or gathered top.
This could be a further evolution of the trouser trend that has taken hold among the fashion-forward set for fall.
The Vena Cava girls took a tour through the '80s with inspiration from Memphis, an Italian design movement dating back to the 1980s known for bold colors and geometric shapes.
Designers Lisa Mayock and Sophie Buhai showed a collection heavy on black, red, aquamarine green, rust and bright yellow. Beige culottes were paired with a black zip-up jacket. Netting was used on the back of a beige romper and on a cream cotton dress, tied with a rope belt and worn under a beige blazer.
"They are almost like disco silhouettes, some of them. They're clothes that you could just dance all night in, that you feel totally comfortable doing anything in," said Mayock.
Some dresses had asymmetrical hemlines: longer on the sides and short in back and front.
"We also have a lot of day gowns. We are kind of sick of seeing of the LBDs (little black dresses). We liked the idea of girls wearing floor length things really casually," Buhai said.
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Christian Siriano, 'Project Runway' Shows Kick Off Fashion Week in New York City
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R.I. company in talks to buy Papa Razzi
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Papa Razzi was founded by Boston restaurateur Charlie Sarkis. The chain is operated by Back Bay Restaurant Group. There are seven Papa Razzi restaurants in Massachusetts, including on Newbury Street.
Newport Harbor Corp., an employee-owned hospitality company based in Rhode Island, is in discussions to buy the Papa Razzi restaurant chain.
Papa Razzi, serving Italian food in a casual setting, was founded by Boston restaurateur Charlie Sarkis. The company has a dozen locations, including seven in Massachusetts, according to the Papa Razzi website. It is unclear how many restaurants Newport Harbor plans to purchase, or the value of the proposed deal.
“This group fits perfectly into our organization’s strategic plan for expansion based on the concept, culinary philosophy, and the geographic market served,’’ said Paul O’Reilly, chief executive of Newport Harbor, based in Newport, R.I. “We are unable to comment further on the details of the impending agreement, but look forward to doing so in the near future.’’
Papa Razzi is the last remaining chain operated by Back Bay Restaurant Group. Last year, a private equity firm, Tavistock Group, paid an estimated $50 million for the rest of the business - including Atlantic Fish Company, Abe & Louie’s, Coach Grill, Charley’s, and Joe’s American Bar & Grill.
Back Bay Restaurant Group did not return messages seeking comment.
Newport Harbor has roots in the region dating to 1925, and over the years, it has added hotels, restaurants, and events to its portfolio. Under the company’s Newport Restaurant Group, the business runs eight restaurants in Rhode Island, including The Mooring Seafood Kitchen & Bar in Newport, Trio in Narragansett, and Hemenway’s Seafood Grill & Oyster Bar in Providence. The company also owns and operates Castle Hill Inn, a hotel located on a private, 40-acre peninsula off Newport’s famed Ocean Drive.
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Newport Harbor Corp. an employee-owned hospitality company based in Rhode Island, is in discussions to purchase the Papa Razzi restaurant chain. Papa Razzi is a casual Italian concept founded by Boston restaurateur Charlie Sarkis and has a dozen locations, including seven in Massachusetts. It is unclear how many restaurants Newport Harbor plans to purchase or the value of the deal. Newport Harbor has roots in the region dating to 1925.
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Celebrity Support For Japan's Tsunami Victims Builds
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In the wake of Japan’s catastrophic earthquake and tsunami on Friday, some celebrities have wasted no time in advocating financial support to the victims.
Lady Gaga is selling personally-designed, red-and-white wristbands etched with her signature monster paw and the words “We Pray for Japan” for $5 on her website, and is also encouraging fans and followers to donate to relief efforts on the Citizen Effect web page.
Charlie Sheen, dominating the news in recent weeks with his beyond bizarre behavior, is at least using his notoriety, pledging to donate $1 from every ticket sold for his upcoming stand-up tour to the Red Cross in an effort to assist the quake-ravaged nation.
Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda acted promptly and designed T-shirts, which feature images such as a white butterfly and the phrase “Not Alone” in a red, white and blue color scheme, to benefit his band’s Music for Relief charity.
And the tragedy obviously tugged at the heartstrings of supermodel and future “Dancing With the Stars” contestant Petra Nemcova, who survived the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami but lost her boyfriend. The 31-year-old is now urging people to give money to her charity, the Happy Hearts Funds, which seeks to better the lives of children in regions struck by natural disasters.
A slew of other entertainers including Conan O’Brien, Katy Perry, Diddy, Chris Brown, and George Takei are also using their star status to encourage fans via Twitter to donate to the relief effort.
“Imagine... if we ALL texted REDCROSS to 90999 we'd have raised over 60million dollars for #JAPAN REFLIEF! BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE! BE!” Perry tweeted on Sunday.
Unlike last January’s earthquake devastation in Haiti, in which everyone from Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie and Sandra Bullock to Jennifer Aniston, George Clooney and Madonna dug deep into their own pockets to make significant monetary donations, the response from the entertainment community has been slower in buidling.
“It is definitely off to a slower start with Japan, Hollywood tends to have more of a romance with helping undeveloped countries,” Los Angeles-based publicist and commentator, Michael Levine, told FOX411’s Pop Tarts. “I suspect that in the next week a lot more stars will come forward."
“Hollywood has the power to move mountains, and after working in the world of celebrity philanthropy for 15 years, I know many stars from Eva Longoria to Leeza Gibbons are beyond willing to use their voice for the collective good of humanity,” Scott Lazerson, CEO & Founder of Mediathropic, told Pop Tarts. “Organizations like ‘Save The Children’ or ‘Convoy of Hope’ are doing real work that needs our support.”
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Celebrity Support for Japan's Tsunami Victims Builds
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Miguel de la Madrid, 1934-2012
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Apr 4th 2012, 9:03 by T.W. | MEXICO CITY
HALFWAY through the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid, Mexico was hit by an earthquake that killed nearly 20,000 people in and around the capital city. That day in 1985 was the most dramatic of a presidency that some obituarists described as “grey” following Mr de la Madrid’s death on April 1st. But under the calm surface of his six years in office, Mexico’s political and economic foundations were rocking. A lawyer with a master’s degree in public administration from Harvard, Mr de la Madrid rose via the finance ministry and national oil company through the ranks of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), becoming its presidential nominee in 1982.
He inherited a country in crisis. José López Portillo, his irresponsible predecessor, had squandered an oil boom, leaving Mexico bankrupt and with triple-digit inflation. Mr de la Madrid’s medicine was to sell or shut down many loss-making state enterprises, and to open the economy to the outside world, in 1986 bringing Mexico into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trades, the forerunner to the World Trade Organisation. After decades of statist protectionism, that was a revolution.
He did not push so hard for political opening. The PRI, which had ruled Mexico virtually unchallenged for half a century, was facing bolder competition. The conservative National Action Party was allowed to win a handful of important mayoralties in the north. But when it probably triumphed in the 1986 gubernatorial election in Chihuahua state, Mr de la Madrid saw to it that the PRI’s candidate was declared the winner. Two years later he oversaw the questionable “victory” of Carlos Salinas, his hand-picked successor, as president. Flustered election officials blamed the counting machines, saying there had been a “breakdown of the system”. They were right in every sense.
Mr Salinas’s victory weakened the ruling party in two ways. Many Mexicans, disillusioned by the years of economic crisis, disliked the cheating. Others within the PRI, already uneasy about opening the vulnerable Mexican economy to the outside world, were alarmed by Mr Salinas’s liberal economic plans (which saw Mexico sign the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993). Dissenters formed the Party of the Democratic Revolution, a politically liberal though still economically statist offshoot of the PRI, which is now Mexico’s third-largest party. As voters make their minds up ahead of a presidential election on July 1st, the marks left by the earthquakes of the de la Madrid era are still visible. Ever the public servant, Mr de la Madrid followed PRI tradition by quietly disappearing from the spotlight after his term ended, running the government publishing house. He was a modest man required to deal with turbulent times.
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HALFWAY through the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid, Mexico was hit by an earthquake that killed nearly 20,000 people in and around the capital city.
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What’s great, and not, about the Bay State
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20120412220728
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My overcrowded calendar in March had me attending a tech conference in San Francisco, dining in Manhattan with people who run “accelerator’’ programs for start-ups, meeting entrepreneurs and MBA students in Istanbul, and, back in Boston, speaking with trade representatives from Spain’s Catalonia region.
Leaving the neighborhood and collecting perspectives from other places is one good way to take the measure of the innovation economy here. So where does Massachusetts stand in 2012, as it tries to maintain - and build upon - its track record as a center of innovation in an increasingly competitive world?
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My overcrowded calendar in March had me attending a tech conference in San Francisco, meeting entrepreneurs and MBA students in Istanbul, and, back in Boston, speaking with representatives from Spain’s Catalonia region. Leaving the neighborhood and collecting perspectives from other places is one good way to take the measure of the innovation economy here. So where does Massachusetts stand in 2012, as it tries to maintain - and build upon - its track record as a center of innovation in an increasingly competitive world?
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Daily News Discussion: On Deadline Forum
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20120418162608
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Doug is an unrepentant news junkie who loves breaking news and has been known to watch C-SPAN even on vacation. He has covered a wide range of domestic and international news stories, from prison riots in Oklahoma to the Moscow coup against Mikhail Gorbachev. Doug previously served as foreign editor at USA TODAY. More about Doug
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Chat with fellow USA TODAY readers about current and breaking news events. On Deadline - USATODAY.com
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eBay profit up 20 percent
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(CBS/AP) (CBS/AP) NEW YORK - eBay Inc. (
) says its first-quarter net income grew 20 percent thanks to higher revenue from its PayPal business and brisk sales at its e-commerce websites. The results beat Wall Street's expectations and investors sent the company's stock higher in after-hours trading.
EBay said Wednesday that it earned $570 million, or 44 cents per share, in the January-March period. That's up from $476 million, or 36 cents per share, a year ago.
Adjusted earnings of 55 cents per share beat Wall Street's estimates by 3 cents.
Revenue grew 29 percent to $3.28 billion from $2.55 billion.
Analysts, on average, had expected lower revenue of $3.15 billion, according to FactSet.
The e-commerce and online payments company has been expanding into brick-and-mortar retailers recently to grow its business. It recently launched a service that lets people use their PayPal accounts to pay for merchandise in Home Depot stores, a program that will likely expand to other large retailers.
Last month, it unveiled a mobile payments service targeting merchants who don't already have full-fledged payment systems in place. Called PayPal Here, the service lets customers pay using credit cards, PayPal accounts or, in the U.S., personal checks using merchants' mobile phones.
"We believe that innovation in retail today is technology driven, and consumers are embracing smarter, easier, better ways to shop," said CEO John Donahoe in a statement.
Revenue at PayPal grew 32 percent from last year to $1.31 billion, while the number of active accounts increased 12 percent to 109.8 million.
The marketplaces business, which includes eBay's namesake website, grew its revenue by 11 percent to $1.73 billion.
EBay is forecasting adjusted earnings of 53 cents to 55 cents per share and revenue of $3.25 billion to $3.35 billion for the second quarter.
Analysts are expecting adjusted earnings of 55 cents and revenue of $3.42 billion.
San Jose, Calif.-based eBay's stock climbed $1.87, or 5.2 percent, to $37.74 in after-hours trading. The stock had closed down 21 cents at $35.87.
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eBay says its first-quarter net income grew 20 percent thanks to higher revenue from its PayPal business and its e-commerce websites
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Best Buy inquiry will continue
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Best Buy on Wednesday said that the sudden resignation of chief executive Brian J. Dunn had not stopped an investigation into what the retailer called personal conduct issues.
“Brian’s resignation certainly had an effect on the investigation, but the investigation remains open,’’ said Greg Hitt, a board spokesman. “The board is still looking into these issues, and the investigation has not been closed.’’
Dunn’s resignation, less than two weeks after he outlined an ambitious restructuring to revive the struggling store chain, was revealed Tuesday morning, with no mention of the investigation.
“There was mutual agreement that it was time for new leadership to address the challenges that face the company,’’ a statement from Best Buy’s board said. “There were no disagreements between Mr. Dunn and the company on any matter relating to operations, financial controls, policies, or procedures,’’ it said.
But by the afternoon, Best Buy gave a different account.
“Certain issues were brought to the board’s attention regarding Mr. Dunn’s personal conduct, unrelated to the company’s operations or financial controls, and an audit committee investigation was initiated. Prior to the completion of the investigation, Mr. Dunn chose to resign,’’ said spokeswoman Claire Koeneman.
Analysts initially thought Dunn’s departure was because of Best Buy’s shaky performance. In its latest fiscal year, which ended in March, sales rose only slightly, and the company lost $1.23 billion. Sales at stores open more than a year fell 1.7 percent.
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Best Buy on Wednesday said that the sudden resignation of its chief executive, Brian J. Dunn, had not stopped an investigation into what it called personal conduct issues. “Brian’s resignation certainly had an effect on the investigation, but the investigation remains open,’’ said Greg Hitt, a spokesman for the board. “The board is still looking into these issues, and the investigation has not been closed.’’
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http://web.archive.org/web/20120507071319id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2012/04/26/unemployment-aid-requests-near-month-high/VJ15lYziV5tmtcuheDxsFN/story.html?emtaf=article
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US unemployment aid requests near 3-month high
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20120507071319
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WASHINGTON - The number of people seeking unemployment benefits remained stuck near a three-month high last week, a sign that job gains will probably remain modest.
The report disappointed economists, who had forecast a decline in applications. Even so, most analysts think employers will add about 175,000 jobs this month. That would be more than in March but less than the robust job growth achieved during the winter.
Last week, applications for unemployment aid declined to a seasonally adjusted 388,000. That was little changed from the previous week’s figure, the highest since Jan. 7.
The four-week average, a less volatile figure, rose to 381,750, also the highest in three months. When applications fall below 375,000, it generally suggests that hiring will be strong enough to lower the unemployment rate.
The figures “aren’t bad; they’re just not as good as they have been,’’ said Jonathan Basile, at Credit Suisse.
Applications jumped sharply three weeks ago. Economists said the increase might have been inflated by temporary layoffs during the spring holidays, when many school employees are laid off.
But applications haven’t dropped back since then. And the consensus estimate that the economy will have added about 175,000 jobs in April is well below the average of 250,000 jobs added each month from December through February.
Still, the job market appears healthier than it did last year. The unemployment rate has fallen to 8.2 percent from 9.1 percent in August.
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The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits remained stuck near a three-month high last week, a sign that job gains will likely remain modest. The report disappointed economists, who had forecast a decline in unemployment applications. Even so, most analysts think employers will add about 175,000 jobs this month.
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http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/20/books/from-salinger-a-new-dash-of-mystery.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20120518211322id_/http://www.nytimes.com/1997/02/20/books/from-salinger-a-new-dash-of-mystery.html
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From Salinger, A New Dash Of Mystery
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20120518211322
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So, at long last, we have news that the famously reclusive J. D. Salinger is bringing out another book, not a new story, but one called ''Hapworth 16, 1924,'' which appeared in The New Yorker in the 1960's. Read in retrospect, that story continues -- perhaps even completes -- the saga of the Glass family, that band of precocious, high-strung whiz kids who have captivated Salinger fans for four decades. It also stands as a logical, if disappointing, culmination of Mr. Salinger's published work to date.
Why wait three decades to bring out this story in book form? And why choose the obscure Orchises Press in Alexandria, Va., to publish it? One can only speculate: that the author wanted to remind his readers of his existence, that he wanted to achieve a kind of closure by putting his last published story between book covers, that he wanted readers to reappraise the Glass family (and by extension his body of work) through a story that, within the Glass canon, is nothing less than revisionistic.
As with most things connected with Mr. Salinger, an air of mystery hovers about the publication of ''Hapworth.'' His agent has not returned phone calls, and even bookstores say they do not know exactly when they will have copies of the book for sale, this month, perhaps, or March or April. In the meantime, the story can be found in the June 19, 1965, issue of The New Yorker -- in the library stacks or on microfilm.
The New Yorker story, a novella really, takes the form of a nearly interminable letter ostensibly written from summer camp by the 7-year-old Seymour Glass. It is unlikely to be of any interest to anyone who has not closely followed the emotional peregrinations of the Glass family over the years, and for ardent Glass-ites, it is likely to prove a disillusioning, if perversely fascinating, experience. an experience that will forever change their perception of Seymour and his siblings.
Like Holden Caulfield, the Glass children are both avatars of adolescent angst and emblems of Mr. Salinger's own alienated stance toward the world. Bright, gregarious and entertaining (their parents are retired vaudevillians), the Glasses embody all the magic of their creator's early stories; they appeal to the reader to identify with their sensitivity, their braininess, their impatience with phonies, hypocrites and bores.
The Glasses' emotional translucence, their febrile charm, their spiritual yearning and nausea -- all delivered in the wonderfully idiomatic voice of cosmopolitan New Yorkese -- initially made them a glamorous mirror of our own youthful confusions. Yet there is a darker side to their estrangement as well: a tendency to condescend to the vulgar masses, a familial self-involvement that borders on the incestuous and an inability to relate to other people that, in Seymour's case at least, will have tragic consequences indeed.
Seymour, of course, was the oldest of the Glass children, who in the 1948 short story ''A Perfect Day for Ba nanafish'' (collected in ''Nine Stories'') put a gun to his head and blew his brains out. In that story, Seymour appeared to be a sweet if somewhat disturbed young man, ill equipped to deal with the banal, grown-up world represented by his frivolous wife.
In subsequent stories, we learned, largely through the reminiscences of his brother Buddy -- the family historian and Mr. Salinger's alter ego, who actually purports to have written ''Bananafish'' and ''Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters'' (1955) -- that Seymour was regarded as the family saint and resident mystic. In ''Seymour: An Introduction'' (1959), Buddy described his brother as ''our blue-striped unicorn, our double-lensed burning glass, our consultant genius, or portable conscience, our supercargo and our one full poet.''
Seymour was the one who inculcated the younger Glasses in Eastern mysticism and Western philosophy and preached a Zen-like doctrine of acceptance. Seymour was the one who said that ''all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next.'' Seymour was supposed to be the one who saw more.
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So, at long last, we have news that the famously reclusive J. D. Salinger is bringing out another book, not a new story, but one called ''Hapworth 16, 1924,'' which appeared in The New Yorker in the 1960's. Read in retrospect, that story continues -- perhaps even completes -- the saga of the Glass family, that band of precocious, high-strung whiz kids who have captivated Salinger fans for four decades. It also stands as a logical, if disappointing, culmination of Mr. Salinger's published work to date. Why wait three decades to bring out this story in book form? And why choose the obscure Orchises Press in Alexandria, Va., to publish it? One can only speculate: that the author wanted to remind his readers of his existence, that he wanted to achieve a kind of closure by putting his last published story between book covers, that he wanted readers to reappraise the Glass family (and by extension his body of work) through a story that, within the Glass canon, is nothing less than revisionistic.
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http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201206/kobe-bryant-picks-ring
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http://web.archive.org/web/20120616031223id_/http://www.thepostgame.com:80/blog/dish/201206/kobe-bryant-picks-ring
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Kobe's Divorce On Hold
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20120616031223
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It's been said that the worst reconciliation is better than the best divorce, and it certainly appears like one of the NBA's biggest stars agrees with such thinking.
Kobe Bryant's estranged wife, Vanessa, has reportedly decided not to sign legal papers making her divorce from the Lakers legend official. And now TMZ reports Kobe is trying to put the finishing touches on a full reconciliation with his almost ex.
The LA power couple with two young daughters have been spotted around Staples Center in the months since they headed down separation highway.
By the way, it's particularly interesting to note that Kobe, under the original divorce plan, has already handed his wife legal ownership to the couple's three mansions, meaning he'd be living in her house if they reside under the same roof again.
Legally, Vanessa has to wait six months, under California law, before she can make the divorce official, and that date would be this coming weekend. However, TMZ reports she won't be doing any such thing, at least for now.
Since entering the NBA at age 18, Bryant has earned more than a breathtaking $221,000,000 from the Lakers organization.
In short, Kobe couldn't deliver another championship for himself, but it looks like he'll get to hold onto his wedding band.
-- Follow Ben Maller on Twitter @BenMaller.
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It's been said that the worst reconciliation is better than the best divorce, and it certainly appears like one of the NBA's biggest stars agrees with...
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Justin Timberlake & Jessica Biel's Marriage Will Last, Blogs Patti Stanger : People.com
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20121027173212
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10/27/2012 at 11:20 AM EDT
last week in Italy, and I couldn't be happier for them.
, and I'm pretty confident that their union is going to far surpass the average Hollywood marriage shelf life.
Here are the three reasons I believe they're a great match and have a marriage that will last:
These two aren't naïve spring chickens. A lot of Hollywood couples get married young and wind up growing out of their relationship. But these two are mature – especially for Hollywood. They've grown up in the industry and haven't fallen off the beaten path that is real life. They both have their heads on straight and seem to understand the finer things in life – apart from fame.
in 2011 and almost silently
. Their engagement was nothing but speculation for months, and even the location of their wedding was kept as quiet as possible. A relationship really is between two people – not between two people, the media and their fans. Most Hollywood couples don't get that. But Justin and Jessica really seem to understand this important concept.
Can you say respect? Through the small glimpses into their relationship that we have been allowed, it seems like Justin and Jessica have a tremendous amount of respect for each other.
Here's one of my favorite quotes on the couple's relationship: Justin said of Jessica in
, "She is the single-handedly most significant person in my life. In my 30 years, she is the most special person, okay? ... I don't want to say much more, because I have to protect things that are dear to me – for instance, her."
Done and done! That's love, ladies and gentlemen!
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The relationship expert gives three reasons the newlyweds' love is the real deal
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/08/30/fda-approves-cambridge-drug-maker-ironwood-treatment-for-irritable-bowel-syndrome/JQpSFIHdtOvYaiUgcNkxyO/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20121102095528id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/08/30/fda-approves-cambridge-drug-maker-ironwood-treatment-for-irritable-bowel-syndrome/JQpSFIHdtOvYaiUgcNkxyO/story.html
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FDA approves Cambridge drug maker Ironwood’s treatment for irritable bowel syndrome
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20121102095528
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Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. says it is on track to start selling a treatment for chronic constipation and irritable bowel syndrome, following approval of the drug by federal regulators Thursday. The highly-anticipated pill, called Linzess, will be the first product developed by the 14-year-old Cambridge company to hit the market. FDA approval was expected, but most observers had predicted it would come next month. Analysts say Linzess could be a blockbuster, capable of pulling in $1 billion in annual worldwide sales within a decade.
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Ironwood Pharmaceuticals Inc. says it is on track to start selling a treatment for chronic constipation and irritable bowel syndrome, following approval of the drug by federal regulators Thursday. The highly-anticipated pill, called Linzess, will be the first product developed by the 14-year-old Cambridge company to hit the market. FDA approval was expected, but most observers had predicted it would come next month. Analysts say Linzess could be a blockbuster, capable of pulling in $1 billioncqin annual worldwide sales within a decade.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/movies/08mays.html
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A Filmmaker's 50 Years of Reassuring Intimacy
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20121112235858
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he scene left a lot to the imagination. On a sun-drenched day last week in Central Park, the only evidence of "The Gates," New York City's biggest public art project ever, was several thousand dark steel bases poking through a layer of snow.
But for the 78-year-old filmmaker Albert Maysles, whose mission it has been to record a quarter-century of work on the project by the artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude, the site had potential. The saffron-colored panels that will billow across 23 miles of park footpaths will not be unfurled until Saturday, but 11 days in advance, Mr. Maysles knew that people would already be talking about it.
"I'd like to find a group already involved in a discussion about the work," he said, alighting from a golf cart at the Great Lawn.
A barely perceptible frown clouded the white-haired filmmaker's face, framed by black spectacles. Except for a few pedestrians wandering by, nothing much was happening.
Finally, camera in hand, he approached a tattooed woman who was sitting on a bench in a spaghetti-strapped camisole and trousers, her two white dogs the only apparent source of warmth.
"Let me feel you," he said after a few minutes of casual conversation, placing his hand on her bare shoulder. "My God, it's warm." He turned to Antonio Ferrera, his co-filmmaker, and motioned him over. "Feel her shoulder," he said. "Do you believe it?" Mr. Ferrera reached out and touched her.
It was the Maysles technique - intimate to the point of being unnerving yet somehow, reassuringly safe. Touched by strange men in the middle of Central Park, the woman did not flinch.
And so began the first of Mr. Maysles's explorations that afternoon as he and Mr. Ferrera sidled up to bench-sitters, waved at passers-by, basked in recognition and filmed - or not, depending on their subjects' willingness - reactions to The Gates, a project that just about everyone seemed to have an opinion about, once Mr. Maysles had coaxed them into revealing it.
A chat with a transplanted Russian couple veered from Mr. Maysles's visit to Russia in 1955, when as a psychology teacher from Boston University he cajoled his way into psychiatric hospitals and recorded what was to become his first film, to the eccentricities of the pianist Vladimir Horowitz, the subject of another of his documentaries, to the Russian man's own work as an artist in Central Park upon his arrival in this country in 1979.
"Christo and I are alike," said the man, Eric Freyman. "We both relied on the park to survive."
A woman who described herself as "a product of Germany after World War II" and refused to be filmed, was less enthusiastic about the project. "Nature does not need adornment," she said, her brow crinkling.
Mr. Maysles sat down, turned off his camera and began to talk. Soon, the conversation moved to Prague, where, the woman said, her Jewish mother had been forced to work in a church during the war.
"My family name is well known there, but spelled differently," he said: "Maisels." "Ah, yes, you are Albert Maysles," she replied, her face brightening. "Gimme Shelter." "Salesman." "Grey Gardens." She knew his documentaries well.
They talked a bit longer - about her former career as a language teacher, about his continuing one.
"Well, I still can't say that I approve of this," she said, finally, gesturing to the base that she was using as a footrest. "But you've convinced me to keep an open mind."
Mr. Maysles picked up his camera and walked on.
"You know, one experience leads to another," he said, inching closer to his listener until their noses were almost touching. "In the end, 'The Gates' become connectors between lives."
Mr. Maysles is well practiced in finding the connections between the environmental art visualized by Christo and Jeanne-Claude and the people who experience it.
"The Gates," his sixth project with the couple, is to be shown on HBO in the fall. Tomorrow, the Museum of Modern Art will begin screenings of "Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Projects Recorded, 1969-1998," which includes Mr. Maysles's films of the previous five collaborations.
Mr. Maysles met Christo and Jeanne-Claude through a friend in Paris in 1960, and they became like family, Jeanne-Claude said, when the Christos moved to New York in 1964. With his brother and co-filmmaker, David, Mr. Maysles followed the couple as they strung a rippled sheet of orange fabric between mountains in "Christo's Valley Curtain" (1974), stretched an 18-foot wall of white across Northern California in "Running Fence" (1978), skirted Biscayne Bay islands in flamingo pink in "Islands" (1986) and wrapped the Pont Neuf in gold in "Christo in Paris" (1990). He completed "Umbrellas" (1995), about the simultaneous opening of 3,100 umbrellas in California and Japan, without David, who died in 1987.
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Albert Maysles is well practiced in finding the connections between the environmental art visualized by Christo and Jeanne-Claude and the people who experience it.
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http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201211/nfler-frightened-his-teams-mascot
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http://web.archive.org/web/20121116153056id_/http://www.thepostgame.com:80/blog/dish/201211/nfler-frightened-his-teams-mascot
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NFLer Frightened By His Own Team's Mascot
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20121116153056
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Eric Berry may be a fearless tackler who spends his Sundays slamming running backs and wide receivers into the ground, but that doesn't mean he can't be intimidated.
Just ask the Kansas City Chiefs' horse, Warpaint.
Berry suffers from a condition called equinophobia, or a crippling fear of horses. He was mic'd up for a recent episode of Inside the NFL, and it's safe to say he wasn't too happy to see Warpaint trotting onto the field.
"Hold up, coach. That horse out there," Berry says during a huddle. "She need to go on ahead with that horse. I don't fool with no horses, boy. Hell nah.”
Berry, it turns out, is more than meets the eye. In addition to suffering from equinophobia, he is also a prolific writer. When he was benched last year with a torn ACL, he wrote more than 100 poems and three screenplays.
"War Horse 2" was probably not one of them.
(H/T to Kissing Suzy Kolber)
ThePostGame brings you the most interesting sports stories on the web.
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Eric Berry may be a fearless tackler who spends his Sundays slamming running backs and wide receivers into the ground, but that doesn't mean he can't ...
| 7.766667 | 0.966667 | 28.033333 |
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/11/17/maxx-assistant-managers-can-join-lawsuit/Yh0FxlgvESZneDPPYMWgAK/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20121118035531id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2012/11/17/maxx-assistant-managers-can-join-lawsuit/Yh0FxlgvESZneDPPYMWgAK/story.html
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3,000 T.J Maxx assistant managers can join lawsuit
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20121118035531
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About 3,000 T.J. Maxx assistant managers nationwide will be allowed to join a lawsuit against TJX Cos. for failure to pay overtime, following a federal court ruling this week.
The ruling, in US District Court for Eastern New York, grants conditional certification for a collective action lawsuit, similar to a class-action suit, which was filed in early 2011 by a former assistant manager in New York. The complaint alleges that the Framingham company regularly required Mohammed M. Ahmed and other salaried assistant managers to perform duties usually done by hourly workers, such as running the cash registers and unloading delivery trucks, without paying them overtime when they worked more than 40 hours a week.
“It’s a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act,” said Sara Kane, who is representing Ahmed.
About 3,000 assistant managers who worked at TJ Maxx from August of 2007 to the present — though the time frame is in dispute — could receive invitations to join the lawsuit.
TJX, which also runs Marshalls and HomeGoods, did not return calls seeking comment.
TJX is facing several lawsuits over similar wage and employee misclassification violations, Kane said.
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About 3,000 T.J. Maxx assistant managers will be invited to join a lawsuit against TJX Cos. for failure to pay overtime, following a ruling by a US District Court judge for the Eastern District of New York. The ruling grants conditional certification for a collective action lawsuit alleging that the Framingham-based company required Mohammed M. Ahmed and other salaried assistant managers to perform nonmanagerial duties without paying them overtime when they worked more than 40 hours a week.
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Ruth Marcus - The Washington Post
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20121122193833
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Ruth Marcus is a columnist and editorial writer for The Post, specializing in American politics and domestic policy. Marcus has been with The Post since 1984. She joined the national staff in 1986, covering campaign finance, the Justice Department, the Supreme Court and the White House. From 1999 through 2002, she served as deputy national editor, supervising reporters who covered money and politics, Congress, the Supreme Court, and other national issues. She joined the editorial board in 2003 and began writing a regular column in 2006. A graduate of Yale College and Harvard Law School, she was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2007. She lives in Maryland with her husband, Jon Leibowitx, their two daughters, and the world’s cutest dog.
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Every hero has a fatal flaw, and it is getting tougher to hide it.
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An editorial writer specializing in politics, the budget and other domestic issues, she also writes a weekly column and contributes to the PostPartisan blog.
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http://bostonglobe.com/business/2012/07/14/former-mit-borgs-still-back-wearable-technology/2EL5NgdbQ5VzjoBUGFZk4I/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20121129145850id_/http://bostonglobe.com:80/business/2012/07/14/former-mit-borgs-still-back-wearable-technology/2EL5NgdbQ5VzjoBUGFZk4I/story.html
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Former MIT ‘borgs’ still back wearable technology
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20121129145850
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If you frequented Kendall Square in the 1990s, you may have encountered one of the pioneers of wearable computing, students who ambled around Cambridge wearing special goggles with built-in cameras and display screens, toted computers in backpacks and messenger bags, and palmed special one-handed keypads so they could enter data. Sprouting wires everywhere, they looked like cyborgs late for a Halloween party.
Thad Starner was part of the bunch, who called themselves the “borgs.”
“It was clear to me that this was going to be a lifestyle that was compelling,” says Starner, who began wearing a computer and display regularly in 1993. “Wherever I was, I could pull up local maps. I would learn stuff from having hallway conversations with other researchers, and I had a system that let me take notes to remember what they said.” The rest of us, however, just weren’t ready to don computers.
Steve Mann provided live feeds to the Web.
But Starner and four other MIT alumni who were part of the first wave of wearable computing have reunited in Silicon Valley, where they now work for Google. The tech behemoth has recently begun promoting a prototype device called Google Glass, eyewear that puts relevant information into your field of vision, rather than on a smartphone in your hand.
Google Glass, which includes a transparent digital display extending out in front of one eye and a touchable control panel on the temple, could finally push wearable computing into the mainstream. But many questions about adding an information layer to the world we see around us remain unanswered, more than 15 years after students and entrepreneurs in Massachusetts tried to jump-start the field.
In the days before Wi-Fi and 3G, MIT student Steve Mann created a wearable webcam that could snap photos and send them over amateur TV frequencies to a computer that posted them on a Web page. Other student projects could watch a deaf person communicate in sign language and translate the gestures into synthesized speech, or look at balls arrayed on a billiard table and suggest the best possible shot.
Rich DeVaul, now at Google, experimented with flashing subliminal messages on a glasses-based display to remind wearers about shopping items, their next meetings, or the name of someone standing before them. (DeVaul optimistically predicted that his “memory glasses” would be on the market by 2005, and sell for $300.)
One of the earliest local companies to develop wearable technology was MicroOptical Corp., founded in 1995. Initially, the company landed military contracts to develop head-mounted displays for soldiers, so that they could see updated information about troop movements overlaid on a map, for instance.
Later, the company sold tiny $2,500 screens that could be clipped onto a pair of glasses. Anesthesiologists could use them to monitor a patient’s vital signs during surgery, as they moved around the operating room.
But MicroOptical had two problems, according to founder Mark Spitzer. First, there weren’t yet smartphones or lightweight tablets for the company’s displays to plug into. And second, the company was targeting small industry niches where people might use its product.
“Even when we’d get traction in one area, we’d have to spend more on marketing to reach people in the next niche,” says Spitzer.
The company later shifted to a thin pair of RoboCop-style glasses that could plug into an iPod, so users could watch videos privately on a larger screen. But the company didn’t survive the last recession and its assets were sold off.
Many of the translation, navigation, and information-retrieval tasks that the wearable pioneers worked on were subsumed into the smartphone and its universe of apps. “Instead of wearing technology on your body, Apple took all this technology and fit it into these hard, square boxes you hold in your hand,” says Maggie Orth, an MIT alumna who worked on integrating computers into clothing.
In 2010 and 2011, Google began hiring some of the MIT veterans to work on Google Glass. They were true believers, and were never convinced that smartphones represented the endpoint for personal technology.
“When you want to take a picture of that funny moment with your new baby,” Starner says, “you have to get the phone out of your pocket, turn it on, type in your passcode, find the camera app, boot it up, and click. With Glass, that’s a single button-push. It allows you to stay heads-up and in the moment more than a cellphone can ever do.”
Google will begin shipping $1,500 prototype devices next year, but at first only to software developers who want to build applications for them. A big challenge lies ahead, however. Will consumers like — or at least tolerate — the way they look while wearing Google Glass?
“People are very vain, and so the reason for having the device on needs to be really compelling,” says Paul Zavracky, former president of MicroOptical.
Pattie Maes, an MIT professor who supervised some of the early research on wearables, observes that they will change our interactions. If someone wearing connected specs remembers your kids’ names and that you enjoy playing tennis, was that because they genuinely care, or because they got a computer assist?
Maes recalled meetings with a student employing wearable technology. In conversations, he would regularly note when she was changing or contradicting statements made months earlier. “It was very unequal,” she says. “He had this perfect memory, and immediate access to it.”
Also, Maes adds, “You never knew what he was looking at, or what notes he was taking.”
But part of the attraction of new technology has always been that it affords us super-human abilities. It’s easy for most of us to imagine some circumstance in which it would be useful to have a snippet of information floating before our eyes, or a camera that’s ready to snap at any moment. If wearable displays like Google Glass can surmount the aesthetic and interpersonal hurdles — two enormous ifs — the MIT borgs may finally see their sci-fi lifestyle go mainstream.
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If you frequented Kendall Square in the late 1990s, you may have encountered one of the pioneers of wearable computing, students who ambled around Cambridge wearing special goggles with built-in cameras and display screens, toted computers in backpacks and messenger bags, and palmed special one-handed keypads so they could enter data. Sprouting wires everywhere, they looked like cyborgs late for a Halloween party. Some of them have reunited in Silicon Valley, where they now work for Google, developing a device called Google Glass.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20121129235837id_/http://www.thepostgame.com:80/blog/eye-performance/201211/former-utep-cheerleader-sets-world-record-back-flips%23channel=f24d47a69af3e6a&origin=http://www.thepostgame.com&channel_path=/channel.html?
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Army Lieutenant Sets Backflip World Record
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20121129235837
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To say that Jalyessa Walker "broke" the world record for most consecutive backflips might be shortchanging her just a little bit. "Destroyed" or "pulverized" might be more like it.
Walker needed 36 flips to top the old mark.
She nailed 49 and was ready to keep going.
"I wish I didn't run out of room so I could have done 50," Walker told the El Paso Times. "As soon as I hit the concrete, I was starting to get tired and scared because I didn't want to fall."
Walker was on familiar ground for her performance. A former cheerleader at University of Texas at El Paso, Walker went for the record at halftime of the UTEP-Rice football game and covered the length of the field.
The previous record of 35 was set in October by 16-year-old high school cheerleader Miranda Ferguson, also of Texas.
Walker, a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, said she only had a month to train. After graduating UTEP in the spring, she went to Fort Lee, Va., for the Basic Officer Leadership Course, which kept her from practicing.
"I really had to work on my cardio because my legs would get tired," she told the Times.
Walker's record won't become official until the Guinness authorities sign off, but with video documentation and more than 20,000 eyewitnesses, that seems to be just a formality.
Walker, who started gymnastics when she was 4, was simple and direct when explaining why she went for the record: "I like challenges."
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To say that Jalyessa Walker "broke" the world record for most consecutive backflips might be shortchanging her just a little bit. &a...
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http://web.archive.org/web/20121218154609id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2012/03/05/another-residential-tower-proposed-for-boston-growing-seaport-district/hKIrORP9dBq7VzpIfjH4MO/story.html
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Another residential tower is proposed for Boston’s growing seaport district
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20121218154609
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One of Boston’s biggest real estate projects took another large step forward yesterday.
A new development team unveiled plans to build more than 300 residences as part of the massive Seaport Square project, which is slated to replace the sea of parking lots at the South Boston Waterfront with more than 1,000 homes, office buildings, a hotel, and public parks.
Skanska USA Commercial Development Inc. and Twining Properties said they are teaming up to build a 14-story apartment building at Boston Wharf Road and Seaport Boulevard. The firms bought the parcel in late December for about $18.6 million from MS Boston Seaport LLC, the master builder of Seaport Square.
“We feel this is going to be the next great part of Boston,’’ said Alex Twining, chief executive of New York-based Twining Properties. He added that the apartment building is situated across from a planned public park and will have unobstructed views of Boston Harbor.
The developers have signed up New York architects Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates to design the building, which will have space for several retail stores on the ground level. Construction is expected to begin early next year.
The project is part of a flurry of apartment proposals in the Seaport area, where developers are seeking to build more than 1,500 rental units during the next several years.
MS Boston Seaport - a partnership that includes developer Boston Global Investors and Morgan Stanley and WS Development - is teaming up with AvalonBay Communities Inc. to build a pair of apartment towers on a separate site within Seaport Square. That project, across from the John Joseph Moakley US Courthouse, will include about 750 apartments, as well as four stories of retail stores.
In addition, developers Hanover Co. and New England Development are planning a 21-story residential and retail tower at Pier 4; Developers John Drew and HYM Investment Group are seeking to build a 19-story apartment building on Congress Street; and The Fallon Co. is developing plans for a 150-unit condominium building overlooking the water at Fan Pier.
Mayor Thomas M. Menino has encouraged residential building in the Seaport as part of a broader plan to make the waterfront a magnet for young workers and innovative companies from a range of industries. His administration has branded the area Boston’s Innovation District, and the moniker seems to be catching on: More than 100 businesses have moved to the area over the past two years.
“We will continue this positive momentum by developing more housing and the amenities that make a vibrant, 18-hour neighborhood,’’ Menino said.
In addition to the announcement yesterday by Skanska and Twining, developer Young Park of Berkeley Investments Inc. disclosed he is partnering with restaurateur Jason Owens to open a food market on the ground floor of an office building at 12 Farnsworth St. He said the market will help fill a void in the neighborhood, selling fresh produce, beer and wine, and other products.
Owens, one of the partners of the gourmet grocery American Provisions on East Broadway in South Boston, could not be reached for comment yesterday. He previously opened the eatery Local 149 in South Boston and Newton’s Biltmore Bar & Grill.
Executives with Skanska and Twining said their building, to be called Watermark Seaport, will have a generous amount of glass to allow views of the harbor, but will also be designed to complement the adjacent red brick warehouses of the Fort Point neighborhood.
Shawn Hurley, a vice president and regional manager for Skanska in Boston, said the developers do not have specific retail stores or restaurants in mind for the building, but will be looking to generate more street activity where it feels barren and windswept.
“There will certainly be multiple retailers’’ in the building, Hurley said. “We’re looking for a good mix of retail that would include restaurants and other uses that will help engage with the street.’’
The project will be Skanska’s second development in the Boston area. The firm, a division of the development and contracting giant Skanska USA, is building a 120,000-square-foot laboratory complex outside Kendall Square in Cambridge.
Twining has been working on the larger Seaport Square project since 2007, advising Morgan Stanley on its 2.85 million square feet of planned residential space.
The firm has also been involved in Kendall Square, where it is building the 321-unit Watermark Cambridge project and a residential building next door.
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A new development team yesterday unveiled plans for a 300-unit apartment tower in Boston’s Innovation District. Skanska USA Commercial Development Inc. and Twining Properties said they will build the tower, to be called Watermark Seaport, at the corner of Seaport Boulevard and Boston Wharf Road. It will be part of the 25-acre Seaport Square project that is expected to fill in many of the Innovation District’s vast surface parking lots in coming years.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/06/08/npr-car-talk-duo-call-quits-after-years/E6R6Xkiq7Y0g67HtlrDcMM/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20130411161312id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/06/08/npr-car-talk-duo-call-quits-after-years/E6R6Xkiq7Y0g67HtlrDcMM/story.html?camp=pm
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NPR’s ‘Car Talk’ duo to call it quits after 25 years
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20130411161312
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NEW YORK (AP) — The comic mechanics on NPR’s ‘‘Car Talk’’ are pulling in to the garage.
Brothers Tom and Ray Magliozzi said Friday they will stop making new episodes of their joke-filled auto advice show at the end of September, 25 years after ‘‘Car Talk’’ began in Boston. Repurposed versions of old shows will stay on National Public Radio indefinitely, however.
The show airs every Saturday morning and is NPR’s most popular program.
‘‘We’ve managed to avoid getting thrown off NPR for 25 years, giving tens of thousands of wrong answers and had a hell of a time every week talking to callers,’’ Ray Magliozzi said. ‘‘The stuff in our archives still makes us laugh. So we figured, why keep slaving over a hot microphone?’’
The duo will continue writing their ‘‘Dear Tom and Ray’’ column twice a week, NPR said.
With their byplay and Boston accents, ‘‘Car Talk’’ was as much about laughs as motor advice. On last week’s show, a caller confessed that she had broken the clutches of some ex-boyfriends’ cars and was now worrying that she was damaging her own.
‘‘That might be the reason none of your relationships lasted,’’ she was told.
The two men proved that public radio didn’t have to be stuffy, said Doug Berman, executive producer of the show. ‘‘Car Talk’’ began as a local call-in show on Boston’s WBUR radio in 1977. It’s now on 660 stations across the country, with some 3.3 million listeners a week.
‘‘The guys are culturally right up there with Mark Twain and the Marx Brothers,’’ Berman said. ‘‘They will stand the test of time. People will still be enjoying them years from now. They’re that good.’’
The staff has stored and logged some 12,500 phone calls since the show began, rating them in order of their entertainment value, Berman said. They will take the best and use them for the repurposed shows. Berman said he figured there was about eight years’ worth of strong material without the show having to repeat itself again.
‘‘I’m the producer of all their shows and I can’t remember most of’’ the calls, he said.
‘‘Car Talk’’ has tested out the repurposed show and is convinced they will work. There’s a strong wish among NPR stations to keep the show going even if there isn’t fresh material, he said.
Berman said he knew the retirement was a possibility; Tom is 74. That didn’t stop Ray, 63, from mocking him. ‘‘My brother has always been work-averse,’’ he said. ‘‘Now, apparently, even the one hour a week is killing him.’’
In a goodbye message posted on their website and titled ‘‘Time to Get Even Lazier,’’ Tom wrote, ‘‘We’re hoping to be like ‘I Love Lucy’ and air 10 times a day on ‘NPR at Nite’ in 2075.’’
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Tom and Ray Magliozzi said Friday they will stop making new episodes of their comic auto advice show at the end of September.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20130420161452id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2013/04/15/mosquito-yeah-yeah-yeahs-most-far-flung-album-yet/8W2whUAR6JVi596MDh6IlM/story.html
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‘Mosquito’ is Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ most far-flung album yet
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20130420161452
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Does the reverent gospel choir that flares up on the opening “Sacrilege” need to be there? Probably not, but it’s one of several refreshing diversions on “Mosquito,” the inspired new album by Yeah Yeah Yeahs after a detour into synth-pop on 2009’s “It’s Blitz!” The trio of singer Karen O, guitarist (and Sharon native) Nick Zinner, and drummer Brian Chase don’t quite return to the jagged indie rock that made them stars a decade ago, but instead turn over new stones. The feral wail that Karen O unleashed on early albums has been smoothed out to something more emotive here. She’s forlorn on “Subway,” a wayward ballad that cleverly uses the sound of a train on the tracks as percussion. She uses the analogy of a mosquito to imply she’ll “suck your blood” on the more rock-oriented title track. Hip-hop artist Dr. Octagon turns up for a guest rap on “Buried Alive,” and a tinge of dub underpins “Under the Earth.” It’s the group’s most far-flung album, supporting Karen O’s recent claim that “Mosquito” offers something for everyone. (Out Tuesday)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs play at the House of Blues on May 12.
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Does the reverent gospel choir that flares up on the opening “Sacrilege” need to be there? Probably not, but it’s one of several refreshing diversions on “Mosquito,” the inspired new album by Yeah Yeah Yeahs after a detour into synth-pop on 2009’s “It’s Blitz!” The trio of singer Karen O, guitarist (and Sharon native) Nick Zinner, and drummer Brian Chase don’t quite return to the jagged indie rock that made them stars a decade ago, but instead the album finds them turning over new stones. The feral wail that Karen O unleashed on early albums has been smoothed out to something more emotive here. It’s the group’s most far-flung album, supporting Karen O’s recent claim that “Mosquito” offers something for everyone.
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The New Help: Butlers
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20130609043729
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-- -- -- job with six figures but to get it you've got to travel to the international -- academy that's right there -- one and I'm just back from it. It's a good thing I have this job because that...
-- -- -- job with six figures but to get it you've got to travel to the international -- academy that's right there -- one and I'm just back from it. It's a good thing I have this job because that one. You've got to survive this. Americans have long been fascinated by the ruled the Butler. At night Butler is back. Because -- -- countries the newly rich getting richer. They're getting buffers too. And where they train. -- -- twenties at the halfway around the world to find out to the Netherlands where -- given directions to a castle in -- convert. As soon I'm pulling into the international buffalo academy you're going to make -- Butler flew right traffic -- fifty. Going to throw it into the castle this is where you make -- or rules that barely inside -- -- fails what is your look. -- just seconds into -- toward the reading room the dining -- already had Butler bristle at something invisible to meet. Offensive him there to that are that's terrific collateralized debt where -- already seen that. Who chairs at the wrong -- there. One touching the table cloth. Okay that'll do -- this month. It's this guy for real. These students are -- actually paid to come here all over the world from Sweden south African -- Cost 171000. Dollars just two months this Butler -- can't be sure. Improper when he gets to the general. Goal Roberts a former Butler himself who started in America. Is on the right serving Henry Kissinger. It just listen to what he makes his students call him here and. They are tested on their feet in week sixteen hour days -- Right. Do. -- and he's a firing. -- told people dial for that gigantic ball that's the one guest to get one too many. The talk to hold an. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Live up yeah. At 55 years old she's desperate for a career change looking over her shoulder there is -- coming for her again. Yeah. And there's yards with 23. He's coming to Butler. -- And Henry the whole class news on the inside he's a bundle of -- told he's failing to -- so far warned you not to star. You the man in the background. But this is hardly a crash course. -- -- -- added for weeks when I arrive tested on everything even their discretion. What if you witness cheating -- split the shaft that was having an affair so to you -- out the -- to yes you do. Okay yeah. Or are told to be ready at any moment for drill ready to change in -- -- -- I'm told -- be ready to our heading into the award her room now this is where -- -- there. I uniforms so -- -- get the call Freddie. In that closet there's a strategy. To find will Wright's -- but few incidents in the -- so look at that someone has a timeout and Vinatieri tied. I find myself the best -- stressed out. But clocked three minutes to change yours truly the back of the pack. What inside that room the clothes are flying the clock ticking. Transformation in the second. The first went down the stairs and you could practically hear his heart race. -- what else right behind him everyone. Except for me. It really close. Absolutely. -- find -- my way down the stairs. What is the top 315. And we -- late and the need to help -- fifteen seconds. And not even standing in the right place. You gotta go there are -- all of them. -- it's about right. You might be asking yourself why on earth would anyone paid to put themselves through this. It turns out the -- is impressive a six figure salaries also -- on the last. Come back -- about his enormous every day there's new. Millionaires these people over the State's. Playing the -- They have egos to match just like robber -- says Goodell finds hard to find. But I thought to myself -- can't find them obsolete in the trailer myself and he's about to test yon in -- he's in the dining room behind that door. He's -- -- instilled fear just a few weeks. -- city -- -- yes it does so that. The -- of the game is as you set the table they are given ten minutes. At the room for you list are. Don't of the measuring tape the distance between the athletes. The spacing of the glasses. For yeah mainly confusion just not seven. He's expecting seven mr. But -- disastrous time -- We're horses -- sell whereas soon. Should be one of -- -- -- trying to hold back the tears posted grades. Yes that's right us. And what upstairs it might be to spoons downstairs. It's the night that -- -- ski team members not on the same level as you -- frustrated partner. It was good. He was angry. And I was about to get a taste of it myself. Seven minutes I was sure. And an inability -- -- I'm gonna get this wrong but I did -- Cobb County kind of -- Kris we would not -- increase in the costs. And then of course pouring the wine step -- certain to line. Turnips. Clearance. -- and apparently the bottle should never touch the glass -- it. Don't ever touch her I took some glass you test the glass with -- -- this is the biggest mistake you can probably do. They tell -- to put -- hand behind my back. It's that there. -- -- -- The it would held because who -- -- -- school there's the LA. The secret -- support. For me the final chapter in Detroit on my head. Balancing a block mr. Muir would you like to can -- here. It's. Trying to look at the glasses look we're going. Of the stairs I go carefully one foot in front of the other -- -- Washington. But for the rest of them. The stakes are enormous and this is the final step. On this night the sun goes down after eight weeks terror the training to -- all. And they're all about that there's seventeen -- -- We'll never gone so afraid -- Parker brought him down to graduate. He passes near the top. And who could forget why look. Overtime she found her balance. And remember Henry nearly bounced from boot camp police didn't have what it takes on this day. Makes the cut that includes you. With tears -- from the new book but beside him. And there was one more student get to pass because apparently after I left those new butlers. With -- -- but David didn't. Very very well if she ever would get tired of being a journalist and -- could be a great.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
Home > Video > 20/20 > 20/20 Reports
The New Help: House Managers
Miami B-Girls: Caught on Tape
The Bunker Tapes: Saving Ethan
Bringing Up Baby: Royal Edition
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David Muir goes to the International Butler Academy to try to survive "butler boot camp."
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http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20130607-is-a-degree-crucial-for-a-job
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http://web.archive.org/web/20130609083433id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/capital/story/20130607-is-a-degree-crucial-for-a-job
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Degrees matter when hunting for a job
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20130609083433
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Yet the global financial crisis has widened the employment and earnings gap between college-educated workers and those with only a secondary education. People with less education have found themselves more likely to be unemployed and have more difficulty landing a job, a review of unemployment data from countries around the globe shows.
“We have no reason to assume that this is likely to change any time soon,” said Andreas Schleicher of the Paris-based think tank Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
Consider the latest unemployment figures from the United States, released Friday. In May, 7.4 % of high school graduates were unemployed, while just 3.8% of university graduates were without a job, according to seasonally adjusted data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That trend — of double the unemployment rate for high school grads compared with college grads — has largely held steady even amid the US recession.
The value of a university degree, at least when it comes to finding a job, is not unique to the US. The correlation can also be seen around the world, said Daniel Hamermesh, an international labour economist at the University of Texas in Austin.
Exactly how much university credentials pay off differs from country to country.
A university education, for instance, offers Europeans a significant boost. In 2012, the 27 countries in the Euro zone had a total unemployment rate of about 10%, according to data from Eurostat, the EU agency that tracks statistical data for member states located in Luxembourg. Yet for college graduates, unemployment was about one-third lower, at 6%.
A degree has been far more valuable for older college-educated workers in Europe. It is still quite difficult for young European college graduates to find a job. The unemployment rate for workers under age 25 is 2.6 times that of the total jobless rate, according to Eurostat.
In Spain, where unemployment is expected to stay above 25% through 2016, university graduates have an advantage, with a jobless rate of 17%. But digging into the data reveals age disparities. Today in Spain, 45% of university graduates aged 16 to 24 are unemployed, according to the country’s national statistical office, far higher than the overall unemployment rate for university graduates.
Those who are working in Spain are also likely toiling at jobs far below their expertise level. “Many university graduates are working in jobs that in other places would only need vocational training,” said Marcel Jansen, a professor of economics at Madrid’s Autónoma University.
The struggle for new graduates to find work is not unique to Europe. In China, college graduates under age 25 had the highest unemployment rate in the country at 16.4%, worse than even high school graduates, according to a 2012 household survey by researchers at Texas A&M University and Southwestern University of Finance and Economics in Chengdu, China. But for China’s population as a whole, however, college graduates are the group with the lowest unemployment — just 3.6% compared to 10% for high school graduates.
There are exceptions to the overall utility of a college degree when it comes to joblessness, particularly in countries where educational systems are particularly strong, or where economies are booming. In these cases, university graduates barely get an edge in employment rates.
In Japan, for instance, where high school is expected to prepare some students for a career, the added value of a university education may be more limited, Schleicher said. Government initiatives also help to keep unemployment across the country artificially low. And in a red-hot economy such as Germany’s, managers are hungry to hire any workers, regardless of their education level.
For most places in the developed world, however, the reality remains: a college degree is practically the new minimum requirement for even the lowest-level jobs at many companies, despite the employment woes of younger university graduates.
There is also evidence that having the degree is likely to pay off down the road for younger graduates, offering hope to jobless young graduates across Europe. OECD research found, for instance, that in Brazil, having a tertiary education offered workers a 200% premium in lifetime earnings compared to those who hadn’t finished high school. In Greece, Korea, and Turkey, the premium gap was 70%.
That premium will likely only go up as the economy improves.
“A college degree is always going to lend an advantage,” Hamermesh said.
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American workers are not the only ones who benefit from a university degree when it comes to employment.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20130710214951id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1863/12/19/news/european-arrival-city-washington-australasian-british-naval-steamers-bought.html
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EUROPEAN NEWS. - Arrival of the City of Washington and the Australasian. British Naval Steamers Bought by the Rebels. Movements of the Rappahannock. Particulars of Her Purchase and Departure from Sheerness.Alleged Escape of a RebelRam from Hull.Reported Purchase of the Iron-Clads by the Prussian Government.THE PROPOSED CONGRESS.Another Letter Addressed to QueenVictoria by the Emperor.The Schleswig-Holstein QuestionOfficial Declaration of Great Britain inFavor of Denmark.GENERAL CONTINENTAL NEWS. - NYTimes.com
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20130710214951
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The Inman steamer City of Washington, Capt. Brooks, which left Liverpool at noon on the 2d and Queenstown on the 3d December, arrived here yesterday morning.
The Royal Mail steamer Australasian left Liverpool at 2:30 on the afternoon of the 5th, and Queenstown on the 6th inst., also arrived here last evening.
The extra Cunard steamer Hecla left Liverpool on Dec. 1. In the summary of news sent out by her, and that which comes by the City of Washington and Australasian we have the following intelligence additional to that brought by the Hibernia, and telegraphed from Cape Race, which is two days later.
The Edinburgh arrived at Liverpool early on the morning of the 4th of December.
The Hansa reached Southampton on the 3d of December.
The Asia arrived at Queenstown at 9 A.M. on the 5th of December; reached Liverpool on the afternoon of the 30th ult.
The screw steamer Bellona, 26 days out, from New-York for London, was causing some anxiety for her safety, and she was being insured at Lloyds at the rate of 30 guineas per cent.
The money subscribed by the shareholders toward realizing the £60,000 required to set the Great Eastern afloat again, has been returned to the shareholders, and henceforth all the affairs connected with the vessel will have to pass through the Court of Chancery.
The London Morning Advertiser gives a report that the Duke of Newcastle had resigned his office of Secretary for the Colonies, on the ground of ill health, and that Lord CLARENDON had been appointed his successor. No other paper alludes to the rumor.
The British Government had tendered the Governor-Generalship of India to Sir JOHN LAWRENCE, who had accepted and would depart for India by the first mail. This appointment gives great satisfaction.
Lord PALMERSTON had been presiding at the Annual dinner of the Scottish Society in London, and he met with quite an ovation. The speeches were of no political importance.
The Board of Trade returns show, for the month of October, the unprecedented increase of fifty-three per cent. in the exports as compared with the same period last year.
The Times publishes the letter received by STEFANOT LENOS, alleging that the Greek Government will most likely not acknowledge the loans of 1824-25 for many years to come.
A letter from the British Foreign office is published, expressing the belief that steps have been taken by the Peruvian Government for preventing the introduction of Polynesians into Peru.
The following paragraph appears in the news taken to England by the West-India mail steamer, and published in the English journals:
"It is reported on good authority, that the Federals in California and Sonora are supplying the Juarez Government with arms, which procedure, it is believed, will lead to complications between the French and American Governments."
The Paris correspondent of the London Star writes that no copies of the NEW-YORK TIMES are allowed to enter France. They are regularly seized.
The Southern Club of Manchester having put forth statements that Lord BROUGHAM was in favor of "State Rights," in the Southern sense of the term, a correspondence between the Secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society and his Lordship is published, to show that Lord BROUGHAM is the very reverse of that imputed to him.
The Correspondance of Rome says: "His Holiness has deigned to give audience to an American deputation from the Southern States, charged to place in his august hands an autographic letter from Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS." The facts of the case are stated to be these: Subsequent to the breaking out of the American war the Pope wrote circular letters to all the Catholic Bishops in the Northern as well as the Southern States, exhorting them to fulfill the Christian duties of their office, but to abstain from the expression of any party feeling whatever in the lamentable struggle now existing. President DAVIS, appreciating these sentiments, wrote a letter to thank His Holiness, and intrusted it for delivery to Mr. DUDLEY MANN, a Southerner, who has been for some time in Europe, and occasionally charged with diplomatic missions. After an interview with Cardinal ANTONELLI, Mr. MANN obtained an audience of the Pope, at which Mr. MANN. Jr., who acts as Secretary to his father, was present. The conviction of the members of the United States Legation, backed by the assurances of Cardinal ANTONELLI, is that this reception had no official character, and that Mr. JEFFERSON DAVIS' letter was merely complimentary."
A great meeting in favor of continued neutrality in American affairs had been held at Preston.
The gale of the 3d inst. was experienced with fearful violence in nearly all parts of England, and the damage to property both on land and sea was very serious. In Liverpool the force of the wind reached a pressure greater than has been experienced there for many years, and the vessels in the Mersey had a very lively time of it. Collisions were very numerous and many small craft foundered. The Canadian steamer Nova Scotian was unable to get away, and did not sail till the 4th inst. The American ship Weston Merritt was among the vessels damaged by collision in the Mersey, but she was saved from anything serious by steamtugs. The Pensacola was driven on the Great Burbo Bank, at the mouth of the Mersey, and would prove a total wreck. The crew were saved. The De Wilt Clinton was totally wrecked off Formby (Liverpool.) Crew saved. The Mary Russell, from Liverpool for Bath, was towed back dismasted.
A dispatch from Holyhead says that no fewer than 56 bodies had been washed ashore there, and at the time the information was dispatched nine more bodies could be seen coming into the harbor.
The wrecks of British coasting vessels were very numerous.
Admiral PLUMRIGDE, who served with distinction in the Baltic during the Russian war, is dead.
The splendid racing stud of the Earl of Stamford had been sold at unction by Messrs. TATTERSALL. The sixty-six horses sold, realized 28,750 guineas. Mr. TEN BROECK made some heavy purchases.
It was not known on what day the great fight between HEENAN and KING would take place; but as Bell's Life notified all persons wishing to be present that they must be in London not later than the 8th, it was supposed the 9th Dec. would be the day.
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The Inman steamer City of Washington, Capt. Brooks, which left Liverpool at noon on the 2d and Queenstown on the 3d December, arrived here yesterday morning.
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The Most Memorable ESPYs Moments
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20130719063829
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Really, all of the Arthur Ashe Courage Awards belong here. Always one of the most emotional parts of the night, the award has gone to influential sports figures like Jim Valvano (1993), Billie Jean King (1999), Tommie Smith and John Carlos (2008) and Robin Roberts (2013). Summitt, who had recently announced that she was battling Alzheimer's, was introduced by another Tennessee sporting legend, Peyton Manning.
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What happens when you put the world's best athletes in one place for one night?
Some laughs, some tears, but above all, some pretty incredible moments...
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Google launches largest ebook marketplace; threatens book giants like Barnes and Noble, Borders
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20130722091745
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Google's next step to world domination? Cornering the ebook market.
The tech giant launched its long awaited e-bookstore Monday, a move that could further damage struggling traditional bookstores and give customers a cheaper option for books on the go.
Its 3 million available titles make it the largest e-bookstore in the world overnight, Publishers' Weekly reported.
"Today is the first page in a new chapter of our mission to improve access to the cultural and educational treasures we know as books," Abraham Murray, the Product Manager of Google Books wrote on the company blog.
The e-reader, which can be downloaded across different platforms including Apple products, as well as accessed through computers, makes it easy for consumers to purchase e-books similar to how iTunes works for music.
In addition to threatening other e-bookstores — mainly Borders and Barnes & Noble — the tech giant's new product presents a huge threat to e-book readers like the Kindle and Amazon Nook which require consumers to purchase an entire new product in order to read books on the go. With the Google bookstore, users can download full books to their iPhones or iPads or other smartphones.
"This is basically a small stake in the ground," Allen Weiner, of technology research firm Gartner told Marketwatch. "You have to think about what this will look like in a year. It's a warning shot as to what's to come from Google in terms of the approach they are going to take towards a plethora of devices."
On an Apple iPhone, more than 3 million e-books can be downloaded easily through a free application for a little under the list price. Users can even look at a sample of the book before downloading it.
The product uses cloud technology, which means book fans can download the books on their computers and then read them on the go. And while the debut at 3 million is impressive, the company expects it to continue to grow.
"Launching Google eBooks is an initial step toward giving you greater access to the vast variety of information and entertainment found in books," Murray said. "Our journey has just begun."
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Google's next step to world domination? Cornering the ebook market.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20130728090329id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/theater-art/2013/07/25/comedy-employs-enhanced-interrogation-techniques-watertown/pKzO1ApEsKz3azHFmqVDCN/story.html
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Comedy employs enhanced interrogation techniques in Watertown
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20130728090329
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The idea of a post-9/11 comedy seems fraught enough.
Christopher Durang’s whacked-out “Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them” features a threatening, swarthy fellow named Zamir and a short-fused all-American gun enthusiast named Leonard, along with some enhanced interrogation techniques, a porn-directing preacher, and a visit to Hooters. The 2009 play looks at just how far we’ll go to prevent threats to the homeland, real or imagined.
The Titanic Theatre Company also happens to be staging the play at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, not far from where one of the Marathon bombing suspects died and the other was captured after a shootout with police.
“Performing at the Arsenal Center, we’re very aware of what was happening right outside of there just months ago,” said director Adam Zahler, whose production runs through Aug. 10. “That’s kind of informed what we’ve been doing.”
Serious as the topic is, though, “Why Torture Is Wrong . . .” is a comedy, in the often farcical, surreal Durang manner.
“People are, I don’t want to say that they are on edge, because I don’t think that Americans are on edge about terrorism these days,” Zahler says. “Certainly in Boston recent events have reminded us that it’s not far away. But in the early days after 9/11, people were very much on edge, and we weren’t laughing about it. And it took Durang seven [or] eight years before he was able to write something . . . where we could laugh and enjoy ourselves and still be able to think about the ramifications of who we are in this post-9/11 world.
“The political climate continues to be very, very charged and the play certainly has some fun with that,” he says. “It’s a very, very current play and it’s a very, very American play.”
As the play opens, Felicity (Caroline Rose Markham) wakes up in a motel bed next to Zamir (Alexander J. Morgan) after a night of drunken debauchery. To her horror, he informs her that they got married. He claims he’s Irish, but won’t say exactly what he does for a living, except that it’s at night and not strictly legal. He also cheerfully admits to having a violent temper, so she’d better watch herself.
She takes him home to meet her parents, hoping they’ll help her with an annulment. Then things get really weird.
“You’re dealing with Christopher Durang, who just takes you into the most bizarre twists and turns that you can’t even necessarily explain,” says actor Jeff Gill, laughing. “He hammers you over the head sometimes with the politics, but he never stops going for the joke or the prank, the comedy in the moment. So you find yourself sometimes cringing at what you’re doing or laughing at.”
Gill plays Felicity’s father, Leonard, who spends much of his time in a locked room, ostensibly tending to his butterfly collection. The room is revealed as something entirely different, however, when Leonard decides that Zamir is a much worse threat than just an unsuitable son-in-law. Claiming membership in a shadow government, Leonard stands ready to do the tough things that the real government won’t. In this case, to Zamir.
Zahler also directed the Titanic troupe last year in Charles Busch’s comedy “The Third Story.”
“I hope what they know about me is that I try to bring real humanity to everything I do,” he says. “That I’m interested in truthful acting and understanding the characters in a complex way, so that we can get nuanced performances that really bring out the underlying meaning of the script. Even with Christopher Durang’s zany characters, the true humanity there.”
Gill seems to have that in mind when he talks about Leonard, who is very devoted to his butterfly-collection cover story.
“When I first read Leonard and auditioned for Leonard, my thought was that I was trying to evoke, at its most basic level, kind of an insane John Wayne,” he says. “But then, as we got into Leonard a little more, you begin to see a kind of social ineptitude in the man, almost an aphasia. He gets an idea and it just blows out of proportion to the point where he doesn’t know what a tennis racket is.”
Zahler and Gill spoke just a few days after controversy erupted over a Rolling Stone magazine cover image of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
“I think [terrorism] hovers over all of us, it really does,” Zahler says. “You can’t get away from it. You think you do, and then something occurs like that reminds you, you can’t. It’s part and parcel of the fabric of our lives.”
Company One’s 2013-14 schedule features an all-female roster of playwrights. The season kicks off with “Splendor,” a world premiere by Kirsten Greenidge (“The Luck of the Irish”) Oct. 18-Nov. 16. The title-rich “We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915,” a New England premiere by Jackie Sibblies Drury, follows Jan. 9-Feb.1, 2014. “The Flick,” the New England premiere of a play by Annie Baker set in a movie theater somewhere near Worcester, runs Feb. 20-March 15. The XX PlayLab, with Obehi Janice, Miranda Craigwell, and Natsu Onoda Power, takes place June 6-8. And “Astro Boy and the God of Comics,” a New England premiere conceived and directed by Power, runs July 18-Aug. 16.
“The Flick” will be presented with Suffolk University at the Modern Theatre, while “We Are Proud . . .” will run at the Jackie Liebergott Black Box Theatre at Emerson College’s Paramount Center. The other productions will play at the Boston Center for the Arts, where Company One is a resident company. Tickets on sale by Sept. 1, details at www.companyone.org.
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The idea of a post-9/11 comedy seems fraught enough. Christopher Durang’s whacked-out “Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them” features a threatening, swarthy fellow named Zamir and a short-fused all-American gun enthusiast named Leonard, and looks at just how far we’ll go to prevent threats to the homeland, real or imagined. The Titanic Theatre Company also happens to be staging the play at the Arsenal Center for the Arts in Watertown, not far from where one of the Marathon bombing suspects died and the other was captured after a shoot-out with police. “Performing at the Arsenal Center, we’re very aware of what was happening right outside of there just months ago,” said director Adam Zahler, whose production runs through Aug. 10.
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Breaking Down President Obama's Game
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20130730182506
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Lewis wrote that opponents don't take it easy on Obama, but Scottie Pippen didn't see it that way. When Pippen played with Obama on Election Day, he said no one challenged the president when he drove to the hoop.
"I thought the lanes opened up when Michael Jordan used to drive," Pippen said. "I used to be like, wow. But when I saw the President drive, I thought they were bringing the whole motorcade through the lane it was so wide."
Pippen came away impressed with Obama's game, which is no small achievement seeing as Pippen played on some of the best basketball squads ever assembled.
"He's not an overly aggressive player, but he takes what the defense gives him," Pippen said. "He's got a smooth game. He probably used to be a little more aggressive, but obviously he doesn't want to get hurt."
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It's not often that the leader of the free world is also a basketball nut. In that respect, President Obama is certainly unique.
Obama, who played ba...
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/sep/05/francis.bacon
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http://web.archive.org/web/20130902212618id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/sep/05/francis.bacon
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Aida Edemariam on what Francis Bacon's studio reveals about his art
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20130902212618
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Barbara Dawson, director of the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin, remembers very clearly the day in 1997 when she climbed the steep stairs and entered Francis Bacon's studio at 7 Reece Mews, South Kensington. It had been left the way it was when he died, on April 28 1992, and it was a chaos of slashed canvases, paint-splashed walls, cloths, brushes, champagne boxes, a large mirror. She stood and stared for a long time, in a kind of incredulity, "and actually it became quite beautiful." She began to see "paths cut through it," and details. "The last unfinished painting was on the easel when I went in there, and on the floor underneath the easel was a short article on George Michael, from Wham, about how he liked to be photographed from one side. It was like looking into somebody's mind."
Bacon was quite particular, and a little perverse, about where he lived and worked. 7 Reece Mews was tiny, and apart from the studio consisted of two rooms - a kitchen that contained a bath, and a living room that doubled as a bedroom. The studio had one skylight, and he usually worked there in the mornings. He tried to paint elsewhere - in South Africa, for example, when he was visiting family, but couldn't. (Too much light, was the rather surprising objection.) He liked the size and general frugality, too.
Chris Stephens, co-curator of the Tate's major retrospective this month, remembers Bacon's doctor once telling him that sometime in the 80s, by which time Bacon had been famous and wealthy for a good few years, he bought a flat around the corner. He wanted "to live more comfortably", he tells me, "but he just couldn't bear it - he just ended going back to the one room flat with a kitchen."
Dawson notes a story told by poet and writer Anthony Cronin in his essay An Irish Fear of Death? (collected in Francis Bacon in Dublin), which might explain why he might have been more comfortable in small, dark spaces: "Perhaps the most revealing story I personally remember him telling about his early childhood in Ireland concerned a maid or a nanny - I had the impression of a sort of Irish mother's help - who was left in charge of him for long periods when his parents were absent from the house. She had a soldier boyfriend who came visiting at these times; and of course, the couple wanted to be alone. But Francis was a jealous and endlessly demanding little boy who would constantly interrupt their lovemaking on one pretext or another. As a result, she took to locking him in a cupboard at the top of the stairs when her boyfriend arrived. Confined in the darkness of this cupboard Francis would scream - perhaps for several hours at a time - but since he was out of earshot of the happy courting couple, completely in vain." "That cupboard," Bacon apparently said years later, "was the making of me."
Dawson recognised that the studio was the making of Bacon's art in a more profound sense than just being a comfortable space to paint in, and determined that it should not be dismantled. John Edwards, to whom Bacon had left Reece Mews, felt similarly, and after months of painstaking cataloguing by archaeologists, conservators and photographers - they recorded the exact position of everything - the Hugh Lane Gallery took delivery of the studio, in toto, in 1998. It was opened to the public in 2001.
What is visible now, in a climate-controlled corner of the gallery, a gracious neo-classical building on Parnell Square in Dublin, is in fact a kind of faithful "skin" of objects; the tables and chairs have all been returned to their original places, the work surfaces seem as cluttered as they were - but the deep stuff, the bedrock, has been removed and is kept in climate-controlled archival areas. In the end, there were 7,500 items - 2,000 samples of painting materials, 1,500 photographs, 100 slashed canvasses, umpteen handwritten notes, drawings, books, champagne boxes, corduroy trousers (he ripped them up and used the cloth to achieve his distinctive paint textures) … it took two years to compile a database of all of it, for the delectation of Bacon scholars in perpetuity
Dawson and Stephens are both careful to insist that it would be a mistake to draw too many direct inferences between what was found there and finished canvasses - a muddy thumbprint on a photograph could mean only that he picked it up, not necessarily that he worked from it. Bacon may himself have often said things like "this mess is rather like my mind; it may be a good image of what goes on inside me" - but he had a well-developed sense of personal mythology and of what critics might want to hear; in the end the story is a bit of both - the studio is immensely revealing, and sometimes not revealing at all.
Take the triptychs, beginning with Study for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944), which Bacon liked people to think began his career. They are big, generally 6'6" by 4'6" (198cm x 137cm), completely out of proportion to the size of the room in which they were made. The dingy room at Reece Mews (far dingier that Perry Ogden's beautiful photographs might suggest), could probably hold only one full triptych, and then only if almost everything else was moved out of it. Does that mean he never saw triptychs together until they were displayed in a gallery? Then again, Stephens points out, if you look at their specific composition, there is almost always a tightly focused figure in the middle of what is often effectively a flat background. "He puts the figure in the centre, and all he draws in is the figure, and they're nearly always the same scale, so even when you move from a small canvas to a big canvas, the small canvasses are just heads. And there tends to be a relationship of where they are in the canvas. It depends how you hang it, but you feel as though there's eye-to-eye contact."
You could almost argue that the clarity, the clear, emotional force that so many people respond to in Bacon - all those heads, screaming or not, where the eyes are obscured in favour of what feels like the flayed and naked contents of a mind - was in some ways aided by the closeness of his surroundings. "The context tends to be filled in afterwards. I mean, it changes over time, actually, but you do feel that it's almost the bit he struggles with most, is how to contextualise the figure." You could also start reading themes of enclosure, of entrapment, into the box-like lines that occur in so many of the paintings, and extend that to an effect of working in such a small space - and that may or may not be right.
Much more fertile - though similarly complicated - is the issue of source material. Cappock writes in her book on the studio that Bacon gave up using sitters early, because it inhibited him – he was much more comfortable working from paintings and from photographs, either those he found, or those he had commissioned. John Deakin's photos of Bacon's lover George Dyer, of Isabel Rawsthorne, of Henrietta Moraes, were all found in the studio, and all resulted in major work. Sometimes the relationship is relatively direct - Velazquez's Pope Innocent X becoming the 1953 Study after Velazquez, for example, or the recurring images of Dyer, whom Bacon bullied and scorned in life, but whose suicide resulted in some of his greatest, and - as John Maybury attempted to show in his 1998 film about Bacon, Love is the Devil - most tender work. But even these were often amalgamated with aspects of other photographs, other images: the screaming mouth of the nurse in Battleship Potemkin, for example (though Bacon also cited a wailing mother in Poussin's Massacre of the Innocents at Chantilly), interpreting Velazquez's dour Innocent X (which, incidentally, he seems never to have seen in person); Eadweard Muybridge's wrestlers providing both a way for figures to lie coupling on a bed, and a feeling, as Stephens puts it, of being "isolated and frozen in time".
Less direct, but no less important, is the sense in which Bacon was simply amassing images as if they were compost, the sediment out of which paintings might grow. Sometimes this was quite literal. "My photographs are very damaged by people walking over them and crumpling them and everything else," he once told the critic David Sylvester, "and this does add other implications to an image of Rembrandt's, for instance, which are not Rembrandt's." The 1,500 photographs in the studio, and some of the 570 books, included images of shattered limbs (French propaganda photographs from the Algerian war); crowds under fire; assassinations (Kennedy's was a favourite); medical imagery (diseased gums, a colour atlas of forensic pathology, diagrams of recommended positioning for radiography).
"The thing was", Stephens says, "he didn't necessarily paint any of those - and yet he's sort of trying to get that feeling, that tension and apprehension, in his own images. There's a sense that just by owning images they somehow infected him." At the same time as he was absorbing, and cannibalising, and taking what he wanted out of photographs - sometimes physically; he was not shy about ripping them up (even if they were by Cartier-Bresson), safety-pinning sections of two different photographs together to get an effect he liked, drawing all over them - he was attempting to transcend them, because photography made the business of figurative painting so complicated. "Everything he does is negotiating that," says Stephens. "How you do figurative painting in the age of photography?"
Unlike the rest of his flat, the studio was a private place. Entry was by invitation only, though, as Dawson points out, he did like having people back there late at night, drinking champagne and discussing his latest work. Looking at the mess, it can be hard to imagine that this was anything less that a transparent vision of the way he worked - but that was not entirely the case. Trace back the ways in which Bacon, and particularly Bacon's sources, are generally described, and it is striking how many of them originated with him. He used transparency as a foil: his articulacy about his own work, in interview after interview, set the terms of reference, and thus obscured the things he chose not to say.
One of his favourite self-mythologies, for example, was that he didn't draw, didn't make sketches before he began to paint. You can see why he might want to give an impression of emotion splashed directly onto canvas, the age-old Romantic idea of inspiration ushered directly into art, but in fact it wasn't entirely true. Forty-one works on paper were found in the studio, as well as sketches hidden in the end papers of books. In his last publication on Bacon, in fact, eight years after his death, Sylvester called drawing Bacon's "secret vice."
Then there's the story - hearsay, Dawson insists - that whips were found among the detritus. It is fairly well-known that Bacon had masochistic tendencies, but out of what seems to be a fear that the colourful life might overshadow the art, Dawson prefers to play it down. When I ask what the oddest thing they found was, she laughs and starts talking about a book on ectoplasmic phenomena that seems to have contributed to Bacon's interest, in the early 50s, in the effect of a figure materialising within a curtain. Which is interesting, but not quite what I asked about. Surely his sexual predilections, his interest in violence, are an integral part of the man, and thus a part of the work - the beds like racks, the screaming men so physically intimating mental pain?
Bacon was homosexual at a time when it was still illegal, and while he was open about his sexuality, his notes for prospective paintings refer to "bed[s] of crime]", and "his homosexuality was felt as an affliction," says Dawson. "While his family were more supportive than might have been appreciated, it certainly wasn't easy." "The sense of guilt," adds Stephens, "is in the work." Masochism, he feels, gives an extra dimension to Bacon's fascination with violence. "His collections of pictures, of dead bodies, or depictions of violence - he's not looking at violence from the classic liberal position." And the masochistic streak, concedes Dawson, was accompanied by intellectual rigour, and an insistent attempt at objectivity - "he's trying to detach from himself as well. 'Oh, you hit me. What kind of a sensation is that?'"
Everything was grist, and in his studio even his own art fed other art. As Cappock points out, he returned to his own work obsessively, repeating and augmenting. The first Dyer triptychs happened fast, within a week after Dyer's death in October 1971, and then in the following summer and spring; the Tate owns a Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion painted 44 years after the first one. And of course, he responded negatively - and violently — as well as positively; a hundred is a lot of slashed canvasses to keep around you when you're working, especially when they are so deliberately slashed. Every small defaced canvas was literally so - the faces were cut out. Which might, in a way, serve as a metaphor for the importance of our understanding of his studio as a whole.
We can see all the peripheral stimuli, the basis for the work, but with him died the unifying mind, the place where everything came together, into what he himself called, in a 1985 interview with Melvyn Bragg, "images which are a concentration of reality, and a shorthand of sensation."
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On the eve of a major retrospective at Tate Britain, Aida Edemariam visits the artist's studio. But what does this tiny, chaotic space really reveal about the birth of Bacon's art?
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This ‘Miss Daisy’ steers away from archetypes
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20130913101450
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GLOUCESTER — Don’t dismiss “Driving Miss Daisy” as the slim exercise in character studies you already know. Under the deft direction of Benny Sato Ambush, three extraordinary actors at the Gloucester Stage Company deliver delicately tuned performances that uncover depth and nuance from stock characters.
Johnny Lee Davenport, Lindsay Crouse, and Robert Pemberton offer revelatory performances that draw us completely into the heart of this “family.”
Playwright Alfred Uhry earned two Tony Awards for his larger family dramas, “The Last Night of Ballyhoo” and the musical “Parade,” but “Driving Miss Daisy” is a chamber piece that fits snugly within an era (Atlanta from 1948 through 1973). The temptation is to imbue the play’s characters with a sense of symbolism at this time of seismic social change, so that ornery, elderly Daisy Werthan represents the changing attitudes of white folk; her attentive son and successful businessman Boolie is the well-meaning but conservative establishment; and Hoke Coleburn, the chauffeur Boolie hires for his mother, becomes a black man patiently waiting for equality.
Director Ambush guides his actors away from archetypes and into the intimate world of the characters. The audience is rewarded with moments we recognize and identify with because they could occur not only at a time of social unrest, but anytime and anywhere with any three people who are so different from one another.
“Driving Miss Daisy” unfolds in a series of scenes that take place over the 25 years Hoke (Davenport) drives for Miss Daisy (Crouse). On the surface, the story follows the breaking down of Miss Daisy’s resistance to having a driver, and to seeing Hoke as anything but a hired hand. Uhry’s scenes also suggest a gentle move forward, as both Daisy and Hoke compromise to find a place of mutual understanding, respect, and, ultimately, friendship. As Boolie, Pemberton serves as referee and coach, providing comic relief and wise counsel without ever playing the fool.
The wonder of these performances comes from the actors’ absolute immersion in them. We watch in awe as Crouse’s Daisy fiercely defends her independence, panics when she has a bit of a nervous breakdown, stubbornly asserts her point of view and brooks no dissent. At the same time, Crouse elicits giggles when she exhibits Daisy’s wry humor and is absolutely radiant when Daisy recalls her first taste of saltwater as a child.
Davenport matches Crouse note for note, introducing Hoke as a man willing to be subservient because he’s in need of a job. He is endlessly patient with Daisy’s demands, but when he draws a line with her behavior in two separate instances and once with Boolie, we all know he is not to be trifled with.
Jenna McFarland Lord creates a set that suggests the various playing areas with different sections of ceiling molding: graceful filigree for Daisy’s living room, plain for the garage and a simple Star of David for the temple where Daisy worships, all clearly defined by John Malinowski’s lighting.
Ultimately, the beauty of this production comes from the performers’ emphasis not on Daisy and Hoke’s ability to find things in common with each other, but in their openness to learning to love and respect their differences.
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GLOUCESTER – Don’t dismiss “Driving Miss Daisy” as the slim exercise in character studies you already know. Under the deft direction of Benny Sato Ambush, three extraordinary actors at the Gloucester Stage Company deliver delicately tuned performances that uncover depth and nuance from stock characters. Johnny Lee Davenport, Lindsay Crouse and Robert Pemberton offer revelatory performances that draw us completely into the heart of this “family.” Director Ambush guides his actors away from archetypes and into the intimate world of the characters. The audience is rewarded with moments we recognize and identify with because they could occur not only at a time of social unrest, but anytime and anywhere with any three people who are so different from one another.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20130921194532id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/television/2013/09/19/emmy-pool-reflects-strong-year-television/q0Jet4RHvcuszbavV7ldbN/story.html
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Emmy pool reflects a strong year of television
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20130921194532
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Do the Emmys accurately represent the TV revolution?
Since the late 1990s, the medium has rebelled against its early reputation as a wasteland, and it has become a home to outrageously good scripted storytelling. The canon of potential “Sopranos”- and “Wire”-level greats grows yearly, thanks to ambitious “content outlets” such as AMC, HBO, FX, and, now, Netflix.
So when the people of the future thumb their way to Wikipedia’s lists of Emmy Award nominees and winners for the 20-teens, will they see the best of the best reflecting back at them from their screenless screens? Will they get a true picture?
I’d say yes, for the most part, in terms of nominations. Sure, there have been a few outstanding shows and actors in recent years that, famously, have been under-nominated or completely ignored. “The Wire,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Homicide: Life on the Streets,” “Oz,” and “Friday Night Lights” are all in the Emmy Shame Hall of Fame. Those shows have stayed alive in our culture, thanks to fan love and post-TV platforms including DVDs, and no thanks to Emmy immortality.
But going into this year’s ceremony, which will air on Sunday at 8 p.m. on CBS, the list of nominated shows and actors is actually a pretty fair representation of our era. There are one or two missteps, of course. The absence of FX’s “The Americans” is too bad; the drama was among the year’s most exciting newcomers, with sensational performances by Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell as Russian spies in 1980s America. And the exclusion of Tatiana Maslany in the best actress category is tragic. Her turns as a group of clones on BBC America’s “Orphan Black” are dazzling. But still, the nominees all taken together do approximate The Best TV of 2012-13. And odds are that those shows and actors will make it next year. Often, the Academy is a year or two or three behind; “Friday Night Lights” got no significant notice until its last two seasons.
It’s surprising to call the Emmys accurate, in a way, since complaining about the Emmys is such a popular sport. The fun of the Emmy nominations and winner lists, like almost every year-end, decade-end, and Buzzfeed-style countdown, is to inspire outrage as much, if not more, than agreement. What a total yawner that would be, if we all agreed that the finest shows were honored every year. But generally speaking, we are quibbling, rather than profoundly disagreeing. Nearly all of the current TV elites have been nominated for something major in the past few years.
“Breaking Bad” is here in a big way, along with “Mad Men” and “Game of Thrones,” a trio of all-time excellence. “Game of Thrones” probably won’t ever take home a best drama statue; the voters don’t tend to favor drama. But the fantasy-history series has certainly left a mark on most of the drama categories. And none of the “Mad Men” actors and actresses has ever won, but many of them have been nominated — the show has dominated the supporting acting categories in drama for years. “Nurse Jackie,” “30 Rock,” “Louie,” “Veep,” and “Parks and Recreation,” they’re all Top 10 list regulars, and they’re all in the running for Emmys. In its first year of creating series in earnest, Netflix has already made a mark on the nominations with “House of Cards” and the “Arrested Development” reboot.
Even “Enlightened,” a show too small to survive more than two short seasons on HBO, has been registered by the Academy. The series has two nominations this year, including best actress for Laura Dern.
Winning Emmys is a different story. If our future friends look solely at lists of those who’ve taken home the gold in the last decade or so, well, they’ll get a skewed perspective on what we think is good TV — with all due respect to last year’s best comedy actor Jon Cryer. Sometimes just being nominated puts you in the best of company.
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When the people of the future thumb their way to Wikipedia’s lists of Emmy Award nominees and winners for the 20-teens, will they see the best of the best reflecting back at them from their screenless screens? Will they get a true picture? I’d say yes, for the most part, in terms of nominations. Sure, there have been a few outstanding shows and actors in recent years that, famously, have been under-nominated or completely ignored. “The Wire,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Homicide: Life on the Streets,” “Oz,” and “Friday Night Lights” are all in the Emmy Shame Hall of Fame. Those shows have stayed alive in our culture, thanks to fan love and post-TV platforms including DVDs, and no thanks to Emmy immortality. But going into this year’s ceremony, the list of nominated shows and actors is actually a pretty fair representation of our era.
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Alex Hartley: The world is still big
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Last Monday, at about 9.30am, I became a citizen of a nation called Nowhereisland. Unlike becoming a British citizen, a tricky process which involves being tested on the number of parliamentary constituencies, joining the nascent population of Nowhereisland was easy. I logged on to its website, supplied my name, address and age and… tah dah! Job done. As I write, Nowhereisland's population is 3,323: still a way off that of Monaco (30,539) and Liechtenstein (35,236), but already rather bigger than that of the Falkland Islands (3,140). Unlike these places, however, newcomers to Nowhereisland are welcome irrespective of their ability to make a living or the size of their bank balances. Handy. A certificate proving my status will, therefore, be arriving in the post in the next few days.
Nowhereisland is the brainchild of Alex Hartley, a British artist, and its physical manifestation – a floating sculpture made mostly of matter collected from an island in the High Arctic – is to be one of the 12 projects in the (clumsily titled) "Artists taking the lead" section of next year's Cultural Olympiad. But we will come back to this piece of genius/madness. Nowhereisland's 500-mile journey around the south-west coast of England – the island will be pulled along by a tug and moored at several ports en route – does not begin until July 2012. In the meantime, you need to go to Victoria Miro in Islington, north London, to see his latest show, The world is still big – a mix of photographs, sculpture and installation (plus, in the gallery's project room, a kind of trailer for Nowhereisland).
It's a beautiful, involving and thought-provoking exhibition and, should you fail properly to grasp its nuances, you can always holler Hartley's name, loudly, across the ornamental pond at the back of the gallery. Perhaps he will appear and answer your questions. For here, for the duration of his show, the artist will be living in a copy of one of the "eco domes" made famous by the hippies of Drop City, Colorado, in the 60s.
From the outside, the dome looks ramshackle, especially compared to the sleek lines of the gallery: made from rusting car bonnets cut into triangles, it's a lunar module as designed by Harold Steptoe. A chicken coop – the hens travelled with Alex from his home in Devon – only adds to the feeling of slight desperation. Inside, though, it's unexpectedly cosy. The walls have been lined with hessian and, thanks to a wood-burning stove, it's warm.
Is it spooky at night, when the gallery is empty? Hartley smiles. "It is a bit spooky, yes. But there's loads of wildlife: a heron and a fox that lives under the pontoon." His first sleepover was rudely interrupted when the stove overheated, melted part of his chimney and smoke poured in. But he has fixed this problem now and seems quite content. What did Victoria Miro think when he told her of his plans? Wouldn't she have preferred that he build, say, an elegant glass box? "Luckily, she was really into it. Sometimes, though, you just have to be a bit ballsy and say, 'This is what I'm doing.'" And his chutzpah, he thinks, has paid off. The dome has exceeded his expectations. "The smoke and the chickens animate it," he says. His new home is at once out of time, and out of place, and yet, somehow, alive.
Hartley's work seeks to explore the connection between habitation and wilderness, between belonging and isolation. It's about the seeking of sanctuary, the search for peace in a noisy world, but it also suggests a dystopian future in which such things are necessary for survival rather than chosen. (Hartley was born in 1963 and, like me, grew up at a point in history when children lived in fear of the bomb and perhaps this plays into it, too.) As a result, it makes you feel calm, transported, but anxious, too.
The world is still big consists, apart from his dome, of a series of large-scale photographs, mostly of the Arctic and South America. Except they are not only photographs. Examine them closely and you will see that Hartley has built, or rather stuck, scaled architectural models on to, and sometimes into, their surfaces. In The future is certain, a photograph of the lonely border between Argentina and Chile, tiny caves have been built into a rocky cliff. In Outpost, an icy Arctic mound has been topped by a space-age bunker. In I'm tired of travelling, a rudimentary tent has been cast on to a backdrop of ancient woodland and mossy stones. What is interesting about these images is that even the more benign landscapes – one photograph was taken in the sunshine of Joshua Tree, California, another in Sardinia – come to seem menacing once Hartley has added his constructions.
"I'm not like Wolfgang [Tillmans, the Turner prize-winning photographer]," he says. "I'm not a very good photographer. I have to do something else, make some kind of intervention. But I live with the photograph, which is a static thing, day after day at first. That's when I build a past into it, create a narrative for it, and that's what excites me. But just making a nice new house wouldn't really take me anywhere and so the original scene seems to deteriorate almost in front of me. I can't help it."
Look carefully at I don't know where I am, a photograph of a stark South American plain, and you will see the scant remains of a burnt wooden dwelling and four tiny wooden crosses. On Waiting for Daylight to End, meanwhile, Hartley has built a facsimile of the Unabomber's cabin in a woodland clearing.
After we've looked at the photographs, we contemplate Bivvy, a fibreglass sculpture of a tent in a snowdrift, which sits right in the middle of the gallery. The effect is to make the visitor imagine that the artist might not have made it back from his latest trip, that his frozen, mummified body is even now lying inside it. Then we head for the gallery's project space where photographs of Hartley's discovery of Nowhereisland in 2004 are on display – together with a world map showing the location of all its new citizens (among my fellow Nowhereislanders are Rachel Whiteread, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Tim Smit, the chief executive of the Eden Project).
Nowhereisland isn't an easy project to sum up, as its creator found when he pitched his idea to the Arts Council, which is funding the project. But I will have a go. In 2004, Hartley travelled to the High Arctic with Cape Farewell, an organisation dedicated to encouraging a cultural response to climate change. (It was with Cape Farewell that Ian McEwan travelled to the far north, an experience he later put into his novel, Solar.) During this trip, Hartley discovered a small island, Nymark ("new ground"), which had been revealed by the melting ice of a retreating glacier in the Svalbard archipelago, 500 miles off the coast of Norway. He was the first man to stand on it and, with the help of the Norwegian Polar Institute, had it registered on maps and charts.
At first, Hartley simply wanted to photograph the island. "Standing on it was a huge thrill," he says. "I mean, it was properly thrilling, and I just wanted to record that, really, and to get a funny letter back from the governor of Svalbard when I wrote to him inquiring about sovereignty." But then he got to thinking. What if his island travelled south in search of a population? Having got permission from Svalbard's governor, he returned to Nymark and removed some material from it. It is this matter – glacial moraine, mostly – that he will turn into Nowhereisland, his floating sculpture.
Nowhereisland will be accompanied by (on land) its own embassy, a staffed mobile museum full of information about the project. Online, meanwhile, you can already read about its constitution – a work in progress – and statements by its "resident thinkers" (among them are Tim Cresswell, professor of human geography at Royal Holloway, Sir John Tusa, ex managing director of the BBC World Service, and Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan or, The Whale). The idea is that Nowhereisland will ask questions about migration, sovereignty and global warming. Above all, though, it wonders: what would life be like in a place where we could start from scratch? How would its people grow their food, fund their arts and travel around? Nowhereisland, established in response to the failure of other states to address global crises, seeks to redefine what a nation can be.
Back in his eco dome, Hartley tells me that he is a little nervous "about all this interaction". For him, it represents a significant and mildly alarming expansion of his artistic practice, which hitherto has been somewhat more solitary. And not everyone is going to get it. In the south-west, politicians, on being told of the plan for the island to visit their towns, have already muttered about the waste of public money involved. Then again, it will be a privilege to have his work seen by so many people, some of them stumbling on the mysterious island as they go about their day. "I'm interested in the dog walker who spots us from a cliff as much as in a group of visiting schoolchildren," he says. He settles down to cook me lunch on his stove: a sausage and puy lentil concoction, whose meaty components come from his own pigs.
What will happen to his new home when the show ends in January? "Oh, I'll take it back to Devon," he says. "I'd be sad not to keep it with me." For now, though, he is going to enjoy the curious peace it affords: it has a hermetic quality that makes you forget you are in the heart of London. He calls this dome, hunkered and hidden, art. But you could also call it, literally and metaphorically, the quiet before the storm.
Nowhereisland will be moored at Weymouth, Dorset from 25 July 2012 before beginning its journey around the south-west coast of England, arriving in Bristol on 9 Sept. For more details, go to nowhereisland.org
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As part of next year's Cultural Olympiad, the artist Alex Hartley will take a floating island around the south-west coast of England. Right now, though, you'll find him camping close by for his latest show exploring the wild side, writes Rachel Cooke
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Amanda Knox News Coverage
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By Carolyn Kellogg , This post has been updated. See the note below for details.
Story | Jul 16, 2013 | 12:33 PM
"I believe I made a grave error in judgment in wanting to represent this story." That's what Sharlene Martin wrote about her decision to take on Juror B37 as a client. The juror had been part of the trial of George Zimmerman, who shot and killed unarmed...
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Complete Los Angeles Times news coverage on Amanda Knox including photos, videos, opinion and archival articles.
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Interview: Melissa Denes meets David Bailey
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Three years ago, David Bailey put out the word that he wanted naked people - lots of them. Not nudes: nudes he was bored of. "All that worrying about poncy lighting, making people look like landscapes or rocks," he says. "If I wanted to photograph a fucking rock, I'd photograph a fucking rock." Bailey is 67 now, but he still has the wideboy swagger that launched him in the 60s. He wears combats and a safari jacket; he likes to think of himself as a snapper first and an artist second. Of course, he has a reputation for making people look beautiful, too, sexy and alive, which means he soon had well over 100 naked volunteers - old, young, big, skinny, average-looking, model-perfect. No one was turned down, and everyone was photographed exactly the same way - six shots, 10 minutes, standing 12 feet in front of a white screen with a single light overhead. Naked, but not nude. Big difference, Bailey says. Nude photography is all about the photographer - the photographer's sexuality, prejudices, aesthetic. Naked photography is all about the subject, "people being themselves".
Bailey's studio is a big but unthreatening space in a cobbled mews in Clerkenwell; his flat's just a few minutes' walk away. There is a lot of artwork on the walls - some of his own (a wolf, one of his "pussy paintings"), a vast blue Damien Hirst canvas studded with butterflies, a portrait of Bailey by Helmut Newton, taken just six weeks before Newton died and signed, "To the greatest photographer in the world from your greatest fan and debutante". In one corner of the room there is a pair of leather sofas, where Bailey likes to talk to people before photographing them - his usual ratio of talking to shooting is one hour to 10 minutes, or 6:1, and while he knows some people find this frustrating, it's the bit Bailey excels at, getting people to open up. He doesn't really do small talk; he does big personal questions and intense eye contact - What does your boyfriend do? Are you feeling shy today? Shall we dance? - and he does this partly to tease you and partly because, if only for a moment, he really wants to know. He is still a big kid, with a kid's appetite for new people and new faces.
Bailey first got the idea for his naked portraits 30 years ago, but didn't know where to start. "I wasn't sophisticated enough. I didn't know how to do nothing - it's doing nothing that's really hard. And then, this is going to sound fucking pretentious, but I was reading Plato's Republic" - he sniggers at his nerve - "and I thought, why not Bailey's Democracy? I wanted to do something organic. I didn't cast it, I didn't tell people where to sit or how to stand. They chose their own pose. I didn't worry about Rembrandt lighting or any crap like that. You could almost do it in a photo booth if you had the right quality camera, one that could get the detail. The camera I used is enormous, half the size of this table" - he bangs the coffee table in front of him with the heel of his shoe - "and that dictates how the picture is shot. People have a sort of nervous respect for it, like a cathedral. And you look directly at the person, rather than through the camera, so there's no barrier."
We look through the prints, more than 130 of them spread out over two trestle tables and sorted into piles marked MEN, WOMEN, COUPLES. Bailey won't say which he thinks are the best (he says he doesn't have favourites), only which people he liked - who made him laugh, who had the most sex, the weirdest relationship, the most amazing skin, the biggest penis. There is a picture of Damien Hirst clowning, of Bailey's wife Catherine giving him a challenging look, the photographer Rankin sucking on his girlfriend's breast. Mostly, though, Bailey's Democracy is made up of strangers and non-celebrities, the kind of people he doesn't meet on a Vogue shoot, but would like to.
Of course, when Bailey got his first job at Vogue he wasn't really the kind you met there, either. He was very young, only 21, very straight and - the biggest anomaly - working class. He grew up in Leytonstone, north-east London, with his mother, his sister Thelma, his Aunt Dolly, and Dolly's bull terrier and African grey parrot: "We were straight out of Dickens." (His dad was around, but seldom came home: "He was quite, um ... social.") None of which made Bailey obvious Vogue material, which at the time was staffed mainly with aristo photographers who shot debutantes in stately homes. Bailey remembers dropping off some photographs at a magazine owned by the young Michael Heseltine and being mistaken for the courier: "Tell Mr Bailey we will give him a ring."
"People would pat me on the head and say, [he puts on a posh mockney accent] 'Don't he talk cute.'" Bailey started out taking portraits for the Daily Express. "Every week they'd run a line saying, 'Watch out for David Bailey's exciting new picture on Thursday!' and I'd think, 'Shit, I haven't even taken it yet.'" At Vogue he moved on to fashion, although he was always more interested in the girls than the clothes. He discovered Jean Shrimpton, the Shrimp, the first in a series of worldbeatingly beautiful girlfriends - though you have to remember he was beautiful himself then, too.
In the 60s a lot of Bailey's contemporaries hoped he was just a flash-in-the-pan, a phase fashion editors were going through. But he turned out to be a very good photographer: he understood composition and lighting, but he was also loose enough, and engaged enough, to capture the energy and glamour of 60s London better than anyone else. "It was a great decade - for about 2,000 of us, living in London. I don't know if it was great for miners in Yorkshire, or machinists in the Rhondda Valley. And I got lucky - I came along at the right time. If Hogarth came along now, who'd care?"
In the 40 years since, Bailey has worked and worked, rarely taking a holiday, not caring if he goes in and out of fashion. He is now more in demand as a portraitist than a fashion photographer, but this suits him: the clothes were always something of a distraction, a sideline. He has shot hundreds of television commercials, a number of documentaries (on Warhol, on models) and a couple of feature films, although he says he won't make any more movies: there are too many egos involved, and the end result is never anything like his original idea. He thinks his best work is The Lady Is A Tramp, a book of incredibly intimate photographs of his wife Catherine, on the toilet, in labour - although this is also the work he has had to defend the hardest, against charges of misogyny and exploitation. Naturally, he thinks this is retro-feminist nonsense: "If I wasn't in love with [Catherine], or sexually involved with her, it wouldn't mean anything. It's absurd to say I don't like women - ask all my ex-wives [he was married to Catherine Deneuve and Marie Helvin, but also counts long-term girlfriends Shrimpton and Penelope Tree]. They like me, I think. I've never told stories, I've never had relationships end badly." If he's been guilty of anything, he implies, it's of liking women too much, of being too greedy. And these days he's a relatively reformed character: he's been married for more than 20 years, and is a very devoted father of three - Paloma, 20, Fenton, 18, and Sascha, 11.
What does he make of the current generation of British photographers, working in colour, retouching images? "Nothing wrong with retouching - nothing new about retouching. Do you think when Raphael was asked to go and paint Princess Whatsername, he went and painted her with her fucking scurvy and her fucking scabby skin? Course not. He takes it back to old Joe de Medici, who thinks, 'She's not bad, I'll have a slice of her.' And I don't mind colour, but for me it turns everything into vodka ads - it gets in the way." He likes the work of Terry Richardson, Juergen Teller and Rankin - "Photographers with attitude." He doesn't care that a lot of people who now sit for him have had cosmetic surgery, or been Botoxed: "I can't tell their ages so well, but if it makes you happy, why not? If I want another inch on my dick, I'll get one. If you want a tit job, go get a tit job."
His own style, he says, has evolved very little. He keep people's hands out of headshots these days - "I wouldn't take that picture of you now, with your hands under your chin like that, it's completely naff" - but otherwise he thinks the only way you can tell the difference between a shot taken in 1965 and one taken in 2005 is by looking at the people, "whether it's John and Paul, or Johnny Depp". And it has always been the people that interest him. "I don't think what I do is particularly great, but you can't copy it. A lot of people copy [Helmut] Newton - badly - but you can't copy something that's to do with personal chemistry. I love people for giving me their time. It's a privilege - I make the most of it."
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David Bailey, one of the world's top fashion photographers, has never been interested in clothes - only the person underneath. So he asked people to strip naked for his camera, strike their own pose, be themselves. Bailey's Democracy's is the project he has wanted to shoot for 30 years. Interview by Melissa Denes.
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A real-life Lego hot rod
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This is a full-size, air-powered hot rod built out of plastic bricks.
This is a running, driving hot rod made of Lego. It has an air-powered Lego engine. It'll do 18mph. And it's entirely incredible.
Named the Super Awesome Micro Project, it was built by Romanian plastic brick enthusiast Raul Oaida from more than 500,000 Lego pieces and can manage a dizzying top speed of 18mph. The engine - also built of out Lego - has a total of 256 pistons in four orbital units and runs on compressed air. Which is intensely clever. Especially considering Oaida is 20 years old and entirely self-taught.
There's no word yet on how the Lego-rod handles, but we suspect a Nürburgring lap record attempt would result in the driver, erm, bricking it. Even so, is this the ultimate kit car?
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A Romanian student has built a functioning car out of the plastic bricks that reaches a top speed of 18mph.
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The Telegraph's Innovations Toolkit 4.0
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Following the success of our previous Innovations Toolkits the latest ‘Toolkit 4.0’ is a fully interactive mock-up of The Daily Telegraph newspaper, showcasing some of the most innovative and creative ad formats we can produce across our print and digital portfolio.
Blippar technology is embedded throughout the Toolkit to enable readers to bring the digital ad formats to life. The Toolkit also features pink panels on each ad, providing information on the ad format and its effectiveness, as well as insight into the Telegraph’s audience.
Dave King, Executive Director The Telegraph, says: “The Telegraph produces premium content to an extensive premium audience. We are committed to working with our commercial partners to explore innovative ways in which to communicate their message to our consumers.
“We have led the market and produced Toolkits for all of our platforms over the last two years and it’s in keeping with our cross-platform philosophy and drive for innovation that we showcase our platforms together in this latest edition.”
The Toolkit 4.0 also features a dedicated lift-out to promote The Telegraph Challenge. The competition, which is open to all media agencies, launches on 9th April, offering the winning team a £100,000 campaign for their client across The Telegraph’s portfolio, and a personal prize of £5000.
Watch Chris Ricketts, Head of Multi Media explain Innovations Toolkit 4.0.
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Our latest Innovations Toolkit is fully interactive, showing our latest media firsts and print technologies to bring your campaign to life.
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McDonald’s key sales metric rises in November
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OAK BROOK, Ill. — McDonald’s said Monday that a key sales figure rose 0.5 percent in November, even as the world’s biggest hamburger chain faced tough competition and basically flat traffic in the United States.
Its global sales performance was the same as in October. Sales at stores open at least a year is a key gauge of health because it excludes results from stores recently opened or closed. The company said the metric fell 0.8 percent in the United States. While breakfast items, chicken options, and its new expanded value menu did well, that was pressured by intense competition and flat traffic.
In Europe, it increased 1.9 percent on strong performances in the United Kingdom, France, and Russia. This was somewhat offset by weakness in Germany. It declined 2.3 percent in the region including Asia, the Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa.
The lackluster results come as McDonald’s faces intensifying competition and changing eating habits. To keep pace, McDonald’s has introduced options such as chicken wraps and breakfast sandwiches with egg whites.
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OAK BROOK, Ill. — McDonald’s said Monday that a key sales figure rose 0.5 percent in November, even as the world’s biggest hamburger chain faced tough competition and basically flat traffic in the U.S. Its global sales performance was the same as in October. The stock slipped in premarket trading. Sales at stores open at least a year is a key gauge of health because it excludes results from stores recently opened or closed. The company said that the metric fell 0.8 percent in the U.S. While breakfast items, chicken options and its new expanded value menu did well, that was pressured by intense competition and flat traffic. In Europe, it increased 1.9 percent on strong performances in the U.K., France and Russia.
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This Teenage Artist Was Bullied Off Of Tumblr After Making A Webcomic About White Privilege
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This is Jamie Kapp, a 19-year-old artist who posted a very viral comic on white privilege and institutionalized racism. Jamie first made the comic “White Privilege” because she was angry and she wanted to vent.
“I was mad that I had to explain such a simple issue as white privilege in a comic because it’s something that people should read for themselves,” she said.
After seeing posts on Tumblr, where the comic was originally posted, and other places on the internet, she wanted to create something accessible that explained the concepts of white privilege and institutionalized racism. She put it on Tumblr, instead of her DeviantArt account or Facebook, because the community there is particularly dedicated to social justice.
But for every social justice blog Jamie saw, there was a blog mocking it. She had never made a comic centered around race or anything remotely political before, the most popular comic of hers prior to this work being about relationships on the internet.
The first feedback she received was mostly positive, comments like “this is how we white ally” or “this is how you do it.” Her first negative message came in around the time the post had hit approximately 20,000 notes on Tumblr. That was also around the time BuzzFeed contacted her asking for her permission to share the comic.
“I looked and said ‘oh wait, there’s a Facebook comment section [on BuzzFeed]. Oh no, this is not going to be good for me,’” Jamie said. A short time later, Jamie shut down her blog in reaction to the sheer number of hate mail and death threats she was receiving.
This is what Jamie’s Tumblr looks like right now.
Jamie has a history of suffering from anxiety and other mental health issues like depression.
“I took pills, I got medicated, I went to therapy,” she said. “I kind of worked past the worst of it. But it’s still kind of there in the back of my head. I do suffer from really bad self-esteem issues so I do tend to focus on the negative reviews rather than the positive, which is something a lot of people told me is bizarre.”
In an attempt to deter people from leaving hate messages and death threats, Jamie shut down her blog, calling it a hiatus, and now only gets online to check her email, websites for her schoolwork, and check in on her inbox on Tumblr.
“People have flooded my inbox and basically signal boosted the comic more because I might be dead,” Jamie said. “Which is kind of unfortunate for me because I’m not dead.”
Jamie’s withdrawal from Tumblr galvanized people into sharing the comic more and promoting it more, but she would really just like to try and put the whole incident behind her.
“I would like my message to be heard, but I would really like to come back and post on Tumblr some more.”
Many have accused Jamie of being a white apologist, of having too much white guilt. “It’s not that I hate white people, I never even said that, I never said that I hated anyone,” Jamie said. “I hate ignorance.”
For now, Jamie plans on trying to get her life back to normal as much possible and put the comic — and all of the vitriol that it inspired — behind her. She’s currently in the process of getting registered with the school district of her county so she can get field experience and work with children. Someone from Chicago approached her via Twitter to ask permission to use her comic as an instructive tool. Someday she plans to come back to the internet.
“On the one hand, I’m so thankful that I have this cool place to share my thoughts and ideas and artwork. But at the same time, I do fear for my life and other people’s lives. To be honest, even if I knew this was going happen, I would have posted it anyway.”
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After death threats and hate mail forced her on a hiatus from the internet, the artist behind the white privilege comic talks about her anxiety and keeping it together.
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All In Agenda: Who owns West Virginia's water?
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20140118112121
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1. Former Port Authority employee David Wildstein will talk if given immunity, according to his lawyer. But will he be given immunity? Joining Chris Hayes to discuss are host of Up at msnbc, Steve Kornacki, and Fort Lee, New Jersey, Assemblywoman Valerie Vanieri Huttle.
2. Today the president called on Congress to overhaul key parts of the NSA. Sitting at the table with Chris Hayes to explain is Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Anthony Romeo.
3. So, who owns West Virginia’s water? Not West Virginia? Chris Hayes is joined by radio broadcaster Bob Kincaid.
4. This was supposed to be the year for “black film” at the Oscars. So why were the majority of black films snubbed? Joining the table at All In are New York Times film critic A.O. Scott, film critic at New York magazine David Edelstein, and Slate blogger Aisha Harris.
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All In Agenda for Friday, January 17.
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Two children killed in Balata
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Two children have been killed by Israeli occupation troops in the besieged Balata refugee camp, which is experiencing its sixth day of a massive Israeli military invasion.
Aljazeera correspondents in the West Bank reported that a five-year-old boy was killed on Sunday when Israeli soldiers opened fire in the refugee camp.
The five-year-old has been named as Muhammad Naim Tesrida who was shot in the chest while playing near his house in Balata. Medics reported that Tesrida died shortly after he was shot.
Another boy died earlier today from injuries he received five days ago when he was hit in the head by a rubber bullet fired by the Israeli military.
Aljazeera correspondents have named the dead boy, 13, as Nur Imran, who was taken to a hospital in Nablus four days ago where he fell into a coma.
A local man told Aljazeera.net Imran had been in Balata to visit his grandparents when soldiers opened fire.
"Nur Emran was visiting his grandfather in the camp, his family live in a nearby village close to Balata. He was out on the street with other children when he was hit by a bullet in the head. He was bleeding heavily before he was taken away by medical workers. We have heard today that he died."
Eight other Palestinians are reported to have been injured as a result of the Israeli invasion into the camp, one of the biggest launched in Balata in recent times.
A Balata family view the damagesoldiers caused to their home
A resident of the camp told Aljazeera.net that earlier today an Israeli army bulldozer had been used to create a roadblock in the entrance of the refugee camp which is home to an estimated 20,000 refugees who were displaced following the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
"Things are calmer today, and we have been told that this invasion will last for one more day before the Israeli's leave the camp. Soldiers are still occupying homes in the camp, and they have destroyed roads nearby and damaged buildings", said a resident who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals from the army.
Meanwhile, Aljazeera correspondents in Gaza are reporting that occupation soliders have invaded the Rafah refugee camp, on the southern side of the Gaza strip.
Witnesses have told Aljazeera the Israeli military have demolished five homes in the camp and have levelled a further 20 houses that they had destroyed earlier.
In October, the Israeli military launched a massive invasion of the Rafah refugee camp and town near the Egyptian border. Eight Palestinians were killed and nearly 15,000 people were made homeless when soldiers demolished 100 homes.
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<P class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt; DIRECTION: ltr; unicode-bidi: embed; TEXT-ALIGN: left; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto">Two children have been killed by Israeli occupation troop
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Obesity rate falls 43% among preschoolers
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msnbc Live, 2/10/14, 6:20 PM ET
30 Seconds to Know: What’s so controversial about Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign? It’s working. MSNBC’s Joy Reid explains why the First Lady’s…
The obesity rate among American pre-schoolers dropped significantly over the past eight years, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
According to the survey, the obesity rate among children ages 2-5 fell by nearly half in that eight-year period, from 14% in 2003-2004 to just more than 8% in 2011-2012.
The news comes as first lady Michelle Obama celebrates the fourth anniversary of her “Let’s Move!” campaign focused on encouraging kids to exercise and practice health eating in an effort to stem the nation’s obesity epidemic.
“I am thrilled at the progress we’ve made over the last few years in obesity rates among our youngest Americans,” the first lady said in a statement. “Healthier habits are beginning to become the new norm.”
Since February 2010, Obama has led a public effort on that front, including appearing with Elmo on Sesame Street, recording an album with hip-hop and pop stars encouraging healthy habits, and dunking on LeBron James, all in the name of her “Let’s Move!” initiative.
In celebration of the campaign entering its fifth year, Obama released a video Monday of herself and comedian Will Ferrell engaging in a mock focus group with kids about exercise and healthy eating. On Tuesday, Obama announced a series of food policy advancements on the federal level, including the expansion of free lunch and breakfast programs. She also touted partnerships with the Boys and Girls Club and the National Recreation and Park Association, which – along with the YMCA, another partner of the “Let’s Move!” program – works with more than 5 million kids. Obama visited an after-school program in Miami, Florida Tuesday with Parks and Recreation star Amy Poehler.
The guidelines unveiled by Obama and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Tuesday included removing junk food, soft drinks, and advertisements that promote them from school grounds.
“We are well on our way to building healthier schools for all of our children,” Obama said Tuesday. “Children born today will be accustomed to eating healthier food during the school day, so their norm will be fruits and vegetables and not chips and candy.”
While the most recent CDC report showed a stunning reversal in early childhood obesity, the figures remained stagnant among older populations, and even grew among older women.
The study found almost 18% of children ages 6 to 11 to be obese, along with 20.5% of children ages 12 to 19. The obesity rate among women over 60 ticked up four and a half points, from 31% to 35.4%.
A third of adults nation-wide are obese, along with 13% of kids. Childhood obesity is a key predictor of adulthood obesity, and the epidemic factors into higher instances of diabetes, cancer, heart disease, depression and low self-esteem.
The numbers are even more staggering among low-income children, with 1 in 7 overweight. The rates are also higher among minorities.
Research shows that children are consuming fewer calories than in decades past, especially from sugary drinks. Experts say the downward trend – a 7% drop for boys and 4% drop for girls –is promising, but too small to account for a dramatic change.
More than 9,000 people participated in the CDC survey. Of the 871 of them between 2 and 5 years old, only 70 were found to be obese. Therefore, the rate can tick noticeably up or down in a given year based on a small number of individuals.
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The news comes as Michelle Obama celebrates the fourth anniversary of her “Let’s Move!” campaign focused on encouraging exercising and healthy eating.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/may/10/luke-fowler-serpentine-gallery
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140312212724id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/may/10/luke-fowler-serpentine-gallery
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Art review: Luke Fowler, Serpentine Gallery, London W2
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20140312212724
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That Luke Fowler won the inaugural Derek Jarman Award in 2008 is the first thing to know - if you don't know of this artist. The award celebrates the spirit of experimentation among artist film-makers whose work "resists boundaries and conventional definitions". Fowler is certainly all about definitions and boundaries, though do not let this glum fact put you off, for the 31-year-old Glaswegian has made two of the most fascinating films of recent years.
Both are currently showing in his first major show at the Serpentine Gallery and both take counterculture figures as their subject: RD Laing, of the anti-psychiatry movement, and Cornelius Cardew, the avant-garde composer and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental ensemble of professionals and amateurs that made wild and free with any conventional definition of music. For those who weren't there, the archive footage is enthralling in itself, but Fowler has no intention of stopping there.
The film about Laing, What You See Is Where You're at (2001), for instance, is jittery, disorienting and frequently alarming. It begins with Laing responding with obliterating fury to an objection from the audience at a conference and ends with one of his "patients" - I feel trepidatious just using the term, even though Laing has been dead for decades - removing a window during the famous Kingsley Hall experiment, climbing out and then sealing it back as if that was the only means of exit. In fact, I am not entirely certain whether the man in question was the schizophrenic who had earlier dilated on totalitarianism to the rest of the household as they sat around in the Kingsley Hall chaos, tormented but free of medication, or one of Laing's own colleagues. The film itself has been so subtly treated - fractionally slowed, seamlessly jump-cut, spliced with television footage, interspersed with stills, distanced, superimposed - that one loses a firm grasp of time and reality.
An interview with Laing's most famous patient, painter Mary Barnes, merges with Barnes screaming in David Edgar's eponymous play, and it is a few seconds before the recognisable face of Simon Callow playing the doctor signals the discontinuity between fact and fiction. Melvyn Bragg introduces a South Bank Special on Laing, but are we now in the 1960s or the 1970s? Bragg's feather cut is the only clue.
What would constitute a true portrait of Laing in moving images? That is the thought that mounts as you watch. Is it the autocrat in the newsreel, is it the Banquo's ghost always present in the background at Kingsley Hall? (And who shot this footage anyway?) Is it the sound of him talking off-camera? Laing never looks or speaks straight to the lens. He is a presence, but never directly present.
It may seem that Fowler's film in some sense illustrates Laing's experiment in appearing free-form and unauthored: no dominant narrator, nobody in charge. But its structure reflects both moral and intellectual ambivalence. For every shot of a patient in a straitjacket, there is some counter-image of Laing as an extremist, insisting on his approach. "One could have one's freedom," muses a colleague, "only so long as it did not interfere with somebody else's."
That conundrum connects straight to Cornelius Cardew, an eccentric who aimed to liberate music - sessions open to all, no score, instruments to include anything from marbles to dish racks - and ended up as a Revolutionary Communist party tyrant. But that, of course, is my version of events; Fowler naturally sends the archive into freefall, inter-cutting it with contemporary interviews that none the less appear to be of a piece with the times. Again, there is a parallel between subject and form. You watch the Scratch Orchestra working its haphazard way through a six-hour event based on Buddhist chanting in which the performers fiddle about with cheese graters and wind chimes, oblivious to one another and arriving at no sort of climax, and the film roams around like the composer among them. The facts of Cardew's life are elided, he never talks to the camera and this time the artist himself makes a Hitchcockian appearance as if to acknowledge the artifice involved: no such thing as documentary truth.
That would be the obvious point to make about Fowler's films, but it is by no means their aesthetic effect. Watching his Cardew film, its soundtrack coming and going, its images more or less distinct, its interviewees nameless but unforgettably emotional, history turns into something more like music itself: ambient, erratic, affecting. Even if you do not know Cardew's fate, pace and atmosphere generate foreboding. It feels more like performance than documentary.
Lately, Fowler has focused upon his own methods, distilling his approach. There are three-minute collages of the minute details of Glaswegian tenements that might - but don't - add up to impressionistic portraits of their owners. There is an installation in which screen, projector, sound and image are emphatically decoupled. There is what might be called a sound-only film. These veer between purism and self-consciousness to an unfortunate degree, though Jarman would no doubt have been characteristically generous.
It is a shame that this show doesn't include Fowler's biopic of the elusive musician Xentos Bentos, which parodies several documentary styles, for you might come away mistakenly thinking the artist had no time for humour. But time is what he does have - an acute sense of how to manipulate spooling images in and out of time so that the past comes surging up into the present as resonant and recurring - keeping history in play. You won't be surprised to hear that Fowler is himself a musician.
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The young Glaswegian artist has taken two masters of counterculture as the starting point for a fascinating pair of films, says Laura Cumming
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/12/paul-reas-best-shot-dad-army-wallpaper
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140313062252id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/12/paul-reas-best-shot-dad-army-wallpaper
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Paul Reas's best shot: a dad buying army wallpaper for his son
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20140313062252
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In the late 1980s, I became preoccupied with consumerism and took a series of photographs in supermarkets, DIY stores and garden centres. This one was taken in a B&Q in Newport, South Wales. I had noticed the army wallpaper the man is holding and instinctively knew there was a photograph to be made with it. I went to the store every weekend for two months, walking up and down that one aisle, waiting for something to happen. My patience was finally rewarded when the guy wearing camouflage trousers showed the wallpaper to his friends, who were standing behind me. He was about to buy it for his son.
I used to do a lot of fishing and, for me, photography is very much like that. It's about recognising the potential of a situation and waiting for things to unfold. I'm quite strategic in that way. I work with a medium-format camera and a large flashgun, so I am very evidently a photographer. I'm not concealing a camera in my jacket. I asked these people if they minded me taking a photograph and they didn't. In fact, the guy was quite proud. He had a bit of swagger about him.
Then, in 2007, a local paper wanted to do a story about the people in the picture: it had been in an exhibition at Tate Britain and I had just been put in charge of documentary photography at Newport University. The paper found out that the boy, who was only four here, had become a soldier and was in Iraq. I wonder if his interest in the military grew out of looking at that wallpaper on his bedroom wall every day.
The picture was taken shortly after the Michael Ryan shooting spree in Hungerford. Although that was there in the background, Thatcherism was my main influence. The UK was strongly allied to the US through Thatcher's relationship with President Reagan, and there had been a kind of Americanisation of the social landscape of Britain. Shopping malls like the giant Metro Centre in Gateshead and Brent Cross in London were new: there was a sense of increased shopping and consuming. The idea that you can use something as commonplace as a DIY store to communicate wider concerns about the social and political fabric of Britain sounds pretentious, but that really was my motivation.
I chose to shoot in colour because I was aware of the psychology of selling. I'd noticed these big stores would use very bold colours to heighten peoples' enthusiasm for buying things. At the tills, there were a lot of reds and oranges; but at pick-up points, cool pastel colours were used, so shoppers would be calm and relaxed as they waited for their orders. I felt black and white would miss much of this vital information. But I also wanted to challenge the established orthodoxy of documentary photography, which saw black and white as the only way.
At the time, David Byrne was singing songs about the ordinary and the everyday, the pursuit of happiness – and poking fun at American capitalism. This chimed with me. His songs felt like the soundtrack to my work.
Studied: Documentary photography at the University of Wales, Newport.
Influences: William Egglestone, Stephen Shore, Martin Parr, Paul Graham, David Byrne and Talking Heads.
High point: "Being in Tate Britain's first serious photography exhibition."
Low point: "All the fruitless days spent in pursuit of photographs."
Top tip: "The real world is infinitely more interesting than anything you try to invent in a studio."
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'The little boy became a soldier and went to Iraq. I wonder if it was because of the military wallpaper'
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/02/06/classical-notes-andriessen-and-his-influence-worth-celebrating/YDkrRzLv924JQGV0n64WdN/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140321011323id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2014/02/06/classical-notes-andriessen-and-his-influence-worth-celebrating/YDkrRzLv924JQGV0n64WdN/story.html
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At 75, Andriessen, and his influence, worth celebrating
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20140321011323
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One of the most important pieces of advice Louis Andriessen got about being a composer came from his father, Hendrik, also a composer. “You should realize that we are not important,” Andriessen remembers his father saying. “The music is important. So we should serve the music.”
This attitude, he continues during a phone conversation from his home in Amsterdam, “is the opposite of the idea that the composer should be completely, 100 percent busy trying to express himself. I think this is not the thing you should be doing. You simply have to write as good as you can. This is the point.”
There is something blunt and objective about these words, an outlook that’s reflected in Andriessen’s music. Out of a cauldron of unlikely influences that include early minimalism, European modernism, Stravinsky, and jazz, he has forged a musical syntax of tensile lyricism and aggressive rhythmic intensity.
The dispassion of Andriessen’s composing stance should not obscure his influence, which is significant and cuts across a wide spectrum of younger composers. “It was completely life-changing, and I’m not exaggerating,” the composer Missy Mazzoli said in a 2010 interview of her encounter with Andriessen as an undergraduate. “He taught me the difference between making a life in music and making a career in music.”
Andriessen turns 75 this year, and among the institutions observing the occasion is Boston Conservatory. The composer’s residency there began on Tuesday and concludes with three well-stocked concerts this weekend, in addition to a Saturday afternoon discussion between Andriessen and Gunther Schuller on the creative process.
The broad, catholic influences that went into Andriessen’s music are in part a reflection of the cultural milieu of Amsterdam, where he lived after attending the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and studying with Luciano Berio in Milan. The Netherlands’ capital was a more forward-thinking city than tradition-bound European music centers such as Vienna.
“There was a large group of musicians who together felt [they could do] things which could be different from the standard music, like classical symphonies and string quartets,” says Andriessen. That went not only for the avant-garde but also for the early music scene, which in the 1960s was far more advanced in Amsterdam than elsewhere. “But also jazz musicians and improvisational music and electronic music — all those things together were one large movement in Holland at that time.”
For all its adventurousness, though, Dutch musical culture could also be quite staid, something Andriessen took an active role in combatting. In a famous incident known as the “Nutcracker Action,” he and four like-minded composers disrupted a 1969 Concertgebouw Orchestra concert just as conductor Bernard Haitink — who, in an interesting coincidence, is conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra this week — was about to begin a piece. “The Five,” as they were labeled, were protesting the conservatism of the Netherlands’ flagship orchestra, and handed out leaflets demanding that it play more contemporary music.
“It was kind of in the zeitgeist to be active and polemic,” Andriessen says. What they really wanted had less to do with the orchestra itself than with making musical culture more democratic. “We wanted to organize a situation in the music world where musicians had more chances, so that you don’t have to either play in the orchestra or teach; you could also form ensembles, you have more freedom in the choice of repertoire you want to play.”
And, he adds, it succeeded. In the 1970s and ’80s, “the development of smaller ensembles for all kinds of new music, Baroque music, improvisation, grew immensely. It was really a very rich life until, I would say, the ’90s,” which is when, in his view, an increasingly free-market economy began to erode government support for the arts.
Monica Germino will play “La Girò,” written for her by her husband.
Politics worked its way into some of his music, particularly “De Staat” (1976), a setting of a portion of the “Republic” in which Plato denounces music as dangerous to society. At Boston Conservatory, that piece, one of Andriessen’s best known, will be paired with the more recent “La Girò,” a concerto completed in 2011 for the violinist Monica Germino, whom the composer married last year. (His first wife, Jeanette Yanikian, died in 2008.) The piece is titled after Anna Girò, the stage name of a singer who worked closely with Vivaldi, a composer Andriessen admires greatly. It’s a theatrical work in which Germino not only plays but sings, whispers, and talks.
The concert that may give the widest view of the composer’s development is Sunday night’s, which features a nearly complete performance of “The Memory of Roses,” an assortment of short works collected by a student of Andriessen’s and published in 1999. The pieces, for a variety of ensembles, cover four decades of his musical evolution.
“Most of them are very short, little piano pieces for nice girlfriends, things like that,” he says. “All kinds of stuff in all kinds of different styles – some kind of [early minimalist] La Monte Young, others more like Fauré.”
Asked what it’s like to be presented which such an extensive cross-section of his work, he hesitates a moment before answering.
“I think I should be positive about it,” he answers. “They are all kind of your children. And some children are better than others. It’s always details — I hear one note which is actually not the right note. Or, you like pieces which are very good, but they took you so much time to make.”
It’s imperative, though, to resist the temptation to pick over these works too carefully. “That is a form of vanity, I think,” says Andriessen, ever the hard-nosed objectivist. “And I’m not afraid to fail.”
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One of the most important pieces of advice Louis Andriessen got about being a composer came from his father, Hendrik, also a composer. “You should realize that we are not important,” Andriessen remembers his father saying. “The music is important. So we should serve the music.” This attitude, he continues during a phone conversation from his home in Amsterdam, “is the opposite of the idea that the composer should be completely, 100 percent busy trying to express himself. I think this is not the thing you should be doing. You simply have to write as good as you can. This is the point.” There is something blunt and objective about these words, an outlook that’s reflected in Andriessen’s music. Out of a cauldron of unlikely influences that include early minimalism, European modernism, Stravinsky, and jazz, he has forged a musical syntax of tensile lyricism and aggressive rhythmic intensity.
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Happy workplace, happy life: How CEOs set the tone
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20140330023902
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Given how much time and energy we expend at the office, the customs and feel of a workplace really matter. Weâve all heard about offices where employees are afraid to leave their desks and clock 50 hours or more per week.
Yet we’ve also heard tales of workplaces where colleagues collaborate, people leave in time for dinner at home and everyone jokes around with management at Friday company-provided breakfasts.
The culture makes all the difference. So how do chief executives set the tone for a compelling, empowering and productive office culture? Click ‘play’ to find out.
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Whatâs out? Top-down memos and management propaganda. Hereâs whatâs in, according to two top CEOs
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http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/imus-sez-sports-anchor-article-1.876946
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140408052149id_/http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/imus-sez-sports-anchor-article-1.876946
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IMUS BE GOING, SEZ SPORTS ANCHOR
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Mike Breen, whose sportscasting career has soared over the decade that he has been sports anchor for the "Imus in the Morning" radio show on WFAN, yesterday made the ironic announcement that his other gigs now don't leave him time to continue with Imus. Breen, 38, who does Knicks play-by-play, NFL football and other events for NBC and MSG, is regarded as a rising star in the sportscasting biz. He also has three young children, and yesterday he said that one reason for leaving the Imus show is to spend more time with them. Imus expressed regret about losing Breen. The tone on both sides was cordial - given that their shtick for years has been for Breen to joke about senile, aging radio hosts and for Imus to reply that unless his sports guy gets some decent material, he's fired. Breen, a Bronx native and Fordham University graduate, started with Imus in the late '80s and developed a deadpan comic style in which he mixed straight news and scores with absurdities that often lampooned athletes over matters like their age or indiscretions. He said he was able to joke about athletes on the Imus show and still cover them straight as a commentator and broadcaster because most athletes understood the Imus material was done in fun. Breen gave no date for his departure. Warner Wolf of Ch. 2, Breen's frequent substitute, is not a lock to succeed him, Imus indicated. In his usual diplomatic style, Imus said the only other hosts on WFAN "who are worth anything" are Chris Russo and Mike Francesa, and he added that they aren't available. - David Hinckley CABLE PIE SHARED With the exception of The Fox News Channel, it was a generally dismal fourth quarter for the nation's cable news networks, according to Nielsen Media Research statistics. Indeed, all but Fox recorded year-to-year declines, with FNC up by double-digit percentages in prime time and on a total-day basis. The network turned in good Nielsen numbers for its prime-time fare such as "The O'Reilly Factor" and "The Edge With Paula Zahn.
" Fox growth notwithstanding, CNN still remains the largest of the cable news networks. For the quarter, CNN averaged 497,000 homes tuned in during prime time, down 40% from the same period a year ago. CNBC averaged 337,000 homes, up 28%. FNC averaged 203,000 homes, up 19% from last year. MSNBC averaged 174,000, down 20% and Headline News averaged 142,000 homes, down 17%. On an around-the-clock basis, CNN averaged 287,000 homes, down 38% from a year ago. CNBC averaged 274,000 homes, down 4%. Headline News averaged 140,000 homes, down 10%. MSNBC averaged 117,000 homes, down 20%. And FNC averaged 100,000 homes, up 25%. The quarter-to-quarter drop-offs can be partially attributed to a lack of breaking news in late 1999 when compared to 1998, where there were several major events going on, including the Monica Lewinsky scandal. As for the yearly, 24-hour tally, CNN fell 7%, to 371,000 homes; CNBC averaged 265,000 homes, unchanged from 1998; MSNBC averaged 145,000 homes, up 19%; Headline News averaged 150,000 homes, down 2%, and FNC averaged 104,000 homes, up 73%. - Richard Huff DOT'S ALL Monday's telecast of "Seinfeld" on WPIX/Ch. 11 generated the highest rating for the show since it moved to the 7:30 p.
m. time slot in the fall. Spanish-language station WXTV/Ch. 41 rang in the New Year with a Nielsen ratings record. For the first time ever, the station outpointed two English-language stations in sign-on to sign-off ratings, its best performance ever. ... Tonight at 9:30 on Ch. 13, PBS' "American Masters" takes a look at acclaimed choreographer Paul Taylor in "Paul Taylor: Dancemaker," an Academy Award nominee in 1998.
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Mike Breen, whose sportscasting career has soared over the decade that he has been sports anchor for the "Imus in the Morning" radio show on WFAN, yesterday made the ironic announcement that his other gigs now don't leave him time to continue with Imus.
Breen, 38, who does Knicks play-by-play, NFL football and other events for NBC and MSG, is regarded as a rising star in the
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Episode 102 - Mid-Century Modern
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20140415062104
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Text by Lukas Machnik Interior Design
This week's challenge was to fully remodel a pair of Mid-Century modern vacation homes in Palm Springs, California. The designers remained split into two teams, each challenged to reinterpret this iconic style.
Mid-Century modern (MCM) is a style that typically describes developments in architectural, interior and product design from the 1930s to 1960s. In postwar America, MCM was a reflection on the International Style and Bauhaus movements, and was an attempt to bring European modernism to the nation's masses.
1950s America saw its architectural and residential landscape redefined by a drastic housing boom. In Palm Springs, 1957 - Architects Dan Palmer and William Kristel approached the Alexander Construction Company with a new concept: to build stylish modern tract homes, with clean lines and simple elegance that were both affordable and efficiently producible. Alexander homes quickly became the new standard of living, with over 2,000 residences built over the span of 10 years.
Each given an Alexander home to restore, the two teams of designers approach this challenge with very distinct, unique perspectives. Led by Andrew Flesher, Team Blue creates a warm ambience with eclectic, contemporary accents; Team Red, under Lukas Machnik's direction, produces an organic, minimalist atmosphere with additional hints of modern art and furniture.
STYLE GUIDE - TEAM BLUE: Eclectic/contemporary interpretation on Mid-Century modern home. The team goes for a mix of contemporary and modern aesthetics, updating the home's interior and exterior to what's "now" and current. In the mix you will find a balance between contemporary furniture, modern art, soft surfaces, Asian influences, playful accents and a new take on period wallpaper. The overall palette has a rich, warm aesthetic, filled with strong pops of saturated color, and ultimately results in an updated, vibrant MCM look that's both cozy and casual-chic.
STYLE GUIDE - TEAM RED: Minimalist approach to the interior and exterior architecture; without complication and visual clutter, the interior is open and bright. A new point of view gives this Mid-Century modern design a timeless feel, just as the MCM style was intended to be. The minimalist architecture truly sets the stage for the team's central focus: to establish a strong collection of MCM furnishings and objects, found in this local mecca of design. In addition to the spaces they were responsible for, each team member was assigned a challenge - set by Machnik - to create an original piece of art. This point of view is truly reminiscent of Bauhaus and Mid-Century modern thought: to combine all disciplines of art and design in order to make a "total" work of art, a forward-thinking masterpiece.
To see photos and more commentary about this episode, click here.
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Episode 102 - Mid-Century Modern Text by Lukas Machnik Interior Design This week's challenge was to fully remodel a pair of Mid-Century modern vacation homes in Palm Springs, California. The designers remained split into two teams, each challenged to reinterpret this iconic style. Mid-Century modern (MCM) is a style that typically describes developments in architectural, interior and product design from the 1930s to 1960s. In postwar America, MCM was a reflection on the International Style and Bauhaus movements, and was an attempt to bring European modernism to the nation's masses.
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New York Ace Matt Harvey Spotted With Another Model At The Knicks Game
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20140417212057
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Don't feel too bad for Matt Harvey.
Sure, the New York Mets' ace may miss the 2014 season as he recovers from offseason Tommy John surgery, but he's been making good use of his time away from the diamond.
Harvey was spotted at Sunday's Knicks-Bulls game at Madison Square Garden with British model Asha Leo, whom he is reportedly dating.
As Steve DelVecchio over at Larry Brown Sports notes, Leo would be Harvey's third model girlfriend in the span of two months.
Last fall and early this year Harvey, 25, was spotted with Russian model Anne V.
But by February the two had apparently split and, according to the New York Post, Harvey was spotted with another model, Ashley Haas.
That fling has apparently come to an end.
Harvey has said that he's trying to emulate Derek Jeter's dating style, and it appears he's on the right track.
"That guy is the model," Harvey told Men's Journal of Jeter. "I mean, first off, let's just look at the women he's dated. Obviously, he goes out – he's meeting these girls somewhere – but you never hear about it. That's where I want to be."
At first it seemed like Harvey may have been violating his rehab agreement by appearing in New York while the Mets were on the road. He's supposed to be rehabbing in Florida when the club is away from home. But, as it turns out, he has Sundays off, so he flew up to the city for the day and is presumably back in the Sunshine State.
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Don't feel too bad for Matt Harvey.
Sure, the New York Mets' ace may miss the 2014 season as he recovers from offseason Tommy John surgery, but he's b...
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Ford names Fields CEO effective when Mulally retires July 1
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20140502153418
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DEARBORN, Mich. — Mark Fields, who helped turn Ford Motor Co.’s North American operations into a sales and profit powerhouse, will take over from Alan Mulally as chief executive on July 1.
The 53-year-old Fields has been Ford’s chief operating officer since late 2012, and has been running executive meetings and day-to-day operations. He was widely seen as Mulally’s heir apparent.
Ford wasn’t expected to make the transition until year end, but said it moved up the schedule at Mulally’s request. Mulally, 68, who came to Ford from Boeing in 2006, is credited with transforming the automaker from a dysfunctional money-loser to a thriving company.
In orchestrating that transformation, Mulally relied heavily on a strategy that Fields drew up in 2005, when Ford’s big North American division was losing money, burdened by too many factories and lackluster car designs. Fields’s plan called for closing factories, laying off thousands of workers, and using Ford’s design expertise in Europe to build better cars that could be sold globally.
Bill Ford told the Associated Press that Fields is humble about his achievements. But he has been an advocate within the company for advanced technology and better products.
‘‘Every job the company’s ever asked him to do, he’s done a really good job of it,’’ Bill Ford said.
Fields takes the CEO job during a transition year at Ford. The company expects pretax profit to fall to between $7 billion and $8 billion, from $8.5 billion in 2013, as it launches a record 23 vehicles worldwide and builds seven plants, including four in China. It’s also preparing to launch a new aluminum-clad F-150 pickup truck later this year, which could reap profits down the road but will be expensive to prepare for.
Ford’s top executives said Thursday that the system of transparency and accountability that Mulally has instilled will help the company deal with future challenges.
‘‘We know how to deal with reality now, and we can deal with it in a way that’s positive and collaborative,’’ Bill Ford said.
Mulally had spent 36 years at Boeing and was president of the company’s commercial airplane division when Bill Ford lured him to the struggling automaker eight years ago. Mulally overcame skepticism about being an outsider in the insular ranks of Detroit car guys by quickly pinpointing the reasons why Ford was losing billions each year. He put a stop to the infighting that had paralyzed the company and instituted weekly management meetings where executives faced new levels of accountability and were encouraged to work together to solve problems.
According to Bill Ford, now executive chairman, Fields embraced Mulally’s call for change early on, even though he had been passed over for the CEO job. Bill Ford said Fields’ decision to stay at Ford and learn from Mulally showed a lot of fortitude. Mulally helped smooth some of the rough edges that had sometimes made the Brooklyn, N.Y.-born Fields hard to work with.
‘‘I have nothing left to teach or tell Mark about. He knows everything,’’ Mulally said.
Bill Ford said Fields will be a collaborative leader, just like Mulally, but ‘‘with not as much hugging.’’ Mulally is famous for his wide grin and bear hugs.
This marks the second change in leadership at the top of one of the Detroit automakers this year. Mary Barra took over as CEO for Dan Akerson at General Motors in January.
Fields joined Ford as a market research analyst in 1989 and quickly rose through the company’s ranks. In 2000, he became the youngest CEO ever at a Japanese company when Ford installed him as head of Mazda Motor Co., which Ford controlled at the time.
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Ford promoted Mark Fields to chief executive Chief Executive Officer from Chief Operating Officer effective July 1 as Alan Mulally retires from the second-largest US automaker, the company said Thursday.
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http://www.people.com/article/christina-milian-wedding-details-jas-prince
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Christina Milian Talks Wedding Details
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04/30/2014 at 06:30 PM EDT
Christina Milian and Jas Prince
is still enjoying the daydreaming phase of
, and her fiancé is getting anxious.
Milian, 32, says she hasn't set a date yet, much to the chagrin of her
"He's bugging me every day like, 'What are we going to do? What's the date?' And I'm like, 'I don't know! We'll figure it out,' " the singer tells PEOPLE.
"All I've been doing is cutting pictures out and taking pictures off Pinterest, but it just takes so much time [to plan a wedding]," she says while promoting her partnership with Kimberly-Clark to celebrate the Family UNity program. "I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do, and on top of that I just don't want to be stressed out."
Although she's not sure exactly when she's getting married, Milian's already looking forward to the reception.
"Our party's going to be the fun part," she says. "The cake has to be perfect, and so does the DJ. He's got to play some salsa music and merengue, modern music, a little hip-hop. But then my guy's from the countryside, so he listens to country, so I'm sure we'll be doing some line dancing!"
As for the décor, Milian has some ideas about the floral arrangements she wants.
"I'm finding different colors and types of roses," she says. "I really like the pinks and the violet purples – that makes a lot of sense because of [daughter]
– and ivories. I want it to be warm."
Though she hasn't been trying on dresses, the former
contestant says she has been doing her fair share of window-shopping.
"I haven't picked a style yet, but I have seen some nice, lacy long-sleeved ones that I was surprised that I liked!"
And just because it's her second wedding – the singer
from 2009 to 2010 – don't expect it to be any small affair.
"This time around, it will be big for sure," says Milian."I've done it before, and it was fun and it was quick, but for the type of wedding I know that we're going to do, and that we want to do, it takes some time."
Christina Milian Plays Coy About Engagement
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The singer has yet to set a date, but she's got ideas on flowers and the DJ
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Southern New Hampshire University on leading edge of online education
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20140507083409
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I have heard university presidents dedicate new buildings, quote Plato, and praise generous benefactors.
But before Monday, I had never heard a university president gush about predictive analytics and customer relationship management software. Paul LeBlanc, president of Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester, was scrutinizing a spreadsheet in the cubicle of Sharon Rogge, his assistant vice president of student reporting and analysis.
When students sign up for one of SNHU’s online courses, the school tracks data such as how often they log in and how frequently they post messages. “When we see that people are becoming less engaged, or at risk of dropping out, one of our advisers can give them a call or send a message,” says LeBlanc.
Welcome to the data-driven world of online education, where most students never play beer pong together or drop by a professor’s office for a chat. But due to the convenience and lower cost of taking courses online — perhaps to finish a degree or burnish a résumé — about 7 million people in the United States are enrolled in at least one online course, according to the Babson Survey Research Group.
That represents about one-third of all students in higher education. And few universities have been surfing the face of this wave like SNHU, founded in 1932 as an accounting and secretarial school.
While schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford have attracted lots of attention for putting courses online, SNHU has already reached and passed two tipping points. It serves far more students over the Internet (about 35,000 this year) than it does on its campus along the Merrimack River (3,800), and generates more revenues online that it does from running a “traditional” college. Many other schools, such as Berklee College of Music, are just getting started; Berklee will offer its first online bachelor’s degrees this fall.
LeBlanc uses the word “disruption” often, but he doesn’t see the demise of the traditional college experience that follows high school. That’s an immersive learning experience and rite of passage for many teens entering adulthood. But adults in the workforce who see the benefit in getting a degree — or earning an advanced degree — represent a huge opportunity.
For students, it’s a confusing landscape, with a mix of for-profit schools like University of Phoenix, and offerings from traditional nonprofits like Northeastern University, Berklee, or SNHU. And even more schools are entering the fray, observes Robert Lytle, coleader of the education practice at the Parthenon Group, a Boston consulting firm.
“When you can go visit a campus of a traditional college, you can go into a classroom, and get a lot of impressions of whether it’s the school for you,” Lytle says, but forming impressions online can be more difficult.
Whether the faculty comprises full-time instructors or part-time adjuncts who still work in industry can be an important factor for students, Lytle says. Pricing, too. But Lytle says, “The number-one job for these programs is to graduate students, and it may be that a more expensive option helps you get there.”
LeBlanc says students tend to consider cost first, followed by how long it takes to get a degree, and convenience. For that reason, he says, SNHU staffers will do things like track down a prospective student’s previous college transcripts. “We focus on the fact that people are pursuing online learning in the midst of everything else they do in their busy lives,” he says.
Preventing students from dropping out is a major area of focus — and one reason for all that data analysis. (Students who register closer to a course’s start date, SNHU has found, are more likely to drop out.) SNHU advisers have learned to steer students from more challenging courses when they initially enroll; building confidence is important, says Gregory Fowler, the chief academic officer for SNHU’s online courses.
“I liken it to a plane taking off,” Fowler says. “They need to get some momentum before they can get off the ground and up to cruising altitude.”
In the world of online education, instructors can be located anywhere; SNHU has more than 100 faculty in Texas, Florida, and California, and other states. And instructors’ engagement with students is monitored just as closely as the student’s engagement with the course. Fowler says the best online instructors not only respond to student questions quickly, but give specific feedback that “clearly indicates they’ve read what the student is doing.”
SNHU is incubating an even more radical concept than online courses, called College for America. It’s targeted to employers who want to help front-line employees earn associate degrees.
In this program, students’ progress is based on completing projects, like writing a strategic plan, as opposed to spending a “semester” in an online class. LeBlanc says that nearly 20 students have completed an associate degree in a year that way, at a price of about $2,500 each. Projects completed in College for America can be tied to LinkedIn profiles.
“It’s evidence of what they’ve done,” LeBlanc says, “as opposed to a B in sociology. “
We shouldn’t forget that behind the boom in online learning are students earning degrees and taking courses who wouldn’t have otherwise. And that’s fantastic. This Saturday, one of SNHU’s online students will travel to New Hampshire for the first time to don a cap and gown and accept his bachelor’s degree in liberal arts.
Mervyn Ripley, a sergeant major in the Army who served in Bosnia and Iraq, says he’d bring a sandwich to work and focus on classes during lunchtime. He retires from the Army next year, at 50. His next step: probably a master’s in public administration. “Not bad,” he says, “for a kid who got thrown out of high school 30-plus years ago.”
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While schools like Harvard, MIT, and Stanford have attracted lots of attention for putting courses online, Southern New Hampshire University has passed two tipping points.
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Macklemore Apologizes for ‘Anti-Semitic’ Costume
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20140520121439
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Not long after Macklemore donned a costume consisting of a dark wig, fake beard and a large prosthetic nose for a secret performance in Seattle on Friday, critics began accusing the rapper of anti-semitism.
The “Thrift Shop” rapper was a surprise guest at an exhibit opening at the Experience Music Project museum in his hometown, where guests had been invited to “dress as your favorite music icon or video character.” But for many who saw the pictures of the rapper performing, his costume of choice seemed intended to portray a stereotypical Jewish caricature — not a musical icon.
Check out @macklemore performing “Thrift Shop” as a stereotypical Jewish man. So much for same love, eh? http://t.co/yZ19QmxIV0— Ian de Borja (@idb1204) May 19, 2014
Only @macklemore could turn the gentrification of hip hop into an anti-Semitic minstrel show http://t.co/qZfFewDbts— Rebecca Pierce (@aptly_engineerd) May 19, 2014
.@macklemore, first you trick people into thinking you're a rapper, now you trick them into thinking you're Jewish? http://t.co/3rtaE4GHje— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) May 18, 2014
Macklemore initially issued a Twitter defense of his costume, claiming it was nothing other than “random”:
A fake witches nose, wig, and beard = random costume. Not my idea of a stereotype of anybody.— Macklemore (@macklemore) May 19, 2014
Yet as the images and story spread, Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, must have realized that he needed more than 140 characters to adequately address the situation, so he took to his blog on Monday night and posted a longer explanation of his costume:
The character I dressed up as on Friday had no intended cultural identity or background. I wasn’t attempting to mimic any culture, nor resemble one. A “Jewish stereotype” never crossed my mind.
My intention was to dress up and surprise the people at the show with a random costume and nothing more. Thus, it was surprising and disappointing that the images of a disguise were sensationalized leading to the immediate assertion that my costume was anti-Semetic [sic]. I acknowledge how the costume could, within a context of stereotyping, be ascribed to a Jewish caricature. I am here to say that it was absolutely not my intention, and unfortunately at the time I did not foresee the costume to be viewed in such regard.
He also — wisely — issued a blanket apology, writing: “I truly apologize to anybody that I may have offended.”
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The "Thrift Shop" rapper posted an apology to his website after stirring accusations of racial insensitivity for performing while dressed in a prosthetic nose, fake beard and black wig
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Secrets of success at Warby Parker and Michael Kors
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20140521043635
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In the 1920s, sake brewers began replacing the wooden barrels with stainless steel and using warmers and coolers to regulate the temperature.
The result: A far better product than the one produced by their forebears. It was refined. It had aromas that were floral and earthy. It had flavour profiles that ranged from tropical fruits to wild mushrooms. And it wasn’t anything like the previous harsh sake that was good only for shots.
“Without a doubt, almost all the modern innovations have made sake better,” said John Gauntner, a certified master of sake tasting from Kamakura, Japan.
New ideas replacing centuries of tradition helped improve sake, the drink often served at sushi restaurants. Coming up with new ideas is often just a process of rethinking the way you’ve been doing a task — and an exercise in thinking that can help any industry improve.
It’s impossible to plan innovation, you say? Perhaps not.
One step at a time
The secret is to start small. Take the focus off thinking that you need to innovate everything, said Aline Wolff, clinical associate professor of management communication at New York University’s Stern School of Business. Instead, managers who juggle multiple tasks should pick one of them and reconsider how it’s typically completed.
Get your team together and ask them to use oppositional thinking, to search for a completely contrary way to do something.
“It opens up your thinking to say, ‘Geez, I’ve always thought it had to be A, but maybe it’s B or C or F,” Wolff said. “Maybe there’s an entirely different solution than the one you’ve been trying, but you won’t know it unless you’re willing to experiment.”
Consider the wildly successful Swiffer, which reacted to customer complaints about the difficulty of keeping mops clean. Enter the Swiffer, which works with a disposable cloth, reinventing the concept of a mop when it hit the market in 1999.
Eyeglass maker Warby Parker, founded in 2010, set out to offer high-fashion frames at a lower price by designing frames in-house to avoid buying expensive designs from outside companies.
And there’s Michael Kors’ company and its expansion beyond the couture fashion runway. The company created the idea of “affordable luxury,” preserving the brand name, while also entering less expensive territory. It launched a new line of “ready-to-wear” clothes and accessories. The idea worked so well that the new Michael Kors lines were soon selling in 350 stores in the US, followed by a global chain of accessory boutiques.
Chances are, those examples don’t reflect your current job. They represent instances of innovation, yes, but also big risk. Few companies have a track record of valuing innovation, and even fewer allow executives to encourage it amongst their staffs.
“If you’re working in a company with culture of innovation, then you’re way ahead,” Wolff said.
It’s likely up to you to give your team the flexibility to try something new, to possibly fail at it and to believe the entire process was still worth the time. In the short term, that failure may hurt your reputation with your higher-ups. But the secret is to turn that one stumble into encouragement for your staff, to find the next big idea out of that initial step back.
That’s the hope for the sake industry, which has seen a monumental slide in popularity in the past generation. Younger drinkers in Japan are turning to wine, beer, and spirits instead. There are now just 1,200 sake brewers in Japan, down from 5,000 in the 1970s.
Despite this, Johnnie Stroud, owner of the Sake Nomi tasting bar in Seattle figures drinkers will soon discover that craft sakes, which typically cost as much as a mid-priced bottle of wine, are just as complex as other high-end spirits.
“Sake drinkers today have access to something that’s far better than the sake their grandfathers drank,” Stroud said. “It’s a far different experience.”
Innovations in your company are likely more complicated. But applying the same thinking – that experimentation can save an industry – might do just that.
Have you found it difficult to innovate in your company or industry? How have you tried to overcome obstacles? To comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Capital, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.
1. Take the focus off the need to innovative, which can lead to a downward spiral of doubt.
2. If managing several projects, pick one that you’ll use to test new ideas.
3. Encourage oppositional thinking, or the idea of working out a problem by figuring out contrary conclusions.
4. Don’t fear failure. The new ideas you try may not work, but letting your team know it’s OK to stumble could lead to the real breakthrough.
Source: Aline Wolff, NYU’s Stern School of Business
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Why are some companies and people more successful than others? These fashion mavens can teach us all something about innovation.
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Jay Z Opens 40/40 Nightclub At Atlanta International Airport
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20140521211746
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If you find yourself killing time during a layover at the Atlanta International Airport anytime soon, stop by Jay Z’s elite club, now conveniently located in Concourse D.
Yup, the third location of Hov’s swanky 40/40 club has officially opened at at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the Associated Press reports. And really, why not? Jay Z can do whatever the heck he wants. Remember: he’s not a businessman, he’s a business, man.
The original 40/40 is in Manhattan, with an additional location in Brooklyn. This new airport version will basically be a “scaled down” replica of original club, and there are plans in the works to create a special VIP section. Otherwise, details are pretty scarce.
Here’s hoping the soundtrack exclusively consists of Aziz Ansari’s club anthem, because it feels like it would be a great fit. Plus, it talks a lot about jets:
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Because he's a business, man.
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49ers' NaVorro Bowman restructures contract
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20140523184450
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The 49ers, who are working to sign their most important offensive player to a contract extension, signed two draft picks Thursday and restructured the contract of one of their most vital defensive players in a move that will create salary-cap space in 2014.
All-Pro linebacker NaVorro Bowman has converted $3.27 million of his $4 million base salary this season into a signing bonus, a league source confirmed. The move allows the 49ers, who were just $257,871 under the salary cap, to pick up $2.616 million of cap space in 2014. The 49ers will also receive $6.6 million in cap relief June 1 when former cornerback Carlos Rogers' salary is removed. Rogers was released in March.
The team announced that it has signed first-round pick Jimmie Ward and third-round selection Chris Borland to four-year contracts.
Ward, a defensive back who played at Northern Illinois, was the 30th overall pick in this month's draft and gets a predetermined $7.11 million contract. Borland, a Wisconsin linebacker, receives $2.9 million.
The 49ers are also hoping to hammer out a contract extension before the regular season with quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who figures to command an annual salary around $18 million. They also have three contracts to complete with their 12-man draft class.
Bowman's $3.27 signing bonus can be spread out over the life of his contract, which runs until 2019.
Highsmith invited: The 49ers have invited Miami safety A.J. Highsmith to their three-day rookie minicamp, which begins Friday. Highsmith is the son of Alonzo Highsmith, who played six NFL seasons.
Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: branch@sfchronicle.com
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The 49ers, who are working to sign their most important offensive player to a contract extension, signed two draft picks Thursday and restructured the contract of one of their most vital defensive players in a move that will create salary-cap space in 2014. All-Pro linebacker NaVorro Bowman has converted $3.27 million of his $4 million base salary this season into a signing bonus, a league source confirmed. The 49ers are also hoping to hammer out a contract extension before the regular season with quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who figures to command an annual salary around $18 million.
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Cannes Winners: Who Will Take Home the Big Prizes?
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20140523211715
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Cannes chugs to its conclusion, like a Riviera train overfreighted with international stars and world-class directors. They are all anxiously awaiting the Saturday closing ceremony, at which a jury headed by filmmaker Jane Campion will bestow its awards, above all the coveted Palme d’Or for best picture. Last year that prize went to the sexy French drama Blue Is the Warmest Color. This year — who knows? Among the 18 films in competition, some have staked strong claims, including two bio-pics — Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner and Bennett Miller’s Foxcatcher — and Xavier Dolan’s turbulent family psychodrama Mommy.
We have covered those films in previous Cannes reports, and will address one more contender, Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep, before tomorrow’s prize show. Below are short appraisals of six important movies with a prayer for the Palme and a good chance to reach U.S. theaters.
TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT. Marion Cotillard has earned an Oscar, as Edith Piaf in La vie en rose in 2008, but never a Cannes Best Actress award. In her fourth consecutive year at the Festival (after Midnight in Paris, Rust & Bone and The Immigrant), the luminous star insinuates herself convincingly into the role of a working-class wife and mother in this excellent effort from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. Two-time Palme d’Or winners for Rosetta (1999) and L’enfant (2005), the Belgian brothers cast Cotillard as Sandra, on leave for depression from her job in a Seraing solar-panel factory. Learning she is to be laid off after a vote of her coworkers, Sandra must spend the weekend petitioning them to change their minds before a Monday re-vote and let her stay, which means each employee would forfeit a 1000-Euro bonus.
The Dardennes’ original conception was to pit a below-average worker against the wavering consciences of her peers. But their on-screen Sandra is just a decent woman out of work and luck. Canvasing her 14 colleagues in a secular Stations of the Cross, she lays out her case to each one (in scenes shot in one long take) and gets different, often poignant reasons for their yes or a no. This race-against-time scenario lends an urgency to the socialist maxim, “From each according to his ability, to each according to her need,” that is at the heart of the Dardennes’ concern. This might be a provocative film with any leading lady. With Cotillard — looking fatigued yet fabulous in tank tops and jeans as Sandra makes her desperate rounds — it is also an actor’s triumph. —M.C.
(READ: Mary Corliss on the Dardennes’ The Kid on the Bike)
THE SEARCH. In any festival, the most eagerly anticipated film often turns out to be the most disappointing. That is the fate of this 2½hr. super-serious war-and-remembrance film from Michel Hazanavicius, whose blithe wordless comedy The Artist premiered at Cannes two years ago and won Academy Awards for best picture, writer, director and leading actor. Set in a Chechnya devastated by war, and loosely based on the 1948 Fred Zinnemann film of the same title, The Search puts an NGO dogooder (the excellent Bérénice Bejo) in touch with a Muslim Chechen child (Abdul Khalim Mamutsiev) traumatized by seeing his parents slaughtered by Russian soldiers. Learning, hugging and copious finger-pointing ensue, not least in the film’s depiction of a young soldier (Maxim Emelianov) so brutalized by his training, in Full Metal Jacket style, that he is turned into a soulless killer.
Hazanavicius says he made the film “to oppose the absurd theory according to which all Chechens are terrorists.” That is absurd. Not all Chechens, or Afghans or Somalis, are terrorists. But some are, and their actions brought the Russian army into Chechnya. Another discredited theory is that the mediocre, muddled followup to any Oscar-winning film deserves a choice spot in the Cannes competition. —R.C.
(READ: Mary Corliss’s review of Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist)
WILD TALES. “Pasternak,” the first of six stories in Argentine writer-director Damián Szifron’s omnibus comedy, is the shortest. The people on a flight slowly realize that they all knew a man named Gabriel Pasternak, that they in some way wronged him and that he secretly paid for their tickets. Finally they learn that Pasternak has taken over the cockpit and is about to crash the plane.
Beginning with this deliciously sour anecdote — the only terrorist-hijacking story we know of that’s played for comedy — Szifron weaves a tapestry of outrageous revenge in fables set in a roadhouse diner (“The Rats”), on the open highway (“Road to Hell”), in a DMV office (“Bombina”), among the corrupt members of a rich family (“The Bill”) and at a wedding ceremony where the bride learns her new husband has had affair with one of the wedding guests (“Till Death Do Us Part”). Except for “The Bill,” they are smart, tart, beautifully performed mini-epics of grievance escalating to a kind of sanctified madness. Wild Tales deserves Cannes’ Screenplay prize, and your delighted patronage when Sony Pictures Classics opens this in the U.S. —M.C.
MAPS TO THE STARS. Obscene misanthropy enlivens this inside-Hollywood comedy written by Bruce Wagner and directed by Canada’s David Cronenberg, more than 40 years into his film excavations of the human body as its own deadly parasite (Rabid, The Fly, Naked Lunch). Diseases of the heart and spirit ravage the entire movie business, most prominently a guru-masseur (John Cusack), his stage-moth wife (Olivia Williams) and their two kids — one a obnoxious TV moppet crashing into puberty (Evan Bird), the other a refugee from the loony bin (Mia Wasikowska).
In addition to ghosts, incest, strangulation and a tantric three-way, the movie zings with some of the raunchiest, most knowing dialogue since the almighty Heathers a quarter-century ago. (One of the milder exchanges: a Bieber-like teen star, played with regal ennui by Justin Kelly, says he can sell his excrement for $3,000 a poop, in part because “It’s got rice in it from Nobu.” And when he has diarrhea, it’s like “summer clearance.”) Oddly, Cronenberg’s staging of this delirious material is a little pokey, but worth sitting through for the sheer transgressive jolt — and for Julianne Moore’s fearless, pitch-perfect performance as an aging actress trying for one last great part. Moore might deserve the Best Actress award but, given the film’s corrosive raillery, won’t get it. —R.C.
(FIND: David Cronenberg’s The Fly on the all-TIME Top 25 Horror Movies list)
THE CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA. Call it All About Eve in the Swiss Alps. In that Joseph Mankiewicz Oscar-winner, Bette Davis was the aging actress, Anne Baxter the ingenue avid to steal her star luster. In Olivier Assayas’s update, Maria Enders (Juliette Binoche) is the modern Davis: a middle-aged actress who won early fame as the scheming young Sigrid in the play Maloja Snake, and who is now asked to take the role of Helena, the older victim, in that play’s revival. Sigrid is to be played by Jo Ann Ellis (Chloë Grace Moretz), a teen hottie with a scandalous rep. To prepare for a part that forces her to acknowledge her vanished youth, Maria rehearses with her assistant Val (Kristen Stewart). But which young woman is Eve? Both Val and Jo Ann carry themselves with a precocious poise that in Maria has curdled into the self-doubt. She knows that stars shine brightest when they are new.
The Julianne Moore character in Maps to the Stars faced a similar challenge: she is up for a movie role once played by her dead mother. The threat to Maria is the shroud of an aging actress — the crow lines and thickening waist that Binoche, 50, wears as badges of long, meritorious movie service. Last appearing for Assayas in the lovely Summer House, an international art-house hit, she adroitly handles the competition and collaboration of Twilight star Stewart, whose crafty lack of affect shows to fine advantage in what may be her most complex screen role. Moretz, at 17 segueing from child roles, has just a few scenes to prove Jo Ann is wiser than her tabloid escapades would indicate. Another Cannes entry that showcases for excellent actresses, Sils Maria needs a bit more tension in its telling — and a change of its confounding title. —M.C.
(READ: TIME’s 1950 review of All About Eve by subscribing to the magazine)
LEVIATHAN. This 2hr.21min. drama by Andrey Zvyagintsev, whose The Return took the top prize 11 years ago at the Venice Film Festival, has been short-listed by some critics for this year’s Palme d’Or. It’s certainly long, bleak and politically resonant enough to win official approval. Kolya (Alexey Serebryakov), a dour handyman, has been fighting to keep his seaside property that the venal mayor (Roman Madyanov) has legally seized. In this battle he has enlisted an old Army buddy (Vladimir Vdovitchenkov), now a lawyer, who tries to buck the long odds but is more interested in Kolya’s wife (Elena Lyadova).
Scenes of the frightful price that this Job-like character must pay are kept off-screen; this is, among other things, a murder mystery in which viewers must infer whodunit. But the Mr. Big perpetrator is the post-Soviet system, rewarding corruption and punishing the innocent — those poor slobs who, in a familiar Russian stereotype, smoke and drink way too much. In this middling-quality dirge, the one moment of acerbic humor comes at a shooting party, when the host brings out framed portraits of former Soviet leaders, from Stalin to Gorbachev, for target practice. “Got any more current ones?” somebody asks. The reply: “Too early. Not enough historical perspective.” —R.C.
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Some sensational actresses, including Marion Cotillard, Julianne Moore and Juliette Binoche, vie for top awards at the world's biggest film festival
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SCIENCE NOTES: PLANET LIFE?
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HABITABLE PLANETS— How many habitable planets are there in a radius of 600 trillion miles around the sun? Fifty. That at least is the number calculated by Stephen Dole of the Rand Corporation in a new book entitled Habitable Planets for Man.
The calculation was based on the product of the number of stars of the right mass and a string of probabilities involving whether a star has planets, the inclination of a planet's equator
The worm may have turned on scientific claims that those creatures can learn, according to a report at a meeting on these matters in Cambridge, England, last week.
Donald Jensen, an Indiana University psychology professor, cautioned against too quick acceptance of widely heralded experiments in which primative flat‐worms had reportedly been taught to swim in response to signals. An equally valid explanation for the reported results, he said, would be that the orientation of the animals had been influenced by physical and chemical consequeniees of the experimental procedures and not at all by “learning” on the part of the worms.
A Columbia University physicist has built a better timepiece. It is an atomic clock—one of the most accurate instruments known—of the simplest and most compact sort yet produced.
Developed by Dr. Paul Davidovits under the guidance of Professor Robert Novick, head of Columbia's radiation laboratory, the device consists of a light source whose size and power requirements are comparable to those of an ordinary flashlight, and a microwave cavity containing rubidiuim gas. It operates on the principle of the maser, an acronym for microwave amplification by simulated emission of radiation. No vacuum pumps, bulky magnets, large power supplies or low‐temperature equipment is needed.
This article can be viewed in its original form. Please send questions and feedback to archive_feedback@nytimes.com
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Prof Jensen warns against too-quick acceptance of experiments claiming worms can learn
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Yotel plans micro hotel for Boston
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First came micro apartments. Now a Boston developer wants to build some of the city’s smallest hotel rooms on property in the South Boston Innovation District.
John B. Hynes III is proposing to develop a Yotel, whose rooms — Yotel calls them “cabins” — have set a new benchmark for efficiency from London to New York to Amsterdam.
The rooms in Boston would range between 160 and 200 square feet, Hynes said, or roughly half the size of traditional rooms at the nearby Westin Waterfront. The 307-room Yotel is to be built along Seaport Boulevard, across from the John Joseph Moakley US Courthouse.
“It’s a high-quality finished product, and there is no wasted space,” Hynes said. “It’s great for a budget-conscious business traveler who’s popping in and popping out. You don’t pay for all these amenities you don’t use.”
The hotel would be part of Hynes’s Seaport Square development, which is to include a mix of apartments, stores, office buildings, and public parks on 23 acres of parking lots in the center of the Innovation District.
Later this summer, Hynes said, he will start construction on a pair of 22-story apartment buildings along Seaport Boulevard with 300,000 square feet of new stores and restaurants.
Originally, an apartment building was planned for the hotel site. Hynes said he has sold the property, known as Parcel J, to Wheelock Street Capital for an amount that’s not being disclosed. He said he is working with the firm to get approvals for the hotel project from Boston regulators. Executives with Wheelock could not be reached for comment.
A spokeswoman for Yotel said the company wants to open a hotel in Boston, but she would not discuss details until the plans are finalized.
A preliminary proposal for the Yotel calls for an 11-story building with a rooftop bar and seating area, designed by the Boston architecture firm ADD Inc. The hotel would serve as a lower-priced alternative to the luxury hotels that dominate the market in the Innovation District and downtown.
The project was scheduled to be discussed at a meeting of the Boston Civic Design Commission Tuesday night. It will also need approval from the Boston Redevelopment Authority. Hynes said that he hopes to begin construction in the fall.
Room rates for the Yotel in Boston have not been set. In New York, a standard cabin with a queen bed at the Times Square location goes for about $249 a night, compared to $374 and up for rooms at that city’s downtown Marriott.
Yotel offers a range of cabin sizes at its hotels but is known for extremely compact rooms, especially at its airport locations. Its hotel at Schiphol Airport in Amersterdam, for example, offers 75-square-foot pods that more resemble train cabins than hotel rooms.
The Yotel in the Innovation District would be one of several hotels planned or under construction in the neighborhood, which has seen a burst of construction activity in the past few years. A 136-room boutique hotel is under construction nearby, in front of the Barking Crab restaurant. Two mid-priced hotels with a total of 500 rooms are under construction across from the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, and managers of the convention hall are proposing to develop another 1,200 rooms in coming years.
Hotel industry specialists said that a Yotel would help answer the demand for lower-priced hotel rooms in Boston. Such hotels are typically difficult to build because of high land and construction costs in the city, which requires developers to charge higher rates.
“The Innovation District is a great place to try out a product like this,” said Patrick Moscaritolo, chief executive of the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau.
“It’s worked in other major international gateway cities, and I think it can work here. It certainly will provide another option for visitors and business travelers.”
• 5/17: Waterfront development gets OK from city
• 7/26: Boston backs smaller living units
• 3/27: Growth of micro-units will be slow in Boston
• 3/26: Housing-starved cities seek relief in micro-apartments
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Developer John B. Hynes III is proposing to develop Boston’s first Yotel hotel. The hospitality company has made a name for itself by building miniature hotel rooms in cities from London to New York to Amsterdam.
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Meet Esther Earl, the Brave Girl Who Inspired The Fault in Our Stars
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06/07/2014 at 01:15 PM EDT
Yoon S. Byun/The Boston Globe/Getty
Onscreen and in the pages of the bestselling book, audiences have been captivated by the spirit and humor of
's heroine, Hazel Grace Lancaster.
The character (played in the film by
) was inspired by a courageous young woman: Esther Earl, who died at the age of 16 from thyroid cancer, was a good friend of author John Green's and supported his desire to write the book.
On his blog, Green referred to Earl as "young, blessed with a genuinely sophomoric sense of humor, silly, empathetic, madly in love with her friends and family, and a very gifted writer." Here are five things you should know about Green's muse:
In 2006, Earl was diagnosed with metastasized papillary thyroid cancer, making it difficult for her to breathe. Despite her illness, the Massachusetts teen continued to be a loving and hopeful person until the end, stating in one of her last YouTube
, "I love my family ⦠and I love my sisters, I love my brother, I love my dad, I love my mom, and I love my pets. I love my friends. My friends are amazing." On Aug. 25, 2010, shortly after she turned 16, Earl lost her battle with cancer.
Earl had a very big Internet presence on multiple platforms including
and Tumblr. However, her friends, family, and fans got to know her best through her funny and empathetic videos
. "I'm not always amazing," she said. "I'm not always strong and you guys should know that."
After meeting at the conference in 2009, Green and Earl continued to be friends throughout her life. They met various times before she died and the author paid homage to her in the video
video: "Even though Esther has died we will continue to do work with her because it will be when we work to decrease world suck and when we show our love for others that Esther will be with us most."
Her parents, Wayne and Lori, founded
, a nonprofit organization to help families who have a child with cancer, in honor of Esther, whose name means "star" in Persia. They also
with the same title that includes journals, fiction, letters and sketches by Earl, with an introduction by Green. "We want to share Esther's brightness and grace," Lori said last December. "In her short life, she grew into her name."
Green promised her that he and his brother would make a video on their YouTube channel,
, every year on her birthday, Aug. 3. Green coined the name "Esther Day," and said Earl wanted the day to be about "family and love." Every year friends, family and fans of Earl continue to celebrate the day as well, making their own videos to remember Earl's energy and life.
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Esther Earl, who died of thyroid cancer at 16, was a good friend of author John Green
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Cristina de Middel's best shot - recreating Zambia's space programme
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'I couldn't believe it was real' … Cristina de Middel's best shot. Photograph: Cristina de Middel
In 2010, I left my job as a staff photographer for a Spanish paper. I'd been at the same place for six years and felt like a robot. I was shooting the same stories over and over again, and my pictures would always be used in the same way. After a while in news, you realise everything – apart from breaking stories – is cyclical. I wasn't experimenting and I wasn't enjoying myself.
So I took a year's sabbatical and said to myself: "Instead of complaining, why don't you try to prove them wrong? Why don't you do a story that you think is important and tell it in your own way? If it doesn't work, then stop complaining."
I started researching true stories people don't believe and fake stories they do. If you play around with reality, it gives a completely different dimension to the idea of photography as a document. Normally, photography is understood as being true: we assume nothing is manipulated, especially if it's in a newspaper.
One day, on a trawl of the internet, I came across a YouTube interview with Edward Makuka Nkoloso, leader of the short-lived Zambian space programme in the 1960s. I couldn't believe it was real – then I realised I was in the very situation I wanted to set up. I became aware of my own prejudice, in thinking Africa couldn't possibly go to space. It also brought home the fact that the continent is often treated unfairly by the media: most news pictures we see from Africa show war and suffering, even though there are other things going on.
In 1964, when Zambia gained its independence from the UK, Nkoloso, a science teacher, decided to prove that his country was just as important as the world's leading nations. It was the height of the space race and he decided Zambia should take part. He designed a rocket and a catapult system to launch it, which he tested on Zambian Independence Day. He recruited 10 men and one woman as astronauts. He wanted the woman – and two cats – to be the first to walk on the moon.
Training took place on a farm near the capital, Lusaka. Nkoloso asked for £7m of funding from Unesco, but didn't get it. That was one reason why the programme didn't have a chance. Then the woman became pregnant by one of the other astronauts and her parents came to take her back to their village. And that marked the end of the space programme. People I have spoken to who met Nkoloso say he was very charismatic: a dreamer who took his project very seriously, maybe even with the same serious approach Nasa and the Soviet Union had. He went on to become an important personality in the politics of Zambia and even received a state funeral.
I found a location on the outskirts of Madrid. I needed a place people could associate with Africa. The rubbish dump was visually attractive and helped me play with the misconception that Africa is full of rubbish dumps. I managed to find a model with afro hair – it didn't matter that he was actually Brazilian. And I was very lucky with the costume: a friend was working on a Spanish movie called The Cosmonaut and had a real Russian spacesuit I could borrow.
There is very little documentation from this moment in Zambia's history, so I had to figure out my own way to tell the story. I used family photo albums from the 1960s as a visual reference. The pictures are all square and de-saturated, with a pink tone. Some of the pictures that featured in the series, called The Afronauts, were actually old ones taken on trips to the US and Italy. That's the great thing about staging: you can play with images and even recycle old ones. The point I wanted to make was not that the project failed because it was the work of a poor African country, but that Nkoloso tried and believed it was possible. It would never happen in Europe: people would say there was no point in even trying. But it happened in Africa because there is a different – and beautiful – attitude there.
Studied: Fine arts in Valencia and photography in Oklahoma.
Influences: "1960s sc-fi films, afro-futurism, and Tin Tin. Duane Michaels and Diane Arbus."
High point: "Meeting Martin Parr. He completely changed my career."
Low point: "People around me have changed because my life has moved on."
Top tip: "Always note down any crazy ideas you have, because ideas that come in a free way are often really good.
• The Afronauts is at the Pinta art fair until 15 June. Earls Court Exhibiton Centre, London SW5.
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Playing Aquaman in Zack Snyder's Batman v Superman : People.com
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06/16/2014 at 10:30 AM EDT
Jason Momoa as Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones
Time to ease off the Aquaman jokes, everyone.
, the charismatic man-mountain behind
, is going to play Aquaman in
Rumors regarding the decision have been floating around for a while (so much so that Momoa, 34, flat-out told people to stop asking him about it), and HitFix adds that Snyder already has the character's designs finalized.
HitFix notes that Momoa's Aquaman will not have a prominent role in the film, but the character's appearance will further set up the "Justice League" movie,
is slated to be released in May 2017. Snyder's
is set to hit theaters in 2016, so begin ramping up your fervent speculation now.
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Everything That's Wrong With Frozen : People.com
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06/16/2014 at 03:55 PM EDT
First off, no one's saying that
isn't the life changer of a movie that you may find it to be. The music, the sisterhood, the abundant use of electric teal? All reasons you can still love it.
However, if you were to set aside your love and analyze
carefully, it's possible that you might find an inconsistency or two in the film's plot. For exampleâ¦
if Elsa is just going to live behind a locked door the whole time?
for a full decade that yeah, the princesses are totally alive and safe but no, you can't see them?
, was it necessary for her to spend that decade or so living in total isolation?
if she had her memories erased of anything related to Elsa's ice magic?
Picky? Yes. Snarky? Of course. But before you respond with a defensive "This is
we're talking about!" know that the
guys have previously focused their oh-so-critical gaze on such cinematic greats as
is in good company, hypothermia concerns aside.
How Frozen Should Have Ended
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This video has questions, and it's not going to "Let It Go"
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New Hunger Games Mockingjay Posters : People.com
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UPDATED 06/23/2014 at 07:00 PM EDT • Originally published 06/23/2014 at 04:00 PM EDT
Josh Hutcherson and Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
The third cinematic chapter in
, won't be out until Nov. 21, but Panem is giving us a taste now with a crop of propaganda posters.
The last time Katniss and Peeta competed on-screen in
there was no happy ending. The Girl on Fire woke up to find herself being transported to the rumored District 13, while the Boy Who Really Knows How to Frost Cakes was taken by The Capitol. It's clear that the rigid 12-district hierarchy of the
is at its breaking point. So how does the crown jewel of Panem, The Capitol, respond?
With some choreographed spin, of course! Instead of focusing on the rabble-rousing characters portrayed by
, the first posters for
are a stylized look at the unfamiliar faces of Panem. Each stunning shot, designed to be coming
, salutes an unsung district hero and the special goods his or her home provides. Looks like the bigwigs of the
are content to fight the rebellion with lies, but, as fans know, these sleek, well-designed bits of propaganda won't hold up for long.
Take a look at the first disturbingly beautiful posters for
below, and get to know the other residents of Panem.
"After shorting out, then quickly repairing District 3âs mainframe at the age of nine, Fibre Bissette, 32, has proven her fearlessness in the face of any challenge."
The proud daughter of a deep-sea fisherman and a sixth-generation pearl diver, Naida Dolan, 22, channels her legacy as she proudly holds the dayâs catch.
Thought to have gasoline pumping through his veins, Malcolm Kastel, 31, is devoted to District 6âs mission of keeping Panem moving.
Elias Haan, 26, has kept the axe handed down to him by his great-grandfather as a reminder of the hardships he and his great District have overcome.
After a day in the fields, Triti Lancaster, 17, graciously offers a bundle of wheat to her fellow citizens of Panem.
Raised amongst the herd, Felix Stam, 35, possesses a quiet understanding of the ways of animals and the circle of life that unites us all.
Lily Elsington, 6, captures the spirit of the next generation of District citizens: ready, willing, and eager to fuel the Panem of tomorrow.
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Panem shows the world how propaganda is done
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New England Journal of Medicine turns 200
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From the Globe’s health care blog.
In 1819, French physician René Laennec published a description of the cacophony of sick lungs, deciphered with his new invention, the stethoscope. About 18 months later, doctors in New England read about his discoveries, delivered across the sea and by horseback to their offices, in one of the early editions of what would become the venerable New England Journal of Medicine.
Laennec’s discoveries altered medicine in a way so fundamental that we see the effects each time a doctor uses the instrument. It is among the first of many enduring changes documented by the journal and being celebrated this year as it reaches its 200th anniversary.
The journal, operated by the Massachusetts Medical Society, is marking the occasion with a website, articles, and a symposium in June.
“This is an opportunity to take a look and see how much better off we are now than our forbearers,’’ said Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor in chief.
The commemorative website (nejm200.nejm.org ) includes an interactive timeline of the milestones in medicine that have appeared on the journal’s pages.
The manner in which the journal has reported on such advancements is a story in itself.
When Robert Koch gave a famous lecture in Berlin in 1882 identifying the bacteria that caused tuberculosis, the news was dispatched to the journal via telegraph and printed a week later, Drazen said.
Nearly a century later, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention put out its weekly bulletin reporting on four previously healthy gay men who had contracted an unknown infection - what would become known as HIV - the news reached editor Arnold ’ Relman by phone and the first articles on the disease appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine soon after.
Today, five times more people read the journal online than in print, said Edward Campion, web editor.
“Our core mission remains the same: To get the best information to doctors,’’ Drazen said. “We do it the best way we can. . . . For the physician who’s 60, we publish a print magazine every week. For the physician who’s 30 we have a very active website.’’
The Patrick administration last week announced the names of the seven appointees to a committee charged with creating a set of health care quality benchmarks for the state.
Among other things, the committee’s work could be used in awarding payments to hospitals that treat large numbers of poor patients and in determining how hospitals and doctors will be categorized in newer tiered health plans.
The committee will meet for the first time Jan. 25. It will be chaired by Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach and Áron Boros, commissioner of the Division of Health Care Finance and Policy. Other members are:
■Dolores Mitchell, executive director of the Group Insurance Commission (ex-officio)
■Dr. Julian Harris, MassHealth director (ex-officio)
■Dianne Anderson, chief executive of Lawrence General Hospital
■Jon Hurst, president, Retailers Association of Massachusetts
■Amy Whitcomb Slemmer, executive director, Health Care for All
■Dr. James Feldman, Massachusetts Medical Society, emergency physician at Boston University Medical Center
■Dr. Richard Lopez, chief physician executive, Atrius Health
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In 1819, French physician René Laennec published a description of the cacophony of sick lungs, deciphered with his new invention: the stethoscope. Some 18 months later, doctors in New England read about his discoveries in one of the early editions of what would become the venerable New England Journal of Medicine. It’s among the first of many enduring changes in medicine that were documented by the journal and are being celebrated this year as the publication reaches its 200th anniversary.
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Legendary Soul Singer-Songwriter Was 70 : People.com
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20140630232907
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06/28/2014 at 09:20 AM EDT
Bobby Womack, a colorful and revered R&B singer-songwriter who influenced artists from the Rolling Stones to Damon Albarn, has died. He was 70.
Womack's publicist Sonya Kolowrat said Friday that the singer had died, but she could provide no other details.
With an incomparable voice few could match, Womack was a stirring singer and guitarist in his own right and a powerful songwriter whose hits like "Across 110th Street," ''If You Think You're Lonely Now" and "I Wish He Didn't Trust Me So Much" captured the imagination of future stars in rock 'n' roll and R&B.
"He had a style that nobody else could ever capture," longtime friend, gospel singer Candi Staton, said in a statement. "I loved him and I will miss him so, so very much."
In a statement, musician Peter Gabriel said: "I'm very sad to learn of Bobby Womack's death ... His songs and his voice have been so much a part of the fabric of so many musical lives. In recent years, it was great to see Richard Russell and Damon Albarn bringing his music back into our attention. He was a soul legend. Our thoughts and condolences are with his family and friends at this time."
Womack's death comes as something of a surprise. Though he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease two years ago and overcame addiction and multiple health issues, including prostate and colon cancer, recently he seemed in good health and spirits when he
at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival.
in 2013 the Alzheimer's diagnosis came after he began having difficulty remembering his songs and the names of people he had worked with.
And there have been many. The soul singer cut a wide path through the music business as a performer and songwriter in a career that spanned seven decades. Womack was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2009, long after he'd lost his fortune and his career to addiction.
He spoke of kicking his substance abuse problems in a 2012 interview with the Associated Press and all the friends he'd lost to drugs over the years.
"I think the biggest move for me was to get away from the drug scene," Womack said. "It wasn't easy. It was hard because everybody I knew did drugs. ... They didn't know when to turn it off. So for me looking at Wilson Pickett, close friends of mine, Sly Stone, Jim Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and I can go on and on and on, and I say all of them died because of drugs."
, Womack was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and sang gospel music at a young age, performing with his brothers in The Womack Brothers. Under the influence of gospel and R&B legend Sam Cooke, who signed the group to his personal label, Womack moved into secular music. In the early 1960s, his group recorded "It's All Over Now," which was covered by the Stones and became the band's first No. 1 hit.
His songs have been recorded by multiple artists, and he played as a session musician in Memphis in the 1960s.
Albarn and XL Recordings president Richard Russell helped Womack regain his career with the 2012 comeback album
. The album was a departure for Womack, full of electronic music and beats. But it was lauded by critics for a simple reason: That distinctive voice of his still brought chills.
"I don't think he ever really thought that he would do anything again," Albarn said of Womack in March. "Watching his rehabilitation and watching his ability to confront new material and new challenges was nothing short of miraculous at the time, and he still today continues to battle his demons and his illness. But he's a beautiful person, and when he opens his mouth and that voice comes out, it is something that is somehow touched by God."
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The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, whose hits included "Across 110th Street" and ''If You Think You're Lonely Now," died Friday
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Snubs and Surprises : People.com
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20140710165534
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07/10/2014 at 12:25 PM EDT
From left: Mindy Kaling, James Spader and Julianna Marguilies (in The Good Wife)
Jordin Althaus/FOX; Virginia Sherwood/NBC; John Paul Filo/CBS
in, such fan favorites as
felt the love – with 12 and 19 nominations, respectively.
Others, meanwhile, got left out in the cold.
may have just wrapped its most extraordinary season to date, but it found itself snubbed in the best drama category. Newer critical favorites, like NBC's
Also receiving the brush off: drama and comedy actors Michael Sheen (
) and Liev Schreiber (
Cult fave Tatiana Maslany (who deftly portrays a slew of clones with distinctive personalities on BBC America's
) was shut out, as was Mother of Dragons Emilia Clarke (HBO's
) and last yearâs surprise supporting actress winner Merritt Wever (Showtime's
And how about a quick tear for Mindy Kaling, who actually
the nominations Thursday morning but was overlooked for her work in Fox's
So, too, were Joel McHale on NBC's
, Max Greenfield on Fox's
and four-time Emmy nominee Sofia Vergara on
At least a few surprises took away some of the sting:
, Netflix's addictive series set in a women's prison, and HBOâs freshman comedy
, will compete against established veterans.
) earned her first nomination in the comedy actress category, while awards magnet Allison Janney earned nods in CBS's first-year comedy
Also scoring well-deserved nominations were Benedict Cumberbatch on PBS's
and Lena Headey on HBO's
Of course, should Headey win, she might just
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The Blacklist's James Spader and The Mindy Project's Mindy Kaling are among those bypassed
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After Supreme Court ruling, Aereo’s rivals in TV streaming see an opening
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20140718061559
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NEW YORK — Mark Ely saw an opportunity, and he took it.
The day after the Supreme Court ruled against Aereo in a copyright case brought by major broadcasters, Ely was trying to scoop up Aereo customers by promoting Simple.TV, his startup, on social media.
“Former Aereo customer? Join the Simple.TV Family,” the company wrote on Twitter on Thursday.
“We’re telling Aereo customers: ‘Your favorite service is going away. Here’s an idea that isn’t,’ ” said Ely, who started his company in 2011.
The television establishment still has much to worry about after its Supreme Court victory on Wednesday over Aereo, the digital startup that had threatened to upend the economics of the media business.
“Television is a castle filled with money,” said Rishad Tobaccowala, chief strategy and innovation officer at Vivaki, Publicis Groupe’s digital marketing unit. “People are trying to get into that castle and take some money.”
But while the court’s decision broadens the moat, traditional broadcasters still must find ways to defend themselves against an array of companies that want to give viewers an alternative to their model.
Eager for a piece of the $167 billion American television market, dozens of companies are offering options for the growing number of viewers known as cord cutters, who are canceling their traditional pay-television subscriptions.
The providers range from Hulu, which broadcasters own, to Amazon, Google, and Netflix, all of which offer cheaper streaming alternatives.
Other companies, including Sling Media, TiVo, Simple.TV, and Mohu, sell hardware that allows viewers to stream television to digital devices.
And Aereo may yet stick around; the company said Saturday that it would pause its service temporarily as it sorted out its options but that its journey was “far from done.”
“I don’t think you are going to find a silver bullet to disrupt the broadcast industry,” said Kenneth Lerer, a venture capitalist. “I think you are going to find a lot of little bullets.”
Aereo and its battle with broadcasters overshadowed the efforts of several other startups that offer ways to watch free over-the-air television on cellphones, tablets, laptops, and Internet-connected televisions.
Those companies are now trying to grab the spotlight after the Supreme Court ruled Aereo violated copyright law by capturing broadcast signals on tiny antennas and transmitting them to paying subscribers.
Ely started Simple.TV months before Aereo’s 2012 debut. Ely noticed a growing number of people were watching TV shows and movies online but did not have access to live television programming like news and sports. His idea was to sell a “private TV server” that plugged into an antenna, hard drive, and Internet router.
With Aereo, subscribers paid $8 to $12 a month to rent dime-size antennas stored in a warehouse. Users could then stream near-live television and record programs.
With Simple.TV, people buy their own antennas and the $199 Simple.TV box. Users can record programs on a hard drive. The company also sells a premium service with features like automatic recording.
Mohu also hopes to grow. It sells over-the-air antennas and offers a streaming service and has sold 1.5 million high-definition TV antennas to consumers.
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The television establishment still has much to worry about after its Supreme Court victory Wednesday over Aereo, the digital startup that had threatened to upend the economics of the media business.
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Man Uses Blowtorch to Kill Spider Sets House on Fire : People.com
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20140719081308
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07/18/2014 at 06:15 AM EDT
Fire damage caused by a Seattle man's spider "blowtorch" and a spider
A man who used a can of spray paint and a lighter as a makeshift blowtorch to kill a spider in his laundry room started a blaze that caused $60,000 worth of damage, Seattle fire officials said Wednesday.
The man and his mother got out of the house, and no injuries were reported in the fire that broke out in the West Seattle home Tuesday night, said Kyle Moore, a spokesman for the Seattle Fire Department.
Moore said the man used the spray paint and lighter as "a self-made blowtorch to kill a spider in the laundry room" of a rental house.
"I don't want to encourage people to do this, but that's what he did," Moore said Wednesday. "The spider tried to get into the wall. He sprayed flames on the wall, lit the wall on fire, and that extended up to the ceiling."
Fire crews were called to the home just south of Seattle just before 8:30 p.m. Tuesday.
Firefighters initially fought the fire from outside after someone reported hearing ammunition go off in the house. Crews eventually went inside the house after confirming from tenants that there was no ammunition inside.
The man initially tried to put water on the fire, but he wasn't able to put it out and the blaze quickly spread into the attic.
On Wednesday, portions of the house were boarded up with plywood, and a blue tarp covered part of the roof. The owners of the house declined to comment.
"There are safer, more effective ways to kill a spider than using fire," Moore said. "Fire is not the method to use to kill a spider."
The Red Cross is providing temporary shelter for the home's two residents, whom authorities have not identified.
As for the spider, Moore said: "I'm pretty sure the spider did not survive this fire. The whole wall went."
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The blaze caused $60,000 worth of damage, but fire crews are confident the spider is dead
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Demoulas bemoans firing of protesters
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20140725005349
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Speaking publicly for the first time since his firing, former Market Basket president Arthur T. Demoulas on Monday urged the company’s new management to reinstate longtime employees who were dismissed for organizing protests on his behalf.
With thousands of employees, customers, and supporters again rallying earlier in the day, Demoulas said it has been particularly painful to see the stores he labored over for years running out of food. The produce, meat, and seafood aisles in some stores are empty.
“This company is my passion,” Demoulas said in an interview with the Globe. “It’s the life’s work of my dad and myself and a lot of other people. We’re very proud of what we’ve built together and of the culture that we’ve established.”
Locked in a bitter feud with his cousin that has spawned decades of lawsuits, Demoulas was careful in his remarks and declined to discuss his own dismissal last month or the future of the company. Instead, he expressed dismay at seeing employees who worked there for most of their lives be dismissed for supporting him.
RELATED: Statement by Arthur T. Demoulas
“I love these people very much,” he said simply. “It’s been a very difficult time for the hard-working associates of the company this past few weeks.”
Meanwhile, the board of directors, under the control of his cousin and rival, Arthur S. Demoulas, held a meeting Monday afternoon following another day of loud protests.
Neither Arthur S. Demoulas nor executives of the parent company, Demoulas Super Markets Inc., would comment.
Since Arthur T.’s firing nearly a month ago, Market Basket has become both a public spectacle and a political cause. The Save Market Basket Facebook page has 40,000 likes. Several online petitions demanding the reinstatement of Arthur T. have attracted more than 16,000 signatures; dozens of Massachusetts lawmakers have pledged to support a boycott of the supermarket. On Monday, the governor of New Hampshire weighed in, urging the supermarket’s leadership to quickly resolve the dispute.
“It’s heartening to see just how much the workers of Market Basket value the company,” Governor Maggie Hassan said in a statement, adding that Market Basket’s management should “quickly address the situation with a focus on keeping their dedicated workers employed and reducing the impact on customers.”
And the congresswoman who represents the district where the company was founded and is still based, US Representative Niki Tsongas, wrote to the chain’s board Monday, saying it is “saddening and troubling” to hear of Demoulas’s dismissal. She asked the directors to reconsider his firing.
Despite the extraordinary amount of comment the dispute has generated, the two millionaire cousins at the heart of the battle have largely remained publicly silent, allowing backers to fight on their behalf.
The origins of the feud date to the early 1970s, when George Demoulas, one of the sons of the company founder, died of a heart attack. His children accused his brother, Telemachus, of stealing their shares in the company — allegations that would eventually embroil the family in a lawsuit two decades later. Since then, the two sides have accused each other of greed, underhanded tactics, even drug abuse and extramarital affairs.
RELATED: The saga of Demoulas’s Market Basket
Despite the infighting — marked by expletive-laced board meetings — the chain has prospered. Today, Market Basket has 71 stores and about 25,000 employees in Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire. It is reported to have had revenue of $4.6 billion in 2013 and was ranked by Forbes as the 127th largest private company in the United States.
Arthur S. gained control of the company’s board of directors last year and made a series of changes to its management that culminated with his cousin’s firing in June.
While Arthur S. continued his silence Monday, his cousin finally agreed to speak after eight senior employees, including organizers of the protest campaign, were fired over the weekend. Several had worked for Market Basket for more than 40 years.
“In the final analysis, this is not about me,” Arthur T. Demoulas said in a statement after his interview with the Globe. “It is about the people who have proven their dedication over many years and should not have lost their jobs because of it. I urge that they be reinstated in the best interest of the company and our customers.”
One of the fired employees, Joe Garon, a buyer with 49 years at Market Basket, said that Arthur T. Demoulas called him Sunday and asked how he and his wife were holding up.
“He said the important thing is to take care of your health,” Garon said. “I told him I was fine, don’t worry about it — this is our fight, too.”
Beginning around 9 a.m. Monday, thousands of employees, their families and friends, and the grocery’s customers gathered outside a Market Basket in Tewksbury to again call for Arthur T. Demoulas’s return as the company’s president.
RELATED: Thousands rally for ousted CEO
Organizers estimated the crowd at more than 5,000. They had held a similar rally Friday.
One speaker Monday was Rosie Hagopian, an administrative assistant with 41 years at the company, who said the protest was wholly organized by the rank and file.
“Everything we’ve made ourselves, we bought ourselves,” she said of the signs, buttons, and T-shirts sported by many in support of Demoulas. “It’s all for the same cause: to bring Artie T. back to Market Basket . . . . We need to hang tough, we need to have each other’s back because that’s what Artie T. would do for us.”
State Senator Barry Finegold, an Andover Democrat, is behind a group of 35 legislators calling for a boycott of Market Basket and backing employees.
“We’re going to stand with your families,” he said.
Richard Cruz, who works in the produce department at a Market Basket in Brockton, said he brought his 6-year-old to the rally to teach him how to stand up for what’s right. The boy, also named Richard Cruz, sported a too-large red Market Basket cap.
The elder Cruz said he has faith in Demoulas because “he is one of us; he knows what’s the struggle.”
Later Monday in the interview with the Globe, Arthur T. expressed appreciation for the outpouring of support from his longtime employees, but he said he doesn’t want to see any more of them fired.
“The commitment must go both ways — from the associates to the company and from the company to the hard-working associates,” he said. “Market Basket is people to me. That’s the most important thing.”
Read the full statement from Arthur T. Demoulas
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Speaking publicly for the first time since his firing, former Market Basket president Arthur T. Demoulas Monday urged the company’s new management to reinstate long-time employees who were fired for organizing protests on his behalf. With thousands of employees, customers and supporters again rallying earlier in the day, Demoulas said it has been particularly painful to see the stores he labored over for years running out of food. The produce, meat and seafood aisles in some stores are empty.
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Relentless Rookie Joel Embiid Shifts His Focus From Kim Kardashian To Rihanna
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20140725182343
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Joel Embiid may be off the basketball court for a little while after surgery last month to repair a stress fracture in his right foot, but the 7-footer has kept extremely active on Twitter.
Embiid, a candidate for the top overall pick in this year's NBA draft before injury concerns dropped him to third, has shown his lighter side on social media with the active and relentless pursuit of Kim Kardashian and Rihanna.
Last week Embiid tweeted at Kardashian in the hopes of scoring a date with the 33-year-old reality TV star.
Hey I want you to come slide in my DMs @KimKardashian
— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 16, 2014
There's just one minor problem with pursuing Kardashian, and Embiid quickly came to his senses:
Oh I didn't know you were married sorry @KimKardashian just saw it from the fan's tweet... have a nice day
— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 16, 2014
It didn't take long for Embiid to mend his broken heart, as he quickly moved on from Kardashian to Rihanna. And his announcement of his new pursuit was comedic gold:
BREAKING NEWS: Moving on from kk to Rihanna
— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 22, 2014
More:Embiid’s reaction“You know in life, you need to experience new things and I just thought that I should shift my attention to a new girl
— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 22, 2014
SOURCES: Rihanna is considering JOEL EMBIID’s offer
— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 22, 2014
Embiid went as far as to post a photoshopped picture of Rihanna wearing his No. 11 Philadelphia 76ers jersey:
That's all I gotta say......@rihanna repping the @Sixers and my jersey number #EMB11D ( got this from JD) pic.twitter.com/QVsqP7SvGs
— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 23, 2014
Should he exceed all expectations and actually score a date with Rihanna, Embiid actually wouldn't be the first NBA player to successfully court a high profile woman on social media. Quincy Pondexter and b>Andre Drummond both pulled off the feat.
Alas, to the disappointment of everyone, Embiid revealed later that he's just playing around with the tweets:
S/O to all the (I don't wanna say dumb but I'm gonna go ahead and say it) "DUMB" people who think that I'm serious. Not a mean guy tho.
— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 23, 2014
Still, that didn't stop Embiid from creating a couple name for he and Rihanna should the pair ever get together:
#JOHANNA IM OUT for a couple weeks
— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 23, 2014
Embiid has a long recovery ahead of him, and depending on how his rehabilitation goes he may even miss the entire 2014-15 season. If Embiid can stay healthy, many experts believe he has the physical tools to dominate in the NBA. But his confidence has to be suffering after no responses from Kardashian or Rihanna.
And to make matters worse, Embiid's passionate pursuit earlier this month of another partner also got rejected:
@KingJames hey bro hope you're having a good day...... Want to join us in philly?? Peace
— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 1, 2014
He probably DM'd me but I dont read my DMs so I'm gonna go ahead and block him pic.twitter.com/PunjHSiQRI
— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 4, 2014
WATCH THE THRONE. THE LION KING is coming!!!! @KingJames #EMB11D #TogetherWeBuild
— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 7, 2014
I guess my recruiting skills didn't work
— Joel-Hans Embiid (@JoelEmbiid) July 11, 2014
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VIDEO OF THE DAY:Meet The 'Batmobile' Of Food Trucks
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Joel Embiid may be off the basketball court for a little while after surgery last month to repair a stress fracture in his right foot, but the 7-foote...
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These women are about to go toe to toe. My money's on the one with the stoat
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20140729013921
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Forget the Olympics and tuition fee demos. If reports are to be believed, the National Gallery's Leonardo exhibition is going to generate the sort of collective mania that will take riot police and water cannons to contain.
Remember Monet at the Royal Academy a few years back? Remember what a complete Mongolian goatpoke it was, with those lines of mooching, slackmouthed waterlily-fanciers backed halfway up the street? Well, this will be worse. I blame Dan Brown, who – despite apparently thinking Da Vinci was his surname – has convinced millions that Leonardo's work is the key to the greatest evil secret ever.
The National Gallery has already announced that to prevent "gallery rage", it will issue only 180 tickets for each half-hour slot, rather than the 230 its licence allows. This will cost it £10,000 a day in potential revenue, but will greatly reduce the risk of anyone being assassinated by a 9ft-tall albino assassin from Opus Dei.
Well, good, obviously. Had a way with a brush did that Leonardo. But it does show up how blockbusterish the museum culture now is. These days, we report fine art shows like prizefights. They are stories told in statistics: visitor numbers, speed at which tickets sell out, number of paintings never before displayed together, cost of insurance measured in GDPs of medium-sized African countries, etc.
The pre-show hype for the November exhibition really goes to town in this respect. Rather than announce something as boring as a gallery full of nice pictures folk might like to see, it is also being touted as some kind of celebrity death-match, thanks to the inclusion of a rarely seen masterpiece: will history be made and a new Most Famous Leonardo Painting be crowned?
In the red corner, the defending champion: weighing in, according to the insurance valuation, at a cool half-a-billion pounds, boasting a look of quiet confidence and that enigmatic smile, it's . . . the Mona Lisa! And in the blue corner, the challenger! From Krakow, Poland, she's lean and hungry, 10 years younger, half the square footage and a good few quid less to insure. She has man's hands and a weird hairnet. She has a giant, bald stoat and she's not afraid to use it. It's … Lady With an Ermine!
According to her trainer, Count Adam Zamoyski (the art historian whose Polish family foundation owns the painting), Cecilia Gallerani, as she is also known, has travelled 800 miles against doctor's (well, conservator's) orders for this shot at the title. The count's already trash-talking the other side. He says his Cecilia is "unquestionably" better and "will replace the Mona Lisa as the icon for Leonardo. As simple as that." Mona Lisa, in other words, is going dahn. The Times, media partners for the show, has launched an online poll; so far, dismayingly for the incumbent, nearly four in five prefer Cecilia.
It's probably not quite how Ruskin would have approached the presentation of two masterworks, but I find this candid vulgarity appealing. Why not try it with other artists? A five-round icon-off between soup cans and Marilyn for pre-eminence in the Warhol canon, say; or a quick scrap in the basement of the Tate between Turner's Rain, Steam and Speed and The Fighting Temeraire. Postmodern, too, to make iconic-ness, the art-historical equivalent of celebrity, the important issue.
As for the pictures in contention, I'm leaning towards the four-out-of-five in the poll. OK, Leonardo's definitely made more of an effort with colouring in the background on the Mona Lisa, and Cecilia has done that annoying thing that blights all my holiday snaps: looking away at just the wrong moment. Then there's that hand and the thing she's cuddling; it takes a while to clock that Lady With an Ermine isn't so titled because she's wearing fur. It's an actual bleeding ermine, wearing its own fur coat, and very ugly it is, too. Who'd have their picture taken cuddling a stoat?
But there's a bit of torque in the composition that the Mona Lisa lacks. Give the painting a really good, close look and you'll see she really does have the very breath of life in her. You find yourself absorbed by the curves of cheek, shoulder, jaw and necklace angling off from her chin. You see a sitter, maybe 16 years old, just distracted by a noise, caught in a living moment more than five centuries ago. And you find yourself awestruck.
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Sam Leith: As the National Gallery prepares for its forthcoming blockbuster show, Lady With an Ermine is being tipped to become the next Mona Lisa
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http://fortune.com/2010/10/26/vc-lobbyist-reddens-as-elections-near/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140731204908id_/http://fortune.com:80/2010/10/26/vc-lobbyist-reddens-as-elections-near/
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VC lobbyist reddens as elections near
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Last night I spent some time looking at recent political contributions of VenturePAC, the National Venture Capital Association’s political action committee (there wasn’t much on TV). Specifically, I looked at which candidates and PACs it had given money to in calendar 2010.
The breakdown looks like this:
In other words, a slight edge in giving to Republicans than to Democrats. This is a flip from calendar 2007 and calendar 2008, in which VenturePAC trended blue. I have not yet looked at 2009 figures – i.e., the first part of this election cycle – which NVCA president Mark Heesen says includes more Democratic giving, based on a tendency to support incumbents earlier in the cycle.
Heesen says that he accepts conventional wisdom of Republicans regaining the House next week, but falling short in the Senate (he thinks the GOP will get that prize in 2012).
He also says that neither party is necessarily in lockstep with NVCA policy priorities. For example, he is worried that a GOP-controlled House would mean a death-knell for comprehensive energy legislation, which is desired (in some form) by many cleantech-focused members. On the other hand, he believes that Republicans would be likely to exclude VCs from any change to carried interest tax structure (and be more sympathetic on taxes, in general). When it comes to immigration, he finds plenty of blame on both sides.
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Last night I spent some time looking at recent political contributions of VenturePAC, the National Venture Capital Association’s political action committee (there wasn’t much on TV). Specifically, I looked at which candidates and PACs it had given money to in calendar 2010. The breakdown looks like this: $126,000 to 67 Democratic candidates $151,500 to 69…
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http://www.people.com/article/katy-perry-dark-horse-baby
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140807061100id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/katy-perry-dark-horse-baby
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See Katy Perry's 'Dark Horse' Cheer Up a Crying Baby : People.com
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updated 08/05/2014 at 05:55 PM EDT
songs you might expect to calm a crying child, "Dark Horse" would likely not be high up on your list.
sure. But "Dark Horse," the
that features a rap verse in which former Three Six Mafia member Juicy J name-checks Jeffey Dahmer? One would think that would be the second worst (after
) Katy Perry song to play.
But as this video proves, the dark carnival atmosphere of Perry's third
single can cheer up at least one melancholy tot. Maybe it's the beat, maybe it's Juicy J's classic ad-libs. ("Y'all know what it is!") Either way, it's remarkably effective. Who knows – we may have just found the littlest
Watch the video above, and then enjoy the full "Dark Horse" video below. You know, in case there are any babies around.
Katy Perry and brother David Hudson
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We may have just found the littlest trap lord
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http://fortune.com/2014/08/06/figure-1-medical-photo-sharing-app/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140808014529id_/http://fortune.com/2014/08/06/figure-1-medical-photo-sharing-app/
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Meet Figure 1, an ‘Instagram for doctors’ that will turn your stomach
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A word of warning: the photographs found on the mobile application Figure 1 may make your stomach turn. They include—and you should skip to the next paragraph if descriptions of medical injuries will nauseate you—a swollen bloody thumb, recently reconstructed after a fireworks injury; a 17 year-old’s foot charred black by an electrical burn; and a worm pulled from a patient’s anus. Yes, really.
This is the stuff that medical professionals don’t see everyday, which is exactly why they’re flocking to this photo-sharing app. Though tiny, it has proven extremely popular since it launched two years ago. The app now counts an audience of 125,000, and its parent company, which shares its name, estimates that 15% of medical students in the United States use it. Which may be one reason why investors are interested: on August 6, the Toronto-based startup will announce that it raised $4 million in funding led by Union Square Ventures.
Figure 1 essentially offers a visual shorthand for healthcare professionals looking to compare notes. In my opening essay for Fortune‘s The Future of the Image series, I made the case for the rise of visual literacy as people increasingly substitute photos for text. This trend will have a huge impact on business. As pictures replace words, tools that allow professionals to take and compare photos have an increasingly important role to play in the enterprise.
Already, a host of software applications are emerging to support this. Architizer invites architects to uplioad and share projects, for example. FoKo offers a secure, private enterprise photo-sharing app designed for companies and counts Whole Foods as a customer.
It’s no surprise that healthcare professionals would embrace an Instagram for doctors. Medicine, after all, is highly visual. Classic textbooks are teeming with diagrammed photos, and for doctors trying to learn about all types of ailments, descriptions are never as good as seeing a malady in all of its splendor.
Joshua Landy, a critical care physician, first saw the potential for a photo-sharing tool while researching online medical education as a visiting scholar at Stanford University in the summer of 2012. In surveys that he distributed, he found doctors were already using their smartphones and other devices to text each other pictures, or to look up medical references. Back in Toronto, he partnered with software developer Richard Penner and former journalist Gregory Levey to launch a platform that allows medical professionals to share photos safely without compromising the privacy of patients.
Anyone can join Figure 1 and “star” photos, which is the equivalent of liking them. Only medical professionals can post photos and make comments. (About a third of the users are doctors, and another third are other types of health care workers.) To comply with HIPAA regulations, users must sign a waiver—an elegantly designed one-click, one-signature process—every time they upload a photo. Figure 1 also blocks faces and obscures other details that may compromise patient privacy.
Many of the images draw diagnostic discussions, though the app isn’t intended for this purpose. The images are user-tagged by anatomy (lower limb, brain) and specialty (cardiology, pediatrics). For example, photographs of a fractured skull with a caption detailing a car accident prompt a conversation about whether the patient was wearing a lap belt (he was) and how often belts break (rarely). An image of a curved portion of a spine accompanies a caption that identifies the patient as a 34-year-old female with gait disturbance and bladder dysfunction and asks for thoughts. Of the seven comments, someone suggests additional x-rays while another commenter asks if it could be a hemangioma, a benign tumor.
Figure 1 will likely have competition as more medical professionals embrace images on the job, and several startups already offer social networking tools for doctors. (One, the physicians’ network Doximity, now boasts more member physicians than the American Medical Association.) But its founders have clearly identified a trend that is sure to gain momentum.
“The Future of the Image” is an occasional series written by Jessi Hempel exploring how technology facilitates visual communication.
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...but physicians won't lose their lunch. Step inside Figure 1, a social network that doctors are using to exchange reference images of medical oddities.
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http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/diamondbacks-take-exception-to-dirty-label-080514
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140808094504id_/http://www.foxsports.com:80/arizona/story/diamondbacks-take-exception-to-dirty-label-080514
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Diamondbacks take exception to 'dirty' label
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Updated AUG 06, 2014 6:18p ET
PHOENIX -- The Diamondbacks are considered the "dirtiest team in baseball," according to Business Insider's Sports Page.
They are the major leagues' most "ludicrous tough guys," said NBC Sports.
From CBS Sports, manager Kirk Gibson is a "meathead."
And from Grantland.com: "The Diamondbacks' Disgrace."
Randall Delgado's plunking of Pittsburgh center fielder Andrew McCutchen on Saturday has some around the country forming an angry posse, and it might only get worse.
The criticism might only intensify as the amount of time McCutchen misses with a cartilage injury in his left rib cage grows, especially if the Pirates lose ground in their bid for a second consecutive playoff spot after a 21-year absence. McCutchen left Sunday's game with discomfort in his left side, and it was announced today that he has an avulsion fracture of the cartilage around the 11th rib on the left side. McCutchen said he did not know if the pitch he took in the middle of the back Saturday provoked the injury. Pittsburgh manager Clint Hurdle said there was no reason to believe the two are related.
"It's my understanding it's a completely separate instance. He was hit in the spine, the back, and this is a fracture of the rib, the 11th rib," Hurdle said.
Still, the D-backs were left to defend themselves again after 2013 MVP McCutchen followed 2013 MVP runner-up Paul Goldschmidt into the training room. Goldschmidt is expected to miss the rest of the season after suffering a non-displaced fracture of the fourth metacarpal of his left hand when he was struck by a pitch from Pirates' right-hander Ernesto Frieri on Friday.
The D-backs are a little tired of being singled out.
"How about our guy getting hit and nobody saying anything?" Arizona catcher Miguel Montero said. "There is not criticism of that one because we are not in first place or we're not in the race? I don't see the point, to be honest."
Of McCutchen's injury, Montero added: "It's too bad. He's the name of the game, I guess. We have a guy with a broken hand who is going to miss the rest of the year. That being said, I'm not trying to say we hit him or not hit him. It's part of the game."
Montero seemed to point toward McCutchen while giving a series of signs to Delgado before the pitch on which McCutchen was hit.
"Honestly, we never called to hit him," Montero said. "We don't want to hurt anybody. Period. You can end the career of somebody, and we are not looking for that. My point of view, I hate when somebody gets hit. I hate that. On our team. The other team. I don't like it, period."
It doesn't seem to matter that other teams play the same way. Check out what Boston does when David Ortiz is hit.
The D-backs have had a similar experience with the Pirates -- second baseman Aaron Hill missed 10 weeks in the first half of 2013 with a fractured bone in his left hand when he was hit by an inside pitch by James McDonald.
"If our hitters are getting hit, whether it is on purpose or not, that is not for us to decide," D-backs right-hander Brad Ziegler said. "It doesn't change the fact that it happens, and guys feel a need to protect their hitters. There is not a whole lot we can do from the mound, but when we have an opportunity, we are going to do it. That is not just our mentality, it's the mentality of pitchers all over baseball. It's a very old school form of thinking. It has been in the game for a long time, and that's just the way it is."
Still, an Arizona Republic columnist called the D-backs "thugs."
With all that, you would have thought the Pirates would have joined the chorus. Nothing yet.
Pittsburgh's response when McCutchen was hit in the ninth inning Saturday might have been the most instructive commentary on the entire sequence of events. After McCutchen went down, no one in the Pirates dugout reacted. While McCutchen flashed his displeasure, there was no outward outrage. No threatening words. No spilling onto the field.
Hurdle said this Sunday: "I understand baseball. (George) Brett got hit when I played in Kansas City. Frank Robinson got hit a lot. Don Baylor got hit a lot. They were always premier players on clubs they played on.
"Everybody has a different lens at looking at this. There is nothing written down in a book. There are no rules to follow, if A happens you follow through with B. We look at it through one lens. They look at it through another lens. They lose a player for the rest of the season. Now we are supposed to draw up roles on how they react to it?
"You play the game. The game takes care of itself. And those that take care of the game get taken care of by the game as well. The thing we do know about our club, we don't back down. We play hard. That manager (Kirk Gibson) over there played as hard as anybody who has ever played the game. I'm sure he has encouraged his team to play the same way. And they do play hard."
So do the Pirates. Affter McCutchen was hit by a pitch by the Dodgers' Jamey Wright in the sixth inning of a 12-7 victory July 22, Pirates left-hander Justin Wilson hit Justin Turner, the first Dodgers' batter in the top of the seventh, in the elbow.
Gibson is an inviting national target. He is rough. He is gruff. He has been particularly vilified for using the word "grit," as if it is a four-letter word. As if every major league team does not identify and seek similar players. Marco Scutaro, come on down. He cares little what others think, which also seems to rankle.
"I've been in the game since 1978, and I know a lot of people have a lot of opinions about a lot of people. I don't really get involved in that," Gibson said.
No need. The field is crowded enough already.
Follow Jack Magruder on Twitter
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Team's reputation take a beating from national critics after McCutchen beaning.
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http://fortune.com/2014/08/13/how-do-you-avoid-appearing-difficult-when-declining-to-tell-a-recruiter-your-last-salary/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140813173408id_/http://fortune.com/2014/08/13/how-do-you-avoid-appearing-difficult-when-declining-to-tell-a-recruiter-your-last-salary/
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How do you avoid appearing ‘difficult’ when you won’t reveal your last salary to a recruiter?
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20140813173408
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Answer by Michael Wolfe, startup founder
People will rarely call you “difficult” because of what you say. It will more typically be because of how you say it. Are you sure you weren’t defensive or combative? I hope you didn’t say you “can’t” reveal your salary. You are only choosing not to. It would have been better to say that you’d prefer not to, explain why, then ask the recruiter to help you work around the problem you perceive it will cause.
Have an honest and frank discussion. You could have been very specific about the salary range you are targeting, then engage the recruiter to help you get it (remember the more you get paid, the more they get paid, if they are contingent).
Also, remember that most recruiters (especially contingent) are hired guns: they don’t represent the company well or have deep roots in the company. The hiring manager may not even know or like the recruiter, and the recruiter may be representing multiple companies at once. Don’t worry that you’ve burned bridges unless the recruiter is in house and seems to have a relationship with the hiring manager. Be professional and get her on your side, but don’t worry too much about her.
I also have to say that using terminology like “play ball” and “team player” makes me wonder how professional this recruiter is and whether she has much respect from the companies she works for. There are many good recruiters, and a qualified candidate has many options. If you are not comfortable with her, then jump.
Answer by Mary Carello, recruiter for Silicon Valley-based firm
When it comes to the topic of compensation, I can give you one rule: clear and simple. The less energy (and amount of words) devoted to talking about money, the better.
I’ve had this conversation with hundreds (if not thousands) of people. The people who walked away with the biggest salaries and stayed in the most positive light did this:
Never actually told me their salary. They let me know they did their research about the position and said what their expectations were for it, and left the door cracked open if the available salary was not in line with their numbers. An example: “My expectation is that this position will be paying around X amount, which, from my research, seems to be in line with industry standards for the role and is very close to my compensation now. If this is outside of what you or your client were thinking, I’m happy to have a conversation about it and regroup if it’s a good opportunity.”
Never said anything about their “target salary.” For some reason, it comes across as suspicious. It can be a giveaway that your pay now is far different than the number you just mentioned.
Never got into conversation about how/why they were underpaid if indeed they felt they were. This is like going down a rabbit hole; you’re bound to say something that comes off negatively. Less is more. Try not to open Pandora’s box – nobody needs to know you are underpaid or how undervalued you are or that your company is in financial trouble and recently asked you to take a pay cut. In fact, that’s often private information, which if you read your employment agreement documents, can violate non-disclosure agreements you signed when you accepted your job.
That brings me to the last point: It can be acceptable to say that you are unable to reveal salary information due to privacy agreements you signed with your company. If you’re really backed up against the fence, you can revert to this but only if you can do so tactfully. As Michael Wolfe mentioned above, it isn’t what you say, it is how you say it. An example of what I wouldn’t mind hearing: “I’d like to partner with you to explore this opportunity, but as it relates to salary, I’m a little limited with what I can share due to the non-disclosure agreements I signed when I first joined my company. The payment and bonus structures at my company is considered by them to be private/inside information, and they have asked us to keep that confidential. I know that can be a bit difficult on your side, so the total number that I would be expecting is X amount. If that’s not possible for your client, we can have a conversation about what they were thinking, but that’s close to what I make now and what I would consider for the new position. Just let me know if that is not possible.”
On a positive note, it sounds like the recruiter you are working with is a permanent placement recruiter – she will get paid more if you get paid more, so it’s in both of your interests to get a good salary you are happy with.
Answer by Rob McClinton, executive manager
I’ve been on both sides of this question as a candidate and a hiring manager.
As a candidate, I answer with my target compensation by saying “My total target comp is X amount. If I’m pressed for the exact amount for my current position, I’ll answer with the knowledge that if I’m having the compensation conversation later things have obviously gone well. I can address any discrepancies between my target and their offer with a discussion of my value and ability to address their needs.
As a hiring manager I accept the total target comp answer without challenge. I respect if a candidate knows their number and can speak to what they’re seeking. I know there is padding and I know what I’m willing to pay. If we want to make it work, we’ll get there.
All of that said, I would coach any of my mentees to proceed with caution with any organization that places their value below their cost.
Answer by Erin Wilson, recruiter
As a recruiter, I ask every one of my candidates what their current compensation package includes. We cover exact base salary, benefit coverage, benefit contribution, bonus structure vs. actual bonus paid, vacation days, 401 K (matching or not and what level contribution, matching), whether or not you are able to work from home, and last but not least any other soft perks like free meals, onsite massages, commuter program, etc.
I feel it is important to have this information for a couple reasons. One, I hold myself accountable to knowing my candidates and truly understanding their current situation, as well as their current objective. As recruiters we understand everyone would like a raise when switching jobs, and as Michael Wolfe put it, the more you make the more we make as contingent recruiters. That said, each time I discuss compensation it is a new conversation including that company’s budget, the business need, candidate’s current salary, candidate’s salary expectation, the value a candidate proposes by joining the team, and how well the interviews themselves go.
I’ve rarely had a candidate elect not to give me that information, as they understand it is to help them in the end. In very rare instances, I felt a grand sense of reluctance and in those cases I did the best to explain why it would limit my ability to represent them. At the end of the day, it is your job search and you should feel as comfortable as possible in what can already prove to be a frustrating, irrational, unfair, process.
Hiring managers are bombarded with phone calls all day long. Not just from recruiters, but every possible sales call, vendor and service provider you can think of. It is up to the individual calling to quickly showcase skills, add value and build credibility. If I do not know exact data points on my candidates, someone I’ve met face to face with and say I am representing, that is embarrassing. Instead, with the knowledge we can be confident, fact-based, logical solution providers for candidates and clients alike, and come from a position of strength.
Lastly, if the way that situation was handled was to tell you “you’re being difficult” or I need that to “play ball” then I’d say the recruiter has some work to do. It is our job as recruiters to be the best communicator in the hiring process. There is a necessity to articulate our thoughts, and reasoning, to candidates and clients alike on behalf of another human being.
General rule with recruiters: If the recruiter cannot provide you with logic-based reasons on why they need a piece of information, it is probably not in your best interest to disclose it.
This question originally appeared on Quora: How can you avoid appearing ‘difficult’ when you tell a recruiter you won’t reveal your last salary?
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The trick is how you decline answering the question.
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http://fortune.com/2012/03/08/airline-pricing-why-its-all-wrong/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140813234642id_/http://fortune.com:80/2012/03/08/airline-pricing-why-its-all-wrong/
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Airline pricing: Why it’s all wrong
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FORTUNE — It’s hard to think of a more amazing product with poorer presentation than air travel. Despite the fact that airlines provide an incredible service (they let us fly, in the air), we love to hate on them, in part because they confuse customers. Most unpleasant of all is how airlines obfuscate what, exactly, their customers are purchasing.
The cost of fuel will be high for the foreseeable future, and jet fuel is the airlines’ greatest expense. To boost profit margins, companies will need to squeeze more money from passengers. Recently, carriers have tried to do this by offering economy passengers the lowest possible prices on flights and charging fees for other services. That strategy has ticked off fliers unused to paying for services such as meals or exit row seats.
But it doesn’t have to be this way, says Paul D’Alessandro, a global practice leader at PwC. On the contrary, if executed correctly — and that’s a big if — the strategy that many airlines are already pursuing could make flying more pleasant.
The key is in the coach cabin. Traditionally, the largest companies, also known as legacy carriers, have sought profit by going hard after their most frequent fliers, mostly with rewards programs, to hoard their purchasing power. To attract all other passengers, airlines have played the price game, often de-bundling services that were previously included in the ticket price, pushing the advertised fares down.
But there’s evidence that offering services in an intelligent way to cost-conscious customers might be a better strategy than focusing almost exclusively on elite fliers.
Coach fliers are valuable. Airlines who bill themselves as low-cost carriers tend to do better when the demand for tickets decreases, says Adam Shapiro, an economist with the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. (His opinions are his own, not the Bureau’s.)
During a bust, Shapiro says, the price of legacy carriers’ most expensive tickets fall dramatically, whereas low-cost carriers don’t experience the same drop in top-paying customers. “A lot of the low cost carriers weren’t really selling to these high-willingness-to-pay consumers,” Shapiro says, “so they’re perhaps more prepared for a bust.”
In other words, low-cost carriers don’t face the same problem when elite flyers drop out because they are always flying with a plane full of coach cabin passengers (with coach expectations). Some of these airlines’ efforts to create different economy-class experiences seem to have worked. For example, Southwest Airlines LUV , which is relatively new to priority boarding, now offers an “EarlyBird” automatic check-in option for $10, each way. That program specifically generated $36 million in revenue during the fourth quarter of 2011, $7 million more than the previous year.
Legacy airlines — including United UAL , Delta DAL and American Airlines — have similarly tried to break up their coach fliers by charging for additional services, but they’ve done it in a pretty clunky way. The way they are currently offering customers the ability to choose extra legroom, in-flight entertainment, meal service, and charging baggage surcharges simply comes across as tacking on extra fees.
To successfully charge for these services, airlines will have to monitor what their customers want. “A lot of these airlines already capture necessary information, they’re just not sharing it and using it across the organization,” says Jonathan Kletzel, U.S. transportation and logistics advisory leader at PwC. “It wasn’t until loyalty programs that they started tracking repeat customers.” Airlines are using that data, but not well.
Airlines have several opportunities to sell services like added legroom to a customer — online, at check-in, at the gate. Certain types of fliers want to pay for extra services. “But if they’ve declined a hundred times, they’re probably not going to change their minds on the 102nd when you try to sell these things,” says Kletzel. Spamming customers without tracking individual preferences can make customers feel nickel-and-dimed.
Airlines could also pay attention to the type of trips individual customers take. People behave differently on business trips then they do with their families, Kletzel says. They are generally more likely to spring for a more comfortable coach experience when they’re flying for work.
Many customers actually prefer services to be bundled, according to a PwC report, which claims that 65% of leisure travelers prefer all-inclusive airfare over scattershot options. At this point, the technical challenges behind re-bundling ticket prices are pretty daunting, Kletzel says. But who knows. If airlines start to use some of the data they already have about what people actually want, we might be less ticked about getting where we need to go.
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A coach flier might pay more for extra services, if only they weren't offered in such an aggravating way.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2012/12/01/accolades-for-fests-and-filmmakers/ikmd8KFOX65TYwmu6MEgRO/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140814071254id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2012/12/01/accolades-for-fests-and-filmmakers/ikmd8KFOX65TYwmu6MEgRO/story.html
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Accolades for fests and filmmakers
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It’s awards season, and that doesn’t just apply to the major studios feverishly unleashing their best in the race for year-end recognition and Oscar nominations. Several local filmmakers and festivals also reaped accolades in November. Dover, N.H., resident Alfred Thomas Catalfo took the grand prize in the 2012 Rhode Island International Film Festival Screenplay Competition with his feature script, “Betrayed.” Catalfo’s entry was judged the best among 367 submissions — the most in the competition’s history — from throughout the United States and across the globe, according to festival executive director George T. Marshall, who announced the award.
Catalfo, who has written and directed several short films, will be honored at the opening night gala of the festival next August.
His winning script is a thriller about a small-town newspaper editor who answers the door in the middle of the night to find a disheveled man who claims to be his older brother, an Air Force pilot shot down over North Vietnam in 1972 and reported missing in action. Next come mysterious assassins, a dangerous mission, and revelations that threaten to tear the editor’s family apart.
Meanwhile, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has awarded grants to two well-regarded New England events — the Provincetown International Film Festival and the Camden International Film Festival. The PIFF recently announced a $20,000 grant to help fund the festival’s signature event, the “Filmmaker on the Edge,” for the festival’s 15th anniversary edition next year, running June 19-23. The Provincetown Film Society, which oversees the festival, is also one of 832 nonprofit organizations nationwide recommended for a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Art Works grant.
CIFF, one of New England’s most respected documentary film festivals, last week announced that it has received a $10,000 grant for special programming and to increase filmmaker participation during the 9th annual festival next year, Sept. 26-29. The two festivals are among only 23 to receive grant funding from the Academy for 2013, out of 134 festivals that applied.
For more information, go to www.camdenfilmfest.org or www.ptownilmfest.org.
The WaterFire events held several times each year in Providence are part art installation, spiritual experience, and urban design marvel. For those who’ve never participated in the spectacle of open fires burning along the river downtown, accompanied by music, the new documentary “WaterFire: Art & Soul of a City” provides an overview and a chronicle of the display from its humble beginnings in 1994. WaterFire’s creator, Providence resident and artist Barnaby Evans, produced the film with Joe Rocco. Besides the history of the revitalization of downtown Providence, the film offers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to produce a WaterFire installation. Evans now oversees WaterFire exhibits in other US cities as well as Singapore and Rome. “WaterFire” the film had its premiere on Saturday in Providence and is now available on DVD with several bonus features, most notably footage of the Rome WaterFire spectacle on the Tiber River.
For more information go to www.waterfire.org.
Lyle Talbot, an actor in Warner Bros. films of the 1930s with stars such as Humphrey Bogart and Carole Lombard before his career slipped into cult B movies, may not be a household name. But he’s about to have his close-up now that his daughter New Yorker staff writer Margaret Talbot has written a biography, “The Entertainer: Movies, Magic, and My Father’s Twentieth Century” (Riverhead). A combination of Hollywood history, social history, and family memoir, the book traces Lyle Talbot’s career as it spans the history of the entertainment business — from his roles in early talkies to major films during the Golden Age of Hollywood to the advent of television when Talbot had recurring roles on “The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet” and “Leave It to Beaver.” Margaret Talbot will read from her book on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Brattle Theatre, followed by a screening of one of Lyle Talbot’s films, the pre-Code melodrama “Three on a Match” (1932). Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, it also stars Joan Blondell, Bette Davis, Ann Dvorak, and Bogart.
Tickets are $10. For more information, go to www.brattlefilm.org.
Yes, it’s that time of year when “The Nutcracker” is ubiquitous, from banners around Boston to music tracks in malls. Now it’s also at the movies. Tchaikovsky’s classic arrives in movie theaters nationwide for one day only, Monday, at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. from NCM Fathom Events and More2-Screen. “The Nutcracker” will be presented by the world-renowned Mariinsky Ballet troupe and features two of the Mariinsky Theatre’s rising stars: Alina Somova as Clara (Masha in the original Russian ballet) and Vladimir Shklyarov as the Nutcracker. The Russian Imperial Mariinsky Theatre was the original home of Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” in 1892, when it made its worldwide debut. Monday’s program was captured over three performances at the end of last year’s holiday season. For the first time this year, “The Nutcracker” will screen in 3-D in select locations including Fenway 13, Dedham’s Legacy Place, Showcase Cinemas in Revere and Randolph, and AMC theaters in Burlington and Framingham. The film screens in 2-D at additional suburban theaters.
For more information go to www.fathomevents.com.
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It’s awards season, but that doesn’t just apply to the major studios feverishly unleashing their best in the race for year-end recognition and Oscar nominations. Several local filmmakers and festivals also reaped accolades in November.
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