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http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/08/09/ladya-gaga-justin-bieber-and-more-raising-money-with-social-networks-to-fight/
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Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber And More Raising Money With Social Networks To Fight East African Famine
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Celebrities and social media connectors including Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and David Beckham will tap into their massive Facebook and Twitter networks Tuesday to raise money for the famine in East Africa.
Jennifer Lopez, Coldplay and soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo are also among the more than 50 stars promoting Save the Children's East Africa Appeal by posting a link on their social media profiles to a short film of haunting images of children suffering in the famine-plagued region.
The moving footage is set to the 1973 Bob Marley & The Wailers song "High Tide or Low Tide," which viewers can download to support relief efforts.
The non-profit hopes to reach a combined audience of 600 million with the online campaign. "Not one child should be denied food nor water. Not one child should suffer. Along with Save the Children, we must stand up together as friends to put a stop to this, to feed our children and to save their lives," Rita Marley, the reggae legend's widow said in a statement.
Lady Gaga has amassed over 12 million fans on Twitter, Bieber boasts 11.7 million Twitter followers while Beckham has 13.1 million Facebook fans.
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Ladya Gaga, Justin Bieber and More Raising Money With Social Networks to Fight East African Famine
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The Definition Of Cool: 90s Vs. Today
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Travel back with us to high school. The '90s were all about beepers, your favorite JNCO jeans and boy, those frosted tips. Take a chance to remember more of your favorite things from back then, marvel at how much times have changed, and don't forget to catch “21 Jump Street” when it hits theaters March 16th.
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The Definition Of Cool: 90s Vs. Today: Travel back with us to high school. The '90s were all about beepers, your favorite JNCO...
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Men Of Action | ThePostGame
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On August 29, 2009, a man of over 250 pounds with a thick, black mustache registered a Twitter handle. "#fact" his first tweet began. "Iron sheik is making twitter humble -- stay tuned." A retired wrestler, one known for sporadic outbursts about his competition, re-launched himself as a bizarre and irreverent pop-culture voice. Today he has over 93,000 followers, a verified account and a voice that can be described in many different ways -- abrasive, hilarious, aggressive, off-the-wall. As I interviewed him, his bristling tone and thoughts went in rapidly-changing directions, with more in the way of energy than true meaning. In 2012, Hossein Khosrow Vaziri cannot be wrestled from his most famous persona.
As he described re-entering the spotlight of media, he burst with excitement (or was it fury?): "Iron Sheik world legend, not like no good LeBron James and the Kobe [Bryant] ex-wife. World champion always say 'yes please' -- never hold back when someone need humble. The world respect the legend and know I come to party with Lionel Richie at the world class party. Sheikie (sic) baby love sharing with all the intelligent people in world."
Mr. Richie was unavailable for comment.
Born in Iran in 1943, The Sheik was a hall-of-fame wrestler with the World Wrestling Federation. He is most famous for two things: Being the man Hulk Hogan defeated to capture his first WWF championship, and having a signature move called the 'Camel Clutch' -- one that he commonly threatens both celebrities and his current and former wrestling peers with.
Formerly of the Iranian army, The Sheik had a successful wrestling career across the WWF, NWA and WCCW, before dropping into relative seclusion in the late 1990's, popping up for air very occasionally for an appearances, including trips to visit radio personality Howard Stern.
In Pictures: The most valuable sports brands
In his current state, the Sheik has looked to re-invent himself by using his Twitter to call out wrestlers such as Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior as well as comment on the news of the day -- including the death of Whitney Houston, Chris Brown's physical assault of R&B singer Rihanna, Rick Santorum and even New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. Many are X-rated, Not-Safe-For-Work comparisons of celebrities to human appendages and threats of carnal activity -- described as a return to the "old country way" -- or simply calling them out on being what he perceives as "bad."
However, The Sheik takes pity on current wrestlers too -- when the TNA wrestler Jesse Sorensen was hospitalized with a blow to the head, The Sheik reached out with his condolences.full story >>
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Docker's and ThePostGame are proud to tell stories about men who understand that it requires character, heart and confidence to succeed in sports.
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Music And Madness: Bruce Hornsby And Son Keith, A UNC-Asheville Guard, Bond Over 'Ball
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The Grammy-winning musician and the aspiring teenage basketball star traveled across along a mystical stretch of Highway 50 six years ago, meandering through tiny Nevada towns separated by miles and miles of scenic nothingness.
Bruce Hornsby had been directed to The Loneliest Road in America by basketball wanderer Phil Jackson, a kindred spirit who found inspiration in the heart of the Pony Express Territory, where life and spirituality tend to collide.
The trek would be an ideal setting for Hornsby, a basketball junkie, to bond with a teenage son frustrated by an injury that had taken him away from the game he, like his father, loved so much.
Basketball has always provided Bruce and Keith Hornsby with a common ground. But here, along an unencumbered road oft traveled by eclectic soul-searchers, the ties between father and son would only become tighter.
More recently, March Madness connected Bruce and Keith Hornsby. Each spring, father and son penciled picks into brackets for nothing more than family bragging rights and a friendly bet than never amounted to anything more a meager $5 reward.
Bruce made selections with his heart, pushing Cinderella entries like East Tennessee State or an unheralded 16 seed farther into March than any straight-thinking prognosticator had any business doing.
Keith was the logical one, evaluating match-ups and trends, rarely allowing emotion to enter the equation.
But this year, March Madness became something much more.
Keith Hornsby, now a 6-foot-4 freshman reserve guard who averages 12 minutes a game at UNC-Asheville, sat surrounded by his teammates on Sunday, waiting for the Big South Conference regular season and tournament champion's name to scroll across the screen.
In years past, Keith had always shared the start of the NCAA Tournament with his father. This year, he found himself in the thick of it: His senior-laden Bulldogs will face No. 1 seed Syracuse this week in Pittsburgh.
"I've waited for this day my whole life," Keith says in a phone interview with ThePostGame.com, hours after he and his teammates had learned of their tournament fate. "I've watched so many teams on screen celebrating and I never imagined how exciting it could be until I was actually placed in their shoes."
Bruce, now 57, is again in the midst of a 22-city solo tour. After weekend dates in Santa Barbara and Phoenix, he watched his son's tournament travel plans from New York, where he's prepping a Broadway play he and friends have been commissioned to write.
Like with Keith, Selection Sunday had a different feel for Bruce, who realizes the friendly wagers shared between father and son must be put on hold.
"I guess that's a by-gone era," Bruce Hornsby says.
Bruce's mind flashes back to a previous tour, when, like now, his music carried him from one faraway destination to another.
He was scheduled to drive from Steamboat Springs, Colo., to Reno, Nev. Back in Virginia, Keith had been sidelined by a nagging injury that had started with a rare circulatory disorder in his left foot. Bruce arranged for Keith to fly to Salt Lake City, where father and son would begin a weeklong road trip. Bruce planned an impromptu trip that would take them through two Western states before they reached the stretch of Nevada highway Phil Jackson recommended.
Bruce made sure the trip also involved basketball.
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After reaching Nevada, Bruce pulled his rental car off the road every 70 miles or so. He made four stops between Ely and Fallon, each time stumbling on small town basketball courts where Keith could shoot free throws and where Bruce could continue to monitor the evolution of his son's game.
Keith had always shown promise, developing a keen shooting sense on a seven-foot rim by age 3. By age 5, he hit 34 consecutive bank shots on a 10-foot basket. By the end of his high school career, he had reached perennial powerhouse Oak Hill Academy, a place championship dreams come true.
Bruce had played high school basketball in Virginia and was determined to be an active participant in his sons' lives.
He told them at an early age that if they wanted to play music for a living, he could hand-deliver the keys to the Kingdom.
But if they chose to chase other pursuits, he would help where he could.
Even if it meant rebounding free throws along Highway 50 in the middle of nowhere.
Keith Hornsby can't recall a time when his father didn't have a hand in his basketball career.
Bruce Hornsby may have made a name for himself in music, having toured on his own, with his band, and even with The Grateful Dead. But he's done a great job building a relationship with his son that didn't necessarily involve music.
"For all the years he has worked with me, I've kind of forgotten about the whole musician part of it," Keith says. "I just thought of him as my dad."
Throughout his own career, Bruce had always considered himself a grinder, spending hours practicing the smallest of details. The piano was such a complex instrument, filled with so many moving parts, that even the tiniest of miscues could spell disaster in front of a live audience. Bruce's quest for perfection carried over to basketball, a game he appreciates for all of its technicalities.
He would work with Keith, who possessed a special skill set Bruce realized could lead to big things. Father and son spent hours pouring over fundamentals much like Bruce has spent time perfecting cord progressions or lyrics in one of his hit songs.
That's the tiny curse that comes with such a big blessing: Over the years, Bruce has come to know his son's game as if it were his own. He notices the little things -- like a missed backdoor cut -- much more than an absent father would.
When fundamental ends wouldn't meet, Bruce's inner-coach would cringe.
"C'mon, man -- we've worked on that," the voice inside him would bark out. "Why aren't you doing it right?"
But then Bruce's side fatherly side takes over, reminding him that Keith is just a kid with three years left to master his game.
"It's fun (to watch him play) but it can be fraught with peril watching your kid play," Bruce says. "It's a lot easier watching someone else play."
Meanwhile, watching Bruce play has only benefitted Keith’s push to perfect his own craft.
Over the years, Keith has attended about 100 of Bruce’s performances. He sees the way his father remains calm under pressure -- only one of the ties between Bruce’s musical pursuits and basketball.
Bruce has been careful to allow his son to learn for himself, always mindful of the fact Keith is still maturing as a player. During his time at Oak Hill and now at UNC-Asheville, Keith stands on his own, appreciative of the fact he has excelled on his own merits rather than those of his father.
Perhaps it helps that his teammates aren't aware of his father's music as Keith is. In his first year in Asheville, Keith settled in as a role player. He played consistent minutes, averaging 4.1 points a game and scoring a career-high 21 points in a win over Mars Hill.
Hit fit in nicely with his new teammates, all who knew of Keith's father's fame, but little more of Bruce's long musical history that has led to 12 Grammy nominations.
"I don't think they really listen to him," Keith says. "It's a like a generation before them."
Keith grew up with Bruce's music. Yet, his father's familiar voice -- whether in one of his hit songs or in his collaborative effort with the late Tupac Shakur -- didn't become part of his game day ritual.
Before this season, Keith pregame playlist was a blend of rap and metal, including artists like Metallica, Drake, and Lil' Wayne to rev him up for competition.
But Keith has recently added several of his father's pieces -- including soulful songs like Resting Place and Lost Soul -- and discovered that his father’s music helps with focus. His dad's music provides a sense of calm in the moments before he takes the court.
"I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner," Keith says, his voice blended with youthful reflection. "I guess now, I appreciate more than I ever have before because I listen it to it more in-depth and I listen to the melodies more.
"Plain and simple, I don't just like the music because it's my dad. It could be some random artist and I would still like the music. But I'm glad I appreciate it more."
Years after the road trip, the paths between music and basketball continue to intersect. When Bruce mapped out his current tour last summer, he was certain to create a gap in March, certain that Keith and his UNC-Asheville teammates would be playing somewhere.
Like he has countless times before, Bruce will travel to watch his son perform, appreciate of the journey that has taken his son from that stretch of western highway years ago and onto a stage his son can call his own.
Jeff Arnold can be reached at jeffarnold24@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @jeff_arnold24.
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The Grammy-winning musician and the aspiring teenage basketball star traveled across along a mystical stretch of Highway 50 six years ago, meandering ...
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'Hunger Games' feeds Andy Cohen's reality passion
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What's not to love about The Hunger Games?
Andy Cohen read 'The Hunger Games' during a flight from L.A. to New York and fell in love with the book.
Andy Cohen read 'The Hunger Games' during a flight from L.A. to New York and fell in love with the book.
A friend in L.A. gave me the book at dinner one night and told me to read it. He wouldn't say what it was about, "Just READ IT. I promise you'll love it." The next day I flew home and read it cover to cover from LAX to JFK, and finished in the car to my apartment. I was instantly obsessed, quickly doodling "Down with the Capitol!" at work, and had the other two books in the trilogy by the next morning.
The series has something for everyone, from a fully realized vision of the future, a commentary on war and government, a fantastic love triangle, and an incredible take on reality TV. But I think the idea of The Hunger Games as reality show is what really sucked me in.
Suzanne Collins has produced in her books a combination of the Olympics and all three of CBS' biggest hit reality franchises: The Amazing Race, Survivor and Big Brother, with death and murder thrown in as the ultimate in horrific reality-show twists. There's no way a show like that wouldn't capture the attention of entire countries.
Her show-within-a-book is so well thought out, and it contains an incredible underlying truth about propaganda and how reality shows are produced, edited and spoon-fed to consumers hungry for more. (And I might have secretly fantasized once or twice about what a Real Housewives of The Hunger Games show would look like, and which housewife would come out the victor.)
Oh, and doesn't Suzanne Collins have a fantastic eye for fashion? Where does she come up with the clothes?
Catching Fire proved to me just as great as the first book, and I really got into the love triangle. Alas, as sweet as Peeta is, I think I'm more on Team Gale. In truth, I found myself thinking a lot about Finnick as I went on, and by the time he went nuts in Mockingjay, I was feeling like he was my boo.
Ahhh, Mockingjay. I was so excited to read it and wanted it to last forever, so I forced myself to put it down every 50 pages. I sadly was a bit disappointed by the final installment, though I was OK with how we left Katniss at the end.
I can't wait for the films so I can go back to District 12 again and see how the reality show works on the big screen. And I want a Katniss doll, please. And a Finnick doll.
See you at the movies. And May the Odds Be Ever in Your Favor!
Contributing: Andy Cohen is executive producer of The Real Housewives and Top Chef franchises and host of Watch What Happens: Live on Bravo. His memoir, Most Talkative: Stories From the Front Lines of Pop Culture, will be published in May.
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The producer behind 'Real Housewives' and 'Top Chef' is a huge fan of the books.
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Get wrapped up in Edith Wharton on her 150th birthday
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This year marks the 150th anniversary of Edith Wharton's birth (Jan. 24, 1862). Here is a sampling of exhibits and books (including two contemporary novels inspired by Wharton) marking the occasion:
Left by Library of Congress
Left by Library of Congress
•Edith Wharton's New York City: A Backward Glance, an exhibit at the New York Society Library, examines the connection between the city and the well-born New Yorker's Manhattan novels, including The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. It also features historic photographs and books that Wharton read as a child. (Through Dec. 31.)
•The Mount, Wharton's historic home in Lenox, Mass., is hosting a series of lectures and exhibits at the estate and around the world. Designed and built in 1902 by Wharton, the house reflects the writer's expertise in architecture, gardens and interior design.
•On June 5, Vintage Classics will release new trade paperback editions of Wharton's four most famous titles: The Age of Innocence, TheHouse of Mirth, The Custom of the Country and EthanFrome.
•The Innocents by Francesca Segal (Voice, $25.99, on sale June 5) sets The Age ofInnocence in London's Jewish community. The author is the daughter of Love Story's Erich Segal.
•Gilded Age by Claire McMillan (Simon & Schuster, $25, June 12) takes The House of Mirth and moves it among Cleveland's monied set.
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. For publication consideration in the newspaper, send comments to
. Include name, phone number, city and state for verification. To view our corrections, go to
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Books (Wharton's, plus two new novels inspired by them) and exhibits mark the occasion.
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Lindsay Lohan Cleared of DUI Probation
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For the first time in a long time, Lindsay Lohan doesn’t have a court date looming.
At a court hearing today, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner took Lohan off probation from her 2007 DUI case. She changed the status of Lohan’s probation from her 2011 shoplifting case from formal to informal, meaning that Lohan will no longer have to meet with a probation officer or appear in court, as long as she obeys all laws through May 2014.
Dressed in a blue pantsuit with her hair pulled back in a low bun, Lohan looked more demure than she has for past appearances. (Remember the white mini dress?) Sautner praised Lohan for doing “everything that this court has asked of her,” including completing 60 days of community service and multiple psychological counseling sessions. She also offered some advice: “Stop the nightclubbing and focus on your work.”
Lohan smiled through the hearing and thanked the court at the end, saying the experience has “really opened a lot of doors for me and I really appreciate it.” Before leaving the courtroom, she hugged her lawyer, said, “Oh my god,” and breathed a sigh of relief.
PHOTOS: Lindsay Lohan’s Courtroom Looks
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Credit: JB Lacroix/Getty Images. For the first time in a long time, Lindsay Lohan doesn’t have a court date looming. At a court hearing today, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Stephanie Sautner took Lohan off probation from her 2007 DUI case. She changed the status of Lohan’s probation from her 2011 shoplifting case from formal to informal, meaning that Lohan will no longer have to meet with a probation officer or appear in court, as long as she obeys all laws through May 2014. Dressed in a blue pantsuit with her hair pulled back in a low bun, Lohan looked…
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Report says Facebook IPO is May 18
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Facebook will go public on May 18, a published report says, in one of the most highly anticipated tech initial public offerings since Google went public in August 2004.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the social networking company is set to start its roadshow on Monday, according to people familiar with the matter.
The roadshow, a series of meetings with prospective institutional investors, is designed to stir interest in the company’s stock.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and chief executive, will attend some of the meetings, the Journal reported.
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company is seeking to raise about $5 billion in the offering, giving the entire company a value of about $100 billion.
Officials for Facebook declined to comment.
Facebook last month said it is buying Instagram, the company behind a popular mobile photo-sharing application with the same name, for $1 billion, its largest acquisition ever.
Facebook is listing its stock on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “FB.’’
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Facebook will go public on May 18, a published report says, in one of the most highly anticipated tech initial public offerings since Google went public in August 2004. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the social networking company is set to start its roadshow on Monday, according to people familiar with the matter. The roadshow, a series of meetings with prospective institutional investors, is designed to stir interest in the company’s stock.
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What’s on TV tonight: Critic’s corner
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Are You Normal, America? 9 p.m., OWN
So Oprah Winfrey’s network remains in the “struggling” division and here’s one of the solutions: a prime-time game show that poses such questions to contestants as: “Have you ever done your household chores naked?” Hosted by actress Kim Coles (“Living Single”), “Normal” also asks, “Have you ever peeked at your boyfriend’s e-mails?” and “Do you and your spouse sleep in separate bedrooms?” Apparently, normalcy will be determined by “a highly scientific and deeply revealing poll” as well as a “jury” of “real Americans, man-on-the-street polling, real-life situations shot in the field and in-studio demonstrations.” It’s unclear if being normal or coloring outside the lines is what actually wins contestants “big money.”
Gene Simmons Family Jewels 8 p.m., A&E
Some people thought Gene Simmons would never marry his longtime partner, Shannon Tweed. But he did. So to up the ante for their reality show, KISS’s president of marketing-bassist-singer and the missus discuss adopting another child. If nothing else, think of all those opportunities that Simmons won’t be able to pass up: KISS Kuddler baby slings, KISS “Rock and Roll All Nite” Lites . . .
Hell's Kitchen 8 p.m., Channel 25
Gordon Ramsay yells at people.
Masterchef 9 p.m., Channel 25
Top Gear 8:30 p.m. BBC America
Slash shows off his ride. And he’s a rock star so you know it will be good.
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Sarah Rodman’s picks for the best Monday night TV offerings, including “Are You Normal, America?” at 9 p.m. on OWN; “Gene Simmons Family Jewels” at 8 p.m. on A&E; “Hell’s Kitchen” at 8 p.m. on FOX; “Masterchef” at 9 p.m. on FOX; and “Top Gear” at 8:30 p.m on BBC America.
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Emergency measures 'will do little to kick-start growth’
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Bank stocks rallied on the announcement, which was widely seen as a policy u-turn by regulators. Royal Bank of Scotland shares surged 7.9pc to 247.6p, while Lloyds Banking Group rose 5.2pc to 31.3p, and Barclays climbed 4.2pc to 200.8p
“We’re not going to get out of this until the banks recover and the banks could not recover on the pre-existing policies,” Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, said. “The liquidity facility could be as important as quantitative easing if it can restore confidence both to the banks and the real economy.”
The Bank yesterday unveiled the details of the £60bn liquidity scheme, the Extended Collateral Term Repo Facility. The terms have been made far more generous than when it was first launched in December. Banks will able to access six-month money and pay as little as 0.75pc interest instead of one-month money at 1.75pc. By comparison, inter-bank borrowing costs are currently about 1.3pc.
The Bank will provide at least £5bn a month for the next year and conduct the first auction next Wednesday. “Take-up here is relevant, but it is the availability of the funding that aids confidence,” RBS economist Gareth Anderson said. Discussions between the Treasury and banks on the “funding for lending” scheme have only just begun and details have yet to be agreed.
Bankers welcomed the decision to ease liquidity conditions but lamented the failure to move earlier to support the economy. “Wouldn’t it have been easier for the Governor simply to admit he was wrong,” one senior banker said.
Mr Tyrie said: “The announcements demonstrate how important it is to co-ordinate fiscal, monetary and regulatory policy. We had been running what amounted to a pro-cyclical regulatory policy and it had to change.”
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The Government’s £140bn emergency lending scheme will do little to kick-start growth and more measures are urgently needed, economists and bankers have warned.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20120713085610id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1865/06/04/news/south-nashville-chattanooga-account-journey-southward-country-war.html?
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THE SOUTH. - NASHVILLE TO CHATTANOOGA. Account of a Journey Southward?The Country and the War. - Article - NYTimes.com
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20120713085610
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CHATTANOOGA, Thursday, May 25, 1865.
I left Nashville at 1 o'clock yesterday, and, without accident, arrived here at 6 this morning Distance, 151 miles; time, bad -- wretchedly bad.
The first place of any account upon the Nashville and Chattanooga Road is Lavergne, sixteen miles from the former place. Before the war this place had a population of nearly a thousand people, and upward of a hundred houses and several saw mills. During the progress of the battle of Stone River our soldiers along the road were fired upon from the windows, whereupon our men retaliated by burning the town, and there is at present but one house left standing.
After leaving Lavergne the battle-field of Stone River is soon presented to the view. I recollect that terrible Wednesday night, when MCCOOK's corps was driven back four miles. With the exception of a grave-yard, here and there, and one line of rifle pits which has not yet been ploughed down, very little of interest presents itself. There is being a cemetery laid out, however, which is going to be a fine thing. Already a huge monument marks the resting place of the soldiers who fell in Gen. HAZEN's brigade. Another is projected which shall perpetuate the fame of the entire collection of honored dead who fell in the defence of their country on the banks of Stone River.
Murfreesboro, thirty-one miles from Nashville, is a handsome town, situated upon a beautiful plain, and surrounded by a healthy and fertile country. From the year 1817 to 1827 this place was the capital of the State, when the State-house was consumed by fire, and the seat of government subsequently removed to Nashville. The capture of Murfreesboro in July, 1862, by FORREST, was on unpardonable Federal mishap. The commanding officers of the two regiments quarreled and separated themselves some two miles apart, and FORREST stepped in and gobbled first one and then the other. In all he captured 1,500 infantry and 600 cavalry and a battery of artillery. Gen. NELSON soon after moved his division into town, and held it until Gen. BUELL made his retrogade movement, when FORREST again took possession. The latter tried the same dodge during the battle of Nashville, but was whipped and driven off by Gen. ROUSSEAU. Murfreesboro has always been an exceedingly disloyal town, and at present is far from having experienced a sound recovery of the secession fever.
Forty-two miles from Nashville is Christiana. It obtains its name from Christian Creek, denominated thus, because its flow, like Christmas, comes but once a year," and at that festive period. The region is timbered with red cedar, and the products before the war were chiefly stock and cotton.
Fosterville is forty-six miles from Nashville, and is destined to be a neat town. The surrounding country is agreeably diversified in surface, highly productive, liberally watered, and extensively cultivated.
Wartrace, fifty-five miles from Nashville, was named after Wartrace Creek, and is situated in Bedford County. It is surrounded by a great cattle-raising country, and I am informed that before the war, one hundred thousand head of hogs were fattened there annually.
Near Wartrace, on a branch road, is the delightful town of Shelbyville -- a place I visited in company with President JOHNSON, a little more than a year ago. This town has been an oasis of loyalty in the great rebellious desert of Middle Tennessee. It is situated on the northeast bank of Duck River, considerably elevated, but on rather an uneven and rocky surface, surrounded by cedar groves. In 1830 Shelbyville was almost entirely demolished by a storm, in which nearly a hundred persons were killed and injured. In 1833, the cholera raged with great malignancy, and about one-tenth of the population fell victims to the scourge. At the breaking out of the rebellion, it had a population of about three thousand five hundred souls, and supported two newspapers. Shelbyville is celebrated for its beautiful women.
The next place upon the railroad is Tullahoma, distance from Nashville seventy miles. Gen. ROSECRANS, in July, 1863, fought a desperate fight at this place, and killed Gen. STEARNS, of BRAGG's army, dislodged the enemy, and sent him in disorder to Bridgeport. Tullahoma is located on what may be termed as the first bench of the Cumberland range, from which the railroad has a descending grade for five miles to Duck River. Tullahoma is noted for the purity and excellence of its chalybeate and limestone waters. It must ever be important as a railroad station on account of its being the intersecting point of the Manchester and McMinnville Railroad, which extends to the latter point, a distance of 35 miles. Manchester and McMinville both have been great guerrilla nests, and the scenes of a multiplicity of conflicts between some of our Generals and the late JOHN MORGAN. There is a great curiosity near Manchester -- an old natural stone fort, which presents a solid wall in the fork between the rivers, and incloses about forty acres of land. It presents indications of great antiquity, as the venerable trees growing upon it are computed to have withstood the storms of five centuries. There are several superb watering places in close proximity.
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I left Nashville at 1 o'clock yesterday, and, without accident, arrived here at 6 this morning Distance, 151 miles; time, bad-wretchedly bad.
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http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/ostler/articleGallery/49ers-season-ticket-prices-force-out-some-faithful-3490101.php
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http://web.archive.org/web/20120720215821id_/http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/ostler/articleGallery/49ers-season-ticket-prices-force-out-some-faithful-3490101.php
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49ers season ticket prices force out some faithful
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20120720215821
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Henry Gross II and members of his family that include L to R son David Gross, wife Nancy Gross, son Author Gross with his dog Otis and cousin Louise Milford have been 49ers season ticket holder since 1950 and have attended all three Super Bowls and playoff games Saturday March 10, 2012. Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle / SF
Henry Gross II and members of his family that include L to R son...
Henry Gross II and members of his family have been 49ers season ticket holders since 1950 and have saved memorabilia for years Saturday March 10, 2012. Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle / SF
Henry Gross II and members of his family have been 49ers season...
Al Guido, vice president for new stadium sales and service with the 49ers, shows a rendering at the team's New Stadium Preview Center in Santa Clara, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011. Photo: Noah Berger, Special To The Chronicle / SF
Al Guido, vice president for new stadium sales and service with the...
Henry Gross II and members of his family have been 49ers season ticket holders since 1950 where he attended home games at Kezar Stadium as well as all three Super Bowls and playoff games Saturday March 10, 2012. Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle / SF
Henry Gross II and members of his family have been 49ers season...
John McVay, former 49ers general manager, stands among stadium renderings at the team's New Stadium Preview Center in Santa Clara, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011. Photo: Noah Berger, Special To The Chronicle / SF
John McVay, former 49ers general manager, stands among stadium...
Al Guido, vice president for new stadium sales and service with the 49ers, gives a tour of the team's New Stadium Preview Center in Santa Clara, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011. The screen at right replicates the view from different areas of the stadium so ticket holders can evaluate seat choices. Photo: Noah Berger, Special To The Chronicle / SF
Al Guido, vice president for new stadium sales and service with the...
A graphic displays the 49ers' stadium location at the team's New Stadium Preview Center in Santa Clara, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011. Photo: Noah Berger, Special To The Chronicle / SF
A graphic displays the 49ers' stadium location at the team's New...
Renderings of the 49ers stadium design are displayed at the team's New Stadium Preview Center in Santa Clara, Calif., on Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011. Photo: Noah Berger, Special To The Chronicle / SF
Renderings of the 49ers stadium design are displayed at the team's...
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The excitement likely will build with Thursday's ground-breaking ceremony for the $1.2 billion stadium in Santa Clara, adjacent to California's Great America. Maybe the 49ers will pull this off, build their stadium and fill it with roaring fans happy to pay the tab for the new digs. [...] missing from that glorious party will be Henry Gross and his extended family, faithful and loyal season-ticket holders since 1950. Gross, because of his ticket seniority and the depth of his passion for the team, is an eloquent spokesperson for the folks who don't like the new deal. Guido, authorized to speak for the team, said, "Almost 70 percent of the people (who have heard the presentation) have done something, bought club seats or put down a deposit to be placed in line to be able to purchase a reserved seat." "The sentimental side of me says, yes, absolutely (buy seats in the new stadium), even if I had to mortgage my entire estate," Gross said. Gross attended some games at Kezar over the years, but until he moved to the Bay Area in 2001 he mostly rooted in enemy territory, over the years attending nearly every 49ers' game within 500 miles of New Jersey. Gross, who works in the retail and restaurant world, spent two years inside 49ers' headquarters, consulting on a retail project. No sense of loyaltyAn element Gross said he found lacking in the sales deal was a sense of loyalty rewarded, or at least recognized. Maybe for that group, the 49ers could waive their license fees for 10 years and seat them together in a special section. When asked about fan backlash over the steep price increase, Guido said, I certainly empathize and understand that club seats aren't for everyone. A money manager interviewed for this story said he attended a sales presentation for a client who has been a primo season-ticket holder for several decades. The 49ers intend to sell each of the 68,500 seats as a season ticket, with a life-of-the-stadium seat license called a Stadium Builder's License. For sales of club seats (the best 9,000 seats), the 49ers say every current seat holder is being offered a comparably placed seat in the new stadium, or the option of placing a $500 deposit on less expensive seating, once it is priced. The top-level club seats (1,000 best seats, with $80,000 licenses) come with free parking, food considerations, guaranteed access to all events - including concerts and Super Bowls - and access to a field-level grass patio between the 30-yard lines.
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http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/list/201207/25-fittest-olympians-team-usa
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http://web.archive.org/web/20120721213031id_/http://www.thepostgame.com:80/blog/list/201207/25-fittest-olympians-team-usa
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The 25 Fittest Olympians On Team USA
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20120721213031
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Olympic competition is serious business for the 27-year-old with three golds, one silver and two bronzes, but Lochte keeps things light. The six-time swimming medalist once used over a hundred rolls of toilet paper to wrap the cars of the women’s team at the University of Florida, his alma mater. Training under former strongman competitor Matt DeLancey, however, his strength and conditioning sessions are no joke. "We flip tires, lift chains, pull ropes, throw kegs in the air, and do all types of strengthening exercises," says Lochte, who'll bring a thoughtful approach into the pool in London. "My philosophy is loving what I'm doing and making sure I’m having fun all the time. If you follow that philosophy in sport and life, you’ll always be happy and successful."
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They run faster, jump higher and ball harder than anyone else in the world. With bodies seemingly designed for their sports, they're primed and ready ...
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http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/49ers-Michael-Crabtree-to-return-soon-3761894.php
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http://web.archive.org/web/20120804224316id_/http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/49ers-Michael-Crabtree-to-return-soon-3761894.php
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49ers' Michael Crabtree to return soon
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20120804224316
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Unless a different injury pops up before the regular-season opener, it appears as if sidelined 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree will break his 0-for-the-preseason streak this summer.
On Friday, Jim Harbaugh said Crabtree's lower-leg injury wasn't serious and he expects him to return to practice soon. Crabtree, who missed his sixth straight day of practice, ran a series of sprints on an adjacent field as part of his rehab work.
The 49ers open the preseason Friday against the visiting Vikings. Due to a contract holdout and injuries, Crabtree didn't play in a preseason game in his first three seasons.
"The thing I feel for Michael, I know he's feeling it, too - he came in such great shape. He looked fantastic," Harbaugh said. "We feel like we'll get him back soon and we can pick right up. I don't think this is going to be a major bump in the road. I think this is going to be a minor one. He's chomping at the bit to get back out there, and I anticipate that happening soon."
Defense dominates: The 49ers' three-hour practice ended, fittingly, with Alex Smith throwing a short pass that was tipped by cornerback Tarell Brown and intercepted by safety Dashon Goldson.
Harbaugh acknowledged the defense dominated the offense "about every which way it could be dominated."
Defensive tackle Justin Smith played a starring role, deflecting a pass, registering a touch sack and collecting several pressures.
"(Defensive coordinator) Vic Fangio made the comment that this is a great player," Harbaugh said of Justin Smith. "This is a strong man who plays with incredible leverage, but he plays like a guy who's fighting to make the roster. That's a special combination, a rare combination."
Briefly: Left guard Mike Iupati didn't practice due to the impending birth of his first child. ... Tight end Nate Byham did not practice due to an undisclosed injury. Byham missed last season with an ACL injury he suffered in training camp. ... Rookie guard Joe Looney practiced for the first time since he was activated from the non-football injury list Tuesday. ... Harbaugh wore a microphone during practice for NFL Films. Per league rules, NFL coaches must wear a microphone during one training-camp practice and one regular-season game.
Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
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Unless a different injury pops up before the regular-season opener, it appears as if sidelined 49ers wide receiver Michael Crabtree will break his 0-for-the-preseason streak this summer. Due to a contract holdout and injuries, Crabtree didn't play in a preseason game in his first three seasons. Defensive tackle Justin Smith played a starring role, deflecting a pass, registering a touch sack and collecting several pressures. "(Defensive coordinator) Vic Fangio made the comment that this is a great player," Harbaugh said of Justin Smith. Per league rules, NFL coaches must wear a microphone during one training-camp practice and one regular-season game.
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http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/animal-house/201208/skunk-causes-stir-high-school-football-game
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Skunk Causes Stir At High School Football Game
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20120828205007
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What's black and white and dreaded all over?
One skunk caused a stink at a Mississippi high school football game last weekend when it raced onto the field during a contest between Booneville and Baldwyn. Watch as the tiny skunk makes these humongous football players cower in fear.
From the reaction of the crowd, the cheerleaders and the football team, you'd think a UFO had landed on the field.
And here's a view from the opposing team. You've got to love the cheerleaders cheering on the skunk.
The only person brave enough to follow the skunk? Intrepid reporter Brandon Speck from the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal.
ThePostGame brings you the most interesting sports stories on the web.
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What's black and white and dreaded all over?
Skunks, apparently.
One skunk caused a stink at a Mississippi high school football game last weekend whe...
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http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/london-calling-2012/201107/fish-out-water-returns-ed-moses-and-his-unlikely-comeback
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http://web.archive.org/web/20120831052958id_/http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/london-calling-2012/201107/fish-out-water-returns-ed-moses-and-his-unlikely-comeback
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The Fish Out Of Water Returns: A Regretful Yet Optimistic Ed Moses Tries An Unlikely Comeback
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20120831052958
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Taped above Ed Moses' locker in the University of Virginia Men's Swimming locker room was a slip of paper with four words on it: "Nothing's easy, nothing's hard." That was in the fall of 1999, when I was visiting UVa as a prospective student-athlete. It was less than two years after Ed first swam a serious workout in the pool and less than nine months before he would win a relay gold and an individual silver at the Olympic Games in Sydney.
"I still try to live by that today," Ed says over the phone. "It's not going to be easy, what I have to do. It's one of the hardest things in the world to do, to be the best at swimming. But at the same time, it's not going to be too hard to do. You've got to believe in yourself. If you want a way, you're going to find a way."
Most people in Ed's position, regardless of how much belief in themselves they could muster, would consider what he is attempting quite hard indeed – so hard, in fact, as to seem nothing shy of impossible. After a meteoric rise to success and fame in 2000 that kept Ed in the swimming limelight for four years, he missed the 2004 Olympic Team by a tenth of a second and, staggeringly disappointed, Ed walked away from the sport.
He stayed away -- far away -- for almost six years. Until the fall of 2010, Ed says, "It was never, 'When I’m ready I'll come back.' It was, 'I am not coming back.'"
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But against all his prognostications and against quite a few odds, Ed is back in the pool and back on the list of Olympic Trials entrants, giving the sport's ultimate laurel wreath one more run for its money.
Nothing's easy -- Ed Moses has that right. But has he finally chosen something too hard?
The hardest part, at least between now and June 25, 2012, when Olympic Trials begin, is obvious. Moses has to return to form from a six-year layoff. Most Olympic hopefuls train with at least a two-year planning horizon, and the majority of them have not taken any time off. "Swimming is a feel sport," Ed says. "It's something you can easily lose touch with. I’m glad I never got out of shape, but six years out of the water definitely hurt me."
Without a succession of periods of intense work followed by rest and a fast meet behind him, Moses hasn't had the opportunity to step back and assess which parts of the training regimen are working and which parts need tweaking. His first opportunity to do so will be this week at USA Swimming Nationals. In lieu of this kind of trial, error and adjustment, Ed is relying on faith and sheer determination. Which is part of what vaulted him to stardom in the first place.
He's got help in the form of Dave Salo, head coach at the University of Southern California and one of the most respected short-distance coaches in the world. A veritable all-star crew has assembled itself around Salo this year, including several of Ed's contenders: Eric Shanteau, Mike Alexandrov, Irish breastroke sensation Andrew Bree, and Japan's Kosuke Kitajima, who won gold in both the 100- and 200-meter events at both the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, and is widely considered the world’s greatest breastroker.
"It gets pretty aggressive," Ed says excitedly, "Every day of the year, you’re either trying to get the lane beside someone and race fifties or hundreds, or they’re behind you chasing you."
And "race" is exactly what they do. The traditional swimming philosophy holds that the best kind of yardage is more yardage, which usually requires at least 10 workouts a week. Salo, on the other hand, is a firm believer that older swimmers, especially sprinters, should train very fast only once a day.
The arrangement is perfect for Ed. Some swimmers love to train, love living a life that demands they swim long hours in the pool twice a day. Perhaps because he grew up swinging golf clubs on courses up and down the mid-Atlantic seaboard instead of swimming endless repeats facedown in a pool, though, Ed has always found swim practice to be somewhat tedious.
"Swimming is probably the ultimate sport where there’s not a lot of enjoyment that you get out of it when you train," he says. "You’re pushing your body 24/7 for very little enjoyment."
Enduring the pain and routine of Olympic-level training requires a special kind of determination. Just about every great swimmer has that near-masochism in droves. While Moses has proven, both early in his career and since returning to the pool, that he has the temperament and ability to push himself to be the best, he's also shown one can only trudge for so long. "At my age," he says, "it's hard to put in so much swim yardage. Not just from the reps, but from the monotony."
Between 2000 and 2004, Moses spent about a third of his workout hours outside the pool, and today that ratio tilts even further in favor of dryland. "From medicine balls to weights to different types of yoga," Ed says, "I spend almost equal amounts of time doing dryland as I do swimming." Putting so much emphasis on training outside the pool may very well be a "double-edged sword," as Ed calls it, but he finds the variety necessary "just so I don’t go crazy."
Another way Moses maintains his mental balance is through his ongoing work. Swim clinics, speaking engagements, golf charities and a host of social and business engagements he has developed over the last six years keep him constantly on the go. In 2008, Ed co-founded Mojo Marketing and Media, a sports marketing corporation whose unique mission, according to its Web site, is to develop sporting events that not only entertain, but also "encourage people to fully develop their personal social conscience."
While some of his ventures have had to be sacrificed, Mojo has continued to do well since Ed got back in the pool, primarily because his work schedule is flexible. And he says pursuing his other passion in life simultaneously to swimming offers a measure of security and confidence.
"It's been a blessing to have that," he says. "It's been my insurance policy. Not that I think I’m going to fail, because this whole process is about being successful, but if I’m not, I’ve already set up my life in other aspects that I love and that I’m successful in. I think it helps my swimming out even more right now."
One of Mojo's central tenets, Moses says, is to change "the psychology of 'giving back' -- to shift social responsibility and social conscience from a private to a mass market issue." This amalgamation of promotion and goodwill is evident in many facets of Ed's life. A longtime proponent of and participant in charitable ventures, such as Ronald McDonald House and the Mario Lemieux Foundation, Ed he knows he will continue in this vein when his swimming career ends again – whenever that may be.
In addition to charity work, though, he also plans to give back to the sport of swimming in ways that most other athletes cannot, and has a large-scale strategy to change the landscape in ways that no other swimmer today can.
As in most countries, swimmers in America struggle to find the time and especially the money to continue pursuing their Olympic dreams. Training between 40 and 50 hours a week, elite swimmers are often forced to postpone plans for careers outside the pool. Many of the world’s best succumb to the financial and emotional strain on themselves and their families and give up their passion in order to live a more sustainable lifestyle. This is a decision that Ed is familiar with, having made a similar one in 2004.
Ed's knack for business and his exposure through golf to sports marketing prepared him well to match his rapid rise to success in the pool with an equally accelerated rise to fame outside of it. He is a born personality -- photogenic, confident, witty, and always eager to supply the press with quotable forecasts or reflections -- and he made the most of his decision to relinquish his NCAA amateur status after two years of college swimming and turn pro. With a short course world record and two Olympic medals in 2000, Ed received media exposure and corporate endorsements far in excess of anything previously seen in the swimming world.
After missing the Olympic Team in 2004, however, and with the ascension of Michael Phelps in full swing, Moses faced a financial plateau and he quickly grew disillusioned with the sport and its rigorous demands.
"When I left swimming originally, I thought, "You’re wasting your time,'" Ed says. "'You've got to start setting up your life.'" A few months after 2004 Trials, Ed found himself thinking he was "doing the same [stuff] over and over again. It was my job. Seeing the same people every day. The same alarm going off every day. That’s not five months out of the year. What a lot of people don’t understand is that it’s, say, 350 days out of 365. There’s no off season."
Ed disappeared from the swimming world entirely. "I just left. I could not face it anymore. So I just picked up and left and went down to Florida so I didn’t have to hear it."
While the time away from the pool allowed him to "get my passion back" and "find myself again," Ed speaks with regret about the manner in which he left the sport. "I think I was selfish in walking away and taking everything I had learned and everything I had gained," he says. "I really want to do other things to help promote [the sport] and help get it out there. I think the stuff that I’m doing with Mojo is good, so I’m going to put a lot of emphasis on that and that’ll kind of bridge the gap for me from a personal perspective."
This motivation is part of what compels Ed’s every move. He considers himself a model for what the sport could be, and in point of fact his entire project leading up to the 2012 Olympic Games provides a prototype for a new celebrity American swimmer. While this may seem far-fetched to those who only tune into the summer Olympic Games every four years, and may seem like a pipe dream to many within the swimming community, Ed has concrete plans on how to begin boosting swimming into the pantheon of popular American sports.
A decade ago, this would not have been possible. At that time, swimming was still something to fill the downtime between track and field events and gymnastics routines. The sport has boomed, but not because of him. "We needed swimming to be the biggest sport at the summer Olympics," Ed says. "I think we got there. Michael [Phelps] brought it to the forefront."
The next step is to ensure that swimming does not fade from the general American sporting consciousness between Olympics. To do that, the focus needs to narrow from the Olympics to the Olympians, from swimming to swimmers. "Now it’s all about opening it up and getting the characters that are out there. Once [audiences] are exposed to the people and the lives inside the sport, then they’ll start to love it more and more. There are people out there that have kids, that have jobs, that can’t find a dollar and they’re the best swimmers in the world."
That, of course, is something that would come easily to the enormously likable Moses. So, by leveraging Mojo Marketing and his contacts in the production world, Ed has taken it upon himself to create the first mainstream reality swimming show -- about himself.
Stroke Kings, originally conceived to co-star and standout American swimmer Ryan Lochte, was set to debut on Universal Sports in early July. Lochte has since bowed out, pushing the start date back and leaving Ed to anchor a show that, according to the show’s Facebook page, "delves into the rigorous training of Olympic swimmers who struggle to resist being consumed by the seductions of celebrity and overcome personal hurdles."
While he is not at liberty to disclose exactly who will be some of the other swimmers involved in the show, Ed has said that Stroke Kings will feature a host of international athletes that "will really open up the sport of swimming worldwide."
"The whole show started with how I wanted to do this comeback," Ed says. "I wanted people to see what kind of person I am and just show people that I’m no different, that I came up from the same roots that most people did that get into sports,"
Ed believes heightening the entertainment value of swimming is a step in the right direction of expanding the audience of -- and therefore the endorsement opportunities for -- swimmers. "That’s the goal of everything that I’m trying to do with Universal," he says.
Along with Stroke Kings, Ed says he has "several other shows" with swimmers and other athletes that he hopes to get up and running prior to the Olympics next summer.
The fact of the matter is that Ed is in a perfect position to effect the kind of change he believes the sport needs to get it to the next level of professionalization. Mark Spitz may have had the name recognition, but there was no money to be had in the 1970s and the idea of a professional swimmer was unthinkable. Michael Phelps' celebrity has far surpassed Spitz's, and he inaugurated an era of corporate sponsorship previously unseen. But Phelps never intended to take up all the available money in the sponsorship world. Moses believes he has a chance to put the pieces together to make swimming entertaining year-round to audiences whose size and variety have heretofore been unimaginable.
The question remains whether swimming, which to the vast majority of athletes is an all-or-nothing sport, will reward someone with as many irons in as many different fires as Ed maintains.
Should he make the U.S. Olympic Team next year, Ed would be the second oldest male swimmer to do so in 88 years (Jason Lezak, who is pursuing his fourth Olympic Team, was also 32, in 2008; Duke Kahanamoku was 33 in 1924). The last, but far from the least, of the things that has not changed since Ed first started chasing Olympic gold at age 19 is his motivation. "Sometimes I look back on that and I feel like I'm the exact same person," he says. "I don’t feel like that is someone I can’t relate to, because I can."
It has not been that way since he first got back in the water last fall. "Ten months ago," Ed says, "I think if you asked the people around me they would say that I tried to portray the image that it was 100 percent different. It was about a path that I wanted to at least try and attempt. The first six to eight months, it was about filling a void."
Over the six years he was out of the pool, Ed attempted to reignite his golf game, but continued to fall just shy of making the PGA Tour. His competitive drive needed an outlet. Originally put in the water at 17 to help rehabilitate a golf injury, Ed says, "swimming was something I found quick success in and that satisfied my competitive edge. I wasn’t getting that fix with golf."
The last time he dedicated his energy to swimming, Ed made it into the highest echelons of the sport in record time. "I don't know if that's good in my life or bad in my life that I had so much success in swimming so quickly -- I don't want to say easily -- because it creates this impatience that I have in a lot of stuff that I do in my life." Since he could substitute swim training for the amount of time he was spending on the course and the range, he weighed his options and decided. "It's only a year and a half, and it's not like I have to change a lot of aspects of my life."
In the beginning, when all the signs began pointing him towards a comeback, Ed says, "I gathered up all that information and asked, 'What if I did?' I really couldn't see anything that really hurt me. I convinced myself the results didn't even matter. But that 'What if I didn’t try' -- I'd have to answer that for many, many years.”
Within the last three moths or so, however, since his fitness and feel in the water have come around, his perspective has changed from that of someone setting out simply to fulfill a personal quest. The success he’s had thus far in his comeback has "satisfied that competitive edge a little bit," and every week closer to Trials edges him ever closer to that myopic and intensely driven competitor who swam to medals in 2000.
"The scales have started to tip again," he says. "I knew there was going to come a point when it was going to change to 'Okay, you put yourself out there, people are saying things and have expectations for you and now you’re going to have to go and fulfill them.' That's just my personality. I really care about what other people think, about upholding an image that I hold myself accountable for."
The next 300-plus days will determine whether Ed lives up to that image -- and to the hype he has created for himself.
But when it comes down to it, Moses knows the hype is really after the fact. The final event -- any championship athletic event, the contest itself and the competitors within it -- is focused down to the narrowest aperture of the physical capabilities of a handful of men or women. At the moment of competition, all else -- all hype, all personality, all accomplishment or experience not directly related to physical performance -- becomes utterly immaterial. What are left are individuals and their respective preparation.
Having swum in such contests before, having both won and failed such contests, Moses is fully aware of what is required of him between now and June. What will ultimately matter the most when he steps up on the blocks will be the honest measure of his devotion to his dreams. "When you stand on the blocks and you look around and you ask, 'Did I do everything I could to make myself the best?,'" he says, "if you can answer that 'yes' then I think that you're winning, that you understand what dedication is."
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Taped above Ed Moses' locker in the University of Virginia Men's Swimming locker room was a slip of paper with four words on it:
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http://web.archive.org/web/20121023212149id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2012/10/20/drone-aircraft-adapted-from-military-uses-coming-skies-near-you/h1rQ29NYRYwh0o6AIeOqDN/story.html
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Drone aircraft, adapted from military uses, coming to skies near you
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20121023212149
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In a field in Halifax, James Peverill and Adam Woodworth have been test-flying a new kind of aircraft. Its flight plan is set by a smartphone or laptop, using a map on the screen. It can fly for 45 minutes, while taking still photos or video of the ground below. The FocalPlane weighs about a pound, and could cost as little as $250.
Peverill and Woodworth’s start-up, Rotary Robotics, is just one of several local groups working to demilitarize drone aircraft. While the armed forces have deployed unmanned aerial vehicles in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya that cost millions and are sometimes armed with Hellfire missiles, this new fleet will be small, cheap, and geared to tasks like evaluating farm crops, finding missing children, or inspecting bridges.
Many expect that the domestic UAV industry is about to take off, and the Federal Aviation Administration has estimated that 30,000 drones could be aloft by 2020. “We’re in a rapid spool-up phase now, where we’re thinking about going from producing tens of aircraft per month to a thousand or more,” says Tom Vaneck, vice president of space technologies at Physical Sciences Inc. in Andover.
While some law enforcement agencies already have clearance to fly the aircraft — a SWAT team in Massachusetts has filed an application with the FAA to use one — adoption by businesses and individuals could be a few years away. That’s because the FAA has yet to hash out rules that would govern commercial use of a UAV hovering 100 feet above your home or zipping past your office window. (Could Google Interiors — images of the inside of our homes — be the next upgrade for Google Maps?)
The highest-profile of the UAV makers is CyPhy Works of Danvers. The company was started in 2008 by Helen Greiner, one of the founders of iRobot Corp. Greiner hasn’t said much about CyPhy. Most of what is known about the company comes from a $2.4 million federal grant it received in 2009 to design a hovering craft with high-resolution cameras that could be used to assess the condition of highways, bridges, and other infrastructure.
The FocalPlane created by Rotary Robotics.
One of the first UAVs to take to Massachusetts skies could be the Skate, a 2-pound, mostly foam aircraft priced at $35,000 and up. The Skate system fits in a backpack and delivers live video to the operator’s control device. It can also carry an infrared camera, which can help spot people by the heat their bodies give off. The twin-propeller craft can transition from flying like a plane to hovering like a helicopter. It doesn’t require a runway for takeoff; you just lob it into the air.
The Skate was developed at the Cambridge office of Aurora Flight Sciences, a Virginia aerospace company. “We’re targeting law enforcement agencies with it,” says Mark Litke, a business development manager at Aurora. “For them, putting a helicopter in the air might cost $1,500 an hour, but using an unmanned aircraft like the Skate is just a few dollars.”
The Metropolitan Law Enforcement Council, a group of more than 40 police departments in the western suburbs of Boston, said earlier this month that it will check out the Skate in training exercises and actual operations — once it can get approval from the FAA.
Physical Sciences hasn’t released pictures of its InstantEye UAV, which has four propellers and is designed to hover for about 20 minutes. “Our customers have asked us not to be too public about it,” says Vaneck. But, the company did demo it this year for Senator Scott Brown when he visited PSI.
PSI, says Vaneck, studied insects and small birds to “understand how they can fly through a very cluttered environment, and most of the time not collide with anything. When they do collide, they bounce off, reorient themselves, and go about their business.” The same is true for InstantEye.
Physical Sciences is aiming for a $300 price tag. “We are talking about inexpensive enough to be on a Walmart or a Brookstone shelf,” Vaneck says.
Which raises the question: What will Walmart shoppers be scoping with their $300 UAVs? Sure, some may look for lost dogs, but I wonder whether others might check out that awesome-sounding backyard barbecue next door. Companies could spy on competitors by hovering outside office windows, using high-resolution cameras to read notes left on a whiteboard.
“From a personal privacy standpoint, I certainly wouldn’t want someone flying one over my house while I’m outside playing with my kid,” says Vaneck. “It’s going to be a fairly sticky situation when it comes to civilian use and privacy. But right now, our customer is the US government.”
FAA spokesman Les Dorr says the agency is working on rules that would govern “small unmanned aircraft,” including “ways to address the privacy issues.” In August, US Representative Edward Markey, a Malden Democrat, released draft legislation intended to ensure that privacy is part of the FAA’s rule-making process.
“We think that basic privacy safeguards need to be put in place,” says Giselle Barry, a spokeswoman for Markey. “Who will operate these aircraft, where will they be flown, what data will be collected?”
As is often the case, legislators and regulators are racing to keep up with the market. “UAVs have been considered the domain of the military, because of the high price point,” says Peverill. “But there’s a lot of demand, now that prices have been coming down so rapidly.” His start-up plans to launch a campaign on the fund-raising website Kickstarter later this year, and begin delivering FocalPlanes in 2013.
It used to be so simple: When you looked up in the sky, you could be pretty sure it was either a bird, a plane, or Superman. Before long, it could be a camera-laden UAV — looking down at you.
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In a field in Halifax, James Peverill and Adam Woodworth have been test-flying a new kind of aircraft. Its flight plan is set by a smartphone or laptop, using a map on the screen. It can fly for 45 minutes, while taking still photos or video of the ground below. The FocalPlane weighs about a pound, and could cost as little as $250. Many expect that the domestic UAV industry is about to take off, and the Federal Aviation Administration has estimated that 30,000 drones could be aloft by 2020
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Alameda County transportation tax just shy
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20121121182728
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The last of the mail and provisional ballots counted in Alameda County confirmed wins by Noel Gallo, Dan Kalb, Lynette Gibson-McElhaney and Rebecca Kaplan to the Oakland City Council on Thursday night.
Councilman Larry Reid was re-elected to his seat on election day without the need for a ranked-choice voting tally.
The final election results also showed that a countywide transportation tax failed to get the required two-thirds majority by only a few hundred votes. Measure B1, which would have raised $7.8 billion for bus service, bike paths, road repair and other projects, got 66.53 percent of the vote but needed 66.66 percent to pass.
"We're very close," said Arthur Dao, director of the Alameda County Transportation Commission, saying his agency may request a recount. "There's so much at stake, we need to make sure we do our due diligence and make sure every vote is counted."
Registrar Dave Macdonald and his staff spent the past 10 days counting 40,000 provisional ballots and 100,000 mail-in ballots that voters dropped off at polling places on election day.
They released the final figures Thursday night and are now conducting a manual tally of a random 1 percent of the votes cast to certify the results. Macdonald expects to certify the results late next week, a spokeswoman in the registrar's office said.
In San Leandro, the ranked-choice winners for council are newcomers Ursula Reed and Benny Lee, and incumbent Jim Prola.
Berkeley's Measure T, a closely watched measure that would have allowed tall buildings and other zoning changes in West Berkeley, lost by 512 votes, final results showed.
The latest registrar figures included one surprise: A San Leandro school tax that had been trailing since election night inched over the two-thirds threshold needed after the last of the ballots were counted. Measure L is a $39-per-parcel tax to raise about $2.4 million for math, science and reading programs, libraries and other school offerings.
As for Measure B1, Dao said that after the results are certified, the county's transportation commission, which sponsored the measure, will consider asking for a recount.
A recount would cost $1,500 a day, he said. Another option is for the board to more forward with another tax on a future ballot, he said.
"Both options are expensive, but without this precious revenue we can't really bring transportation in this county into the 21st century," he said. "Without this, there will be no new projects, no new jobs, and what we do have will continue to decline."
Projects already under way will not be affected by the fate of Measure B1, including the Oakland airport connector, Highway 84 improvements in Livermore, and the Warm Springs BART extension.
But future projects will probably be scrapped without B1 funding, Dao said. Among them: restoring cuts to AC Transit and paratransit, pothole repairs and countywide bicycle and pedestrian paths, such as the Bay Trail, Iron Horse Trail and the East Bay Greenway trail that would connect Oakland to Hayward with a path under the elevated BART tracks.
Carolyn Jones is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: carolynjones@sfchronicle.com
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Councilman Larry Reid was re-elected to his seat on election day without the need for a ranked-choice voting tally. The final election results also showed that a countywide transportation tax failed to get the required two-thirds majority by only a few hundred votes. Registrar Dave Macdonald and his staff spent the past 10 days counting 40,000 provisional ballots and 100,000 mail-in ballots that voters dropped off at polling places on election day. Among them: restoring cuts to AC Transit and paratransit, pothole repairs and countywide bicycle and pedestrian paths, such as the Bay Trail, Iron Horse Trail and the East Bay Greenway trail that would connect Oakland to Hayward with a path under the elevated BART tracks.
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Mayim Bialik and Husband to Divorce
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20121123161329
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Mayim Bialik and Husband To Divorce
and her husband are getting divorced.
Mayim, who stars in "
," cites "irreconcilable differences" in her 9 year marriage to Michael Stone.
The couple has 2 kids. They've talked about how they allow their kids to sleep in the same bed with them.
Mayim, who previously starred in "Blossom," released a statement on her website saying, "The hands-on style of parenting we practice played no role in the changes that led to this decision," adding, "relationships are complicated no matter what style of parenting you choose."
And she says, "The main priority for us now is to make the transition to two loving homes as smooth and painless as possible. Our sons deserve parents committed to their growth and health and that's what we are focusing on."
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Mayim Bialik and her husband are getting divorced.Mayim, who stars in "The Big Bang Theory," cites "irreconcilable differences" in her 9 year marriage to…
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http://web.archive.org/web/20121128182731id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1864/06/03/news/our-hilton-head-correspondence-maj-gen-jg-foster-command-expedition-up-ashepoo.html?
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OUR HILTON HEAD CORRESPONDENCE
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20121128182731
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HILTON HEAD, S.C., Sunday, May 29, 1864.
As will be seen by the following orders, Maj.-Gen. J.G. FOSTER has assumed command of the Department of the South. Brig.-Gen. J.P. HATCH succeeds Brig.-Gen. BIRNEY in the command of the District of Hilton Head, Fort Pulaski, St. Helena and Tybee Island.
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH, HILTON HEAD, S.C., May 26, 1864.
GENERAL ORDERS No. 74. -- By direction of the President, in Special Orders No. 168, dated May 5, 1864, from Headquarters of the Army, the undersigned hereby assumes command of the Department of the South. All orders and regulations established by Brig.-Gen. HATCH, and now in operation, will remain in force until otherwise ordered.
JOHN F. ANDERSON, Major and A.D.C.
HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH, HITON HEAD, S.C., May 27, 1864.
GENERAL ORDERS No. 75. -- The following named officers are hereby announced on the Staff of the Major-General Commanding, and will be obeyed and respected accordingly:
Capt. W.L.M. Burger, Asst. Adjutant-General.
First Lieut. T.J. Robinson, 21st U.S.C.T., Acting Assistant Adjutant-General.
Lieut.-Col. B.T. Morgan, 54th N.Y. Vols., Acting Assistant Inspector-General.
Capt. J.H. Moore, A.Q.M., U.S. Vols., Chief Quartermaster.
Capt. T.A.P. Champlin, C.S., U.S. Vols., Chief Commissary of Subsistence.
Lieut.-Col. Peter Pineo, Medical Inspector.
Surgeon Eben. Swift, Medical Director.
Surgeon Charles L. Alien, Medical Purveyor.
Maj. E.D. Judd, Chief Paymaster.
First Lieut. C.R. Suter, Engineer Corps, U.S.A., Chief Engineer.
First Lieut. J.R. McGinness, U.S.A., Chief of Ordnance.
Col. C.R. Brayton, 3d R.I. Art., Chief of Artillery.
Col. P.P. Brown, Jr., 157th N.Y. Vols., Provost-Marshal-General.
Capt. H.R. Clum, Chief Signal Officer.
Col. M.S. Littlefield, 21st U.S.C.T., General Superintendent of the Recruiting Service for Colored Troops.
Capt. Lester Smith, 1st U.S. Artillery, Commissary Musters.
Maj. John F. Anderson, A.D.C.
Capt. Geo. E. Gouraud, A.D.C.
Lieut.-Col. S.L. Woodford, 127th N.Y. Vols., Acting Judge Advocate.
Acting Ensign C.C. Neil, U.S.N., A.D.C., Chief of Armed Transports.
John H. Mars, Esq., Chief Marine Engineer.
By command of Maj. Gen. J.G. FOSTER.
Official: W.L.M. BURGER, Asst. Adjt.-Gen.
THOMAS J. ROBINSON, First Lieut. 21st U.S.C.T., Act. Asst. Adjt.-Gen.
HEADQUARTERS, DEPARTMENT OF THE SOUTH, HILTON HEAD, S.C., May 27, 1864.
GENERAL ORDERS, No. 76. -- Brig.-Gen. JOHN P. HATCH, United States Volunteers, is hereby assigned to the command of the District of Hilton Head, Fort Pulaski, St. Helena and Tybee Island.
By command of Maj.-Gen. J.G. FOSTER,
Official: W.L.M. BURGER, Asst. Adj.-Gen.
THOMAS J. ROBINSON, 1st Lieut. 21st U.S.C.T., Act. Asst. Adj.-General.
On the morning of the 25th inst., by order of Gen. HATCH, a small force of troops embarked on board transports at Hilton Head, and proceeded in the direction of Ashepoo River, with a view of feeling of the enemy's position in that locality. The main portion of the force arrived, without interruption, at the designated point -- a short distance up Mosquito Creek -- but for some cause, yet to be investigated by a Board of Inquiry already convened, one of the transports -- the Edwin Lewis -- instead of joining the other vessels in Musquito Creek, proceeded directly up the Ashepoo River. This mistake, blunder or stupidity on the part of the commanding military officer on board the Edwin Lewis, led to the
LOSS OF THE STEAMER BOSTON.
Capt. F.M. FAIRCLOTH, of the Boston, had special instructions to follow the Edwin Lewis, and in attempting to do so, his vessel ran aground at high tide in Ashepoo River, at a point thirteen miles above the mouth of Musquito Creek. This occurred at 11 o'clock at night. The Edwin Lewis still pursued her course up the river for a distance of two miles beyond the grounded steamer, and it was not until she had thumped over two lines of obstructions, that she was turned back.
On board the Boston were about 300 men, including the officers and crew of the vessel, and ninety-one horses. The Edwin Lewis, on her return from up the river, discovered the Boston aground, and made an effort to pull her off, but all to no purpose. The Boston drew 8 feet 4 inches, and that portion of her keel extending from the bow to the foremast, became firmly fixed in the sand. In this condition she remained during the entire night. From Musquito Creek the armed transport Plato, followed soon after by the gunboat Dai Ching, went to the assistance of the grounded steamer. The tide was now on the obb, and, of course, all attempts to more the Boston proved futile. As soon as daylight broke it was discovered she lay within 1,000 yards of a robel battery. A short time thereafter, when a slight fog which enveloped the steamer had lifted, her close proximity to the battery was made more apparent by the flight and whiz of a 6-pounder shot, which initiatory shot was succeeded in quick succession by seventy-five or eighty others. Of the shots fired, seventy took effect on the steamer. The second shot penetrated the boiler, but the foresight of Capt. FAIRCLOTH prompted him at an early hour to open the steam-valve, and thus prevent casualties by scalding, Gen. BIRNEY, who by this time had arrived at the scene, on board the transport Croton, now issued orders for means to be taken to save the lives of the men. Consequently, the Boston's boats were lowered, and engaged in transferring the soldiers and the crew to other steamers. A large number of the soldiers were forced to leap into the water and swim to the land, where they remained until the small boats took them off. All of the soldiers, excepting a number of cavalrymen, belonged to the Thirty-fourth Regiment Colored Troops, Col. MONTGOMERY; and thirteen of them, unable to swim or unable to gain a solid foundation in the mud and marsh, were drowned. Of the crew of the Boston, JOHN T. EGERT, fireman, and JOHN KALH, carpenter, were lost. Numerous other lives would have been lost, had not Ensign WM. NELSON, formerly of the Kingfisher, and who volunteered to accompany Capt. FAIRCLOTH, sprang upon the upper deck, and thrown overboard spars, boxes, ropes, and everything he could lay hands on that would serve to buoy up the human beings in the water. When nearly all had left, Col. MONTGOMERY went below and fired some bales of hay, for the purpose of destroying the steamer; but the hay being soaked with water, would not burn. All this was accomplished under the enemy's fire. An hour later -- 9 A.M. -- Col. MONTGOMERY and Capt. FAIRCLOTH returned to the Boston in a small boat, having first provided themselves with combustible material from the army and navy vessels, and this time succeeded in thoroughly firing the steamer. In the meantime, the Dai Ching took a favorable position, and shelled the rebel battery so vigorously that the latter was finally completely silenced. The only casualty on our side by the enemy's fire was one man killed while swimming toward the shore. Of the 91 horses on board the Boston, Capt. FAIRCLOTH estimates that about one-half were killed by the enemy's shot; the remainder were burned alive. The last man to leave the Boston was Capt. FAIRCLOTH. He was immediately preceded by Col. MONTGOMERY. Capt. FAIRCLOTH narrowly escaped with his life in several instances. The Boston was built in 1850 by BELL & BROWN, of New-York. Her machinery was put in by T.F. SECOR & CO., of the same City. She was a first-class side-wheel steamer, and was formerly run on the route between Boston and Portland. Subsequently she ran between New-York and Philadelphia, and at the time the war broke out, she was the first vessel employed to transport troops -- having taken a New-York regiment to Annapolis.
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As will be seen by the following orders, Maj.Gen. J.G. FOSTER has assumed command of the Department of the South. Brig.-Gen. J.P. HATCH succeeds Brig.-Gen. BIRNEY in the command of the District of Hilton Head, Fort Pulaski, St. Helena and Tybee Island.
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http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/49ers-Aldon-Smith-bags-monthly-award-4079072.php
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49ers' Aldon Smith bags monthly award
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20121130054744
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What do you get a guy who stuffs a season's worth of sacks into three games?
Niners outside linebacker Aldon Smith was named the NFC Defensive Player of the Month after collecting nine sacks in three games, a haul highlighted by his 5 1/2-sack performance against the Bears on Nov. 19.
Smith's three-game blitz is another reminder of how starved the 49ers were for a pass-rusher prior to picking him with the No. 7 pick in the 2011 draft. Smith's nine sacks in November are more than the 49ers' sack leader had in any season from 2003 to '10.
Entering Sunday's game at St. Louis, the Missouri native, who leads the NFL with 16 1/2 sacks, needs to 1 1/2 sacks to set the franchise's single-season record set by Fred Dean in 1983. At his current pace, Smith would have 24 sacks. The Giants' Michael Strahan set the NFL's single-season sack record of 22 1/2 in 2001.
Hard-hitting secondary: Last year, Saints running back Pierre Thomas famously sustained a concussion when he was hit by safety Donte Whitner during the teams' meeting in the divisional playoffs.
On Sunday, it was Whitner's brother in harm, safety Dashon Goldson, who delivered violent - and legal - blows to Saints wide receivers Marques Colston and Lance Moore. The wideouts were both slow to get up after absorbing the hits.
Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio was asked what message such collisions send to wide receivers who run over the middle against the 49ers.
"If they watch enough film," Fangio said, "they'll see that there's some land mines in there that they might step on."
Roman takes the fifth: In praising Michael Crabtree, offensive coordinator Greg Roman noted how Jim Harbaugh had said the wide receiver had the best hands he'd ever seen.
Who has the best hands Roman has ever seen? After a pause, Roman borrowed a handy line from Harbaugh.
"I don't like to compare players," he said. "Have a great day."
Shula weighs in: Don Shula, 82, the winningest coach in NFL history, said Harbaugh is taking a gamble that could pay off handsomely by naming Colin Kaepernick the 49ers' starting quarterback.
"It might be a risk, but it might be a stroke of genius," Shula said on NFL AM on NFL Network. "If it works out, he is going to be given a lot of credit (for going) out and making that move in a situation where it would be easier to do the other thing."
Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ebranch@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Eric_Branch
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Niners outside linebacker Aldon Smith was named the NFC Defensive Player of the Month after collecting nine sacks in three games, a haul highlighted by his 5 1/2-sack performance against the Bears on Nov. 19. Last year, Saints running back Pierre Thomas famously sustained a concussion when he was hit by safety Donte Whitner during the teams' meeting in the divisional playoffs. On Sunday, it was Whitner's brother in harm, safety Dashon Goldson, who delivered violent - and legal - blows to Saints wide receivers Marques Colston and Lance Moore. Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio was asked what message such collisions send to wide receivers who run over the middle against the 49ers. Don Shula, 82, the winningest coach in NFL history, said Harbaugh is taking a gamble that could pay off handsomely by naming Colin Kaepernick the 49ers' starting quarterback.
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THE REBELLION - NYTimes.com
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20121208064403
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Our advices from the Army of the Potomac, this morning, indicate unmistakably that Gen. McCLELLAN is again about to measure strength with the rebel hosts under LEE. There appears to be no doubt that the latter intends to give battle at or near their present location, which is now well known to our Generals, through the thorough reconnoissances recently made. Simultaneous with the movement of Gen. HANCOCK's Division to Charlestown on Thursday, another movement was made across the Potomac, at Shepherdstown Ford, by Gen. WOODBURY's Division, which took the road leading to Smithfield, a small village half way between Charlestown and Bunker's Hill. This division encamped, on Thursday night, between Leetown and Kearneysville, having met with but slight resistance during the advance. Yesterday morning the cavalry attached to the division advanced toward Smithfield, and formed a junction with HANCOCK's cavalry, having meantime discovered the enemy in very heavy force. The object of the reconnoissance was thus attained without loss. To-day may bring us the news of another great battle.
Official dispatches, received in Louisville from Nashville, state that the rebels were in considerable force near the latter city on the 11th inst., and that they sent a flag of truce demanding a surrender. This modest demand Gen. NEGLEY declined to accede to, as he had a National force ample for defence.
We have a rumor from Fortress Monroe that an engagement took place at Blackwater River beyond Suffolk, on Tuesday last, the result of which is yet unknown. A Lieutenant and three men belonging to the Eleventh Pennsylvania Cavalry are said to have been killed.
Within the last three or four days, the rebels have run two trains of cars from the other side of the Rappahannock to Bristow. They selected their opportunities immediately after Union reconnoitering parties had passed through and about the intervening country. These trains, doubtless, carried cattle or horses for the use of LEE's army, which could be rapidly driven up from Bristow, through Thoroughfare Gap and Front Royal, to LEE's position.
The subjoined extract of a letter from an officer on the Staff of Gen. TERRILL, who was killed in the late battle of Perryville, will correct some errors committed by newspaper accounts: "The papers are in error in regard to BRAGG attacking MCCOOK; it was the combined forces of HARDEE and POLK, or two of the rebel army divisions against one of ours. The rebels are in retreat toward Harrodsburgh for the purpose of forming a junction with KIRBY SMITH and cutting off Gen. SILL, who has the flower of the Western army. Our army fought after being two days without adequate supplies of water or provisions, and all of them green troops, never before in action; nevertheless, they withstood the combined attack, and were able to follow the retreating rebels twenty hours afterward."
The Washington correspondent of the Philadelphia North American hears that the naval expeditions that have been in progress at several points for a number of weeks past are now ready, and will sail for their destinations as soon as the troops for land service are ready, to accompany them. When this will be, however, is not at present known, though possibly a month hence will find everything in perfect readiness for a repetition of the splendid achievements at New-Orleans and Port Royal. Admiral DUPONT, who is now in New-York, will leave for Port Royal in a few days.
Headquarters in St. Louis have received dispatches to the following purport: "Papers and dispatches dated as late as the 6th inst. have been received by Gen. COMBS from Little Rock, Ark. HINDMAN was then at Duval's Bluffs. PARSONS was represented as moving toward North Missouri, and seeking to unite his forces with STEARN and MCBRIDE at Pocahontas. The rebel commander, HOLMES, was at Little Rock. Gen. SCHOFIELD had arrived at Cassville, in Barry County, near the Arkansas line. Southwestern Missouri is once more cleared of rebel forces, and the telegraph communication is complete to Cassville. Two divisions of the army are left at Helena, under Gen. CARR."
Gen. CURTIS has issued an order, which reads thus: "The continued forces of Missouri and Kansas, as an army corps in the field, now commanded by Brig.-Gen. J.M. SCHOFIELD, will be denominated 'the Army of the Frontier.'"
Gen. CURTIS, at St. Louis, has received the following dispatch from Col. W.W. OHM, commanding the post at Springfield, Mo.: "I have just received by messenger from Mount Vernon, an intercepted dispatch from COCKFRELL, to Gen. HINDMAN. It is date of Oct. 5, and in substance that COCKFRELL left HINDMAN at Pineville and moved north; that since he left, he has some fifteen hundred sworn in, and expected many more by Oct. 10; that he could arm two-thirds of them, and that as all Federal troops and militia had gone South, he expected to move on Sedalia about the 12th of October, and destroy the S.W. Branch. That he had learned there were only three thousand militia in the State north of the Osage River." The dispatch bearer was taken in Lawrence County, in company with a negro boy. They say COCKERELL is in Johnson County with about three hundred men, and QUANTREL is in Jackson County with two hundred and fifty men; that COCKERELL is not going to attack, but wants to get out of the State.
The ship Henrietta, from Pensacola, Oct. 1, arrived yesterday afternoon. There was nothing new at Pensacola. The health of the troops was good. The country was quiet and very healthy along the coast.
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Our advices from the Army of the Potomac, this morning, indicate unmistakably that Gen. McCLELLAN is again about to measure strength with the rebel hosts under LEE. There appears to be no doubt that the latter intends to give battle at or near their present location, which is now well known to our Generals, through the thorough reconnoissances recently made.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20121214231648id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2012/12/12/heating/G4P1VlhRfjqcHkJtSPY1XP/story.html
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Heating oil consumers can expect to pay an average of $2,544 to warm homes, natural gas users $1,031, according to new fuel forecast
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20121214231648
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Despite recent mild temperatures, colder days — and higher heating bills — are still on their way, according to a forecast released Tuesday by the federal government.
Heating oil consumers can expect to pay a record high average of $2,544 to warm their homes this winter, about $450 more than last year, according to an analysis by the Energy Information Administration.
Tuesday’s estimates were slightly higher than those released earlier in the season. In October, the agency predicted an average cost of $2,494 for the winter. Even a small increase, however, can have a significant effect in the Northeast, where 32 percent of households depend on oil heat, a considerably bigger proportion than elsewhere in the country.
Those who rely on natural gas — about 51 percent of Northeasterners — will pay an average of $1,031, close to $200 higher than last year. That estimate is about $20 higher than predicted in October, but overall prices have been falling as new sources of natural gas have become available in the United States.
Heating bills are expected to be that much higher because the government forecasts a more typical winter. Last year’s unusually warm weather kept thermostats lower, but this year the government expects consumption for heating oil and natural gas customers to increase by about 18 percent.
The rising cost of oil heat is of particular concern for low-income households that depend on federal fuel assistance to warm their homes. Applications are flooding in to the offices of Action for Boston Community Development Inc., an agency that administers heating aid in Boston and surrounding municipalities, said its president, John Drew. Last year, the group processed 18,000 applications; this year he expects to see as many as 24,000.
“We have an awful lot of people in need,” he said. “They’re more desperate than last year.”
And the aid they get may not be enough, he said. The maximum heating oil benefit this year will be slightly above $1,000, which hardly covers a full tank of oil at current prices, Drew said.
Oil dealers are also worried. Last winter, with its unseasonably warm temperatures, was not a strong one for the heating oil business, said Michael Ferrante, executive director of the Massachusetts Oilheat Council, a trade group.
Even with colder temperatures this year, elevated prices could lower demand as price-sensitive customers order smaller amounts of oil at a time, Ferrante said. For dealers, however, it doesn’t make sense to send out a truck and a delivery person for orders of less than 100 gallons.
“A small delivery is just not cost-effective,” he said.
Fluctuating prices are also a concern, said oil dealer Scott MacFarlane, the owner of MacFarlane Energy in Dedham. A movement of even a few cents, he said, can make a huge difference to his bottom line. When prices change in the middle of the day, he is stuck paying higher costs that he can’t pass on to customers.
“The price goes up, we eat that,” he said.
In Massachusetts, the average price for a gallon of heating oil last week was $3.91, up 3 cents from the same time last year, according to a weekly survey conducted by the state Department of Energy Resources.
Nationally, prices are expected to rise, with Tuesday’s report predicting an average of $3.85 per gallon, up from $3.73 last winter. October estimates had a forecast an average price of $3.80.
The relatively tight supply of heating oil in the Northeast is helping keep this price so high, explained Sean Hill, industry economist with the Energy Information Administration.
Strong international demand for diesel fuel means supply is being exported, rather than going to build up reserves in the Northeast, he said. November’s hurricane further constricted supply.
“When Sandy hit, all flows of refined products were basically unable to make their way into the Northeast,” Hill said.
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Despite recent mild temperatures, colder days — and higher heating bills — are still on their way, according to a forecast released Tuesday by the federal government. Heating oil consumers can expect to pay an average of $2,544 to warm their homes this winter, about $450 more than last year, according to an analysis by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Heating a home with natural gas is projected to cost an average of $1,031, close to $200 higher than last year.
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New breed of QBs shaking up the NFL
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20130119095410
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Watching Colin Kaepernick at the helm of the 49ers' new-look offense feels familiar in some odd way. It's like we've seen this movie, but it was way back in the days of grainy, black-and-white celluloid.
That's because the new-look offense is a throwback to the days when subterfuge and misdirection ruled the gridiron. Back when the Four Horsemen roamed the Notre Dame backfield. Before the days of drop-back passers, pioneered by Paul Brown and mastered by the likes of Don Coryell and Bill Walsh, football was a run-first game that hinged on multitalented quarterbacks who could fake handoffs, run the option and keep the ball themselves.
That's why these latest variations - the pistol offense and the read-option play, to be specific - look so familiar. All that is old is new again.
Kaepernick is just one of many quarterbacks who have brought the running field general back into vogue. One could argue that it started with the Eagles' Randall Cunningham and the Falcons' former quarterback Michael Vick. Both were superb runners and throwers. And they kept defenses honest with their scrambling styles when traditional pass plays fell apart. So did the Vikings' Fran Tarkenton and the Cowboys' Roger Staubach, a generation earlier.
But all those gentlemen were precursors to the new breed of quarterback that has brought the option play back into the NFL. Tim Tebow, despite his obvious faults, showed everyone what a strong running quarterback, using the read-option, could do in the NFL when he resurrected the Broncos last season and even won a playoff game. (Notably, he won one more playoff game than the ultimate drop-back passer, Peyton Manning, did this year.) In addition to Tebow, Carolina's Cam Newton was experimenting with the running game last year, and continued to do so this season with great success.
But it wasn't until this year's crop of new QBs blossomed that a truly new era dawned in the NFL. Washington's Robert Griffin III, Seattle's Russell Wilson and Kaepernick - two rookies and a second-year man - have changed the landscape. All three pose an equal threat running or throwing the ball. All three run the read-option, in which the quarterback can either hand off or run the ball himself. And all three took their teams to the postseason.
Only one remains standing, though, and he'll be going up against the Falcons on Sunday, with a Super Bowl trip on the line. After Kaepernick's transcendent performance against Green Bay in the divisional playoffs last week, the new world order hasn't been lost on defensive coordinators around the league.
"These young guys, they are athletic and they can run," former 49ers head coach and current Atlanta defensive coordinator Mike Nolan told The Chronicle last week. "That creates a whole new set of problems."
New problems? Or old? That's the question we posed to John Madden last week, a man who's seen it all in the game of football. Is this a throwback to the days of Red Grange? Not exactly, according to Madden.
"What this is ... it's a takeoff of the shotgun," said Madden. "The NFL started using the shotgun, and it became a shotgun league."
That meant multiple receiver sets, often spread wide, with few options for running the ball. About the only running play you can run out of the shotgun is a draw play, which isn't much different from the quarterback simply running the ball himself. Because of those limited running options, defenses started cheating in the other direction. More nickel and dime defensive formations were used. Fewer resources were committed to stopping the run.
Now, with the pistol offense in particular, more running backs are in the backfield - oftentimes three, like the wishbone perfected at the University of Oklahoma in the '70s- and the defense has to play it straight.
"That's here to stay," Madden said. "Whether all pistol offense goes with the read-option play, that's not for sure. Not every quarterback is an option runner."
Which brings up another key point. Kaepernick and Griffin, and even Wilson to some extent, ran the option in college. Their NFL coaches saw that and brought in an offense in which they could thrive.
"They got smart enough to realize that if you bring in a quarterback, bring their scheme in, too," Madden said.
That's a huge departure for a league that steadfastly refused to change its philosophies over the past two decades, much to the chagrin of running QBs like Vick and Cunningham. The new NFL seems more willing to experiment with its talent.
But at what cost? Traditionally, quarterbacks were discouraged from risking their necks in the open field for financial reasons. Rules were implemented to protect passers, because they were the most valuable players on the field.
Now, it feels as if management is willing to forget the risk and reach for the reward. In Kaepernick's case, it's worked. He's a big, strong guy who has taken a few big hits and popped right up. In Washington, Griffin has not been as resilient. He finished his rookie season with a major knee injury, and a major controversy facing his coach. Did they risk his career by playing him in the playoffs? We'll see.
"It has always been, 'We can't do this. He's the franchise,' " said City College of San Francisco football coach George Rush, a seven-time national champion and a lifelong student of the game. "It'll be interesting to see how the RGIII thing turns out, how the NFL responds to those injuries."
Madden doesn't believe you can change the rules to save the quarterbacks again. Any player on the field can slide and "give up" essentially in the open field. One option might be to change the rules on hitting high on anyone running the ball. Currently, the rules that protect receivers and quarterbacks don't apply to running backs. "Look at Frank Gore," said Madden. "He takes a beating."
Perhaps the last word will be had by the defensive schemers in the NFL. As with any innovation, there will be a countermove. Just as the new running quarterback was a counter to extra defensive backs.
"Defensive coordinators haven't quite caught up with it yet," Rush said. "They're smart guys, though. They'll figure it out. Or a couple of quarterbacks will get seriously hurt and the owners will make a decision that they can't afford to play this style."
Whichever way it plays out, enjoy the new era while it lasts. Dynamic, fast, running quarterbacks have emerged in the NFL. And the 49ers may have the most dynamic, fastest runner in the bunch.
Al Saracevic is The San Francisco Chronicle's sports editor. E-mail: asaracevic@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @alsaracevic
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Before the days of drop-back passers, pioneered by Paul Brown and mastered by the likes of Don Coryell and Bill Walsh, football was a run-first game that hinged on multitalented quarterbacks who could fake handoffs, run the option and keep the ball themselves. [...] all those gentlemen were precursors to the new breed of quarterback that has brought the option play back into the NFL. Tim Tebow, despite his obvious faults, showed everyone what a strong running quarterback, using the read-option, could do in the NFL when he resurrected the Broncos last season and even won a playoff game. (Notably, he won one more playoff game than the ultimate drop-back passer, Peyton Manning, did this year.) In addition to Tebow, Carolina's Cam Newton was experimenting with the running game last year, and continued to do so this season with great success. After Kaepernick's transcendent performance against Green Bay in the divisional playoffs last week, the new world order hasn't been lost on defensive coordinators around the league. The NFL started using the shotgun, and it became a shotgun league. About the only running play you can run out of the shotgun is a draw play, which isn't much different from the quarterback simply running the ball himself. Because of those limited running options, defenses started cheating in the other direction. [...] with the pistol offense in particular, more running backs are in the backfield - oftentimes three, like the wishbone perfected at the University of Oklahoma in the '70s- and the defense has to play it straight. Currently, the rules that protect receivers and quarterbacks don't apply to running backs. Just as the new running quarterback was a counter to extra defensive backs. They'll figure it out. Or a couple of quarterbacks will get seriously hurt and the owners will make a decision that they can't afford to play this style.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20130120112715id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1864/05/23/news/new-jersey.html
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NEW-JERSEY. - NYTimes.com
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20130120112715
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HUDSON COUNTY COURT. -- In the Hudson County Court, on Saturday, three young men, named WM. MCMULLEN, THOS. MORTON and JAS. RODGERS, were convicted of breaking into the office of Mr. C.H. O'NEILL, in Jersey City, and blowing open the iron safe. They were remanded by Judge OGDEN for sentence....WM. IRWIN and PALLET, two young men residing in Jersey City, were put on trial for robbing a returned soldier near the railroad depot in Jersey City. At the conclusion of the evidence the case was adjourned until this (Monday) morning.
THE DRAFT IN HUDSON COUNTY. -- The draft for the Fifth Congressional District of New-Jersey, comprising the City of Newark and Hudson County, will commence this (Monday) morning. The drawing will take place at Newark, under the supervision of Provost-Marshal Capt. E.N. MILLER. "Blind Billy," the news-man in Jersey City, has been selected to drew the names from the wheel, Jersey City lacks less than 200 men to fill her qouta on all the calls.
ATTEMPT TO STAB AN OFFICER. -- About 12 o'clock on Friday night. Officer HARNEY, of the Jersey City Police, attempted to arrest a sailor named JOHN LEONARD, who was conducting himself in a very disorderly manner, when the latter drew a large carving-knife and made several attempts to stab the officer, who finally succeeded in knocking him down with his club, and then conveyed him to the station. The accused was committed for trial.
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HUDSON COUNTY COURT. In the Hudson County Court, on Saturday, three young men, named WM. McMULLEN, THOS. MORTOS and JAS. RODGERS, were convicted of breaking into the office of Mr. C. H. O'NEILL, in Jersey City, and blowing open the iron safe. They were remanded by Judge OGDEN for...
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http://bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2013/01/19/new-sister-act-moves-disco-beat/ZA74VSdSk2mpE2N6T60KrN/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20130123095321id_/http://bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2013/01/19/new-sister-act-moves-disco-beat/ZA74VSdSk2mpE2N6T60KrN/story.html
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New ‘Sister Act’ moves to a disco beat
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20130123095321
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Fans of the 1992 “Sister Act” movie starring Whoopi Goldberg will find that the touring musical coming to the Opera House this week moves to a different beat. Out with the Motown pastiche, in with the disco.
Rock and soul have fluid, syncopated rhythms, says the stage adaptation’s composer, Alan Menken. With disco, though, “all of a sudden it was just: Boom. Boom. Boom. On the beat,” he says. “I found the ’70s music in general to be something that just tickled me. It was so dance-oriented. It was the underscore for a whole other kind of culture.”
A culture, he explains by phone from his office just north of New York City, that becomes more entertaining with time.
“You have to wait about 30 years, and then the style suggests so many things that we look back at fondly but also laugh at,” Menken says. “You think about disco, and you think about bell-bottoms, and those haircuts! The mullets!”
In the movie “Sister Act,” whose original music is by Marc Shaiman (“Hairspray”), Goldberg stars as Deloris van Cartier, a Reno lounge singer who witnesses a murder and gets taken into witness protection in the one place no one would ever look for her: a convent.
The musical takes basically the same path, although the action has moved to Philadelphia and Deloris is a budding disco star. The role will be played here by Ta’Rea Campbell, whose Broadway credits include “Leap of Faith” and “The Book of Mormon.”
“Deloris van Cartier is a fiery diva,” says Campbell, from a tour stop in North Carolina. “She wants to be famous, and she wants to be fabulous, and she wants to be a star. And in her mind she already is, so it’s kind of a shock to her that she’s not headlining clubs.”
Composer Alan Menken (below), discussing the show’s score, said ’70s music was “something that just tickled me. It was so dance-oriented.”
Deloris is also already dissatisfied with her boyfriend, shady nightclub owner Curtis (Kingsley Leggs), when she witnesses his involvement in a murder. She turns to the police, and then it’s off to the convent until it’s time to testify. But if Mother Superior (Hollis Resnick) thinks being “Here Within These Walls” is going to change Deloris, it’s mostly the other way around. Naturally, Deloris helps the nuns find their groove, despite the gangsters on her trail.
“I think that Deloris is really, really honest, and she says exactly what she feels when she feels it,” Campbell says. “It’s a really strong quality that she has, but it also gets her in a lot of trouble sometimes. That’s where the battle comes; that’s where the funny struggle happens between her and Mother Superior.”
After early productions in Pasadena, Calif., where the musical premiered in 2006, and Atlanta, “Sister Act” ran for more than a year in London’s West End, finally arriving at its intended destination on Broadway under the direction of Jerry Zaks in 2011.
That production’s Deloris was Patina Miller, now performing as the Leading Player in “Pippin” at the American Repertory Theater before moving with the revival to Broadway. Miller received one of the show’s five Tony Award nominations, as did the team of Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater.
Goldberg is a producer of the “Sister Act” musical, and also spent a few weeks performing in the show in London — but this time she played Mother Superior, the Maggie Smith role in the movie.
Menken says the show coming to Boston is very much the Broadway production. The musical director, Brent-Alan Huffman, conducted the show on Broadway, and several cast members are carryovers as well.
Menken is best known for his work on Disney animated hits including “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “The Little Mermaid,” earning a shelf of Oscars, Grammys, and Golden Globes along the way, and adapting many for the stage.
“Truth be told, ‘Sister Act’ is the first musical I’ve written directly for the Broadway stage,” he says. “Everything else was an adaptation of something I wrote for film or wrote for off-Broadway, or, in one case, an oratorio I did. ‘A Christmas Carol’ is Broadway, I guess, but that played Madison Square Garden, so it’s a little different.”
He was approached to work on the show by Peter Schneider, a former Disney executive who had worked with him decades earlier on “Little Shop of Horrors” off-Broadway. “At first I was resistant to it, because it’s already got songs that are so well known,” but the challenge of writing a new score and giving the characters a new voice was irresistible, Menken says.
“I like to think, when you get to a certain musical number in a musical, if you turn off the words and just hear the music, the music itself should give you about 50 percent of what you’re going to get dramatically,” he says.
With Slater, he also came up with a few twists on that formula, notably in “When I Find My Baby.”
“For me there always should be a moment for the audience of ‘Oh, I get it!’ ” Menken says with a laugh. “Curtis is singing a song that’s a kind of hearts-and-flowers kinda love song, but it’s about ‘how I wanna dismember the girl because she’s turned against me.’ ”
In fact, Menken says, pure disco is a relatively small part of the show’s score. As a working pianist and beginning composer in New York in the ’70s, he had to get to know the new sounds, but he wasn’t going out to discos except for the occasional professional obligation, much less hanging at Studio 54. Unsurprisingly, then, his “Sister Act” compositions run the musical gamut of that decade. “It’s got all those ’70s styles,” he says, “from disco to funk to psychedelic soul to the smooth jazz, where I think of Lou Rawls, and there’s traditional musical theater as well.”
The newest Deloris seems to welcome the variety.
“It’s such fun to sing, I’m having a blast,” says Campbell. “It’s really easy to just fall right into that groove.”
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Fans of the 1992 “Sister Act” movie starring Whoopi Goldberg will find the touring musical coming to the Opera House this week moves to a different beat. Out with the Motown pastiche, in with the disco.
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Collector has 60 years of 49ers mementos
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20130128211218
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Martin Jacobs, an avid memorabilia collector, with some of his 49ers items on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Martin Jacobs, an avid memorabilia collector, with some of his...
Martin Jacobs shows some old game photos of 49ers games on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Martin Jacobs shows some old game photos of 49ers games on...
Several items of memoribilia in Martin Jacobs's home on Thursday, January 24, 2013, include leather chin straps, game balls and equipment bags. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Several items of memoribilia in Martin Jacobs's home on Thursday,...
Martin Jacobs, an avid memorabilia collector, shows some a set of shoulder pads autographed by Hugh McElhenny on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Martin Jacobs, an avid memorabilia collector, shows some a set of...
Martin Jacobs, an avid memorabilia collector, with some of his 49ers items on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Martin Jacobs, an avid memorabilia collector, with some of his...
Martin Jacobs, an avid memorabilia collector, with some of his 49ers items on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Martin Jacobs, an avid memorabilia collector, with some of his...
Martin Jacobs, an avid memorabilia collector, shows some of his 49ers photos on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Martin Jacobs, an avid memorabilia collector, shows some of his...
Several items of memoribilia in Martin Jacobs's home on Thursday, January 24, 2013, include leather chin straps, game balls, jersies, and equipment bags. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Several items of memoribilia in Martin Jacobs's home on Thursday,...
Martin Jacobs shows a signed 49ers helmet in his home on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Martin Jacobs shows a signed 49ers helmet in his home on Thursday,...
Several items of memoribilia in Martin Jacobs's home on Thursday, January 24, 2013, include leather chin straps, game balls and equipment bags. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Several items of memoribilia in Martin Jacobs's home on Thursday,...
Martin Jacobs shows a jersey from Hugh McElhenny that was patched multiple times when McElhenny played for the 49ers on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Martin Jacobs shows a jersey from Hugh McElhenny that was patched...
Martin Jacobs in his home on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Martin Jacobs in his home on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has...
Martin Jacobs with some of his 49ers memoribilia in his home on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home.
Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Martin Jacobs with some of his 49ers memoribilia in his home on...
Martin Jacobs looks at a portrait of Hugh McElhenny in his home on Thursday, January 24, 2013. Jacobs has been collecting 49ers memorabilia since he was a kid watching games at Kezar Stadium. Now, the retired San Francisco resident has what might be the biggest 49ers memorabilia collection in the world and keeps some of it in his San Francisco, Calif., home. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Martin Jacobs looks at a portrait of Hugh McElhenny in his home on...
Collector has 60 years of 49ers mementos
More than 20 years before an advertising writer fabricated a similar scene involving Mean Joe Green and a bottle of Coke, 12-year-old Martin Jacobs spotted his hero Hugh McElhenny outside Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. With that exchange, Jacobs was on his way to becoming the greatest private...
QB hopes team will let him be free agent instead of trading him.
Drivers block I-880 lanes in order to do doughnuts, burn rubber before cops come. Video
© 2013 Hearst Communications Inc.
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More than 20 years before an advertising writer fabricated a similar scene involving Mean Joe Green and a bottle of Coke, 12-year-old Martin Jacobs spotted his hero Hugh McElhenny outside Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. With that exchange, Jacobs was on his way to becoming the greatest private collector of 49ers memorabilia in San Francisco, with more than 2,500 items. Jacobs' hardwiring can be traced to a mother who collected celebrity autographs and a father who told him, "Your hobby should be your job." Jacobs wouldn't miss another 49ers home game until George W. Bush was in office and MP3s were replacing CDs. An unfair advantageSitting in Kezar's kid-friendly Christopher Milk section, young Jacobs learned to gain advantages over other autograph seekers. "When he saw me in the fourth quarter with a minute left, he would turn his back and I would run on the field," Jacobs says, describing an alternate football universe where a kid could ask star players for autographs with time left on the clock. Jacobs combed the Kezar bleachers after games, scavenging programs, seat cushions and on a good day a piece of game-worn clothing or discarded pads. Jacobs pulls one of his more popular creations out of a tube - a 6-foot yellow poster featuring a giant marijuana cigarette. In true Martin Jacobs fashion, he decided to sell a few T-shirts before the game - with an unauthorized image of a 49er catching a Miami Dolphin with a fishing pole. He misses the dope smokers on Hippie Hill, interacting without incident with the working-class families walking to Kezar Stadium.
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Free & Cheap in New York: Wednesday, March 27
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Deborah Harry, best known as the lead singer of Blondie, will discuss the 1970s music scene.
WE’RE JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY. Deborah Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie will dish about “Punking Out” during the 1970s at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. They’ll be joined by Will Hermes, an author and senior critic at Rolling Stone. 6 p.m. Free. Bruno Walter Auditorium, 111 Amsterdam Ave., between 64th and 65th Sts. (212) 870-1600.
KOOKY AND CAMPY. Seth Rudetsky and Kristine Zbornik team up “Together Again” for madcap musical comedy at the Bridge Theatre. There will be comic “deconstructions” of Aretha Franklin and Liza Minnelli’s singing styles and a visit from “Anita Lomax,” a boozy, woozy, washed-up singer. Tonight-Fri. at 9 p.m. $18. 244 W. 54th St., 12th floor. 1-800-838-3006. Info: midtownmarchmedley.com.
GAME ON! The Museum of the Moving Image is offering a spring workshop called “The Game-Making Game.” Kids can learn how to create their own pastime, using tokens, dice or chips. 2:30-3:30 p.m. $5. 36-01 35th Ave., Astoria. (718) 784-0077.
TAKE A HIKE. Meet at the Martling Ave. Bridge and enjoy an Outdoor Adventure as you walk through Cloves Lake Park. You’ll need sturdy shoes or boots, and don’t forget your high socks! 10 a.m.-noon. Free. 1150 Clove Rd., Staten Island. (718) 483-7103.
A PASSION FOR FASHION. Find out what’s haute and what’s not with internationally renowned Indian designer Naeem Khan at the French Institute Alliance Francaise. His designs have been worn by Beyonce, Michelle Obama and Lady Gaga. 7 p.m. $25. Florence Gould Hall, 55 E. 59th St. (800) 982-2787.
MICROBE MANAGEMENT. “Bugs in the Kitchen: The Science of Cooking and Eating” will offer lots of food for thought at the Brooklyn Brainery. Discover which microbes make beer bubbly, and why food poisoning strikes on Thanksgiving more than any other day of the year. 8:30-10 p.m. $10. 190 Underhill Ave., Prospect Heights. Register: (347) 292-7246. Info: bkbrains.tumblr.com.
GAY PAREE. Brian Martin will discuss “Queer Napoleon: From Napoleonic Friendship to Gays in the Military” at NYU’s La Maison Francaise. His book won the Laurence Wylie Prize in French Cultural Studies. 6:30 p.m. Free. 16 Washington Mews at University Place. (212) 998-8750.
REAL STANDUP GUYS. Andy Hendrickson, a winner at HBO’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, will headline “Comedy Night” at the Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway. He’ll be joined by Alfonso Ochoa and Peet Guercio. 8 p.m. $15. 810 Yonkers Ave., Yonkers. (914) 968-4200.
PLAY BALL! The Museum of Chinese in America will host a preview of “9-Man,” a feature documentary about a street-ball game played in Chinatown. The panelists will include filmmaker Ursula Liang and athtletes Wayne Chow and Frank Gee. 7:30 p.m. $12. 215 Centre St. (212) 691-4785. RSVP: programs@mocanyc.org.
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WE’RE JUST WILD ABOUT HARRY. Music icons Deborah Harry (“One Way or Another”) and Chris Stein of Blondie will dish about “Punking Out” during the 1970s at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
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Thomas Hampson and the Jupiter bring ‘Aristotle’ to life
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‘This is the beginning. /Almost anything can happen.” Those are the opening lines of former US poet laureate Billy Collins’s “Aristotle.” It’s not likely, though, that Collins foresaw his poem would be set for baritone and string quartet by American composer Mark Adamo, who’s best known for his operas “Little Women” and “Lysistrata.” The brand-new 15-minute work — it premiered last Wednesday at the University of California-Davis — was the centerpiece of the well-gauged program baritone Thomas Hampson and the Jupiter String Quartet presented in their Celebrity Series concert Friday at Jordan Hall.
“Aristotle” aside, it was an all-Austrian evening, opening with Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 10 and Anton Webern’s “Langsamer Satz.” After “Aristotle” and the intermission came Hugo Wolf’s “Italian Serenade” and a selection of Wolf’s songs.
Schubert composed his E-flat-major quartet in 1813, when he was just 16, and it’s full of youthful humor and high spirits, with questions and answers in the opening Allegro moderato and some hide-and-seek in the brief, prestissimo Scherzo. Webern wrote his “Langsamer Satz” (“Slow Movement”) in 1905, when he was 21. Although he was head over heels in love with his cousin Wilhelmine Mörtl, whom he would marry in 1911, it’s oddly sober and muted.
The Jupiter began the Schubert in rich, relaxed fashion, and I liked the way that, from the outset, the four players — violinists Nelson Lee and Megan Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Megan’s sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough — kept looking at one another. Now teasing, now petulant, now songful, the performance ranged through all of Schubert’s adolescent moods, ending in a witty romp. The Webern, with its echoes of Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll,” was intriguingly unblended, its anguish palpable, its intensity not easing till the final moments. Both pieces were firmly outlined and sensitively phrased, with the occasional pregnant pause.
At 57, Hampson still has plenty of power, and he never seems to strain. He was a one-man Greek chorus in Collins’s poem, which muses on the beginning, the middle, and the end of life (thus following Aristotle’s precept) and seems to wonder why with time doesn’t come greater wisdom. Adamo wreathes the string quartet’s chugging lines around the baritone’s recitative, giving him plenty of room, and Hampson took it, agitated over the difficult births at the end of the “beginning” section, tender when he came to “the last elephant in the parade.” Collins’s poem ends with “falling leaves”; Adamo’s vocal line actually rises at this point. I wouldn’t have objected to hearing it encored.
Wolf’s “Italian Serenade” is a combination of serenade and scherzo, and the Jupiter’s traversal brought out both elements. There was also a pleasing contrast in the six songs — five of them settings of the German poet Eduard Mörike — that followed, with Hampson’s hearty, positive vocal set against the Jupiter’s sweet-and-sour accompaniment. The single encore, Wolf’s setting of Goethe’s “Der Rattenfänger,” found Hampson at his comic best as the song’s Pied Piper of Hamelin.
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This is the beginning. / Almost anything can happen.” Those are the opening lines of former US poet laureate Billy Collins’s “Aristotle.” It’s not likely, though, that Collins foresaw his poem would be set for baritone and string quartet by American composer Mark Adamo, who’s best known for his operas “Little Women” and “Lysistrata.” The brand new 15-minute work — it premiered this past Wednesday, April 24, at the University of California Davis — was the centerpiece of the well-gauged program baritone Thomas Hampson and the Jupiter String Quartet presented in their Celebrity Series concert Friday at Jordan Hall. “Aristotle” aside, it was an all-Austrian evening, opening with Franz Schubert’s String Quartet No. 10 and Anton Webern’s “Langsamer Satz.”
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Handel and Haydn Society to perform ‘Jephtha’ oratorio
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Those four words open the libretto of Handel’s biblical oratorio “Jephtha,” the composer’s last major work. But the words are more than part of a character’s scene-setting speech. They presage the themes of fate and resignation that course through the piece. Those ideas were also present in Handel’s own life during its composition, as the ailing composer’s body began to fail him even as he was at the height of his creative powers.
H&H is presenting two performances of “Jephtha” this weekend, having played it twice within the past week during a tour of California. The performances carry a deep historical resonance, as H&H gave the American premiere of the piece in 1855. More surprising, perhaps, is the fact that the Society has since left “Jephtha” unperformed since 1867.
“It’s incredible, isn’t it?” said artistic director Harry Christophers, from Berkeley last week. He’s not sure why it’s taken so long for the piece to reemerge in the H&H repertoire, but he sees it more broadly as part of the worldwide Handel revival that’s taken place over the last 10 to 15 years. Before that, Christophers said, “it was a bit like, everybody performed ‘Messiah,’ and if it was an opera, everybody performed ‘Giulio Cesare.’ ”
The “new lease on life” that’s been bestowed on so much of Handel’s oeuvre is driven in large part by the success of the early-music movement. “Handel, of all the Baroque composers, can sound the stodgiest with modern orchestras,” Christophers said. “But with the period instrument movement, the sound of the instruments, the music has really come alive.”
The story of “Jephtha” is drawn from the biblical book of Judges. The title character, a warrior, has been summoned to lead the Israelites into battle against the Ammonites. Though outwardly cocky, Jephtha is worried and rashly promises that, should he prevail, he will sacrifice the first person he sees. When he returns home after the victory, the person he encounters is his beloved daughter, Iphis. Horrified, he pledges to nonetheless honor his vow. Unlike the scriptural telling, the oratorio ends happily — or at least not tragically — when an angel intercedes to save Iphis. The catch, though, is that she must spend the rest of her life in a nunnery.
The depth of Handel’s genius can be seen in the two numbers that close Act 2. First comes Jephtha’s anguished-filled aria “Deeper, and deeper still,” in which he moves from grief to anger to bleak resignation. What’s amazing, Christophers pointed out, is the way Handel can capture the character’s mercurial shifts in mood, “sometimes in the space of two or three bars.” In the midst of the aria is a poignant echo of the piece’s opening words: “It must be so.”
What follows is the remarkable chorus “How dark, O Lord, are Thy decrees.” Like several other choruses in the oratorio, it combines wildly varying stretches of music into a single movement: dark declamation, lilting nostalgia, a canon of long-held dissonances. It closes with a grim reaffirmation of the theme of acceptance: “Whatever is, is right.”
It was during the writing of this chorus that Handel made a note in the manuscript: “I reached here on Wednesday, February 13, had to discontinue on account of the sight of my left eye.”
“When he writes that,” Christophers said, “you do feel that he himself has submitted to his fate. He’s given in. And that’s the whole crux of the oratorio. And how incredible that that should happen as he’s writing [this piece].” He would struggle repeatedly with his eyesight during the remainder of the composition, and by the end he would be almost completely blind.
Since taking on the directorship of the Handel and Haydn Society in 2009, Christophers has put particular emphasis on the music of Handel, conducting the Society’s performances of “Messiah” every year and numerous smaller works on various programs. Next season closes with a performance of another oratorio, “Samson,” and he has plans for more.
Indeed, he talks with a kind of messianic zeal about just how intense a Handel performance can be. The starting point, he explained, is to remember that Handel was at heart an opera composer, whether the piece at hand is an opera or oratorio, and that means that text, narrative, and drama take precedence.
“I feel that too often in Handel we don’t pay enough attention to the texts and the drama, and that’s something that I’m trying to bring across,” Christophers said. “I hope that when you hear it in Boston, you’ll hear the chorus on another level now. They are really beginning to get around to my way of thinking that we need to be text-led. We have to allow the music to breathe. It sounds a very obvious thing, but breath needs to be a natural process that allows Baroque music in particular to have this natural ebb and flow, light and shade, that goes on the whole time.”
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“It must be so.” Those four words open the libretto of Handel’s Biblical oratorio “Jephtha,” the composer’s final completed work. But the words are more than part of a character’s scene-setting speech. They presage the themes of fate and resignation that course through the piece. Those ideas were also present in Handel’s own life, as the ailing composer’s body began to fail even as he was at the height of his creative powers. H&H is presenting two performances of “Jephtha” this weekend, having played it twice last week during a tour of California. The performances carry historical resonance, as H&H gave the American premiere of the piece in 1855. More surprising, perhaps, is the fact that the Society has since left “Jephtha” unperformed since 1867.
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Amanda Bynes slams Rihanna: 'Chris Brown beat you because you're not pretty enough'
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Amanda Bynes has picked a new target, and this time her Twitter rage is directed at Rihanna.
The bizzare antics from former Nickelodeon star Amanda Bynes just keep coming — with the actress unleashing a string of hateful Twitter messages against Rihanna.
“You look so ugly tryin to be white,” Bynes, 27, wrote Sunday — seemingly out of nowhere, just three days after her drug arrest.
Minutes later, she tweeted: “Chris Brown beat you because you’re not pretty enough.”
RELATED: AMANDA BYNES RELEASED FROM JAIL AFTER BEING ARRESTED, CHARGED
Later, she added: “No one wants to be your lover so you call everyone and their mother that I almost named my new dog Rihanna.”
It’s unclear why Bynes would hate the 25-year-old singer so much. The Barbadian-born Rihanna did have a fling with rapper Drake, for whom Bynes has confessed a love — once saying she wanted him to “murder” her private parts.
Rihanna briefly responded to the Bynes attack.
PHOTOS: AMANDA BYNES' BIZARRE ANTICS: IS SHE HAVING A MELTDOWN?
“Ya see what happens when they cancel Intervention,” Rihanna wrote.
But Bynes, who has been reeling since her arrest last week for throwing a marijuana water pipe out of her midtown apartment window, only launched into a new tirade.
“Unlike ur fugly faced self I don’t do drugs!” she shot back. “U need the intervention dog! I met ur ugly face in person! U aren't pretty u know it!”
RELATED: AMANDA BYNES CLAIMS SHE WAS ‘SEXUALLY HARASSED’ BY COPS BEFORE ARREST
And it’s not the first time Bynes went after a fellow celebrity. Recently, the actress called out model and reality TV hostess Jenny McCarthy in an insult-laced Twitter rant.
“Enough of this circus,” McCarthy tweeted on May 1 after rumors of an altercation at Bynes’ house surfaced. “She needs help.”
The “What a Girl Wants” star didn’t take her words kindly. “I need help?... Aren’t u 50 years old? I’m 27, u look 80 compared to me!”
RELATED: DRAKE SLAMS CHRIS BROWN, SAYS RIHANNA 'FELL INTO MY LAP'
McCarthy later tweeted her apology.
Bynes’ behavior has grown increasingly bizarre since Thursday, when police showed up at her building on W. 47th St. after she was spotted smoking pot in the lobby, prosecutors said.
She then allegedly tossed a glass bong from a 36th-floor window as police officers watched. During a court appearance Friday, she donned a ratty, platinum blond wig to try to hide her face.
After her arrest, she tweeted that one of the cops who arrested her slapped her crotch.
And on Saturday, she clashed with a photographer, calling him “the ugly black man.”
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Amanda Bynes has picked a new target, and this time her Twitter rage is directed at Rihanna. For reasons unknown, the troubled actress unleashed a string of hateful messages toward the "Unapologetic" singer, and then quickly deleted them.
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Jane Mendillo’s big bet: Harvard endowment stands to win large, or lose, on emerging markets investments
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This wasn’t exactly the China story Jane Mendillo had in mind.
The chief of Harvard University’s endowment has made a big bet on investments in foreign and emerging markets — 22 percent of a portfolio that exceeds $31 billion. Harvard’s exposure to those markets is greater than that of many other endowments, and significantly higher than the 15 percent the university had earmarked for those sectors in 2005.
The bet has not paid off over the past 18 months, as US markets outpaced those abroad. Now, China is struggling with a credit crunch and the prospect of a slowing economy, developments that have rocked global markets in recent weeks. Other emerging markets are deeply affected by China’s economy, and much of Europe, meanwhile, is mired in recession.
All of that adds up to more challenges for Mendillo as she tries to restore the nation’s largest college endowment to its prerecession levels. The fund had grown to $36.9 billion in assets by June 2008 but suffered investment losses of 27 percent the next year.
Mendillo has spent the past several years working to decrease risk in the endowment so that any future market downturn won’t inflict such steep losses. But in navigating the thicket of risks, Harvard, like other endowments, has had to make investment choices.
While moving some money out of traditional holdings such as US stocks and bonds, it has invested more in natural resources, such as timber, and in absolute-return hedge funds that are designed to avoid losses.
But the biggest single shift has directed hundreds of millions of dollars into emerging markets, which are not considered a low-risk investment category. Those emerging-market assets now account for 11 percent of the Harvard portfolio, more than double the 5 percent allocation in both 2005 and 1995.
Mendillo acknowledged this move in her last annual report, in September, saying the endowment “carries relatively more exposure to both foreign and emerging markets than many of our peers.” That did not help Harvard in the fiscal year ended in June, as the endowment’s US stocks produced a 9.7 percent gain but foreign equities plunged by double digits. Overall, the endowment fell last year by 0.05 percent.
But that did not scare Mendillo and the other overseers of the fund, who say they invest for the long haul. “We remain convinced that active investing in emerging and international markets is not only wise, but imperative over the long term,’’ Mendillo wrote.
Harvard is hardly alone in this view. In an outlook report last month, Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch Global Research called growth in emerging markets one of a few transformative events reshaping investments for the foreseeable future.
“In this transforming world, the US consumer will no longer be the chief driver of economic growth,” said Chris Wolfe, a Merrill Lynch private banking investment chief. “Growth opportunities are likely to be more global.”
Many people agree with that view over the long term, including Christopher Laine, a senior portfolio manager on the active emerging-markets team at State Street Global Advisors in Boston. But there could be significant headwinds for the rest of this year, he said.
“This is not just China,’’ Laine said. “China slowing is clearly a headwind. Many of the countries in the emerging world are very geared to the China growth story.” In addition, he noted, it doesn’t help that US interest rates are rising, thanks to a likely tapering off of the Federal Reserve’s stimulus program. And political unrest in places like Turkey and Brazil poses risks.
“There are a number of challenges we’re going to have to look to deal with for 2013,’’ Laine said.
Mendillo and Harvard declined to comment for this story. But the numbers are not going their way this year: Emerging markets indexes are down about 14 percent, while US stocks are up about 13 percent, even with their recent volatility.
According to Harvard’s latest public tax filing, from June 2012, the school and its endowment had, for instance, $1.2 billion in assets in East Asia and the Pacific; $198 million in sub-Saharan Africa; $141 million in South America; and $82 million in South Asia, including Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
Yale University’s endowment, against which Harvard’s is often compared, has put less money into emerging markets due to the risks, investing just 2 percent into the sector, according to its latest annual report. With a total of 7.8 percent allocated to foreign equities, Yale is well below the 18.2 percent average weighting for educational institutions.
The Massachusetts state pension fund, with $52 billion in assets, had 6.9 percent of its portfolio in emerging markets as of April 30, significantly less than Harvard’s 11 percent target allocation.
Mendillo has often said that she has positioned the endowment to be more nimble. It has more cash available to take advantage of opportunities and the ability to exit investments, if necessary, rather than being locked into vehicles such as certain hedge funds that kept investors from cashing out in the financial crisis.
While emerging markets are a long-term bet, in the near term they could inflict more pain. In a recent interview, Mendillo declined to say whether the endowment had reclaimed its high ground from mid-2008.
Some rivals were much closer than Harvard to doing so last year. Some, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — with 17 percent of its endowment in international equities — already have.
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This wasn’t the China story Jane Mendillo had in mind. The chief of the Harvard University endowment has made a big bet on investments in foreign and emerging markets — 22 percent of a portfolio that exceeds $31 billion. Harvard’s exposure to those markets is greater than many other endowments and significantly higher than the 15 percent the university had earmarked for those sectors in 2005. The bet hasn’t paid off over the last 18 months, as US markets outpaced those abroad. As China struggles with a credit crunch and a slowing economy, other emerging markets are likely to suffer. And much of Europe, meanwhile, is mired in recession. That means more challenges for Mendillo in restoring the nation’s largest college endowment to pre-recession levels.
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Sony Tablet S ready to take on the iPad
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The Sony Tablet S, which is about the size of an iPad, can double as a universal remote control. The tablet is wedge-shaped, with one thicker than the other. The shape mimics that of a magazine that's been folded over.
Apple’s sublime iPad just may have a little bit of competition. And it comes from another mega-giant company, one with enough entertainment ties to run with iTunes.
Meet the Sony Tablet S, the sleekest, smoothest tablet that doesn’t have the late Steve Jobs’ fingerprints on it.
Sony’s first foray into the Android tablet market has actually been around for a few months, but it is finally hitting its stride. And with holiday insanity about to ensue (assuming, of course, that you’re not reading this on your cell phone while fighting through a line at Target right now), the Tablet S resurgence couldn’t come at a better time.
Your hard-earned $499 gets you – or somebody really really special – the sexiest tablet on the market. Yes, that’s right, the Tablet S, aesthetically, is even more elegant than the iPad2. Its all-black exterior screams high-end Sony, and it includes some incredibly smart touches.
The device’s wedge-shaped design allows for easy viewing when placed on a table, and the few buttons (for power and volume) are craftily hidden within the right side of the wedge. Even better, Sony does its best to force you to never put the tablet down by including an infrared universal remote. It’s easily and simply programmable (Sony’s done universals before, after all), and it’s a joy to use. What could be better than surfing the web one moment, editing a word document the next and then, with the tap of a button, turning down the volume on your surround sound and changing the channel on your cable box?
“We were looking for a way to connect the tablet to other places,” Sony’s Ty Takayanagi told the System Update. “We feel like the tablet will be the center of home entertainment.”
All of that gives the Tablet S a solid base, but that hasn’t helped other tabs beat the iPad. BlackBerry’s PlayBook had a great OS, the ASUS Iconia was well-priced, and Toshiba packed its Thrive with more productivity hardware features than any tablet, but none could match Apple’s iTunes entertainment options. Really, iTunes is part of Apple’s success secret, and it has never been touched.
Tablet S, however, poses a challenge here. Last month, Sony drew from its monstrous network of entertainment connections and finally launched music and video services, as well as a PlayStation Store filled with PS One ROMS. All have their shortcomings, but if Sony can correct a few flaws, it could provide a truly viable alternative to the iPad.
The main draw, of course, is the PlayStation gaming capability. This is a PlayStation-certified tablet, and while that was meaningless in the case of the failed XPeria PLAY cellphone earlier this year, it is well-implemented in the Tablet S.
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Apple’s sublime iPad just may have a little bit of competition. And it comes from another mega-giant company, one with enough entertainment ties to run with iTunes.
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Gary Younge meets Aaron McGruder, creator of the Boondocks
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There are two things people really want to know about the cartoonist Aaron McGruder. The first is precisely what he said to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, at an awards ceremony three years ago. Rice and McGruder, 32, were both being given an award by the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, the oldest civil rights organisation in the country. Beforehand, McGruder had told anyone who would listen that Rice was a mass murderer (it was not long after the invasion of Afghanistan) and that he would have no qualms about telling her so to her face. With McGruder's help, rumours about their subsequent exchange became legend. "I was never as cavalier with her as I sounded," he says now. "I had a brief encounter with her and I knew I had to say something. I said something like: 'I don't want you guys to kill me so I'm just going to mind my own business.' I was eminently aware when I met Condi that she could make my whole family disappear. I have never been fearless. I've always had a healthy fear of this government."
The second is precisely how a young, left-wing African-American has managed to sell the Boondocks, a syndicated cartoon strip that combines the messages of black power and liberal-left politics, blended with hip-hop humour, to more than 300 newspapers. It's so successful that the cable channel Adult Swim turned it into its flagship television show - the most expensive in its five-year history. The risk paid off: The Boondocks cartoon premier was Adult Swim's highest-rated programme ever and the number of viewers is still growing.
At the beginning of our interview, the question of how McGruder has managed to pull this off prompts a shrug. By the end of it, he has what seems like the beginning of a thesis. "When you consider how quickly and how forcefully the extreme right came into power in the last few years - not just in terms of war but the clampdown on American journalism ... well, ultimately, some counter-voice gets through. It will always be somewhat limited and marginalised. It's just fortunate for me that my voice was allowed to continue. There is a silent majority that is opposed to the direction of the country and my strip gives them a small outlet every day to feel like they're not crazy. I keep telling people, 'Powerful corporations allow you to see that strip every day so it's not the revolution.' But sometimes it surprises me."
The Boondocks revolves around two child characters - 10-year-old Huey and eight-year-old Riley - who have moved, with their grandfather, from the southside of Chicago to a white suburb where they attend the J Edgar Hoover elementary school. Huey aspires to be a radical black revolutionary; Riley to the thug-and- gangsta life. Their grandfather just wants to keep them both under control and out of what is left of his hair.
A few of the strips that surprised many in the aftermath of 9/11 include Huey calling the FBI's terrorism tip-off line to say that he knows of many Americans who helped train and finance Osama Bin Laden. "All right, let's see," he tells the operator. "The first one is REAGAN. That's R-E-A-G ... Hello? Hello?"
Elsewhere Huey has accused the rightwing commentator Ann Coulter of being a man: "I'm just sayin' she has a pretty big Adam's apple." He has also claimed that George W Bush has probably smoked crack: "C'mon is it really that hard to believe?"
The Los Angeles Times has branded McGruder "the angriest black man in America" but, in the flesh, he seems altogether too young and too content to be even vaguely upset. The description sounds like lazy racial profiling - young black men with something to say are always described as "angry"; occasionally also "articulate", but rarely "thoughtful". McGruder doesn't take offence. "They don't have to misquote you if they want you to come off like a lunatic or smart or funny. If I don't like it, I shouldn't do the interviews."
While his political influences are clear, it is the comic and musical influences that give the strip its character and prevent it from becoming a diatribe. Along with rap groups such as Public Enemy and KRS, he cites Star Wars, Peanuts and Monty Python as having made an impact. It is an eclectic mix, in keeping with his upbringing in a very white area of suburban Maryland where he briefly went to a Jesuit school.
His parents didn't talk politics much at home but his own crystallised when he took African-American studies at the University of Maryland. There, Jayson Blair, the ambitious editor of the university newspaper, the Diamondback, gave him his first strip. Blair later became infamous for fabricating stories as a New York Times reporter.
Since McGruder has become nationally known, he has made almost as many enemies as Blair. As well as the entire Bush administration, his strip has targeted Black Entertainment Television (a cable channel), singer Whitney Houston and her husband Bobby Brown, rapper Puff Daddy and Santa Claus.
He has a knack for alienating what would seem to be natural allies in real life too. Two years ago he was heckled at the leftwing Nation Institute's annual party after he lambasted the crowd for being lame liberals and crowned it by admitting that he had voted for Ralph Nader in 2000. At that point, the Insititute's President, Hamilton Fish, told the New Yorker, "It got interactive."
McGruder also has the dubious honour of creating the strip most likely to be censored. During the Rice episode, the Washington Post pulled the strip, claiming it was inappropriate. The Post's editor, Leonard Downie, said in a statement at the time: "The Boondocks strips in question commented on the private life of the national security adviser and its relationship to her official duties in ways that violated our standards for taste, fairness and invasion of privacy."
The paper's ombudsman disagreed, arguing that: "The sequence of strips [was] within the bounds of allowable satire."
Shortly after 9/11, the New York Daily News pulled a short storyline about two new characters called Flaggee and Ribbon - a parody of the hyperpatriotism that swept the country at the time.
McGruder is nonchalant. "Papers pull the strip all the time. It's not really censorship because it's their paper. They can't tell me what to write and I can't tell them what to print."
Ironically it was 9/11 and the political climate that followed it that gave McGruder's voice both the edge and audience he was looking for. Deadlines for the strip had been making him ill with stress, and he worried about running out of ideas. "Then 9/11 happened and suddenly everything was different. They said irony was dead and humour was dead and there was nothing left to talk about."
Taking on the prevailing American mainstream, as well as the establishments of both the liberal left and black America, has made his strip popular, but it must make him lonely. With so few black and leftwing voices out there, how does he balance the demands of the under-represented constituencies of which he considers himself a part, and the demands of his cartoon? "You simply ignore any obligation you have to make everybody happy," he says. "And you focus on staying employed. I'm not saying that's a cop out to not be responsible. It's to say that everybody has a different understanding of what being responsible means. So you have to stay true to yourself. I have to ignore everyone and get my work done. That's not an excuse not to be responsible. It just means you can't let everyone tell you what you should be doing. Even if you're the only one doing it".
· Life in the Boondocks, presented by Gary Younge, will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 10.30am on Saturday.
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Gary Younge: How did a young African-American manage to sell a pro-black-power, leftwing cartoon strip to more than 300 newspapers - and a cable channel to boot? Gary Younge meets Aaron McGruder, creator of the Boondocks.
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Regenerate our grassroots
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This time last year, I was finishing a play about a race riot in a fictional west Yorkshire town. The play was written for the National Theatre's late summer 'topical' slot, but I had no idea how timely it would prove to be.
We went into rehearsal three weeks after the July bombings. The day after the play opened, Trevor Phillips made his speech warning that Britain was 'sleepwalking into segregation'. On the evening of the play's last performance, riots broke out between Asians and Afro-Caribbeans in Birmingham.
Drawing on the reports on the 2001 riots in Oldham, Burnley and Bradford, Playing With Fire set out to dramatise the political processes which I believe created the vacuum in which resentment, far-right demagogy and violence grew. By arguing this, the play challenged an already dominant consensus that the sole culprit for Britain's racial divisions was 'multiculturalism'. This consensus was massively strengthened by the events of last summer.
The problem with the argument is not just that, seen historically, multiculturalism has been a success story in Britain. It is that the argument focuses almost entirely on the 'multi' side of the equation (the responsibility of immigrant-descended communities to integrate), ignoring the health of the national culture with which these communities were being required to identify.
This isn't just a matter of understanding why Muslims look askance at youth cultures built around drugs and binge drinking. The national report on the 2001 riots insisted that immigrant communities should display a 'clear primary loyalty to this nation'. The problem is that, with the single exception of restaurants, all the public sites in which a modern vision of nationhood might be forged are less up to the task than they were 20 years ago. Good popular journalism and factual television are on the wane. Church attendance and community activism are dwindling. Celebrity culture has infantilised the political process.
The public institutions whose decline has been most dramatic are the institutions through which most British immigrants battled their way into mainstream British life: local political parties and the trade unions. They are also institutions to which New Labour has been notably or even uniquely hostile.
Last month, a Downing Street seminar concluded that today's voters behave like irrational teenagers making irreconcilable demands. To counter this, analysts called for a renewal of civic activism and a regeneration of local power, a call to be echoed in the forthcoming local government white paper. But national government needs to accept responsibility for a democratic deficit it itself created. Seen as the last bastion of union power and Old Labour politics, local government has been subjected to a barrage of legal and administrative constraints since 1997.
In some areas, such as schooling, New Labour continued Margaret Thatcher's policy of removing powers from local government altogether. Unlike Mrs Thatcher, Labour also sought to restructure the workings of local councils in a way that reduced the political influence on their activities: either by removing power from backbench councillors or encouraging the election of executive mayors, which moves power away from the party system entirely.
Further, Labour has sought to constrain local government by targeting money towards particular projects and particular groups, often requiring matching or continuing funds which tend to be financed from the budgets of those seemingly bog-standard services that everyone uses. A dramatic example of this syndrome is the single regeneration budget system, designed to achieve the laudable end of aiming help where it is most needed, which, in practice, forced poor and even poorer districts to compete in what were effectively 'ugliness contests' for regeneration funds. Cited in all the 2001 riot reports as exacerbating tensions between deprived Asian and white areas, the SRBs also contributed to the October riots in Lozells, Birmingham, where Afro-Caribbeans perceive that Asians do better out of the system than they do.
Most of all, New Labour's control mechanisms have depoliticised, homogenised and infantilised both local authorities and their electorates. Local authorities are subject to regular, school-report-style grading by the Audit Commission, in which judging councils' performances as 'excellent', 'good', 'fair', 'weak' or 'poor' has recently given way to a system of stars. Like the managerialism it apes, this system implies that there can be no dispute about what constitutes excellence or poverty of achievement (though one suspects that the performance indicators of, say, a green council might be properly different from that of a blue or red one).
Further, by defining everything a council does in the language of 'service delivery', New Labour turns citizens into customers. I don't have children at school and I'm not an employer. But as a citizen, I have a right to influence the way my city educates its children, which the government currently proposes to remove. For councils to pay attention to the individuals for whom it provides services is, to put it mildly, overdue. But for that to be all that councils do is to impoverish service-receivers as well as providers.
Many councils were and are pretty dreadful and it would be generous to regard many local Labour parties as vibrant crucibles of change. Further, for 18 years, so-called loony left councils were blamed for national Labour's failure to achieve power. But, in fact, local Labour chalked up some achievements during the long years of national opposition.
The racism-awareness training that was so excoriated when practised (albeit often hamfistedly) in London borough councils has become accepted practice across the public and private sector. David Blunkett's Sheffield pioneered cheap public-transport policies (until privatisation took the buses away). The notoriously malfunctioning Walsall council was the first to experiment with devolution of council services to neighbourhood level, now the common sense of the age. Post-industrial cities from Glasgow to Birmingham reinvented themselves through interventionist cultural policies.
The demonisation and emasculation of local government has had predictable results: last year, a west Midlands district wrested the record for the lowest-ever council byelection turnout - in this case, 9 per cent - away from Liverpool. The decline of political parties, one of whose jobs is to manage and channel political passions, also contributes to the creation of a riot-shaped hole in places which feel ignored and abandoned. Now, belatedly, the government appears to accept the need to remedy the audit culture and rejuvenate local democracy. But if it concentrates on the parish and neighbourhood level, David Miliband's forthcoming local government white paper risks limiting its impact to those issues, mostly of service delivery, that can be addressed there. If local government is to have a real strategic impact, it needs to be large enough to cope as well as small enough to care.
Last autumn's events in France were not just an awful warning against the assimilation model so beloved of progressive critics of multiculturalism. They provided yet more evidence of the truth that, if misapplied, the best of principles, in this case, those of Enlightenment universalism, can have the opposite effect to that which was intended. Tony Blair's tragic flaw is to choose impatient, aggressive and authoritarian methods to achieve often commendable ends. As one of the characters in Playing With Fire puts it, the most characteristic Blair mission was probably Kosovo, in which an admirable aim was pursued by bombing a small country from a height of 15,000 feet, hitting lots of the wrong things and storing up all kinds of trouble for the future.
If the new impetus towards civic activism is genuine, it needs to be about rejuvenating the institutions New Labour distrusts, including political parties, as well as promoting community recycling campaigns and neighbourhood patrols.
Oddly enough, the Conservative leadership election appears to have addressed this objective. Might the forthcoming Labour contest do the same? David Edgar's Playing With Fire had its first production at the National Theatre in September
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David Edgar: A leading political playwright laments the brutal suffocation of local decision-making.
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Bacon triptych could fetch record £35m
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'The world has been waiting for a great triptych, and this is it' ... Bacon's Triptych, 1976. Photograph: Sotheby's
A Francis Bacon triptych, described as the most important work by the artist still in private hands, is to be sold at auction for the first time since it was originally bought more than 30 years ago.
Triptych, 1976, will be the star attraction at a Sotheby's sale of contemporary art in New York in May, it was announced yesterday. If it sells at its estimate of $70m (£35m) it will easily break the record for a Bacon, set when Study for Innocent X, 1962, sold for $52.7m in New York last year.
The work was the centrepiece of, arguably, the most important show of new work by Bacon held in the 1970s, at the Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris, in 1977. It was bought soon afterwards by the present owner and has featured in all the major surveys of his work, including at the Tate Gallery in 1985 and the Pompidou Centre, Paris, in 1996.
Tobias Meyer, worldwide head of contemporary art at Sotheby's, said: "This is undoubtedly the most important Bacon in private hands. It has been with the same collection ever since it was acquired from the Bernard show over 30 years ago, and it is a masterpiece of the 20th century.
"The world has been waiting for a great triptych, and this is it."
It is a highly complex and personal work, loaded with symbolism and open to all sorts of interpretations.
The central panel alludes to the story of Prometheus, who angered Zeus by stealing fire from him to give to humans. Zeus had Prometheus chained to a rock while a vulture, or eagle, gorged on his perpetually regenerating liver. There is also a modern day interpretation of Aeschylus's The Orestia in there: after Orestes killed his mother he was plagued by the three Furies, here represented as three hybrid biomorphic vultures.
The two side panels are like propaganda posters bearing witness to the awful scenes in front of them, while naked bodies also writhe below. Bacon was fighting a lot of inner demons at the time.
It is a widely admired work, and when the Triptych was exhibited at the Museo d'Arte Moderna exhibition of Bacon in 1993, Michael Peppiatt, in the catalogue, wrote: "Triptych, 1976, surely ranks among the greatest of Bacon's paintings."
According to the Art Newspaper the seller is the Moueix family, owner of one of the world's most expensive wines, Château Pétrus.
While the world economic news seems to get gloomier day by day, the fine art market has shown little sign of dimming. There are still a lot of very rich people willing to spend a lot of money on the right painting and Bacon's have been fetching eye-opening prices. In February his Triptych, 1974-1977, fetched £26.3m at Christie's in London, the highest price paid in Europe for a post-war work.
Triptychs were what Bacon liked doing most, he once said, adding: "So far as my work has any quality, I often feel perhaps it is the triptychs that have the most quality."
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Bacon's most important work in private hands to be sold at auction for the first time
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Global touring takes its toll on Picasso picture
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Guernica by Pablo Picasso. Photograph: Barney Burstein/Corbis
Curators at the Reina Sofia museum in Madrid are conducting x-ray, infrared and other hi-tech studies of Picasso's famed anti-war masterpiece Guernica, which has revealed severe wear and tear from its journeys around the word.
A team of 30 technicians have identified 129 changes to the painting, named after the small Basque town bombed by German fighter planes backing General Francisco Franco during the Spanish civil war.
The painting is now in a "serious but stable condition", curator Jorge García Gómez Tejedor said in yesterday's El País. It does not yet need to be restored but it should not be moved, he said.
The finding bolsters the museum's argument against transferring the masterpiece to the Basque region, where the town of Guernica is located and which nationalists consider its rightful home. They have repeatedly called for the painting to be moved there or at least put on temporary exhibition in the region.
Last year, on the 70th anniversary of the Guernica bombing, the director of the Guggenheim in Bilbao entered the fray. He requested that experts study whether a transfer would be as damaging as the Reina Sofia curators had claimed.
The study, to be completed by 2010, had been kept secret until now because of the controversy, according to El País.
Picasso's black-and-white scene of war's destruction toured the globe to raise awareness for the republican cause during the civil war, then took up residence at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Much of the damage occurred when the mural was rolled up with each transfer.
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A team of 30 technicians identify 129 changes to painter's famed anti-war masterpiece Guernica
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September 8 deadline for repayment of $24m loan looms for photographer Annie Leibovitz
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Annie Leibovitz speaks about her portrait of Queen Elizabeth II at her gallery exhibition, Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP
As a magazine photographer of some 40 years experience, Annie Leibovitz is accustomed to the tyranny of deadlines. But the one that falls in three weeks' time looms larger than anything she has known.
By September 8 the photographer, whose work for Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Vogue has earned her worldwide renown, must repay $24m in loans to a financial company. Failure to do so could bring the loss of her home in Greenwich Village, a house in upstate New York, and - perhaps most gallingly - the rights to her entire life's work.
The firm, Art Capital, has called in the loan which she took out last year to straighten out her "dire financial condition". It has issued legal proceedings against her, claiming that Leibovitz borrowed the money without ever intending to honour its terms.
The impending possibility of the financial implosion of one of New York's towering names, whose celebrity status is almost as exalted as that of the subjects of her portraits, has given birth to a new Manhattan parlour game: pondering how Annie Leibovitz could have got into such a mess. The latest exemplar is a long profile of her in New York magazine, packed with insights into her obsessive way of working and living, and the financial perils that ensued.
The article, by Andrew Goldman, reveals that her money woes stretch back to the early 1980s when she had already acquired a debonair relationship with cash that would make any accountant squirm. In 1987, she won a contract for a top advertising campaign with American Express, which was more than a little ironic as Leibovitz had herself applied for an Amex card and been turned down as too unreliable.
Dan Kellum, Leibovitz's assistant in 2002, tells the magazine that when her daughter Sarah was in her infancy she insisted on recording the child's minute eating habits in a journal. Except that the journal had to be a brand of notebook imported expressly from Sweden. When stocks of the journals were running low she ordered a couple to be couriered on the next plane, at a shipping cost of $800.
Leibovitz's tastes began as modest as her Connecticut upbringing; when she first lived in New York she did in small apartments on Manhattan's upper west side.
But as the ambition of her photography grew, so too did her outlays.
She developed a reputation for a no-expenses-spared approach to her work, insisting with an apparent lack of ironic insight on flying Kirsten Dunst and crew to Versailles to shoot her as Marie Antoinette, or capturing Whoopi Goldberg in a bath of milk.
Such obsessive attention to detail became her hallmark. As such it is one key to her extraordinary success that has seen a retrospective exhibition of her work tour the world for the past two years. As her former editor at Vanity Fair, Tina Brown, put it in an NPR radio interview today: "A lot of her problems stem from her extraordinary perfectionism. This is a person who just wants to only focus on her work to drill down to the very best picture."
Over time though Leibovitz began to take on the lifestyle and largesse of her celebrity subjects. She bought a flat overlooking the Seine in Paris with her longterm lover, the writer Susan Sontag; she employed a chef and housekeeper, a handyman brought in from Vermont, a yoga instructor, gardener and nanny. She bought two adjoining houses in Greenwich Village, then had to buy the next-door property as well for $1.87m after renovations on her house led to damaging subsidence.
Despite a contract reportedly worth $2m a year with Conde Nast, the owners of Vanity Fair, as well as tens of thousands from private shoots, Leibovitz began to lose a grip on her finances. She accumulated mortgages against her multiple properties of about $15m, and when even that ran out she turned to Art Capital for the crisis loan.
The downside of fame and apparent fortune is now upon her with a vengeance.
She is involved in multiple law suits with building companies involved in her Greenwich Village renovations, capped by Art Capital's looming deadline. "She wanted her life to be like a magazine spread. Everything beautiful, nothing out of place," Kellum told New York magazine.
Leibovitz is now learning the hard way that glossy magazines and real life are not always the same thing.
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In three weeks, photographer must pay or face the loss of her homes and - gallingly - the rights to her entire life's work
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Picasso the big draw in charity lottery
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A detail from Picasso's L'Homme au Gibus
For those who can't quite afford a genuine Picasso from his cubist period, worth an estimated $1m (£670,000), comes a rare opportunity to win one in a raffle.
The International Association to Save Tyre charity will next month bring Picasso's L'Homme au Gibus, or Man with Opera Hat, to the UK, and raffle it to raise money to finance research and preservation projects in a Unesco world heritage site on the southern coast of Lebanon.
The lottery is the first of its kind. Péri Cochin, a French journalist whose mother set up the charity 30 years ago, said organisers had been looking for a fundraising project that was different to the usual gala dinners. She said: "You go to those dinners and you are bored, and you don't know what to say to your neighbour, and you are in a hurry to go home before eleven."
They wanted a new idea to capture imaginations and reach people internationally: hence the Picasso lottery, which has been two years in getting all the many necessary approvals from the French authorities.
The Picasso was bought by the charity, and has been authenticated by the artist's children. Tickets cost €100, and there is a cap of 50,000 tickets. So if all the tickets are sold by the time of the draw, on 18 December, the charity will raise €5m.
Tickets for the lottery, which was launched in Paris, have been sold in the US and the Middle East; it now heads to the UK, with the drawing going on display at the PAD London art fair, from 16 to 20 October.
Cochin hoped the project would appeal to art lovers and people who care about the plight of the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre, where many ancient structures were badly damaged during the Lebanese civil war.
Someone has to win the Picasso, so the lottery will also appeal to gamblers. "I know you like gambling in Great Britain," said Cochin. "You have this reputation: you like gambling much more than French people. So we are very much counting on you."
• This article was amended on 12 September 2013. The earlier version said the PAD London art fair ran from 16 to 30 October.
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L'Homme au Gibus, from the artist's cubist period, is the prize in a raffle to help the war-damaged Lebanese city of Tyre
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Michael J. Fox, Robin Williams return to TV
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It’s hard to imagine the new comedies from Michael J. Fox and Robin Williams being very good. Many years have passed since they were sitcom stars, and the nature of TV humor has changed; it has gotten less schmaltzy and more coolly ironic. Fox left “Spin City” in 2000 to spend time with his family and promote Parkinson’s research, and Williams’s “Mork and Mindy” was canceled in 1982. Since then, TV has undergone a single-camera revolution, and the cringe-toned likes of “The Office” and “30 Rock” have come and gone.
It’s also hard to imagine the new sitcoms from Fox and Williams, which premiere opposite each other Thursday at 9 p.m., being deeply awful — especially Fox’s. Since Fox left his series, he has put in a few unforgettable guest stints on “The Good Wife,” “Rescue Me,” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” each time proving that he’s still in fine form despite his disease, that his timing is still spot on. And Williams, a movie star, would only return to TV if the material were good enough, right?
Well, the shows are neither awful nor awesome, so there’s no easy answer. Both begin their runs as boilerplate comedies that could either improve, given the right kind of nurturing, or quickly become unbearable.
Williams’s “The Crazy Ones” on CBS is the one with the greater potential, and not so much because of Williams and his shtick — the different voices, the fast talking, the gay affect, the manic whatever. The weakest moments in the premiere are when Williams seems to be improvising on the script, automatically doing his Williams thing as if a switch had been thrown on. The potential comes mostly from the supporting cast, namely James Wolk (Bob Benson on “Mad Men”) and Hamish Linklater, who was Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s brother on “The New Adventures of Old Christine.” By the end of the half-hour, I was ready to watch a show with just the two of them — and with special guest star Kelly Clarkson, who nearly steals the show.
Created by David E. Kelley of “Ally McBeal” and “Boston Legal,” “The Crazy Ones” borrows a bit from “Mad Men,” since it’s set in a struggling Chicago ad agency. Williams is the owner, Sarah Michelle Gellar — as stiff as ever — is his cool, responsible daughter. In the premiere, they work to hold onto the McDonald’s account by trying to coax Clarkson into singing a McDonald’s jingle. The product tie-in is tiresome, but Wolk in particular, with his winks and grins, adds warmth as Williams’s cocky protege. He also rescues a few scenes in which Williams starts to drift into the nonsense stratosphere.
NBC’s “The Michael J. Fox Show,” which opens with a pair of episodes, won’t have different clients and ad campaigns to add color each week. It’s essentially a traditional family sitcom with a very present New York setting. Fox plays a version of himself named Mike Henry, who returns to the news anchor job he left years earlier because of his Parkinson’s. Meta meanings run amok, as the Parkinson’s jokes fill the air and as Mike hates the way the public treats him like a hero. In episode two, Fox’s real life wife, Tracy Pollan, guest stars as a flirtatious neighbor.
Robin Williams, Sarah Michelle Gellar in “The Crazy Ones.”
Essentially, the story is Mike’s wife, played by Betsy Brandt of “Breaking Bad,” dealing with his neuroses while their three kids roll their eyes like all sitcom kids. In that second episode, each kid walks into their parents’ room without knocking while their parents are trying to make love — yes, it’s filled with that kind of overfamiliar farce. It’s nice to see Fox in primetime again, and he isn’t the problem with the show. The problem is the writing, which is domestic comedy at its laziest. You’ve seen this material before, and before that, too.
Starring: Robin Williams, James Wolk, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Hamish Linklater
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It’s hard to imagine the new comedies from Michael J. Fox and Robin Williams being very good. Many years have passed since they were sitcom stars, and the nature of TV humor has changed; it has gotten less schmaltzy and more coolly ironic. It’s also hard to imagine the new sitcoms from Fox and Williams, which premiere opposite each other on Thursday at 9, being deeply awful – especially Fox’s. Since Fox left his series, he has put in a few unforgettable guest stints on “The Good Wife,” “Rescue Me,” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Well, the shows are neither awful nor awesome, so there’s no easy answer here. Both begin their runs as boilerplate comedies that could either improve, given the right kind of nurturing, or quickly become unbearable.
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http://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/16/us/ai-des-memo-cast-light-on-reagan-carter-battle.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20131002013556id_/http://www.nytimes.com:80/1981/09/16/us/ai-des-memo-cast-light-on-reagan-carter-battle.html
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AI DES' MEMO CAST LIGHT ON REAGAN-CARTER BATTLE
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20131002013556
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WASHINGTON, Sept. 15— In the 1980 Presidential campaign, both major candidates were told privately that the voters faced a choice between an incumbent they did not like and a challenger they feared.
According to memorandums by the chief campaign strategists for former President Carter and President Reagan, the two candidates were receiving strikingly similar analyses of the electoral battle that they waged that summer and fall.
Working independently of one another, the strategists arrived at the conclusion that, because of economic problems and disarray in foreign policy, Mr. Carter was an unpopular President who could not afford to run on his own record. They also concluded that, even though Mr. Carter was the weakest incumbent President of the 20th century, Mr. Reagan could not defeat the Democratic incumbent without allaying public fears that the Republican challenger was a cold-hearted conservative ideologue who might plunge the nation into war or nuclear catastrophe.
These themes emerge from memorandums prepared for President Reagan by Richard G. Wirthlin, his poll-taker and strategist, and for President Carter by Patrick H. Caddell, the Carter campaign's polltaker and strategist. The memorandums are contained in ''Portrait of an Election,'' a new book on the 1980 Presidential campaign by Elizabeth Drew. The book is to be published on Oct. 16 by Simon and Schuster. Help Explain Victory Margin
The Caddell and Wirthlin memorandums also interlock, in a way that helps explain Mr. Reagan's overwhelming victory, in discussing what Mr. Caddell calls the ''conceptual strategy'' of the campaign. In a memorandum of June 25, 1980, Mr. Caddell told Mr. Carter, ''He who sets the definition of the campaign usually wins.'' The strategist added that the Carter campaign had to define the contest as one of ''safety versus risk,'' with Mr. Carter representing safety and Mr. Reagan representing risk.
Mr. Caddell offered comfort to Mr. Carter by assuring him that the Reagan group did not ''conceptually understand the process'' of defining a national election. ''This is our opportunity,'' he concluded.
But the Wirthlin memorandums show that the Reagan campaign did, indeed, understand that process and planned to counter the ''risk'' issue by depicting the Republican candidate as ''a warm, compassionate, caring individual.'' At the same time, Mr. Wirthlin wrote, the Reagan campaign had to push ''pocketbook issues'' to the front and define the election as a referendum on Mr. Carter's leadership. In the end, the success of the Wirthlin strategy was proved when Mr. Reagan's question in the Oct. 28 debate - ''Are you better off today than you were four years ago?'' - became the definition of the contest.
Taken as a group, the most striking characteristic of the two Caddell memorandums and the five by Mr. Wirthlin is the bluntness with which they told the candidates of their political and personal weaknesses. Warnings to Both Candidates
Mr. Caddell warned Mr. Carter that most people viewed his Presidency as a dismal failure, while Mr. Wirthlin warned Mr. Reagan to talk less as a means of cutting down the verbal errors and misstatements that almost derailed his candidacy. Each strategist however, tried to soften criticism by assuring his respective employer that he was the best campaigner on the American political scene.
Laying a plan for what he called an ''extremely difficult reelection,'' Mr. Caddell warned Mr. Carter, ''The issues structure could not be worse.'' He added, ''More to the point, the American people do not want Jimmy Carter as their President. Not forced to choose a specific candidate, voters by almost two to one would reject Carter as President, a remarkable turnaround from 1977, 1978, and much of 1979.
Mr. Caddell noted that Mr. Carter had defeated Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts in the Democratic primaries because voters viewed Mr. Carter as the lesser of two evils. He wrote: ''The 'lesser of evils' success to date should not obscure a fundamental truth - by and large the American people do not like Jimmy Carter. Indeed, a large segment could be said to loathe the President.''
''In sum,'' Mr. Wirthlin wrote in making a similar point, ''the voters do not want Carter, but are not quite sure of us.'' Double-Edged Strategy
He recommended an effort to depict Mr. Carter as ''mean-spirited'' and ''an ineffective and error-prone leader'' who was ''incapable of implementing policies.'' This effort to damage Mr. Carter's reputation wa s linked to an effort to enhan ce Mr. Reagan's . In the period immediately after the Republican Convention, Mr. Wi rthlin wrote, ''the single most critical thing'' for Mr. Reagan t o do was make a major speech on fiscal matters to take the sting ou t of the charge that he practiced ''voodoo economics.''
Then, to combat the notion that Mr. Reagan was ''dangerous,'' Mr. Wirthlin called for a foreign policy speech that depicted his advocacy of a military buildup as ''Reagan's Peace Plan.''
Too offset the charge that Mr. Reagan ''would be too quick to push the nuclear button,'' Mr. Wirthlin recommended that Mr. Reagan start ''avoiding any reference to 'the arms race,' but stressing the need to re-establish the margin of safety.''
''Specifically,'' Mr. Wirthlin wrote in a March 28, 1980, memorandum, ''we must position the Governor, in these early stages, so that he is viewed as less dangerous in the foreign affairs area, more competent in the economic area, more compassionate on the domestic issues and less of a conservative zealot than his opponents and the press point him to be.''
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In the 1980 Presidential campaign, both major candidates were told privately that the voters faced a choice between an incumbent they did not like and a challenger they feared. According to memorandums by the chief campaign strategists for former President Carter and President Reagan, the two candidates were receiving strikingly similar analyses of the electoral battle that they waged that summer and fall. Working independently of one another, the strategists arrived at the conclusion that, because of economic problems and disarray in foreign policy, Mr. Carter was an unpopular President who could not afford to run on his own record. They also concluded that, even though Mr. Carter was the weakest incumbent President of the 20th century, Mr. Reagan could not defeat the Democratic incumbent without allaying public fears that the Republican challenger was a cold-hearted conservative ideologue who might plunge the nation into war or nuclear catastrophe.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/may/03/anish-kapoor
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http://web.archive.org/web/20131002210143id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/may/03/anish-kapoor
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Art review: Anish Kapoor / Various venues, Brighton Festival, Sussex
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20131002210143
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No gilded warrior: Anish Kapoor's sculpture The Dismemberment of Jeanne D'Arc, in the Old Municipal Market in Brighton. Photograph: Richard Saker
Set up in public places, statuary aims to cow us into reverence: Nelson on his column protectively scans the horizon, Liberty raises a belligerent club disguised as an enlightening torch, and Joan of Arc, fireproof inside a skin of gold, rides in triumph down the Rue de Rivoli. Such memorials celebrate power, and take pride in outliving the passers-by who stare up at them. When Anish Kapoor installs his sculptures in gardens or in architectural settings, he has a more ingratiating purpose. His works are happy to dematerialise, disappearing into the sky they reflect; they don't mind showing you your own bemused face or your floating, inverted body, because they ask questions which only the viewer who walks round them or even vanishes into them can answer.
At the invitation of Andrew Comben, the Brighton Festival's new chief executive, Kapoor has turned the hedonistic seaside town into his personal playland. A dog-legged trail leads you around a series of sites in the city, then takes you, in a last arduous pilgrimage, to the summit of the South Downs. On the way, you are free to devise a connective plot to link the disparate objects; you can also pause to have your head and shoulders massaged in a basement while you bathe in a blur of monochrome light designed by Kapoor.
The itinerary begins in a deconsecrated Victorian chapel taken over by the plucky gallery Fabrica. Here Kapoor has installed his tribute to a culture more carnal than that of bleached, censorious Protestantism. Blood Relations is a bronze tank engraved with extracts from a Salman Rushdie story that broods about the erotic heat and raging violence of the Arabian Nights. You can only read Rushdie's text by circling round the metal trough: reading here is a promenade not a sedentary relaxation, and it leaves you light-headed as you track sentences that unravel endlessly before turning abrupt, right-angled corners. Rushdie writes about the serial decapitation of virgins by the Vizier who was the father of the tantalising tale-teller Scheherezade, and Kapoor's vats catch the overflow from these executions. The sides are caked with sticky scarlet candlewax like wet blood; if you peer in, you can see a foul squashy pile of entrails.
Kapoor's gore questions the anaemia of the Christian myth in the chapel's stained-glass windows. How, you wonder, did that pre-Raphaelite Christ endure the crucifixion without wounding his lily-white flesh? Where's the blood of the lamb, which was supposed to wash us clean? Nearby on the floor Kapoor has positioned 1,000 Names, a set of multi-coloured pyramids made of dribbling pigment that imitates desert sand: his tart comment on the vanity of public sculpture that attempts to eternalise the names of monarchs or military commanders who have already sifted into oblivion.
Across the way in the Pavilion Gardens, the mood is brighter, thanks to the concave satellite dish of stainless steel called Sky Mirror, which grabs and tethers passing clouds, pulls treetops out of shape, and mocks the jokey minarets of the Prince Regent's pleasure dome. The Old Municipal Market - a musty, derelict hangar with a leaky glass roof propped up by pillars of rusted iron - houses Dismemberment of Jeanne d'Arc, a Brighton Festival commission.
For Kapoor, the maid of Orleans is not the immaculate gilded warrior you see in the Rue de Rivoli: all that's left of her is two knobbly coral reefs of red rubble that could be her chopped-off limbs, plus some mounds of dust that could have once been her breasts. Joan of Arc was burned not butchered, but Kapoor has his reasons for taking her apart. Myth harmlessly massacres the stories it tells, rearranging them as if carving up bodies, reviving characters only to kill them all over again. To illustrate the point, tomorrow there will be three performances of Rossini's cantata Giovanna d'Arco on a platform erected among the bleeding chunks of Kapoor's Jeanne d'Arc. Rossini saw the heroine as an ebullient patriot, chirpily announcing victory in a coloratura tirade; for Kapoor, she is a fertility totem, a matriarch whose body is pitted with habitable caves. Myths are immortal stories, livelier than monuments because they are always changing.
On the South Downs above Brighton, after a long trek through fields of bored sheep, you reach C-Curve, a mirrored panopticon that surveys the view and plays tricks with your body as you attempt to understand how it has suddenly managed to segment the landscape into a triptych or redefine a patch of grey sky as a lake into which you see yourself tumbling headfirst. The sublime phenomena of romantic nature - mountains, gulfs and cataracts - measured infinitude by dwarfing the terrified observer. Here a manmade artefact teases us out of thought in the same way, reducing us to specks the moment we back away or playing hide and seek by dipping beneath the rim of the hill on which it is set. In more innocent days, day-trippers on Brighton Pier used to giggle as fun-house mirrors reduced them to obese blobs or stretched their legs into stilts. Kapoor provides the same slightly alarming pleasure, together with a more testing workout for the mystified mind: a quiz about optics and as well, when we notice how quickly the mirror forgets us, a chilling, exhilarating lesson in metaphysics.
Guest curators seem to be all the rage these days. Even so, Brighton Festival, now in its 43rd year, has scored quite a coup landing Anish Kapoor as its guest artistic director. His ambition? To accompany his sculptures with "works of real challenge and seriousness alongside the humorous and entertaining." The programme doesn't disappoint. Musical highlights include the UK premiere of Antony Hegarty's The Crying Light tour; US folk favourite Bon Iver; and a live soundtrack to Ernst Lubitsch's 1919 silent movie, The Oyster Princess, performed by Belgium's Flat Earth Society. Anyone who believes a trip to Brighton isn't complete without a visit to the seafront should check out Hydrocracker's production of Joe Orton's The Erpingham Camp, staged entirely on Brighton Pier. The festival upholds its reputation for programming radical, site-specific shows (other treats include Thirteen by the future is unwritten and Kurva, marking the Reial Companyia de Teatre de Catalunya's first UK visit). For dance fans Brighton hosts two of the summer's highlights, Ashes, from the ever-provocative Belgian outfit les ballets C de la B (pictured) and The Art of Not Looking Back from Hofesh Shechter Company. The festival runs until 24 May. Imogen Carter brightonfestival.org
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Art review: Anish Kapoor, Various venues, Brighton Festival, Sussex Anish Kapoor, star and artistic director of this year's Brighton Festival, stimulates the mind and senses
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/mar/03/photography-stephen-gill-best-shot
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http://web.archive.org/web/20131006222907id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/mar/03/photography-stephen-gill-best-shot
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Photographer Stephen Gill's best shot
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20131006222907
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'Where intention meets chance' … Stephen Gill's shot of a Hackney street
For quite a few years I've been making photographic work in the London borough of Hackney, where I live. Recently, I've been trying to photograph not just what the place looks like, but also trying to include as much as I can of what it feels like. I started collecting little bits of stuff from actual places, and then putting them inside the camera. Bits of plant life, seeds, or glass: I drop them in just before loading the film. I've even used insects. These objects then sit on the film emulsion when I'm taking the picture. It's a way of encompassing the actual essence of a place in an image, the visual noise and chaos. I did think about photographing these tiny objects directly, but I didn't have a macro lens.
The background picture is just a random street in Hackney. I used to take descriptive, detached pictures of the area, but then I thought: why not go one step further? This way, I have slightly less control and have to grapple with the point where intention meets chance. I buried prints in the ground, leaving them for a while and then digging them up. It is exciting, knowing you are working half-blind; you have no idea what the pictures will look like.
This series is in the same vein; until you process the film, you have no idea where the objects will fall. The green blobs down the left-hand side are a tiny bit of silica gel I found in the gutter; the cloudy things on the top left are tiny bits of glass, probably from a car headlight. I developed it completely straight, with no computer enhancement. Each frame is from exactly what's sitting on the negative.
I starting making these photographs a couple of years ago, and I've done hundreds now. Hackney is a place that attracts obsessives. It's something to do with its contradictions: you can be in a beautiful spot with canals and meadows, and then the flipside is chaos and dirt. That's what I'm trying to grapple with. Photography is good at turning things inside out, and this is the opposite: bringing the outside in. As much as I love photography, part of me is rebelling against it.
Inspirations: "Chilean Sergio Larrain, for the way he gives a heightened sense of place, form and texture. France's Eugène Atget, too."
High point: "Having the freedom to work almost every day on personal projects. I'm very lucky to be able to do that."
Pet hate: "Pressure to make work to fulfil an audience's appetite."
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Stephen Gill: I like to put stuff inside my camera: plant life, seeds, even insects. In this case, I used bits of glass from a car headlight
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/jun/23/vermeer-and-music-art-love-leisure-cumming-review
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http://web.archive.org/web/20131009210613id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/jun/23/vermeer-and-music-art-love-leisure-cumming-review
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Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure - review
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20131009210613
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A View of Delft by Carel Fabritius.
Can a picture make music? Art is a visual medium, no doubt about that. Paintings do not have a soundtrack any more than they have a flavour or scent. We view them in silence, on the whole, just as they present a silent world. They are made to be seen and not heard.
But a picture may address more senses than one. An artist – or in the case of this captivating show, opening this week, a whole society of artists – may hope to appeal to our sense of hearing as well as sight. You look at the image and the sound of music begins in your head. That is one possibility, at least. It is not easily achieved.
In the 17th-century Netherlands, painters were exceptionally interested in music. There are more instruments in the art of the Dutch golden age than practically any other. Vermeer, a star of that era, and of this show, left only an estimated 36 paintings but 12 of them invoke music in some form, and the ratio is even higher among his peers.
Look at the tiny self-portrait of his contemporary Frans van Mieris, for instance, who has his back to the viewer but turns his head laughingly towards us, playing upon a cittern. It is a neat conflation of all the amusing conceits he could offer his customers, crowned with the proof that he could paint as beautifully as this and master an instrument.
Look at the paintings of Gerrit Dou, almost as small, which contain any number of concerts. Sometimes these are solo performances, in which a single woman sits at the clavichord, hands lightly touching the keys, eyes catching ours directly as if to invite us into the leisurely scene.
In the new Dutch Republic, musical gatherings spread like today's book clubs, members meeting in each other's houses once or even twice a week. A concert was not a passive experience, it didn't mean listening so much as taking part. The woman playing the two-headed lute in Gerard Ter Borch's domestic scene is highly accomplished: the position of the hands and the complex fingering tell you that. At a party painted by Jan Olis, the music is performed on transverse flute, violin and huge viola da gamba, while a singer struggles to follow the score. The light is dying, but music sustains the evening.
By focusing on music, the show presents a close-up of Dutch culture. The fashion for yellow satin house-jackets trimmed with white fur, for tables covered in Persian carpets, for painting scenes inside the lids of clavichords, for inscribing instruments with mottoes about the fleeting brevity of life, for pictures within pictures within pictures. Vermeer's guitarist plucks an instrument inlaid with gold, mother-of-pearl and ebony – a period example is on view in the gallery, showing the astonishing precision of his depiction – and behind her hangs a tranquil landscape, as if to suggest that she is playing a pastoral air. The scene is as condensed as a sonnet.
But what can we hear, as viewers? There are compositions of such ingenuity in Dutch art that sound is very nearly evoked. One is a double portrait of the poet and composer Constantijn Huygens and his wife, a score held between them, looking out of the picture in profile at the offstage concert they are clearly following. Except that Mrs H is not quite paying attention, but leaning slightly forward to catch our eye. The contrast instantly emphasises the rapt pose of her husband, listening so keenly to the music.
Jacob van Campen's painting is not, alas, in this show. But Carel Fabritius's hauntingly strange A View of Delft, with its bowed perspective, takes on a new meaning in this context. The cobbled streets swerve away from the eye, a curve repeated in the lute leaning against a wall beside a melancholy man in the shadows. He has been trying to sell it; the scene is painfully silent.
The sheer popularity of music alone cannot account for the preponderance of such paintings in Dutch art. Very often the musician is female, her curves rhymed in those of her shapely instrument. Or the performance is conceived as a prelude to future pleasures. The glass of wine awaits, the open door beckons. Marjorie Wieseman, in her excellent catalogue, suggests that some of these women may even be prostitutes.
Music is the food of love in Vermeer's The Music Lesson, a scene of trembling anticipation. Light ignites the pristine white vessel on the table, picks out the strings of the viola da gamba, gilds the girl's yellow sleeve as she stands with her back to the viewer. And it illuminates the mirror above the virginals, in which her secret face is revealed, turning slightly towards the male guest with a self-consciousness as nervous as her fingers on the keyboard.
Anyone who wants to hear what she was playing can do so on certain days throughout the exhibition, when the Academy of Ancient Music will be accompanying the paintings live in the gallery.
Silence, stillness, time in sweet abeyance: the atmosphere one associates with Vermeer's art might seem at odds with the theme of this show. But his compositions are based on harmonies, melodies, repeating motifs and infinitely subtle tonal variations. The music is all in the painting.
This is especially apparent in a rarely shown work on loan from a private collection in New York – Young Woman Seated at a Virginal. The painting is so pure in its muted glimmers, soft tones and sparkling highlights, and so empty of everything except the girl and her virginal, that all the emphasis is upon the moment's single note. The wall behind her, pale and luminous, is as fine as air itself. Everything resonates. The whole painting enhances the intimacy of her solo performance.
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The art of the Dutch golden age reflects so skilfully a passion for music that you almost start to hear it, writes Laura Cumming
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http://www.theguardian.com/advertising/digital-media-trends-new-season
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http://web.archive.org/web/20131025193507id_/http://www.theguardian.com/advertising/digital-media-trends-new-season
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New season, new trends
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20131025193507
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Smartwatches are the next big thing, according to Business Insider, which expects 91.6 million smartwatch units to be sold globally in 2018, creating an estimated $9.2 billion (£5.9 billion) market. Indeed, smart device giants have signalled the war for the wrist: Samsung unveiled its Galaxy Gear on 4 Sept, Sony is updating its SmartWatch and Apple is expected to release iWatch around mid-2014.
Smartwatches will get traction with consumers, because they are more convenient to carry around than smartphones, people generally like wearing watches, which also can be a fashion statement and there is a huge potential health, fitness, location, personal organiser, news alerts, etc. uses for the device.
We are used to the idea of consumers demanding ethical behaviours from companies and brands. This month Trendwatching is writing about "demanding brands" – switched on brands that are embarking on the journey towards a more sustainable and socially-responsible future and demand that consumers also contribute. The demands can be centred around:
- The planet: demand action that is good for the environment- Society: demand action that is good for other people- Lifestyles: demand customers live healthy, or behave well- Charity: make demands on behalf of non-profit organisations
It could mean sacrifices for the consumer (e.g. financial) and sacrifices for the brand (e.g. losing some of its customers), but if this improves the environment, society and people's well-being, than being demanding is well worth it.
2013 marks the first time that the majority of adults – 55% – have used the internet to read or download news , according to a report by the Office for National Statistics. The popularity of digital consumption has surged since 2007, when only 20% of adults used the internet to access news content and in 2012 the proportion of adults reading news online was 47%.
In addition, more than half (53%) of adults accessing the internet using a mobile phone, almost double the 24% who did so three years ago.
According to Business Insider, people in the US are now spending as much media time on mobile as on desktops and laptops. In terms of all media, they dedicate one-fifth of their media consumption time to mobile. That's a share five times greater than in 2009.
Mobile commerce sales have doubled in the space of a year and now account for almost a quarter of total online sales, according to new IMRG/ Capgemini data, summarised by Econsultancy. The data shows that sales completed through mobile devices accounted for 23.2% of total ecommerce sales in Q2 2013, up from 11.6% in the same period last year.
30% of global users shared content to recommend a product, service or movie. Warc reports the findings of a global poll of 12,420 internet users conducted by Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange: users of social media are most likely to be motivated to share online content if it is interesting, important or funny, according to a new global study of social media usage.
61% of those who indicated they had shared some content online over the past month said their main reason was because they wanted to share "interesting things". Wanting to share "important things" and also "funny things" were tied at 43% as the next most popular reasons for sharing.
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We are starting the new fashion/"non-silly" news/football/school (select as appropriate) season with a look at new and continuation of old trends
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http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/gossip/bare-cher-poised-b-closeup-article-1.935227
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BARE CHER POISED FOR A B'WAY CLOSEUP?
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20131031184600
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Imagine Cher on Broadway without a suitcase full of her Bob Mackie costumes. Or any clothes at all. Cher's people denied it, but I've been told that the 54-year-old diva has been putting out feelers about a possible run as Mrs. Robinson, if and when the London production of "The Graduate" nude scene and all moves to this side of the pond. After the scathing reviews that Jerry Hall received in the part, you can bet she won't be coming. Kathleen Turner, who originated the role in London, remains the first choice of producer John Reid to play Mrs. Robinson on Broadway. But since Turner is otherwise engaged, with the upcoming one-woman show "Tallulah," Reid is content to wait on a Broadway commitment until after "Tallulah" opens. be coming. Kathleen Turner, who originated the role in London, remains the first choice of producer John Reid to play Mrs. Robinson on Broadway. But since Turner is otherwise engaged, with the upcoming one-woman show "Tallulah," Reid is content to wait on a Broadway commitment until after "Tallulah" opens. If Turner's show tanks, sources said, Reid will want to rescue her and bring her to "The Graduate.
" If "Tallulah" is a hit, Reid's next call might very well go out to Cher. PLAYBOY FOCUSES ON CARMEN Carmen Electra spent all of Monday in the nude and she wasn't even auditioning for the part of Mrs. Robinson. But the ex-"Baywatch" babe did take it all off for Playboy, her rep confirmed, and you can look for her to grace the cover of the magazine's huge holiday issue in December. Electra, who recently scored points in Hollywood as a scantily clad victim in the horror spoof "Scary Movie," shed everything but her high heels during a Playboy photo shoot at a Los Angeles studio. Electra is no stranger to Hugh Hefner's magazine. In 1996, she posed nude for a six-page pictorial in Playboy and followed it up with an appearance as a cheerleader in a Playboy video. 'SEX' VIEWERS GET HEATHY If it happens on "Sex and the City," it must be so. At least, that seems to be the thinking of dozens of New Yorkers who flocked to Dr. Squeeze's juice bar on E. 23rd St. after a recent episode of the HBO hit. Backtrack three weeks, when Samantha, played by Kim Cattrall, discovered that her latest one-night stand had a certain sexual problem that's unmentionable in a family newspaper. Believing the problem was related to an unhealthy diet, she brought him to a trendy health-food restaurant in an attempt to cleanse his system. The waiter brought them each a shot of wheatgrass and they threw it back. While the new diet didn't solve the couple's problem on the show, just the mention of wheatgrass and its potential brought waves of New Yorkers to the juice bar to try the real thing. Dr. Squeeze owner Steve May said that prior to the "Sex and the City" episode, he normally placed weekly orders for 36 pounds of the long-stemmed grass, which he described as "an antioxidant, antitoxin and immuno-boosting supernova.
" Since the episode aired, May said, demand has been so great that he had to order an additional 20 pounds. "Men and women came in," said May. "But I saw an increase of women bringing in men. They [the women] would giggle, and I would say, 'I'm not going to say a word.
'" HEAVENLY BLESSINGS They say it's a sign of good luck to be hit on the head with bird-you-know-what. But don't tell that to Rosanna Arquette, judging from her behavior following just such an incident. Arquette was in Los Angeles making the movie "Good Advice," about a Wall Street tycoon, played by Charlie Sheen, who loses everything, then struggles to get his life back together. Then on the set, a bird suddenly did its thing on her head. Good fortune was not the first thing that came to the 41-year-old actress' mind, according to witnesses. In fact, Arquette went into immediate temper-tantrum mode and screamed for her hair and makeup people to help clean the mess. One tourist on the scene reportedly had a mini-cam rolling and caught the entire outburst on tape. A rep for the film claimed no knowledge of the event. Tippi Hedren is never around when you need her. QUICK HITS *Ricky Martin's next video, "She Bang," was shot almost entirely underwater last week at the Atlantis resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Look for the video, the first from Martin's as-yet-untitled new album, to debut next month. *Charles Gargano was ready for his closeup, and the Republican powerbroker took full advantage of it yesterday when he performed a cameo in the new film "Serendipity," starring John Cusack, Kate Beckinsale and Molly Shannon. Gargano played the manager of the Chelsea Piers golf range. I understand he even provided some golf tips before, during and after the shoot. No word on whether he gave a sub-par performance. *Here's Grammy Award-winning composer David Foster, Canadian-born, on why he waited until this year to become an American citizen: "Because I wanted to vote for Al Gore.
" *The footage of Bill Clinton striding triumphantly into the Staples Center last week was shot on HDTV, sources told me, because the format made him look thinner.
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Imagine Cher on Broadway without a suitcase full of her Bob Mackie costumes.vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv Or any clothes at all. Cher's people denied it, but I've been told that the 54-year-old diva has been putting out feelers about a possible run as Mrs. Robinson, if and when the London production of "The Graduate" nude scene and all moves to this side of the pond.
After the scathing review
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My Instagram: Ty-Juana Flores
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20131117060709
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Curvy, full-figured, and zaftig ladies (I generally refer to myself as Rubenesque, thank you), please step forward and say hello to this week’s Instagram style star, 31-year-old Dorchester resident Ty-Juana Flores (www.instagram.com/styleyourcurves). Through her business Style Your Curves, she helps women who are size 12-plus as both a stylist and personal shopper. She also writes a blog to inspire these women and improve their fashion acumen. Her mission: “I feel that fashion should be effortless.” Let’s talk style, shall we?
Q. I don’t want to make assumptions, but I’m going to venture a guess that you started the business because you were trying to style your own curves.
A. I have been styling my own curves for years. I started my business after working in New York’s Garment District and seeing how clothing companies rarely catered to curvy women. I wanted to be able to share my experiences, fashion tips, and inspiration with women who are often left out in the fashion world. I studied fashion design at Framingham State University and FIT. I also designed clothing in my past life and understand the true definition of quality apparel.
Q. What are the most frequent issues that you hear from your clients?
A. I often hear that curvy apparel is not flattering. Most people I know who are curvy want to wear something similar to what is seen on the runway, and that’s a challenge. Fit is also a big issue. Curvy women are not shaped like blocks. They have, guess what, curves.
Q. What is one of the most common fashion mistakes that curvy women tend to make?
A. Not having the proper undergarments. An outfit, no matter what size you are, can always be pulled together with my best friend, Spanx. Some curvy girls detest the Spanx but there are so many different versions, comfortable ones too, that they can really pull your outfit together.
Q. On your blog, you share your journey from having straight, processed hair to letting your hair go natural. Was it a difficult adjustment to make?
A. My hair journey is a journey that many women of color are currently exploring, but we would need an entirely new article to cover that topic. Let’s just say that I’m happy with the woman that I am becoming from the inside and out.
Q. Are there aspects of your Panamanian roots that you work into your day-to-day dress?
A. Absolutely. I think most of my passion for fashion comes from my mother, who used to sew for a living in Panama before coming to this country. She would create garments for customers before carnival every year and everyone in Colon came to her for that “it outfit.” Panama is a beautiful country with a bright and vibrant culture. My day-to day dress represents that because I represent my people. I love my culture.
Q. Change of topic: Last time you had enough champagne to qualify as officially tipsy?
A. My birthday was last Sunday. Enough said.
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Curvy, full-figured, and zaftig ladies (I generally refer to myself as Rubenesque, thank you), please step forward and say hello to this week’s Instagram style star, 31-year-old Dorchester resident Ty-Juana Flores (www.instagram.com/styleyourcurves). Through her business Style Your Curves, she helps women who are size 12-plus as both a stylist and personal shopper. She also writes a blog to help inspire these gals and improve their fashion acumen. Her mission: “I feel that fashion should be effortless.” Let’s talk style, shall we? Q. I don’t want to make assumptions, but I’m going to venture a guess that you started the business because you were trying to style your own curves? A: I have been styling my own curves for years. I started my business after working in New York’s Garment District and seeing how clothing companies rarely catered to curvy women. I wanted to be able to share my experiences, fashion
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http://web.archive.org/web/20131130060539id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2013/11/25/economists-see-slow-growth-for-holiday-retail-sales/tuDfVD1HBY68XFlp1peJPK/story.html
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Economists see slow growth for holiday retail sales
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20131130060539
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Experts are using two very familiar words to describe forecasts for retail sales this holiday season: slow growth.
Economists tracking America’s modestly improving economy say a similar pattern will occur at Massachusetts stores and across the nation. Retail groups also see better but not spectacular gains this holiday season.
The Retailers Association of Massachusetts expects holiday sales in the Commonwealth to total $15 billion in November and December, ticking up 3.5 percent from last year.
The national predictions vary slightly, from a gain of 3.9 percent to $602.1 billion in total sales — projected by the National Retail Federation — to a more modest 3.2 percent increase anticipated by the forecasting company IHS Global Insight.
“It’s a relatively OK sign and we’re above water,” said economist Chris Christopher, director of global and US consumer markets for IHS, which has offices in Lexington. “You don’t want to party and say the good times are back again, but things are picking up.”
The predictions represent stable retail sales after a five-year period marked by extreme lows and relatively big gains. Holiday sales in Massachusetts declined 7 percent in 2008 before jumping 7 percent off a very low bottom two years later.
People who walked past holiday lights in Boston last year will have one less holiday season weekend to shop in 2013.
Christopher said the growth forecast for business this season is inflated because it will be compared to relatively weak sales last Christmas, which inched up by 2.8 percent in the state. Despite the anticipated sales bump, he said, the retail sector will still be stifled by the shorter holiday shopping season and strong sales in October.
There are six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas and one less weekend for shoppers to fall victim to impulse buys, which account for a third of all department store purchases.
“Everyone is bending over backward to drive traffic now, which is good and helps to some extent,” said Jon Hurst, president of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts. “The fact is that most shoppers are procrastinators and when you have one less weekend, most people are going to shop less.”
October retail sales grew 0.4 percent nationwide. Christopher said the increase was driven by technology sales, particularly of the new iPhone 5S and 5C models, an extra benefit that retailers will not get in November and December.
The brightest spot in the holiday forecast is online purchases, which are expected to account for 14 percent of all holiday sales.
Shop.org, the digital arm of the National Retail Federation, predicts Internet sales will reach $82 billion, up as much as 15 percent from last year.
E-tailers are giving themselves a head start with early, Black Friday-like door-buster deals. They are promoting purchases on tablets and smartphones, offering even more items at a discount.
“The one sector that is growing is e-commerce,” Christopher said. “It’s playing a stronger role every year and cannibalizing on the brick-and-mortar sales.”
Holiday sales typically account for 20 to 40 percent of retail business. While Hurst said it is good that sales are increasing, further growth is held back by a 7.2 percent unemployment rate in a state with roughly 250,000 people out of work.
“It keeps a question mark in a lot of people’s minds,” he said.
Mass Insight, a Boston research company, recently released improving results in its quarterly consumer confidence index in Massachusetts. The overall score in October came in at 86, up from 80 in July, but still represented a negative view of the economy. The index uses a base score of 100 to represent an equal number of people with positive versus negative views of the economy.
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Experts are using two very familiar words to describe forecasts for retail sales this holiday season: slow growth. Economists tracking America’s modestly improving economy say a similar pattern will become apparent at stores in Massachusetts and across the nation. Retail groups also see better, but not spectacular, gains this holiday season. The Retailers Association of Massachusetts expects holiday sales in the Commonwealth to total $15 billion in November and December, ticking up 3.5 percent from last year. The national predictions vary slightly from a gain of 3.9 percent to $602.1 billion in total sales — expected by the National Retail Federation — to a more modest 3.2 percent increase anticipated by forecasting firm IHS Global Insight.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20131207060000id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/12/04/insider-sales-purchases-olin-penney-strayer/s0N3JQZUBhQFQnwJWBulNO/story.html
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Insider sales, purchases at Olin, Penney, Strayer
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20131207060000
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Last month, C. Robert Bunch, a director at Olin Corp., bought 12,500 shares of the stock for about $281,000.
Olin, which is headquartered in Clayton, Mo., produces chlor alkali chemicals, hydrochloric acid, and other chemicals. It also produces ammunition and explosives under the Winchester brand, which accounts for close to a third of revenues.
The chemical segment should benefit if — as I anticipate — the US economy strengthens in 2014. The sales of ammunition may or may not be affected by any tightening of gun control laws nationwide. Paradoxically, the possibility of such tightening makes some customers accelerate purchases.
I devote several columns a year to insider purchases and sales. I have tabulated results for 18 columns, comprising all those from 1999 through 2012.
The 41 stocks that exhibited insider buying, and that I recommended, have beaten the S&P 500 index by an average of 9.9 percentage points in the 12 months following publication. The 15 stocks in which I pointed to insider selling have trailed the S&P 500 by 4.6 percentage points.
J.C. Penney: With a $1.3 billion loss in its latest fiscal year, Penney is close to friendless on Wall Street.
Twenty-three analysts cover Penney, even though it is now a midcapitalization stock, not a big-cap. Only two of the analysts recommend purchase. On Nov. 22, chief executive Myron Ullman purchased 112,000 shares at $8.95 a share, spending just over a million dollars to reestablish himself as a shareholder. Ullman previously was Penney’s chief up until February 2012, when he was ousted in favor of former Apple executive Ron Johnson.
Things went from bad to worse under Johnson, but I feel there is still value in Penney. It has more than 1,100 stores in 49 states and Puerto Rico, plus a decent Internet site. The stock sells for 1.2 times book value and 0.26 times revenue.
I think Penney needs radical surgery. It should close or sell a third of its stores and use the savings or proceeds to beef up service and women’s fashions, two weak areas in my view.
Strayer Education Inc.: At about $37 a share, Strayer shares are at a five-year low. Yet insiders are still selling. In November, director David Wargo sold more than $2 million of stock, and director Robert Grusky sold more than $200,000.
Detractors have lambasted for-profit colleges such as Strayer in the past three years. The critics, some of them within the federal government, have faulted the colleges for encouraging students to load up with debt, and failing adequately to prepare them to obtain jobs.
Strayer stock was above $250 during parts of 2010. With the stock down 85 percent from that level, you might expect insiders to sense a bargain. Apparently, we are not there yet.
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Last month, C. Robert Bunch, a director at Olin Corp., bought 12,500 shares of the stock for about $281,000. Olin, which is headquartered in Clayton, Mo., and was founded in 1892produces chlor alkali chemicals, hydrochloric acid, and other chemicals. It also produces ammunition and explosives under the Winchester brand, which accounts for close to a third of revenues. Insider activity at Olin has been a mixed picture, with more sellers than buyers, but I find Bunch’s purchase encouraging. I also like the stock’s valuations, 11 times earnings and 0.8 times revenue. The chemical segment should benefit if — as I anticipate — the US economy strengthens in 2014. The sales of ammunition may or may not be affected by any tightening of gun control laws nationwide. Paradoxically, the possibility of such tightening makes some customers accelerate purchases.
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Tunnel vision of underground art
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A Metropolis-inspired weird dream ... The Old Vic and Punchdrunk's Tunnel 228. Photograph: Jeff Moore
Round the back of Waterloo station in London is a graffitied and bolted blue wooden door you wouldn't look twice at, behind which are derelict railway tunnels and rooms most recently used as storage space.
But visitors entering the door this week will discover an other-wordly art and performance space that is part disconcerting, part frightening and part thrilling.
The art project, opening today, is entitled Tunnel 228 and is a collaboration between the Old Vic and one of the UK's most innovative performance companies, Punchdrunk. About 20 artists have work displayed, and it is essentially a Metropolis-inspired weird dream with a mixture of art and live performance by actors.
One of the most astonishing things about it is how those involved have managed to keep it secret with word of mouth only getting going in the last few days. It is free to get in but only via the website, and organisers fear it will be fully booked up by the end of today.
"We kind of wanted it just to pop up, for it just to happen," said Kevin Spacey, the Old Vic's artistic director, who was first made aware of the space last year, exploring it using mobile phones as torches with his assistant Hamish Jenkinson, who is the producer of Tunnel 228.
"The space was just nothing and there was so much crap in there," said Spacey. "I've always been interested in bringing the art world and theatre a little closer together and this project does that – in some ways it isn't necessarily true that people who go galleries are the same people who go to theatre and this is one way of expanding audiences." He described it as a community project and they have leant heavily on a neighbour, the Young Vic, working with its educational programme and the financial news group Bloomberg, which shows private money is still being spent on art projects during the recession. Visitors to these industrial caverns will be given a mask – unrelated to pig flu – and asked to read the health and safety instructions from the Facilities Safety Directive. Inside, the world of the tunnels is divided into two social groups, planners or thinkers, and then the people deeper in the vaults, the workers.
Some of the works are semi-displayed in the darkness, with pieces that people could easily miss. There is a magic forest, a shadowy monkey, a spooky wooden coffin with tiny bird chick heads and much more. One of the most terrifying is The Killing Machine, by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, in which motorised microphone stands do terrible things to a thankfully empty chair while violins play. The work that threads it all together is a Heath Robinson-type piece by Cambridge postgraduate Ben Tyers who has spent the last month underground for 12-hour days creating The Machine, a remarkable feat of art and engineering that runs round different rooms. Punchdrunk's influence is hard to miss and there are rooms with actors that visitors may or may not want to go in: the nightclub in the ladies toilet, for example, or the thin man's office.
The cloak-and-dagger nature of the project is reflected in the Tunnel 228 website, tunnel-228.com, which appears to be one for a real company called Track and Rail Cleaning Ltd, set up 20 years ago. The giveaway comes when it begins talking about its "dedicated team of rail-polishers and line-buffers". Their slogan is "Just think of us as the buffers that don't grind to a halt!"
The project is only going for 15 days and coping with demand will be almost impossible but Spacey hopes that, if successful, they will be able to bring it back to Waterloo in the autumn.
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A weird dream awaits visitors who dare to step behind the blue door in London's Waterloo station
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Tax break for Roth IRA conversion lured 10% of millionaires
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20140108080551
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WASHINGTON — Congress dangled an incentive for high-income Americans to convert their tax-deferred individual retirement accounts into post-tax plans. Their response was overwhelming.
Conversions from regular IRAs to Roth retirement accounts increased more than nine times in 2010, rising to $64.8 billion from $6.8 billion in 2009, according to data released Friday by the Internal Revenue Service.
That marked the first time Roth conversions were greater than contributions. Conversions were particularly common among IRA holders with annual incomes exceeding $1 million. More than 10 percent of them converted to a Roth account, according to the IRS.
The increase in conversions stemmed from a 2006 law that set 2010 for ending a $100,000 income limit on Roth conversions.
There’s no ceiling on conversions if an investor has multiple individual retirement accounts and no cap on the amount that can be shifted.
‘‘There was a rush of interest in 2010,’’ when the restrictions on conversions were lifted, said Thomas Rowley, director of retirement business strategies for Atlanta-based Invesco Ltd. Wealthy investors could better manage their tax liability in retirement and pass the Roth accounts to heirs free of income tax, he said.
“It’s the cheapest estate planning you can find,’’ Rowley said. ‘‘You’re paying the taxes for these beneficiaries.’’
Taxpayers also could split the taxes owed because of the conversions between their 2011 and 2012 returns, giving them until early 2013 before they had to pay the full balance. Wealth advisers pitched Roth conversions to their clients as a pay-now, save-later strategy.
When Congress passed the law, the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that it would raise $6.4 billion for the government over 10 years. Because Congress looks only at the revenue effects for the first decade, changes that make retirement tax breaks more generous in the long run can be used to offset tax cuts.
Congress passed a similar law in 2013 allowing for easier conversions into Roth 401(k) accounts.
Both changes to Roth plan rules were a ‘‘classic budget timing gimmick,’’ said Ed Lorenzen, senior policy adviser at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and a former House Democratic aide.
‘‘You know by its very design it’s going to be raising revenues now and losing revenues later,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s usually done purely for the purposes of meeting budget rules to appear to be generating revenues.’’
Contributions to a regular IRA are tax-deferred, with upront deductions and taxes owed when the money is withdrawn from the account.
In contrast, Roth accounts are built with post-tax money. Account holders owe no taxes when they withdraw the money and don’t have to make required withdrawals once they reach age 70½.
Assets in individual retirement accounts, known as IRAs, totaled $6 trillion as of Sept. 30, according to the Investment Company Institute. Almost 4 out of 10 US households owned IRAs in 2013, ICI data show.
About 16 percent of US households, or 19 million, have Roth IRAs compared with about 36 million owners of traditional IRAs in 2013, according to ICI. Roth IRAs, named for former Senate Finance Committee chairman William Roth of Delaware, were first available in 1998, ICI said.
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WASHINGTON — Congress dangled an incentive for high-income Americans to convert their tax-deferred individual retirement accounts into post-tax plans. Their response was overwhelming. Conversions from regular IRAs to Roth retirement accounts increased more than nine times in 2010, rising to $64.8 billion from $6.8 billion in 2009, according to data released Friday by the IRS. That marked the first time Roth conversions were greater than contributions. Conversions were particularly common among IRA holders with annual incomes exceeding $1 million. More than 10 percent of them converted to a Roth account, the IRS said. The increase in conversions stemmed from a 2006 law that set 2010 for ending a $100,000 income limit on Roth conversions. There’s no ceiling on conversions if an investor has multiple IRAs and no cap on the amount that can be shifted.
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Renoir found at flea market returned to museum by Virginia court
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20140111044731
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A Renoir painting bought for $7 at a flea market but valued at up to $100,000 must be returned to the museum it was stolen from in 1951, a federal judge ordered on Friday.
The 1879 Impressionist painting Paysage Bords de Seine, dashed off for his mistress by the French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir at a riverside restaurant in Paris, has been at the centre of a legal tug-of-war between Marcia "Martha" Fuqua, a former physical education teacher from Lovettsville, Virginia, and the Baltimore Museum of Art in Maryland.
Judge Leonie Brinkema, in a district court hearing, dismissed Fuqua's claim of ownership, noting that a property title cannot be transferred if it resulted from a theft.
"The museum has put forth an extensive amount of documentary evidence that the painting was stolen," Brinkema said, citing a 1951 police report and museum records.
"All the evidence is on the Baltimore museum's side. You still have no evidence – no evidence – that this wasn't stolen," said Brinkema to Fuqua's attorney before ruling in favour of the museum.
Fuqua bought the unsigned Paysage Bords de Seine for $7, along with a box of trinkets, at a flea market in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia in 2009 because she liked the frame, she said in a court filing. Although the frame carried the nameplate "Renoir 1841-1919," Fuqua was unaware the painting, measuring 5½ by 9 inches (14 by 23 cm), was genuine.
Her mother, an art teacher and painter, urged her to get the painting appraised. Fuqua took it to an auction house, which verified it was as an authentic Renoir.
After media reports about the painting, the Baltimore Museum of Art said it had been stolen.
An appraisal carried out for the FBI said the painting was worth about $22,000 (£13,000).
The painting is soiled and "there is a distinct lack of enthusiasm for paintings by Renoir now considered a more old-fashioned taste," appraiser Ted Cooper said.
It came to the Baltimore museum through one of its leading benefactors, collector Saidie May. Her family bought the painting from the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris in 1926 and it was loaned, along with other works, to the museum in 1937.
May died in May 1951 and the collection was willed to the museum. As its ownership was going through legal transfer, the painting was stolen while still listed as being on loan.
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Paysage Bords de Seine was painted by French Impressionist at a restaurant near the Seine River
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Handyman on Call - Business - The Boston Globe
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20140111224407
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Q. When I installed gas heat I included a humidifier on the hot air furnace. Now the unit leaks water on the basement floor. The installers adjusted filters or something without success. How can I stop the leaks?
A. Turn it off. These units have a drain that is supposed to drain condensate water, and often, it seems, they don’t work very well. I had one and it also leaked, so I shut it off. You can do the same. If you feel you really need humidity, install a console model on the first floor. Since humid air rises, the one console should work for both floors. They are easily adjusted and cleaned.
Q. I dropped a nice dessert dish into an equally nice coffee mug, and they stuck fast. I can wiggle them, but they won’t separate. Can I do something about it?
A. Spray WD-40 where they touch. Still no luck? Put boiling water into a large, separate bowl. Put the coffee mug into the hot water, then put a bunch of crushed ice cubes in the dessert dish. The cold dish will shrink and the hot mug will expand, and, voila: Separation!
Q. My first-floor bathroom fan light works well enough when it’s on, but when it shuts off in winter, it creates a big back draft. How can I prevent that draft when it’s off?
A. You mentioned that you put a lead fishing weight on the flapping lid of another fan. Do the same with your fan light. You will have to experiment to reach a point of opening for power and closing properly when closed.
Q. I’ve moved back into my childhood home. It has oil heat with baseboard radiators. I can remember my Dad “bleeding” the radiators when I was a kid. Is this something that needs to be done? If so, is there somewhere I can go to read about how it is done? Again, if so, how often should this be done?
A. Sounds similar to my childhood home in Michigan, but mine goes back maybe further than yours, and I never saw my father bleed the radiators, let alone show me how. It was a gravity system, and maybe that’s why. So call your oil dealer and ask him the same questions. He knows the answers.
Q. John Deegan wrote Dec. 8 regarding adding insulation to his attic. He wants to remove his old insulation and have “TAP insulation installed to a minimum of 14 inches to bring the attic to R-49. For an additional $600 he could have more insulation added to bring it to R-60.” You advised him to go ahead, as he has oil heat.
I simply do not understand the question or reply. What is TAP insulation? What does he mean by 14 inches, R-49, and R-60? I own an antique Colonial home. I have a large unfinished attic, and I also have oil heat and very high heating bills. I believe there is little or no insulation in my attic.
I had an energy audit two years ago. At the time, I was interested in learning where I could add insulation to reduce my heating bills. The man who performed the audit told me that my walls are not insulated, but he would not recommend adding insulation to the walls without first having an electrician replace the electrical wiring. He said nothing about insulating the attic.
Although I am not planning on replacing wiring or insulating my walls at this time, I would be interested in adding insulation to the attic if it would reduce my heating bills. What would you advise?
A. TAP insulation is just another insulation such as cellulose or fiberglass. Fourteen inches is simply the thickness of the insulation, and the R-49 and R-60 refer to how well the insulation resists the passage of heat from inside to outside.
The man was talking telephone numbers (how great I am!) to confuse you. His advice not to insulate until an electrician removed wiring was also talking telephone numbers because he neglected to say what kind of wiring. If it is BX (steel clad), or Romex (cloth or plastic clad), it is OK to insulate in the walls and attic floor. If it is knob and tube (cloth-covered wires exposed), you cannot put in the insulation. Since this man confused you, fire him and call Anderson Insulation in Abington, who will tell you in plain English what you can and cannot do. If he is too far away to help, he can find a competent insulator.
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Peter Hotton answers readers’ questions.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140113035441id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2014/01/04/bernanke-could-better-year-for-economy/v5VB5n7TrRHVMDm1WqZLiM/story.html
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Bernanke: 2014 could be better year for US economy
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20140113035441
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WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday predicted a stronger year for the US economy in 2014, saying several factors that have held back growth appear to be abating.
Americans’ finances have improved and the outlook for home sales is brighter, Bernanke said. He also expects less drag from federal spending cuts and tax increases.
The combination ‘‘bodes well for US economic growth in coming quarters,’’ Bernanke said during a speech to the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Philadelphia.
Bernanke made a similar assessment of the economy at a Dec. 18 news conference after the Fed’s last meeting. At the meeting, the Fed announced it would begin in January to reduce its monthly bond purchases from $85 billion to $75 billion, noting signs of an improving economy.
The bond purchases are intended to keep long-term interest rates low and encourage more borrowing and spending.
Friday’s appearance was expected to be one of Bernanke’s final speeches as Fed chairman. He is stepping down at the end of this month after eight years leading the central bank.
The Senate is expected to confirm Janet Yellen on Monday to be the next Fed chairwoman. She would take over on Feb. 1.
In his speech, Bernanke said that he tried to make the Fed more transparent and accountable while at the same time combating a deep recession and severe financial crisis.
Making the system more transparent was an important goal for him when he took over in 2006. He cited his participation in more television interviews, his efforts to hold more town hall meetings, and his visits to universities. Bernanke also added a quarterly news conference after four of the Fed’s eight policy meetings.
‘‘We took extraordinary measures to meet extraordinary economic challenges and we had to explain those measures to earn the public’s support and confidence,’’ Bernanke said.
Bernanke said while the financial crisis has passed ‘‘the Fed’s need to educate and explain will only grow.’’
He also used his speech to make some pointed remarks at Congress. He said ‘‘excessively tight’’ budget policies had been counterproductive.
‘‘With fiscal and monetary policy working in opposite directions, the recovery is weaker than it otherwise would be,’’ Bernanke said.
Bernanke also defended the central bank against critics who say the Fed’s massive bond purchases have had little effect on jump-starting the recovery.
‘‘Economic growth might well have been considerably weaker, or even negative, without substantial monetary policy support,’’ Bernanke said. He noted economic research that supported the benefits of the Fed’s bond purchases.
In response to an audience question, Bernanke criticized legislation pending in Congress that would allow the Government Accountability Office to expand its audits of the Fed to look at decisions on interest rates. The GAO, the auditing arm of Congress, can currently conduct audits of the Fed. But it is prohibited from investigating its interest rate decisions.
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WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke on Friday predicted a stronger year for the US economy in 2014, saying several factors that have held back growth appear to be abating. Americans’ finances have improved and the outlook for home sales is brighter, Bernanke said. He also expects less drag from federal spending cuts and tax increases. The combination ‘‘bodes well for US economic growth in coming quarters,’’ Bernanke said during a speech to the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Philadelphia. Friday’s appearance was expected to be one of Bernanke’s final speeches as Fed chairman. He is stepping down at the end of this month after eight years leading the central bank.
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X-37B: Secrets of the US military spaceplane
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As the US Air Force prepares for the third launch of its mysterious X-37B vehicle, BBC Future looks at what is known about the classified project.
In the early morning of 16 June, 2012, a top secret spaceplane made a picture perfect landing at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. To those unfamiliar with the vehicle, it might have looked roughly similar to the US space shuttle, the manned spacecraft that shuttled astronauts into space for three decades.
But this spaceplane, called the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, is very different. While it looks like a plane, is launched on a rocket, has a cargo bay and uses some of the same technology as the shuttle, such as thermal shielding to protect it during reentry, it is smaller and unmanned. It is designed to stay in orbit for months on end and can automatically land back on Earth. Perhaps more crucially, the Boeing-designed plane is operated by the US Air Force and its mission is a closely held secret, prompting a slew of speculation about its true purpose.
Since the first X-37B was launched in 2010, amateur satellite spotters have carefully followed the robotic spacecraft’s orbit, while those unconnected with the program have speculated that the plane could be anything from an anti-satellite weapon to so-called “on demand reconnaissance,” shorthand for a spy satellite that can be placed over any country in the world. Compounding the mystery was the launch of a second vehicle in 2011, which stayed in orbit for 469 days, long exceeding the Air Force’s stated maximum requirement of 270 days for the spaceplane.
Now, a third launch is slated for 11 December, according to an Air Force spokesperson, once again ramping up the rumour mill. So, what do we actually know about the plane?
Early reports focused on the X-37B’s seeming resemblance, at least in size and weight, to the X-20 Dynasoar (short for Dynamic Soarer), a 1950s-era hypersonic vehicle that was envisioned for a variety of military missions, including bombing and sabotaging enemy satellites. However, experts familiar with the X-37B programme emphasized that its technology is actually closer to the recently retired space shuttle (a fact reinforced by Boeings’ proposal for a crewed version of the vehicle known as the X-37C). The Air Force blandly described the role of the X-37B in a factsheet given to media as a "reliable, reusable, unmanned space test platform”.
The Air Force also says the mini-shuttle has two objectives: testing “reusable spacecraft technologies” and conducting “experiments which can be returned to, and examined, on Earth”. Again, this is similar to the stated aims of the space shuttle. But many forget that earlier craft also had a secret military role. Although ostensibly a civilian program, it conducted a series of missions from 1982-1992 on behalf of the National Reconnaissance Office, carrying a series of classified spy satellites.
Similarly, most outside experts now agree that it’s likely the robotic space plane is being used for some sort of secret reconnaissance. “I think the guess that makes most sense is quick-response tactical imaging, meaning hours to a couple of days from request to delivery,” says Allen Thomson, a former CIA analyst.
Thomson says it is also possible that it could have a more mundane but useful task, such as “maintaining up-to-date general purpose mapping imagery.” However, if that is the case, Thomson says that it could be a waste of money. “I think that the commercial satellites could and should do that cheaper and better than X-37B,” he says. It is a view backed by parts of the scientific community.
Indeed, the X-37B launches comes in the middle of a larger debate about the role of government-operated spy satellites, which have proven enormously costly but can provide some of the most advanced imagery, versus commercial satellite imagery. The US intelligence community recently slashed its budget for commercial imagery, indicating that it was going back to greater reliance on its own classified satellites.
The view that the X-37B is a reconnaissance platform is strengthened by observations from amateur satellite watchers, who track the vehicles’ orbits, and noticed that it has similar orbits to spy satellites and scientific remote sensing craft. In addition, they noticed the craft changing its orbital path several times during its test flights.
This is to be expected, says Joan Johnson-Freese, professor of national security studies at the US Naval War College in Newport. “The upcoming launch will continue just to see what the vehicle can do,” she says. “One of the things they are testing is maneuverability. The problem with satellites in orbit is they are very predictably in certain orbits at certain times, and thus vulnerable to anti-satellite weapons (ASAT).”
Johnson-Freese says the military has long been interested in the ability of a spacecraft that has “the ability to evade, to maneuver, to not be in a predicable place at a predicable time.”
She expects the Air Force will be “pressing the envelope for manoeuvrability and duration” during the X-37B’s next flight. “That will give them the idea of potential missions where avoidance of ASATs comes into play.”
Although its orbits may be difficult to predict in advance, its tracks show where the X-37B has been and its likely purpose, says Brian Weeden, a technical advisor at the Secure World Foundation, a Washington-based foundation that focuses on space issues.
For example, he says, the X-37B flew at inclination of 42.79 degrees, which tells you how far north and south in latitude the spacecraft can see. “The tradeoff is that something at a 90 degree polar orbit covers the whole world, but its frequency is less; it may arrive only every couple of days,” he says. “If something is 40 or 45 degrees, it would be covering a smaller portion [of the earth], but more often. “
At a 42.79 degree inclination, the X-37B would be useful for looking at a geographic region such as the Middle East, says Weeden, pouring cold water on one theory that that it was used to spy on China’s spacelab, Tiangong-1. And given the current political context, he says, the Middle East “makes sense”.
Weeden also suggests the X-37B’s orbit may indicate that the military is trying out a new sensor system, such as radar imaging or hyperspectral sensors, which collect information across different wavelengths. He suggests this could be the case, because unlike satellites collecting light in the visible wavelength, the X-37B’s orbits are not synchronized with the sun, a trick used to maintain a predictable angle between the sun, satellite and ground.
But, like with many of the theories surrounding the X-37B, he warns, “it is just speculation.”
For its part, the Air Force itself is silent about the plane’s use, only speaking to allay fears that it was a weapon. "I don't know how this could be called weaponisation of space. It's just an updated version of the space shuttle type of activities in space," said Gary Payton, the Air Force's deputy undersecretary for space programmes, in 2010. "We, the Air Force, have a suite of military missions in space and this new vehicle could potentially help us do those missions better."
Whatever its purpose; the X-37B is perhaps one of the few bright spots among the Pentagon’s hypersonic test vehicle programs. The Air Force’s X-51A Waverider, a scramjet powered hypersonic missile, suffered a fatal mishap earlier this year on a test flight, and never reached hypersonic speeds. Separately, another hypersonic prototype, known as the Falcon Hypersonic Test Vehicle-2, suffered mishaps in both flight tests, plunging into the ocean.
Those other efforts, which are focused on creating missiles, are still in early testing phase, while the X-37B is clearly further along.
“I think the one interesting question is whether this is just test and evaluation, or is it being used to be support real world operations,” says Weeden. But like most questions about the plane, it is one that is currently impossible to answer.
If you would like to comment on this story, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.
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As the US Air Force prepares for the third launch of its mysterious X-37B vehicle, we look at what is known about the classified project.
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New England Heroin Epidemic Sees Dramatic Increase In Addiction And Death
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Your Post Has Been Launched!
In Maine, deaths attributed to heroin have quadrupled, and in Vermont, opiate addiction has skyrocketed by 770%, according to the governor. posted on January 15, 2014 at 2:35pm EST
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New England Heroin Epidemic Sees Dramatic ...
There were only seven deaths attributed to heroin in 2011, but that number rose to 24 in 2012.
“In every corner of our state, heroin and opiate drug addiction threatens us. The time has come for us to stop quietly averting our eyes from the growing heroin addiction in our front yards while we fear and fight treatment facilities in our backyards.”
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In Maine, deaths attributed to heroin have quadrupled, and in Vermont, opiate addiction has skyrocketed by 770%, according to the governor.
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New ways to save on student travel
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Learning about new places and experiencing different cultures are all part of a well-rounded education that students canât get by just hitting the books.
But students who do their homework on a mid-term trip quickly realise that even quick holidays to other regions can be expensive.
Fortunately, there are some new ways to get off campus without draining the budget for books and meals. Click ‘play’ to learn about travel sites that offer flight deals specifically for students, and where to find free, downloadable city guides, among other great tips — in 90 seconds.
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Hit the road instead of the books. Inexpensive ways students can travel the world, learn a different language or experience a new culture â in 90 seconds.
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The rich list: Where the world's wealthiest live
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Number of UHNW in 2013: 10,675 Change over 2012: -5.1% Total wealth: $1.5tn
At first glance, it looks as though Chinaâs UHNW population is declining. While the countryâs rich were hurt by poor performing stock markets last year, long-term trends show it could become the second- or third-wealthiest nation in the world in just a couple of years.
The vast majority of Chinaâs wealthy are self-made multi-millionaires, said Seibold. Many are in the manufacturing and export industries, but people in the financial services and technology industries are gaining ground as well.
For most of the last decade, the countryâs gross domestic product grew by double-digits. While that growth has been a major reason why the number of UHNW people has grown, another factor has been skyrocketing real estate prices, said Seibold.
Between 2000 and 2010, the price-per-square meter of a home in Beijing has climbed by 180%, according to economic research firm BBVA Research. Other major Chinese centers have seen similar increases.
Much wealth is also being driven by businesses relationships with the government, said Friedman. The people who can land the big government contracts are going to do the best.
âIf youâre going to be successful you have to know how to navigate state owned enterprises and the government structure,â he said.
With Chinaâs GDP still growing much faster than developed nation economies, Friedman predicts that there will be more UHNW people in China than all of Europe by 2017 and the country may overtake the US by 2025.
âThere is just so much wealth being driven there,â he said.
Among the wealthiest: Founder and chief executive officer of Baidu, Robin Li, above with US billionaire and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, has $11.1bn, according to Forbes.
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With the super rich getting even richer, China and India could soon overtake the US. A look at the worldâs wealthy
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/aug/06/tennyson-museum-bicentenary-poet
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New Tennyson museum marks the bicentenary of the poet's birth
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Hounded by fans ... Alfred, Lord Tennyson, as painted by Millais. Photograph: Public Domain
Although Disraeli, Darwin, Lewis Carroll, Giuseppe Garibaldi and the Queen of Hawaii have been unable to accept the invitation to Lord Alfred Tennyson's birthday party today, his library on the Isle of Wight will again be full of distinguished guests talking of literature, science and art.
A private passion for Victorian art has given rise to a new museum at Farringford House, Tennyson's home of 40 years, opening today to mark the bicentenary of the birth of a giant of the Victorian literary scene. Furniture including his writing desk and chair, and portraits – by his friend GF Watts – of the poet, his wife and their sons, have come back to the house for the first time in over a century.
The poet laureate was an A-list celebrity of his day, hounded by fans. His works, including The Charge of the Light Brigade, Maud, In Memoriam and his Arthurian cycle, Idylls of the King, were read by millions, recited, painted, sung and dramatised. He moved to Isle of Wight in 1853 when he was so stalked that he could no longer work in London. But, everyone who was anyone followed him there – many as house guests – including politicians, painters, authors, scientists and royalty.
The house became a hotel in the early 20th century, owned at different times by both Thomas Cook of the travel firm, and Sir Fred Pontin of holiday camp fame. Older islanders, including the craftsman who restored pieces for the exhibition, remember bonfires in the grounds of surviving Victorian furniture, many commissioned by the Tennysons from trees on the estate.
The hotel was bought three years ago "on a whim, not a very well-thought-out business plan", by Martin Beisly, senior expert on Victorian painting at Christie's auction house, and his friend Rebecca Fitzgerald. Beisly was brought up on the Isle of Wight, but didn't start out particularly interested in poetry, never mind Tennyson or crumbling Victorian architecture. "I really came to Tennyson through painting. Wherever I looked at the painters I loved – Millais, Holman Hunt, Watts – I realised they were completely in awe of Tennyson. The house struck me as like a work of art, too, a painting in urgent need of sensitive restoration."
Beisly and Fitzgerald spent the winter making the building watertight, before restoring the extension the Tennysons had added to make a party room and a library – with a staircase concealed in the corner so he could flee visitors. The extension was designed by another Tennyson worshipper, the architect of the Natural History Museum in London, Alfred Waterhouse.
The library has been restored to museum display standards, and will house regular exhibitions. With curator Veronica Franklin Gould, an expert on the period, they have secured major loans from national collections, including the Watts Gallery in Compton and the Tennyson study centre in Lincoln, which holds the family archives. The paintings, letters and photographs by his next-door neighbour, the pioneering photographer Julia Margaret Cameron – who kidnapped his most distinguished guests – give a vivid impression of the life of the house.
Visitors were sometimes overawed: in 1865 Anny Thackeray, daughter of the novelist, herself renowned as an eccentric, wrote: "Everybody is either a genius or a poet or a painter or peculiar in some way." The islanders were highly entertained by the procession of notables, including Prince Albert leaving with a bunch of primroses from the garden; or Garibaldi, campaigner for Italian unification, in embroidered shirt and scarlet-lined white poncho. They queued to wave to the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, author of Hiawatha (Tennyson also brought him to the village stores to buy tobacco and clay pipes), but clearly every day was as good as a cabaret: Thackeray recorded locals coming to their doors to stare as Tennyson, the painter GF Watts, and Henry Thoby Prinsep, brother-in-law of Cameron, walked past in sweeping cloaks and giant hats.
The exhibition includes the throne Tennyson had made, of timber from the garden, for the widowed Queen Emma of Hawaii when she came to stay for four days in 1865. Photographs include Cameron's portrait of Longfellow. When he escorted the poet to her door, Tennyson warned: "You will have to do whatever she tells you. I'll come back soon and see what is left of you."
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An exhibition devoted to Lord Alfred Tennyson – and the many distinguished house guests who visited him – opens at his Isle of Wight home today
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In ‘Talley’s Folly,’ there’s love among the ruins
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20140328085842
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LOWELL — Lanford Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Talley’s Folly” traces an unlikely romance built on a fragile foundation of hope. The Merrimack Repertory Theatre’s heartwarming production unfolds with steady determination, breaking through any jaded cynicism with a touching commitment to life’s possibilities.
Set in 1944 during World War II, when pessimism from the Depression is giving way to the optimism of economic prosperity, “Talley’s Folly” follows Matt Friedman’s (Benim Foster) persistent wooing of Sally Talley (Kathleen Wise). Matt opens the play, directly addressing the audience from the front of the auditorium, explaining his goals and his time limitations (“I’m told we have 97 minutes, no intermission,” he announces). Hopping up onto Randall Parsons’s delightfully dilapidated boathouse — the folly of the title — he begins his tale with “once upon a time” and declares he’s hoping the evening will proceed with the easy rhythm of a waltz.
Reality is, of course, much more complicated than a fairy tale, and Wilson’s gift as a playwright was his ability to bring to life characters on the margins of society, far from fairy castles and knights in shining armor. We soon learn that the previous summer Matt and Sally’s romance blossomed in the crumbling boathouse where the action is now set, but Matt returned to St. Louis, several hours from Sally’s family farm, and despite his daily letters, she has been avoiding him.
At first, the reasons seem obvious: Matt is Jewish, an immigrant, and as a single man over 40, there are questions about why he’s never married. Sally, a nurse’s aide at a nearby hospital, is over 30 (although she only admits to 28), and after an experience in which she says she was “unlucky in love,” she’s resigned herself to a life as an eccentric old maid.
Neither character is conventionally appealing, and director Kyle Fabel resists the temptation to make either one of these very private people too sympathetic too soon. Foster’s Matt is a little brash, working a little too hard to be funny, even seeming irritating to Sally. As Sally, Wise is so withdrawn, so brusque, it’s hard to believe there might have been a spark between these two.
Matt recognizes Sally’s evasive tactics, along with her willingness to meet in the magical boathouse, as encouragement. He tells jokes and stories, finally revealing the tragedy that has kept him from sharing his life with someone. With a great deal more coaxing, Sally finally lets down her own guard to reveal why she has never married.
The beauty of this Merrimack Repertory Theatre production is the way Fabel and his performers build these little moments of connection between two characters who had always expected to be alone. When Matt offers a metaphor of people as eggs — “Gotta be hatched or boiled or beat up into something like a lot of other eggs. Then you’re cookin’ ” — it’s almost as if the audience can see the faint line of a crack appearing in these individuals’ hard, protective shells. In spite of ourselves, we begin to root not just for Matt and Sally, but for everyone who hesitates before risking his or her heart on something or someone for fear of being hurt.
The battered boathouse frame evokes Victorian elegance — “froufrou” as our hero describes it — wearied by time, the perfect metaphor for the faded hopes of two people who didn’t think they could be happy, but find, in fact, they can.
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LOWELL — Lanford Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Talley’s Folly” traces an unlikely romance built on a fragile foundation of hope. The Merrimack Repertory Theatre’s heartwarming production unfolds with steady determination, breaking through any jaded cynicism with a touching commitment to life’s possibilities. Set in 1944, “Talley’s Folly” follows Matt Friedman’s (Benim Foster) persistent wooing of Sally Talley (Kathleen Wise). Matt opens the play, directly addressing the audience from the front of the auditorium, explaining his goals and his time limitations (“I’m told we have 97 minutes, no intermission,” he announces). Hopping up onto Randall Parsons’s delightfully dilapidated boathouse — the folly of the title — he begins his tale with “once upon a time” and declares he’s hoping the evening will proceed with the easy rhythm of a waltz.
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Alan Davie obituary
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It sometimes seemed that Alan Davie was known everywhere western art is seen, from Stromness, in his native Scotland, to Sydney and São Paulo, which were among the dozens of cities and countries where he had solo shows; everywhere except in the histories of 20th-century art, when he tended to be granted a passing reference in lists of like-seeming artists, from the postwar European movement Cobra to the Austrian Hundertwasser and the abstract expressionists. The problem was that Davie, who has died aged 93, could not be pigeonholed. By his own reckoning, he was painter, poet, jazz musician and jewellery designer. Davie's admirers also had him down as a shaman and a maker of magic, and he was not displeased with this view.
His striking mane of white hair and flowing beard gave him a resemblance to God in the creation scene on the Sistine ceiling. His retrospective exhibition at the Barbican Gallery in London in 1993 was subtitled The Quest for the Miraculous: the miracle was that out of an eclectic art that was part Celtic, part tribal Hopi, part Hindu or Jain or Tibetan Buddhist, part African and part pre-Columbian, with a hint of William Blake, there came painting of power and individuality.
Davie maintained that the ego was the enemy of true art, which must come from the deep wellsprings of culture and the flow of the Jungian collective unconscious. He wanted, he said, to link up with the "mysterious and spiritual forces normally beyond our comprehension".
He rejected the practical Marxist tinged philosophies of his day but, like many artists in the 1950s, he had read Eugen Herrigel's cult book Zen in the Art of Archery which explained how, after due contemplation, the archer, the arrow and the target become one, a thesis with obvious attractions for a painter struggling, as Davie did throughout his life, to discover "the intuition that knows without knowledge", which, of course, in greater or lesser degree, is a motor for most great art.
Davie's father was a painter and etcher living in the Stirlingshire seaport of Grangemouth, and, given the talent the young Alan showed, it was natural that at the age of 17 he should enter Edinburgh College of Art. He did well there and left in 1941 with his diploma, but also with the award of a travelling scholarship that he mothballed for seven years because of second world war service with the Royal Artillery. He did not find the army conducive to painting, but discovered Walt Whitman's freewheeling but incantatory poetry and himself began to write visionary verse.
He was demobbed in 1946, returned to Edinburgh to resume painting and had his first solo show there; the following year he married Janet Gaul, an artist-potter, and in 1948 took up his travelling scholarship and went with his new wife, always known as Bili, to Italy. The solemnity, grace and simplicity of trecento and quattrocento art – art without the artifice of the 16th century – opened Davie's eyes.
After the epiphany of his encounter in Florence with Cimabue, Giotto, Duccio, Fra Angelico, Uccello and, in Arezzo, the Piero della Francesca fresco cycle on the theme of the true cross, Davie was ripe for his meeting with Peggy Guggenheim. The great collector conducted him around her Venetian palazzo with its paintings by Jackson Pollock, whom she had launched in her glitzy New York gallery: this was pre-drip Pollock but already gestural and with a deeper affinity to surrealism than the mainline surrealists themselves.
When Davie returned from Italy, it was to try his chances in London, and later in Hertfordshire, where he worked in a studio in Rush Green. The Pollock influence was relatively short-lived because, like Pollock himself, he realised that freely brushed and dripped spontaneity, however well controlled, could only take art so far. But the Italian experience had marked out the course that Davie's career was to follow, and he was armed, too, with Paul Klee's small but influential book, On Modern Art, in which a key passage observes of the artist's role: "He neither serves nor rules – he transmits."
Initially, he made a living by designing jewellery and playing the tenor saxophone; he had taken up jazz at art college and eventually cut several discs, broadcast often, and performed in international concert halls and art galleries. He did not feel that these pursuits were at odds with his painting.
At various times, too, he taught: first, children for a while in postwar Edinburgh, then at the Central School of Art in London in the 1950s; and from 1956-59 he took up a Gregory fellowship at Leeds University – the fellowship had been founded by Peter Gregory, the creator of the art book publisher Lund Humphries which in 1967 would produce a monograph by Alan Bowness on Davie. In 1950, Davie had his first exhibition in London with Gimpel Fils, and from then on had the support of both the gallery and the family Gimpel.
What intrigued Davie, as it must every modern artist working in a society of fragmented belief, is the power maintained by the art of ancient lost civilisations of which we know little. On this basis he felt free to borrow prolifically from cultures that place high value on the mythic and poetic. A photograph in the catalogue for his Barbican retrospective showed Davie in Venezuela sitting on a rock engraved with a Carib petroglyph of 3000BC which looks remarkably like something Davie might have composed himself in the previous day or two.
Despite his unceasing search for the numinous, Davie was not necessarily a fast worker. The spontaneity, the summoning up from the deep of his mental database of images, the serendipity of happy combinations of colours – all this might exist in his gouaches, and certainly most of his drawing was swiftly executed. But the oils richly drawn out from the gouaches were often slow and deliberate.
The older Davie grew, the more satisfying the expression of his exoticism became, in a jewel-like intensity of colour. For all his sources, a Davie painting acoudl never be mistaken for anybody else's work. Many of the greater painters of the 20th century have succeeded though working out of a mishmash of oddball beliefs – Kandinsky and Mondrian among them. Davie falls into that tradition of artists who wished away the high renaissance and the enlightenment and the drift of consequent history, but whose art nevertheless prospered.
Since the 60s, Davie had owned a house near Land's End in Cornwall, and in 2003 a retrospective, Jingling Space, was held at Tate St Ives. This week a BP Spotlights display of his work opened at Tate Britain. He was appointed CBE in 1972 and elected a senior Royal Academician in 2012.
• James Alan Davie, artist, born 28 September 1920; died 5 April 2014
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Scottish-born painter who borrowed freely from ancient civilisations and believed that the ego was the enemy of true art
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/04/13/boston-mayor-martin-walsh-calls-for-fenway-center-tax-break/9uFiHNxhJZU5oDYTHtIk3M/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140417193516id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2014/04/13/boston-mayor-martin-walsh-calls-for-fenway-center-tax-break/9uFiHNxhJZU5oDYTHtIk3M/story.html
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Boston Mayor Martin Walsh calls for Fenway Center tax break
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Mayor Martin J. Walsh is proposing to give a $4.6 million tax break to one of Boston’s most ambitious developments, a $550 million project near Fenway Park that could allow him to make his first major imprint on the city’s skyline.
The tax deal is designed to jump-start the development of Fenway Center, enabling construction to start early next year on retail spaces, hundreds of apartments, and a parking garage on property that straddles the Massachusetts Turnpike.
A vote on the financing is scheduled for Thursday at a Boston Redevelopment Authority board meeting.
Fenway Center has languished for several years due to legal and permitting challenges, and its developer, John Rosenthal, has struggled to generate enough funding to move forward with the project.
But Walsh has expressed a willingness to help since his first days in office, saying the construction would generate jobs and continue a building boom that is transforming vast swaths of the city.
“This is a positive partnership that’s going to help to spur growth,” Walsh said in an interview Sunday. “The city is open for business, and we’re going to work with developers on good solid projects that can be supported by the community.”
Fenway Center would result in construction of a total of 1.3 million square feet of residential and commercial space in five buildings between Brookline Avenue and Beacon Street. It would include 420 apartments, space for stores, restaurants and offices, and nearly 1,000 parking spaces.
Plans also call for a farmers market, a bike-sharing station, multiple restaurants, and other amenities.
“We are going to cover up the highway and build a new neighborhood out of thin air,” said Rosenthal, president of Meredith Management Corp. “This is going to be where the pebble drops in terms of smart, transit-oriented, and sustainable development.”
The project is particularly costly and complex because it requires construction of a $35 million deck over the Mass. Pike to support its main parking garage as well as a 27-story tower with offices, apartments, and stores.
Rosenthal and city officials said the tax relief is structured to help fund construction of the project’s retail spaces, not its luxury apartments. The deal would reduce the project’s taxes over a six-year period during its construction and early years of operation. After its completion, Fenway Center is expected to generate about $5 million a year in taxes, and the developer would pay the state $226 million to lease the 4.5-acre development site over 99 years.
Currently, the property generates about $152,000 a year for city coffers.
The tax deal needs approval from the City Council and state economic officials, in addition to the BRA’s board.
The arrangement holds some political risk for Walsh. There is no guarantee the costly and technically complex Fenway Center will be built — even with the city’s help. The project would be the first successful development to be constructed on so-called air rights over the turnpike since Copley Place was built in the 1980s.
Such developments must be carried out while preserving access to eight lanes of highway and multiple rail lines.
The last attempt to build an air-rights project over the turnpike — a towering condominium, hotel, and retail complex known as Columbus Center — resulted in a spectacular failure; lenders pulled out financing as the economy tanked in 2007 and 2008.
Rosenthal has been working on his project since 2007. It has been delayed repeatedly, first by a long city permitting process, then by prolonged lease negotiations with the state.
After it won BRA approval in 2009, the project drew a lawsuit that tied it up for another three years, and Rosenthal has since struggled to lock down final permits and financing.
He had initially requested a $7.8 million tax break from the administration of then-mayor Thomas M. Menino, but Menino did not take action on the matter before leaving office earlier this year.
Walsh took up the matter after he arrived at City Hall, repeatedly citing Fenway Center as an example of the kind of development his administration wants to support. The two sides ironed out the tax deal during months of negotiations.
“The $7.8 million request was a little steep, but we were able to work with John to come up with a good compromise,” Walsh said.
Though the mayor’s offer is less than requested, Rosenthal said, the deal has been accepted by his primary financial backer, the international pension fund investor Bentall Kennedy, and will allow construction to proceed.
But the battle to start construction is not over. Rosenthal said it will take at least a year to finalize construction drawings, get a building permit, and complete financing arrangements with Bentall Kennedy.
That leaves the project vulnerable to changes in the economy or local real estate market that could undermine its feasibility. For example, about 8,000 apartments are expected to be completed in Boston during the next few years, an unprecedented influx of supply that has caused some to question whether development of additional units will pay off.
The tax break is tied to the onset of construction and would not be provided unless the work proceeds.
Rosenthal said he is more confident about Fenway Center’s prospects than ever. Earlier this year, a new Yawkey Commuter Rail Station was completed at the edge of the property, and the neighborhood around it has continued to attract new residents, restaurants, and stores.
“I think we’re going to be hitting the market at the right time,” Rosenthal said.
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Mayor Martin J. Walsh is proposing to give a $4.6 million tax break to one of Boston’s most ambitious developments, a $550 million project near Fenway Park that could allow him to make his first major imprint on the city’s skyline. The tax deal is designed to jump-start the development of Fenway Center, enabling construction to start early next year on new retail spaces, hundreds of apartments and a parking garage on property that straddles the Massachusetts Turnpike. A vote on the financing is scheduled for Thursday at a Boston Redevelopment Authority board meeting. Fenway Center has languished for several years due to legal and permitting challenges, and its developer, John Rosenthal, has struggled to generate enough funding to move forward with the project. But Walsh has expressed a willingness to help since his first days in office, saying its construction will generate jobs and continue a building boom that is transforming vast swaths of the city.
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Dancing with the Stars: James Maslow, Meryl Davis Get the Party Going & Drew Carey Goes Home
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By Michele Corriston and Michele Stueven
UPDATED 04/22/2014 at 06:30 AM EDT • Originally published 04/21/2014 at 10:25 PM EDT
showcased party anthems, with guest judge Redfoo from LMFAO helping to weed out the ho-hum from the fun.
and Peta Murgatroyd entered as the charmed couple after getting a
were just holding on and Drew Carey and
hoped that audience scores would prop them up for another week.
In the end, Carey's stage presence couldn't save him, and he and Burke were eliminated from the competition. A long-time fan of the show, the lovable comedian was gracious in his exit.
"I just want to say thanks for letting me borrow your dance floor, Carey said. "Thanks for all the kindness and the love."
After making up for last week's "tif" and being declared safe,
and Tony Dovoloni brought the heat with a 33-point salsa to Nelly's "Hot in Herre." Leakes even got in some sexy moves with husband Gregg in the audience.
"NeNe, you looked like an entrepreneur out there because you owned it," Redfoo said. "I say technical schmecnical, but that was hot."
Cameron Bure and Ballas proved to be in jeopardy, but the judges praised the
star for overcoming her nerves during their 32-point cha cha to "I Love It" by Icona Pop – even if her technique and showmanship still need work. "The thing is, you're sexy, you just don't know it," judge Bruno Tonioli said.
Favorites Maslow and Murgatroyd didn't disappoint with their 35-point quick step. Still, Maslow struggled with the fast, agile routine to "You're The One That I Want" from
. "John Travolta and Olivia Newton John, those are huge shoes to fill, and I think you are such a leading man," judge Carrie Ann Inaba said, though she added Maslow could be "a hair sharper on your foot work."
In the night's biggest head-scratcher,
and Valentin Chmerkovsky were also in jeopardy despite last week's high-scoring routine. The pair wowed again with a 36-point cha cha to Whitney Houston's classic "I Wanna Dance With Somebody." Tonioli called their performance the best dance of the night, and Redfoo was so animated with his praise that host Tom Bergeron dubbed him "Carrie and Bruno's love child."
and Maksim Chmerkovskiy were feeling low after scoring all nines last week instead of the perfect score they thought they deserved, but their frustration paid off: The pair's tango to "Feel So Close" by Calvin Harris earned the full 40 points. Head judge Len Goodman said Davis is the only contestant whose talent rivals Chmerkovskiy's.
"That was full of attack, that was full of purpose," he said. "You're the first celebrity that has been able to match him and keep up with him."
Carey's confidence was definitely shaken, and though Tonioli described his technique as "all over the place," all the judges appreciated his commitment to character during his 32-point tango with Burke to "Super Freak" by Rick James.
"You were the life of the party tonight," Inaba remarked, while Redfoo loved Carey's "stanky pimp face." Still, the pair ended up in jeopardy from last week.
and Sharna Burgess really brought the LMFAO spirit to the dance floor with a 36-point cha cha to "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" by C&C Music Factory – complete with a black light, glow-in-the-dark surprise that really got the rave going.
Though Goodman jokingly grumbled about that part, Inaba sang the partners praises. "You improved on your hop work tremendously. I saw it in all of your movements," she told White. "It was hot, it was sexy, it was funky."
Last but certainly not least, Amy Purdy and Derek Hough overcame a small slip-up to wow with a wedding-themed, 38-point jive to "Shout" by the Isley Brothers. "Marry me, darling, marry me," Tonioli gushed to Purdy, an Olympic snowboarder who overcame meningitis but lost both of her legs below the knee. "Seriously, this is a real-life superhero. What you have achieved, most of us would have considered impossible."
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LMFAO member Redfoo presided over the wild night, and Carey was grateful for the kindness and love he was shown
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George Clooney Quotes About Marriage and Relationships : People.com
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By Nancy Mattia & Laura Lane
04/27/2014 at 09:30 AM EDT
George Clooney at the Gravity premiere and opening of the 70th Venice Film Festival on August 28, 2013
, the British attorney he's
. Clooney has often claimed he's been happy being a bachelor – but surprise! – from the looks of it, one special lady has helped him change his mind.
Though the tight-lipped actor, who was married to actress Talia Balsam from 1989 to 1993, hasn't spoken much about his personal life or the women he's dated over the years (
, Elisabetta Canalis, and Lisa Snowdon to name a few), we found some gems. In anticipation of Clooney's impending nuptials, we gathered some of his most memorable thoughts on love and marriage. Here, a look back:
"Marriage? Who knows? I've been married. It's not something I'm looking out for," Clooney told PEOPLE in an exclusive interview when named
. "Things could always change, but it's not a consideration right now. The truth is I'm really happy. The things that are a drag in my life are so outweighed by the things that are great. I have families that I spend my days with, and friends I spend my days with, and people I care very much about. I get to do what almost no one gets to do. My life's really good."
"I think it's the most responsible thing you can do, to have kids," Clooney said. "I think it's the biggest responsibility you'll have, and it's not something to be taken lightly. I don't have that thing in me that says,'must do it'. I don't see myself ever having kids. But everything in my life has changed over periods of time ... and the world does change."
His type of woman? "All different types over the years,"
. "Everybody says this, but I'd bet sense of humor is no. 1 for me. It's certainly what's most attractive and the first thing you notice about someone. It's not the first thing you notice at 21, but it's the fist thing you notice now. You also have to have a sense of humor about my life ... It certainly has had an effect on relationships, but I would bet less effect than my own issues or insecurities. You can't really blame outside forces for things not working out. You have to take some responsibility."
"I've had some absolutely great relationships and some not so great relationships," he
. "I've been in some relationships where I've felt terribly alone. Just because you're with someone it doesn't mean you're incredibly happy and complete."
"I hate to blow your whole news story, but I was married," he
about his four-year marriage. "Yeah, so I've proven how good I was at it, and I just ... I'm allowed one."
"I don't talk about [marriage] because I don't think about it," he
. "I don't ever question other peoples' versions of how they live their lives or what they do. I understand that it's a subject of interest for people. But sometimes it exists only because it came up years ago. It becomes this conversation piece that constantly resurfaces."
"My private life is private, and I'm very happy in it," Clooney
"I haven't met her yet," Clooney
, regarding who was the greatest love of his life.
"I haven't had aspirations in that way, ever," he
about why he isn't married with kids. "I was married in 1989. I wasn't very good at it. I was quoted as saying I'll never get married again pretty much right after I got divorced and then I've never talked about it since."
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The world's most famous bachelor talks about love, divorce and the woman of his dreams
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Turner prize 2014: a deliberately difficult shortlist that will shake up art
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Not without its pleasures ... It for Others by Duncan Campbell (2013). Photograph: Duncan Campbell/Rodeo Gallery
This is an unexpected shortlist. It baffles me, and for once I'm stumped. Best known for his quasi-documentary films on Irish peace activist Bernadette Devlin and ill-fated car-maker John DeLorean, Duncan Campbell is nominated for his film installation in the Scottish pavilion at last year's Venice Biennale, It for Others. Campbell's film was concocted from a strange mix of footage: African masks and other artefacts, images of perfume bottles and snack packaging, and shots from a dance piece by British choreographer Michael Clark in which the performers, shot from above, contort themselves into the shapes of equations. Campbell's film was not without its pleasures, but was terribly long. It lost me somewhere. Bravely, and perhaps unwisely, he paired this work with a projection of Chris Marker and Alain Resnais' 1953 film Les Statues Meurent Aussi (Statues Also Die), about the commodification of African sculpture. It was all too easy to abandon Campbell for Resnais and Marker.
Also showing at Venice, film work by James Richards paired censored images in a state art library in Tokyo – imported art books in which customs officials had scratched out depictions of genitalia using sandpaper (an act that seems to be as prurient as the pictures they are trying to protect the public from), with languorous underwater footage shot by the artist with a cheap camera. Except to note the denial of pleasure in the censored images, and the sensual image-grabbing of the underwater shots, I didn't make much of this either. Richards, for me, is an unknown quantity.
I have never understood Tris Vonna-Michell's melange of film and video footage, photographs and objects, which often entail a peripatetic quest: looking for obscure French artist Henri Chopin; revisiting the sites of his own adolescent rites of passage (including a trip to Japan where he slept rough for a while); and travelling to Detroit or Leipzig (where Vonna-Michell destroyed his entire archive of photographs and student work in a shredder). This comes together in his films, photography, objects, live performance and concrete poetry – and takes a lot of unpacking.
Canadian-born, Glasgow-based Ciara Phillips is a printmaker who mostly works in silk screen and often works collaboratively. Her images flow from the wall onto banners and textiles. There are signs, abstractions, patterns, words. Great. It is her lightness that seems to be the point in a Turner shortlist that's intent on being more serious – or at least more difficult and demanding than usual. Apart from the work of Phillips, there are few concessions here to visual pleasure or the easy headlines the prize often attracts.
It's all a bit dour, and I take this as deliberate. This year's judges seem to be intent on delivering an exhibition that not only shakes things up – none of the shortlisted artists are exactly familiar to a wider audience – but also want us to struggle with meaning as much as the artists seem to do. There is also a desire to bring us work we are somewhat less familiar with than in most previous shortlists. It marks a shift – not only of artistic generations, but also of the prize itself. It's going to be hard work.
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This is a more dour list than usual, with unfamiliar names and few concessions to visual pleasure. Adrian Searle is stumped
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Chrissy Teigen to Body Bullies: Who the F-- Cares What You Think?
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05/08/2014 at 02:00 PM EDT
She's a Victoria's Secret Angel and a
– but Chrissy Teigen still has to put up with people criticizing her shape.
has a vibrant presence on
and recently shot back at the inevitable critics there who pronounced she'd put on weight.
Teigen, 28, told PEOPLE Tuesday at
in N.Y.C. that she's able to brush it off most of the time.
"The thing is, you don't even want to be mad about someone calling you fat because who the f––– cares?" she said with a shrug. "Like if somebody tells me, 'Oh, you look curvier.' That should not be a diss. The fact is, we live in a time where that is a diss."
It's not just the allegedly curvy who should be left alone, she says.
"It's horrible we can be like, 'You look so skinny,' and someone's like, '
you!' That's horrible. That's equally as horrible to me. So the time we live in, it's upsetting."
While being a famous model is the best revenge, Teigen admits the critics are hard to stomach sometimes. "It's funny to me, but sometimes when you're having a bad day, it's hurtful," she says. "You just never know."
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The model fires back at her critics to PEOPLE
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Feature: Foreign artists pierce Britart bubble in 2000 shortlist
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Rumour got it wrong for the 2000 Turner prize. No Martin Creed (the hottest tip), no return of Mark Wallinger, no bad girl Sarah Lucas.
The shortlist comes as a surprise. Painters Glenn Brown and Michael Raedecker, installation artist Tomoko Takahashi and photographer Wolfgang Tillmans make for the freshest line-up for years.
I like this list, not least because there has been too much focus on the Britishness of the YBA phenomenon, and altogether too much focus on personality in the way in which British art is discussed. Some artists have never fitted the easily packaged phenomenon, and their work does not fit the easy formula.
Britain, and particularly London, has been a great place to make art over the past decade, and the art world has seen waves of incoming artists from abroad, all but eclipsed in the public eye by the media fascination with the YBAs and the spurious promotion of Cool Britannia. It is over.
There are still questions and doubts: has Amsterdam-born Michael Raedecker, who won the first prize in last year's John Moores painting exhibition in Liverpool, really developed enough to be included?
Over and above the novel bits of sewing, the threads and woolly patches which disturb the surfaces of his otherwise somewhat reserved tonal paintings, his work seems to owe too much to Spanish painter, Miquel Barcelo, who also uses as lot of extraneous material along with paint, and to the psychological terrains of Peter Doig, a previous Turner nominee, rather than becoming thoroughly itself. He is bottom of my list.
The second painter on the shortlist, Glen Brown, is best known for his flattened versions of the expressionist, painted-from-life figure paintings of Frank Auerbach. While Raedecker strives to attain originality, Brown questions the whole idea.
He has also appropriated images by Rembrandt and Fragonard. Auerbach's work is about a kind of existential, hard-won truth, while Brown's faithful copies render the older artist's thick oil paint as though it were a trompe-l'oeil reproduction.
He has also done the reverse - making sculpted, three dimensional heads based on Auerbach's images, as though made from super-thick oil paint. There is something deathly, oddly glistening, molten and intangible about Brown's paintings, which hover between the real and the reproduction. Auerbach is said to have found it odd that someone should spend so much time and effort duplicating his works.
The Salvador Dali Foundation, on the other hand, threatened to sue the artist when Brown showed a hyper-real version of Dali's painting the Great Masturbator at the Serpentine Gallery in London some years ago. Brown's work is concerned with the differences between the experience of actual art works - with all their physicality and lumps - and their widely disseminated reproductions. Too extreme to be merely academic, Brown's intelligent paintings are a strong second runner in this year's prize.
Tomoko Takahashi's best known work is the huge, sprawling installation which filled part of the Saatchi Gallery in the New Neurotic Realism show last year. Busted photocopiers, ditched computers, old monitors, miles of electrical wiring, turntables and the detritus of the modern age filled the space. One had a sense of order and system in spite of the chaos.
Was the order to do with the original function of the objects, or was it sculptural? Did the spaghetti and trails of wiring have a purpose, or was it a kind of drawing?
Moving to Britain to escape the conservatism of Japanese society, Takahashi still relates her work to the ritual and order of the tea ceremony, as well as to the rampant consumerism of Japan. Hers is a complex relationship to technology, to consumerism, creativity and waste, which she treats as a kind of modern nature. But lots of artists have travelled this route before. A good third place.
German-born photographer Wolfgang Tillmans has the highest international profile of all the artists here. His images, casually pinned to the wall, range from snapshots of Concorde passing over his house, to large-format portraits sexy images, landscapes and still lives, flowers and pets .
Some images are highly autobiographical and personal, while an entire series, Soldiers (also on show in the British Art Show), is a display of media images of soldiers, represented by the artist as a kind of commentary on our ambivalent relationship to the armed forces.
The way he presents and juxtaposes his work is as important as the images themselves. It took me a long time to get into Tillmans's work - its apparent disregard of what makes a "good photograph". The more I see, the more the narrative unfolds, the more I realise he is dealing with shared experience.
Tillmans, I have little doubt, is the favourite for this year's Turner prize , and my favourite too.
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International composition and working background of shortlist suggests fascination with young British artists could have waned
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Narendra Modi Must Break 5 Campaign Promises to Reboot India’s Economy
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Narendra Modi won India’s national elections by a virtually unprecedented parliamentary supermajority, routing the ruling Congress Party. He pulled off this feat by overcoming his image as a militant Hindu nationalist and positioning himself as the Indian avatar of Ronald Reagan, promising to take India’s moribund economy to new heights with his formula of “maximum governance, minimum government.”
But he also made many unwise campaign promises that directly contradict his mantra. He’ll have to break at least five of them if he’s to have a prayer of delivering the growth he promised.
1. Stop Propping Up Inefficient Public Sector Companies
More than 20% of India’s economy consists of poorly run, federally owned companies. About one-third of them operate on a loss, and the rest return profits of less than 1% annually. Hence, a reformer who believes in “small government” must make aggressive privatization his top priority.
Instead, last month, Modi made the face-palm inducing statement that beating up on these companies has “done much damage” to them. He promised to fix, not sell, them by squeezing out – wait for this! — “administrative inefficiencies.” But central planners since Lenin have been trying to do just that without success.
So unless he knows something that they didn’t, he’d be doing the country a favor by putting them out of their misery.
2. Abandon Gaudy Infrastructure Projects
There is no doubt that India needs to improve its infrastructure – pathetic even by developing countries’ standards – if it wants to boost productivity and growth. (Indians joke that while the British drive on the left of the road, Indians drive on what’s left of the road.) But India is a poor country with not a lot of spare change. So a believer in “good governance” would focus, laser-like, on core public goods like sewage, water, roads and electricity. Just upgrading these to minimum international standards, according to global consulting company McKinsey, will require an investment of $1.2 trillion over 20 years, about eight times more than currently proposed.
Instead, Modi has produced an infrastructure development plan as gaudy as Liberace’s Christmas tree, complete with “bullet trains in four directions.” The bullet train or high-speed rail concept was obviously calculated to pander to India’s chauvinistic desire to keep up with China. But these rails are white elephants on which China’s autocrats spend unsustainable amounts because they rarely pay for themselves, my Reason Foundation colleague Baruch Feigenbaum points out. So Modi would be better off abandoning them along with his other loopy plans for smart cities and elite universities.
Modi’s stump speeches repeatedly, and rightly, reminded voters that the Congress Party’s game of “vote-bank politics” – handing welfare subsidies to special constituencies to win votes – was ruining the country without improving living standards. Modi’s solution? More subsidies.
He was totally on board with Congress’ scheme to guarantee 100 days of income to rural families without an employed male –- a massive disincentive to work. True, he did criticize the Food Security Act that handled means-tested food assistance. But why? Because it wasn’t generous enough. He has pledged to guarantee farmers 50% profits, something that even Congress couldn’t bring itself to do.
Worse, his party’s platform proposed to add the Right to Health to the long list of rights that the departing party has already put on the books.
If Modi really wants live up to his billing as a Reagan-like reformer rather than becoming the second coming of Jimmy Carter, he ought to get rid of these programs, replacing them with a scaled back direct cash-transfer scheme that hands poor people a lump sum to spend as they see fit. This will have a better shot of reaching the pockets of intended beneficiaries rather than corrupt bureaucrats.
4. Let in Big Box Foreign Retailers
One of the few politically difficult reforms that Congress enacted was allowing foreign supermarkets such as Walmart to own a majority stake in local retail stores. India’s $500 billion retail industry is among the most backward in the world and could badly use an infusion of capital and expertise to modernize itself.
However, Modi, this fearless reformer who prides himself on having attracted a record amount of foreign investment in Gujarat, agreed to scrap this law. Why? Because it threatened millions of small mom-and-pop storeowners, his party’s core base.
In the last few days, he’s started reversing course, telling storeowners to treat globalization as an opportunity, not a threat. That’s a tune he should keep humming.
5. Keep Inflation Hawk Raghuram Rajan as India’s Central Banker
After experiencing heady growth for about a decade, India has been in the grip of soul-sapping stagflation, with inflation outpacing GDP growth by a factor of two. Congress had wisely invited University of Chicago’s Raghuram Rajan to head the Reserve Bank, India’s equivalent of the Fed, to tackle inflation.
But Modi has been sending mixed signals about whether he’ll keep Rajan. That’s because Rajan might insist on an inflation-targeting regime. This will mean keeping interest rates high until inflation has been slashed from the current 9% to 4% or so.
However, this will make government borrowing to finance Modi’s gaudy infrastructure plans — as well as private borrowing for capital investments — much more difficult. The latter, sadly, is at an 11-year low, severely crimping jobs and growth.
Modi is admittedly between a rock and a hard place on this. But Reagan, his role model, allowed the central bank to first squeeze out inflation, and so should Modi.
He could raise funds for needed, not feel-good, infrastructure projects by eliminating wasteful subsidies, selling off inefficient public companies and inviting foreign investment, which is all the more reason to break the other four promises.
Shikha Dalmia is a senior policy analyst at Reason Foundation. The views expressed are solely her own.
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The newly elected Prime Minister will have to reverse course on some campaign pledges if he wants to turn around India's economy.
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Dancing with the Stars Recap: One Couple Eliminated on First Night of Finals
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05/19/2014 at 09:45 PM EDT
James Maslow and Peta Murgatroyd
It was the first night of finals on Monday's two-part
– and the last night for one couple.
After weeks of participating in one of the most competitive seasons, three couples moved on to vie for the mirror ball trophy Tuesday night. Read on to find out who didn't make it.
In a show that saw a hot smooch from
pulling off two dances effortlessly, at the end of the evening, it was the lip-locking pair who got sent home.
"I've really had an amazing experience on this," Maslow said after learning his fate. "I enjoyed it more than I ever thought was possible."
Murgatroyd gushed, "He was absolutely amazing."
The duo kicked off the night with a sexy 29-point tango during which they shared a kiss on the mouth. The judges liked it for the most part, but judge Carrie Ann Inaba said the musician looked uptight.
Next up, Meryl Davis and Maksim Chmerkovskiy danced an elegant Argentine tango that the judges called perfection and scored them as such with 30 points out of 30.
danced a 27-point quickstep with
Ballas that had Inaba saying she was "surprised and totally impressed."
Consistent stunners Amy Purdy and Derek Hough wowed yet again with a 30-point salsa.
"Every week I'm baffled by you," raved Inaba.
Murgatroyd and Maslow kicked off the most fun part of the night: the freestyle dances. Their martial arts hip-hop routine scored a 29. Inaba called Maslow "the most versatile" contestant this season.
Chmerkovskiy and Davis's perfect-scoring contemporary freestyle made them the only entirely perfect-scoring couple of the night.
"First of all, I think you should get married," Inaba told the pair while crying over the beauty of the routine. "What you did there was the most stunning example of divinity in motion."
Len Goodman raved, "There's good, there's great and there's Meryl."
That powerful routine was followed by a panned 24-point space-age-themed number by Bure and Ballas.
"I don't feel like you connected with the music," Inaba told Bure, with Bruno Tonioli agreeing, "You've got to be on that beat."
Purdy and Hough's 29-point freestyle was called "profound" by Inaba, but Goodman didn't think the gravity-defying rope move was necessary.
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The night included a sexy kiss and one couple getting a completely perfect score
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X-Men Days of Future Past Ellen Page Q&A: Bryan Singer and Hollywood
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For an actor, promoting a movie usually requires spending a lot of time talking about his or her character and the world of the film. And, in this week’s TIME, Ellen Page does just that for the new X-Men: Days of Future Past (in theaters this weekend), discussing the way the movie’s worldview meshes with her own and why she might use mutant powers to see what it’s like to be Jay Z.
But sometimes, a movie release coincides with real-life events, and in X-Men‘s case, that something happens to be the recent suit against director Bryan Singer, who has been accused of sexually abusing a minor. (On Wednesday, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Singer filed a motion to dismiss. In a recent cover story for the same publication, Page said that those accusations against Singer were “disturbing” and that “the truth will come out in the way that it does.” But, she told TIME, no matter ends up happening with Singer’s case, there’s a larger issue that we should be talking about instead:
TIME: I read what you’ve said about the allegations against Bryan Singer, and I wonder what’s it like to be asked about those accusations…
Ellen Page: When it has nothing to do with me?
Page: It’s part of this world and it’s part of what we do and it’s the same with Woody [Allen, who directed Page in To Rome with Love] or whatever. I’ve worked with this person and I happen to be in the movie that’s coming out right now, so of course someone will ask about it. What could I possibly say about it? These are accusations and it’s awful and we’ll find out when we find out, when the process happens. I do think that all of Bryan’s situation aside, I do think there is a systemic problem. Any time young people are in places with people of power around, I do think that’s an important thing to talk about.
Page: In general and in Hollywood, yeah.
TIME: Is that something you’ve experienced personally?
Page: I grew up on film sets, so yes. I’ve never had any situation that is anything too, you know, but people are creepy and try to manipulate young people and luckily I never had anything too drastic happen.
Such power imbalances, and their “creepy” consequences, have often been seen as a problem that mostly affects those for whom the imbalance is greatest; as my colleague Kate Pickert explained when the Singer scandal first broke, advocates say that the aspirants who have the most to gain and lose are the ones most in danger of predatory quid-pro-quo transactions. But, if Page’s observations hold true across her industry, it sounds like the problem isn’t limited to careers that have yet to break through.
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Those in power often manipulate younger people, the actress says
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Google and Netflix Are Teaming Up Against Internet Providers
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In its heated debate with Comcast over who should pay for the delivery of online content to customers’ homes, Netflix just got a big co-sign from Google. In a blog post published Wednesday, Google said that it doesn’t charge companies like Netflix for a direct interconnection to its Fiber Internet network. Such connections are necessary to deliver online content across the so-called “last mile” of the Internet to users’ computers. Netflix has paid other ISPs, such as Comcast and Verizon, to establish a direction interconnection to their networks and boost streaming speeds.
“We don’t make money from peering or colocation,” a Google Fiber official wrote in the post. “Since people usually only stream one video at a time, video traffic doesn’t bog down or change the way we manage our network in any meaningful way — so why not help enable it?”
Google’s argument is essentially the same as Netflix’s—that Internet service providers have already agreed to provide customers download speeds at a certain rate and should honor those deals without also charging content companies to meet those speeds. Companies like Comcast argue that there are costs associated with delivering the large amount of video data Netflix carries into people’s homes, and Netflix should bear those costs instead of everyone that uses a given ISP. Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler has said that the FCC will look into Netflix’s complaints regarding paid peering agreements.
Though Google Fiber is an ISP that could theoretically make more money charging companies like Netflix, it’s a minuscule part of Google’s business that is mostly aimed at shaming traditional Internet providers like Comcast into building faster networks (faster Internet means more Google searches, which means more advertisements served). Free peering deals are another opportunity for Google to attempt to set a standard that other ISPs might follow. Larger parts of Google’s business, such as YouTube, would greatly benefit from a future where content companies don’t have to pay ISPs to guarantee their content streams speedily in customers’ homes.
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In its heated debate with Comcast over who should pay for the delivery of online content to customers' homes, Netflix just got a big co-sign from Google.
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E.U. Elections: Far-Right Gains Cause Concern
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Far-right and Euroskeptic party gains across Europe in Sunday’s European Parliament elections have caused alarm among supporters of a closely integrated E.U.
European Parliament President Martin Schulz described the result as “a bad day for the European Union,” while French President François Hollande announced Monday talks immediately labeled a “crisis meeting” by local media.
Henri Malosse, the president of the European Economic and Social Committee, warned that “this may be the last European election if Europe does not change.”
Parties opposed to the E.U. made notable gains in staggered voting that began last Thursday. Marine Le Pen, leader of the French rightist National Front — the big winner in France with 26% of the vote — claimed the result showed that French voters demanded politics “of the French, for the French, with the French.”
“The sovereign people have proclaimed that they want to take back the reins of their destiny into their hands,” she said.
At the same time, the reluctance of Euroskeptic parties to work with the far-right shows that they are careful not to entirely alienate mainstream voters. The fiercely anti-E.U. United Kingdom Independence Party (more commonly known by its initials UKIP) is projected to win the U.K. elections but has already ruled out cooperating with the ultra-right National Front, a British party whose founder recently suggested that the Ebola virus might prove a solution to the immigration problem.
The leader for the Euroskeptic Alternative for Germany, Bernd Lucke, sent out the same message. “We won’t work with right-wing populists,” Lucke told Associated Press.
Far-right parties lost ground in the Netherlands but made significant gains in Denmark and Greece. Simon Usherwood, an expert on European politics at the University of Surrey in England, told CNN that extremist groups stood to benefit in the coming five years.
“They will get time for speaking in debates, the chairmanship of certain committees, which means that they’re going to have much more of a platform on which they can sell their message to voters,” he said.
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Although mainstream parties remain in control, significant gains made by Euroskeptic and anti-immigrant party wins in last week's elections to the European Parliament have raised fears of increasing isolationism within the E.U.
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See Children Recite Her Best Poetry : People.com
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20140530003012
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UPDATED 05/29/2014 at 12:25 PM EDT • Originally published 05/28/2014 at 12:55 PM EDT
's death, the news has also given us
The acclaimed author, who died Wednesday morning at the age of 86, touched the lives of many through her work, which included the groundbreaking memoir
and decades of political activism.
But of all of Angelou's varied accomplishments, it was likely her poetry that earned the writer her youngest fans. Simple, lyrical and emphatic, Angelou's verses were as easy to learn as they were hard to forget.
To honor Angelou's memory, let's look at her work as filtered through the joy and self-assurance of a younger generation.
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Throughout her career, the acclaimed author's words inspired a younger generation
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Levi Johnston, Wife Expecting Second Child Together
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06/01/2014 at 12:45 PM EDT
and his wife Sunny Oglesby are expecting their second child together,
According to TMZ, the couple announced the news to family and friends by sending out a photo of the two dining on spaghetti with a "we're" sign added to a jar of Prego sauce.
Breeze Beretta – named for an Italian
– Johnston and Oglesby tied the knot in October 2012 in Wasilla, Alaska.
Johnston, 24, is also dad to
Bristol Palin. In November, he
, petitioning for at least equal custody of the former couple's only child.
At the time, Palin's attorney noted that Johnston owed about $66,000 in back child support.
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Johnston and his wife announced the pregnancy with a photo of Prego spaghetti sauce
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On National Doughnut Day, Dunkin’ has a deal for you
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Photo taken from the Dunkin’ website
What March 17th is to green beer and riot uncouth, what Dec. 31 is to noisemakers and party hats, the first Friday of June is to bakers and doughnut-meisters.
In the culinary calendar, the first Friday of June --- a.k.a. today --- is when discerning gourmets celebrate National Doughnut Day. And it goes without saying that Dunkin’ Donuts is very much on board with the holiday program.
And so is Wall Street, for that matter. At the Nasdaq Stock Market, where the shares of Dunkin’s corporate parent are listed, Dunkin’ is scheduled to ring the opening bell. What’s more, for one day, and one day only, Nasdaq will unofficially change its name to NasDDaq. Or so Dunkin’ claims.
And it won’t be just plutocrats who will be surfeiting themselves on sinkers and Boston creams. This is a holiday for all the people.
In a press release, Canton-based Dunkin’ added that it is “serving guests a free donut of their choice (while supplies last) with the purchase of any beverage. The offer is good all day today at participating Dunkin’ Donuts restaurants nationwide.”
The chain, which has nearly 11,000 restaurants in 33 countries, is using the holiday occasion to give a shout-out to one of its newest offerings --- the Blueberry Cobbler Donut. According to the chain, this yeast shell doughnut includes such ingredients as blueberry filling, white dipping icing, and coffee cake streusel topping.
Legend has it that National Doughnut Day is the creation of the Chicago Salvation Army, which wished to salute the women who served doughnuts to Doughboys about to decamp to the battlefields of World War I.
• Dunkin’ launches Spanish language Twitter account
• Dunkin’ Donuts debuts chicken flatbread
• Honey Dew’s promotion features ‘the ultimate in donut decadence’
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In honor of National Doughnut Day, Dunkin’ is giving away a free doughnut to customers who buy a beverage.
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Tracy Morgan in intensive care in N.J. hospital after multi-vehicle crash; truck driver charged
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NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Actor and comedian Tracy Morgan was critically injured Saturday after a tractor-trailer rammed into his chauffeured limousine bus, setting off a chain-reaction crash that left one member of his entourage dead and two others seriously hurt, authorities said.
A truck driver from Georgia was charged with death by auto in connection to the crash, prosecutors said. Middlesex County prosecutors said 35-year-old Kevin Roper, of Jonesboro, also faces four counts of assault by auto stemming from the crash. His bail was set at $50,000, and he was expected to turn himself in later Saturday. It wasn’t immediately clear if he had an attorney.
Morgan, the former ‘‘Saturday Night Live’’ and ‘‘30 Rock’’ cast member, was returning from a standup comedy show in Delaware when his Mercedes limo bus carrying seven people overturned on the New Jersey Turnpike near Cranbury Township at about 1 a.m., state police Sgt. 1st Class Greg Williams said.
James McNair, 62, of Peekskill, New York, a passenger in the limo bus, died at the scene, Williams said. Morgan, 45, and Jeffrey Millea, 36, of Shelton, Connecticut, were flown from the accident scene to Robert Wood Johnson Hospital, where they were in critical condition, hospital spokesman Peter Haigney said.
A fourth passenger, comedian Ardie Fuqua Jr., was also in critical condition, while a fifth passenger, comic Harris Stanton, was treated and released, Haigney said. Two others in the limo were unhurt, including the driver.
Morgan remains in the intensive care unit at the hospital.
‘‘His family is now with him and he is receiving excellent care,’’ spokesman Lewis Kay said in a statement. ‘‘We don’t anticipate much of a change in his condition today but will provide a further update once more information becomes available.’’
Williams said the tractor-trailer driver apparently failed to notice slow traffic ahead and swerved at the last minute in a vain attempt to avoid a crash. But it smashed into the back of the limo, prompting a chain-reaction crash with a second tractor-trailer, an SUV and two cars.
The National Transportation Safety Board said it was working with state police to look at any issues in the crash related to commercial trucking and limousine safety.
Morgan’s limo was owned by Atlantic Transportation Services, which said it had one employee behind the wheel and a second in the front passenger seat.
‘‘Although the investigation is still pending, we concur with the preliminary reports that the accident was caused by another vehicle traveling behind the Atlantic limo bus,’’ the Rehoboth Beach, Delaware-based company said. ‘‘We are grateful that our drivers did not sustain life-threatening injuries.’’
Walmart President Bill Simon issued a statement that said one of the firm’s trucks was involved in the accident. While noting that the crash remains under investigation, Simon said ‘‘Walmart will take full responsibility’’ if authorities determine that the company’s truck caused the accident.
‘‘We’re praying for the family and friends of the passenger who lost his life in the terrible accident’’ the statement said. ‘‘Our hearts go out to everyone involved and we hope those who were injured get the care that they need and make a full recovery.’’
Morgan performed comedy standup Friday night at Dover Downs Hotel & Casino. His scheduled appearance at the Fillmore Charlotte in North Carolina on Saturday night was canceled.
Fuqua had tweeted that he was opening for Morgan on Friday. On his Instagram page, Fuqua included a collage of photos from the Delaware show.
‘‘This is what it looks like from the stage to see a standing ovation from 1500 people,’’ Fuqua wrote at around midnight Friday. ‘‘Then we traveled back to NYC in style in a luxury Mercedes Sprinter. Road life is a good life!’’
Morgan, a New York City native, joined ‘‘SNL’’ in 1996 and was on the sketch-comedy program for seven years before leaving to star in ‘‘The Tracy Morgan Show’’ in 2003. That show lasted just one season. In 2006, Morgan found a long-running role on NBC’s hit show ‘‘30 Rock,’’ which was created by ‘‘SNL’’ co-star Tina Fey. He received an Emmy nomination for best supporting actor for ‘‘30 Rock’’ in 2009.
Morgan grew up fatherless, one of five siblings, in a blighted section of Brooklyn, where he helped raise and support the family.
He once called his gift for being funny ‘‘a defense mechanism’’ for his miserable circumstances. As a teen, he started doing comedy on the streets to supplement the family’s welfare income.
His tough upbringing informed his humor.
‘‘My aunt was a crackhead,’’ he told his Brooklyn audience in a recent special aired on Comedy Central. ‘‘I remember one Christmas she bought me a Game Boy. Then she stole it. Then she helped me look for it.’’
In recent years, he has struggled with alcoholism and drunken driving arrests. He had a successful kidney transplant in late 2010.
Morgan’s films include ‘‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,’’ ‘'The Longest Yard,’’ ‘'First Sunday,’’ ‘'Rio’’ and ‘‘Why Stop Now.’’
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NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Actor and comedian Tracy Morgan was critically injured Saturday after a tractor-trailer rammed into his chauffeured limousine bus, setting off a chain-reaction crash that left one member of his entourage dead and two others seriously hurt, authorities said.
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Marina Abramović's technology hijack makes gadget-mad Brits go cold turkey
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Marina's house … 'there will be some props.' Photograph: Mike Mcgregor
The legendary performance artist Marina Abramović has extremely soft, warm, dry hands. I know because I was plucked from a frankly terrified-looking crowd of arts journalists and critics at her preview performance in the Serpentine Gallery, led slowly across the floor, and turned gently to face the wall. She murmured softly in my left ear, stroked my back reassuringly, and left.
Nobody was quite sure, including me, what my status as living work of art was then – was I silenced, immobilised, off limits? Just one colleague came to ask me what she had said, too quietly for any other ear. He looked understandably disappointed at the answer: "10 minutes."
Standing there for 10 minutes was a discomfiting experience. Members of the public who dare are invited to join her in the London gallery for the 512 hours – eight hours a day for 64 days – she will be in residence from 11 June.
The Serbian-born, New York-based artist, who has jokingly dubbed herself "the grandmother of performance art" after a career lasting more than 40 years, will personally open the gallery door at 10am each morning, and lock it again at 6pm each evening.
"We like to say at the Serpentine 'not our house but your house'," director Julia Peyton-Jones said, "but in this particular case it is not our house but Marina's house."
Nobody, including the artist, quite knows what will happen after she opens the door: one group of art lovers who met when they repeatedly visited one of her earlier shows are still meeting up for monthly lunches.
The white gallery spaces will be completely bare, though she will have some simple props hidden away, including folding chairs and tables. Her visitors will enter through a decompression chamber from the 21st century: all cameras, recorders, tablets, smart phones and digital watches must be stowed in lockers, and the "house full" sign will go up when all 160 lockers are full.
Once in, visitors can stay for three minutes or three hours. The curious, the baffled, the cynics, the sad and lonely are very welcome, but not those high on anything except art: "People who are drunk or drugged will be removed because I cannot deal with that," she said.
She has been in training and has lost weight for the performance, during which she will have no meal breaks, but she hopes to keep going on the nightly services of a cook, a masseur and a Pilates teacher – "but I will be allowed to go and pee," she said.
She will also also have a shifting team of black-clad helpers, described as "guards" not assistants, and drawn mainly from performance and arts students who have themselves been through intensive training.
Two came, with kind casualness, to check I was feeling OK when my 10 minutes were up.
Abramović has performed all over the world and made a particularly famous piece, The Artist is Present, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 2010, when over three months the public was invited to come, sit opposite her and gaze directly into her eyes.
However, she admitted that she was "terrified" of the British audience. "You are cynical, you like bad jokes, and you drink too much at the weekend."
"The only way to win through is to be extremely vulnerable and humble myself. In the second month you will say 'Oh my God she is still there', and then in the third month you start to be very kind and gentle to me."
It is 17 years since Peyton-Jones had lunch with her at the Venice Biennale, and invited her to come to the Serpentine. At one point Abramović actually had a retrospective completely planned and ready to ship, when she decided it was wrong, that she should make a new work for the space.
"Our life is so busy now," she said. "Because of all the technology our concentration is a disaster case. Life is short, art should be longer."
• Marina Abramović, 512 hours, Serpentine Gallery, London W2, 11 June to 25 August (closed 1 and 2 July). Watch nightly diary broadcasts by the artist at midnight on www.thespace.org and www.serpentinegalleries.org
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She may be 'terrified' of cynical, boozy British audiences, but legendary performance artist Marina Abramović will open up the Serpentine gallery to them for the next three months. Visitors will be forced to leave their tech at the door, and no one, including the artist, knows what will happen, writes Maev Kennedy
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Amal Alamuddin, George Clooney's Fiancee, Shows Off Midriff in London : People.com
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20140616035804
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06/14/2014 at 02:25 PM EDT
And, apparently, she's not afraid to do a little showing off of her own.
flaunted her fit figure in a white midriff crochet top and floral printed jeans in London on Friday.
And we don't think Clooney would object.
With her coffee and keys in one hand, Alamuddin, 36, used her other hand – featuring that now famous
Clooney used to propose – to clutch a camo bag.
Alamuddin's after-hours attire is the perfect balance to
or a day of pampering, it seems as if Clooney's fiancée is never without her staple accessory: a pair of oversize shades.
The Lebanese-born beauty, who was reportedly on her way to a facial, attended the
on Thursday, and she signed a petition asking world leaders to denounce the mistreatment of women and children in war zones.
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George Clooney's fiancée bares her midriff while stepping out on Friday
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See Stunned Reaction Of Fans In Mississippi Bar After Portugal Ties U.S.
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20140625234138
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"I believe that we will win!"
The energized chant fizzled across the United States as American soccer fans watched the national team's 2-1 lead vanish in the final minute Sunday against Portugal.
Silvestre Varela's late goal off the cross by Cristiano Ronaldo tied the World Cup match at 2-2. The 94' goal ruined the Americans' chance to clinch a spot in the elimination round with a win over Portugal.
This video captures the range of Americans’ emotions, from jubilance to dejection, as Portugal stunned the U.S. with just seconds left on the clock. (Audio advisory: There is some NSFW language in this video so set your speakers appropriately.)
Though the end of the game may have felt like a loss to fans, team USA can take away many positives from the draw. USMNT overcame an early mistake that lead to Nani's 5' goal by answering with two goals of its own.
With Jermaine Jones scoring on a rocket in the 64’ and Clint Dempsey scoring in the 81' the US also showed more versatility and offensive firepower, especially without key striker Jozy Altidore.
Heading into Thursday's group match, the U.S. needs to continue to raise the level of its play to win or draw against Germany, which would advance the Americans to the round of 16 for the first time in consecutive World Cups.
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VIDEO OF THE DAY:How UFC Added Bruce Lee To Video Game
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"I believe that we will win!"
The energized chant fizzled across the United States as American soccer fans watched the national team...
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Hope Solo Apologizes for 'Highly Unfortunate Incident' That Led to Arrest
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06/27/2014 at 08:20 AM EDT
in court, Hope Solo has publicly apologized for her involvement in the
last weekend that left the U.S. soccer goalie facing charges of domestic violence.
"I would like to apologize to my fans, teammates, coaches, marketing partners and the entire US Soccer and Seattle Reign FC communities for my involvement in a highly unfortunate incident this past weekend," Solo, 32,
"I understand that, as a public figure, I am held to a higher standard of conduct. I take seriously my responsibilities as a role model and sincerely apologize to everyone I have disappointed."
– who police say hit her sister and her 17-year-old nephew while intoxicated at her sister's house outside Seattle last Saturday – spoke of her family directly in the apology.
"I love my family dearly," she wrote. "We, like all families, have our challenges but my sincere hope is that we are able to resolve this situation as a family. Adversity has always made us stronger and I know this situation will be no different."
The Seattle Reign FC and the U.S. Women's National Team goalkeeper also thanked fans for their support, and added: "I am confident in the legal process and believe my name will be cleared."
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Yet the U.S. soccer star believes the domestic violence charges were unwarranted
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See Brian Miner Confront Illinois State Trooper : People.com
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UPDATED 07/01/2014 at 04:05 PM EDT • Originally published 07/01/2014 at 01:45 PM EDT
The roles that normally govern police-civilian interactions were reversed recently when a trucker pulled over an Illinois state trooper for allegedly driving over the speed limit while using a cell phone.
, driver Brian Miner videotaped a trooper he says passed him while he was going 65 mph in a 70 mph zone. Miner followed the trooper and began honking his horn until the cop pulled over.
The video, recorded surreptitiously from the truck's cab, shows the two men arguing over Miner's right to pull the officer over.
from laws banning the use of handheld cell phones while driving. As for the alleged speeding, the trooper told Miner he was obeying the speed limit, while the trucker swore the officer was going "well over 70."
The video's tense standoff came to a head when Miner revealed that he had been videotaping the officer. Suddenly the trucker, who moments before had been on the verge of receiving a ticket for using his horn improperly, got off with just a warning.
For anyone wondering if they can follow in Miner's footsteps, the ACLU has written
. (One note: They do not recommend trying to pull them over.)
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Trucker Brian Miner used his horn to signal an Illinois state trooper he thought was driving too fast
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http://abcnews.go.com/2020/video/family-hell-live-nanny-24533127
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Family in 'Hell' Because of Former Live-In Nanny
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20140713044510
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Tonight, a "20/20" exclusive. That so-called nightmare nanny breaking her silence for the first time right here. And as we come on the air, nick watt and our "20/20" team just back from California....
Tonight, a "20/20" exclusive. That so-called nightmare nanny breaking her silence for the first time right here. And as we come on the air, nick watt and our "20/20" team just back from California. And there are two sides to the story with two big questions. Both coming down to real estate and the roof over your head. Why does the nanny have a legal right to stay in the house after being fired? Who's really looking after your kids? Here's nick watt. Reporter: Marcella and Ralph Bracamonte worked hard for their American dream, a home, three kids and happiness. High five. Reporter: Now, they say, they're living an American nightmare. She's trying to get us on a lock out. It's a setup. We're going through pure hell. Reporter: And they blame the nanny. I fear we could lose everything. I fear that. Our livelihoods. I fear that she knows this game well enough that every word that she says is going to be meant to impact us as hard as possible. Reporter: They say they fired the live-in nanny, but the nanny won't leave. She said, "If you want me to leave then you're going to need to evict me," and slammed the door in my face. Reporter: The woman they hired, the woman they once trusted with their children, still has a key to their home, still has a room in their house. This attorney is now representing the Bracamontes. She can come in anytime and that's fine. That's correct. Reporter: The Bracamontes say they sleep with one ear open. I hear something move and I get up and I walk out. I don't care if I come face to face with her. She should not be roaming in my home. Reporter: Joey, their eldest, is 11. You feel scared in your bed at night? Yeah. I wake up in the middle of the night and I just sit there listening to the sounds. Reporter: It all began when Marcella, who wanted to start her own business, posted a want ad on craigslist, offering room and board in exchange for house cleaning and caring for my kids. Help out with the kids when needed, to pick up little things, and maybe prep up a little bit of dinner if she was running a little bit late. Reporter: 64-year-old Diane stretton answered the ad. Her references checked out. She seemed nice. That's her room. This is her bathroom. Reporter: She moved in March 4th. We wanted the person that we first met. She was awesome. She was part of our family. The person that we first met. It wasn't even like a job. Reporter: Ralph Sr. Made Diane dinner on mother's day. She attended family gatherings, tutored their 4-year-old. But big brother joey says all was not as it seemed. Reporter: When your parents weren't around, did she act different? Yeah. When my parents left us, she would just tell us to go in our room. And I was telling my mom, but she wouldn't believe me. Reporter: A couple of weeks in, his parents also began having doubts. She was absolutely part of our family. Then she changed. She refused to perform. Reporter: Marcella says staying in her room, demanding meals, refusing to work. Marcella claims she gave the nanny verbal warnings, finally penning a "Last chance letter," laying down some new ground rules. "Help with all duties that I do. Cleaning, cooking, trips with kids, and anything else mother asks. If you don't see anything for you to do, find something. Either Friday or Saturday, I want you to steam clean all floors." Diane refused to sign. So that's when you realized that you might have a bit of a problem here? Oh, yeah. And I already saw it from her face that she knew exactly what she was doing. Reporter: Marcella claims she fired Diane June 6th. Diane refused to get out, and that's when the fear set in. Call me paranoid. I got to keep my family safe. Reporter: Every night, Marcella puts a lock on her own refrigerator. I'm scared she's going to put my house on fire. She's going to poison us. She's going to steal things. She's going to come in my room and do a whole thing on me, I don't know. I don't know who she is. And so I've been scared. Reporter: Neighbors on this friendly street rallied around the family. I googled her, and I'll never forget that face. Reporter: What does she want? She wants to feel superior of somebody. It's an ego thing. Reporter: She wants money? She wants to scare you? What do you think it is? Scaring us, money. Reporter: Marcella took her nanny to court to throw her out, only to find that tenants have rights. And the nanny is a tenant. Barbara Corcoran of shark tank fame has some words of wisdom. When you invite someone to move into your home, you should be well aware that they don't have to move out. Reporter: Marcella contacted the media. And Diane, caught in the spotlight, disappeared, leaving her belongings behind, but taking a key with her. She can come in the house anytime. She could walk in tonight. Ralph says he's scared when he leaves for work. It's put a stress on my family. It's put a stress on me. I try not to work as much because I'm afraid something could happen when I'm gone. Reporter: So that's her room, and -- That's my son's room, right here. Reporter: By law, the Bracamontes can't even enter the nanny's room in their own home, a home they own. Ralphy, do you understand? Yeah. What did I just tell you to do? Not open the door. Why? Because we could get in serious trouble. The way she's trying to come off now, it's really sad to me because -- I really don't think we need to defend ourselves because -- Well, let me talk. Her past is herself. Let me talk. Reporter: It's put a stress on the Bracamontes' marriage. This is real and people torment people like this for fun. That may be your thing. But I got three kids I got to worry about, too. And I don't want to keep on putting them through this. Reporter: There was a media scrum outside 24/7, but "20/20" was inside, on the couch, with the family as the drama unfolded. She is saying because of her disability and the heat, she needs to do it in the morning. Reporter: She'll leave for good, she says, but only if the Bracamontes meet her demands, like Marcella and the three kids getting out of their own home every day between 8:00 A.M. And 5:00 P.M. For a month. If not, possible legal action. She says she could be out by July 4th. No. No. No. We can't do that because we'll be out of town. No, she needs to be out. And if no one is here, she could do a forced lockout. Reporter: She didn't lock the Bracamontes out, but she also didn't move her stuff out, or surrender her key. She stays away. And we found her in her car. This is my car. It's where I've been sleeping. It's where I slept before. Reporter: You see, before she moved in with the Bracamontes, Diane stretton was homeless. She'd lived in her car eight years.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
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Ralph and Marcella Bracamonte say they fear they could lose everything because of Diane Stretton.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/07/10/harpoon-brewery-chief-executive-steps-aside-company-becomes-esop/CzpcFr5qkbJw0GZTcCrhrK/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140714102258id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2014/07/10/harpoon-brewery-chief-executive-steps-aside-company-becomes-esop/CzpcFr5qkbJw0GZTcCrhrK/story.html
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Harpoon Brewery chief executive steps aside as company becomes an ESOP
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20140714102258
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The Harpoon Brewery, founded in 1986 on the Boston waterfront by Dan Kenary and Rich Doyle, said Thursday that it will become an employee-owned company as of Aug. 1, with Doyle handing over the role of chief executive to Kenary.
Several of the Boston-based brewer’s shareholders sold 48 percent of its stock shares to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP, a kind of trust account for employees. Harpoon said it has 187 full-time workers at its operations in Boston and Windsor, Vt., all of whom will receive shares in the company, said Kenary, who currently manages Harpoon’s operations and finances. The price paid for the minority stake in the company was not disclosed.
“ESOP ownership is a great fit for our industry,” Kenary said. He said senior managers had discussed succession plans for more than two years and turned down several offers from private bidders.
The announcement came as a surprise to Harpoon employees who gathered at the company’s headquarters for a Tuesday evening meeting. Chris Bonacci, a brand manager who has worked for Harpoon for 11 years, said he and other employees would be learning a great deal about the implications of employee ownership over the next week. Still, he said, he expected it to build on the camaraderie among employees.
“In some ways, it’s a big change for us,” Bonacci said. “In some way it’s not much of a change at all.”
With its conversion, Harpoon, the nation’s 12th-largest craft brewery by volume, becomes one of a handful of breweries across the country controlled by employees. Although Kenary declined to discuss financial information, he said Harpoon brewed 205,000 barrels of beer last year and is growing at about 12 percent per year.
Kenary said the company learned more about ESOPs from other New England companies that are organized similarly, including Web Industries in Marlborough, King Arthur Flour in Norwich, Vt., and Hypertherm, a welding equipment manufacturer in Hanover, N.H.
About 6,900 ESOPs are registered with the government, said Loren Rodgers, the executive director of the Oakland, Calif.-based National Center for Employee Ownership. He added that employee-owned companies with an “ownership culture” tended to see increased growth and that breweries were fertile ground for successful ESOPs.
“Individual employees can make a difference in a brewery,” Rodgers said.
Harpoon’s ESOP took out loans to purchase its shares, but Kenary said the loans would be paid back by the brewery, not the employees, over the next five to seven years. After that, he said, the company hoped to transition to complete employee ownership.
“We’ve always been about inclusion and community,” he added. “The great thing for employees is that they don’t pay a penny.”
Kenary, who is 53, said the remaining 52 percent of the company is held by himself, four senior managers, and two outside directors.
Doyle sold all his shares to the ESOP, while a few other shareholders sold portions of their stock, Kenary said.
Doyle, also 53, will assume a part-time role at the brewery, focusing on key marketing and sales initiatives as well as new business development, Harpoon said in a press release. No other changes in the management structure are planned, Harpoon also said.
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The Harpoon Brewery will become an employee-owned company, with cofounder Rich Doyle handing over the CEO role to cofounder Dan Kenary. Several of the Boston-based brewer’s shareholders sold 48 percent of its stock shares to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, or ESOP, a kind of trust account for employees. Harpoon said it has 187 full-time workers at its operations in Boston and Windsor, Vt., all of whom will receive shares in the company, said Kenary, who currently manages Harpoon’s operations and finances. The price paid for the minority stake in the company was not disclosed. “ESOP ownership is a great fit for our industry,” Kenary said. He said senior managers had discussed succession plans for more than two years, and turned down several offers from private bidders.
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49ers' tackle Joe Staley gets extension through 2019
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20140718083714
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Joe Staley's career with the 49ers will span the team's transition from Candlestick Park to Levi's Stadium - and beyond. The three-time All-Pro offensive tackle might well be a 49er for life.
On Thursday he signed a two-year contract extension that will run through the 2019 season. The signing followed a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the team's new stadium in Santa Clara.
"What I'm most excited about is the opportunity to play my whole career as a San Francisco 49er," he said.
Among the goals he set for himself after being drafted in the first round in 2007, he said, were "to make an NFL roster, become a starter, win a Super Bowl and play my whole entire career with one team."
He said he was "very excited for the opportunity to do that and really grateful for the 49ers allowing me that opportunity. And now it's just time to go work on that Super Bowl."
Staley said he hoped fellow offensive lineman Alex Boone, a holdout under contract, gets a new deal.
"He's someone that I have the utmost respect for and really, really hope that we can play our whole entire career together, because he's someone I have a ton of respect for and want to see him here," Staley said. He said he is confident that Boone and the 49ers will work out their financial differences.
Staley, 29, who played at Central Michigan, earned All-Pro honors in 2011, '12 and '13 and was selected to the Pro Bowl in each of those seasons.
He has started all 98 regular-season games in which he has played as well as eight postseason games. He has the critical job of protecting Colin Kaepernick's blindside.
Staley said he was "super ecstatic" that Kaepernick received a contract extension last month. "He's an amazing player with everything you look at in a quarterback and then some," Staley said.
General Manager Trent Baalke called Staley "a core member of our football team. His commitment and professionalism have been great assets to our team and our community. This extension reflects our philosophy of investing in our core players."
Last season, Staley was a major part of the 49ers' ground attack, which ranked third in the NFL in yards (2,201) and fourth in touchdowns (18).
After coming so close to the Super Bowl last season, there will be a definite sense of urgency when the 49ers report to training camp Wednesday, Staley said.
"We're all very familiar with each other," he said. "There's no 'figuring it out.' There's no 'we'll see.' We all know that we are a very talented football team and that we have very high expectations. And we set the expectations the highest and that's the Super Bowl."
Tom FitzGerald is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: tfitzgerald@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @tomgfitzgerald
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On Thursday he signed a two-year contract extension that will run through the 2019 season. Among the goals he set for himself after being drafted in the first round in 2007, he said, were "to make an NFL roster, become a starter, win a Super Bowl and play my whole entire career with one team." Staley said he hoped fellow offensive lineman Alex Boone, a holdout under contract, gets a new deal. Staley, 29, who played at Central Michigan, earned All-Pro honors in 2011, '12 and '13 and was selected to the Pro Bowl in each of those seasons. Last season, Staley was a major part of the 49ers' ground attack, which ranked third in the NFL in yards (2,201) and fourth in touchdowns (18).
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Highlights from BetaBoston
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20140719031539
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These stories and other coverage of Boston’s technology and biotech scene can be found at the Globe’s new betaboston.com site.
When George Takei — social media star, equal rights crusader, and former helmsman of the Starship Enterprise — asks you about the most interesting places to visit to get a sense for innovation in Boston, that’s an e-mail you respond to pretty fast.
Takei was planning a trip here in May to shoot several new episodes of his YouTube series, “Takei’s Take,” and I suggested that he drop by places such as Rethink Robotics, which sells a new kind of manufacturing robot, and bluebird bio, a Cambridge biotech developing new kinds of gene therapies for rare diseases. The first episode he shot on that trip showed up on YouTube Thursday.
Takei wanted to get a sense of potential breakthroughs bubbling up in the labs, accelerators, and startups here, and of what had changed in Massachusetts since the days when Route 128 was “America’s Technology Highway” and Wang and Data General were selling word processors and minicomputers to big companies about as fast as they could make them.
One line from this first episode: “Perhaps 128 no longer dominates the tech scene here, but building on its legacy, a new tech renaissance is happening.”
Among the places Takei and his crew visited: Bolt, the hardware accelerator in Downtown Crossing; Greentown Labs, a shared space for energy companies in Somerville; and the AgeLab at MIT.
In this first episode, he also talks to entrepreneur and angel investor Bill Warner and to Apollo Computer founder Bill Poduska.
I make a quick cameo: Takei invited me to join him and his husband, Brad, for dinner at Union Oyster House, to give him a lay of the land. That was fun; we got to sit in the JFK booth.
Drizly made a couple of mid-summer announcements last week, adding cities to its service area and redesigning its app.
The big news is that Drizly is expanding alcohol delivery to Wayland, Wellesley, and Weston. Wellesley and Weston have traditionally been dry towns, both have restrictive laws about serving alcohol at restaurants, and Weston doesn’t have a liquor store within the town limits. (A few weeks ago, Wellesley allowed beer and wine to be sold for the first time at a local store.)
The business that will most likely benefit the most is the Waltham liquor chain Gordon’s Fine Wine & Liquors. Although Drizly won’t disclose who its delivery partners are, it’s a safe bet Gordon’s is going to be the store that delivers in the towns because the franchise, through its Watertown store, was the original partner Drizly used when it began its service last year.
Gordon’s already had a delivery option (mainly for catered events) that did service the towns.
“The suburbs represent a totally different challenge and opportunity than the metropolitan markets, but there’s strong evidence that the shopping behavior in the suburbs is ripe for the convenience of Drizly,” said chief executive and cofounder Nick Rellas. “As a Boston company, we’re really excited to be able to service out to Route 128 and beyond.”
Drizly has an app through which alcohol can be ordered, for delivery within 20 to 40 minutes.
Venture capital investment in Massachusetts companies crossed $1 billion during the second quarter, for the best quarterly fund-raising in three years, according to CB Insights.
The $1.03 billion quarter was the product of a large number of deals — 100 during the quarter, the most in at least four years — and a string of sizable rounds.
Major deals included SimpliSafe ($57 million), Acquia ($50 million), Proteon Therapeutics ($45 million), and SilverRail Technologies ($40 million).
At the earlier stage, notable local deals during the quarter included Grove Labs, Zaius, and Seres Health.
The last time Massachusetts companies raised more money in a single quarter was the second quarter of 2011, when the haul reached $1.14 billion, according to CB Insights data. Its records show Massachusetts hasn’t had 100 deals in a quarter since at least 2010 (though the state came close during the fourth quarter of 2012, with 98).
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Weekly highlights from BetaBoston
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Apple sells more iPhones, but revenue falls just short of expectations
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20140729132751
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Apple increased its profits on improved iPhone sales in its recently-ended third quarter, but the company’s reported revenue fell short of Wall Street’s expectations.
Releasing its latest quarterly results on Tuesday, Apple AAPL reported a 12.2% year-over-year increase in profits to $7.7 billion, or $1.28 per share. Analysts had predicted $1.23 per share, according to information compiled by Bloomberg. Apple’s earnings per share (EPS) grew by 19.6% over last year’s numbers when the company’s June 7-to-1 share split is taken into account.
Apple’s third-quarter revenue grew 6% to $37.4 billion, falling just short of Wall Street’s prediction of $38 billion. Apple had expected revenues to land between $36 billion and $38 billion for the third quarter after sales hit $35.3 billion during the same period last year. Compared with this year’s second quarter, Apple’s revenue was down nearly 18%.
In announcing the results, CEO Tim Cook attributed areas of growth to strong product sales. “Our record June quarter revenue was fueled by strong sales of iPhone and Mac and the continued growth of revenue from the Apple ecosystem, driving our highest EPS growth rate in seven quarters,” Cook said in a statement.
The company sold 35.2 million iPhones last quarter, 12.6% more than the same quarter in 2013, while the number of iPads sold declined 9% to 13.2 million. Meanwhile, sales totals for both products were down 19% each compared with the previous quarter.
Apple’s product sales often drop off to some degree during the summer as customers wait for new products to be announced in the fall. The announcement of Apple’s next smartphone, the iPhone 6, has been eagerly awaited as rumors have swirled over everything from the kind of glass that could be used on the phone to whether or not the company will release multiple larger-sized versions of the phone.
Apple sold 4.4 million Macs last quarter, good for an 18% increase over last year and up 7% over the previous quarter.
The company also announced a cash dividend of 47 cents that will go to shareholders on August 14.
For the fourth quarter, Apple expects revenue between $37 billion and $40 billion. The company’s stock closed Tuesday up 0.8%, but dropped slightly in after-hours trading.
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The company sold 35.2 million iPhones last quarter, 12.6% more than last year, but revenue came in just under Wall Street's predictions.
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140729204224id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2014/07/28/springfield-gun-maker-smith-wesson-agrees-pay-million-settle-charges-violated-foreign-corrupt-practices-act/BbYyozzY3L4h0zm8aeXMGL/story.html
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Springfield gun maker Smith & Wesson agrees to pay $2 million to settle charges it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
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20140729204224
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The Springfield gun maker Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. has agreed to pay $2 million to settle civil charges by federal regulators that it bribed foreign officials to sell firearms in other countries.
The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday said Smith & Wesson violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by making improper payments as it sought to sell guns overseas to police and military groups from 2007 to 2010.
In 2008, the SEC said, the gun maker hired a third-party agent in Pakistan to help win a sale with a Pakistani police department. Smith & Wesson officials authorized the agent to provide more than $11,000 worth of guns to Pakistani police officials as gifts and to make additional cash payments to them.
Smith & Wesson ultimately won a contract to sell 548 pistols to the Pakistani police for a profit of $107,852, the SEC said.
The company also approved improper payments to agents working on contracts in Turkey, Nepal, and Bangladesh, but the sales were never made, the SEC said.
“This is a wake-up call for small and medium-size businesses that want to enter into high-risk markets and expand their international sales,” Kara Brockmeyer, chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s FCPA Unit, said in a statement.
Smith & Wesson, one of the largest US gun manufacturers, made the settlement agreement without admitting or denying the findings in the case. But it agreed to pay back $107,852 in profit plus $21,040 in interest, along with a $1.9 million penalty.
The company said the SEC case stemmed from a Department of Justice investigation of the same matter in 2010 that was later dropped.
In its annual report, filed with regulators in June, Smith & Wesson disclosed it had been under investigation by Justice officials and had been subpoenaed to produce documents. Its former vice president of sales was arrested at an industry conference in Las Vegas, one of 22 people in the gun and military equipment business ensnared in an FBI sting operation.
The Smith & Wesson executive was among those indicted. But the cases were ultimately dropped, and the company was not charged.
Smith & Wesson’s chief executive, James Debney, said in a statement, “We are pleased to have concluded this matter with the SEC and believe that the settlement we have agreed upon is in the best interests of Smith & Wesson and its shareholders.’’ He added, “Today’s announcement brings to conclusion a legacy issue for our company that commenced more than four years ago, and we are pleased to now finally put this matter behind us.” Debney has been chief executive since September 2011.
The nation’s top securities regulator said Smith & Wesson was looking to break into new markets overseas during the period of the sale in Pakistan. From 2007 to 2010, the company’s international sales staff aggressively sought to attract new business by offering, authorizing, or making illegal payments, or by providing gifts meant for government officials in Pakistan, Indonesia, and other countries, the SEC said.
As part of the settlement, the company must report to the SEC on its compliance efforts for two years.
Smith & Wesson shares closed at $13.57, down 9 cents.
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Springfield gun maker Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. has agreed to pay $2 million to settle charges brought by federal securities regulators that it bribed foreign officials to sell firearms in other countries.
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The state of Market Basket
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20140801101041
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A look at the state of Market Basket as the protest movement enters its second full week and the board negotiates with former president Arthur T. Demoulas and other suitors to buy the $4.6 billion company:
All 71 Market Basket stores in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine remain open, but the produce shelves are empty. Managers are placing orders, but few good are arriving from the warehouse. Canned goods remain in stock, frozen foods are largely available, but bread and bakery are being thrown out or donated to food pantries at some locations.
Chief executives Felicia Thornton and James Gooch upped the stakes Wednesday, issuing a statement that all employees must return to work by Monday, August 4 or replacements will be hired. Employees who choose to return to work will not be penalized. Protesters estimate the order affects about 600 workers at the warehouse and company headquarters who have not been reporting to work.
Employees at the stores are reporting for work and being paid. Associates who are not scheduled to work are staffing the picket lines outside the stores. Eight managers at the company’s Tewksbury headquarters were fired Sunday, July 20.
Store directors, who have been reporting to work and keeping the stores running all along -- albeit with no deliveries coming in and no customers in the aisles -- said they were perplexed by the latest statement from management. “I don’t know why they’re mentioning store directors and assistants. We’ve been coming to work,” said Dave Delaney, assistant director at a store in Lowell. “I’ve worked all my hours.”
On Thursday, the attorneys general of Massachusetts and New Hampshire sent a letter to Market Basket executives urging them to respect the rights of the workers. Gooch and Thornton said in a statement that they hoped not to replace any Market Basket workers.
The main avenues of communication for the protesters are their website, wearemarketbasket.com, and a “Save Market Basket” Facebook page that has attracted 78,352 likes as of noon Thursday. The Twitter account is less active —1,137 followers. “Wearemarketbasket” on Instagram, where photos from the stores are posted, has 1,277 followers.
Late last week, the organizers set up a fundraising page on Go Fund Me asking for Market Basket workers who are still getting paid to help support the warehouse workers and truck drivers. As of Monday, it had raised $51,359 from 899 donors, heading toward a goal of $100,000. The largest donation, from “Anonymous,” is $2,000. “We are not asking our customers to help them out, though we would certainly be pleased if they did,” organizers said on their website. “we are looking for associates to help fellow associates who are standing alongside each other.”
Social media also gave a second wind to the consumer boycott of Market Basket. Customers raised $3,000 to run a full-page advertisement in the Lowell Sun this weekend demanding the reinstatement of Arthur T. Demoulas. With more than 470 donations made at a second Go Fund Me account in six hours, the activists raised an additional $9,000 that organizers say will go to support employees of the grocery chain who have stopped working.
A Facebook user also captured a photo of a sign at a Hannaford grocery store in Dracut that advertised a job fair to be held Friday and Saturday to fill part-time positions in four area stores.
Hundreds protested outside the company’s Tewksbury headquarters Wednesday and Thursday, according to Steve Paulenka, a fired Market Basket executive who has been leading the protests.
Organizers have staged three major rallies, each bigger than the last, in the past two weeks. Friday’s rally attracted 6,000 to 7,000 workers, customers, and family members. No further large gatherings are planned.
The board of directors is conferring regularly to discuss the turmoil enveloping the grocery chain and the offer to purchase it from ousted Market Basket president Arthur T. Demoulas, along with other offers it has received. It is under considerable pressure — the chain is losing as much as $10 million a day in sales and spoiled products because of the walkout and boycott.
Sources told the Globe Tuesday that the bid from Arthur T. Demoulas is the only bid remaining on the table, but the board refuted that late Tuesday, saying that numerous offers remained in play. Both sides are reported to be negotiating furiously to complete a deal.
While the board evaluates the offer and will recommend a course of action, ultimately, the shareholders of the company will decide.
Demoulas Market Basket is owned by the heirs of the founder, the original Arthur Demoulas. Of the nine shareholders, five are aligned with grandson Arthur S. Demoulas’s branch of the family, and four are aligned with the Arthur T. Demoulas branch of the family. Arthur T. and his allies — sisters Frances Kettenbach, Glorianne Farnham, and Caren Pasquale — control 49.5 percent of the company. Arthur S. and his allies — sisters Diana Merriam and Fotene Demoulas and the heirs of his deceased brother, Evan Demoulas — control 50.5 percent. The shareholder ultimately will decide whether to sell their shares, and to whom.
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A look at the state of Market Basket as the protest movement enters its second full week and the board negotiates with former president Arthur T. Demoulas to buy the $4.6 billion company.
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http://www.people.com/article/landon-donovon-retires-soccer
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Landon Donovan Retires from Professional Soccer
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has decided to retire from professional soccer.
America's leading World Cup goal-scorer posted the news to
"After careful deliberation and after many conversations with those closest to me, I have decided that this will be my last season as a professional soccer player," Donovan, 32, wrote.
"I don't write these words lightly and this day carries mixed emotions for me. I am sad to leave a profession that has brought me so much joy," he continued. "However, after spending half my life as a professional soccer player, I also am excited to begin a new chapter and pursue other opportunities that will challenge me and allow me to grow as a person."
Donovan will finish the 2014 Major League Soccer season as a forward for the Los Angeles Galaxy.
Despite his stellar career, Donovan was
in 2014, issuing a response on
"It has been an honor and privilege to have represented the US National Team in three World Cups. I was looking forward to playing in Brazil and, as you can imagine, I am very disappointed with todayâs decision. Regardless, I will be cheering on my friends and teammates this summer, and I remain committed to helping grow soccer in the US in the years to come."
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The star soccer player has decided to "begin a new chapter and pursue other opportunities"
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http://fortune.com/2011/06/16/a-whos-who-of-hackers/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140810045602id_/http://fortune.com:80/2011/06/16/a-whos-who-of-hackers/?
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A who’s who of hackers
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20140810045602
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FORTUNE — The recent hacking headlines make it seem like we’re in the middle of a cyberwar: In the past few weeks, there have been revelations of security breaches at organizations including Citigroup, Sony, the IMF, and — as recently as yesterday — the CIA’s website.
Indeed, hackers are everywhere, according to Bruce Schneier, security expert and chief security technology officer for IT service-provider BT. But for the hacker community, the apparent cluster of attacks is really just business as usual: “This is hacking, it hasn’t changed in decades,” he says.
While the public may picture shadowy groups of Lisbeth Salander-like computer nerds taking down major networks around the globe, the truth is much less glamorous, Schneier says. Still, the hacker pecking order can be nuanced and tough to de-tangle. It runs the gamut from geeks messing around in their basements to organized national governments. What hackers do and how they do it often remains a mystery, but every day there are activities that fall under the wide umbrella of digital subversion called “hacking.”
Hacking has its roots in recreation. “The majority of people hacking are just people,” Schneier says, meaning they aren’t connected to a hacking network other than chat rooms and online forums. “It’s just guys messing around.”
Some members of this breed of hacker eventually go corporate. For example, Linus Torvalds, the man who wrote the central component for the Linux operating system, has a well-respected hacking history. He even co-authored a book called The Hacker Ethic, published in 2001. Another high-profile hacker is Apple AAPL co-founder Steve Wozniak, who speaks openly about his early days at UC Berkeley, building and selling devices that could hack phone networks to make free calls.
There’s another, relatively new breed of hacker that seeks publicity. These are typically politically-motivated groups, says Ethan Zuckerman, a researcher at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The attacks they launch, he says, are “really designed to get the press release.”
One of the most famous groups is Anonymous, an anarchic network of hackers that periodically organizes to shut down websites, either for fun or for some political purpose. Generally, the group launches a “denial of service” (DDoS) attack, which targets and cripples a specific site. Anonymous has launched several such campaigns, most famously its 2008 efforts to take down the digital presence of the Church of Scientology, which involved a DDoS attack and offline protests by masked members. Recently, the group forewarned an attack against the Federal Reserve, calling for the resignation of Chairman Ben Bernanke via a YouTube video, though none of the Fed’s websites have been shut down yet.
Another group called LulzSec has also stirred up news recently. On Wednesday, it temporarily crashed the Central Intelligence Agency’s public website, Cia.gov. LulzSec has also claimed responsibility for breaches at PBS, Fox and Sony SNE . For the Sony attack, LulzSec’s goal was to showcase a pitiful lack of online security at the company, according to Phil Blank, a senior security analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, and it succeeded. “It’s a very fundamental, basic attack that no modern corporation should be subjected to — it’s embarrassing.”
While attacks like the one on Sony can be easy, the muscle power of hacktivist groups is generally limited, says Zuckerman. In fact, he notes that within the hacker community, DDoS and similar attacks don’t even qualify as true hacking, which involves actually compromising a network, not taking down a site. LulzSec hasn’t tried to harm large, critical infrastructures so far, and Anonymous has tried and failed, he says: The group couldn’t pull through an attempt to crash Amazon AMZN in December 2010, for example. “Essentially, they’re taking down people’s marketing copy,” says Zuckerman.
Government-backed hacking efforts are a different story — they have much more funding, but can still be next to impossible to trace. They’re also happening all the time, Schneier says: “The U.S. is doing it, China is doing it. Governments have spied on each other for thousands of years.”
While complicated, expensive hacks are more likely to involve government investment, it can be difficult to prove the connection. Earlier this month, the IMF announced to its faculty and staff that it had suffered a cyberattack, but hasn’t released details. There has been speculation that the attack received funding from a foreign government, says Phil Blank, a senior security analyst at Javelin Strategy & Research, but there’s little public proof. “To be able to create the attack from that distance requires a substantial infrastructure, IT work and research,” he says. “Generally speaking, that is out of the scope of most individuals, and it’s probably not corporate espionage.”
The same is true for recent Gmail hacks: Earlier this month, Google GOOG announced that someone had broken into hundreds of Gmail users’ personal accounts. That required fairly complicated, targeted hacks, Blank says. But the only evidence that a government was behind it was that Google traced the origin of the attack to computers with Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in the Jinan region in China. Also, the hack seemed suspicious because victims included U.S. government officials and Chinese political activists. But IP addresses can be fabricated, Blank says, and the Chinese government vehemently denied anything to do with the incident.
That hacking mystery, like so many others, may go unsolved. While the size or complexity of the hack can provide clues, “You never know who’s behind anything really,” says Schneier. “In general, you never know who did it or why.”
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It’s hard to get a handle on the hacker community, but here’s a look at the range of people -- from lone geeks to organized governments -- who could be behind recent security breaches.
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http://fortune.com/2014/02/19/as-college-professors-lose-earning-power-unions-gain-appeal/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140812234156id_/http://fortune.com:80/2014/02/19/as-college-professors-lose-earning-power-unions-gain-appeal/
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As college professors lose earning power, unions gain appeal
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FORTUNE — On Tuesday, faculty members at the University of Illinois at Chicago went on strike for the first time ever as part of a two-day walkout aimed at securing a union contract and increased wages.
The union, which represents 1,150 tenured and non-tenured professors, won certification in 2012, but it has yet to agree with the university on its first contract. The dispute between the union and the university is the latest episode in an ongoing effort by unions to gain influence on America’s college campuses.
The Service Employees International Union has been aggressively recruiting academics, and it recently launched campaigns to unionize non-tenured professors at Seattle University, Loyola Marymount, and University of La Verne. It currently represents more than 18,000 adjunct faculty members, up from 14,000 five years ago. The American Federation of Teachers claims to be the largest union for adjunct professors, with 70,000 non-tenure-track professors in its ranks, up by 10,000 from five years ago. The AFT represents 200,000 higher education professionals in total.
MORE: An Arab Spring success story: Tunisia’s new constitution
The growing number of faculty with union representation reflects “the change in the professional positions at universities,” says Risa Lieberwitz, professor of labor and employment law at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. Universities have become “more corporate in the way they structure themselves,” she says, which has resulted in fewer permanent tenure-track positions and more inexpensive, flexible non-tenure-track instructors.
According to a report from the American Association of University Professors on the 2012-2013 school year, 76% of all higher education instructional positions are filled on a contingent basis, with tenured and tenure-track full-time positions making up less than 25% of all appointments. From 1975 to 2011, the number of part-time or adjunct faculty appointments has increased by 300%.
The median pay per course for adjunct professors, who are typically paid based on their course load, totals $2,700, according to a report by the Coalition of Academic Workforce that examined per-course pay in 2010. Over 80% of adjunct professors teach part-time for more than three years; over 50% do so for more than six years, according to the CAW.
Pay is what drove UIC faculty to the picket line. They’re demanding a 4.5% merit-based salary increase this year; the university administration has offered 3.25%. The union also wants the minimum annual salary for non-tenured, full-time lecturers to increase from $30,000 to $45,000. The administration’s offer pegs that floor at $36,000.
“As ranks of non-tenured professors grow and job insecurity increases — combined with the fact that people in those positions have low salaries and very poor working conditions — it’s logical for non-tenured professors to say, ‘What can we do collectively?’” says Lieberwitz.
MORE: What Lego has in common with Apple
Academic labor unions have made some progress. The CAW found that unionized adjuncts earned 25% more per course than those who didn’t have union representation.
Up until now, much of the academic labor movement has been for the sake of non-tenured professors. That’s because tenured professors are often better paid and receive more generous benefits. But another factor is a 1980s Supreme Court decision, National Labor Relations Board v. Yeshiva University, that found that tenured professors at private universities are considered managers and are therefore barred from unionizing. The NLRB is currently considering two cases — one dealing with Point Park University, the other related to Pacific Lutheran University — that could change that rule and open the flood gates for more professors to pursue union representation.
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The faculty strike at University of Illinois at Chicago is the latest episode in an ongoing effort by unions to gain influence on America’s college campuses.
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http://fortune.com/2014/02/03/john-malone-hes-baaaaaaaack/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140816211125id_/http://fortune.com:80/2014/02/03/john-malone-hes-baaaaaaaack/
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John Malone: He’s baaaaaaaack
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FORTUNE — “Basically, for my whole life all my assets have been tied up in the companies I’ve started and run,” John Malone, the billionaire founder and chairman of Liberty Media LMCA , told Fortune a year ago last fall. That story was about how Malone was amassing vast tracts of ranch lands and wilderness — to the point where he had usurped Ted Turner as America’s biggest landowner. “In recent years,” we reported, “he has successfully spun off businesses and is now free, he says, to spend more of his wealth on land …” The implication being that the legendary cable mogul and master of the impenetrable corporate structure, now in his 70s, was kicking back.
Well, perhaps not quite. Early Monday morning the New York Post reported that Malone may be looking to buy a 49% stake in the company that owns Formula One racing — the latest in a spate of recent acquisitions, both rumored and real, that suggest Malone is as tied up in dealmaking as he ever was. “We all think we know what we want until we’ve had it for a while and then we want to change,” says independent analyst and longtime Malone-watcher Jeff Kagan. “He sounded a year ago like he was tired and he wanted a break. But you can’t take a break forever.”
Malone is still America’s land king. According to the latest Land Report 100 list, his recent acquisitions include a manor house in western Palm Beach County for $7.8 million; a nearby horse farm for $12.5 million; and a castle with a surrounding estate in County Wicklow, Ireland, (not included in his domestic tally) for $9.5 million. Coast to coast, he’s got 2.2 million acres. That’s Delaware plus Rhode Island plus Rocky Mountain National Park.
MORE: Is John Malone Getting Sirius for a Song?
But what’s a big-league investor to do with himself after he’s bought a lot of land he has no plans to develop? Malone is hardly a conventional empire builder– he tends to incubate companies, fix what’s broken, “and when they’re fine spin them out,” says National Alliance Securities analyst Robert Routh — but he has never been what anyone would describe as passive. And judging by the spectacular moves he has made in recent weeks, he is eager to assert himself once more in the very arena where he built his $7 billion fortune.
Over a span of 24 days in January, through Liberty Media and other companies he controls, Malone made commitments and overtures totaling more than $75 billion, including a $10.6 billion offer for the 48% of satellite radio company Sirius SIRI that Liberty Media doesn’t already own; a $61.3-billion bid, via Charter Communications CHTR , for Time Warner Cable TWC , the nation’s No. 2 cable provider; and $13.7 billion for the 71.5% stake in Dutch cable provider Ziggo that Liberty Global doesn’t already own.
Only the Ziggo deal is firm, pending regulatory approval. The other two are exploratory volleys in what will likely develop into far more expensive battles. Time Warner Cable has already described the offer it received as “grossly inadequate,” while Ralph Nader, in his new role as shareholder advocate, described the Sirius offer in a letter to institutional shareholder Vanguard as “ludicrously low.”
MORE: Comcast eyes Time Warner Cable and unprecented market power
What’s the play? Malone declined to comment, but clearly the deal for Formula One, if it pans out, would fit nicely with his recent acquisition — through his large stake in cable behemoth Discovery Communications DISCA — of the European sports network EuroSport. But programming is just part of what Malone is accumulating. And as viewers draw more content from the Internet and less from their TVs, broadband capacity, not traditional cable, becomes the key asset. The 500-channel cable universe is indeed losing its luster, experts say, but the infrastructure built to support it is more valuable than ever. “He’s taking a long-term view,” says Macquarie Capital analyst Amy Yong. “Broadband has pricing power, consumers will be using more, and he sees consolidation as one of the first steps.”
Penn State Professor Patrick Parsons, author of Blue Skies: A History of Cable Television, doesn’t pretend to divine the current strategy of the businessman he describes as a “savant financial genius,” but he’s pretty sure what the outcome will be. “His genius was always in taking this very large financial infrastructure and reorganizing it in byzantine ways,” Parsons says. “Most common people couldn’t penetrate the logic, but it always seemed to make him richer.”
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The cable mogul's flurry of recent offers has industry watchers asking: What's the play?
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http://fortune.com/2010/02/02/the-deficit-full-speed-ahead/
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140817132843id_/http://fortune.com/2010/02/02/the-deficit-full-speed-ahead/
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!@#^% the deficit! Full speed ahead!
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It’s funny how hypocrisy never goes out of business.
Now all the big conservators of the empire who were so careful with our economic system during the Bush years are up in arms over the President’s admission that we’re going to be running a deficit as a nation for some time. All the usual suspects are running around yelling about it. They hate it, possibly because the money that’s needed is for something other than war.
I’m not going to get into a whole partisan thing here, even though it would be quite natural to do so. You know who runs the No Theater right now. I just find it semi-incredible that the very same guys who pop a cold sweat when their access to debt is threatened are so very, very upset that the country is forced to run pretty much the same way.
On the one hand, the issue of the moment is debt securitization. Gotta secure that debt. Gotta ramp up the red ink again so everybody can jump back into the growth stream. Know what the problem is right now? Not enough lending! On the other hand, what kind of irresponsible fools would suggest trillions in deficit spending in the public sector? That’s very bad. Every economist knows that. Oh, didn’t you hear? We’re listening to economists again.
Let’s see what that means. Corporate debt? Essential! Public debt? Deplorable.
If a corporation wants to purchase a company three times its size with debt, that’s just good business. Running a deficit to cut unemployment? Every economist (in our employ) knows that’s a no-no. Sure, we’re going to need bridges, roads and tunnels in the future. We’re going to need education and health care for people who don’t have it. We’re going to have to shore up the economy so that it doesn’t collapse again, sparing only the very, very rich from serious discomfort. But we have to do it without a big, ugly deficit, because… I forget why, but it’s true. The same way it’s obviously true that interest rates have to remain low, so that banks can now take my money and do what they want with it while at the same time paying me virtually nothing for that privilege. Like history, the rules of economics are generally written by the winners, even when they’re losers.
I have an idea. Let’s allow America to run like a real business for once, paying for the things it needs to do with money it has to secure from other sources. I figure when the time comes, the books will balance well enough. And if they don’t? At least we’ll have some homes, jobs, roads and schools to show for our folly.
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It's funny how hypocrisy never goes out of business. Now all the big conservators of the empire who were so careful with our economic system during the Bush years are up in arms over the President's admission that we're going to be running a deficit as a nation for some time. All the usual suspects are…
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http://fortune.com/2010/01/28/how-many-ipads-will-apple-sell/
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How many iPads will Apple sell?
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The Street looked at that $499 price point and hastily revised its numbers
“It finally gives the right form,” writes Oppenheimer’s Yair Reiner in what is so far the most lyrical analyst note on Apple’s new iPad, “to leisurely functions long trapped, like the Frog Prince, in the body of a late-20th century office productivity tool.”
Yet after all that and more (“Copycat devices will pullulate in iPad’s wake”), Reiner’s estimates of iPad sales are among the lowest — a mere 1.1 million in fiscal 2010. Others were not so conservative. Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty has Apple AAPL selling 9 million iPads in calendar 2011 at an average sales price of $660, adding $5.9 billion to its bottom line. That’s within striking distance of her estimate for the entire iPod line ($6.8 billion).
Below: Our analysts’ spreadsheet. We’ll update it as more estimates come in.
(Note that the sales estimates are difficult to compare because they are measured over different time periods. Wu, for example, is using 12 months dating from when the first units ship.)
At least six analysts — Reitzes, Munster, Reiner, Fidacaro, Craig and Bailey — have raised their AAPL targets since the unveiling (to $285, $284, $265, $260, $250 and $240, respectively).
Shares closed Wednesday at $207.88, up 1.03 points (0.5%) for the day. They were down sharply in early trading Thursday.
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
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The Street looked at that $499 price point and hastily revised its numbers "It finally gives the right form," writes Oppenheimer's Yair Reiner in what is so far the most lyrical analyst note on Apple's new iPad, "to leisurely functions long trapped, like the Frog Prince, in the body of a late-20th century office productivity…
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http://fortune.com/2014/08/18/aeropostale-taps-past-ceo-in-hopes-of-having-a-future/
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Aeropostale hires ex-CEO to right the ship
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Aeropostale ARO has tapped its former CEO for the top job again, hoping lightning can strike twice.
The teen apparel retailer, which has taken a beating as its young customers have moved on to fast fashion chains like H&M and Uniqlo or simply shifted their spending to electronics, said on Monday that Julian Geiger, who resigned as CEO in 2010, has taken the reins again, effective immediately.
His return marks the end of a failed tenure of Tom Johnson, on whose watch Aeropostale’s sales and profits have evaporated. Aeropostale’s annual sales peaked at $2.4 billion in 2010 and by 2013 they had fallen to $2.09 billion. The losing streak continued this year: comparable sales, which strip out the numbers from newly opened or newly closed stores, fell 13%, a deeper decline than the 10.5% drop Wall Street analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were expecting. (The company will report full quarterly results on Thursday.)
Geiger, who was CEO of the now bankrupt and crumbling Crumbs Bake Shop cupcake chain until December, was Aeropostale’s CEO from 1996 to 2010 and oversaw a period of astronomical growth for a brand that started life in the early 1980’s as a young men’s fashion brand created by Macy’s M : The stock rose more than 800% during his reign and revenue almost doubled between 2006 and 2010, when Aeropostale was at peak popularity.
That is kind of growth Aeropostale’s board pointed to in explaining their choice of Geiger, whose return was telegraphed when he rejoined the board earlier this year.
“Julian was the leader of Aeropostale’s strategic direction during a period of significant growth, and we are confident in his enthusiasm for the business, his understanding of today’s teen retail marketplace and his intuition regarding teen fashion,” Aeropostale Chairperson Karin Hirtler-Garvey said in a statement.
But the tide has turned dramatically in the teen apparel sector. And for Aeropostale, the decline was especially brutal compared to that at American Eagle Outfitters AEO and Abercrombie & Fitch ANF because it caters to a lower income customer than its two arch-rivals.
In May, private equity firm Sycamore Partners gave Aeropostale a $150 million line of credit a week after the retailer reported an 83% drop in cash holdings versus a year earlier, easing fears of a near-term cash crunch.
Geiger’s return is the latest case of an ex-CEO returning to the fold to fix a troubled company: in 2013, J.C. Penney JCP and Procter & Gamble PG brought back Mike Ullman and A.G. Lafley, respectively.
Still, investors seemed pleased by Aeropostale’s move — shares rose 6.5 percent to $3.45 in after-hours trading.
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Julian Geiger returns after a stint as the head of Crumbs cupcake shop.
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http://www.people.com/article/elizabeth-vargas-abc-news-rehab
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140819145615id_/http://www.people.com/article/elizabeth-vargas-abc-news-rehab
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Elizabeth Vargas Back in Rehab
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updated 08/17/2014 at 10:00 PM EDT
ABC News reporter Elizabeth Vargas has returned to a recovery center to be treated for alcohol dependency, she and the network said Sunday.
co-anchor said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE that she checked into a treatment facility this weekend while on vacation.
"As so many other recovering alcoholics know, overcoming the disease can be a long and incredibly difficult process," Vargas said. "I feel I have let myself, my co-workers and most importantly my family down and for that I am ashamed and sorry."
Vargas, who's married to Marc Cohn and has two children with the singer-songwriter, said she was "committed to battling and addressing this debilitating disease" and expressed thanks for the support she has received.
The network said in a statement that it stands "squarely behind her" and was focused on Vargas's health.
"We look forward to having her back at ABC News when she feels ready to return," ABC News said.
Vargas, 51, spent several weeks in a
that aired in January on
and that it took years for her to admit it.
She said she had suffered panic attacks since she was a child.
"I dealt with that anxiety, and with the stress that the anxiety brought, by starting to drink," she said in the interview.
Vargas has worked in network news since 1993, first with NBC and then ABC, which she joined in 1996.
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The 20/20 co-anchor spent several weeks in a treatment facility last fall
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/08/18/mahone-updates-teen-idol-template-blue-hills/gAJ0kLI2r4Aa8xvyyEMfWN/story.html
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140821140319id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2014/08/18/mahone-updates-teen-idol-template-blue-hills/gAJ0kLI2r4Aa8xvyyEMfWN/story.html
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Mahone updates the teen-idol template at Blue Hills
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20140821140319
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The business of teen idols is still, fundamentally, the same as ever: Find acts who appeal to young women ages 12 to 17 (or so), and use music-industry magic to render them briefly irresistible. In 2014, though, there are more opportunities for upstarts to become objects of mass desire; if earlier teen-idol eras had T-shirts and issues of Bop magazine to burnish their demigods’ images, this one has YouTube channels, Twitter feeds, and countless websites and social-media services, too. Sunday’s show at Blue Hills Bank Pavilion, which featured four acts from the latest crop of teen-pop acts, showed how flooding potential fans with information (and some music) can be just as effective as the old ways of doing things.
Opener Shawn Mendes grew his following on the six-second-video network Vine, and the Torontonian’s easy way with strummy, doe-eyed lite rock was pleasant enough to make his 15-minute set breeze by just as quickly. British foursome the Vamps, who fuse the boy-band template onto the idea of an arena-rock act, were gloriously (if perhaps unintentionally) campy, thanks to the outsize frontman persona of lead singer Brad Simpson; their appealing cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s “Cecilia” united the tastes of the night’s core audience with those of the parents present.
Fifth Harmony, a five-member girl group born from the now-canceled “The X Factor,” offered a different type of idolizing; the message was all about giving props to the self, as evidenced by “Reflection,” a sassy love song to one’s mirror image, and “Miss Movin’ On,” a spunky ode to the power that comes from a well-timed breakup.
Austin Mahone, the night’s headliner, has accrued a rabid following of “Mahomies” thanks to his knack for retrofitting R&B hits to teenage tastes, which he showed off in a series of from-the-bedroom clips that garnered attention from YouTube-watching tweens and, eventually, the record business. He’s put out two EPs of stridently rhythmic pop that brings to mind not only Justin Bieber, but the big-tent teen idol hits of the early 2000s; on Sunday night his confident, dance-heavy set was punctuated by a breather where he reverently covered John Legend, Michael Jackson, and George Strait.
Mahone ended the night with “Mmm Yeah,” a Pitbull-assisted club banger about being blown off by a woman walking by him on the street. Which seems like a curious message from a burgeoning heartthrob, but it’s canny: Once that woman exits, after all, members of the audience can imagine themselves in her place, even if only for a few minutes.
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At Blue Hills Bank Pavilion Sunday, four up-and-coming pop acts, including headliner Austin Mahone, demonstrated as many different takes on the durable teen-idol template.
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http://www.9news.com.au/world/2014/04/25/05/18/duchess-brother-death-ruled-an-accident
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140822235842id_/http://www.9news.com.au:80/world/2014/04/25/05/18/duchess-brother-death-ruled-an-accident
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Duchess' brother death ruled an accident
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20140822235842
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April 24, 2014: Mark Shand, the younger brother of Camilla Parker Bowles, Duchess of Cornwall, has died in New York after slipping and hitting his head.
The death of the Duchess of Cornwall's brother Mark Shand, who fell and banged his head outside a New York hotel bar, has been ruled an accident.
A spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office in New York said the 62-year-old's death was caused by blunt impact head trauma with skull fracture and bleeding in the brain.
Mr Shand was in New York for an auction at Sotheby's in aid of a charity for underprivileged children and the Elephant Family, of which he was chairman, which aims to save the endangered Asian elephant from extinction in the wild.
He was taken to hospital after reportedly slipping while lighting a cigarette and hitting his head on the pavement outside an after-party for the charity event.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have sent their condolences to Camilla.
William and Kate, who are coming to the end of their tour of Australia and New Zealand, passed on their sympathies to Camilla who was left "utterly devastated" by her brother's death.
"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were saddened to learn this morning of the tragic death of Mark Shand," Kensington Palace said.
"Their thoughts are with the Duchess of Cornwall and her family at this time".
Camilla and the Prince of Wales, who are preparing for a high-profile tour of Canada next month, are believed to have received the bad news at their Birkhall home in Scotland.
A Clarence House spokesman said yesterday: "The Duchess, the Prince of Wales and all her family members are utterly devastated by this sudden and tragic loss.
"Mark Shand was a man of extraordinary vitality, a tireless campaigner and conservationist whose incredible work through The Elephant Family and beyond remained his focus right up until his death".
Do you have any news photos or videos?
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The medical examiner's office in New York has ruled that the death of the Duchess of Cornwall's brother Mark Shand, was an accident.
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http://www.people.com/article/american-hostage-peter-theo-curtis-freed-syria-al-qaida
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140825154135id_/http://www.people.com/article/american-hostage-peter-theo-curtis-freed-syria-al-qaida
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American Hostage Held in Syria Freed After Nearly 2 Years
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20140825154135
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, the nation found something of a reprieve with the release of another freelance reporter who had been held hostage for nearly two years by an al-Qaida-linked group in Syria.
Peter Theo Curtis, who wrote under the byline Theo Padnos, was freed Sunday, offering consolation to U.S. officials, a journalism community and family members deeply unnerved by the grisly video of
in a desolate desert landscape.
Curtis's release appeared to have been aided by the oil-rich nation of Qatar, which said Sunday that it had "exerted relentless efforts" to win the American's freedom. Qatar is a leading supporter of the Syrian rebels fighting to oust President Bashar Assad and has been involved in mediating past hostage releases.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Curtis had been held by Jabhat al-Nusra, also known as the Nusra Front, an al-Qaida-linked militant group fighting Assad's government.
Curtis was not believed to be among the hostages held by the Islamic State group that executed Foley. Islamic State was formally disavowed by al-Qaida earlier this year after being deemed too brutal.
Curtis's release was likely to renew questions about the intentions of different militant groups in Syria and Iraq and how the U.S. should deal with hostage takers.
was briefed on the release Sunday morning as he wrapped up a vacation in Massachusetts.
"The president shares in the joy and relief that we all feel now that Theo is out of Syria and safe," said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. "But we continue to hold in our thoughts and prayers the Americans who remain in captivity in Syria, and we will continue to use all of the tools at our disposal to see that the remaining American hostages are freed."
A senior administration official said Curtis was released in the Golan Heights, where he was met by U.S. government personnel who were transporting him to Tel Aviv. The official was not authorized to speak by name and discussed the release on the condition of anonymity.
In a video obtained by the Associated Press and dated July 18, 2014, Curtis sits cross-legged on a floor with his hands bound, and appears to read from a sheet placed in front of him on the floor. Addressing the U.S. and European governments, he pleads for them to contact a named intermediary before it is too late.
"They have given me three days to live," he says as a man holding an assault rifle and dressed in camouflage stands next to him. "If you don't do anything, I'm finished. I'm dead. They will kill me. Three days. You have had 20 days, and you've done nothing."
He does not specify any demands, only urging Western governments to make contact with the intermediary.
Foley's captors had demanded $132.5 million (100 million euros) from his parents and political concessions from Washington. Neither obliged, authorities say.
Betsy Sullivan, a cousin of Curtis, said intermediaries involved in negotiations threatened the family and made ransom demands of varying amounts. But the family said that ultimately they were assured by Qatari representatives than no money was paid for Curtis' release.
His family said they believe Curtis was captured in October 2012, shortly after crossing into Syria.
"My heart is full at the extraordinary, dedicated, incredible people, too many to name individually, who have become my friends and have tirelessly helped us over these many months," Curtis'd mother, Nancy Curtis, said in a statement from the family. "Please know that we will be eternally grateful."
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Writer Peter Theo Curtis, held captive by an al-Qaida-linked group, is now said to be in Tel Aviv
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/feb/18/ai-weiwei-vase-miami-painter-home-depot/print
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http://web.archive.org/web/20140826115901id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/feb/18/ai-weiwei-vase-miami-painter-home-depot/print
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Miami painter thought $1m Ai Weiwei vase was Home Depot-style pot
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20140826115901
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A Miami painter who destroyed a priceless Han dynasty vase in a “spontaneous protest” at the city’s new art museum claims he thought he was smashing a cheap garden pot.
Maximo Caminero said he picked up the ancient urn from an exhibition curated by the Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei at the Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) on Sunday and threw it to the ground because “the museum only displayed international artists” and ignored the work of locals.
Now Caminero, who was born in the Dominican Republic, is facing up to five years in prison for smashing the vase, which is said to be at least 2,000 years old and worth in excess of $1m, according to his arrest report from Miami police.
“I thought it was a common clay pot like you would find at Home Depot, frankly,” Caminero, 51, said in an interview with the Miami New Times. “I didn’t know it was that amount. I feel so sorry about it, for sure.
“I did it for all the local artists in Miami that have never been shown in museums here.”
According to the arrest report, Caminero picked up the vase from the display and threw it down when a museum security guard approached and ordered him to put it down.
His act of destruction divided the art world on Tuesday, with some artists praising him for his “courageousness” in highlighting the struggle for recognition of local painters and sculptors, and others, including Ai Weiwei himself, condemning the protest as a misguided act of vandalism.
“The argument does not support the act,” Ai told the New York Times, which interviewed the artist by phone from China. “It doesn’t sound right. His argument doesn’t make much sense. If he really had a point he should choose another way, because this will bring him trouble to destroy property that does not belong to him.”
Ai’s exhibit, According to What?, is scheduled to remain at the museum until next month and includes an array of Han dynasty urns dating back to 200BC, which he has painted in a variety of bright colours. The artwork also features three giant black and white photographs of Ai dropping a vase in a manner replicated by Caminero.
Caminero, whose bright, Caribbean-influenced paintings have been displayed in smaller, local art shows, insists he only decided to smash the vase when he saw the exhibit. “It was a spontaneous protest. I was at PAMM and saw Ai Weiwei’s photos behind the vases where he drops an ancient Chinese vase and breaks it. And I saw it as a provocation by Weiwei to join him in an act of performance protest,” he said.
“I wanted to draw attention to the fact that there are so many foreign artists like myself and others who have been here 30 years and have never received attention or support from Miami Art Museum or now PAMM and other local museums.
“PAMM used $200m of public money on its building and opened with Weiwei’s work to draw attention to itself and as always continues to ignore local artists.”
Museum officials, however, rejected Caminero’s claims, pointing to an upcoming “exciting roster of exhibitions” of work by modern and contemporary artists based in south Florida, including a large show by Miami artist Edouard Duval-Carrie.
A statement issued by PAMM directors on Tuesday read: “Although the museum can’t speak directly to intentions, evidence suggests that this was a premeditated act. We have the highest respect for freedom of expression, but this destructive act of vandalism is disrespectful to another artist and his work, to Pérez Art Museum Miami, and to our community.”
Caminero was charged with criminal mischief, a third-degree felony in Florida that carries a penalty of up to five years in jail if the damage is more than $1,000. He was released from custody on Monday to await a court hearing on an as yet unspecified date.
Cuban-born artist Sergio Garcia, who moved from Havana to Miami in 1969, told the New Times he supported Caminero’s actions. “I think it’s the most courageous act ever undertaken by a Miami artist. He has helped squarely focus attention from the international community on the plight of local artists,” he said.
But Perri Lee Roberts, a professor of art history at the University of Miami, said it was a “bizarre publicity stunt” that could have longer-term implications for art exhibitions at PAMM and other local museums.
“I’m ashamed of what happened in our city. If he truly represents art why would he destroy the work of another artist?” she told the Guardian.
“I would think the head of security and the registrar at this wonderfully well-attended museum are immediately reviewing what the guards are being instructed to do and where they’re standing. Whether there was adequate security in place is really the question.”
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Maximo Caminero faces five years in prison after smashing Chinese artist’s vase at Miami museum
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