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http://www.people.com/article/keith-urban-we-were-us-party
http://web.archive.org/web/20140829060342id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/keith-urban-we-were-us-party?
Keith Urban We Were Us Party : People.com
20140829060342
08/26/2014 AT 09:40 AM EDT "We Were Us" was the one that almost got away from became a very sweet 16th No. 1 single, celebrated with writers Nicolle Galyon, Jon Nite and Jimmy Robbins at a high-noon Music Row party in Nashville on Monday. Composed as a duet, the song was first intended for an unnamed female artist, according to Galyon, who said: "We heard through the grapevine that she was kind of looking for a duet for her record, so we kind of wrote it for that, but somehow it made it into Keith's hands before anyone else got to hear it, and that's where it stopped." Though a few hundred industry friends turned out to toast the song at Nashville's Tippler restaurant, missing from Monday's party were Urban's duet partner "Nic is in New York making a movie so she couldn't be here, but she asked me to say hello to everyone," Urban told the crowd. "This song went No. 1 quite some time ago, and we spent a long time trying to get my schedule and Miranda's schedule synced up. We finally had to do [the party] without her." Lambert did send a warm video message from her bus, saying, "I love this song, I love the writers for writing it, and I love Keith Urban for asking me to be a part of it." Urban laughed, telling the crowd, "Miranda was a huge part of this song. You listen to every song in different ways. The images in this one got to me immediately, and Miranda's face and voice came to me at the same time. She was the only singer I would do this with." Urban also noted that unlike many duets, which are often recorded separately, the two singers recorded "We Were Us" at the same time in the same room. "She and Blake came over one morning, we all hung out for a while and then we went in the studio and recorded it together," he said. "It was so loose and so cool, so special to be there together." Urban's current single from his album is "Somewhere in My Car." Taking a break from the judge's seat on , he is currently on the road with his
During a party to toast his recent No. 1, Urban also reveals details of country's coolest double date
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/08/18/millennials-say-venmo-fuel-mobile-payment-surge/MQgP5wOHEnn5pog5LZPGOO/story.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20140831011924id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2014/08/18/millennials-say-venmo-fuel-mobile-payment-surge/MQgP5wOHEnn5pog5LZPGOO/story.html
Millennials say ‘Venmo me’ to fuel mobile-payment surge
20140831011924
NEW YORK — First, they ditched land telephone lines. Then they cut the cable TV cord. Now, millennials are chucking their checkbooks and cash. Take Sanket Karuri, 23, who calls himself the ‘‘friend who never has cash at those cash-only places.’’ Instead, he uses his smartphone to split restaurant checks and pay rent, using eBay’s mobile payment tool called Venmo. Like many of his peers, he has taken to using the application’s name as a verb — telling friends to ‘‘Venmo me’’ — the way predecessors turned ‘‘Google’’ and ‘‘tweet’’ into action words. Millennials, people born from the early 1980s to the early 2000s, have been flocking to these technologies, drawn by their ease of use and social features. Venmo, based in New York, alone handled $314 million in mobile payments in the first quarter of this year, up 62 percent from the prior quarter. Another tool gaining in popularity is Fiserv’s Popmoney. After downloading a mobile payment app onto a smartphone, users can connect them to bank and credit card accounts, and then link up with friends to send and receive money on the go. The broader mobile wallet market, which in recent years drew entrants such as Google, initially was slow to catch on with a wide audience. The rising use of peer-to-peer applications among twentysomethings is improving the prospects for adoption of all kinds of smartphone-based payments. ‘‘I couldn’t have predicted then just how much it would infiltrate my financial life as it has, but now I live and die by it,’’ said Karuri, who uses the application to pay peers for everything from rent to drinks. ‘‘Especially in New York, you’re mostly going out with lots of friends, and there’s a lot of splitting bills — Venmo has taken over that game.’’ Online and mobile peer-to-peer transfers can be used anytime when people previously might have written a check or handed out cash, such as for rent, utilities, or bills for dining out. About half of peer-to-peer payment users use the apps to split restaurant checks, according to a July Nielsen report. Gifts and entertainment, such as paying each other for concert tickets, are also popular. Individuals exchange about $1 trillion in the United States every year, said Ron Shevlin, a senior analyst at Aite Group, a research and advisory firm. While mobile and electronic peer-to-peer applications won’t be able to capture the entire market, they have made gains and will ‘‘make a dent,’’ he predicted. Caitlin Wood, 22, a recent college graduate in Raleigh, N.C., started using Venmo in February when she didn’t have cash to pay for her share of a burrito and margarita dinner. Her friend picked up the tab and told Wood to ‘‘Venmo’’ her. Since then, she’s been using it about once a week for everything from paying utilities to splitting meal checks. The apps are free to download, and most levy modest fees for transactions. Some charge for sending money through a credit or debit card. Others might charge for sending, though not for receiving. Dwolla, a P2P payment network startup, takes 25 cents from those receiving more than $10, while Venmo users who send money through a credit card get docked 3 percent. Millennials already spend $1.3 trillion as consumers annually, according to a January report by Boston Consulting Group. They are also already the biggest users of all mobile payment apps, with 18- to 34-year-olds accounting for about 55 percent of those who use the digital services, Nielsen found. ‘‘The early adopters grew up with mobile social media,’’ said Bill Ready, chief executive of Venmo and Braintree Payment Solutions. The increasing interest in P2P has spurred payments companies and financial institutions to roll out apps through acquisitions and partnerships. Braintree, itself acquired by eBay for $800 million last year, bought Venmo in 2012 for $26.2 million to break into the P2P payments space. Startup Square purchased P2P payments application Evenly for an undisclosed price in December 2013 — months after rolling out its own person-to-person service, Square Cash. The services are growing rapidly. The total volume of mobile and online P2P payments through financial institutions and nonbank providers such as PayPal — also owned by eBay — reached $74.9 billion in 2013 and is projected to increase significantly, according to Javelin Strategy & Research. In April, eBay chief executive John Donahoe cited Venmo’s ‘‘explosive growth on college campuses’’ in the P2P business and said that while it has no revenue, the app serves as a way to extend the reach of PayPal, which pioneered online peer-to-peer payments more than 15 years ago, and shows the ‘‘power of mobile payments.’’ No single provider dominates the market so far, as companies take on different roles in the space. Some are used for larger transactions such as bill payments, while others promote their services for smaller transfers, said Aleia Van Dyke, a payments analyst at Javelin. Baldwin Giang, 22, a recent graduate who just moved to New York, was the last one in his group of friends who didn’t have Venmo because he was nervous about giving his banking information to an online application. ‘‘I was at some restaurant with my friends and I was basically peer-pressured to get Venmo,’’ he said. ‘‘I didn’t have cash on me and they were like, ‘You’re being a barbarian, you just need to get it.’ ” Financial institutions that do not offer P2P services, such as through partnerships with app providers, risk losing younger customers, according to Javelin. ‘‘They like the social aspect of the communication, and it also serves as a reminder to an individual of who hasn’t paid,’’ said Ron Mazursky, director of the debit advisory service at Mercator Advisory Group, which provides analysis for the payments and banking industries. The power of community also helps explain increased millennial use of person-to-person payment services. College campuses, in particular, foster viral adoption of new technologies, said Kamran Ansari, an investor at Greycroft Partners who invested in both Venmo and Braintree. Student Justin Schuster, 21, was converted to Venmo not of his own volition recently during a brunch with three friends. One of them wanted to put the entire check on his credit card for rewards points, and insisted that everyone else pay their share through Venmo. ‘‘This was the first time I’d ever had an incentive or need to use it,’’ he said. ‘‘I ended up using it two more times in the same day.’’
ATTN: Financial editorsNEW YORK — First, they ditched land telephone lines. Then they cut the cable-TV cord. Now, millennials are chucking their checkbooks and cash. (c) 2014, Bloomberg News. Take Sanket Karuri, 23, who calls himself the ‘‘friend who never has cash at those cash-only places.’’ Instead, he uses his smartphone to split restaurant checks and pay rent, using eBay’s mobile-payment tool called Venmo. Like many of his peers, he’s taken to using the application’s name as a verb -- telling friends to ‘‘Venmo me’’ -- the way predecessors turned ‘‘google’’ and ‘‘tweet’’ into action words.
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http://fortune.com/2014/04/03/southwest-airlines-new-cause-placemaking/
http://web.archive.org/web/20140902230147id_/http://fortune.com:80/2014/04/03/southwest-airlines-new-cause-placemaking/
Southwest Airlines’ new cause: ‘Placemaking’
20140902230147
FORTUNE — Southwest Airlines is known for its folksy, quirky, egalitarian ethos, from its cut-rate fares and jokes from the flight attendants to its ticker symbol, LUV , to its unique corporate culture. In the past year or two, the airline has fallen for a cause that it feels matches its core values: “placemaking,” a movement within the field of urban planning that leverages the people and assets in a community to reimagine its public spaces. In one of Southwest’s more ambitious philanthropic initiatives to date, it has entered a multifaceted partnership with the movement’s leading non-profit, Project for Public Spaces, in a wide-ranging commitment to improve and revitalize the public spaces in a number of American cities. Under the new initiative — announced today as the Southwest Airlines Heart of the Community program — Southwest and PPS will work together to administer grants to multiple cities to transform their public spaces. They partnered quietly on two pilot projects last year, in Detroit and Providence, R.I.; and earlier this week they launched their third collaboration in San Antonio, the “activation” of the city’s historic Travis Park. “We were looking for a way to support our communities, but also where we could really provide some leadership,” says Gary Kelly, Southwest’s chairman, president, and CEO — and a San Antonio native whose grandfather went to the Methodist church on the Travis Park square. “There was a void in placemaking, and it’s something we have a passion about,” Kelly tells Fortune. MORE: Airbnb cozies up to cities Unlike other forms of urban planning or urban revitalization, placemaking is a community-based process that links urban design with the needs and desires of its inhabitants. (Think of it as crowdsourcing for the design of public squares and plazas.) It evolved out of the work of urbanists like Jane Jacobs, who preached the benefits of citizen ownership of neighborhood assets, and more notably, from the work of William H. Whyte, the urban sociologist — and legendary Fortune writer before that — who used time-lapse photography to record and observe human behavior in urban settings. Whyte maintained that the design of public spaces should start with an understanding of the way people use them, and his principles paved the way for the modern understanding of the use of public spaces. (It’s worth noting Whyte’s significant contributions to Fortune: His seminal 1956 book The Organization Man, which came to define a generation of workers, emerged out of articles he wrote for Fortune on management; he also coined the phrases ‘groupthink’ and ‘suburban sprawl’ in our pages — all before his second career.) The Project for Public Spaces was founded by one of Whyte’s disciples, Fred Kent. Placemaking is a niche, somewhat cerebral discipline that might seem at odds with a blue chip airline, and Southwest’s Kelly admits it “took a little time to understand what it is.” But the company saw a grassroots, bottom-up, egalitarian approach—placemaking projects engage members of the community from conception to finish, and solutions are often low-cost and common-sense, like using chalk and and moveable lawn chairs— that Southwest felt blended well with its culture and esprit de corps. (In Travis Park, new amenities include a sandbox, umbrellas, moveable tables and chairs, and public programming including fitness classes, free movies and game tournaments.) Southwest sees a chance to take the movement more mainstream. “We think it could be the new environmentalism,” says Linda Rutherford, the airline’s vice president of communication and outreach, who championed the idea of committing to placemaking. “Placemaking is about making the shaping of cities more accessible to everybody,” says Ethan Kent, senior vice president of PPS, “Much in the same way [Southwest] made air travel accessible to many more people.” The partnership with Southwest is the biggest the organization has ever done, he says. “We love the personality they bring to it.” MORE: Rahm Emanuel: Americans want cities over burbs The path from Southwest to placemaking began when Rutherford was searching for a cause the airline could get behind. Canvassing employees and people in their communities, she says, the topic of community revitalization kept coming up. From there, she entered into discussions with PPS and discovered a shared spirit between the two entities. “We really found a kindred spirit,” Rutherford says. As part of the partnership, Southwest also funded a report by MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning about the potential of placemaking in community-building — the movement’s first significant ivory tower affirmation. Like the Travis Park initiative, which partnered with San Antonio’s Center City Development Office, the earlier Heart of the Community projects also worked in concert with local institutions. In Detroit, PPS and Southwest worked with the Downtown Detroit Partnership to transform an underutilized lawn in Campus Martius Park into a seasonal beach with a deck and seating; in Providence, they worked with the Downtown Providence Parks Conservancy to create the Imagination Center, a new facility for family activities in the city’s Burnside Park. “We’re real excited about it,” says Kelly of the partnership. “It’s tangible. And it’s not so gigantic that you can’t accomplish something. We’re proud of the grant, but it’s not like it takes $100 million to come out and revitalize Travis Park. It’s something that can come to reality very quickly.” The Southwest and PPS team had only been working on the square for 90 days, he points out. “And it looks pretty darn good.”
Through an innovative partnership, the airline is revitalizing public spaces in Detroit, Providence, and San Antonio. Look for more to come.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/jun/19/architecture/print
http://web.archive.org/web/20140904011627id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/jun/19/architecture/print
Steve Rose: on East Tilbury the most Modern town in Britain
20140904011627
East Tilbury in Essex has certainly seen better days. Its shabby factory complex is virtually a ghost town. There is only half a row of shops, and nowhere to buy a cup of tea. At the edges of town, junk and litter spill out into the flat landscape beyond. On a weekday afternoon, the streets are empty save for a gang of kids on bikes and an elderly gentleman trimming his hedge. But beneath the usual symptoms of post-industrial decline, it's still immediately obvious that East Tilbury is not your average Thames estuary town. Many of the houses are flat-roofed, continental-looking boxes. The other buildings in the town centre, including the factories, are also simple, white-painted volumes. The whole town is laid out on an orderly grid. And why are those factory buildings in the middle of town anyway? East Tilbury doesn't look like it belongs in Britain, let alone Essex, and in a sense it doesn't. It's a little slice of 1930s Czechoslovakia, and the most Modern town in Britain. The starting points for Britain's relationship with the Modern movement are well established: Lubetkin's High Point, Bexhill on Sea's De La Warr Pavilion, Wells Coates Isokon Flats - but East Tilbury predates, and perhaps eclipses, them all. Its coherence reflects the fact that it was planned and built by one entity: the Bata shoe company, whose founder, Thomas Bata, was an early and zealous convert to modernism in all its forms. Bata made it his mission to shoe the world, and with the help of a cunning corporate philosophy, and the assembly-line technology he had gleaned from a visit to Henry Ford's car plant in the US, he pretty much succeeded. Bata was no less progressive when it came to architecture. He commissioned some striking individual buildings in the 1920s, such as the timelessly cool Bata shoe store in Prague, which still stands. But his greatest project was the transformation of his home town Zlin into a state-of-the-art workers' utopia. Bata's Zlin was based on English garden cities such as Letchworth, though it could hardly look more different. He employed a host of forward-looking local architects, such as Jan Kotera, Frantisek Gahura and Vladimir Karfik - the latter of whom had worked with both Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright. Le Corbusier himself worked on several projects for Bata in France in the 1930s, and even laid out a proposal for Zlin at Bata's request, though it proved too expensive to build. Like East Tilbury, Zlin's houses, factories and public buildings all adhere to the same functionalist logic. But where East Tilbury only grew to a quarter of its intended size, Zlin was a fully realised town, with a population of 45,000 before the second world war. It is still a pleasant place, its architectural uniformity set off by generous spaces and green areas, and there are impressive buildings, such as Bata's head office, a 16-storey proto-skyscraper known as the 21st Building. At the time - the late 1930s - it was one of the tallest buildings in Europe. Thomas Bata's brother Jan, who took over after Thomas died in a plane crash in 1933, installed his office in a giant elevator in the 21st Building, so he could move between floors and monitor the entire Bata operation without having to get up from his desk. Zlin must surely be one of Modern architecture's greatest achievements, but it wasn't just a vanity art project. The business was Bata's prime concern: a happy workforce meant greater productivity. Zlin's architectural harmony, then, was a by-product of its construction techniques. For ease and efficiency, the major buildings were all designed around a standard module, approximately six metres square. As the company grew, it built factories and towns across the world - the US, Canada, India, France, the Netherlands, Brazil, Britain - all based on Zlin's universal system. If you worked in one Bata factory, you could go to any other and know your way around. Work started on East Tilbury in 1932, guided by Czech architects and based on the Zlin blueprint. It had everything a normal town had: cinema, restaurant, sports facilities, garage, farms, grocers, butcher, post office, and, of course, shoe shop - except that everything was owned by Bata. Life in Bata-world seems to have been a cross between a holiday camp and a prison camp. The town had its own newspaper, and there were activities and facilities galore, but beneath it all was an almost cult-like corporate philosophy. "It was a wonderful place to live," says Joan James, whose father moved to East Tilbury from Hackney in 1940, and who worked for Bata herself for 20 years. "At the time, it was very modern. Having a bathroom inside the house was a novelty, and the houses down in the village weren't on electricity yet. But if you lost your job, you lost your house. And you had to maintain standards. There would be a gardening competition every summer, for example, so the estate was beautifully maintained. But if you weren't up to scratch, you got a letter telling you to get your garden sorted out. You were watched over, but it didn't feel oppressive. It was a very safe environment." James is one of a group of volunteers who run the Bata Resource and Reminiscence Centre from the local library, and she features in a documentary, Bata-ville: We Are Not Afraid of the Future, which plays in London tonight as part of the Architecture Biennale. The film, directed by Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie, follows a coach trip taking former Bata employees from East Tilbury and Maryport, Cumbria (where Bata built factories but not houses), back to Zlin. It's more a film about the people than the architecture, and there are a few tears along the way, particularly when they visit a thriving Bata factory in the Netherlands, and when they arrive at Zlin and see what East Tilbury might have become. From the 1960s onwards, Bata shifted its manufacturing to the countries East Tilbury once exported to, and as computers started to replace humans, the factories were gradually wound down. When production finally ceased last year, the Bata operation consisted of a machine churning out moulded footwear, and four ladies checking and packing them. No shoe manufacturing goes on at Zlin any more either, but since the end of the communist occupation the town has been reinventing itself. The 21st Century building has been refurbished, and now houses civic offices and a museum. Another factory building is being converted into a business centre, and there is a Thomas Bata University in town. There are new buildings going up, including a concert hall and library designed by Eva Jiricna, who grew up in Zlin (the town's other famous ex-resident is Ivana Trump). So, what to do with East Tilbury? If some local people get their way, precisely nothing. Many residents like it just the way it is, but it is unlikely to remain unchanged. As part of the vast Thames Gateway plan, East Tilbury is earmarked for regeneration. With the help of architects Allies and Morrison, a private company named Thamesgate plans to turn East Tilbury and neighbouring Linford into "a sustainable community-based town refounded on local needs". If Thamesgate's proposal goes through, they expect the town to have 7,000 new houses and 5,000 new jobs by 2021. Thamesgate's scheme ticks all the regeneration boxes: sustainability, green spaces, improved transport connections and the creation of a new town centre with a supermarket in a triangular patch of land between the factory complex and the railway line. The character of the place will inevitably change, but the Bata components will be left alone. The main factory buildings are listed, and the larger Bata street plan is a conservation area. Beyond that, says Allies and Morrison's Christopher Bearman, the new interventions will respect the principles Bata established in the 1930s. "Their plan was completely applicable to something we might do now," he says. "It was quite a simple structure, but in terms of a place-making exercise it was quite successful. It's set out on a very strong grid, for example, something we felt we should pick up on. And we've been respectful of the general scale of the buildings." There has been a certain amount of local opposition to Thamesgate's plans, including a "no to Thamesgate" website, but even life-long residents like Joan James can see the need for change. "It does need a certain amount of development," she says. "It's nice to have fields around you, but not when they look derelict, especially when you think back to how the estate used to look. I think, in some respects, it will do us good." The planners are more upbeat. "Maybe the Bata heritage will be more valued if this kind of thing happens," says Christopher Bearman. "You revamp the place, you improve it tremendously in terms of people wanting to live there, and some of these buildings might be returned to something more like their original state. Who knows?" The machine-age logic that created both Zlin and East Tilbury ultimately proved to be their downfall. For all their ambition, Thomas Bata and his successors failed to foresee a time when machines would render obsolete the workers and towns in which they had invested so much. At present, East Tilbury is in danger of becoming a memorial to the precariousness of the "corporotopia", an entire town dependent on the fortunes of one company. The business might have gone but the buildings remain, and will hopefully find new leases of life. For all his empire-building acumen, Bata's contribution to architecture could prove greater than his achievements in footwear. · Bata-ville: We Are Not Afraid of the Future is showing tonight at Allies and Morrison, London SE1, as part of the London Architecture Biennale. Details: 0870 247 1207 and Bata-ville.com
East Tilbury in Essex was a modernist workers' utopia built by a Czech shoe salesman with global ambitions. Could it be about to rise again? By Steve Rose.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2002/nov/04/art.artsfeatures
http://web.archive.org/web/20140910022530id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2002/nov/04/art.artsfeatures
Wonders and blunders: Piers Gough's public toilet/ automatic public toilets
20140910022530
Wonder: Piers Gough's public toilet, Westbourne Grove, London This is the 150th year of the public toilet - the first was in Fleet Street. It's amazing that there are now so few in this country: only one per 8,000 people. Piers Gough's loos reinvent the way they are used and perceived. They have been built with flair and imagination, and contain references to Gaudi, Soane and Lutyens. They are frivolous but also done with serious intent. I also like the fact that the toilet shares its building with a flower shop - flowers speak of temporariness, but the building is clearly meant to last. It's a building that always makes me pleased when I walk past it. Unlike the human car washes that are modern automatic public toilets. Gough's building implies a long-term vision and civic confidence, these pods seem temporary. One can't imagine them being around in 50 years. They are a lost opportunity in terms of effective street furniture and in terms of architecture. They look utterly bland. They are also intimidating and baffling. When you are queuing, you hear it swilling itself out between uses - like a dishwasher or washing machine. What if you got stuck inside? Would you drown? Would it be like being inside a carwash? It certainly doesn't give one very much confidence as you stand in line. · Michael Morris is co-director of Artangel, whose Logic of the Birds is at Union Chapel, London N1, from Wednesday until November 12. Box office: 08700 600 100.
Wonder: Piers Gough's public toilet, Westbourne Grove, London Blunder: Automatic public toilets
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2002/nov/22/heritage.science
http://web.archive.org/web/20140910022550id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2002/nov/22/heritage.science
Science it wasn't, but what an anecdote for a dinner party
20140910022550
Public autopsy carried out by Professor Gunther von Hagens Maybe it was stage fright, but for a man who had vowed to educate the public about postmortem examinations, Professor Gunther von Hagens often appeared out of his depth. The German doctor behind the controversial Body Worlds exhibition certainly paid attention to medical detail while conducting Britain's first public autopsy for 170 years at the Atlantis Gallery in east London's Brick Lane on Wednesday night. Professor von Hagens repeatedly made reference to the "pathology" of the deceased's diseased organs, displaying the swollen liver, enlarged heart, inflamed lungs, multiple gallstones and a tumour in the kidneys. But he struggled to saw open the skull, handing over his hacksaw to an assistant as the bone splintered, and couldn't find the pancreas. It was left to an English pathologist to step in and field technical questions from the 500-strong audience. Cristina Koppel, a fourth-year medical student from Imperial College London, said: "I feel very embarrassed with the way that von Hagens has carried out this procedure without really explaining what he was doing. "He wanted to educate but he couldn't do it. People weren't really learning anything." As clinical assistants, PR, security guards and TV camera crews milled around the corpse before the first incision there was no denying the sense of drama about the event. Wrapped up in white polythene and laid out on a steel trolley, specially equipped with a drainage tube, the body of 72-year-old Peter Meiss recalled that of Twin Peaks' Laura Palmer. Although the professor, wearing his trademark fedora, denied he is "a circus performer", most of the crowd seemed more interested in seeing a unique spectacle than getting an anatomy lesson, cheering as the organs were hefted onto the tabletop. Once you got over the initial shock of seeing a dead body, the dissection was no more disturbing than watching someone carve up a Christmas turkey. Indeed, the only truly stomach-churning moment came when the bladder was slit open releasing a stream of stale urine that soon cut through the sickly sweet smell of formalin, a solution used to preserve dead tissue. Bit by bit organs were removed, sliced up with a large ham knife and placed on what looked like roasting trays until the body cavity was empty. When Professor von Hagens produced an enormous ladle and slopped out body fluids onto a tray you almost expected someone to say, "Ah, Bisto!" No wonder one of the Channel Four camera crew whispered: "I could really do with some chips." The professor admitted that as the deceased passed away in March, his body was not in an ideal state: "The colour would not be so pale or grey if the corpse was fresh." But, after it was revealed that for more than 20 years he had drunk two bottles of whisky a day and smoked four packets of cigarettes a day, you hardly needed a medical degree to estimate the cause of death. Nevertheless, the size, shape and texture of the organs surprised most of the audience. The swollen liver looked like a bloomer loaf, the brain tissue was the colour of cooked chicken and the underside of the skin, flecked with yellow fat, looked like the bottom of a mouldering Axminster carpet. Sally Pittman, a fashion designer from London, admitted she was shocked to see in the flesh the damage caused by drinking and smoking. "When [von Hagens] was saying that the lung was attached to the pleural lining [the membrane that covers the lungs] because of the inflamed lung that was really, really shocking because that was the damage done not just from smoking but from drinking, " she said. "I didn't know drinking would effect your heart and lungs in that way, I thought the damage was restricted to the liver." Despite such reactions, many will remain unconvinced that this "postmodern autopsy", as the professor billed it, was either in good taste or in the public interest. But for those of us who were there, it will keep us in after dinner anecdotes for years to come.
Does anyone really think that this 'postmodern autopsy' was either in good taste or in the public interest? Well, at least it gives us something to talk about, says David Batty.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2002/dec/30/architecture.artsfeatures
http://web.archive.org/web/20140910093200id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2002/dec/30/architecture.artsfeatures
Replacing Edinburgh's Cowgate | Art and design | The Guardian
20140910093200
Cowgate runs parallel to the Royal Mile in the heart of Edinburgh's Old Town. A wealthy street in earlier centuries, it had become a notorious slum by the mid-1800s. Smart money and polite society had emigrated north across Robert Adam's South Bridge to the all but unrivalled elegance of the city's New Town. Over the past decade, Cowgate enjoyed an urban renaissance, its cheek-by-jowl gathering of pubs, clubs and the Gilded Balloon comedy club becoming increasingly fashionable. And then came the recent fire. Thirteen buildings in this World Heritage site were gutted. What, then, will happen to this gloriously atmospheric quarter of old Edinburgh? How can anyone hope to re-create the rich life, let alone the haunted patina of buildings that have developed their special character over recent decades and past centuries? "The architecture itself was neither here nor there," Neil Gillespie, design director of Edinburgh architects Reiach and Hall, told the Scotsman. "The biggest loss is the mix - a soup of uses which has been built up over the decades. The important point is how to safeguard the mix of things so that it does not become monolithic." Ben Tindall, architect and member of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, says: "What needs to be removed should be, but what is new should be sympathetic and modest. We are opposed to ripping it all down. I would not say that this is an appropriate place for a significant new building. This is not an easily disposable bit of the World Heritage site. This is one of the most characterful parts of the site. It is of stupendous significance. We would keep the roots of the site coupled with sympathetic in-filling, not copies or fakes but something based on modesty and intelligence." Donald Anderson, the leader of Edinburgh city council, has made it clear that public safety will be placed before the concerns of those who want to retain parts of the damaged buildings. One of his main concerns is that rebuilding costs, estimated at £100m, are kept in check. He has in mind the spiralling cost of the Scottish Parliament building, designed by the late Catalan architect Enric Miralles, which has caused the city much embarrassment in recent months. Parsimony, prudence and pragmatism will surely be among councillors' watchwords. And, to an extent, they will be right. The buildings damaged in the blaze were modest. This is not a place of, or for, monuments, but for modest, if inventive, design. What can be saved ought to be saved, but here is an opportunity to weave new, low-key structures and services through Cowgate and to effect a number of unobtrusive improvements. There have been calls for the district to be rebuilt exactly as it was. The city planners have 3D plans of all the historic buildings and it would be perfectly possible. This, however, would surely be the beginning of Edinburgh's descent into the role of theme-park city, a grand, but now tired, old actor playing cameo roles of no consequence without conviction. Cities change. The IRA did its best to rip the heart from central Manchester: now look at the city centre's new-found confidence and swagger. Al-Qaida spited New York: now the city is finding again the creative and commercial chutzpah that saw it reach such world-dazzling heights in the first half of the 20th century. Donald Anderson favours an architectural competition to decide the future development of the area. Local architects, meanwhile, are gathering their thoughts. Despite a division between those who want a faithful reconstruction and those who see opportunities for new designs and buildings, all agree that Cowgate must be given back its special character - with new studios, performance spaces, bars, clubs and restaurants. Some are suggesting escalator links between Cowgate and the bridges that span this sunken slice of city. It has often been said that Adam's bridge, linking the Royal Mile with Chambers Street, Princes Street and the New Town, was a kind of 18th-century flyover that swept over and demoted the Cowgate district as it fell from social grace and economic favour. Now is the time to link Cowgate more directly and effectively to the bridges, their transport links and the New Town. Such a link could include, as local architect Ron Galloway suggests: "A pedestrianised shopping mall and entertainment facilities on several levels stepping down escalators to the Cowgate." And Oliver Chapman, an architect with an office on Cowgate, says: "We do not see why modern materials and contemporary architectural expression should be excluded. Properly handled, the new buildings would be positive and sympathetic neighbours." Chapman says there are lessons to be learned from other hilly European cities that have made new links between low- and high-lying districts. He cites the examples of Perugia and Lisbon. "Edinburgh is a densely packed, multi-level city," he says. "By creating new, vertical pedestrian routes through the city centre complete with landings offering shops and entertainment, the city centre could only be more vibrant and more of a pleasure to use." Meanwhile, demolition of the damaged buildings has begun. The people of Edinburgh have every reason to fear change. It seems remarkable to see how opportunities have been taken, quite wilfully, to undermine the magnificence of this city: the St James's shopping centre - a concrete horror completed in 1970 - was dumped on what had been 18th-century St James's Square. There is a case, if not for causing fires, for the demolition of many of the buildings raised here between the 1960s and the 1980s. Over the past decade, however - the decade that had seen Cowgate become so lively - Edinburgh has got a grip on much of its architectural developments. Architects like Richard Murphy - whose work includes the Fruitmarket Gallery and inventive new homes elsewhere in Edinburgh, as well as the new British High Commission in Colombo, Sri Lanka - have shown that it is possible to design in a modern and inventive idiom using traditional materials where appropriate. Edinburgh and its architects have surely learned enough since the opening of the St James's Centre to build inventively and well. It would be the stuff of very low comedy indeed if they were encouraged to add smoke to fire by providing commercial Eurotrash in Cowgate. Edinburgh is a very special city indeed. After the fire, the world will be watching.
How do you replace something as old and elegant as Edinburgh's Cowgate? Jonathan Glancey weighs up the proposals.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2003/feb/07/art.artsfeatures
http://web.archive.org/web/20140910165303id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2003/feb/07/art.artsfeatures
Why a bid to roll a three-tonne rock from Wales to Stonehenge failed
20140910165303
Thanks to the Dome, we tend to associate any project with "millennium" in the title with hubristic, preordained disaster. Last week brought to a close the final chapter of an altogether more modest failure, when an 8ft x 3ft Welsh bluestone, unluckily dubbed the Millennium Stone, found a final resting place at the National Botanic Garden of Wales in Carmarthenshire. Here the giant stone will lie recumbent on a bed of logs, the better to illustrate the tale of its ill-fated voyage, one that involved more than a 1,000 volunteers, a fair bit of lottery money, considerable controversy, repeated embarrassments and a lot of bad luck. It is a story that many in Wales would like to draw a veil over, but Owen Jenkins spokesman for the botanic garden, is adamant that the story must be told. "We can't have the stone without telling people why this particular stone is here and what its recent history is," he says. Here then, is the story. The Millennium Stone began life as part of the Preseli hills in Pembrokeshire, and was to end its days at Stonehenge. The great standing bluestones of Stonehenge's inner circle are also believed to have come from the Preseli hills, and a European-funded community group called Menter Preseli (Empower Preseli) had an idea to recreate the journey those ancient stones might have made 4,500 years ago. Relying on volunteers and using only tools and methods available to ancient Britons, they wanted to haul the three-tonne rock down the mountain to the upper reaches of the Cleddau estuary, much as Neolithic man might have. Then they were to put it aboard a replica Neolithic boat and row it to Milford Haven, then out to sea and round the coast, across the Bristol channel and up the Avon river to Salisbury Plain. From there volunteers would drag it the last 26 miles to Stonehenge, a site known to the Welsh as Cor y Cewri, or the Choir of Giants. It would be a bold, if not entirely scientific experiment, a sort of modern Kon-Tiki, proving at the very least that this theoretical prehistoric feat could be achieved in practice. Menter Preseli was duly awarded a £100,000 grant from the Lottery commission's millennium festival fund. The trouble started at the inaugural pull. The group had planned to cover the 240 miles to Stonehenge at a rate of three miles a day, dragging on weekends between April and September 2000. But on the inaugural Saturday they managed just one mile pulling the stone on a sledge made of logs. Organisers blamed a lack of volunteers. About 40 had shown up, but the necessity of laying protective plastic sheeting on the road surface ahead of the sledge slowed them down considerably. Sunday's pull was cancelled, and Menter Preseli set out to recruit more people for the following weekend. A shortage of volunteers kept progress to a minimum, although those who did show up remained enthusiastic. Len Mullins, spokesman for Pembrokeshire county council, is one of the people who turned up to pull on the ropes. "I went on it one weekend and there were people there from Australia," he says. "There were 35 to 40 of us. It was great fun, and there was a barbecue at the end of the day. It was a good laugh. Very worthwhile." By the end of the May bank holiday the stone had crossed the A40 between Haverfordwest and Carmarthen to Blackpool Mill, where it was to be launched on the water, although not before the sledge went missing overnight. Two specially built coracles were lashed together to form a primitive catamaran, so the stone could be carried between them in a sling, but it could not be dragged far enough into the river for the boat to manoeuvre over it. For safety reasons a crane was used to nudge the stone further offshore, but got stuck in the mud and a JCB had to be called in. By this time the project's Stone Age credentials were slightly compromised. No doubt volunteers could have performed this operation the Neolithic way, with ropes and levers, but they weren't allowed to. The real problems began when the barge reached Milford Haven. In the choppier sea water, the slings parted and the stone sank to the bottom of the Bristol channel. Organisers were once again obliged to make use of 21st-century technology. Divers eventually found the stone on the sea bed, 17m down. A salvage crew hauled it up and towed it to shore. In September 2000, the original date set for crossing the finish line at Stonehenge, it was discovered that the newly adapted barge would no longer accommodate the stone. After a run of bad weather, it was decided to mothball the operation for winter. It turned out to be longer. "No insurance company would insure the rowers. They said it was too dangerous," says Mullins. "That's unfortunately how the whole project frittered out." The three-tonne bluestone sat on the dock side at Milford Haven for two years, decorated with an improvised plaque which said simply: Millennium Stone. In the meantime, Menter Preseli was wound up, its European funding at an end. The bluestone became the problem of Pembrokeshire county council, as well as the Heritage Lottery Fund, which had already paid out £53,000 to move a giant rock 17 miles. People who had regarded the project as a farce from the beginning felt vindicated, and there was a sort of cruel justice in it for those who don't like ancient mysteries being tinkered with: modern man had been outfoxed by his Neolithic ancestors. We still don't know how they got those stones to Stonehenge. Les Mullins believes that the modern world threw up obstacles to the project unknown 4,500 years ago. "Stone Age man never had the health and safety people looking over his shoulder," he says. Nor did he have to rely on non-slave labour, or Lottery funding. There were no roads to cover with protective plastic sheeting. Even so, the heretofore minority view among archaeologists that the bluestones of Stonehenge were actually pushed to Wiltshire by glaciers looks set to enjoy fresh currency. It makes a lot of sense, when you think about it. Meanwhile the stone was stuck on the quay. Then late last year, the National Botanical Garden of Wales approached the council, which in turn approached the Lottery fund. At last the unloved Millennium Stone had the chance of a permanent home. "A very appropriate one, too," says Mullins. "It's at the Rock of Ages exhibition at the botanical gardens, so it's going to be with other rocks." Last week the stone was picked up from the quayside and put on a flatbed truck for the 45-mile journey to the gardens. "We were leaving nothing to chance," says spokesman Owen Jenkins. It has been planted next to one of the replica coracles from the project, and a nearby standing bluestone from the same quarry represents the Millennium Stone's intended but unrealised fate; although it was never entirely clear what would be done with it had it reached Stonehenge. Far from seeing the stone as a cursed rock, Jenkins is keen to stress the "mystical, in inverted commas" properties of bluestones. "We'll be encouraging people to touch it, to feel it and appreciate it." Try doing that at Stonehenge. There is one final mystery surrounding the Millennium Stone: the plaque. At first Mullins insists that there was never a plaque of any kind on it, but later admits that he heard that there was one, although he seems reluctant to use the word plaque. He says it was just a sign that said Millennium Stone. Jenkins is adamant that it was a proper plaque, and relates a story told to him by a cameraman awaiting the truck on the quayside for the bluestone's final journey. "While he was there, some fellow came to the stone, placed both hands on it and gazed out to sea for a few minutes," he says. "And then he produced a screwdriver, and took the plaque and ran off with it." We may never know why.
It was meant to be a glorious Lottery-funded millennium project - moving a three-tonne rock from from Wales to Stonehenge by Stone Age methods. But it never worked out. Tim Dowling chronicles a short but expensive journey which ended last week.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/09/06/eagles-get-back-garden-and-woods/ZXInFGx5ltGMQwyZ3cHCGJ/story.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20140911020024id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2014/09/06/eagles-get-back-garden-and-woods/ZXInFGx5ltGMQwyZ3cHCGJ/story.html
Eagles get back to Garden and Woods
20140911020024
The Eagles will alight for two nights in Boston this month. Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, and Timothy B. Schmit bring the “History of the Eagles” tour — which includes a special appearance by founding member Bernie Leadon — to the TD Garden on Sept. 15. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-enshrined group, purveyors of one of the best-selling albums in history, will also perform the next night in the cozier confines of the Citi Wang Theatre to benefit the Walden Woods Project, the Lincoln-based nonprofit conservation organization that Henley founded in 1990. During the fund-raiser, the organization will present its Global Environmental Leadership Award to actor- director Robert Redford, and its Environmental Challenge Award to several recipients, including Nashua High School South junior Deepika Kurup — each of whom, Henley says, is “brightening the corner where they live and doing environmental stewardship on an exemplary level.” Now approaching its 25th year, the Walden Woods Project still has many items on the agenda, including educational initiatives at the Thoreau Institute and a farm and agricultural program that includes a produce stand. “It’s a wonderful way to interface with the community,” Henley says. “They can stop by the produce stand, and we can give them information about the project as a whole.” He also hopes to expand the Walden Woods conservation footprint for longer-range projects, including the potential construction of a bridge that would enable both humans and wildlife to cross over Route 2 to enjoy both sides of the woods. We recently caught up with the busy singer, songwriter, drummer, and conservationist by phone from his Southern California home on a day off from the tour. Q. Next year marks the 25th anniversary of the Walden Woods Project. Has the time gone by quickly? A. The first 10 years went by pretty slowly, as difficult years usually do. (Laughs.) But the last 15 years have gone by pretty quickly. We’ve protected nearly 170 acres now, which doesn’t sound like a lot in the scheme of things. But when you consider that Walden Woods is less than 3,000 acres, and a lot of the other acreage is preserved by other conservation concerns — the Lincoln Land Trust, the Concord Land Trust, the State of Massachusetts — over 85 percent of historic Walden Woods is now preserved in one way or another, and we’re very happy about that. But I want to emphasize that there is still work to be done. Q. At the event at the Citi Wang Theatre you’ll be honoring Robert Redford, who has a long history of environmental advocacy. Was that your choice solely, or is there a committee? A. It’s a committee decision, but I’m on the committee. We only do this every couple of years; President Clinton was the first recipient, and Mr. Redford was the logical, unanimous choice this year. He and I have worked on environmental projects together in the past, and he’s such a great, down-to- earth, approachable guy . . . so involved and so sincere about what he does. I admire him a great deal. Q. For years the Eagles took the greatest hits approach in concert, but this tour is chronological in nature and incorporates earlier, less well-known material. That was based off of the success of the documentary that was released last year, correct? A. Yes. We tried to figure out how we could translate that into a live performance, and it’s been a lot of fun, especially having Bernie Leadon back with us. Q. You’re also one of those groups with the luxury problem of having many songs people want to hear, which makes this approach more interesting and maybe a little riskier. A. Some people don’t really recognize a couple of the early songs even though they were on the early albums, like “Train Leaves Here This Morning.” You can sort of tell that half the audience came to the party a little bit later. (Laughs.) But people have been very respectful and engaged when we talk about the early days of the band. Q. For a well-known band, there was a lot of buzz around the documentary. I certainly learned things I never knew. A. The documentary has been an amazing phenomenon for us in terms of generating new interest. We were doing all right before the documentary came out but, since it came out it’s been just incredible. And it’s still being broadcast periodically and it’s still having a ripple. I’d like to give credit where credit is due: Producer Alex Gibney and director Alison Ellwood did a stellar job of balancing the content. We didn’t want to make just another “sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll” piece. There are too many of those already. We wanted something more, and I think that was achieved. Being a person who greatly values and guards his privacy, it wasn’t easy for me to let them put all that “laundry” up on the screen, but people seem to like — and even respect — what they see. Most folks, including our most avid fans, had no idea what we’ve been through, because we always circled the wagons and kept our camp carefully guarded. In the end, that policy served us well. Glenn also deserves kudos for finding Alex Gibney. He did his homework and it paid off. Q. In reading some of the reviews and commentary about the film, it seems like you might have won over some people who were previously not fans. A. We did, and it’s a wonderful thing. I guess that’s one of the benefits of sticking around long enough. (Laughs.)
A chat with Don Henley of the Eagles about the band’s upcoming show at the TD Garden and benefit concert for the Walden Woods Project.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2003/jun/12/art.artsfeatures
http://web.archive.org/web/20140911112720id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2003/jun/12/art.artsfeatures
Philip-Lorca diCorcia
20140911112720
American photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia is known for his tricks with light. A street photographer in the tradition of Cartier-Bresson, but armed with lighting techniques more akin to film-making or fashion shoots, diCorcia often photographs strangers on the street, suddenly caught in the glare of flashbulbs. It is ironic, then, that there is something not quite right with the lighting levels in the main gallery here, filled with more than 70 of diCorcia's images. Until your eyes adjust, you can see yourself reflected in the glass of each exhibit more clearly than you can see the photograph. This is the only wobble in an otherwise compelling show, and it does, at least, accord with the themes of the artist's work: self-conscious looking; natural versus posed (think how differently we look at photographs at home and in galleries); the quiet rituals of life. Arranged like a personal album - the images are placed close together, with interconnecting themes, protagonists and contexts - these are thrilling photographs of some deadly dull moments of being. People watching television in bed and falling asleep in front of it; others smiling goofily at their pets, having a bath, getting into a lift or playing cards; holiday rituals; ironing; drinking: these are the underwhelming staples of diCorcia's images. What transforms them from being snapshots is the lush, cinematic lighting, imbuing each scene with a drama and poetry it would lack in everyday life. This accentuates and freezes each gesture or facial expression so that the protagonists in these photographs often look like mannequins: a baby lying on the ground appears doll-like, a man plastering a ceiling resembles a statue. A second sequence of photographs, taken on a Havana street with hidden flashbulbs, lend the bustle of the street a sense of pace and laid-back beauty. DiCorcia, photographing from a hidden corner, at waist height, powerfully reminds us of the tiny details of life - people's shoes, shopping bags, clothes and facial expressions - paint a still fascinating and substantial photographic picture. &#183 Until August 24. Details: 020-7522 7888.
Whitechapel Gallery, London
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2003/jun/26/photography.artsfeatures
http://web.archive.org/web/20140911112746id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2003/jun/26/photography.artsfeatures
The ones that got away
20140911112746
Look around you. They are great, aren't they? So good in fact that they were never printed in the newspapers they were taken for. And here we should confess that the Guardian is guilty of rejecting much of what you see. A late-breaking story, pressure of space, a dozy editor, or some other mundane calamity in the daily demonstration of chaos theory that is a newspaper ensured that they ended up on the spike - that godforsaken place where genius is impaled on the cold steel of rejection. Had they not been reclaimed from the dead by the British Press Photographers' Association - an organisation chiefly responsible for organising piss-ups to console its members that somewhere beneath their hardened ratpack carapaces beat the hearts of artists - these beautiful and unsettling images would have remained unseen. Unseen is also the title of the show the association is now staging at the Inside Space gallery in London. As a title, it's a bit of a taunt - and it's meant to be. Photographers can be a chippy bunch. And the BPPA is a very broad church, taking in everyone from inveterate lurkers in the bushes as Sir "Arfur" Edwards of the Sun, "the Queen's favourite snapper" - a word photographers hate - to such artist-artisans as Nobby Clarke, Ian Waldie and Sean Smith. Nor were all of the pictures in the show pulled by faceless picture editors or sub-editors. Sometimes the photographers themselves said no to their own work. One shot of riot police mightily enjoying giving protesters a jolly good leathering would never have been used by the photographer's conservative employers. Another, Jess Hurd's picture of a British National Party supporter stabbed in the back above his England tattoo during rioting in Bradford, was held back by him lest it distort reporting of the clashes. The power of the image, to do both good and ill, is undiminished. No one knows that more than the poor, demonised paparazzo. · Unseen runs at the Inside Space gallery, Great Titchfield Street, London W1 until July 19.
Fiachra Gibbons on some of the great press photos that didn't make it onto the page.
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http://fortune.com/2014/09/11/a-president-in-prime-time-command-after-2-years-of-frustration/
http://web.archive.org/web/20140911130558id_/http://fortune.com/2014/09/11/a-president-in-prime-time-command-after-2-years-of-frustration/
A President in prime-time command after 2 years of frustration
20140911130558
This post is in partnership with Time. The article below was originally published at Time.com (TIME)–The central message of Wednesday night’s prime-time reveal of a new U.S. war in the Middle East came a few minutes in. President Barack Obama squared to the camera, slowed his delivery and filled each syllable with the all the gravity he had. “I know many Americans are concerned about these threats,” he said, pausing briefly between sentences. “Tonight, I want you to know that the United States of America is meeting them with strength and resolve.” That was the takeaway, the thing he wanted his country to remember after the 15-minute interruption of the America’s Got Talentended: I got this. Americans may be getting their throats cut in distant deserts. Iraq may again be falling into tribal chaos. Islamist extremism may be rearing its head under a new black flag. But the situation is under control. If he delivered the sentiment with remarkable presence of mind, it may only be because he hasn’t had many other opportunities over the past two years. Wars are presidential acts in the American system, whatever Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution says. He chooses the bombs to drop, and where they hit. He makes the phone calls to get other countries on board. He reviews the intelligence on the homeland threat each day, weighing the risks of spilled blood at home and abroad. War is also one of the last things of import he has control over in his second term. Just a few days earlier, he found himself in another room of the White House trying to explain to NBC’s Chuck Todd why Americans should care if Democrats keep the Senate in November, given all the evident powerlessness of anyone to do anything in Washington. The best he could come up with was that Democrats would have a better rhetorical position. “Having a Democratic Senate … means that we are debating the right things for the country,” he managed. In other words, the status quo, a situation so untenable that his communications shop made his escape from it a selling point. “The bear is loose,” White House aides would tweet, when he walked down the street, bought ice cream or a hamburger on some Midwestern Main Street. The Oval Office, in other words, is a cage. His attempts to deal with gun violence had fallen flat after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. His bipartisan dinners to craft tax reform and deficit reduction had been cleared away. His signature legislative achievement had almost come crashing down with a website. Even his bold plan to take unilateral action this summer on the immigration crisis got waylaid by polls showing voters on the brink of outrage. But this problem in Iraq and Syria, a few thousand jihadists belonging to a group with a name that no one can agree on — that was something he could handle. “Tonight, with a new Iraqi government in place, and following consultations with allies abroad and Congress at home, I can announce that America will lead a broad coalition to roll back this terrorist threat,” he said. It was a good moment for his presidency. But it was also the easy part. Polls show Americans favor intervention by about the same margin that they opposed bombing Syria last year. Chances are good the U.S. will win the military fight, and the spooks seem optimistic at the moment about preventing another homeland attack in retribution. But there will also be a cost. Another goal of his second term was to wind down the eternal conflict his predecessor called the “war on terror.” Now that won’t happen anytime soon. The war against the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria, which Obama described as neither Islamic nor a state, will be a long one. As with past painful conflicts, there is no end date, and no clear metric on which to declare victory. He said he will “degrade and ultimately destroy” the threat. But the destroy part could very well come years after he leaves office. For now, however, everything is under control. The nation that can’t agree on anything is taking definitive action. “As Americans, we welcome our responsibility to lead,” Obama said Wednesday night. The same can be said for the President who leads us.
As with past painful conflicts, there is no end date, and no clear metric on which to declare victory.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/mar/27/art
http://web.archive.org/web/20140912234128id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/mar/27/art
Lost in the new world
20140912234128
The sight of John Glover - 6ft tall, 18 stone, two club feet - must have been arresting. Anna Seward found him "a man of most comprehensive genius", observing how a "gentle and amiable temper has removed from his voice, and from his manners, any vestige of that rusticity which his obscure birth and unlettered education might teach us to expect". In 1814, a landscape, painted in the Louvre and exhibited at the Paris Salon, won him a gold medal from Louis XVIII. In 1821, the European Magazine noted that "as a landscape painter he stands in the first rank of British artists". This was certainly the case if earnings were any index of excellence, for Glover was second only to Turner as a money-maker in landscape, selling watercolours for the vast price of 60 guineas. However, he has effectively vanished from the history of British art. The simple explanation is that, in September 1830, the 62-year-old John Glover disappeared himself, as he took ship to follow his sons to Tasmania. Constable was but one contemporary to mention Glover from time to time thereafter; his name also turns up in diaries, the press. But for the most part, these shadowy literary traces are all that remain of his substantial club-footed presence. Or they are in Britain. Arriving in Tasmania in February 1831 with (it has been claimed) £60,000 and (it is known) some 106 sketchbooks, Glover was working prolifically from the off; and, as Bernard Smith pointed out, creating some of the first significant art out of the Australian landscape. His 1835 exhibition of some 68 paintings (all but six done in Tasmania) in London turned out to be a swansong as far as Britain was concerned. In Australia, however, he has long been an object of interest: a fine retrospective curated by David Hansen of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery is currently at the Art Gallery of South Australia; the exhibition fills the hole in the history of British art left by Glover's migration, and it is to be hoped that the means will be found to bring it to Britain. Pragmatic enough to know that practising as a drawing master would ensure him his living, Glover progressed from Litchfield to London in 1805, becoming a stalwart of the Society of Painters in Watercolour and moving the diarist and Royal Academy fixer Joseph Farington to grudging admiration with the profits his work brought him. He was in Italy before Turner, an absence from Britain that probably scuppered the associateship of the Royal Academy he had decided to aim for, and by 1823 was exhibiting with the alternative Society of British Artists. Work from this period, such as the extraordinary Ullswater, Early Morning (1824, Art Gallery of New South Wales) shows a capacity for meticulous imitation in rendering precise reflection in still water. It is easy to see both why a reviewer in the Times in 1821 praised his power of "faithfully representing the scenery of nature... in many instances carried to a degree of perfection which almost deceives the senses of the spectator" and regretted his deficiency "in the poetry of his art". By then this was habitual in criticism of Glover: in 1810 a writer in Ackermann's Repository had, typically, censured his "timidity". Compared with Turner, Glover was not concerned with a landscape of ideas. His sketchbooks attest rather to a single-minded fixation on seeing; views themselves, often at different points of approach, or their parts. His choosing to remove any filter of received pictorial knowledge when looking may explain why, on encountering the completely alien landscape of Van Diemen's Land (as Tasmania was then called) Glover - who had written that "the expectation of finding a new Beautiful World... is delightful to me" - found himself able to create landscapes in which the unfamiliar light effects, the ochre and grey colours of the landscape and the strange shapes of eucalypts whose slight and hanging leaves only partially obscured the view, seemed to pose no problems. One of the earliest oils, Hobart Town, taken from The Garden Where I Lived (Dixson Galleries, State Library of New South Wales), hymns the benefits of colonisation, the blaze of the rose garden vivid against the bleached landscape backdrop, the geometry of both buildings and streets signalling order imposed on the wilderness that surrounds the nascent city. In 1834, in Mount Wellington and Hobart Town from Kangaroo Point (Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, National Gallery of Australia) represented the view back towards the earlier landscape, the house he had lived in showing as a central white block, above the town. Hobart Town, nestled into a Mount Wellington sublimely (and exaggeratedly) looming above it, declares the benefits of British civilisation. The Aborigines, dancing a corroborree or swimming in the Derwent, imply that this extends to the protection of the colonial indigenes. By then, that protection had taken a particular form. The British had been delighted with the open pasture country they found in central Tasmania, perceiving it as ideal for sheep belonging to the Tasmanian Aborigines, the Palawa. By 1830, it was feeding one million sheep. Aboriginal resistance developed into war in 1827. Between 1829 and 1832, the colony was under martial law, while, in January 1830, George Augustus Robinson, the "Conciliator", had set off on his journeys round the island to round up those Palawa who remained, with a view to transferring them to Flinders Island, off the north-west coast, for internment appeared one way round an intractable problem. The available options had been articulated by colonial auditor GTWB Boyes in November 1830. Unless, he wrote, "means were devised... of making them prisoners... in some well adapted part of this country, or, otherwise, of exterminating the race... the country must be abandoned". Abandoning the prospect of untold pastoral wealth was hardly an option, so resettlement was resorted to. Robinson brought into Hobart the remaining members of the Oyster Bay and Big River tribes in January 1832; what was left of the western tribes was mopped up by 1834. So, in the shady foreground of Mount Wellington and Hobart Town from Kangaroo Point, Glover was figuring what could no longer have been witnessed at that spot; and, indeed, he modelled his figures on those Palawa who had danced and swum for him in their semi-captivity in Hobart. The elegy may simply be pragmatically commemorating the inevitable. In My Harvest Home (1835, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery), a scene as bountiful as any painting of a British harvest, the labourers silhouetted in the startling light can be identified with the individual convicts assigned to Glover. There is no sentiment here. But other evidence suggests that, with the Palawa, his sympathies were rather more engaged. In 1835, Glover wrote to Robinson about a painting of a corroborree, "to give an idea of the gay happy life the Natives led before the White people came here and also to give an idea of the Scenery of the Country". On one sketchbook page, a serpent entwined around an English oak brandishes a bottle of grog while, in the Tasmanian vegetation to the side, a Palawa Adam and Eve are on the cusp of surrender. Yet, even as the Palawa declined on Flinders Island, Glover, in a series of remarkable oil paintings, imagined their untroubled existence in retrospect. He registered the European impact on Tasmania in paintings where landscape is ordered by means of formal compositional devices. By contrast, the long-departed Palawa dance, swim, hunt among sinuous gum trees normally disposed to contradict the tyranny of single-point perspective. In 1836's Mills' Plains, Ben Lomond, Ben Loder and Ben Nevis in the Distance, he represented people going about their business above the partly-open pasture grounds where they hunted. This commemorative fiction is hardly an apology. But it does, uniquely, allow Glover to concern himself - as, back in Britain, Turner was still doing - with the serious issues bound into a meditation on the processes and consequences of human progress. In England, Glover may have been deemed lacking in vision, though unsurpassed when it came to seeing. Somehow the accidents of history presented him, at 63, with a terrain and subject matter from which he could both paint landscapes of meaning and create works profoundly significant in domestic and colonial histories.
John Glover's cool, meticulous landscapes made him Britain's most successful painter after Turner. Then he moved to Tasmania - and disappeared
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/mar/29/art.health
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Mark Kenny: Living proof
20140912234133
Some time in the spring of 2005, a beautiful sculpture of a disabled, naked, pregnant woman, will be placed on the empty fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. Marc Quinn's marble work, Alison Lapper Pregnant, has already created a storm of controversy. Some critics regard it as an example of political correctness taken to extremes, and have pointed to the predominantly leftwing flavour of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group. Yet, paradoxically, the elevation of Alison Lapper to a 15ft statue could be described as a triumph for the pro-life lobby which, 38 years ago, when Alison Lapper was born without arms and with flapper-like legs, was the only group which thought she was entitled to exist. The "leftwing" activists at the time were, with the thalidomide scandal raging, campaigning for people like Alison (whose condition results from a congenital disorder called phocomelia) to be terminated in the womb. Indeed, the majority of the public, back in the mid-60s, felt that the thalidomide drug had inflicted such gross deformities that abortion should be legalised particularly for this purpose. The thalidomide scandal, moreover, proved to be exactly what the Abortion Law Reform Association (the lobby seeking to legalise abortion) needed to clinch its cause. "The drug thalidomide was the motor that reinvigorated the Abortion Law Reform Association and paved the way for reform," wrote Keith Hindell and Madeleine Simms in Abortion Law Reformed, their comprehensive 1971 account of the change in the law. Up until the thalidomide scandal, the abortion lobby had found it difficult to break through the ingrained public and parliamentary opposition. Alra found its way blocked by respectable opinion - which feared that easy abortion would cause a drop in moral standards - by the pro-life movements, and the influence of the Catholic church. It had campaigned for legalisation so as to halt the scandal of back-street abortions - which were horribly high in the desperate 30s, when more than 400 women a year died. But by the 60s, deaths from illegal abortions had fallen virtually to zero because of modern antibiotics and because termination was being practiced de facto in hospital conditions (the pre-1967 law allowed for a certain amount of flexible interpretation). Of course, there was a heavy element of hypocrisy, and secrecy, but the British public, or its parliament, were not about to vote merely to remove hypocrisy and secrecy. There was a prevailing view that there should be deterrents to easy abortion. The notion of "choice" was not an issue in the 60s. This arose after the American debates of the 70s, when "a woman's right to choose" was so successfully marketed as a slogan. Before that, campaigners were anxious to put over serious concerns for hard cases: the over-burdened mother of six or the rape victim. So when the thalidomide scandal struck in the early 60s, it was the secular version of an answer to prayer. From that moment onwards, the reformers sensed that theirs was no longer a minority movement but had mass support. The case of Sherri Finkbine of Phoenix, Arizona, made particular news in the summer of 1962: she had taken thalidomide early in her pregnancy, and had to fly to Sweden for a termination. Vatican Radio condemned this, but public opinion supported Mrs Finkbine. The cartoonist Trog drew a brilliant cartoon in Private Eye in which a pompous, pinstriped doctor looks down his nose at a distressed young woman: "I'm sorry," he says, "but the ethical position is quite clear - thalidomide was a legal prescription, but what you suggest is an illegal operation." And so it turned out, just as Hindell and Simms wrote: thalidomide made abortion acceptable. A Daily Mail/NOP opinion poll found that 80% of the public now supported a change in the law for such dreadful deformities. Only the pro-life movements and the Catholic church stubbornly maintained that a thalidomide baby - or any disabled child - still had the right to life, though Hindell and Simms were pleased to note that "under the impact of the harsh reality of this tragedy [of thalidomide], the authority of Catholic dogma silently disintegrated". Scroll forward some 40 years: and the principle that a child with severe disabilities indeed has the right to live is cast in stone by Alison Lapper Pregnant. The admirable Lapper certainly did have a hard time as a baby. Her birth mother was told that Alison was too ugly to live, and doctors considered her "a cabbage". She was brought up in foster care, but overcame her many difficulties and disadvantages to gain a first in fine art at Brighton University, and to become a delighted mother herself. Some traditionalists wanted a statue of Elizabeth, the late Queen Mum, on the spare plinth. But as Alison herself remarked lightly, there are enough statues of dead characters there already: "At least I'm alive, and people should celebrate that." And isn't Alison's living, and fertile, status a celebration of human life - and even for the forces of pro-life? · Mary Kenny is a freelance author and journalist. She is the author of Abortion: The Whole Story
Mary Kenny: The beautiful sculpture Alison Lapper Pregnant is a total vindication for the pro-life campaigners of the 60s.
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http://fortune.com/2014/03/06/the-bull-market-in-vintage-college-pennants/
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The bull market in vintage college pennants
20140913014358
FORTUNE — Like most University of Alabama graduates, 55-year-old Fran Smith has a lot of pride in her Alma mater. A 1982 alumna, Smith has three children who are all Crimson Tide graduates as well. “We’re talking Alabama, as in Crimson Tide! As in ‘Roll Tide’,” Smith eagerly explains. So, in November, when the retired software entrepreneur came across a booth at a flea market in New York City selling vintage college pennants, she couldn’t help but ask if any from Alabama were available. The booth’s owner, college memorabilia collector Steven Melillo, said no, but said he knew where he could find some. Three weeks later, Smith received four framed vintage Alabama pennants in the mail, and Melillo got a check for $300. MORE: With new online network, WWE hopes to pile-drive its doubters Smith is just one of a growing number of Americans yearning to relive their college days by buying a small, yet decorative, piece of them back. As the baby boomer generation comes of age with more disposable income to spare, many are willing to shell out hundreds — if not thousands — on something that reminds them of the glory days. Enter a boom in vintage college pennants, those flag-shaped felt things you often see people waving around at sporting events. They’re a small slice of the overall vintage pennant market, but that slice is growing, says Mike Egner, the author of the Vintage Pennant Price Guide. “A lot of people consider college to be the best time of their lives,” says New York merchant Melillo. “When people come to my booth and see a pennant from when they were in college … It’s an emotional experience.” Unlike other memorabilia like an old football program or university pin, pennants are uniquely desirable because of their ability to be displayed in houses and offices as decorations. Dating back to the early 1900s, pennants were originally commissioned as elaborate pieces of art that could be as large as 35 inches long. Around the 1940s, the item was reduced in size to become a popular stadium souvenir. Many did not treat them as collectibles and would simply throw them away after the game. MORE: Fortune investigates: A new beer called Fortune Now, they are a growth market for collectors and fans alike. Older pennants are getting harder to find each year, both increasing their value and driving up demand, Melillo says. A quick search on eBay finds more than 1,000 college pennants are up for bids. Options range from a 1939 Duke University pennant for $500 to a 1930s miniature Smith College pennant for 99¢. For buyers looking for a more personal touch, settings like Melillo’s booth, secondhand stores or university bookstores are also seeing robust sales. Increasingly, auction houses are getting in on the game: Huggins & Scott Auctions in Silver Spring, Md. and Robert Edward Auctions in Watchung, N.J. sell college pennants alongside their expansive sports memorabilia collections. And the market for old college pennants is not limited to American college alums: Melillo says roughly 20% of his customers are Europeans looking for a souvenir from their trip that is easy to pack and representative of America. The price of a pennant can depend on its size, age, and condition, but Egner says it is the illustrations on the item that seal the valuation. A standard Yale College pennant designed with the college seal, for example, will sell for much less than one that also has a picture of Yale’s bulldog mascot. Similarly, if a particular pennant is larger than the standard 12-by-30-inch size, the item can be sold for a much higher price tag, Egner adds. The collector owns a large 17-by-52-inch Princeton University pennant from 1910 that he thinks could be worth up to $800. Yet most pennant buyers are driven by emotion, not value, which makes pricing tricky, says Robert Lifson, the owner of Robert Edward Auctions. Some pennant buyers are willing to pay anything depending on the strength of their connection to a team or school, he said. In 2010, for example, Lifson’s auction house put a Buffalo Federal League pennant from 1914 on the block with an opening bid of $500. The pennant of the short-lived baseball team was ultimately sold for $21,500 to a buyer who undoubtedly couldn’t live without the item in his collection, says Lifson. MORE: Would you watch an electric-car racing series? John Sabino, the owner of online vintage collegiate memorabilia company Collectable Ivy, says the prices some customers are willing to pay for university pennants are similarly “crazy.” Sabino, who says demand is up “across the board” from just a few years ago, says he does roughly $20,000 in sales a month; he notes that he once sold a Stanford University pennant from the 1930s illustrated with Stanford’s former Indian mascot for $500. His customers are nearly all alums of the colleges they are looking for items from, he adds. Given the subjectivity of the pricing and demand for his pennants, New York’s Melillo says he has to rely on his gut when making purchasing decisions. After 20 years of collecting, he says he’s confident he can spot something that is rare and will sell well. The most valuable pennant he owns is a 1911 Brown University pennant that is more than 90 inches long. He considers the item to be priceless, but says he could probably get $3,500 for it if he found the right buyer. Selling college pennants is now just a second source of income for Melillo, but as demand for the product grows, the 51-year-old hopes to retire from his job as a facilities coordinator at Yale to collect and sell college pennants full time. He plans to increase his exposure by getting a website for his side business, Americana Memories, up and running as early as this week. “My friends think I’m nuts,” Melillo says with a laugh. “This has taken over my life, but I love it. It is a way to make money and to hear stories of all the different people that come to my table.”
A nostalgic baby boomer market and a surge in popularity of college memorabilia have driven up prices -- and demand -- for the old felt flags.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/apr/29/photography
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Once upon a time in Mexico
20140913120946
Say what you like about Edward Weston, but he had an amazing number of gorgeous girlfriends, all more than happy to get their kit off and pose naked for him. He was one of those men who, as they say in America, got more ass than a toilet seat. The expression is particularly apt in Weston's case since, photographically at least, he got a certain amount of toilet as well. Weston had long considered photographing "this useful and elegant accessory to modern hygienic life" but only got round to doing so in Mexico, in 1925. Drawn to the "extraordinary beauty" of its enamel, he became completely "thrilled" by it when he first saw it in the ground glass of his view camera: "Here was every sensuous curve of the 'human form divine' but minus imperfections." Not that this indicated any lack of enthusiasm for the female form divine. Weston prided himself on the way that the nudes he took shortly after photographing the toilet were "entirely impersonal, lacking in any human interest which might call attention to a living, palpitating body". But the studies of his companion in Mexico, Tina Modotti, are achingly personal. Indeed, the fascination of the photographs in a show that opens today at the Barbican is impossible to extricate from the human interest aroused by the story - or stories - of Modotti and Weston. The pair met in Los Angeles in 1919 in circumstances that are still unclear. What is certain is that by April 1921 they were engaged in a passionate affair. Weston was 35, married with four sons. Modotti, 10 years his junior, was also effectively - if not legally - married, to the artist Robo Richey. Richey travelled to Mexico in December 1921, intending to organise an exhibition of photos by, among others, Tina's lover. By the time she joined him a few months later, he was dying of smallpox. From Mexico, she was summoned back to California by a telegram informing her that her father had passed away. From an early stage the Modotti legend was touched by loss, grief. In 1923 she returned to Mexico City with Weston and his eldest son, Chandler. The move was necessary, Weston told his wife, for the continued development of his art. Their idea was to set up a photographic studio, with Modotti acting as administrator and guide; in return, Weston would teach her photography. For Weston, Mexico was a vital stage in the undeviating trajectory of his life. From the moment he discovered photography as a teenager in Illinois, his dedication to the medium was absolute. Women would come and go; he remained true to what he once called his "only love": the camera. For Modotti, going to Mexico was one in a series of changes that involved the constant creation of new and different lives. Born in Italy in 1896, she had travelled to America when she was 16. In LA she had been a model and actress, starring in the 1920 film The Tiger's Coat. In Mexico she achieved speedy notoriety as Weston's model and gradual recognition as a photographer in her own right. Her important place in the history of the medium is doubly, if ambiguously, fixed by her photos and those of the "beautiful" woman who took them. I put beautiful in quotation marks because that's what everybody says about her but, personally, I can't see it. What I do see, in picture after picture, is a willingness to embrace life, whatever it might bring - and there is always something beautiful about that. Even when she is happy, she radiates what the Spanish writer Miguel de Unamuno called, in a different context, "the tragic sense of life". Weston captured something of this in the portraits he made of her in 1924. With its combination of emotional-sexual intensity and obsessive technical precision, his description of how one of them came to be made is unsurpassed in the history of photography: "She leaned against a whitewashed wall - lips quivering - nostrils dilating - eyes heavy with the gloom of unspent rain clouds - I drew close to her - I whispered something and kissed her - a tear rolled down her cheek - and then I captured forever the moment - let me see f.8-1/10 sec. K 1 filter - panchromatic film - how brutally mechanical and calculated it sounds - yet really how spontaneous and genuine - for I have so overcome the mechanics of my camera that it functions responsive to my desires . . ." On the one hand their time in Mexico was idyllic, intoxicating. As is the case in any self-respecting bohemia, however, the lovers insisted on their right to take other lovers. Jealousy was rendered more tormenting by the fact that it was supposed to have been dispensed with. There was also a growing ideological divide between the two. Weston was contemptuous of "bourgeois" respectability but he was wary of "too much sentimentality over the proletariat. Too much deification of the Indian." Modotti, though, was becoming steadily more drawn to the simmering cauldron of Mexican politics. For a while this tension was, as they used to say, dialectically helpful for the development of her work. Her intuitive understanding of photography was underpinned by Weston's unyielding insistence on technique. Having mastered the early modernist prerogative of rendering the concrete world as abstracted angles of light and shade, Modotti sought to deploy her skills on behalf of the people whose lives she wished to depict and improve. One of her masterpieces in this regard is of a group of men, seen from above, hidden by the circular brims of their sombreros, gathered round a comrade reading the radical paper El Machete. That was taken in 1929, by which time Weston had returned to California for good ("The leaving of Mexico will be remembered for the leaving of Tina," he wrote on the train home, in November 1926) and Modotti had become a member of the Communist party. She had pledged her camera to the service of history, but by 1930 history was insisting that there were more pressing needs than those of the shutter. Weston, of course, would have none of this. "The world is going to pieces," Cartier-Bresson chided later, "and people like [Ansel] Adams and Weston are photographing rocks!" In her brief career as a photographer Modotti took a small number of great pictures (a workers' parade, twin lily stems, a staircase angling back on itself, the hands of a worker resting on a tool) - all of which can be seen at the Barbican. In poetry or prose, a relatively small output poses no critical difficulties. You can be a great novelist on the evidence of a single book. But the canonical photographers are marked by their plenitude. The inexhaustibility of Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans or - to take an extreme example - Garry Winogrand is integral to their achievement. In the case of Modotti, one is forced back constantly to the same dozen or so pictures. After a while one begins wanting more. And, because there are no more, one moves on to someone else. Modotti's relatively meagre output was the result of an abundance of life. There is one biography of Weston, by Ben Maddow. There are at least six of Modotti - for the simple reason that she led half-a-dozen lives. In 1927 she became romantically involved with a party member, Xavier Guerrero, who was summoned to attend a three-year training course in Moscow. The following year she wrote to Guerrero to tell him that she had fallen in love with an exiled Cuban revolutionary called Julio Antonio Mella. In 1929 Mella was assassinated as he and Modotti walked home from the offices of Red Aid. Grief-stricken, Modotti was arrested for his murder. After being cleared and released, she wrote to Weston with exemplary Bolshevik discipline: "I cannot afford the luxury of even my sorrows today." In 1930 Modotti was deported from Mexico. She spent six months in Berlin and then began a new life in Moscow as a party worker. She "married" another revolutionary, Vittorio Vidali and, in the words of biographer Letizia Argenteri, became "a sort of Soviet agent". In 1934 the couple were sent to Spain, where they became immersed in the civil war. With the fascist victory in 1939, Modotti returned to Mexico under a false name. Her first biographer, Mildred Constantine, who met Modotti a few months before she died there, in 1941, remembered her as "tragically tired". Surprisingly, a film of this epic life has not yet been made - though Madonna was, at one stage, rumoured to be in the running for the title role. There is a vulgar logic to this, for Modotti's life was a series of self-transformations. "I am leading a completely new life," she wrote to Weston from Moscow in 1931, "so much so that I almost feel like a different person, but very interesting." She was always ready to kick over traces of her previous lives in order to immerse herself in the next one, however much it might have pained her. 'Men act, women appear." This was John Berger's concise 1972 formulation of the way the politics of gender underpin the history of art. In the early stages of her life, Modotti conformed willingly to type. In the words of biographer Patricia Albers, she "fell in love with what she saw of herself in [Weston's] eyes as much as with the human being before her". Then she got up from the model's couch and became an artist and revolutionary. All of this made her a natural feminist icon from the 1970s onwards. Through all the myriad changes of her life, however, runs a changeless capacity to subordinate or devote herself in a way that is bound up with the traditional idea of the feminine. Tellingly, when Modotti adopted the austere garb of the radical activist, a friend saw her eyeing her old frocks "like a nun who has renounced all worldly possessions". Her eagerness to submit to the straitjacket of Soviet ideology and strategy seems in retrospect a form of self-negation. Unlike Weston, Modotti was always at the mercy of her existence. Opting to make history rather than art, she willingly courted the risk of being defeated by it. She accepted "the tragic conflict between life which continually changes and form which fixes it immutable". Addressed to Weston after their parting in 1926, Modotti's words evoke not simply the portraits he had made of her, but the way that what we find in them has endured - and changed. · Tina Modotti and Edward Weston: The Mexico Years is at the Barbican, London EC2, until August 4. Details: 020-7638 8891.
Geoff Dyer celebrates the work of the photographers - and lovers - Tina Modotti and Edward Weston.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/may/19/art1
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Michael Landy on putting his dad's house in the Tate
20140913195704
At a formal dinner given for Michael Landy at Tate Britain on Monday night, there was an uneasy moment - four minutes of extended social embarrassment, in fact - when the director of the gallery stood up to speak. As he offered his entirely deserved congratulations to the artist for what has a better than even chance of turning out to be a famous piece of work, and continued through a roll-call of all those who had helped to make it possible, some joker in the next gallery (a caterer? a sweeper-up?) went on whistling obliviously as he worked. He whistled Danny Boy, then segued into an Irish Saturday-night version of the Jim Reeves weepie Welcome to My World ("Built with you in mind"). The Duveen galleries, where the whistling was coming from, are stone-walled, barrel-vaulted, 300ft long and perfectly echoic. It is the kind of cathedral-like space dedicated to the exaltation of high art, where a low art like whistling would seem to have no place. Known as "the Duveens" after Sir Joseph Duveen, the antiques dealer who funded them, they were added to the Tate in 1937, the first public galleries in England designed specifically for the display of sculpture. They are a reminder of a time when popular culture was more constrained, because there was another culture that was more dominant. Very clever of Michael Landy, then, whose last show at Millbank was Scrap Heap Services in 1995, a bitter satire on the expendability of working people, to record his father, long unemployed as the result of an industrial accident, whistling slightly wheezily and wistfully to himself, and to use this as the soundtrack to Semi-detached, a new installation gathered together from the pieces of John Landy's life. The soundtrack intruded on the dinner in much the same way as the life-sized replica of his parents' Essex house that he has had constructed intrudes into the lofty interior of the Duveens. Who would have known that such a small house, uprooted from its suburban plot, could look so big? The chimney barely makes it under the skylight; the outer walls leave only narrow brick alleys as a pedestrian way in. Or that such a modest house could look so imposing? Sixty-two Kingswood Road, Ilford, 1G3 8UD. It is just a house, in all its pebble-dashed, net-curtained, nylon-windowed, slightly run-down boring ordinariness. Untampered with. Unamplified. A ready-made. A "found"object in the Duchampian tradition. Except it is the object Michael Landy found himself living in when his parents decided to move from Hackney in East London to Ilford in Essex for the sake of Michael, and Maureen and Lisa, his sisters. (Hollow laugh from Landy: "That's why I became a runner. I spent my whole childhood running.") The Landys' happy, unremarkably ramshackle life was up-ended in 1977 when John Landy, an Irishman working with other Irishmen digging a tunnel in Northumberland, was buried alive after the roof of the tunnel collapsed on his head and shoulders. He suffered severe injuries: his back was broken and, in the language of industrial tribunals and compensation committees, he was considered "a total wreck case". In the years since the accident, disabled and increasingly immobile, he has progressively withdrawn from the world. His world has largely become contained within the walls which have been re-created down to the smallest paint stain and rust blemish at Tate Britain - traces of the earlier stages in the history of the building and the human life associated with it. As the brick crumbles and the materials weather, the house becomes its own record of everything that has happened to it. John Landy is a link with the older world of hard, itinerant manual labour. "Labour" is the first word to appear in the long, slow panning sequence of the video Michael Landy has made of his father's rough, randomly accumulated bedside possessions. It is twinned with the logofied red rose of New Labour, and appears on some kind of promotional literature which has found its way on to a shelf that is weighed down with the dusty evidence of his former life as a DIY fanatic: the camera lingers lovingly over cable clips, welder glue, car indicator lights, chainsaw brushes (bagged and labelled), heel grips, a magnifying glass, a collection of torches. A chainsaw and all-purpose Power Devil are kept to hand (and in good condition, though they're hardly used any more) in the bedroom. A second large video screen on the reverse of the house's facade shows a sequence of changing images drawn entirely from the collection of instruction leaflets, DIY manuals and home-improvement magazines that John Landy has collected over decades, both before and after his accident. Photographs and line-drawings of optimistic young couples and growing young families, hell bent in pursuit of the modernity, pureness and newness that was all the rage, alternate with illustrations of how to deal with blocked guttering, eroded surfaces, skinned knuckles, clogged drains. Landy found it too unnerving trying to interrogate his father directly with the camera. Instead he pays attention to the small things in a house - and in a life - that are often noticed only in their absence: a fridge light; the chest freezer in the dining room switching through its cycle; the ball of fluff spinning on a thread above the radiator; the ticking of a clock. Taped to a wall through the weeks that 62 Kingswood Road was being replicated at Tate Britain was a plan and elevation of the house pocked with the hundreds of individual peculiarities - every sore, scar and bricky pockmark - that Michael Landy had spotted and was anxious to bring to the attention of Mike Smith and the construction team. The people applying the finishing touches to the kitchen extension last weekend looked more like makeup artists than conventional chippies and painters, stepping back to appraise, and then going in with a fine eye-liner brush to finesse a scab by the door. When are ordinary houses usually scrutinised in this way? By police forensics teams and in the visual vocabulary of newspapers and television, when something out of the ordinary, often macabre, has taken place: the school caretaker's house at Soham; Jill Dando's house at Gowan Avenue in Fulham; 25 Cromwell Street. The wadded albums of photographs that the "factors" worked from showed the skin of the house in eruptive, forensic detail. The elevations that Michael Landy marked up were strongly reminiscent of the body maps that cosmetic surgeons prepare (and Jenny Saville has painted) prior to an operation. Many of the artists of Landy's generation, while studiously avoiding the human body in their work, have been aggressive in their referencing of it. Damien Hirst's use of animal carcasses has always been insistently anthropomorphic. Sarah Lucas has used dead poultry, fried eggs and assorted fruit and vegetables. Rachel Whiteread has cast the insides of wardrobes and the undersides of beds as well as mortuary slabs and discarded mattresses. But it was with "House", her "mutilation", according to hostile critics, of "the archetypal space of homeliness", that Whiteread inflamed a debate that, a decade later, is still difficult to make sense of. Two decades before Whiteread, the young American sculptor, Gordon Matta-Clark had drawn a line with a chainsaw through a house in suburban New Jersey, and later installed the four roof-corners of the building in a gallery. More recently, the German Gregor Schneider has systematically mutilated the house he inherited from his parents to the point where Schneider himself claims he can no longer distinguish between parts that have been added and those that existed before. In all these cases the point has been the transposition of the familiar into its opposite: the uncanny, and stories of boarded-up houses whose secrets might only be imagined. For Semi-detached, Michael Landy's family home has been dissected and 100ft of gallery space placed between the two halves. The video presentations are where the lived life of the house would be. But he is insistent that his intervention stops there. He would have uprooted 62 Kingswood Road and moved it across London, if that had been possible. The choice of ready-mades was based on visual indifference, at the same time as a total absence of good or bad taste. Duchamp once talked of "signing" the Woolworth Building in New York, and that's what Landy would have liked to do with the house where he grew up. It is in its implacable, unassuming ordinariness that his interest, and all his interest, resides. Nothing terrible, and possibly noth ing even particularly wonderful, has ever happened there. Just a set of unremarkable lives rubbing against each other, moving through time. This is by a broad margin the most sentimental project Landy has committed himself to. Break Down (2001), where he took all his possessions, including works by other artists, and systematically ground them to dust, was a definition of unsentimentality. The final piece to go, inventory number C714, was the piece that Landy was most attached to - his father's old sheepskin coat, purchased shortly before he had his accident, and paid for over a year by Landy's mother even though it was too heavy and uncomfortable for John Landy to wear. Break Down was a ritual acting out of the disintegration that is the only end of every human life. "It's like my own funeral," Landy said at the time, "but I'm alive to watch it. I'm still alive." He says he is dreading the day in December, six months in the future, when the house at the Tate will have to be demolished and taken away in skips. "In a strange way, although it's only been up less than a week, it feels more real to me than the real thing." His father, though, already has first claims: the drainpipes, the guttering, the white PVC door and white plastic windows are all making the trip to Ilford and 62 Kingswood Road. During the filming for Semi-detached a curious thing happened: they had to remove a lot of the stuff in which Michael Landy has invested so much meaning so that the camera could move freely in his father's room. At the completion of filming, his dad didn't want it put back. Now a move to Jaywick or Clacton or somewhere else on the south coast is on the cards. Reminiscing about the interiors of his youth, the Viennese architect Adolf Loos observed that he did not grow up in a "stylish" home. The house was his family's product, not a work of art. "It was our table, ours!" The house was never finished, "it grew along with us and we grew within it". It possessed neither style, strangeness, nor age. "Art is what we do. Culture is what is done to us," Carl Andre once said. With their move, it's fair to say the art will have gone out of the Landys' unassuming semi standing on Kingswood Road. · Semi-detached is at Tate Britain, London SW1, until December 12. Details: 020-7887 8008.
Three years ago he destroyed everything he owned. Now Michael Landy has put his dad's house in the Tate. He tells Gordon Burn why.
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http://www.people.com/article/hugh-jackman-jimmy-fallon-giant-pool
http://web.archive.org/web/20140913204528id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/hugh-jackman-jimmy-fallon-giant-pool
Hugh Jackman on Jimmy Fallon Tonight Show : People.com
20140913204528
09/11/2014 AT 09:20 AM EDT Jimmy Fallon has moved on from to rolling them across a giant pool table with Wolverine. to a jumbo game of pool. In this match, the guys used their hands instead of cues to knock bowling balls into the pockets of Fallon's sprawling pool table. tried his hardest to beat Fallon – even attempting to cheat – in the end, the host ended up besting Jackman. While this game may seem like one of Fallon's own wacky creations, giant pool was actually invented in 2008 by a Missouri man and is formally known as Knokkers. Watch Jackman and Fallon's entire Knokkers face-off below.
Jackman and Fallon opt for using bowling balls in this jumbo-sized game of pool
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/oct/17/art2
http://web.archive.org/web/20140917044507id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2004/oct/17/art2
From a whisper to a scream
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Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, until 28 March 2005 The isle is full of noises. That would be the quickest description, with the Turbine Hall as a great reef of sound. Coming in feels almost like going out - an audible breeze threatening to swell into a blizzard, waves breaking and withdrawing, the open air tuned to so many sounds that your own are absorbed in the rise and fall of murmurs, shouts, susurrations, plosives, stutters and echoes - and above them all, like Prospero, the voice of the artist humming to himself as if thinking (or not thinking) aloud. This is Bruce Nauman's Raw Materials, fifth in the Unilever Series at Tate Modern. The Turbine Hall, that grand canyon of emptiness, so spectacularly filled by other artists in the past, is now vacant but for 20 pairs of speakers. This time the art is heard and not seen - unless you count the choreography of the visitors, mingling, circulating, working the room, retracing their steps, filling up the space as if in unconscious emulation of the noise. This consists of a score of audio tracks - the sound taken from video works of the past 40 years - emitting from the speakers in lateral bands. Think beams of sound rather than light, all of them verbal, from phatic to emphatic, chant to falter, whisper and wheedle to shriek and rebuke. And each track, whatever length or emotion, repeating ad infinitum: an effect laconically embodied and parodied in a quip broadcasting from speaker four: 'Pete and Repeat are sitting on a fence. Pete falls off. Who's left?' etcetera, etcetera. This is Nauman anthologising himself, revisiting, recutting, reordering past art. You might call it a sound sculpture, a treatment of volume and space playing with audible forms. You might prefer a more orchestral analogy, each track playing its part in a kind of serial music, an ever-changing cycle of obsessions. But these would be afterthoughts and hardly represent the experience itself, which is of pausing, wandering, listening, drawing close to a speaker, ascending staircases, returning to the start, trying to discern some structure or meaning in 'Raw Materials'. And there is a kind of structure. You enter to a greeting that will become a farewell as you leave: 'Thank you. Thank you. Thankyouthankyouthank you,' says the voice, like a comedian impatient to acknowledge but also silence his audience. 'Work! Work! Workworkwork!' cries another, first pleading, then hectoring, until voice and word are exhausted. 'No ... No ... Nononononono!' cries a third, incessantly, so that you begin to wonder whether he is addressing you or himself. Descend the slope and the tracks become more ambivalent and complex. Words - repeated, accelerated - turn to abstraction like the fabled tigers to butter. Voices multiply, sing, talk in other tongues. There seems to be a gradual shift from intensity to profundity ending (and also beginning again) with the tragic-comedy of the last track, entitled 'World Peace'. 'I'll Talk, you'll Listen. He'll talk, they'll listen. We'll talk, they'll listen.' And on and on, literally a description of our own situation from the outset, but also a bleak pun on the title: instructions endlessly uttered by alternating voices; all talk and no listening. If this sounds like sheer cacophony, then believe me, it isn't. The most unexpected thing about Nauman's vast installation is just how quiet it seems. Anyone deep in conversation on arrival could quite easily miss it. A big party of children would have to be silenced to hear it. Sometimes you have to close your eyes just to distinguish the words from the continuous humming of Nauman's personal white noise. Nor is it anything like as raucous or disturbing as the rest of his extremely influential work - the neon signs, the flashing monitors, the compulsive-regressive videos, the corridors and mazes full of loud, aggressive, paranoiac sounds and bewildering lights. It isn't maddeningly oppressive and there aren't any images. But at its best it turns you inwards, gives you pictures in the head. 'Think! Think! Think!' implores a desperate voice, forgetting the old paradox that you can't think when whipping yourself thus. Though perhaps this is also a droll goad at the gallery-goer, faced with Raw Materials , and the usual pressure to respond to contemporary art. Or even to the artist himself, stuck in his studio, lost for thought but forced to produce yet more new art. Not that this is exactly new. Nauman is said to have been inspired by the persistent thrum of the switching station that is still attached to Tate Modern. How fortuitous this seems, this corresponding white noise, especially as it allows him to proceed by his usual methods of repetition, extension and distortion. But if you recognise the provenance of some of these soundtracks - and, conversely, even if you don't - then you may feel the profound lack of context. Take 'Get Out of My Mind, Get Out of This Room!' When hissed from hidden speakers at innocent visitors entering a cramped and overlit room, the words were fantastically unnerving; as if you were suddenly observed, an unwitting trespasser in the chamber of someone's (Nauman's?) head. Here the voice flails in mid-air, directed at nobody and nothing and more or less meaningless, ineffectual, in this wide open space. Likewise all the deadpan chants in '100 Live and Die - Eat and Die, Sleep and Die, Love and Die, Hate and Die' - no longer written in coruscating neon - which are pointlessly inaudible here. Or the snatches of dialogue where knowing the position, never mind the relationship, of the interlocutors is evidently rather crucial, and so forth. Was Nauman thinking, or not thinking here? There is a kind of languor, even absent-mindedness about the whole project. Certainly you could say it tends towards abstraction: words decoupled from meanings, signs from signifiers, voices decontextualised, disparate works opposed. Certainly you could say it fully fills the Turbine space. But with so much dispersed, diffused, more feels very like less: the massing of all these many soundtracks hasn't quite the concentrated force of one of Nauman's single works. Time Zones , upstairs, seems unintentionally designed to emphasise the limits, rather than the extent, of Nauman's undisputed influence over international video art. The 12 works on show are slight, mild, rather beautiful and by no means the best pieces by some of these artists, who include the Belgian Francis Alys, the Albanian Anri Sala and the Chinese film-maker Yang Zudong. Time flies in none of these works, which is precisely the point. Instead it drips slowly: rain mounting in a bucket, night slowly darkening an aluminium-bright billboard, a man treading the streets of Bangkok without let or hindrance, just looping and roaming. Mostly you are watching real - and in the case of Alys's Mexican shadows increasing over 12 hours - unedited time. You might be lulled into forgetting time with Zudong's black and white film of lovers meeting and parting, meeting and parting, a melancholy roundelay accompanied by a circular song. And Fiona Tan's marvellous double-sided projection of Japanese girls in elaborate kimonos drawing back their bows in an archery contest - straining over and again, on one side; ceaselessly releasing their arrows on the other - is a perfect play with time's toys: tension, suspense, inevitable anti-climax. But none of these works is more concerned with the fourth dimension than most video art, by its very nature; and too many of them prove that nothing marks the passing of time so acutely as boredom.
It's all gone quiet in Tate Modern's vast Turbine hall, except for Bruce Nauman thinking aloud.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/jan/30/art
http://web.archive.org/web/20140917145024id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/jan/30/art
Art: Sweeping beauty | Art and design | The Observer
20140917145024
Louise Bourgeois Hauser and Wirth Gallery, London W1, to 12 March 'I am a scientific person. I believe in psychoanalysis, in philosophy. For me, the only thing that matters is the tangible.' At 93, the artist Louise Bourgeois might be forgiven a degree of disillusion. In fact, she seems to be moving in the other direction - deeper into the illuminations offered by the last century. As she does so, we are reminded that as well as being a great artist, Bourgeois is also a great rationalist. She offers us routes out of our dilemmas. This new show is conceived as a taster to an upcoming retrospective. It includes two new hanging aluminium sculptures, a sequence of drawings and a revelatory new narrative work. Sublimation (2002) could more crudely be titled 'Shit Happens But You Make Something of It'. Over 15 pages of text and drawings - coils, spirals, eyes - the artist explores feelings evoked by watching a couple rowing violently in the presence of their son. The response of their son is to grab a broom and start sweeping the floor. For Bourgeois, the moment when the boy reaches to perform this displacing action is key. 'The child was 14 and he was pretty strong. And I am not 14 any more. I still sometimes feel that chaos surging up on me ... at that point you begin to operate a symbolic action. And in my case you begin to work on the sculpture ...'
Art: Rose Jennings on Louise Bourgeois
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http://fortune.com/2014/09/17/dow-closes-at-another-record-high/
http://web.archive.org/web/20140917221336id_/http://fortune.com/2014/09/17/dow-closes-at-another-record-high/
Dow closes at another record high
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at new record high on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve announced that it would continue to keep interest rates low. The Dow gained 24 points, or 0.2%, to close at 17,156. The previous record was 18 points lower, which the index hit in July. This is the sixteenth record close for the blue chip index in 2014, according to USA Today. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index also went up by two points, or 0.1%, to finish at 2,001 points. The S&P 500 is just six points shy of its own record close. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq rose nine points, or 0.2%, to close at 4,562. The Federal Reserve is sticking to its plan to keep near-zero interest rates for a “considerable time,” chairwoman Janet Yellen said during a Wednesday news conference. Adding to the Dow’s success today, activist investor Trian Partners called for the break up of chemical and agricultural seed company DuPont DD into two separate companies. DuPont finished up 5.2%. Meanwhile, FedEx FDX gained 3.3% after it posted first-quarter earnings of $2.10 per share, beating analyst’s expectations by 14 cents.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average recorded its 16th record close of 2014 on the heels of Janet Yellen's comments about keeping U.S. interests rates low.
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http://www.people.com/article/facts-of-life-35th-reunion
http://web.archive.org/web/20140917234316id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/facts-of-life-35th-reunion
The Facts of Life Cast Members Reunite for 35th Anniversary : People.com
20140917234316
From left: Mindy Cohn, Gerri Jewel, Charlotte Rae, Lisa Whelchel and Nancy McKeon 09/16/2014 AT 02:30 PM EDT made its TV debut, the stars are still taking the good and taking the bad – though they admit there's been a whole lot more of the former. reunited Monday at the Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills for the 35th anniversary of the beloved sitcom and shared fond memories of their now-iconic run. "I think what tickles me more than anything is we used to be everybody's guilty pleasure," Cohn, 48, who played Natalie on the show, tells PEOPLE. "Now, it's like, 'Ah! We totally grew up with you!' And I love that you can age out of that guilty pleasure, like, 'I kind of watch that show' to like, 'We Whelchel, 51, who played Blair and more recently had a "Now that I'm older, I see what a privilege it is to be recognized," says Whelchel, 51, who found herself slightly embarrassed by fan attention in the show's heyday. "Even just to be able to make somebody's day by taking a picture with them or even just smiling, and the influence that is ongoing – that is a gift." McKeon, 48, focused her strongest memories on working with stage and screen veteran Rae, whom she admires for always treating her young costars as equals. "She was there for us as a peer. Not a mom," says McKeon, who played Jo. "She never talked down to us. She never made us feel like we were the kids. It was her show, and she included everybody in it. So, looking back on that and watching somebody just go through their life with that kind of elegance, what a great lesson, what a great lesson for me." ," concurs Rae, still animated and energetic at 88. "I treated them as we were equals because we were all fellow actors. I said, 'We're all teammates here. We're all on the same team and we're going to pull together.' " Kim Fields, 45, who memorably played Tootie, needed to stay at home in Georgia with and was the only full-time cast mate not present at the reunion, although she sent a message via video. "I am absolutely thrilled and blessed to be a part of, of course, such an amazing cast, an amazing show, several generations of fans who have made this show so incredibly iconic," said Fields. Another cast member not present? – who played handyman George Burnett for two of the show's later seasons. was remembered for being decidedly less heartthrob-ish at the time. "He was cute, and that was nice, but he wasn't ," says Whelchel. "Now, had the George Clooney that we all know now come to the set, it would probably have been a whole different story. But that was George Clooney with the mullet, and not quite the same effect!" Recurring cast member Gerri Jewel – who played Blair's cousin Gerri – proved her humor is as sharp as ever when she mulled a possible reunion show. "Why don't we make a TV show called
Cast members say they feel grateful for their roles on the iconic '80s sitcom
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http://fortune.com/2013/07/30/why-the-housing-market-could-grow-even-if-the-economy-slows/
http://web.archive.org/web/20140918054246id_/http://fortune.com:80/2013/07/30/why-the-housing-market-could-grow-even-if-the-economy-slows/
Why the housing market could grow even if the economy slows
20140918054246
FORTUNE – Home prices across America’s 20 major cities in May climbed 12.2% higher from a year earlier, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price index, a widely watched gauge of the health of the U.S. housing market. This number, reported Tuesday, was higher than most expected and the biggest annual gain since March 2006. Since the Great Recession ended, many assumed that once the housing market recovered, the economy would finally grow at a healthy pace. But as history has shown, this is a myth. The direction of the housing market doesn’t say a whole lot about the health of the overall economy and where it’s headed. It’s not that home prices and sales aren’t important. After all, the vast majority of Americans’ wealth is still tied to the homes they own, as opposed to other assets, such as the stock market. And so the thinking goes: If home prices rise, homeowners would feel richer and therefore spend more, which would in turn, drive economic growth. While that may generally be true, the housing market isn’t always so neatly linked to GDP, says Dean Maki, U.S. chief economist at Barclays. It also doesn’t help that the housing market makes up a much smaller share of the U.S. economy today than it did before the market collapsed: Whereas residential investment peaked at 6.3% of GDP in the middle of 2005, it has spiraled down to 2.7% today. MORE: How the Publicis-Omnicom deal started as a joke Just because the housing market grows at a healthy clip, it doesn’t mean the economy will. At various points throughout history, housing either rebounded or boomed while the economy didn’t grow as quickly and vice versa. Last year, the housing market recovered in an unexpectedly big way while the economy slogged along; residential investment grew 12.1%, but GDP grew only 2.2%. Also, between 1987 through 1999, residential investment grew faster at an annualized rate of 5.3% than GDP at 4.5%. By contrast, there were periods when the housing market actually shrunk, even as the economy grew: Between 1965 and1967, residential investment contracted at an annualized rate of 5% while GDP grew 5.1%. “The point is not that housing doesn’t matter, but there are times when other factors matter a lot more,” Maki says. For 2014, residential investment is expected to grow 10.3%, while the economy will likely grow only 2.2% as tens of thousands of federal employees face furloughs and cuts to government programs, Barclays forecasts. This is better than no growth, but the imbalance is hard to dismiss. MORE: Investors who love QE should fear Larry Summers Higher taxes and spending cuts that kicked in earlier this year will drag down growth, reducing GDP by 0.6 % this year, according to estimates by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office. However, canceling the spending cuts could add between 300,000 to 1.6 million new jobs by the end of 2014; GDP could also be 0.2% and 1.2% higher, according to a separate report by the CBO that looked into the implications of eliminating the spending cuts starting in August and all of 2014. So for all the attention paid to the housing market, it doesn’t capture the economy Americans face today.
History has shown that the housing market and GDP aren't linked.
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http://fortune.com/2014/09/19/american-airlines-unions/
http://web.archive.org/web/20140921064540id_/http://fortune.com:80/2014/09/19/american-airlines-unions/
Wage Watch: American Airlines workers declare victory after 19-year union push
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After two-decade fight, airline agents unionize In what’s been touted as one of the biggest union victory in years, customer service agents from the newly merged American Airlines and US Airways voted this week for representation by CWA-IBT, a joint union of the Communications Workers of America and the Teamsters. The election, decided by a 9,640-to-1,547 vote, covers 14,500 workers who check in passengers and work at airport boarding gates. For the 9,000 American Airline workers now covered by the union, the vote marked the culmination of a nearly two-decade fight. A previous election in 2013 saw the union lose by a mere 150 votes of the 6,000 cast. The workers reignited their push following the announcement of the airlines’ merger. Another factor makes this union vote noteworthy: three-fourths of the agents now represented by CWA-IBT work in the south—in Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, and Florida—a region that has been notoriously hostile toward organizing efforts. Senator wants an NLRB that’s even-steven This week, Republican Senator Lamar Alexander said that the current structure of the National Labor Relations Board, which monitors labor practices, is downright unfair. The congressman from Tennessee introduced a bill Wednesday that seeks to add an additional seat to the NLRB’s five-member makeup, which currently includes three Democrat and two Republican appointees. Alexander would rather see a board consisting of three-Democrats and three-Republicans. Such a reform, Alexander said, “will change the NLRB from an advocate to an umpire.” Opponents of the legislation, meanwhile, say a completely bipartisan board would paralyze labor law by creating standoffs in the most controversial cases. CNN appeals order to rehire fired workers Here’s a big surprise: CNN doesn’t want to reinstate the 100 workers it fired more than a decade ago. Earlier this week, the National Labor Relations Board ordered the broadcaster to do just that after determining that CNN had violated the rights of unionized contract workers from Team Video Services when it cut ties with them in 2003 and replaced them with non-unionized CNN staffers. As a result, the NLRB ordered CNN to stop all anti-union actions, offer employment to the 100 contractors who lost their jobs within 14 days of the ruling, and make whole the entire class of workers in the case—about 300 people. CNN appealed the decision on Thursday to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Customer service agents from the newly merged American Airlines and US Airways voted this week for union representation. That and other news from the world of worker pay.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/09/18/jazz-composer-hollenbeck-blurs-lines-nec-lily-pad/D8YGdHi9aX4zujZlr7hHjK/story.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20140926080826id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2014/09/18/jazz-composer-hollenbeck-blurs-lines-nec-lily-pad/D8YGdHi9aX4zujZlr7hHjK/story.html?
Jazz composer Hollenbeck blurs lines at NEC, Lily Pad
20140926080826
For a lot of people, jazz is all about improvised solos: Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins. Even an innovator like Ornette Coleman is known as much for his conception of the improviser as for his many compositions. Give those soloists a simple 12- or 16- or 32-bar song form and let them blow — this, despite decades of experiments with free-collective improvisation and the formal inventions of composers like Jelly Roll Morton, Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk, Sun Ra, and George Russell. But drummer and percussionist John Hollenbeck, 46, is among a handful of jazz composers who like to turn that equation on its head. Hollenbeck, whose Claudia Quintet gives a master class at New England Conservatory on Wednesday (open to the public) and then plays the Lily Pad that night, identifies as a jazz musician. But some of his pieces include no improvised solos at all. Take the title track from the 2009 Sunnyside release by his Large Ensemble, “Eternal Interlude.” The piece expands and contracts for close to 20 minutes, from a quiet rubato opening to a clamorous second half, held together by a little four-note arpeggio as its central motif. There are no improvised solos in “Eternal Interlude,” yet it’s difficult to imagine anyone but jazz musicians playing it. That arpeggio, for instance, is written out for the musicians, but during a couple of sections of the piece, as Hollenbeck says, “how fast they play it and when they play it is up to them.” Those kind of “compositional” decisions do not make classical musicians happy. Nor is it that Hollenbeck is averse to improvised solos per se. There are dandy solos throughout the “Eternal Interlude” album. But you don’t always know where in a piece they will come, and sometimes it’s hard to tell a written solo from an improvised one. Hollenbeck likes it that way. “For me, jazz was always about mystery, and not knowing what’s going to happen,” he says during an interview at a coffeehouse near NEC. “When it’s head-solos-head, I already kind of know that’s what’s going to happen, so I’m not as engaged.” “John is very faithful to his idea, to the point where he won’t have a tenor solo for the sake of having a tenor solo,” says NEC jazz studies department chairman Ken Schaphorst. “There has to be a compelling reason. . . . Jazz composition has always been a dialectic between composition and improvisation. But this idea that the improvisation is maybe less critical is something jazz composers struggle with.” Hollenbeck was influenced in that regard by the late Bob Brookmeyer, a longtime teacher at NEC, with whom Hollenbeck took a few lessons before becoming a regular part of his band. (Brookmeyer also taught the composers Maria Schneider and Darcy James Argue.) “He used it [the improvised solo] as a formal concept,” says Hollenbeck, “not as a go-to thing.” Hollenbeck grew up in Binghamton, N.Y., which had a vibrant music scene, thanks in part to the presence of SUNY Binghamton. The esteemed percussionist and arranger Pat Hollenbeck, most notably of the Boston Pops, is the oldest of his three brothers, 13 years John’s senior. “At age 6, [John] heard a very eclectic mix from my music collection,” Pat Hollenbeck says by e-mail, “including [the Balinese] Ramayana Monkey Chant, Beethoven, Tower of Power, and Miles Davis.” He adds: “That's enough to ruin any 6-year-old for life.” John credits Pat with directing his early musical education, requiring him to study piano for a year before beginning drum lessons. Pat also emphasized that composition should be a part of every serious musician’s life. As an undergraduate at the Eastman School of Music, John took a workshop at Canada’s Banff Centre with the jazz composer Muhal Richard Abrams, who suggested that “anything can happen in a piece. . . . There can be speaking in the music, or you can write pitches, but you don’t have to write pitches; you can write textures. I could do anything. Hearing that really helped me.” The Claudia Quintet, created in 1997, represents Hollenbeck’s conception in miniature. He often favors angular themes and driving cyclical rhythms that find their source in folkloric “world” music, especially that of Africa and Brazil. But his work is also highly informed by funk. Those sharp-angled themes and rhythms are often offset by the malleable, porous sound of the quintet’s unique instrumentation. This allows for passages of quiet lyricism and eerie timbres, thanks in part to the special skills of clarinetist Chris Speed (who also doubles on tenor sax), accordionist Red Wierenga, vibraphonist Matt Moran, and bassist Drew Gress. Hollenbeck describes the band as “a hybrid instrument.” “They’re in each other’s timbre areas so much that you can’t recognize who’s playing what. And I love that, where you don’t know: What is that? Who’s doing that? I know one of you guys is doing that!” More mysteries.
Percussionist, composer, and bandleader John Hollenbeck ponders questions about jazz fundamentals out loud with his Large Ensemble and Claudia Quintet.
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http://fortune.com/2014/09/26/on-wall-street-can-you-be-too-big-to-succeed/
http://web.archive.org/web/20140928075839id_/http://fortune.com:80/2014/09/26/on-wall-street-can-you-be-too-big-to-succeed/?
On Wall Street, can you be too big to succeed?
20140928075839
“Bond king” Bill Gross this morning announced that he was leaving Pimco, in order to launch a new bond fund at the much-smaller Janus Capital JNS (after an apparent flirtation with Jeff Gundlach’s Doubleline Capital). I’m sure we’ll hear all sorts of palace intrigue over the next few days, including how Gross is a strange guy (not a secret) who couldn’t get on the same page with his bosses at Pimco parent company Allianz (not a surprise). But the real foundational issue is likely more about business troubles than personality clashes, as Pimco’s below-pedestrian performance has caused around $68 billion of customer money to walk over the past 16 months. A lot of the blame for Pimco’s poor returns has rightly been put on Gross, who famously suggested in mid-2011 that public equities had peaked. But Janus shares are up more than 30% on news of his hire, suggesting that they’re expecting major inflows. If these traders are proven correct, could it be that some view the problem more that Gross was at Pimco than that Gross was, well, Gross? Namely, is Pimco too big to produce market-leading returns? For those who believe in the law of threes, let me try this out on you: CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension fund, recently said that it will pull out of hedge funds, arguing that it is too large to properly invest in the asset class. Then Harvard University, which features the nation’s largest endowment, reported mediocre returns, with one source arguing to me that size issues make it difficult for Harvard to match smaller, more nimble peers. And now we may be poised to see clients jump from the largest bond fund to a smaller one, even though the same laggard manager will be in charge. Need another data point? How about this: The world’s largest mutual fund, managed by Vanguard, is trailing the S&P 500 for both the past six months and for the past year. And then there is (admittedly controversial) research from Kauffman Foundation that argues venture capital returns begin to decrease once fund size surpasses $250 million. To be sure, this is not a perfect theory. As just one of many examples, CalPERS outperformed almost all other large public pension funds for fiscal 2014 (leaving aside its hedge fund troubles). But as all of Wall Street is constantly striving for size, Gross’s departure from Pimco may highlight that big isn’t always beautiful. Sign up for Dan’s newsletter on deals and deal-makers by going here.
Size matters for investment firms, but not always in the way you'd think.
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http://fortune.com/2014/09/25/surfers-billionaire-beach-case/
http://web.archive.org/web/20140928092341id_/http://fortune.com:80/2014/09/25/surfers-billionaire-beach-case/
Surfers beat tech billionaire in California beach case
20140928092341
This post is in partnership with Time. The article below was originally published at Time.com (TIME)–A California court issued a milestone ruling Sept. 24 that may restore public access to a beach that requires traveling across privately owned land, the latest turn in a multi-year legal frenzy that has pitted the surfers who cross the property against the billionaire who owns it. Judge Barbara Mallach of San Mateo Superior Court ruled against venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems, who was sued by the nonprofit Surfrider Foundation after his property manager blocked the public from accessing a beloved seaside spot known as Martins Beach. At the center of the controversy is a low-slung metal gate that sits at the top of Martins Beach Road, an offshoot of the Pacific Coast Highway that is the only way to access Martins Beach from dry land. The road snakes across 53 acres that Khosla bought for $32.5 million in 2008. For two years, his property manager allowed the public to occasionally visit a stretch of sand where locals have gone smelt-fishing and surfing and picnicking for decades. But Khosla allowed the gate to be closed permanently in 2010 after his property manager received a letter from the county demanding that it stay open every day. The conflict comes at a time when an influx of tech wealth has sharpened class tension in northern California. “[Kholsa] believes that he can find a way to use his wealth and power to strong-arm the situation,” says Chad Nelsen, environmental director of the Surfrider Foundation. Khosla doesn’t own a home on the land and says he has no plans to build one. The decision to shut off access to the road was a way to take a stand about what he felt were his basic rights. “This is a case about private property,” Khosla told TIME in an email. “We need to assert our rights and get the courts to clarify them.” Khosla’s lawyers say they are considering appealing the verdict. “We will continue to seek protection of the constitutional rights of private property owners that are guaranteed by the U.S. and California Constitutions and that have long been upheld by the United States and California Supreme Courts,” his attorneys said in a statement. Surfrider’s argument rested on a seemingly bureaucratic detail. The organization claimed that under the 1976 Coastal Act, which gave a statewide Coastal Commission jurisdiction over beachfront land, Khosla needed to apply for a development permit in order to close the gate. The commission will often only grant development permits, typically to build a home or another structure, if the public gets an established right of way in return. “Because they’re in charge of beach development, they’re allowed to do this quid pro quo,” says Arthur McEvoy, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles. “They can ask you in trade to dedicate a little easement, if the development threatens to impede public access.” The tricky matter is that while beaches are widely considered public, people don’t necessarily have a right to cross private property to get there. Cases such as this one set precedents that resonate up and down California’s 840 miles of coastline. It’s easy to see why Martins Beach is beloved. Its sands wrap around a cove with cliffs jutting out on either end, creating a rare surfing spot protected from the wind and also preventing people from walking to the beach from the north or south. Secluded and full of wildlife, its dramatic rock formations are often blanketed by birds. Seals pop their heads up between surfers and the beach. For decades, cars that wound their way down the road from Highway 1 paid a small fee to the landowners for parking and frequented a snack shop that has fallen into disrepair. A now-defunct sign advertising $15 parking, the amount Khosla’s employees charged when visitors were allowed, still lays on the ground. Steve Baugher, Khosla’s property manager, testified at the trial that it was his decision to close the gate. He also testified that he hired security guards to “deter trespassers”; their presence prompted five surfers to defiantly march past them last October to proclaim their right to be on the beach. Known as the “Martin’s 5″ the surfers were arrested by the county sheriff but the District Attorney declined to prosecute–inspiring more surfers to take advantage of this legal limbo and hop the fence with abandon. In California, public access to the beach is protected by the public trust doctrine, a common law that can be traced back to the English crown proclaiming rights to all submerged lands, in order to let the public use the water above them for fishing and navigation. “Our culture abhors private beaches, and generally speaking our law abhors private beaches as well,” McEvoy said. “And any landowner is going to want to keep people away from their beach.” In an earlier case that went Khosla’s way, a group called the Friends of Martins Beach used a different angle to sue, testing a clause in the state constitution that declares that no entity shall “exclude the right of way to such water whenever it is required for any public purpose.” In a 2013 ruling, another San Mateo Superior Court judge said that because Martins Beach had been part of a land grant that settled the Mexican-American war in 1848, a year before the constitution was adopted, the intentions of that document were immaterial. Beyond the ongoing court cases, two other avenues may force the drama to a close. One is a bill sponsored by State Senator Jerry Hill, a San Mateo Democrat, that would require the State Lands Commission to consider purchasing the road if negotiations with Khosla for public access fail. Meanwhile, the Coastal Commission, which has been fielding the public’s complaints about the closure of Martins Beach, is asking people to write in about how they’ve used the area in the past. That testimony may prove there’s a historic right of access that Attorney General Kamala Harris can sue to restore on the Commission’s behalf. “The Commission is trying very hard to bring it to a close,” says Nancy Cave, a commission manager who was part of negotiations with Khosla’s team that went nowhere. “We are frustrated, too.” Khosla notes that he is not the first owner of the property to limit access, pointing out that previous owners closed the gate during certain hours and seasons and even inconvenient days. In court, property manager Baugher testified that he received a letter from the county demanding that the gates be open year round and parking be charged at the rate of $2, what beachgoers paid in 1973. Khosla has also accused Surfrider and the Coastal Commission of attempting to “blackmail and coerce him,” charges both deny. Surfrider emphasizes that Khosla has allowed changes that are far from what his predecessors did—like painting over a billboard that used to welcome people to come down from Highway 1 to the beach, turning it into a dark green slab. Surfrider had hoped that the court would also fine Khosla for failing to apply for a permit but Mallach declined, saying that those who closed the gate had acted in good faith that they had the legal right to do so. Nonetheless, Surfrider championed the decision as a “huge victory.” “Today’s court decision upholding the Coastal Act is an important victory for Martin’s Beach and ultimately strengthens the public’s right to beach access in California,” Angela Howe, Surfrider’s legal director, said in a statement. “The Surfrider Foundation remains vigilant to protect beach access rights, not only in this case, but also in other cases where the beach is wrongfully cut off from the public.”
The latest ruling in the ongoing battle over a northern California surf spot is a blow to venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/dec/10/art1
http://web.archive.org/web/20140928203457id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/dec/10/art1
My Turner's over. Phew!
20140928203457
I'd been warned that the Turner Prize judging could go on all day - apparently the year Grayson Perry won, the judges were still arguing as guests arrived for the party. In the event we made our decision by lunchtime, but it was surprisingly hard work. And Nick Serota made me promise not to reveal the details of our deliberations so, sorry folks, the secrets of the curia are sealed. At one point I said I must go out for a cigarette and slipped down a side staircase and out the Millbank door - where I was horrified to be greeted enthusiastically by a crowd of demonstrators on the steps. They were the Stuckists who always turn up for the Turner Prize but this time they were carrying placards saying 'Is it all a fix? Lynn Barber.' No! The words were taken completely out of context (I dread to think how often celebs have said that to me in interviews, and how often I have disbelieved them) but now I am stuck with being a hero of the Stuckist tendency. I scuttled back into the Tate and survived three hours without nicotine rather than risk encountering them again. I must say Tomma Abts didn't appeal to me at the shortlist stage - I thought she was far too Anita Brookner-ish and restrained - but her work has grown and grown on me with every viewing. Having moved here from Germany 12 years ago, she must have ploughed a very lonely furrow, being a painter and not attached to any fashionable school or group. The other shortlisted artists all had vociferous supporters (Tracey Emin told me she would kill me if Rebecca Warren didn't win) but Tomma Abts came through purely on the strength of her work. Her Turner Prize room is truly thrilling. There was a pre-party party for the judges and shortlisted artists but I was so busy keeping my lips sealed that it wasn't much fun. Then we went through to join the main thrash in the Duveen gallery where Yoko Ono (dressed bizarrely as a French mime artist) announced the result. In previous years it has been a sitdown dinner but this was a milling-about party with mouse-sized food. (No wonder Nick Serota and all the Tate curators are so thin - they subsist on fairy dust.) And of course there was no smoking, so I was soon out on the front steps in the rain with the artists, and delighted to find Sarah Lucas among them. I thought she disapproved of the Turner Prize because she has always refused to accept nomination, but she says no, she doesn't disapprove per se, she just thinks it's not her thing. Anyway, she is doing the Tate's Christmas tree this year - she showed me photos of her decorations which I think were all genitalia but I didn't have my glasses on. Reeled home, tired and hungry, after what felt like a very long day. Nevertheless - for all my complaints - I am very proud to have been a Turner Prize judge.
Lynn Barber: And a prize trip it was too, says one exhausted judge.
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http://fortune.com/2013/08/23/venture-capital-deals-395/
http://web.archive.org/web/20140929193530id_/http://fortune.com:80/2013/08/23/venture-capital-deals-395/
Venture capital deals
20140929193530
Slice, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based maker of an app for tracking online spending, has raised $23 million in new VC funding. Rakuten (Jasdaq: 7455) led the round, and was joined by Russia Partners, NPD Group and return backers DCM, Innovation Endeavors and Lightspeed Venture Partners. www.slice.com Taulia, a San Francisco-based provider of discounting and self-service vendor portal solutions, has raised $18 million in Series C funding. Klaus Hommels led the round, and was joined by return backers DAG Ventures, Matrix Partners, TELUS Ventures and Trinity Ventures. www.taulia.com SmartRecruiters, a San Francisco-based online hiring platform, has raised $10 million in Series B funding. Rembrandt Venture Partners led the round, and was joined by Mayfield Fund.www.smartrecruiters.com RealScout, a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based mobile platform for realtors, has raised $1.1 million in seed funding from DCM, Formation8 and Ken DeLeon. www.realscout.com Sign up for Dan’s daily email newsletter on deals and deal-makers: GetTermSheet.com
Slice, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based maker of an app for tracking online spending, has raised $23 million in new VC funding. Rakuten (Jasdaq: 7455) led the round, and was joined by Russia Partners, NPD Group and return backers DCM, Innovation Endeavors and Lightspeed Venture Partners. www.slice.com Taulia, a San Francisco-based provider of discounting and self-service vendor portal solutions,…
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http://fortune.com/2013/06/18/how-to-teach-americans-to-save-treat-them-like-children/
http://web.archive.org/web/20140929194449id_/http://fortune.com:80/2013/06/18/how-to-teach-americans-to-save-treat-them-like-children/
How to teach Americans to save? Treat them like children
20140929194449
FORTUNE — Here’s something that recently surprised me: My six-year-old daughter is a pretty good saver. She’s really into My Little Pony and has formed a 1st grade gang, called the Pony Sisters, which I believe is non-violent, though possibly hostile to fairy lovers. Anyway, a few months ago she decided she really wanted a large, $20 talking Princess Cadance figure, which my wife and I said we weren’t going to buy for her. She gets $1.50 a week in allowance tied to chores. (I know some people don’t do that, but this paper suggests it’s the way to go, so there.) So in my head, I was like, Good luck, kid. Last week, she pulled out $20 and asked to be taken to Target. There appears to be no foul play by the hands of the Pony Sisters. I checked. MORE: Will the housing rebound crush the job market? A paper out this week from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) suggests that I shouldn’t have been so surprised. The conclusion: The best way to get people to save is to treat them like children. The paper is called Do Lottery Payments Induce Savings Behavior? and is written by a bunch of economics professors, including three from the University of Maryland, one from Northwestern, and another from Maastricht in the Netherlands. And it’s important, because, as you may have heard, we Americans are pretty bad savers. So people have been looking for ways to tackle this. The professors asked 100 students at the University of Maryland to choose from a variety of savings accounts. Some of them were similar to traditional savings accounts in that they paid a set consistent interest rate over time, a rate that would yield $15 over three weeks in this case. Others worked on more of a lottery system, which the professors called prize-linked accounts. Those accounts paid a lower rate of interest — $15 over five weeks instead of three — but 5% of the time the accounts would pay an additional $200 in interest over the same five weeks. What did the professors find? Introduce a prize, and people are much more interested in saving and willing to save for longer. Overwhelmingly the students chose the accounts with the potential for big payouts, even though in most instances the guaranteed accounts ended paying more in the same time. The bigger the potential prize, even if the chances of winning shrunk, the more likely people would be to save. And in a way this is what my daughter is doing as well. Having a large prize in mind was a powerful motivator. She actually hasn’t saved much money since. Without a goal, saving isn’t that interesting for her. Some economists have said allowing people to name their savings accounts, like first-house account or Christmas account, will promote more savings. MORE: Yes, you can make money in Europe. Here’s how There aren’t any prize-linked accounts like this in the U.S., but the authors say they are available in other countries. And it might not just be applicable for savings accounts. You could image applying this to 401(k) plans where employers pay out prizes. That might be a more effective and cheaper way for employers to encourage retirement savings. So would this really work, and is it a good idea? It’s not clear. These are college kids taking the test who don’t have a family or house that they need to save for and may be less risk averse than the general population. What’s more, there may be an inequality problem. Yes, if we could get people to save more, we might be collectively better off, though perhaps not now when we need spending to boost the economy. But under this system, the rewards of the additional saving might not be evenly spread. So while you might have more aggregate savings, some individuals might end up worse off. Still, this is pretty neat idea for a startup bank, and it might actually be a bit of financial innovation that makes sense.
A new study suggests a different type of bank account could get people to save more.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/09/28/lucinda-williams-down-where-spirit-meets-bone/iiUIGDtwi2CNlkUr2uJuJJ/story.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20140930004328id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/09/28/lucinda-williams-down-where-spirit-meets-bone/iiUIGDtwi2CNlkUr2uJuJJ/story.html
Lucinda Williams, ‘Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone’
20140930004328
Lucinda Williams’s 11th studio album opens with its most solemn song, a threadbare proverb called “Compassion.” Her voice is cracked beyond repair, the acoustic guitar is spare, the tempo crawls, and the message is simple: Extend compassion to everyone you meet, because “you do not know what wars are going on/ Down there where the spirit meets the bone.” Williams adapted the song from a poem by her father, Miller Williams, and it gives “Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone” its emotional compass if not its melodic direction. The rest of this double album, Williams’s first, settles into a deep groove that suggests the singer-songwriter was fired up and couldn’t — and shouldn’t — whittle her latest to a standard 10 songs. There are 20 of them here, ranging from pointed social commentaries (“West Memphis,” “East Side of Town”) and juke-joint blues stomps (“Something Wicked This Way Comes”) to brittle rockers (“Protection,” “Foolishness”) and last-call country tearjerkers (“It’s Gonna Rain,” featuring a luminous backing vocal from Jakob Dylan). With its worldly perspective, particularly on “Temporary Nature (of Any Precious Thing),” this new album feels like an obvious continuation of its predecessor, “Blessed.” On that 2011 album, Williams turned her attention beyond her inner turmoil and to the suffering of others. Her latest draws to a close with a ruminative take on J.J. Cale’s “Magnolia,” creeping toward 10 minutes and breaking your heart with each passing second. (Out Tuesday) Lucinda Williams performs at the Orpheum Theater on Nov. 19.
Lucinda Williams’s 11th album settles into a deep groove that suggests the singer-songwriter was fired up and couldn’t whittle her latest to a standard 10 songs.
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http://fortune.com/2014/10/05/the-existential-mystery-of-the-apple-watch/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141005160744id_/http://fortune.com/2014/10/05/the-existential-mystery-of-the-apple-watch/
The existential mystery of the Apple Watch
20141005160744
Nobody has worked harder — or more publicly — to figure out what the Apple Watch is for than Ben Thompson, an independent analyst who expressed his initial skepticism in all his many forums: On Twitter (where he has 32,000 followers), in his daily e-mail updates (subscription required), on his (free) Stratechery blog, on three one-hour episodes of Exponent, a weekly podcast he co-hosts with James Allworth, and one marathon three-hour guest appearance on The Talk Show with John Gruber. The central conundrum, as Thompson sees it, is why Apple is releasing this device without a built-in cellular radio. Every futuristic watch in fiction and popular imagination — from Dick Tracy to the Jetsons — is a communications device. Yet the watch Apple demoed on Sept. 9 and is scheduled to release next year needs to be paired with an iPhone in order to talk to the outside world. This fact was downplayed on Sept. 9 — Kevin Lynch mentioned it briefly in his demo and quickly moved on. But it gnawed at Thompson in the days that followed. He’s convinced that future versions of the Watch will be both tiny wristworn computers and fully functioning mobile phones. If that’s the case, he wondered aloud, why did Apple release this version now? Why does it exist at all? We wrote about Thompson’s reaction to the product introduction that first week — see Apple Watch: Trying too hard to do too much — and you can follow his thinking as it evolved in subsquent Stratechery columns: What Thompson eventually concluded is that the current Apple Watch is a precursor product, one that Apple released in order to get the ball rolling. This approach – the one that Apple chose – allows the hard work of user interface iteration and app ecosystem development to begin in 2015. Moreover, that iteration and development will happen with the clear assumption that the Watch is a standalone device, not an accessory. Then, whenever the Watch truly is standalone, it will be a complete package: cellular connectivity, polished UI, and developed app ecosystem. “The tradeoff is significant confusion in the short-term: the Watch that will be released next year is not a standalone device. It needs the iPhone for connectivity. To be clear, this is no small matter: the disconnect certainly tripped me up for a week, and if the feedback I’ve gotten is any indication, it continues to befuddle a lot of very smart people. How on earth are normal folks who don’t follow this sort of stuff for a living going to grok the idea of a standalone Watch that actually needs an iPhone?” Samsung, it should be noted, is in the same boat; none of the Galaxy Gears it has released works without a Samsung phone nearby. It’s one of the reasons Gears aren’t flying off the shelves. But we expect more from Apple than we do of Samsung, especially when Cupertino gives a product as big a sendoff as they gave the Watch. Besides, as Thompson puts it, “Confusing people seems so very un-Apple-like.” So why did Apple do it? What Thompson concludes in the end is that what seems like a huge issue — dependence on the iPhone — is at the moment a non-issue because nobody today who might be in the market for an Apple Watch ever goes anywhere without an iPhone. What I think Apple realized was that they could, in jujitsu-like fashion, use this reality to their advantage: it’s OK – not ideal, but OK – for the Watch to use the iPhone for connectivity because the iPhone is always present anyways. Apple is not asking anyone to change their behavior in order to get the full functionality of a Watch – it is entirely additive to your day-to-day experience. OK. Fair enough. That explains why Apple might want to release the Watch in its current form. But it doesn’t tell me whether I should buy it when it comes out in 2015 or hold out for the future version Apple will release, Thompson is convinced, as soon as cost and battery life permit. Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter at @philiped. Read his Apple AAPL coverage at fortune.com/ped or subscribe via his RSS feed.
If Ben Thompson doesn't yet understand this product's raison d'être, it's not for want of trying.
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http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/max-domi-among-7-roster-cuts-by-coyotes-100214
http://web.archive.org/web/20141005194058id_/http://www.foxsports.com:80/arizona/story/max-domi-among-7-roster-cuts-by-coyotes-100214
Max Domi among 7 roster cuts by Coyotes
20141005194058
Updated OCT 02, 2014 11:58p ET So what was your favorite part of the Coyotes' 2014 youth movement? Sorry. We know you're upset today. We know because you told us you were upset after the Coyotes trimmed their roster to 25 players on Thursday by reassigning seven players. Included in that group were 2013 top pick Max Domi, forward Lucas Lessio and defenseman Brandon Gormley, three players who were thought to have a great chance to make this season's roster. "You create opportunity," general manager Don Maloney said. "But players have to grab opportunity and they're just not there yet." If you want to be bothered about what's left in the Coyotes forward group, go ahead. There's a lot of room for discussion there, particularly because this is a deep Western Conference. But you shouldn't be upset about Thursday's cuts. Here's why. The Coyotes have been down this road before. They made the mistake of rushing Kyle Turris, Peter Mueller and even Mikkel Boedker to the pro level too soon. Maloney still believes, with ample evidence, it stunted or delayed those players' growth. At the team's media day, Maloney gave a strong hint of the inner workings of his and coach Dave Tippett's mind when he cited the Detroit Red Wings as an example of a team that allows its prospects to "cook an extra year" in the minors. That approach allows them ample time -- and ice time -- to develop away from the pressure cooker, results-or-else world of the NHL. "I don't buy for a second that you can't go back to whatever level -- the AHL or juniors -- and improve from a strength standpoint and all those other areas of his game," Maloney said, addressing Domi, specifically. "Nobody in this world would be happier than me if Max Domi or Henrik Samuelsson were on the opening-day roster but Max is still 19 years old. How many 19-year-olds have a meaningful impact on a playoff team? They're few and far between." The Coyotes knew that in order for Domi to stick, he had to rise to a certain level. "Max isn't going to benefit from being a fourth-line player," coach Dave Tippett said. "He has to be a top-six player right now. He didn't play better than our top six in camp." So Domi will go back to London of the Ontario Hockey League for another season of junior competition while Gormley, Lessio, goalie Louis Domingue, defenseman Andrew Campbell and forwards Jordan Szwarz and Tobias Rieder were assigned to the Portland Pirates of the American Hockey League. That is an important distinction. While Domi won't be back, Rieder and Lessio probably will be. "It's a plane ride away," Maloney said. Rieder wowed the staff in camp and the preseason and may have surpassed Lessio in their eyes as the most NHL-ready player, although both are considered very close. The team also believes that with 40 games or so of development in Portland, Samuelsson could be ready for a recall, too. "When they come up they have to have the confidence they can do the job," Tippett said. "If they're second guessing that means they're not ready." *By clicking "SUBSCRIBE", you have read and agreed to the Fox Sports Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. So the Coyotes will go to war for the time being with top lines of Antoine Vermette between Shane Doan and Mikkel Boedker and probably Martin Hanzal between Martin Erat and Sam Gagner. Maybe that doesn't get you as excited as Domi or Samuelsson would have, but if you were counting on those young players for excitement remember, there are guys who get paid to evaluate talent and they have much more experience at it than you. There is a process. In this case, the process makes sense. Remember also that there are strong willed veterans on this team -- Shane Doan, Mike Smith and Keith Yandle among them -- who expect management and the coaching staff to field the team that gives them the best chance of winning. They deserve that. You don't roster players fresh up from juniors just because the thought is sexy. "We're not interested in sinking to the bottom of the league in mid-November," Maloney said. "We think we can compete with this group." Will the current group be enough to push the Coyotes back into the playoffs after a two-year absence? That's another question entirely. "The way it works is that you take the players you're given and try to find the best mix possible," Tippett said. "In the end, you hope it's enough." LOOSE PUCK: The Coyotes have 25 players on their roster but injured 2014 top pick Brendan Perlini is one of them. He will go back to juniors, leaving the Coyotes with one cut to make before opening night. That cut will come down to defenseman Matt Smaby and forward Justin Hodgman. Follow Craig Morgan in Twitter
Forwards Max Domi and Lucas Lessio and defenseman Brandon Gormley were among seven players removed from the Coyotes' active roster on Thursday.
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Laura Barnett talks to conceptual artist Mario Garcia Torres
20141005202421
'I'm not interested in acquiring objects' ... Mario Garcia Torres. Photograph: Christian Sinibaldi Having a mistaken idea of what an artist was. I knew I wanted an extraordinary life, outside the nine-to-five grind. The reality is extraordinary, but in a very different way: the artist actually works 24/7. What was your big breakthrough? I haven't had it yet. A lot of things have happened very quickly recently; I'm still trying to figure out my next move. Who or what have you sacrificed for your art? My home town, Monclova. Art is almost non-existent there, so now I live in Los Angeles. If someone saw one of your works in 1,000 years' time, what would it tell them about the year 2007? That we were obsessed with thinking about the past, and trying to solve it. My works are all about rethinking history. What one song would feature on the soundtrack to your life? My Way by Frank Sinatra. Art is always a negotiation between what you want to do and what you're actually able to achieve. I try not to be. Do you suffer for your art? Not at all. I'm a workaholic, so working hard creates no conflict for me. Is the internet a good thing for art? Yes. It's an important tool for research and information, but it is always superficial. What's your favourite museum or art gallery? The modern art museum that Martin Kippenberger created on the Greek island of Syros. It was a place for artists to gather, rather than a space for objects. I'm trying to do something similar with a gallery near Monclova: it's a huge piece of land, open to the elements, on which I'm placing artworks. How does the European art scene compare with Mexico's? Mexico's art scene is active and enthusiastic, but very young; audiences look to art to amuse them. Europeans are more willing to make an effort to understand the concepts behind it. What's the greatest threat to art today? Ignorance. Works often require more commitment than most people are prepared to give them. What work of art would you most like to own? None. I'm not interested in acquiring objects. Complete this sentence: At heart I'm just a frustrated ... Hotel lobby singer. I wanted a career in music, but it didn't work out. What's the best advice anyone ever gave you? A friend once told me to keep doing what I believed in. I had a hard time convincing people in Mexico that what I was doing was interesting. But I remembered what my friend said, and eventually people changed their minds. Career: Studied at the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, on a Fulbright grant. Has participated in a number of group and solo shows, including at this year's Venice Biennale. Is the winner of the 2007 Frieze Cartier Award for emerging international artists. High point: "I'm still waiting for it." Low point: "Having to work as a curator and art critic in the late 1990s to support myself. It took up too much of my time."
Mario Garcia Torres, conceptual artist.
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British contemporary artists on Louise Bourgeois
20141005202459
I became aware of Louise Bourgeois in my first or second year at Brighton Art College. One of my teachers, Stuart Morgan, curated a small retrospective of her work at the Serpentine, and both he and another teacher, Edward Allington, saw something in her, and me, and thought I should be aware of her. I thought the work was wonderful. It was her very early pieces, The Blind Leading the Blind, the wooden pieces and some of the later bronze works. Biographically, I don't really think she has influenced me, but I think there are similarities in our work. We have both used the home as a kind of kick-off point, as the space that starts the thoughts of a body of work. I eventually got to meet Louise in New York, soon after I made House. She asked to see me because she had seen a picture of House in the New York Times while she was ironing it one morning, so she said. She was wonderful and slightly kind of nutty; very interested and eccentric. She drew the whole time; it was very much a salon with me there as her audience, watching her. I remember her remarking that I was shorter than she was. I don't know if this was true but she was commenting on the physicality of making such big work and us being relatively small women. When you meet her you don't know what's true, because she makes things up. She has spun her web and drawn people in, and eaten a few people along the way. If I think of influences in my life, it goes Giacometti, Bacon, Bourgeois. You move from Giacometti's skeletal, ethereal representation into Bacon, who is getting into drama and putting some meat on the bones. Louise goes further by including the viewer in the drama. The first show of hers that I saw, in New York at the end of the Seventies, involved parts of houses, ...#8730;- the paraphernalia of real life - and you could walk into them. I remember a staircase in the middle of a dim, dark room, with a little door in the side. You opened the door and there was a little blue rubber heart hanging on a hook under the stairs. That piece really stuck in my mind: there was something extremely secretive and fabulous about it. She's brilliant at tying the body into space, recognisable domestic space that's intimate rather than removed or heroic. Even the giant spider in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern was a wonderful scale-up of the intimacy of her work; it worked very well considering it's an especially hard space to handle. There's adventure in the way she works, and a delight at exploration you wouldn't find in many other artists. Most people who are financially successful repeat themselves until they're dead but Louise has continued to make new work, even into her nineties. Louise Bourgeois is one of the greatest ever artists. So few female artists have been recognised as truly important, and you have to be really strong and brave to last as long as she has. It's incredible: she's known all these great men and outlived them all. It wasn't really until that sinister fairytale in the Tate's Turbine Hall in 2000 - the incredible-looking glasses and windy stairs, and the spider - that I became seriously interested in her. I walked in and just gasped and went, 'This is for me.' I love the juxtaposition of sinister, controlling elements and full-on macho materials with a warm, nurturing and cocoon-like feminine side. I gather she's had to deal with a lot of anger, jealousy and rage in her past but she still treats the female and the male with love and compassion - there's no silly anti-male thing in her work. You're allowed to feel in its presence. If I had to choose one thing she's done it would be one of the enormous penises, which I've always wanted to pick up and touch when the security guards weren't looking. They're tender and full of passion and love, and there's a little bit of comedy in there. I think she's really necessary. Assessing her is like asking what a mountain does: it's simply there. I really like that she's a French artist who went to America: usually it was the other way round, with Americans rocking up in Paris in the Twenties and Thirties. I like the ways she speaks about her family and its tensions. When the work is very illustrative it interests me less, but I like that the fuel for the work is very emotional. She works in lots of different ways, and one of the most refreshing things is that you can't necessarily spot a Louise Bourgeois. That's the sign of a really good artist - although afterwards you think, 'Well of course it's a Louise Bourgeois.' I'm a sucker for any of the pieces with mirrors in them - that's my soft point. In New York in the Seventies she was one of those people I'd heard about before I really knew what she did. I was a friend of Stuart Morgan, who used to stay with her, and he was always coming back with Louise stories. One got the feeling of immense determination and persistence, which, in the gossipy way, can come over as being impossible and all the rest of it. We're interested in Louise Bourgeois because of the way she archives memory in architecture. Her installations have a strong psychological tension within them, and I think we definitely cross over on that basis. The first time we came in contact with her was in the early Nineties when we went to an event at her studio in Brooklyn. We got to see the spider pieces she was working on before they showed in the Turbine Hall, and there were all these delicious cheeses and nibbles laid out within the work - you had to go underneath to get them. She struck us as being a pretty out-there kind of person. · Interviews by Killian Fox and Katie Toms
Art: We asked British contemporary artists for their assessment of the veteran sculptor and her work.
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Joanna Moorhead on Edward James's Mexican legacy Las Pozas
20141006001515
Ten hours' drive north east of Mexico City, in the midst of a tropical rainforest, a compact, slightly shambolic town clings to a steep, verdant hillside. At the top of the hill, up a cobbled street, is a whitewashed building with tall, gothic windows; and it was up this street, 62 years ago, that Edward James - the art collector who bankrolled Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and many more - strode, walking into what would become his ultimate surreal idyll. James was an eccentric, hugely wealthy Englishman in search of something, and somewhere: the truth is, probably even he didn't know what it was he really wanted to find. But in this remote and exotic place, Xilitla (pronounced 'Hill-eet-la'), he was to discover a breathtaking glen of waterfalls that captured his heart, and his imagination. James bought the glen, filled it with an extraordinary array of follies and sculptures, and spent long periods of time here throughout the rest of his life. Since his death in 1984 the garden, Las Pozas ("the pools"), has been neglected and forgotten, but now all that looks set to change. A wealthy foundation has just bought it for US$2.2m, and there are plans not only to restore the garden to its former glory, but to put it on the world art map - big time. Later this month, the businessmen and artistic movers and shakers behind the Las Pozas revival will gather at the garden to mark this new chapter in its history, as well as to celebrate the centenary of James's birth. James grew up in the lavish surroundings of West Dean, a country estate in Sussex, the only son of a wealthy businessman, William James, and his wife Evelyn. The couple already had four daughters, so baby Edward's arrival was a cause for great celebration. And there was intrigue, too, surrounding his birth: some said Edward was the result of an affair between his mother and the King, Edward VII, but others said the real reason the monarch spent time with his mother was that she was the product of an earlier affair, making his new namesake his grandson. James's life illustrates many things, but one of them is that social connections and great wealth do not necessarily augur great happiness, and may instead condemn a man of promise to a restless life, blighted by uncertainty both in himself and in those around him. James was also homosexual, and an early marriage to the ballerina Tilly Losch only served to confuse and complicate an already tortured existence. It was from the ruins of his miserable marriage that James fled Europe, travelling first to California, then to New Mexico, and finally to Mexico itself. As a rich man with business interests, James was a frequent visitor to the telegraph offices in the towns through which he passed: and so it was that, one day in 1944, he met Plutarco Gastelum, the handsome manager of the telegraph office in Cuernavaca. He was an adventurous man with ambitions to see the world, so when James offered him twice his salary to work for him as his guide and travelling companion, he accepted eagerly. The precise nature of Gastelum's job description is unclear - debate continues as to whether he and James were sexually involved - but part of his duties, certainly, were pointing James in the direction of a place to indulge his passion for growing orchids. Xilitla, said Gastelum, was the best place in Mexico for an orchid garden. In a bizarre but characteristicly surreal touch, James first set foot in Xilitla swathed in toilet paper, after he became cold on the journey and had nothing else in which to wrap himself. Over the years that followed, James and Gastelum tended their orchids - there were, apparently, 29,000 at Las Pozas at one time - and indulged James's passion for concrete sculptures and follies, around 40 in all, enjoying names such as The House With Three Storeys That Could Be Five, The Temple of the Ducks and The House With a Roof Like a Whale. Today, some of the buildings look slightly shabby, but they remain breathtakingly bizarre. There are totem poles and spiral staircases; open-roofed small buildings; walkways with 20ft sheer drops both sides, archways and hidden rooms. James worked with wooden mouldings that, along with his original designs, you can see in a small museum to his memory in the town. He employed hundreds of local workers at Las Pozas, and earned a reputation for being a fair employer (though one worker did sue him for unfair dismissal after he was let go for interrupting James while the latter was conversing with a flower). Another of his foibles, apparently, was to encourage his workers to swim naked in the waterfall pools: but then his penchant for male nakedness was well-known, and he apparently once went so far as to ask his personal assistant if he would mind typing in the nude. James sometimes stayed a few weeks in Xilitla, sometimes a few months. He had many artistic and business interests away from Mexico: he was a passionate supporter of surrealist art, and his support was a lifeline to both Dalí - whom he backed financially for two years at one point -and Magritte, whom he allowed to stay in his London home to paint. At one time, James had what was widely regarded as the finest private collection of surrealist art in the world; many of the objects at the V&A exhibition Surreal Things earlier this year were once in James's collection (some, in fact, were sold to pay for the work at Las Pozas). The Mexican garden, while at times taking up much of his energy and enthusiasm, was never James's entire world. During his trips home to Sussex he enjoyed the delights of Monkton House, which he had transformed into a surrealist dream, full of iconic objects such as the Mae West Lips sofa and Dalí's lobster telephone, on which he collaborated with Dalí. While James was away from Mexico, Gastelum carried on overseeing the work - the creativity in evidence there today owes as much to his artistic merits as to those of James. One day in the mid 1950s, James returned to Xilitla to be told some shocking news. Gastelum had fallen in love: and with a woman. A much younger woman, too: his girlfriend, Marina, was only 20. Whether out of love or from loneliness, whether because of a desire for children or simply because he wanted to blend better into conservative, family-orientated Xilitla no one knows, but in 1956 Plutarco and Marina were married at St Augustine's church in the town. At the reception afterwards, it is said that James got monumentally drunk. Over the years the Gastelums had four children, and moved into El Castillo, the white house on the hill up which James had walked on his first day in the town. James might have withdrawn to England at this point, bored by his garden now his partner had a new love interest, but instead he became the family's benevolent godfather. Kako, now 46, is the Gastelums' only son, and he remains part of the management team at Las Pozas, having recently sold it to the new foundation. He remembers his father's friend and patron with great affection. "He was our magical uncle. He loved us kids and we loved him: by the time we were born I think he was at an age where he wanted the security of a home and family." In El Castillo, on his visits through the 1960s and 70s, James tasted a family life that would otherwise have eluded him. For the Gastelums, though their interloper could be difficult, there were huge benefits to having him around. "We had an education, we had opportunities, we travelled - all because of Uncle Edward," says Kako. "We had the most amazing childhood. I couldn't talk of my adventures at school, because they were so different from my friends' experiences. Can you imagine: we spent our holidays in England, at Uncle Edward's mansion, being waited on by maids and footmen. Some of my friends in Xilitla were so poor they didn't even have shoes!" Today El Castillo is a hotel run by one of the Gastelum daughters, Gaby; one of the bedrooms is Don Eduardo's. There is a mural in the hall done by the English artist Leonora Carrington, a friend of James's who visited Las Pozas several times from her home in Mexico City - the eldest of the Gastelum children was named after her. But, though he spent a lot of time at the Gastelum house, James often chose to sleep over at Las Pozas, a 20-minute walk from the town. There, he was able to indulge his surrealist passions to a new level. It was his Eden, his paradise: he would lie in an outdoor bath gazing up at the stars, his trademark parrots on his shoulders and the cigarras chirruping in the trees, faux master of the rainforest. The idyll of Xilitla was to come to an abrupt, and cruel, end. In the early 1980s, Marina, at 46, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Plutarco, meanwhile, was already battling Parkinson's. In 1983, James paid what he knew would be his last visit while Marina was alive: Gaby recalls his poignant final day. "He said goodbye to my father, and then he wanted to say goodbye to my mother. I took him to her, and he bent over to kiss her hand. And my mother said to him, 'Don Eduardo, I want to thank you for everything you have done for our family.' Uncle Edward was so moved he could hardly speak, and nor could I. We went out of the house and walked together down the cobbles to where his car was waiting. He said to me that he would go to India, and that I should go to visit him there. I kissed him goodbye." In fact, James was never to see Xilitla, or Gaby or Plutarco again. The following year he suffered a stroke, and spent his final months in a French nursing home. Kako went to visit him there, a last link with the little hillside town in Mexico into which James had poured so much of himself, and which remains - along with his ancestral home West Dean, now an arts college - his lasting legacy. The problem for Xilitla, in the years that followed James's death, was that, inexplicably though not altogether surprisingly, James had failed to provide in death for the project he had so lavished his wealth on in his lifetime. Kako was left to struggle on at Las Pozas without much financial provision. For though the place attracted a few visitors, and though it remained a secret mecca for international surrealist fans, it didn't generate the income necessary to maintain such an extensive and complex garden. James's exotic caged animals, Kako recalls, were among the first casualties (or, perhaps, beneficiaries) of the shortfall, and were let go into the wild (their empty cages remain). The concrete structures, over time, became mildewed and overgrown. The orchids disappeared. Only the waterfalls flourished, as they always had, and the local people - who had retained a healthy scepticism of the wild, white-haired gringo and his mad ideas - continued to swim in the freezing, exhilarating waters of the rock pools. Today, though, there are workmen and machinery once more at Las Pozas, and there is talk not only of hotels and restaurants, but even of a new airport close by. Kako is excited by it all, although, he admits, it was a hard decision to sell his birthright. The consortium behind the takeover includes cement manufacturer Cemex, as well as bankers and the local government, and its chairman is Mexico City resident and banker Damian Fraser, son of historian Antonia and stepson of playwright Harold Pinter. He foresees a future in which Xilitla will become much better known, a global monument, no less, to surrealism. As the thunder crashes and the lightning cracks in this remote rainforest garden, that's a claim too surreal not to deserve a modicum of respect. Surrealism, an art form born in 1917, spawned the greatest artists of the 20th century, whih was more than a little due to the interest of one man, Edward James. That his hideaway Mexican garden could become its 21st-century tribute is not, perhaps, too bold a claim. No one knows for sure what James himself envisaged for Las Pozas - in all likelihood, he thought the Gastelum children would run it as a small tourist attraction. But James certainly wasn't a man to eschew taking advantage of life's unexpected turns: there is a wonderful story about how he once booked a flight to Ireland, only to discover, on arrival at the airport, that the agent had misheard his request, and that his reservation was for Iceland. He went, of course. And if his garden is now on a different trajectory than the one he foresaw, here's betting the loudest cheers are coming from the quietest quarter, James's grave: another irony he would, undoubtedly, have relished. · For more information on Xilitla and Las Pozas, go to junglegossip.com
He was surrealism's great champion, a friend to Magritte and Dalí. But Edward James's lasting legacy was an extraordinary tropical idyll he built in Mexico. Joanna Moorhead travels into the jungle to report on plans to restore Las Pozas.
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IPad vs. Surface: Let the tablet war begin
20141009103623
FORTUNE — Apple and Microsoft’s relationship has had more twists and turns than Liz and Dick’s. The two have been bitter rivals, vital partners — even coolly indifferent. Microsoft’s new Surface tablet could change things again. Apple’s iPad has some 55% of the market. Amazon AMZN and Google GOOG have largely offered cheaper alternatives to compete. But Microsoft MSFT is taking Apple aapl on directly: The Surface sells for a premium price. And analysis by firm IHS iSuppli suggests that Microsoft’s — not Apple’s — device has higher margins. If things go well, Microsoft could capture some 9% of sales by 2016, Gartner Research estimates. That’s still far behind Apple, but not bad for a latecomer. Here’s a look at what goes into making the two devices. Note: Microsoft Surface RT with 32GB of storage and third-generation Apple iPad with 32GB of storage pictured. Cost of parts includes prices of components not listed, but not cost to manufacture. Source: IHS iSuppli This story is from the December 24, 2012 issue of Fortune.
Apple dominates tablet sales. Now Microsoft is going after the iPad head on.
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Why can't the haters see Obamacare is good for business?
20141010161807
For the past four years, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business organizations have conducted an unremitting campaign against the Affordable Care Act, warning that it would stifle enterprise, crimp hiring, and generally be a disaster. Now that more than 8 million Americans have signed up for coverage on the individual insurance exchanges, and another 3 million (at least) have enrolled in the expanded Medicaid program, you might think the carping would have died down a bit, but it hasn’t. The Chamber has dropped its calls for the 2010 health care law to be repealed, but it still runs ads and blog posts slamming the reform. The Chamber’s hostile stance perhaps isn’t so surprising. In recent years, it’s moved so far to the right it has practically joined the Republican Party. But what is genuinely shocking is that more business leaders haven’t acknowledged a financial reality that’s becoming increasingly clear: Obamacare could well end up having a positive impact on their firms rather than a negative one. Let’s start with small businesses, which are often portrayed as the main “victims” of the ACA. According to the Census Bureau, there are about 27.2 million of them. The overwhelming majority of these enterprises — about 26.6 million — employ fewer than 20 people. Since the employer mandate kicks in at 50 employees, Obamacare won’t affect these firms. But many of their employees will benefit from it. If they have a family and earn less than four times the poverty level, they are eligible for generous subsidies to purchase individual coverage. In effect, the federal government is giving these workers a pay raise, and relieving their employers of the pressure to provide them with health coverage. That’s a big plus for small-business owners. But what about the large corporations represented by the Business Roundtable, another organization that has been highly critical of the ACA? Well, we know for sure that businesses involved in the health care industry, which makes up about a sixth of the economy, will benefit from having more customers and increased demand. As the accompanying chart shows, the stocks of health care companies have more than doubled since 2009. If Obamacare represented a threat to their business, this wouldn’t have happened. That leaves big employers in other sectors, many of which provide their employees with health insurance: the auto companies, the retailers, and so on. What’s in the ACA for them? Understandably, many corporations are irked by the new taxes that were included in the reform, such as the reinsurance fee, the medical device tax, and the tax on “Cadillac” plans. They see Obamacare as adding to the costs and complexity of a system that’s already expensive and complicated. But what if the new law does what its proponents claim it will do and reduces health care inflation? Then the costs of transitioning to the new system could be recouped. One way this could happen is if corporations start shifting their employees onto the insurance exchanges and pay the penalties for not providing coverage, which, while hefty, aren’t as costly as paying for insurance. A more likely outcome is that big employers start to use the insurance options that are available on the exchanges as models for their own plans, chipping away at the benefits they provide. Their employees won’t like the restricted provider networks and higher deductibles that typify plans sold through the exchanges, but they won’t be able to do much about it. As tens of millions of people eventually sign up through the exchanges, the policies available there are likely to become the new standard. To some Americans, this will come as a big shock: They expect to be able to see any doctor they want, use any hospital they choose, and undertake any procedure they deem necessary. For most people, though, such a system is already a distant memory. The ACA is merely accelerating a trend that began with the rise of HMOs. Whether that’s good for patients is a controversial question. But it’s surely good for business. John Cassidy is a Fortune contributor and a New Yorker staff writer. This story is from the May 19, 2014 issue of Fortune.
Business leaders need to face a financial reality that's increasingly clear: The Affordable Care Act could have a positive impact on their firms rather than a negative one.
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Wal-Mart eliminates health benefits for some part-timers
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NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart Stores Inc. plans to eliminate health insurance coverage for some of its part-time U.S. employees in a move aimed at controlling rising health care costs of the nation’s largest private employer. Starting Jan. 1, Walmart told The Associated Press that it will no longer offer health insurance to employees who work less than an average of 30 hours a week. The move, which would affect 30,000 employees, follows similar decisions by Target, Home Depot and others to eliminate health insurance benefits for part-time employees. ‘‘We had to make some tough decisions,’’ Sally Wellborn, Walmart’s senior vice president of benefits, told The Associated Press. Wellborn says the company will use a third-party organization to help part-time workers find insurance alternatives: ‘‘We are trying to balance the needs of (workers) as well as the costs of (workers) as well as the cost to Walmart.’’ The announcement comes after Walmart said far more U.S. employees and their families are enrolling in its health care plans than it had expected following rollout of the Affordable Care Act. Walmart, which employs about 1.4 million full- and part-time U.S. workers, says about 1.2 million Walmart workers and family members combined now participate in its health care plan. That has had an impact on Walmart’s bottom line. Walmart now expects the impact of higher health care costs to be about $500 million for the current fiscal year, or about $170 million higher than the original estimate of about $330 million that it gave in February. But Walmart is among the last of its peers to cut health insurance for some part-time workers. In 2013, 62 percent of large retail chains didn’t offer health care benefits to any of its part-time workers, according to Mercer, a global consulting company. That’s up from 56 percent in 2009. ‘‘Retailers who offer part-time benefits are more of an exception than the rule,’’ says Beth Umland, director of research for health and benefits at Mercer. Walmart has been scaling back eligibility for part-time workers over the past few years, though. In 2011, Walmart said it was cutting backing eligibility of its coverage of part-time workers working less than 24 hours a week. And then in 2013, it announced a threshold of 30 hours or under. Walmart, like most big companies, also is increasing premiums, or out-of-pocket costs that employees pay, to counter rising health care costs. Walmart told The Associated Press that it’s raising premiums for all of its full-time workers: For a basic plan, of which 40 percent of its workers are enrolled, the premiums will go up to $21.90 per pay period, up from $18.40, starting Jan. 1. Walmart also said that changes in the co-insurance, or the percentage workers pay before coverage kicks in, for the health reimbursement accounts and the health savings accounts will result in the company paying 75 percent of the eligible costs of doctor visits, tests, hospitalization and other services within the network after employees meet their deductible. That’s down from 80 percent. Follow Anne D’Innocenzio at http://www.Twitter.com/adinnocenzio
Starting Jan. 1, Walmart said it will no longer offer health insurance to employees who work less than an average of 30 hours a week.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/10/06/wage-hikes-lagging-job-growth/J0I01rXgZmMKf4Qt6YDMYP/story.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20141011212154id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2014/10/06/wage-hikes-lagging-job-growth/J0I01rXgZmMKf4Qt6YDMYP/story.html
US wage hikes lagging job growth
20141011212154
WASHINGTON — Where are the pay raises? Employers in the United States are hiring at a brisk pace. Unemployment has sunk to a nearly healthy rate. Jobs are being filled across a range of industries. Yet the September jobs report released last Friday contained a puzzling fact: Paychecks still aren’t growing. Economists regard stagnant wages as a red flag for the five-year-old recovery. Robust job growth has typically fueled rising wages. And without higher pay, workers have less money to spend and save — and that, in turn, keeps the economy from strengthening further. Whatever meager pay raises most workers have received in this recovery have been all but eaten up by inflation. The average hourly wage for nonmanagement workers has remained $20.67 for two months. It has risen just 2.3 percent year-over-year, just slightly above inflation. It just might be the pivotal challenge for families and the economy. The size of a paycheck shapes budgets for consumers, whose spending accounts for most of the US economy’s activity. Weak pay gains, along with lower-than-normal inflation, will also influence when the Federal Reserve decides to start raising interest rates. Without more pay raises spreading across the economy, the Fed has less pressure to raise a key short-term rate from its record low near zero. So why hasn’t vigorous hiring led to better paydays? Unemployment needs to go even lower — Monthly wage gains last meaningfully outpaced inflation from mid-2006 through 2007, just before the Great Recession started. The unemployment rate then ranged between 4.4 percent and 4.8 percent. If that pattern holds true, unemployment would have to drop another full percentage point from its current 5.9 percent before wages break out of their funk. Economists note that wages are generally a ‘‘lagging’’ indicator. What they mean is that pay typically starts rising well after the job market has shown significant improvement. As the economy takes off, employers eventually need more workers to meet customer demand. Unless those companies boost pay, they often won’t attract enough qualified candidates for the jobs they want to fill. Some economists think we might be close to that point already but say we might not know until months after the fact. ‘‘We may find out six months from now that 6 percent was the trigger point,’’ said Maury Harris, an economist at the bank UBS. Younger workers earn less — As older, higher-paid baby boomers retire, they’re being replaced by younger workers who earn less. That demographic shift limits how much average pay can grow. Recent college graduates are earning $692 a week, according to a paper issued this year by the San Francisco Federal Reserve. That is just shy of $36,000 a year. It’s also slightly less than the average wage for all nonmanagement workers — most of whom lack a college degree and the additional earnings power it carries. Based on the jobs report, more young workers are flooding the job market and are willing to work for less, said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial. Employers can reduce costs by hiring more twentysomethings who don’t have families to support. Or, they can dangle the possibility of replacing their older workers with younger ones to limit pay hikes for their existing employees. A hangover from the recession — After the most destructive economic slump since the 1930s, it can take years to heal. In a speech in August, Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen floated an intriguing explanation for lackluster wage growth: Employers seldom cut wages during a recession, even though it might, in theory, make financial sense to do so. The reason they don’t is that wage cuts can break employee morale and possibly disrupt business. Since employers shouldered higher wages than they wanted to during the recession, they might be making up the difference by paying workers less during the recovery. What’s more, lots of people have given up looking for work after being laid off during the recession. This rate will decline naturally as waves of baby boomers retire. But some economists say the rate fell more during the recession than demographic trends alone would indicate. The rate was 62.7 percent in September, down 3.3 percentage points from just before the recession. A single percentage point represents about 1.5 million potential workers. Some of the unemployed gave up their job searches long ago. So the government no longer considers them part of the labor force. Still, many of them might still be open to accepting a job if the right one emerges. This means employers might in theory have a deeper supply of possible workers to choose from than the jobs report indicates. The irony is that these long-term unemployed may be waiting to be offered higher pay. Yet the potential for pay growth is limited when so many people need work. ‘‘The fact that wages remain stuck despite 48 successive months of job gains suggests that employers’ bargaining power remains exceptionally strong,’’ said Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution.
WASHINGTON — Where are the pay raises? Employers in the United States are hiring at a brisk pace. Unemployment has sunk to a nearly healthy rate. Jobs are being filled across a range of industries. Yet the September jobs report released last Friday contained a puzzling fact: Paychecks still aren’t growing. Economists regard stagnant wages as a red flag for the five-year-old recovery. Robust job growth has typically fueled rising wages. And without higher pay, workers have less money to spend and save — and that, in turn, keeps the economy from strengthening further.
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http://www.people.com/article/beastie-boys-pauls-boutique
http://web.archive.org/web/20141014120329id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/beastie-boys-pauls-boutique
Paul's Boutique Turns 25 : People.com
20141014120329
When the Beastie Boys released , expectations were high. But after the success of their commercial breakthrough, , the group's relationship with both their label, Def Jam (and by extension, the label's founder, Rick Rubin) and their fans had deteriorated. "They were sick of screaming 'Fight for Your Right (to Party)' to inebriated frat boys," The group responded by creating an album composed nearly entirely of samples with two electronic musicians as the producers (the Dust Brothers) that was a commercial disappointment at the time of release. But as time went on, commercial success for eventually caught up with its critical love: Though it took until 1999 for the record to sell 2 million copies, is as important a record in 1989 as Dylan's lovingly (and obsessively) categorizes the samples used in making the album – 105 songs sampled on the album as a whole and 24 on the last song alone. While most people think that the album was created using uncleared samples, that the samples on the album were cleared cheaply and easily, something "unthinkable" today. Despite the album's initial commercial failure, garnered some very important fans. mentioned that Miles Davis said he "never got tired of listening" to the album and Public Enemy's Chuck D that it was a "dirty secret" in the black hip-hop community that , Mike D and Ad-Rock promised they would not continue their careers as a group. In memoriam of this bygone yet seminal band, take some time and revisit one of hip-hop's true classics – even if it just means listening to "Hey Ladies" and grinning to yourself at work. From left: Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Keaton and Paula Abdul as they appeared in 1989 Ann Summa / Getty; Snap / REX USA / ; Ron Galella, Ltd. / WireImage
Hey ladies, check out these facts about Paul's Boutique
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http://fortune.com/2013/03/08/how-citi-won-the-feds-stress-test-and-goldman-lost/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141015224116id_/http://fortune.com:80/2013/03/08/how-citi-won-the-feds-stress-test-and-goldman-lost/
How Citi won the Fed's stress test (and Goldman lost)
20141015224116
FORTUNE — Goldman Sachs and Citigroup went into the Federal Reserve’s stress test generally considered to be the top and the bottom dogs, respectively, of Wall Street. When they came out, the order had seemingly been flipped. On Thursday, the Fed, through its annual probe of bank stability, determined that among the nation’s top six banks, Citi C , which essentially failed a year ago, was best positioned to weather another financial crisis. Goldman GS was second to the bottom on the main measure of capital, followed only by Morgan Stanley MS . But on an alternative measure of capital that looks at all of the bank’s assets, and not just the ones generally deemed risky, Goldman came out looking the most vulnerable in a downturn. And not just compared to its close rivals but to all 18 banks in the Fed’s stress test. A year ago, Citi was forced to resubmit its capital plan, erasing any proposal to raise dividends or buy back shares — two moves that investors like, but that deplete capital that could be needed to cover bad loans. This year, it was Goldman’s turn to be befuddled. Goldman released its own test of its finances using the same economic criteria as the Fed. Unsurprisingly, Goldman got better grades in its test. The firm is likely to spend the next week trying to convince the Fed why the regulator is wrong. Most banks, including Goldman, are planning to request approval to increase their dividends or share buybacks, and next Thursday the Fed will officially approve or reject them. The results of the Fed’s test probably means that Goldman will have to curtail some of its planned increase in payouts. Shortly after the Fed released its results, Citi said it had asked permission to buy back $1.2 billion in stock in 2013. MORE: Stress test results: Banks stand to lose nearly a half trillion dollars This is all a very different view than the market has had of these two firms. Goldman’s stock is roughly where it was before the financial crisis. Citi’s shares are down 77%. What’s more, the market values Citi at 70% of its book value. Anything less than 100% is considered troubled. Goldman is valued at 110% of its book value. One response to the Fed’s surprising results is that there is something wrong with its test. The other is that the stress test is picking up something that the market is missing, which after all is the point of doing stress tests. For Goldman, the Fed seems to suggest that it is more exposed to a market shock than the firm has let on. In the notes to its latest financial fillings, Goldman said that it had cut the risk of its trading and investment book by 25% in the past year. The firm has said that it shuttered its proprietary trading unit, which makes bets with the firm’s own money. But the Fed’s stress tests suggest Goldman has not done as good a job reducing risk in its trading operation as the bank suggests. In its stress test, the Fed said that Goldman’s trading operations could lose as much as $25 billion if there were another financial shock. That would erase more than three years of earnings and more than half of the bank’s capital. MORE: How Goldman Sachs beat the Volcker Rule Citi, on the other hand, seems to have done a much better job building up its defenses against a financial storm. In the past year, Citi has cut its operating expenses by $400 million, and pledge to cut a lot more. And it has upped the provisions it has put away for bad loans, to protect against future loans losses. The bank’s capital has risen $20 billion in the past two years. At a minimum, the bank’s good stress test results may suggest that Citi ex-CEO Vikram Pandit, who was ousted in part because of the firm’s weak performance on last year’s stress test, deserves more credit for turning around the bank than he got. The Fed’s stress test results reflect financial results through the third quarter of last year. Pandit was forced out in mid-October. But his replacement Michael Corbat has announced new layoffs, and signaled that he will be more aggressive in cost cutting than his predecessor, which will further improve Citi’s capital ratios. You could argue that the Fed went easy on Citi and the other big bank’s lending operations. In general, the Fed assumed lower loan loss rates for the big banks than it did a year ago, under the same economic scenario. The Fed, for instance, predicted that 9.2% of the Citi’s loans would go unpaid in its adverse economic scenario. That’s down from a prediction of 11.3% a year ago. Had the Fed stuck with its prediction of year ago, Citi would have $10 billion in additional losses. It’s not clear why the Fed reduced loan loss rates. A Fed official said that there was an assumption that banks are being more careful when they make loans these days. But the banks still have plenty of loans that were put on their books before the financial crisis. MORE: Why the Fed is failing to boost lending Still, the Fed’s stress test seem to be in line with the recent assessments of credit ratings agencies Moody’s and S&P, which have said that stand alone investment banks like Goldman and Morgan Stanley are likely to be riskier in the future than banks that rely more on lending. And while the financial crisis was mostly caused by bad loans, that’s not necessarily how the next one will play out. Some are worried that the next financial shock will come from rising interest rates and big losses in the banks’ debt portfolios. In the past, the Fed’s stress tests have been criticized for being too backward looking. This year, they appear to have done a little better job anticipating losses that the banks and markets don’t expect to happen. You could argue that makes the Fed’s stress test wrong or unrealistic. But that, again, is the point.
Citigroup got a surprisingly good grade on the central bank's annual review. Goldman just passed.
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http://fortune.com/2014/07/15/goldman-second-quarter-2014/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141021192324id_/http://fortune.com/2014/07/15/goldman-second-quarter-2014/
Goldman's net climbs 5.5% on equity underwriting growth
20141021192324
Goldman Sachs posted a 5.5% increase in second-quarter net profit, easily exceeding Wall Street’s expectations, due to strong revenue growth from its investment banking business, driven by underwriting sales of equity. Overall, Goldman GS reported net earnings of $2.04 billion, up from $1.93 billion a year ago. On a per-share basis, which includes preferred stock dividends, earnings climbed to $4.10 a share from $3.70 a year earlier. Net revenue, including net interest income, jumped 6% to $9.13 billion. Analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had expected a profit of $3.09 a share on $7.98 billion in revenue. Several major U.S. banks have reported second-quarter results that have exceeded expectations for the latest quarter, and many of the top executives at those companies have struck a bullish tone about the state of the U.S. economy as they look ahead to the back half of the year. Executives at Wells Fargo WFC and Citigroup C , for example, said the U.S. economy is gaining strength by adding jobs and as consumer spending increases. The housing market is also improving, according to some of those executives. On Tuesday, Goldman also struck a positive tone, with chief executive Lloyd Blankfein saying the company was pleased with the results “in the context of mixed operating conditions during the period.” The company’s results were fuelled by the investment banking business, with revenue rising 15% to $1.78 billion. Revenue jumped 9% for investment management. Those increases offset a 10% drop in commissions and fees and a 19% slide for market-making revenue – a testimony to the way activity in financial markets had fallen as tighter regulation has come into force. For investment banking, the revenue growth was bolstered by a 20% jump in underwriting, mostly due to “significantly” higher net revenue in equity underwriting and reflecting an industrywide improvement. Debt underwriting was slightly higher. Meanwhile, net revenue in fixed income, currency and commodities client executive dropped 10% from a year ago, hurt by lower revenue in currencies and to a lesser extent, commodities. Net revenue in credit products were slightly lower, though revenue increased in mortgages and interest rate products.
Buoyant stock markets lift Wall Street's benchmark to unexpected profit gain.
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http://www.people.com/article/olympian-kamara-james-dies
http://web.archive.org/web/20141022004815id_/http://www.people.com/article/olympian-kamara-james-dies
Kamara James, Olympic Fencer Who Battled Schizophrenia, Dies at 29
20141022004815
Kamara James was special. Everyone around her knew it. "She had a spirit about her, an energy about her," says a longtime friend, Jean Goto. But on Sept. 20, the Olympic fencer was found dead in her apartment. While a spokesperson for the coroner tells PEOPLE the death is still under investigation, it does not appear suspicious, and suicide is not believed to be the cause. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, and raised by a single mom in a crime-ridden neighborhood of Queens, New York, James changed her own path at age 9 when she was introduced to fencing by the and took to the sport immediately. By her late teens, she was a world junior bronze medalist. Fencing also earned James a scholarship spot at a prestigious New York City private school and later a full ride to Princeton, where she majored in religion. "She was really driven, really motivated, really focused," says Goto, 30, who started fencing at the same time. Her focus took James far. In 2004, she alone represented the United States in women's épée at the Olympic Games in Athens. After the Olympics she returned to Princeton. "She was just incredibly brilliant and a hard, diligent worker," says Eric Rosenberg, a onetime trainer and friend of almost 20 years. "She had a very facile mind, was a quick study, asked the right questions, had a very strong presence." Then, during her senior year, her brilliant mind turned on her: James was diagnosed with schizophrenia, Rosenberg says. After a three-month stay in the hospital, James came back to school, wrote her thesis and managed to graduate on time. Goto and James opened a fencing club in Greenwich, Connecticut, and the worst seemed behind her. "She was totally fine. She was vibrant. We had so much fun together," Goto says. "She had dreams: She was interested in acting and writing." But a second breakdown led to "a slow, long ride," Rosenberg says. The onetime Olympic athlete and Ivy League alumna, long estranged from her mother, spent much of her 20s in and out of treatment and halfway houses, occasionally homeless. Friends would find her wandering the streets in New York, incoherent and delusional. "She was beaten up. She lacked a lot of the energy she had," Rosenberg says. "She was emaciated, unkempt, wearing filthy clothes." Rosenberg says he and others tried to get her help but were not always successful. "She would go into hospitals, get better or get more medication, then she would be released and there was no support for her," Goto says. "It takes a community and a system to help people [with schizophrenia]," says Dr. Lisa Piazza, a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at the Weill Medical College of Cornell. "Patients, often when they're psychotic, don't have as much insight into their illness: They can be difficult to work with you. You need a lot of people reaching out." "We know that a safe, supportive living environment is really the crux of people starting to recover," says Ralph Fasano, executive director of In 2011, James moved to Modesto, California, and was recently living alone. Rosenberg believed she was doing well. Her former mentor was devastated by the news of her death. "The only positive thing that came out of this for me is maybe people who have this kind of problem can see that there is some potential solution," Rosenberg says. "Making opportunities in the midst of tragedy defined her life."
A standout at the Athens Games and at Princeton, "she could have done anything," a friend says
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http://fortune.com/2014/10/22/nurses-union-ebola/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141022203907id_/http://fortune.com/2014/10/22/nurses-union-ebola/
Nurses union to Obama: Enforce Ebola protections at hospitals
20141022203907
This week, registered nurses will gather in cities across the country—from Bangor, Maine, to St. Louis to Sacramento—to call on the Obama administration and Congress to institute standards for protecting front-line healthcare workers from Ebola. The rallies, which have been organized by National Nurses United, the nation’s largest union for registered nurses, are the latest in a series of actions the group has taken to protect nurses from the virus since—as NNU co-president Deborah Burger puts it—“our worst fears were realized.” Burger is referring to the disclosure last week that two nurses who had treated U.S. Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas had themselves contracted the disease. In that wake of that news, the 185,000-member NNU staged a nationwide conference call to discuss hospitals’ readiness to respond to Ebola—11,500 nurses dialed in—and sent a letter to President Barack Obama, calling for him to order all hospitals to meet the highest “uniform, national standards and protocols.” The NNU’s campaign is an extension of that demand and is aimed at collecting signatures for a petition that asks President Obama and Congress to mandate uniform protocols for treating Ebola patients. Mandate is the key word here. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday issued updated guidelines on how hospital staff should protect themselves from Ebola. The new rules call for healthcare workers to wear double sets of gloves, disposable hoods with full face shields, and special masks. Earlier protocol required goggles and one set of gloves. The latest guidelines also call for “rigorous and repeated training” for medical personnel. (The NNU wants the CDC to tighten its guidelines even further, specifically the current rule that hospitals can select which protective equipment to use “based on availability.”) But for all the news the CDC’s rules have generated, they are just recommendations. “What it comes down to is this: the CDC guidelines are merely suggestions. [Hospitals] don’t have to implement them in their facilities,” Burger says. “[The CDC] is a scientific body. It provides guidance and education and makes recommendations, but unfortunately it has no regulatory authority at all.” In a NNU survey of 3,000 nurses, 84% of respondents said their hospital had not provided education on Ebola that offered nurses the chance to ask questions. Burger speculates that hospitals in the U.S. are ill-prepared because they “bought into the fallacy that Ebola wouldn’t come to our country or, if it did, we would be able to stop it in its tracks.” There’s also the cost of training and equipment to consider, which would cut into profits, she says. The American Hospital Association, which represents nearly 5,000 health care providers, said in a statement to Fortune that, starting in July, it “shared updated news and guidance with all hospitals as it became available,” and that it has raised hospital concerns and communicated the need for “additional guidance and answers to key questions” with the CDC, the White House, and other government entities. There is a government agency responsible for enforcing workplace safety that’s applicable to this situation: the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And the agency does have blood-borne pathogen and respiratory protection standards in the event of worker exposure to the Ebola virus. The problem, according to NNU’s national political policy director Michael Lighty, is that those guidelines gives employers a great deal of latitude, and in exercising that discretion, they turn to the CDC standards, which are more specific but not mandatory. Lauren North, a spokesperson for OSHA, said that the organization is working closely with the CDC to ensure that workers are protected, though she couldn’t immediately provide a comment on what power the agency had to enforce the CDC’s Ebola protocol. President Obama, Lighty says, “could tell the CDC, ‘this is what I want.’ He could do this with an executive order tomorrow.” Hospitals’ compliance with those standards could be enforced through OSHA or by pulling Medicare funding levers, Lighty says. Similar action could be taken on the state level. Representatives from the NNU met with California Governor Jerry Brown on Tuesday. During the meeting, Brown called on the state’s Department of Industrial Relations and its Occupational Safety and Health Administration to address hospital protocol for Ebola (though his administration did not issue any mandates). “That is what should happen at the federal level,” Lighty says. NNU was founded in 2009 through a merger of three nurses unions. The threat of Ebola has recently catapulted the organization to the national stage, but NNU and its predecessor groups have an established reputation for being just as outspoken on other issues. In 2011, NNU members gathered outside the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and on Capitol Hill to demand increased tax revenue from corporations as an alternative to Medicare and Medicaid cuts. The organization has protested the Keystone XL pipeline and has advocated for a single-payer health system. NNU’s Burger says that the union’s efforts to protect nurses from Ebola are in no way an attempt to gain new members. Though that doesn’t detract from the good publicity the NNU is generating by taking center stage in a controversial and concerning epidemic of global scale and speaking out on behalf of its most likely victims. “They’re strutting their stuff,” says Gary Chaison, a professor of industrial relations at Clark University’s graduate school of management. “They’re showing what nursing associations can do that individual nurses cannot.” In fact, last week, nurses from Texas Health Presbyterian, who are not unionized, released a statement anonymously through NNU on how the hospital cared for Duncan, the U.S. Ebola patient, which highlighted issues of poor training and equipment. “Nurses have a great deal of power as a group, and they’re just beginning to exercise it,” Chaison says. They constitute one of hospitals’ biggest operating costs—a position that puts them at the center of ongoing cost-cutting debates but also generates clout. “Just the mere thought of unionizing would turn the head of any administrator,” he says. And their status as caregivers provides them with what might be their greatest asset—public support. “People like nurses,” Chaison says, “no one ever gets out of the hospital and says, ‘They have such wonderful administrators there.’”
The largest union of registered nurses is calling for mandatory Ebola training at hospitals.
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http://fortune.com/2013/11/18/four-things-that-could-derail-facebooks-stock-rally/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141023091441id_/http://fortune.com/2013/11/18/four-things-that-could-derail-facebooks-stock-rally/
Four things that could derail Facebook's stock rally
20141023091441
FORTUNE – A year ago, few investors were bullish on Facebook FB . Some writers argued that, at $23 a share, it was still overvalued. Others thought Yahoo YHOO under Marissa Mayer had a better shot at a turnaround. While some bears were beginning to temper their pessimism, the consensus view was that Facebook was expensive and speculative. In the past year, Facebook’s stock has risen 115%, against a 37% rise in the Nasdaq Composite Index. Of 40 securities analysts tracked by Thomson/First Call, 32 currently have a buy or strong buy rating, 8 have a hold rating and none have a sell rating. Even with the rally, short interest on the stock is a third of what it was a year ago. What changed? The main reason for this reversal of fortune in Facebook’s stock is the company’s sudden growth in mobile ads. Back when the stock was languishing in the $20 range, Facebook vowed to monetize its audience’s shift from desktop computers to mobile devices. That focus on mobile worked. A year ago, revenue was growing at only 32%. In its most recent quarter September, revenue grew 60%. MORE: Microsoft, GE, and the futility in ranking employees In the last few weeks, however, there have been a few signs that Facebook’s impressive rally is running out of steam. Last week, the stock traded as low as $45.73, or 17% down from its record high of $54.82 one month ago. The stock was trading around $47 a share Monday. Is this decline an early sign of a downturn or just a quick sputter? Looking ahead, it’s worth considering factors that could derail the Facebook rally. Facebook’s turnaround is priced into its stock. The company’s recovery was so impressive it paradoxically set the bar of expectations higher even than it was when Facebook went public in May of last year. That has left Facebook very expensive, priced for growth that won’t happen for a couple of years: Facebook is trading at 125 times its trailing 12-month earnings, and at 44 times its estimated earnings in 2014. There are still several factors that will drive Facebook’s growth: the company is better targeting its ads to deliver stronger returns for advertisers; it will start to sell more ads on Instagram and on Facebook videos; it can build a stronger third-party ad network; and advertiser demand for Facebook ads is showing no signs of slowing right now. That’s a sunny forecast, but it’s well known. It doesn’t justify the stock moving higher from here. Facebook will see growth rates decline again. Analysts are forecasting 50% growth in Facebook revenue for 2013 and 36% for 2014. That’s with all of the growth initatives listed above. But all of this hinges on an important question with a very uncertain answer: How many more ads can Facebook load into its mobile feeds without driving away users? In Facebook’s last earnings call, CFO David Ebersman said the company “significantly” increased desktop ads but “modestly” increased those in mobile feeds. The company plans on keeping ads at around 5% of mobile-feed content, relying on growing usage and rising demand to maintain growth. Since Facebook users are accessing the site on mobile devices, this could limit future growth. Facebook’s mobile revenue growth in the past year has been strong partly because, a year ago, this revenue stream was so new and insiginificant. In coming years, the comparison’s won’t be so dramatic. In short, after a surprisingly strong year, Facebook’s growth rates may plateau again. Facebook may have problems buying new growth. When a big company’s organic growth stalls, it’s common to buy fast-growing companies. Mark Zuckerberg knows this, which is why his company bought Instagram when it was looking to become a leader in mobile picture sharing. In retrospect, that deal worked out much better for Facebook than for Instagram. Last week, Snapchat spurned an even more generous offer from Facebook. The episode underscored how today’s hot startups don’t dream of being bought by Facebook, they long to supplant Facebook, which means remaining independent. Snapchat’s founders were reportedly averse to working for Zuckerberg, while its VC backers weren’t interested in the deal either. There are thousands of startups that would love to be bought by Facebook at a rich price. But the Snapchats among them – the rare beast that resonates mysteriously with an ever-growing audience – aren’t among them. To them, Mark Zuckerberg is The Man. And if you’re really good, you don’t sell out to The Man at any price. Facebook continues to have a teenager problem. In the recent earnings call, Ebersman tried to put a positive spin on this. Although the company is “close to fully penetrated among teens,” he said “we did see a decrease in daily users specifically among younger teens.” The comments backfired, drawing new attention to the issue. On the one hand, advertisers are more interested in older demographics that spend more money. On the other, this could be a long-term issue if teens grow older and don’t migrate to Facebook’s platform. Snapchat was supposed to help resolve this problem, but the failed deal only added to the image that Facebook is struggling to relate to a new generation of users. MORE: Hummer Winblad partner preps own VC fund One final development that is not necessarily a bearish sign but is worth considering. Last week, Ebersman sold $43 million worth of his shares, or 9% of his Facebook holdings, at around $47 a share. While the sale was part of a pre-arranged trading plan, it’s also the largest stock sale by a CFO in the last decade. Such pre-arranged trading plans were set up to allow sales without creating the appearance of insider dumping, which I doubt was Ebersman’s intention. Still, there is something to be said about the timing. Arguably, no one has a better perspective on Facebook’s financial outlook. It’s not insider trading if your gut is telling you this is a good time to sell. It may, however, be an instinct other Facebook investors may want to note.
Facebook's stock price has risen in the past year, but can that continue?
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http://fortune.com/2014/02/20/will-chinas-fosun-pay-less-than-250-million-for-forbes/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141023104922id_/http://fortune.com/2014/02/20/will-chinas-fosun-pay-less-than-250-million-for-forbes/
Will China's Fosun pay 'less than $250 million' for Forbes?
20141023104922
FORTUNE — Last fall came word that Forbes Media LLC was on the block for a reported $400 million, with Deutsche Bank hired to find a buyer. The price-tag was stunning. Not only was it a much larger multiple than where other business media properties were valued, but even Forbes shareholder Elevation Partners was holding it at a much lower cost. Rumored suitors included German publisher Axel Springer and Singapore-based conglomerate Spice Global. Then yesterday came a report that Forbes was nearing a deal to sell itself for “less than $250 million” to China’s Fosun International. So two questions: What is Fosun International, and is Forbes really going to be sold for less than $250 million? Fosun is publicly-traded in Hong Kong, and controlled by billionaire chairman Guo Guangchang. In China, it runs sprawling businesses in real estate, insurance, pharmaceuticals, iron ore mining, steel-making and private equity. Over the first six months of 2013, the latest reporting period, the company posted revenue of $4 billion. More recently, it has been expanding its operations outside of China’s borders. Over the past few years, Fosun has bought a stake in the Greek fashion label Folli Follie, paid $725 million to J.P. Morgan JPM for One Chase Manhattan Plaza in New York, acquired Club Med, bought an Israeli medical equipment maker, invested in the U.S. luxury brand St. John Knits International and boosted insurance assets after launching ventures with Prudential Financial and Peak Reinsurance in China. Guo says he has even bigger ambitions for Fosun. After winning the bid for Portugal’s biggest insurance company earlier this year, he said in a statement, “This marks a solid step for Fosun to evolve into Warren Buffett’s model.” Perhaps that also means the Oracle’s investments in print media. Buffett was an early and longtime holder of The Washington Post Co., which was recently sold to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Fosun already publishes Forbes’ Chinese edition, which enjoys a strong brand in the county. Fosun International dropped 2% in Hong Kong trading on Thursday following the Forbes buyout rumors, before eventually climbing back to end the day little changed. The company’s senior director of investor relations didn’t respond to e-mails and calls on Thursday. When Forbes first went on the block last fall, multiple sources tell me that Time Warner TWX offered around $175 million but was completely rebuffed. Do not pass go, do not come into the second round of bidding. (note: Fortune is published by Time Warner subsidiary Time Inc.). But if Forbes is ultimately going to sell for “less than $250 million,” why wouldn’t a $175 million bidder been asked to sweeten the pot? If, for no other reason, than to possibly put some pricing pressure on more generous suitors like Fosun? Just doesn’t seem to make sense. We can only come up with three possible explanations: All we know for sure is that while Fosun makes sense as the buyer, the new price talk doesn’t comport with what Forbes and its bankers did last fall. Sign up for Dan’s daily email newsletter on deals and deal-makers: GetTermSheet.com
Forbes Media is reportedly close to a deal with Fosun International. Who exactly is Fosun, and how much will it have to pay?
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http://fortune.com/2011/05/24/fighting-back-against-job-title-inflation/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141023213904id_/http://fortune.com/2011/05/24/fighting-back-against-job-title-inflation/
Fighting back against job title inflation
20141023213904
Companies should pay less attention to job title, and more attention to job responsibilities. Suddenly, title inflation is everywhere. I keep seeing business cards or email signatures with adjectives like “executive” or “senior” or “senior executive” or “special” or “chief” in front of more traditional titles (e.g. “vice president”). The “chief” one is especially bizarre since it’s not always obvious whether the CSO is a “Chief Sales Officer” or a “Chief Security Officer,” which in and of itself is a problem. I’ve never paid much attention to titles. This is especially true when I’m involved in helping recruit someone for a company. I’m much more focused on what the person is going to do and what they’ve done in the past than what their title is (or was). Every now and then an obsession with title is a positive trait as it drives an important discussion about roles, but most of the time it’s just annoying. When I think about roles, regardless of where the person sits in the organization, I like to think of them as “head of something.” That lets me focus on the “something” that the person is responsible for. This scales up and down the organization since the receptionist in a company is the head of meeting people when they walk in the door and making sure the are comfortable and find their way to the meeting they are there for. More importantly, it forces senior execs, such as a COO, CSO, CPO, CRO, CIO, CTO, CDO, CAO or CFO to define clearly what they are the “head” of. I heard the phrase “be the CEO of your job” a while ago from Mark Pincus and have used it many times over the years. Whenever I’m talking to someone about their role in a company, I’m always trying to figure out what they are going to be the CEO (or head) of. When I have the inevitable board member/executive discussion about roles and responsibilities, I always carry this metaphor around in my head (e.g., are you, the executive, being an effective CEO of your job). And, when I meet someone new and I see that their title is “Senior Technology Strategist – Digital Products Division,” I try to figure out what they are “the head of,” even if it is just one specific thing. If you are CEO of a company, try the following exercise: Take everyone that directly reports to you and change their title to “head of X.” Scribble this on a white board and see if you have all the X’s you need for your whole company. Is there unnecessary overlap or are there big holes? And are the right people the right heads of things? Then, have each of your direct reports do the same for their direct reports and keep doing this down the hierarchy. While it may not be possible to kill title inflation within a company — for reasons both internal (mostly ego and culture driven) or external (mostly ego and power driven) — if you are a CEO, don’t let it confuse you when you think about who is doing what. Brad Feld (@bfeld) has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur for over twenty years. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures, a company that helped launch and operate software companies. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars, and blogs at www.feld.com
Companies should pay less attention to job title, and more attention to job responsibilities. By Brad Feld, contributor Suddenly, title inflation is everywhere. I keep seeing business cards or email signatures with adjectives like “executive” or “senior” or “senior executive” or “special” or “chief” in front of more traditional titles (e.g. “vice president”). The “chief”…
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http://fortune.com/2014/03/24/box-ipo-filing-the-key-numbers/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141025094935id_/http://fortune.com/2014/03/24/box-ipo-filing-the-key-numbers/
Box IPO filing: The key numbers
20141025094935
FORTUNE — Cloud-based content management and file-sharing company Box today filed for a $250 million IPO, setting the stage for one of the year’s most highly-anticipated public offerings. It plans to trade on the NYSE under ticker symbol BOX, with Morgan Stanley MS , Credit Suisse CS and J.P. Morgan JPM listed as lead underwriters. We’re still reading through the filing, but here are a few key numbers that jump out at us: That’s the amount of revenue Box reports for the year ending January 31, 2014. It compares to around $59 million for fiscal 2012 and just $21 million for fiscal 2011. That’s how much Box lost last year. The only real upside is that its losses are growing at a lower rate than are its revenues increasing. For example, Box had a net loss of $112.5 million for fiscal 2012 and around $50 million for fiscal 2011. As for cost increases, Box more than doubled both R&D and sales & marketing expenses last year. That’s Box’s number of billings last year, compared to 85,700 the prior year. That’s how much cash Box has on hand. Guess that means it hasn’t yet tapped any of the $100 million in Series F funding that it raised at the end of last year. That’s the percentage of Box currently owned by venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which led the company’s $1.5 million Series A round back in 2006. Other significant shareholders include U.S. Venture Partners (13%), General Atlantic (8.4%), Scale Venture Partners (7.4%), Bessemer Venture Partners (5.6%) and Meritech Capital Partners (5.1%). Sign up for Dan Primack’s daily email newsletter on deals and deal-makers: GetTermSheet.com
Box is going public. Here are the numbers you need to know.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jun/22/anish-kapoor-house-london-protesters
http://web.archive.org/web/20141025131646id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jun/22/anish-kapoor-house-london-protesters
Anish Kapoor's house in London occupied by protesters
20141025131646
In the first of what could be a summer of protest linked to the Olympics, a group connected to the Occupy movement has taken over an empty Georgian house owned by the Olympic park sculptor Anish Kapoor for a one-day arts event. The group, calling itself Bread and Circuses, a reference to its argument that the Olympics are a means of distracting people from pressing economic and social issues, said it had "liberated" the part-derelict five-storey house on Lincoln's Inn Fields, one of central London's most picturesque and expensive garden squares and the scene of a rough sleepers' "tent city" in the 1980s. The group says the house has been left empty since the artist – whose ArcelorMittal Orbit tower, a 115-metre tall sculpture and observation platform, dominates the skyline of the Olympic Park in east London – bought it in 2009. Kapoor is listed as director of a company called 1-2 Lincoln's Inn Fields Ltd, the address of the property, which was formed in 2009. The bulk of the £22.7m cost of the steel sculpture was met by the steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal. The building is five stories high with an enormous iron door and covered windows. Inside, there are several enormous rooms on the ground floor with a staircase climbing through the centre. The wallpaper is peeling and wires hang threateningly from the ceiling. It contains no furniture except for a pair of supermarket trolleys. "This is not about being against the Olympics," said one protester. "This is about what the government is using the Olympics for." The small group of protesters say they have been in the property for a week. One said they wanted to find a creative use for what they regard as wasted space. "Just look at it," he said. "We want to use all this empty space." A homeless man who has joined the group in the property said: "How can someone do this? How can you own a place like this and not even use it when there are people sleeping in the streets?" From 4pm on Friday the house will host art exhibits, talks and film screenings, with live music after 9pm, the group said. Among those billed to appear are John Hilary, director of the charity War on Want, one of the organisers of the Counter Olympics Network, which seeks to challenge the corporate nature of the event, and Trenton Oldfield, who swam into the path of April's university boat race in a protest against "elitism". The group sent a statement from a member, Jeniffer Taylor, who described the Olympics as "a smokescreen to take our minds off austerity measures, the global economic crisis and the commodification and privatisation of everything, even art". In keeping with the media-savvy nature of events connected to the Occupy movement, the one-day protest already has its own Facebook page and Twitter feed. The group sent a message to supporters that read: "New Holborn squatt will b [sic] evicted in saturday. Big event this friday against london politics! BREAD AND CIRCUSES: speaches, music, art, performance, rave and more surprises!" The wider Occupy movement has not announced plans to disrupt the Olympics with protests, but it seems inevitable that it or other similar groups will use the global attention on London during the event to publicise their causes. This is particularly the case as, given the loosely collective nature of Occupy, more or less anyone can begin a protest under their banner.
Bread and Circuses group to hold arts event in house owned by artist who designed ArcelorMittal Orbit tower for Olympics
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http://fortune.com/2013/08/20/j-c-penney-the-reality-show/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141027025657id_/http://fortune.com/2013/08/20/j-c-penney-the-reality-show/
J.C. Penney: The reality show
20141027025657
FORTUNE — You’ve seen them on Big Brother, The Real Housewives, and The Bachelorette: the walking disasters and oversimplified personas that make a show both repellent and fascinating at the same time. And now you see them in the last place you’d expect — at the lurid reality show that is J.C. Penney JCP . Thanks to a motley cast of characters, the $13-billion-in sales middle-brow department store has become a real-time tableau for virtually everything that’s wrong with American business. On Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. EDT, the company will release its second-quarter 2013 earnings numbers. Although hotly anticipated by every business journalist, hedgie, and retailer out there, it doesn’t much matter, whether they are outrageously disappointing or not quite as disappointing as anticipated (decent earnings are not an option); JCP is in deep trouble and everyone knows it. (Update: It missed bleak expectations.) More significant is how a few colorful characters took a 111-year old company whose name was once a virtual synonym for boring and turned it into the kind of train wreck you simply can’t stop watching. MORE: How to be an irresistible leader Here, then, in the spirit of it being better to laugh than cry, is a handy guide to the main characters in the tragedy that is J.C. Penney. Ackman, the always-confident head of Pershing Square Capital Management, started this whole enchilada when he, along with real estate executive Steven Roth, bought more than a third of the sleepy company in 2011 and pressured the board to replace CEO Mike Ullman with Ron Johnson, the brain behind Apple’s aapl retail effort. When Johnson didn’t deliver the results he had promised, Ackman canned him, then — later — started a nasty public fight with the board, impugned their qualifications and — on August 13 — stepped down, some $700 million in the hole. It can’t feel good that some of his rivals, like George Soros, have bought in at close to JCP’s low, seemingly as much to taunt Ackman as anything else. What’s more exciting than a fearless leader who damns the torpedoes? Forget about things like focus groups and surveys; Johnson, who started Apple’s retail arm under another famous disruptor, Steve Jobs, claimed to know exactly what the customer wanted: the end of sales and discounts. MORE: Wall Street wears the pants at Sears and J.C. Penney Sales dropped an astonishing 25% in a year. Although Johnson hoped to remake J.C. Penney as an exciting destination — “America’s favorite store,” with a town square in the middle of a strip mall — plummeting sales got him canned in April, just as some of his new products and formats were finally rolling out. At least no one can ever accuse Johnson of being an empty suit. Where Martha goes, drama follows. This maxim held true yet again when she signed an agreement to sell 16.6% of her company to J.C. Penney and produce a new line of housewares for the company. There was one major problem, however: Macy’s M , which sold her current line, wasn’t amused. The lawsuit that followed — which is still unresolved — slowed Penney’s momentum at a critical time and left shelves empty. What’s more, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia MSO continues to suffer, with its stock down 40% since the Penney deal was announced, creating a double whammy for JCP and its investment. Martha, however, continues to get paid for her products, whether or not they sell. The Phoenix: Myron “Mike” Ullman Until 2011, Ullman was regarded as a decent, if not scintillating, retail executive. J.C. Penney made money, but no one thought of the company as anything but dowdy. When Ackman blew into town, he set his sights on Ullman, who first planned to stay on as chairman, then changed his mind (encouraged, of course, by a hefty severance package). Just 17 months later, he was back; in April 2013, the board ousted Johnson and reinstated Ullman, who was supposed to be a temporary salve but has managed to stay in charge after yet another attack from Ackman, in August 2013. He’s the Susan Lucci of retail executives. The Greek Chorus: J.C. Penney’s Board of Directors Chaired by former Texas Instruments CEO Thomas Engibous, the 11-member board acted collectively like a small, scared kitten when Ackman and Steven Roth, CEO of Vornado, bought in and agitated for change, starting with the hiring of Johnson. Said one director, smiling nervously at the time of Johnson’s star-studded relaunch of the company in early 2012: “He [Ackman] seems like a smart young man. I sure hope this works out.” MORE: The future of Navy spy tech It didn’t. Or, at least, it hadn’t when the board reversed course, canning Johnson after Ackman lost faith and Roth abruptly sold his stake in the spring of 2013. Only in August 2013, when Ackman publicly dissed the board and called for yet another CEO, did the directors finally decide they’d had enough. They figured it was better to have him sell his stake than to remain part of the company’s leadership. But the damage was done. J.C. Penney’s survival is now officially in question, with the stock trading at about $13, down from its 2012 high in the low 40s. What would The Situation say?
Thanks to a motley cast of characters, the department store has somehow become a real-time tableau for virtually everything that’s wrong with American business.
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http://www.9news.com.au/world/2014/10/24/22/35/uk-woman-24-dies-in-bangkok-clinic
http://web.archive.org/web/20141028091212id_/http://www.9news.com.au:80/world/2014/10/24/22/35/uk-woman-24-dies-in-bangkok-clinic
UK woman, 24, dies in Bangkok clinic
20141028091212
A 24-year-old British woman has died during cosmetic surgery at a clinic in Bangkok, prompting Thai police to arrest her surgeon for criminal negligence, officials say. The Briton died during a corrective procedure on Thursday evening at a cosmetic surgery clinic in the northern Lat Phrao district of the capital where she previously underwent liposuction, police lieutenant Chaleang Inthip said on Friday. "She visited the clinic for liposuction on October 14 and came back yesterday after contracting an infection.... She died at the clinic at around 9.30pm," he said. The surgeon who operated on her has been detained in a Bangkok prison for causing death through negligence, a charge which carries a maximum of 10 years in jail, Chaleang said. The British Embassy in Bangkok said on Friday it was "aware of reports of the death of a British national in Bangkok on 23 October". "We are providing consular assistance and cannot provide any further details at the moment," it said in a statement. Thailand is a popular medical tourism hub with foreigners drawn by its reputation for low-cost but high-quality treatment. Do you have any news photos or videos?
A young British woman has reportedly died in a Bangkok clinic during a cosmetic surgery procedure.
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http://fortune.com/2012/10/02/how-coke-got-52-million-facebook-likes/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141031233854id_/http://fortune.com:80/2012/10/02/how-coke-got-52-million-facebook-likes/
How Coke got 52 million Facebook likes
20141031233854
FORTUNE — Coca-Cola has 52 million “likes” on Facebook. One of the earliest advertisers on the social media platform, the company has been one of the leaders among large global brands in establishing authentic relationships with consumers. The key? “You have to be “flawsome,” said Wendy Clark, who is Coke’s Senior Vice President of Integrated Marketing Communications and Capabilities. Speaking at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit in Laguna Niguel on Tuesday, Clark explained it this way: “You have to be awesome with your flaws, the things that aren’t exactly perfect. You want to be human, to speak like a human and act like a human.” Easy to say, but Clark was clear this is hard to do. “We are 126 years old,” she said. “We are used to controlling the dialogue [about Coca-Cola].” Since Clark moved into her role in 2008, Coca-Cola has given consumers an increasingly larger voice on social media sites. There are 15,000 tweets on a day on Coca-Cola KO , she said. That type of content is currency in a social networking world. “If we can give consumers content that is engaging, that’s currency. Then they become our salesman.” To do so, Coke must let consumers engage with the brand’s assets, even when Clark doesn’t like what they are saying. This is the greatest risk to the company’s social media strategy. Said Clark, “There’s plenty of content I would prefer wasn’t around on Coca-Cola but you can’t take that content down. It’s bloody hard. If you start it’s like a game of whack-a-mole. And once you start, you’re never going to win.” More from the Most Powerful Women Summit
Authenticity and transparency are the keys to engaging consumers—and becoming a social media force.
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http://fortune.com/2011/07/08/surprise-the-big-bad-bailout-is-paying-off/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141101101645id_/http://fortune.com/2011/07/08/surprise-the-big-bad-bailout-is-paying-off/
Surprise! The big bad bailout is paying off
20141101101645
The U.S. government’s often maligned $14 trillion intervention not only staved off global collapse – but is making money. FORTUNE — The bailout of the financial system is roughly as popular as Wall Street bonuses, the federal budget deficit, or LeBron James in a Cleveland sports bar. You hear over and over that the bailout was a disaster, it cost taxpayers a fortune, we didn’t really need it, it didn’t work, it was a failure. It has become politically toxic, which inhibits reasoned public discussion about it. But you know what? The bailout, by the numbers, clearly did work. Not only did it forestall a worldwide financial meltdown, but a Fortune analysis shows that U.S. taxpayers are coming out ahead on it — by at least $40 billion, and possibly by as much as $100 billion eventually. This is our count for the entire bailout, not just the 3% represented by the massively unpopular Troubled Asset Relief Program. Yes, that’s right — TARP is only about 3% of the bailout, even though it gets about 97% of the attention. A key reason for the rescue’s profitability is that the Federal Reserve System has already turned over more than $100 billion of bailout-related income to the Treasury, and is on track to turn over $85 billion more this year and next. That’s not something most people include in their math. On the negative side, we’re including what may be the first overall cost calculation of a special tax break that’s worth tens of billions of dollars to four big bailout recipients. And, of course, we’ve analyzed reports from the Congressional Budget Office, the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and other sources. We’ll get to the detailed numbers in a bit. But for now, we’d like to remind you why the bailout exists. The revisionist idea that the bailout is the problem — rather than excesses in the financial system — is simply stunning to those of us who watched the financial crisis surface in 2007, when two Bear Stearns hedge funds speculating in mortgage securities collapsed, and reach a crescendo in September 2008, when Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. Many in the financial world applauded Washington’s decision to let Lehman go under — but that applause was quickly replaced by fear as unanticipated consequences of the bankruptcy surfaced. Lehman’s collapse touched off a terrifying run on money market mutual funds when the Reserve Primary Fund announced it could pay holders only 97¢ on the dollar because of Lehman-related losses. Savers who’d considered money funds as safe as federally insured bank deposits stampeded for the exits, pulling out hundreds of billions of dollars. It took federal guarantees of more than $3 trillion of money market fund balances — bailout! — to stop this modern-day bank run. Some hedge funds that used Lehman’s London office as their “prime broker” had their assets frozen, setting off a run on prime brokers Goldman Sachs GS and Morgan Stanley MS as U.S. hedge funds pulled out their assets to avoid getting frozen if either firm failed. Goldman and Morgan were close to running out of cash when the government saved them by making them bank companies with access to the Fed’s lending facilities. Bailout! Bailout! GE Capital GE was having trouble rolling over its borrowings, and was rescued by a government guarantee program. Bailout! Then there was American International Group, the now infamous AIG AIG , which required a 12-figure rescue. Had Goldman, Morgan Stanley, GE Capital, AIG, and several giant European banks not gotten bailouts and instead failed, even capital-rich J.P. Morgan Chase JPM would have gone under, because it wouldn’t have been able to collect what these and other players owed it. There would have been trillions in losses, worldwide panic, missed payrolls, and quite likely the onset of Great Depression II. That’s why we needed a bailout. And why we got it. Now that we’ve relived the history, let’s take a stroll through the numbers. Things have turned out far better than expected because the massive government intervention calmed the markets, and Uncle Sam had to make good on only a tiny fraction of the obligations that taxpayers guaranteed. Uncle Sam bought assets at what turned out to be near-bottom prices amid the market panic; the value of Sam’s holdings has since soared. The more than $14 trillion of government investments, securities purchases, and loan guarantees — of which TARP never amounted to more than $411 billion (although it was authorized to spend up to $700 billion) — stabilized the whole financial system. So how has this worked out for U.S. taxpayers? Let’s take the costs first. · The biggest expense by far comes from the rescue of mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Or, actually, the rescue of their debtholders — stockholders have been essentially wiped out. The $130 billion cost is the money the government has put into Fannie and Freddie ($154 billion) to cover their losses, less the dividends ($24 billion) Fannie and Freddie have paid on the government’s preferred stock. The Treasury and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office both expect that $130 billion figure to shrink; Fannie and Freddie have been adding profitable business since 2008, and it should begin to outweigh their losses from the housing bubble. But we’re being conservative and counting the full $130 billion. · Then there’s a $35 billion tax expense, which no one else has included in bailout calculations. It’s our analysis (with assistance from tax guru Bob Willens) of the taxpayer cost of special IRS rulings that allowed TARP recipients AIG, Citigroup, C General Motors, GM and Ally Financial (formerly GMAC) to use their tax losses in full, rather than being subject to “change in control” rules designed to stop companies from being taken over for their tax losses. GM got both an IRS ruling and a provision in the 2008 economic stimulus legislation to preserve its losses despite having gone bankrupt. We estimate that without special treatment, the companies could have used only about $4 billion of their $43 billion of “deferred tax assets” to offset federal income taxes. Now they can use them all. We’re estimating the taxpayer cost at $35 billion rather than the full $39 billion because it’s not clear when — or whether — the companies will earn enough to use all the losses. (The tax breaks have presumably increased the prices of the shares in those companies that the government owns or has sold, because they have made the companies more valuable to investors. That means the higher share prices have decreased the cost of the bailout, though it’s impossible to quantify by how much.) · We’re counting the cost of TARP as $19 billion, based on the most recent update by the Congressional Budget Office. That includes $13 billion spent to help homeowners restructure their mortgages, plus projected losses on AIG, GM, and Chrysler, offset by gains in some of TARP’s other holdings, primarily in banks. The $19 billion estimate is a big improvement from the CBO’s first estimate, $189 billion, in January 2009. That’s because TARP’s investments have fared better than expected, and its total outlays have been shrinking rapidly. They’re down to $104 billion, according to the Treasury, from their aforementioned high of $411 billion. · The biggest and most surprising numbers are the bailout-related profits that the Federal Reserve has turned over to the Treasury, and that we expect it to turn over this year and next. We’re counting these payments as an offset to the bailout’s cost because they stem from the Fed’s bailout activities. The Fed’s increased profits come primarily from income on the $1.25 trillion of mortgage-backed securities it bought in 2008–09 to stabilize credit markets (Quantitative Easing 1), and the $600 billion of Treasury securities it bought in 2010–11 (QE2) to hold down interest rates and raise asset values. Even though QE2 is usually considered “economic stimulus,” we’re treating it as part of the bailout because rising asset values have helped stabilize the financial system. The Fed now owns almost $2 trillion more of securities than it did before financial problems surfaced in 2007. A normal financial institution would have had to borrow heavily to add $2 trillion of assets, and interest on that borrowed money would have offset most or all of the income from the added assets. The Fed, though, doesn’t have to borrow: It effectively creates money (which has its own problems) to buy the securities. So the Fed’s income on its added securities is pure profit. Each year the Fed turns over most of its annual profit to the Treasury. It’s money that the Treasury can spend, and it reduces the federal budget deficit. From 2007 (when the Fed began expanding its balance sheet to combat financial instability) through 2010, the Fed sent a total of $193 billion to the Treasury. In the previous four years it sent the Treasury only $91 billion. We’re counting that $102 billion difference as bailout-related profit. · Most Fed analysts expect the size of the Fed’s securities portfolio (and hence its profits) to fall slowly, if at all, this year and next. So we’re estimating that the Fed will send $55 billion of bailout-related profits to the Treasury this year, about what it sent in 2010. To be conservative, we’re estimating the 2012 bailout profit at only $30 billion. · The Treasury owns 563 million shares of AIG that it got from the Fed, which extracted them from the insurance giant in 2008 in return for making $85 billion of credit available. Even though AIG was a big TARP recipient, this holding, currently worth about $16 billion, isn’t included in TARP’s profit-and-loss statement. That’s why we’re including it here. · The Treasury says it has made a total of $15 billion from fees for insuring money fund balances, and from the $150 billion of mortgage-backed securities that it owns. · We estimate that the FDIC has made $8 billion from the difference between the fees it has charged to guarantee borrowings and the losses it has incurred on those guarantees. The FDIC declined to give us a number because some of the guarantees are still outstanding. Our accounting is unconventional because in some places we count what has happened, in some places we project what’s likely to happen, and in some places we’ve done our own numbers because no others exist. If things break right, taxpayers could come out $100 billion ahead: our $42 billion profit estimate, plus a $25 billion reduction in the Fannie/Freddie cost, $25 billion more in Fed profits, and a reduction in the $19 billion expense we’re showing for TARP. We don’t expect any of what we’ve told you to make the bailout popular — we’re not wild about it ourselves for the same reasons many people dislike it. The government was picking winners and losers. Big Government bailed out Big Finance while letting average taxpayers lose their homes. Creditors of bank companies and AIG got far too good a deal at taxpayer expense. Wall Street is back to paying enormous bonuses (and whining about being demonized), while average Americans, whose tax dollars saved the Street, are still suffering. And, of course, the economy is down 7 million jobs from its peak in 2007. But something needed to be done when the financial world was on the brink of the abyss, and the government did something. No matter what your views are, you should be happy that taxpayers, almost miraculously, are coming out ahead rather than hundreds of billions of dollars behind. When our boss assigned us to find out how much the financial rescue cost, we expected to find a monumental loss, because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac seemed like a bottomless pit. Instead, we discovered that bailout profit payments from the Fed — which we hadn’t previously thought of as a profit center — are virtually certain to exceed taxpayer losses on Fannie and Freddie. We were surprised — and pleased — to discover taxpayers showing a profit on the bailout. We hope that you are too. This article is from the July 25, 2011 issue of Fortune. Additional reporting by Tory Newmyer.
The U.S. government’s often maligned $14 trillion intervention not only staved off global collapse - but is making money. With Doris Burke FORTUNE -- The bailout of the financial system is roughly as popular as Wall Street bonuses, the federal budget deficit, or LeBron James in a Cleveland sports bar. You hear over and over…
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http://www.people.com/article/philadelphia-woman-kidnapping-surveillance-video
http://web.archive.org/web/20141105210640id_/http://www.people.com/article/philadelphia-woman-kidnapping-surveillance-video
Philadelphia Woman's Abduction Caught on Surveillance Camera : People.com
20141105210640
11/05/2014 AT 07:00 AM EST After a visit with her godson, Carlesha Freeland-Gaither rode the bus back to her Philadelphia neighborhood on Sunday night and was supposed to call her boyfriend to meet her for the final six-block walk to their home. Instead, a disturbing surveillance video shows the 22-year-old woman being abducted off the street and struggling with her attacker until he apparently pushes her into a vehicle, which shakes violently in a corner of the surveillance frame before driving off. "She was not just giving up, she wasn't going to be taken," her mother, Keisha Gaither, told . "She's going to keep fighting to the end. She's coming back to me." The abduction was seen by a witness, who he saw the young woman yelling for help and being forced into a four-door car, possibly a grey Ford Taurus, about 9:40 p.m. Freeland-Gaither's glasses and cell phone were dropped in the struggle, and just before the car took off, she broke out the vehicle's rear windows, the witness said. Police said the attack appeared to be random, and Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the kidnapper. The victim's family members say they can't fathom why she'd be a target. "It's devastating to watch that video," Gaither told Philly.com. "You see him pull up. He's so calm." "I see him dragging my daughter. I see him hitting my daughter," she continued. "You can see the way it looks like he was setting her up, it looks like something that was planned." Police described the suspect as a 5-foot-10 black male with medium brown complexion and a medium to heavy build. They believe he is 25 to 30 years old and said he was wearing a dark jacket with a dark hood or hooded sweatshirt underneath, along with dark pants and a dark hat. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 215-686-8477 or text 773847.
Carlesha Freeland-Gaither, 22, was six blocks from home when she was snatched off the street
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http://fortune.com/2012/12/02/the-hells-angels-devilish-business-fortune-1992/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141109183002id_/http://fortune.com:80/2012/12/02/the-hells-angels-devilish-business-fortune-1992/
The Hells Angels’ devilish business (Fortune, 1992)
20141109183002
Editor’s note: Every week, Fortune publishes a story from our magazine archives. On Tuesday, December 4, the fifth season finale of the FX drama Sons of Anarchy airs. The show follows a biker gang in Northern California. Back in 1992, Fortune‘s Andy Serwer looked at the business dealings of the Hells Angels, and the descriptions below read as if they’re ripped from a Sons of Anarchy script. First you hear the pulsating thunder of three dozen unmuffled Harley-Davidsons snaking around the bend. Then you see them. An outlaw motorcycle gang, maybe Pagan’s or even Hells Angels, overlords of the highway, pushing toward you in a double line. Expressionless, they are ornamented with shaggy hair and beards, mosaics of tattoos, and ripped denim covered with patches of skulls, swastikas, and cryptic arrays of letters and numbers. Perhaps you’re scared, if only briefly. If the bikers are Angels or one of the other major outlaw clubs — the ones who live for biking and consider themselves apart from society — you have reason to be nervous. Federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), say that outlaw bikers, with over 300 clubs, 5,000 members, and at least 10,000 regular hangers-on, are one of the nation’s largest organized criminal networks, after the Mafia and Asian gangs. They are also a business. The feds believe the Hells Angels and the other large outlaw gangs earn up to $1 billion a year worldwide from drug dealing, prostitution, gunrunning, theft, extortion, and murder. That’s far less than La Cosa Nostra, which takes in an estimated $50 billion annually in the U.S., but the outlaw bike gangs are more vibrant and growing faster. The Angels, the biggest and most sophisticated, with about 1,000 members in more than 70 chapters worldwide, have a tight management structure, sophisticated communications systems, and / — when they need it — paramilitary discipline. Most other bikers treat them with deference and fear. Says Anthony Tait, who worked undercover for the FBI as a member of the Hells Angels in the mid-1980s: ”I saw countless instances of narcotics use and sales, rape, felony battery, petty theft, grand theft, weapons violations of all kinds, and extortion. I also heard murders being planned and descriptions of murders already committed.” Tait’s testimony has helped convict more than 30 Hells Angels over the past several years, including patriarch Ralph ”Sonny” Barger Jr., jailed for plotting to bomb a rival gang’s clubhouse. After being battered by a series of investigations that included Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) prosecutions during the mid- and late 1980s, the Angels and three other major bike gangs — the Outlaws, Bandidos, and Pagan’s — are building back up again. Barger, 54, the organizing genius behind the Angels’ growth, is scheduled to be released from prison this month. Police say he has been advising the club from his cell in Phoenix and is likely to reinvigorate the leadership. The Angels scoff at the picture law enforcement paints. They insist they are simply being persecuted because they live an outrageous lifestyle that defies society’s petty rules — and because police and federal agents are pumping them up as a threat to win bigger budgets. ”It’s not a criminal organization,” says Robert Maganza, president of the New York City chapter and one of the new team of officers elected since the 1980s’ prosecutions. ”Basically it is a motorcycle club. A lot of people were in trouble at one time or another, but outside of the club. The government is trying to make a name for themselves by taking us down.” Any member caught dealing drugs, he adds, will be thrown out of the chapter. Outlaw biking is principally a lifestyle for members of such clubs — as it is for many other riders with no interest in crime who love powerful bikes and emulate the defiant outlaw style and customs. When the gangs get rough, it’s most often against other gangs. But for some Angels, the old lifestyle has yielded to the pursuit of wealth. Some live in expensive homes, drive luxury cars, and keep lawyers on retainer. Police say that the chief moneymaker for many Angels is manufacturing and distributing drugs, particularly methamphetamine, or ”meth,” a type of speed that comes in a white powder and is usually snorted. The drug, primarily used by lower-income whites, is made from domestically available chemicals. Bikers dominate the meth business, which government sources estimate is worth several hundred million dollars a year. Outlaw bikers have also been arrested and convicted for trafficking millions of dollars of cocaine. The ATF estimates they control 50% of the illegal drug market in Oregon and 35% in North Carolina. They do business with Colombian cocaine dealers and have been linked to criminal activity with the Mafia. Major gangs avoid heroin and crack, however — they don’t like the idea of members getting hooked. They love firepower, and the weapons and technologies they use would be a significant addition to almost any country’s armory. Police have seized vast quantities of handguns, silencers, shotguns, M-16s, AK-47s, MAC-10s, and Uzis, as well as LAW rocket launchers, grenades, dynamite, bombs of all types, and C4 and other plastic explosives. In their illegal business activities, the bikers use walkie-talkies, mobile phones, pagers, cash counters, scramblers, police scanners, fax machines, PCs, electronic eavesdropping devices, and video surveillance. Government agents recently recovered an ultrasophisticated, custom-made radio-wave detector the CIA would be proud to own. Biker expert and author Yves Lavigne provides endless detail about this phantasmagorical world of violence and crime in Hells Angels: Three Can Keep a Secret If Two Are Dead. The book (Lyle Stuart, $9.95) is lurid, but law enforcement says it’s accurate — and the legally wise Angels have not sued Lavigne for libel, though they are pressing suit against him for trademark infringement over a drawing of their winged-death’s-head logo on the book’s dust jacket. The Angels started out as legitimate antiheroes, organized in San Bernardino, California, in 1948 by World War II veterans. For years their greatest vice was local hell-raising. Marlon Brando brought them national attention when he played an angst-ridden gang leader in the 1953 film The Wild One. Four years later Sonny Barger formed the Oakland chapter, became the leader of the pack, and added a little more ”there” to ”there” by making it the mother chapter, or headquarters. As the Angels grew, they started to cultivate their rebel image and to become more businesslike. By the mid-1960s, they were holding press conferences to put an upbeat spin on their activities. They incorporated and trademarked their logo and the name Hells Angels. But, police say, because of mounting legal bills from arrests for mayhem during their wilder excursions, the Angels turned increasingly to the drug dealing that eventually became their major business. They still try to maintain a positive image by organizing Toys for Tots benefit rides. It didn’t hurt that the club had an exceptional chief executive officer. Says Lavigne: ”Barger converted a sloppy, rudderless gang into a lean, mean organization.” He kicked out dissenting members and, like any ambitious manager with a powerful ego, began to build his empire. Police say Barger absorbed other groups calling themselves Angels and expanded the drug network. The club soon began to attract earnest police attention. Law enforcement prosecuted Barger and the Angels throughout the 1970s and into the early Eighties with little success. Though 16 Angels were convicted of firearms violations, a RICO attempt against 32 of them, including Barger, failed, and murder charges against him were dismissed. In the late 1980s, however, the feds nailed the club in two successful major investigations. A West Coast operation resulted in dozens of convictions and crippled the mother chapter, while the effort in the East brought even more sentences and shut down several chapters. The government also began a still pending forfeiture case against the powerful New York chapter’s clubhouse, claiming it was used in drug trafficking. What makes the Angels and the lesser outlaws so distinctive among criminal enterprises — and adds to the frustration of law enforcement officials — is that many Americans celebrate them and identify with them. Back in the 1950s, the American Motorcyclist Association, the voice of legitimate riders, pronounced that ”only 1%” of all riders were troublemakers. The outlaws gleefully accepted the label, and many still call themselves one-percenters. (The actual percentage is much smaller — counting the hangers-on police call associates, only about 0.2% of the estimated nine million motorcyclists in the U.S.) And plenty of people — including many who have never even sat on a motorcycle — like their style and applaud them for defying convention and authority. The Angels’ colorful ferocity and independence have won them the sometime friendship of many celebrities. Music stars Willie Nelson, Bo Diddley, and Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead have all hung out with them. Journalist Hunter S. Thompson rode with the Angels in the mid-1960s until he got on their nerves and they beat him up. Tough guy actor Mickey Rourke used to pal around with them until he unwisely gave them two Harley-Davidson Sportsters — lightweight models considered ”girl bikes” in the club. After that the relationship soured. For years the Angels reportedly had a contract out on the life of Mick Jagger, the result of a falling-out over a 1969 Rolling Stones concert where a Hells Angel hired as a bodyguard was accused (and later acquitted) of having murdered a spectator. Some evidence suggests the contract was terminated after the Stones paid the Angels $50,000. The Angels have parlayed their notoriety into real clout by building a model decentralized organization. Its motto could be, Think globally, trash locally. Individual units have plenty of autonomy, but communications are excellent. Local chapters, governed by elected officers, take care of their own business. The U.S. is divided into East and West Coast sectors, with regional officers who coordinate activities and settle disputes. The international chapters, including those in Canada, Europe, South America, Australia, and New Zealand, are separate entities. Though Barger is the godfather, there is no official international president, and no chapter claims to speak on behalf of the regional, national, or international organization. Recruiting is selective and rigorous. A would-be member must ride a Harley- Davidson — no ”Jap-scrap” is tolerated. He must be nominated by a member and serve as a ”prospect,” or probationary member, for about a year and a half, guarding clubhouses and bikes, cleaning up, and cruising in the rear during ”runs,” when clubs ride in groups to party (see diagram). The prospects don’t necessarily join the Angels to become criminals — they join to be known as the baddest bikers in the world. But almost invariably, say law officials, they have to commit some kind of crime to become full members. Some chapters have reportedly required or suggested murder of a rival gang member or drug dealer. Angels and prospects must pay dues of about $100 per month, according to government operative Tait. With 1,000 members and 200 prospects, that comes to over $1.4 million per year for the organization, or about $20,000 per chapter. The money stays at the chapters except for what regional officers need to travel on club business — plane fare, hotels, and car rentals. Some chapters have imposed drug-dealing taxes of 10% on members. The parent organization collects money mainly when the legal defense fund needs boosting — in 1985 the bill for a special assessment came to $500 for each Angel worldwide. Who belongs to the Hells Angels? Most members are from working-class backgrounds. Many are veterans. Some work in marginal blue-collar jobs; others run small businesses such as bike shops and tattoo parlors. Many are rootless, with no links to the community they happen to live in. They tend to think they are okay; it’s the rest of society — the ”citizens” — who are off track. They’re aging; many are in their 40s and 50s. No African Americans are to be found — ”none has ever tried to get in,” says one Angel, sounding like a member of a lily-white golf club. For many Angels the club is their family, their world. These are intensely bonded men with a strong code of mutual support. If one is attacked, the others must jump in. The club has written rules with strict penalties — from suspension for those who don’t pay dues to expulsion for members caught dealing substandard drugs, injecting narcotics, or using crack. On occasion the penalties have been extreme. Quebec has had some of the world’s most violent bike gangs; Canadian officials hold warring bikers responsible for more than 30 killings in the province from 1988 to 1991. One Angel alone, Yves ”Apache” Trudeau, admitted to killing 43 people between 1970 and 1985. When the North chapter in Quebec got out of hand in 1985, the Angels decided to liquidate it by wiping out its members. Canadian Angels murdered six of them, dumped their bodies in the St. Lawrence River, and closed the chapter. Three Angels were convicted of the murders, and many others pleaded guilty to lesser charges. The typical Hells Angel is obsessed with strength and toughness, with taking risks and flaunting his sexual virility. Women are not allowed to be members; as ”old ladies,” they are highly subservient. But they flock to the club because of the glamour and to be part of a strong extended family. Some have ended up as prostitutes, abused, beaten, or even murdered. Still, they are usually remarkably loyal. The ATF and FBI say some have worked at telephone companies, major utilities, and even police departments, where they are suspected of providing intelligence for the club. Almost all the chapters own clubhouses; some, such as those in New York City – and Oakland, are large buildings or complexes. Many have surveillance equipment and guards. But the drug money goes mainly to the members, not the institution. As a result, a fair number of them, particularly on the West Coast, are wealthy. ”Some of these guys own mini-estates on acres of land, Corvettes and Cadillacs with car phones, Porsches and fancy boats,” says Tony Tait. Few do as well as Angel Kenneth Jay Owen, meth cooker extraordinaire. In 1987 federal agents who arrested him found a cash-counting machine eating through a stack of $100 bills in his Oakland house. All told, Owen had almost $1 million in cash. Agents discovered a recipe for cooking meth at his lab labeled ”RICO Legal Defense Fund.” Booted up on his PC was Andrew Tobias’s Managing Your Money. The FBI says Owen had recently bought base chemicals for making $30 million of meth. He was sentenced to 41 years, ordered to forfeit $2.4 million of property, and slapped with a $2.1 million fine. Several other major clubs have sprung up to challenge the Angels. As the mob has done, they’ve carved the U.S. into monopolistic territories, sometimes in truce and sometimes at war. The Angels control California, Alaska, pieces of the Northeast, Midwest, and Southeast. The Outlaws, the Avis of the biker world, own Florida and most of the Midwest. The Bandidos hold sway in Texas and parts of the Deep South, with scattered chapters in the Pacific Northwest. The Pagan’s are primarily in the Middle Atlantic region. The Sons of Silence rule the Rockies and the Plains. The feds have identified other, smaller 1% gangs on the rise like the 100-member Dirty Dozen in Arizona. Police there believe this gang may soon become the subject of a friendly Angel takeover. Like so many businesses, the Angels are getting some of their best growth from abroad. They have chapters in 14 other countries, from Canada to Brazil to New Zealand. Europe, a particularly hot market, has been developing its own biker subculture. Over the past two decades, scores of small, Harley-riding gangs have formed across the Continent. Eurobikers try to give their clubs intimidating-sounding American names, though some have trouble with the vernacular. The Power Dead howl across the Alps. In Norway, Shabby Ones and Rabies scream down the cold, lonely roads. Denmark is graced with Mental Midgets and Bullshit. Interpol now counts 26 Hells Angels chapters in Europe, including 13 in Britain, and 362 members. That doesn’t include four prospect chapters with over 40 members. Right now the Angels are building in Scandinavia. In Denmark, where they have two chapters and a prospect chapter, police report they run drugs from Holland, extort money from bars, intimidate witnesses, and monitor the police right back. Police say these European brothers stay in close contact with U.S. Angels. Other European police reports show a pattern of criminal activity. In Zurich the law is searching for Angel Reinhard Lutz, wanted for trafficking 100 kilos of cocaine, worth $5 million. Police believe Lutz fled to Brazil and has holed up in an apartment owned by Angels in Rio. Swiss authorities say Angels are also involved in prostitution and extortion. Zurich Angels have been convicted of murder, rape, and procuring explosives. In Holland, police are convinced the gang smuggles drugs, and last year linked a murder to it. Says Tait, who visited most of the European chapters: ”The European Angels are just like the American ones, only ten years behind.” Though authorities still worry about the bikers, they have lately turned their attention to other problems such as crack. Result: The bikers have been able to lick their wounds and build membership. The prosecutions of the Eighties also toughened the gangs and left them more secretive. ”Today you could never just walk into the Hells Angels,” says Tait. ”You have to be known. The Angels will check you out thoroughly. They will get hold of your rap sheet and do a credit check” to see if you’re who you claim to be — easy enough for an organization with their know-how. The gangs are also more mobile. ”If you had a business and wanted to build a factory but there were too many regulations, you would move,” says Maryland state police sergeant Terry Katz. For the Pagan’s, that means finding counties or states where police are not yet versed in their ways. ”No question about it,” says biker expert Lou Barbaria of the New York state police, ”the gangs are growing again and becoming more sophisticated.” Members of the New York Angels chapter admit the clubhouse forfeiture case has left them financially pressed but remain adamant that they are just a bike club. Many important members are now being released from jail. Even if they lose their case, president Maganza says, ”we’re not going to disappear off the face of the earth. We’ll be here. We’re growing.” Says another member: ”We’re stronger than ever.”
While many Angels and other outlaw bikers are just rowdies, a disturbing number are involved in crime. Police say they make big money in the drug trade.
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http://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/30/world/swedes-bar-soviet-from-rescuing-sub.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20141117052559id_/http://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/30/world/swedes-bar-soviet-from-rescuing-sub.html
SWEDES BAR SOVIET FROM RESCUING SUB
20141117052559
STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 29— Sweden today blocked Soviet efforts to rescue a Soviet submarine that ran aground near a Swedish naval base on Tuesday. The Swedes said Moscow then agreed to let them do the salvaging. Officials here said naval vessels had turned back a Soviet salvage tug that moved inside the 12-mile territorial limits near the naval base at Karlskrona, 300 miles south of here. The tug was part of a Soviet flotilla, including two destroyers and a tanker, that arrived after the submarine ran aground. Also today, an unidentified submarine was spotted six miles inside Swedish territorial waters, but she vanished after helicopters armed with depth charges gave chase. In addition, Soviet Embassy personnel were prevented from approaching the marooned submarine, which was lying inside a restricted area four miles off the Karlskrona archipelago and 12 miles from the base. Swedish Inquiry Is Under Way As Swedish helicopters, torpedo boats and coast guard vessels kept watch over the submarine and the Soviet ships that were hovering just outside the 12-mile limit, Prime Minister Thorbjorn Falldin announced that any attempt at a rescue or escape would be repelled by force. He said the submarine would be returned, but ''how and when will depend on the outcome of an investigation we have ordered.'' A Swedish naval officer, Cmdr. Karl Andersson, and an interpreter went aboard the vessel tonight to continue an inquiry that began yesterday. The submarine is a medium-range diesel-powered patrol vessel of what the Atlantic alliance designates as the Whisky class. These submarines date from the 1950's and have a crew of about 55. Cmdr. Lennart Forsman, base commander, said salvage operations would not begin until the inquiry was over. ''We want a clear explanation,'' he went on, ''how the sub could be so far into a clearly marked military restricted zone. We expect the captain to be cooperative. Otherwise his sub can be left on the rocks.'' Compass is Called Faulty During yesterday's questioning, the Soviet captain was quoted as having said that the submarine ran aground because of a navigational error caused by a faulty gyro compass and bad weather. A Swedish protest was sent to Moscow yesterday demanding a better explanation. Sweden also said that the commander of the armed forces, Gen. Lennard Ljung, had canceled a visit to the Soviet Union scheduled for Nov. 19-21. A spokesman for the Swedish naval staff, Jan-Ake Berg, said the kind of navigational error mentioned by the Soviet commander was impossible. ''To get that far inside the archipelago,'' he added, ''requires very careful navigation.'' The Swedish officer who went aboard the submarine yesterday was quoted as having said that the submarine was of a kind that could easily be maneuvered ''in tricky waters like these and was therefore suitable for intelligence-gathering missions.'' But he also said that he had not noticed any unusual equipment aboard. According to the Stockholm newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, the Swedish interrogator said the Soviet captain ''was absolutely shattered by the incident'' and ''would only say that he was on a 'mission' and that his home base was Kaliningrad,'' in former East Prussia. Chief Prosecutor Magnus Sjoberg said the Swedish Government was considering bringing charges against the submarine's captain but added that there were ''many juridical and practical aspects to be taken into account.'' Illustrations: photo of Swedish boats attached to Soviet submarine
Sweden today blocked Soviet efforts to rescue a Soviet submarine that ran aground near a Swedish naval base on Tuesday. The Swedes said Moscow then agreed to let them do the salvaging. Officials here said naval vessels had turned back a Soviet salvage tug that moved inside the 12-mile territorial limits near the naval base at Karlskrona, 300 miles south of here. The tug was part of a Soviet flotilla, including two destroyers and a tanker, that arrived after the submarine ran aground.
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http://fortune.com/2014/11/19/far-cry-4-ubisoft/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141119162438id_/http://fortune.com/2014/11/19/far-cry-4-ubisoft/
Far Cry 4 hopes to reach new heights for Ubisoft
20141119162438
Ubisoft has introduced new locales and a brand new cast of characters to its bestselling Far Cry franchise. Far Cry 4 brings the action to new heights by setting the open world game in the fictional Himalayan region of Kyrat. The game also introduces a menacing dictator, Pagan Min (played by Call of Duty actor Troy Baker). Released in November 2012, Far Cry 3, which was set on a tropical island, rode a wave of critical acclaim to sell over 9 million copies worldwide. Michael Pachter, video game analyst at Wedbush Securities, forecasts Far Cry 4 will sell 6 to 8 million copies and generate $300 to $400 million in its first year. “The game is different and features better character development than most games with more interesting villains,” said Pachter. “I like it, but can’t really say why. It’s a good first-person shooter with interesting plot lines and despicable villains, which is different from almost all other games.” Mike Schramm, video game analyst at EEDAR, believes the new game stands out from the crowded sequels on store shelves this year. “Far Cry 4 is a first-person shooter, which is relatively rare in Ubisoft’s arsenal these days, at least until Rainbow 6: Patriots is ready,” said Schramm. “Far Cry has definitely become known for its hunting and crafting systems as well. Titles like Assassin’s Creed have implemented some of this gameplay, but Far Cry definitely puts those complex systems more front and center than Ubisoft’s other franchises.” The franchise, which was originally created by developer Crytek, has moved past the sci-fi elements of the original to become an open world exploration of memorable characters and challenging terrains. Life-to-date the franchise has sold 11 million copies worldwide, including 3.4 million copies through October 2014 in the U.S. according to the NPD Group. Unlike its Assassin’s Creed franchise, which received an annual update, Far Cry games are spread out every few years. Dan Hay, executive producer of Far Cry 4, said the development team at Ubisoft Montreal focuses on three key elements when designing a new game. The ultimate goal is to make players feel like a fish out of water in exotic surroundings. “We want players to take a digital year of their life and experience something they’ve never done before and flex muscles like they’ve never done before,” said Hay. “We create a cast of characters with elements of both good and bad, some of which exist outside the realm of your comfort zone.” The new game introduces a complex story line that offers two very different allies that the player, Ajay Gale, can join up with to help Kyrat gain freedom from the sadistic rule of Pagan Min. The rebel faction, called The Golden Path, has a pair of leaders interested in taking very different approaches to freedom. Amita (played by True Blood actress Janina Gavankar) wants to freedom for women, while Sabal (played by Lost actor Naveen Andrews) wants to rid corruption but retain the culture of Kyrat. The player is constantly dealing with valid points from both of these performance-captured characters as the game unfolds. Lucien Soulban, co-lead writer of Far Cry 4, said the game’s narrative also keeps players off balance by introducing Ajay Gale as a son returning home from the U.S. for the first time since he was three to bring his mother’s ashes to his family. “He’s a stranger in a strange land, which is integral to the Far Cry fantasy,” said Soulban, who added that his writing team faced a challenge of crafting a story that still allowed the player to interact with the open world. Approximately half of the game has been designed to offer story missions while the other half lets gamers explore the mountains and lowlands inspired by Himalayan locales like Nepal. Mark Thompson, narrative director on Far Cry 4, explained that Kyrat is located between India and China. The fictional land has its own history, religion, myths and legends, and a complete timeline of events that have shaped the country. All of this content has been embedded into the world for players to discover. Ubisoft used this history to fill the world with stories. Thompson said Kyrat is the most fleshed-out character in the game. Thompson spent two weeks in Nepal with some of the development team and Vice to find inspiration for the game. The entire trip was filmed by Virtue, Vice’s in-house creative agency, and released as a documentary series to promote the game. The game has been receiving positive reviews in the press with an aggregate score of 86 out of 25 reviews, which should help convince gamers to explore this sequel. Also, aside from Activision’s ATVI Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, there’s room this holiday season for another shooter to break through. Given its unique take on the genre — which includes the ability to ride (and shoot enemies) while atop an elephant and target enemies from above flying a one-man helicopter — Ubisoft’s franchise is a far cry from anything else out there.
The latest open world game in the bestselling shooter franchise brings the action to the Himalayas.
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http://www.foxsports.com/boxing/story/hayden-panettiere-engaged-to-wladimir-klitschko-100913
http://web.archive.org/web/20141124222210id_/http://www.foxsports.com:80/boxing/story/hayden-panettiere-engaged-to-wladimir-klitschko-100913
Wladimir Klitschko engaged to Hayden Panettiere - News
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Updated Jul 1, 2014 5:25 PM ET "Nashville" star Hayden Panettiere is confirming her engagement to boxing champ Wladimir Klitschko. Appearing on Wednesday's "Live with Kelly and Michael," the 24-year-old actress was flashing a large diamond ring that prompted host Kelly Ripa to inquire what it might signify. Panettiere confirmed she's engaged as the studio audience cheered. She added that she and longtime boyfriend Klitschko haven't set a wedding date. Panettiere made her entrance on the show wearing a huge, live boa constrictor meant to startle host Michael Strahan, who is not a snake fancier. Clearly Panettiere's ring, and big news, upstaged even her pet reptile. On ABC's "Nashville," Panettiere plays scheming up-and-coming country music star Juliette Barnes.
Nashville star Hayden Panettiere ends months of speculation -- announcing during a TV interview that her sparkly diamond ring came from boxing champ Wladimir Klitschko and that they are engaged.
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http://fortune.com/2010/10/12/marissa-mayer-gets-new-gig-at-google/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141125170427id_/http://fortune.com:80/2010/10/12/marissa-mayer-gets-new-gig-at-google/
Marissa Mayer gets new gig (at Google)
20141125170427
The former vice president of search product and user experience at Google has shifted focus to Location based services. At Disrupt last month, Marisa Mayer took an interesting question from the audience: Audience Q: I know you’re happy at Google but let’s assume you quit tonight and you leave what would you be interested in building, like, what industry, what would you do? Marisa: I really love building consumer web products. And so, I think that… organizing information is a big passion of mine. I think that the fact that we get to help people find information and help to make decisions everyday something that’s really…And so, I think search is really interesting but I I think there’s also a lot of really interesting applications and I also think that in particular the mobile space, the location base space is something that’s really exciting right now. Well, it turns out that she might have been planning a move because today Bloomberg reports that she’s taken a new role in charge of Location, Local Services. Location is obviously the new frontier with armies of mobile phones being outfitted with local services. Google’s GOOG Android OS will no doubt be a huge part of Mayer’s new sphere of influence. Mayer joined Google in 1999 as one of its first 20 employees and first female engineer and since then has worked on Search as well as a lot of other important projects including Orkut and Gmail, focusing on UI design. She’s known as the gatekeeper, the one who decides when a project is ready to go public. Also of note: Google has chopped all but the top management off its corporate Bios page leaving Mayer and many others in the webcaches of the Internet.
The former vice president of search product and user experience at Google has shifted focus to Location based services. At Disrupt last month, Marisa Mayer took an interesting question from the audience: Audience Q: I know you're happy at Google but let's assume you quit tonight and you leave what would you be interested in building,…
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http://www.people.com/article/buffalo-snow-storm-woman-trapped-car
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Buried in Snow Bank for 13 Hours, Mom Pens Farewell Notes to Daughters Before Rescue
20141125172340
Karen Rossi and her daughter Madelyn 11/23/2014 AT 01:40 PM EST Stranded in a snow bank, her blue Chevy Cobalt buried under several feet of ice, Karen Rossi feared the worst as she huddled in her car in freezing temperatures. So as the hours slipped away, the Lancaster, New York, pharmacy technician penned farewell letters to her two daughters, thinking no one would find her before it was too late as a record-setting, "It felt like I was underground, buried in a casket," Rossi told the "It was surreal. It was just silent for hours. Nobody came. And my phone had died. I couldn't charge it because I'd taken my daughter's car to work," Rossi, 47, told the , noting she'd left the hospital where she'd worked an extra shift at 3 a.m., driving right into the freak snowfall's path. After being buried further by a snowplow and fearing help was not on the way, she tried to dig out to clear her tail pipe as her gas supply dwindled. She got one cell phone message off to her daughter, who urged her to make sure it was open amid fears of carbon monoxide poisoning from running the engine to stay warm. Unable to open her door, Rossi said she rolled down a window and cleared a path with a sweatshirt, digging frantically for daylight. Later, as the hours passed, she made one last-ditch effort to save herself, digging out again with the shirt and a red snow brush. She finally found an opening and waved and waved for help – to no avail – forcing her back into her car. Wet, exhausted and frightened, she began goodbye messages to her girls on scraps of paper found in her purse. Finally, when she crawled out one last time to wave for help, good Samaritan Dave Edwards saw her. Edwards was driving a large black truck, also trying to get home from work. "I see you, I'm going to get you out," he assured her. "I have a shovel." The adrenaline rushed as Rossi realized she would not die on a roadside in the cold. Edwards later took her to his own home to help her warm up and get dry. He also stopped to help others who were stuck along the way. "I was disoriented and soaking wet and freezing cold. He stayed with me and he talked with me," Rossi told the . "I kept realizing he didn't have to do any of this stuff, but he was just an amazing person. I'm so thankful that God sent him."
Hero Dave Edwards stopped to dig her out and drive her to safety amid Buffalo's freak snowfall
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http://www.foxsports.com/boxing/story/manny-pacquiao-mom-put-hex-on-timothy-bradley-during-fight-041214
http://web.archive.org/web/20141125211537id_/http://www.foxsports.com:80/boxing/story/manny-pacquiao-mom-put-hex-on-timothy-bradley-during-fight-041214
Did Pacquiao's mom put a hex on Timothy Bradley?
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Updated APR 13, 2014 2:24a ET The Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley rematch delivered on its promise -- it was a close back-and-forth battle, with both fighters out to prove the doubters wrong. Pacquiao (56-5-2) attacked the previously unbeaten Bradley, dashing quickly around the MGM Grand Garden ring with an aggressive performance. Bradley fought back with his own brand of elusiveness, but Pacquiao kept up his quick punches -- with many landing -- while Bradley (31-1) faded down the stretch. After 12 rounds of action, there was little controversy to speak of, as Pacquiao came out on top via a unanimous decision that most would agree was the correct decision. But early on in the fight, all eyes were in the stands. More specifically, all eyes were on Pacquiao's mom, Dionesia Dapidran-Pacquiao. Dapidran-Pacuiao could be seen doing all she could to help will her son to victory, dealing with the stress of seeing her son in the ring in her own unique way. In fact, she seemed to be doing her best to put a hex on Bradley. Just look at her in action: She quickly became a Twitter sensation, with many calling her the star of the night.
Manny Pacquiao's mom became the star of the fight.
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http://fortune.com/2013/01/17/the-most-dangerous-word-to-use-at-work/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141128062433id_/http://fortune.com:80/2013/01/17/the-most-dangerous-word-to-use-at-work/
The most dangerous word to use at work
20141128062433
FORTUNE — After fraud, theft, flood, and fire, the most dangerous word to use in the workplace today is short, sweet, and fraught with peril: try. Whether in a job interview, on a resume, or in the office, try simply shows a lack of belief, passion, commitment, and confidence — all the qualities you need to succeed in today’s tight job market. Grammarly’s contextual thesaurus has a whopping 66 different synonyms for try, yet none of them are as convincing as words like do, believe, act, tackle, accomplish, or succeed. While try might get you 10%, or even halfway there, employers are looking for strong problem solving skills and unwavering dedication. I cringe when I hear, “I’ll give it a try,” because the phrase suggests failure. “I’ll do it” inspires confidence every time. MORE: 100 Best Companies to Work For On a resume, try indicates a task or responsibility that is either incomplete or vague; it is one of the few three-letter words that can get your resume moved to the rejection pile. It may be even worse than all of those famous four-letter words. On the other hand, action verbs backed up by facts and examples can make a resume — and an individual — stand out. Likewise, in an interview, when candidates are required to be sharp and precise, try comes across as uncertain at best. Hiring managers are looking for someone with a spark in his or her eyes and confidence in his or her voice. The words you use matter, a lot. If you contact a company and request action on an issue, hearing “I’ll try” isn’t going to alleviate your frustration; as a matter of fact, it’s more likely to exacerbate the problem. Likewise, when I hear employees say they will “try to meet a deadline,” “try to close a deal,” or “try to handle a customer issue,” my next question is what we need to do to ensure their success. When asked to complete a task that you do not feel is realistic, it’s better to suggest a more feasible goal. Managers appreciate problem solvers and employees who come to the table with solutions rather than problems. While try is the most dangerous word that an employee or jobseeker can use in the workplace, there are certainly other “danger words” that also indicate negativity, uncertainty, or controversy at work: someday, if, never, maybe, used to, can’t, and excessive acronyms or slang can also doom your chances of getting (or keeping) a job. MORE: Why are there still so few women in top leadership jobs? Ultimately, words carry plenty of power in both verbal and written communication. Your cover letter and resume account for your first impression to a potential employer. Successive phone and in-person interviews can enhance or detract from that impression, and the way you carry yourself in day-to-day business interactions — from emails to meetings to reports to customer interactions — will determine your reputation in the workplace. When you use words with power and impact, and deliver on expectations, you are sharpening your image, bolstering your potential, and giving your career a chance to shine. So don’t try, do; don’t doubt, believe; and don’t wonder, act. Brad Hoover is CEO of Grammarly.
After fraud, theft, flood, and fire, the most precarious office word is short, deceptively sweet, and open-ended: try.
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http://www.nytimes.com/1863/09/03/news/president-s-letter-argument-addressed-opponents-war-policy-administration-letter.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20141130165920id_/http://www.nytimes.com/1863/09/03/news/president-s-letter-argument-addressed-opponents-war-policy-administration-letter.html
THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER. - An Argument Addressed to the Opponents of the War Policy of the Administration. Letter to the Union Convention at Springfield, Ill. - NYTimes.com
20141130165920
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, Aug. 16, 1863. MY DEAR SIR: Your letter inviting me to attend a mass meeting of unconditional Union men, to be held at the Capital of Illinois on the 3d of September, has been received. It would be very agreeable to me thus to meet my old friends at my own home, but I cannot just now be absent from this city so long as a visit there would require. The meeting is to be of ail those who maintain unconditional devotion to the Union; and I am sure that my old political friends will thank me for tendering, as I do, the nation's gratitude to those other noble men whom no partisan malice or partisan hops can make false to the nation's life. There are those who are dissatisfied with me. To such I would say, you desire peace, and you blame me that we do not have it. Bui how can we attain it? There are but three concievable ways. First, to suppress the rebellion by force of arms. This I am trying to do. Are you for it? If you are, so we are agreed. If you are not for it, a second way is to give up the Union. I am against this. If you are, you should say so plainly. If you are not for force, nor yet for dissolution, there only remains some imaginary compromise. I do not believe that any compromise embracing the maintenance of the Union is now possible. All that I learn leads to a directly opposite belief. The strength of the rebellion is its military, its army. That army dominates all the country and all the people within its range. Any offer of terms made by any man or men within that range in opposition to that army, is simply nothing for the present; because such man or men have no power whatever to enforce their side of a compromise, if one were made with them. To illustrate: Suppose refugees from the South and peace men of the North get together in convention and frame and proclaim a compromise embracing a restoration of the Union. In what way can that compromise be used to Keep Gen. LEE's army out of Pennsylvania? Gen. MEADE's army can keep LEE's army out of Pennsylvania; and I think can ultimately drive it out of existence. But no paper compromise to which the controllers of Gen. LEE's army are not agreed, can at all affect that army. In an effort at such compromise we would waste time, which the enemy would improve to our disadvantage; and that would be all. A compromise, to be effective, must be made either with those who control the rebel army, or with the people first liberated from the domination of that army by the success of our army. Now, allow me to assure you that no word or intimation from the rebel army, or from any of the men controlling it, in relation to any peace compromise, has ever come to my knowledge or belief. All charges and intimations to the contrary are deceptive and groundless. And I promise you that if any such proposition shall hereafter come, it shall not be rejected and kept secret from you. I freely acknowledge myself to be the servant of the people, according to the bond of service, the United States Constitution; and that, as such, 1 am responsible to them. But, to be plain. You are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be free, while you I suppose, do not. Yet, I have neither adopted nor proposed any measure which is not consistent with even your view, provided that you are for the Union. I suggested compensated emancipation, to which you replied that you wished not to be taxed to buy negroes. But I had not asked you to be taxed to buy negroes, except in such way at to save von from greater taxation to save the Union exclusively by other means. You dislike the Emancipation Proclamation, and perhaps would have it retracted. You say it is unconstitutional. I think differently. I think that the Constitution invests its Commander-in-Chief with the law of war in time of war. The most that can be said, if so much, is that slaves are property. Is there, has there ever been, any question that by the law of water, property, both of enemies and friends, may be taken when needed? And is it not needed whenever taking it helps us or hurts the enemy? Armies the world over destroy enemy's property when they cannot use it; and even destroy their own to keep it from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves or hurt the enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel. Among the exceptions are the massacre of vanquished foes and non-combatants, male and female. But the Proclamation, as law, is valid or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction. If it is valid, it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life. Some of you profess to think that its retraction would operate favorably for the Union. Why better alter the retraction than before the issue? There was more than a year and a half of trial to suppress the rebellion before the Proclamation was issued, the last one hundred days of which passed under an explicit notice that it was coming unless averted by those in revolt returning to their allegiance. The war has certainly progressed as favor ably for us since the issue of the Proclamation as before.
Hon. James C. Conkling: MY DEAR SIR: Your letter inviting me to attend a mass meeting of unconditional Union men, to be held at the Capital of Illinois on the 3d of September, has been received. It would be very agreeable to me thus to meet my old friends at my own home, but I cannot just now be absent from this city so long as a visit there would require.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/11/27/holiday-gift-guide-box-sets/Z2vyMs0A8YSk8s1GbmelaM/story.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20141201000446id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2014/11/27/holiday-gift-guide-box-sets/Z2vyMs0A8YSk8s1GbmelaM/story.html?
Holiday Gift Guide: Box Sets
20141201000446
The weather outside might be frightful, so it’s the perfect time to curl up with a delightful book, DVD, or box set from a favorite musical artist. Whether you’ve got a rock, pop, country, metal, hip-hop, gospel, jazz, or classical music fan on your list, there is something here that they will be happy to find in their stocking — and then, hopefully, in the spirit of the holidays, share with you. Various Artists, “The Art of McCartney” Producer-songwriter Ralph Sall is no stranger to the tribute album game, having produced several popular multi-artist efforts, including albums saluting the Eagles and the Grateful Dead. But this new compilation dedicated to Sir Paul’s Beatles and solo material — available in five different configurations, from a double disc to a full blown hand-numbered deluxe box including vinyl, a book, and DVD — is a true labor of love. “Not that I wasn’t a lifelong fan of other artists I’ve worked on projects with, but, you know, there’s only one McCartney,” says Sall. He assembled the 42-track set over the last 10 years, matching artist to song and enlisting McCartney’s backing band to provide the tracks. In addition to classic and contemporary artists from several genres — including Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Harry Connick, Jr., and Willie Nelson — performing reverent covers, Sall says, “I tried to include several artists that I would imagine inspired Paul and the Beatles, like Smokey Robinson, Ronnie Spector, Wanda Jackson, Dion, and certainly Dylan.” About his more offbeat, non-hit choices, Sall adds, “If the project works as I intended, you listen to a song and say ‘oh that’s a great Heart song or a great Smokey Robinson song’ — and you find out it’s a McCartney song.” Although he has yet to receive word on how McCartney himself enjoyed the package, he did get positive signs during the process. “I sent him songs along the way and got feedback from him. He liked what he heard and was appreciative of what I was doing.” A few books — including one on Peggy Lee’s musical life — vying for music fan’s attention this holiday season. Ultimately, more artists expressed interest in participating than Sall was able to accommodate, schedule-wise. “Maybe if it does well, they’ll show up for volume two.” David Bowie, “Nothing Has Changed” Like the artist himself, Bowie’s music has been repackaged repeatedly, but this box — available in three differently configured formats — is being dubbed the definitive collection since it spans 1964-2014 and includes his newest song, “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime).” Offering a glimpse of each stop along the way, it’s a great place for Bowie newbies to begin the odyssey. (S.R.) Captain Beefheart, “Sun Zoom Spark: 1970 to 1972” Forty-odd years after their initial release, Captain Beefheart’s albums from the early ’70s are still strange elixirs that defy genre and era. This box collects “Lick My Decals Off, Baby” (1970), “The Spotlight Kid” (1972), “Clear Spot” (1972), and a fourth disc of outtakes recorded between those years. It’s experimental, heady stuff. (J.R.) Pierre Boulez, “The Complete Columbia Album Collection” How many conductors appear to see not into a score, but through it? Approaching his 90th birthday, Boulez remains the standard-bearer of modernist conducting rigor. This box set reissues his classic recordings for CBS/Columbia all in one place, a total of 67 discs covering all the composers with which he’s most closely associated, from Wagner and Berlioz to the French impressionists, from the Second Viennese School to Stravinsky and Elliott Carter. (J.E.) Ronnie Milsap, “The RCA Albums Collection” Everyone from veteran Vince Gill to newcomer Hunter Hayes has cited Milsap as an influence, which makes sense since he notched 49 Top 10 country hits including “Any Day Now” and “Lost in the Fifties Tonight (In the Still of the Night).” This whopping 21-album collection arrives on the heels of Milsap’s recent induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. (S.R.) Joni Mitchell, “Love Has Many Faces” The acclaimed singer-songwriter personally curated this four-disc box set according to her vision of love. Originally conceived as a ballet, and therefore subtitled “A Quartet, a Ballet, Waiting to Be Danced,” the collection surveys four decades of Mitchell’s work with 53 remastered versions of her songs, plus six paintings and her thoughts on the recording process. (J.R.) Simon & Garfunkel, “The Complete Albums Collection” The harmonious (at least onstage) duo gets the deluxe treatment with this box containing 11 discs: five newly remastered studio albums, four live releases (including “The Concert in Central Park,” long out of print), a greatest-hits compilation, and the soundtrack to “The Graduate.” Each disc comes in a sleeve replica of the original album art. (S.R.) Bruce Springsteen, “The Album Collection Vol. 1: 1973-1984” The title tells the tale as this smartly compact box collects the Jersey rocker’s first seven albums — “Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.” through “Born in the U.S.A.” — five of them newly remastered for CD. Also included is a 60-page booklet stuffed with photos and press clippings. (S.R.) Various artists, “The Rise & Fall of Paramount Records Vol. II” A follow-up to last year’s behemoth box set spearheaded by Jack White for his Third Man Records, this second volume is no less impressive: 800 songs, 6 LPs, and two books, all lovingly packaged in a stainless-steel cabinet. Focused on the Delta blues, this edition covers the label’s vast reach from 1928 to 1932. (J.R.) Various artists, “When I Reach That Heavenly Shore: Unearthly Black Gospel, 1926-1936” The latest addition to the Tompkins Square label’s ongoing gospel series, this rafter-rattling collection lives up to its title. The artists on this three-CD (and vinyl) compilation aren’t well known, but their voices, songs, and sermons are primal treasures. (Out Dec. 9) (J.R.) Various artists, “Native North America (Vol. 1): Aboriginal Folk, Rock, and Country 1966-1985” The breadth of material and emotion on this two-disc collection is incredible. Featuring music by indigenous peoples of Canada and the northern United States, the box includes extensive liner notes, artist interviews, and lyrics with translations. Released by Light in the Attic Records, this is a real find. (J.R.) • Holiday gift guide: Best boutiques in Cambridge, Newton, Scituate
A look at a few of the deluxe box sets vying for the attention of music fans this holiday season.
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http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/25/fukushima-vegetable-soup-frieze-london-art-fair
http://web.archive.org/web/20141208114456id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/25/fukushima-vegetable-soup-frieze-london-art-fair
Fukushima vegetable soup on menu at Frieze London art fair
20141208114456
Visitors to the Frieze art fair in London will have an interesting dilemma: should they eat the freshly made Japanese soup containing vegetables flown in from Fukushima? The soup is an art project in a new Frieze Live initiative at this year’s fair, the final one overseen by the co-founders Matthew Slotover and Amanda Sharp. Brothers Tomoo and Ei Arakawa, artists who work under the name United Brothers, will present a piece called Does This Soup Taste Ambivalent? It will involve their mother, also in London, making a soup from vegetables grown in the region of Fukushima, scene of the 2011 nuclear disaster. Frieze organisers stress that no one will be harmed. All the ingredients will be certified safe by the Japanese Farmers’ Association, but clearly there will be people in two minds. “I haven’t decided yet if I’m going to eat it,” admitted Slotover. “It’s not like we’re recommending it.” The Japanese piece is one of six projects chosen from more than 100 galleries who pitched proposals for the new Live section of Frieze London. It joins Frieze Projects, Frieze sculpture park, Frieze Talks, Frieze Film and Frieze Masters – selling art created before 2000, and even, this year, a 7,000-year-old example of neolithic art. They collectively make up what has become one of the world’s most important art fairs attracting everyone from hedge fund billionaires to empty-pocketed art students. It will be the 12th edition of Frieze and while it will not be any bigger – its size is constrained by its home in Regent’s Park – it might be quieter, with organisers starting the fair a day earlier and reducing ticket sales to avoid overcrowding. It will be Slotover and Sharp’s final Frieze London, they announced on Thursday. They are stepping down from running London and its sister fair in New York, handing the reins to their colleague Victoria Siddall. Slotover said he and Sharp, who created Frieze magazine in 1991 before setting up the fair in 2003, would remain with Frieze but work on new things. “We are still very proud founders and owners of the fairs and the magazines. We have some ideas for new projects that need a lot of development … but I can’t really say more than that at the moment.” They leave the fairs in rude health. While not to everybody’s taste – the conspicuous exhibition of vast wealth is not always a pleasant sight – the fairs are a popular and important part of the contemporary art calendar. This year, more than 160 contemporary art galleries from around the world, will be showing work for sale. Artists on display will include Mark Wallinger, who is creating his version of Freud’s study for Hauser & Wirth, while the Gateshead-based Workplace Gallery will have a solo presentation of works by the sculptor Eric Bainbridge. The Frieze Projects strand is where some of the more outlandish events often take place, and this year proves no exception. The Welsh artist Cerith Wyn Evans will install a work at Frieze’s neighbours London zoo, a place he regularly visits, said Frieze projects curator Nicola Lees. The plan is for an undisclosed neon work to be installed over the Regent’s canal between the aviary and the African dogs enclosure. Another project will explore the life and career of the late Andy Kaufman, one of the most unpredictable and anarchic comedians, still best known by some as the actor who played dim-but-lovable Latka Gravas from Taxi. The artist Jonathan Berger is proposing a number of Kaufman-related pieces including a daily orchestra performance of a lost piece of music, an overture that was performed at Kaufman’s Carnegie Hall concert of 1979. • Frieze Art Fair takes place in Regent’s Park from 15-18 October.
Japanese siblings United Brothers plan piece called Does This Soup Taste Ambivalent? for new Frieze Live initiative
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/04/11/those-who-bought-upper-crust-franchises-now-trying-distance-themselves-from-troubled-chain/N6Yz0EkCF7sn4dxePIId0J/story.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20141209011242id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/04/11/those-who-bought-upper-crust-franchises-now-trying-distance-themselves-from-troubled-chain/N6Yz0EkCF7sn4dxePIId0J/story.html
Those who bought Upper Crust franchises now trying to distance themselves from troubled chain
20141209011242
PLYMOUTH — When Al Carvelli recently dismantled the Upper Crust sign outside his pizza shop here, the former franchisee felt a sense of relief. Carvelli bought the store in 2010 with plans to have fun and make money at the popular gourmet pizza chain that had rapidly expanded across the region. But tough economic times and bad publicity from accusations that Upper Crust executives exploited workers at other stores had the opposite effect. So after years of painful sales declines, Carvelli has parted ways with Upper Crust, which filed for bankruptcy protection in October following mounting financial problems, labor troubles, and disputes among its partners. He is joined by Mark Tramontana, another former Upper Crust franchisee who shut down his Portsmouth restaurant earlier this year and recently terminated his relationship with the company for the Newburyport location. The sole remaining franchisee in West Roxbury would not confirm whether it planned to continue working with Upper Crust. “This gives me freedom to bring in more business without being tied to Upper Crust,” said Carvelli, 70, during an interview at his Plymouth restaurant, which he is rebranding as “Top Crust” and expanding the menu to include wraps, subs, and desserts. “I’m just trying to make it work,” said Carvelli, who also sold a former Upper Crust location in Hingham that he bought at auction after realizing he needed to focus on a turnaround at the Plymouth shop. Upper Crust founder Jordan Tobins, who owns the franchising rights and company name, along with restaurants in Brookline and Beacon Hill, did not return messages seeking comment. Tobins has kept a low profile since working with a private equity firm to purchase several upper Crust stores at the bankruptcy auction and re-open locations in the South End, Watertown, Lexington, and Wellesley. Tramontana said Sunday was bittersweet — that’s when he took down the Upper Crust signs at his Newburyport restaurant. After opening in 2008, he said, Upper Crust was a franchisee’s dream: a fast-growing business with instant brand recognition that won awards for its gourmet pizzas delivered by bicycle around Boston. Brian Munro worked outside on the transition of the former Upper Crust into the Anchor Stone Deck Pizza in Newburyport. But in the summer of 2010, as Tramontana made a deal to open a second location in Portsmouth, N.H., a lawsuit was filed by former Brazilian workers at stores in the Boston area accusing Upper Crust of exploiting employees. More damaging allegations were reported in a December 2010 investigation published by the Globe that revealed immigrant laborers from a poor village in Brazil were underpaid for long work weeks while owners indulged in luxuries such as a yacht and a plane. Federal labor officials eventually ordered the pizza chain to pay workers about $350,000 in overtime, but company executives then allegedly came up with a plan to take the money back by slashing wages, resulting in a class-action lawsuit and another labor investigation. Soon, people began questioning Tramontana’s business practices in Newburyport and Portsmouth. He received hate mail. His employees faced the wrath of some customers. Tramontana said he did his best to explain he was a franchisee — and even put up signs with a photo of his family that described the shop as “independently owned and operated.” “When you buy into a franchise, you’re buying into a brand image and goodwill, and you assume things are going to be good if not better moving forward,” Tramontana said. “You never expect this to happen.” Despite sliding sales, the franchisees stuck by Upper Crust and refused to criticize the owners, even as they feuded and charged each other with misusing corporate funds. But that changed last fall after the company sold thousands of discount vouchers on Groupon without the franchisees’ knowledge, kept the proceeds, and then filed for bankruptcy protection. Gildezio Silva made a pizza at the former Upper Crust, rechristened Anchor Stone Deck Pizza, in Newburport. By then, Tramontana had plans underway to separate from Upper Crust. He knew the bad publicity wasn’t going away anytime soon. If anything, it might get more intense — the class action filed by former workers is scheduled to go to trial this summer. “I needed the ability to control our brand, our image, our destiny,” he said. So on Sunday night, after celebrating his son’s birthday, Tramontana got rid of the Upper Crust logos, signs, and menus. He renamed the pizzas after his three children and local landmarks, and lowered the prices on everything from pies to sodas. Tuesday was the first day in business under the restaurant’s new name: Anchor Stone Deck Pizza. “Given the volatility over the last few years, I thought anchor was appropriate because it imparts strength and stability. And when you are home, you drop anchor,” said Tramontana, who lives in Newburyport. “It’s also a symbol of hope. We are hopeful for our future.”
When Al Carvelli recently dismantled the Upper Crust sign outside his pizza shop here, the former franchisee felt a sense of relief.
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http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/Ahmad-Brooks-exits-49ers-doghouse-5951602.php
http://web.archive.org/web/20141212032031id_/http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/Ahmad-Brooks-exits-49ers-doghouse-5951602.php
Ahmad Brooks exits 49ers’ doghouse
20141212032031
Eric Branc, San Francisco Chronicle It appears Ahmad Brooks will emerge from the doghouse to rejoin the starting lineup Sunday when the 49ers visit the Seahawks. The outside linebacker was benched for a 24-13 loss to the Raiders on Sunday, but had a clear-the-air talk with defensive coordinator Vic Fangio on Tuesday. “He’s fine,” Fangio said. “Had a good day at practice yesterday and expect him to be fine.” Brooks, 30, was benched because he missed a defensive meeting last week. In addition, Fangio revealed Thursday that Brooks was also 20 minutes late to a meeting the following day for unknown reasons. That followed Brooks’ second-half benching in a win against the Giants on Nov. 16 when he yelled at defensive line coach Jim Tomsula about his playing time. “At that point (last week), and on top of what happened in New York, it was just time to not start him and take drastic measures,” Fangio said. “Told him he wouldn’t start on Wednesday. He knew that. And last week was not a good week of practice for him after that happened.” Brooks, who had started 60 straight regular-season games, didn’t play a snap against the Raiders. Nothing to see here: A day after tight end Vernon Davis expressed frustration over his role — and referenced offensive coordinator Greg Roman in doing so — Roman insisted they have a “great relationship” and hailed his professionalism. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of Vernon since the moment I met him,” Roman said. “Just what a professional he’s grown into, and if anything, he’s really being a great leader with how he is handling positives and negatives that come along. He has spoken volumes to me with how he conducts himself.” On Wednesday, Davis discussed his season, which has included 25 catches and 236 yards. “As far as not getting the ball, (I) leave it up to the offensive coordinator. It’s his call,” said Davis, who later added: “I look at myself as a playmaker. Not just someone who’s blocking.” Change of venue: The severe rainstorm in the Bay Area forced the 49ers to practice at Off the Wall, an indoor soccer facility in Santa Clara a few miles from Levi’s Stadium. Injury report: Rookie center Marcus Martin (knee), who was sporting a brace on his injured right knee, was limited in practice after he missed Wednesday's session. Joe Looney would probably make his first career start at center if Martin is unavailable Sunday. Cornerback Chris Culliver (knee) and right tackle Anthony Davis (concussion) were also limited and were in non-contact jerseys. Culliver is expected to play Sunday, but Davis indicated he is still experiencing symptoms from the concussion he suffered Nov. 16. “Getting there,” he said when asked about his health status. Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ebranch@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @Eric_Branch
The outside linebacker was benched for a 24-13 loss to the Raiders on Sunday, but had a clear-the-air talk with defensive coordinator Vic Fangio on Tuesday. [...] Fangio revealed Thursday that Brooks was also 20 minutes late to a meeting the following day for unknown reasons. Brooks, who had started 60 straight regular-season games, didn’t play a snap against the Raiders. Nothing to see here: A day after tight end Vernon Davis expressed frustration over his role — and referenced offensive coordinator Greg Roman in doing so — Roman insisted they have a “great relationship” and hailed his professionalism. Just what a professional he’s grown into, and if anything, he’s really being a great leader with how he is handling positives and negatives that come along. The severe rainstorm in the Bay Area forced the 49ers to practice at Off the Wall, an indoor soccer facility in Santa Clara a few miles from Levi’s Stadium. Rookie center Marcus Martin (knee), who was sporting a brace on his injured right knee, was limited in practice after he missed Wednesday's session. Cornerback Chris Culliver (knee) and right tackle Anthony Davis (concussion) were also limited and were in non-contact jerseys.
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http://fortune.com/2014/12/11/behind-ubers-soaring-value/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141212220406id_/http://fortune.com/2014/12/11/behind-ubers-soaring-value/
Behind Uber's soaring value
20141212220406
At $41 billion, Uber has become more valuable more quickly than any other start-up we’ve seen in recent years — faster than Facebook FB , Google GOOG , Amazon.com AMZN and Salesforce.com CRM , according to our analysis of VC-backed start-ups founded since Uber was created in 2009. Earlier this month when the taxi service announced a round of financing that gave it a $41 billion valuation at 5.93 years old, Uber set itself apart. At the same stage, Facebook was valued at about $32 billion, while Google was just over $3 billion. Uber’s valuation does not guarantee it will be the next long-term superstar. But if the company can use its rapidly rising valuation to accelerate its expansion, it has a real shot at both beating its competitor, Lyft, and growing beyond personal transportation. Further, it can expand it’s services — potentially to delivery, logistics, other adjacent markets. To be sure, Uber is facing an ever increasing amount of challenges, from legal battles with local governments, to bad PR for the way it portrays women, all of which could hamper its growth and damage its brand. Additionally competitors like Lyft are nipping at its heals and more will surely come as the market for smart-phone powered point-to-point transportation expands. Despite these problems, Uber’s lead is so large and its value has grown so quickly, it would have to stumble badly to lose the battle for supremecy in this new space. This comes amid the development of two important trends. First, among all VC-backed technology start-ups created since 2009, the rate at which their values have risen is three times faster today compared to just a decade ago. This increase in “time to market cap”, the measures how quickly companies increase in value, has become a major advantage for modern startups as they are able to build massive financial war chests at speeds never seen before. With this latest financing Uber has become the time to market cap champ. What’s more, it appears that new markets are being dominated by one company, especially in tech. Uber’s latest valuation is partly driven by how quickly the company is expanding abroad, but it also reflects demand for a growing global market for on-demand transportation, and Uber’s dominance in this category for years to come. We like to call Uber a “Category King” — companies that define, develop and dominate new markets. Airbnb is doing that in on-demand rentals. Salesforce.com did it in cloud-based CRM. Of the 80 or so $1 billion companies founded since 2000, half are Category Kings. They are more valuable than all the other companies in their categories combined. These firms routinely take more than 70% of the total available market cap of their market. Uber is clearly being valued as the king of a new category that stretches way beyond taxi rides. Investors see potential in on-demand delivery from Uber vehicles, for instance. Unless Uber screws up, its competitors, such as Lyft and Sidecar, will fade into the background. If Uber truly proves to be the Category King in a vastly expanding new category, it’s record valuation will seem rational. Al Ramadan, Christopher Lochhead and Dave Peterson are co-founding partners at Play Bigger Advisors, a San Francisco-based firm that coaches technology executives to build market-leading companies. Neither the firm or its partners have investments in Uber, Lyft, Google, Amazon.com or Salesforce.com.
Investors are likely betting that the taxi service will dominate the market for on-demand transportation, say Al Ramadan, Christopher Lochhead and Dave Peterson of Play Bigger Advisors.
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http://fortune.com/2014/12/04/harvard-affiliated-vc-fund-raises-100-million/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141215220634id_/http://fortune.com/2014/12/04/harvard-affiliated-vc-fund-raises-100-million/
Harvard-affiliated VC fund raises $100 million
20141215220634
Xfund, an early-stage venture capital group operating with deep ties to Harvard University, has closed its second fund with $100 million in capital commitments. Among the investors were fellow VC firms New Enterprise Associates, Breyer Capital and Accel Partners. Xfund was launched in 2011 to leverage the experience of established VC firms like NEA and Accel, plus the management and engineering expertise of Harvard. For example, many of the fund’s portfolio companies get access to venture capitalist and Xfund co-founder Jim Breyer, who led the first institutional round in Facebook and has sat on such corporate boards as Dell and Wal-Mart WMT , plus Harvard luminaries like former engineering school dean Cherry Murray and computer science professor Harry Lewis. “There is definitely a lot of capital out there for early-stage companies right now,” acknowledges Patrick Chung, one of Xfund’s two partners and a former partner with NEA. “We deliver the best of both our academic and investing worlds. For example, we backed Ravel Law, and helped them strike a unique deal to digitize the content of Harvard’s law library.” Just under half the deal-flow in the original Xfund — which was launched as a $10 million trial balloon — came from companies launched by Harvard students, faculty and staff. Another 25% from MIT-affiliated entrepreneurs, while a surprising 9% emanated from Stanford (Chung will operate a Silicon Valley office for Xfund, while co-partner Hugo Van Vuuren is based in an office on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Mass.). The firm does not have too many demographic requirements for portfolio companies, although it prefers to lead an entrepreneur’s first institutional round and is partial to Boston-area businesses. “I grew up around Boston and went to high school there and have made investments there, but Boston has not kept pace with other centers of excellence in the IT area,” Jim Breyer explains. “I have been involved with Xfund now for three years, and have watched Patrick and Hugo source and evaluate and help scale half a dozen companies in the Boston area. I’ve built an enormous respect for them, and believe what they’re doing will be very positive for the area.” Each one of Xfund’s original portfolio companies has gone on to raise follow-on financing, including Ravel Law, Kensho, Philo and Zumper. The fund does no thave any legal or financial relationship to Harvard, nor does Harvard have a role in Xfund’s investment decision making. Sign up for Term Sheet, our daily newsletter on deals and deal-makers: Get Term Sheet
Xfund raises $100 million for its second fund.
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http://fortune.com/2010/11/06/amazon-doubles-down-on-diapers-buys-diapers-com-for-540-million/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141219031430id_/http://fortune.com/2010/11/06/amazon-doubles-down-on-diapers-buys-diapers-com-for-540-million/
Amazon doubles down on diapers, buys Diapers.com for $540 million
20141219031430
A Zappos like purchase for the e-commerce giant. “What Amazon fears most: Diapers” declared the cover of BusinessWeek earlier this fall. Now it’s clear that Amazon didn’t fear diapers, it just wanted them for itself. Fortune has learned that Amazon.com on Monday will announce that it has agreed to acquire Quidsi, the parent company of websites like Diapers.com and Soap.com. The purchase price is $540 million in cash, with Quidsi’s co-founders agreeing to multi-year employment contracts with Amazon AMZN . The price tag is $200 million over what Quidsi was valued at in its latest round of venture financing. For the full story, visit story at Fortune Finance.
[Crossposted from Fortune Finance] A Zappos like purchase for the e-commerce giant. "What Amazon fears most: Diapers" declared the cover of BusinessWeek earlier this fall. Now it's clear that Amazon didn't fear diapers, it just wanted them for itself. Fortune has learned that Amazon.com on Monday will announce that it has agreed to acquire Quidsi,…
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http://www.people.com/article/kangaroo-punches-drone-australia-funny-animal-video-pet
http://web.archive.org/web/20141224183110id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/kangaroo-punches-drone-australia-funny-animal-video-pet
Watch a Kangaroo Punch a Drone Out of the Sky (VIDEO)
20141224183110
12/20/2014 AT 03:35 PM EST A privacy-loving kangaroo did not take kindly to a drone sent to observe its mob in Australia's Hunter Valley recently – delivering a blow with its left paw that sent the flying robot tumbling to the ground. The drone initially captured majestic aerial footage of the kangaroos hopping through the wilderness, but when it came too close, one animal made it clear their party was private. , the angry kangaroo's attack broke the drone beyond repair – although fortunately for us, its footage remained intact. Watch the video above and remember: Sometimes you just don't mess with nature.
The angry animal destroyed the drone with a fierce knock-out punch
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http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/scooby-wright-unanimous-all-american-arizona-football-121714
http://web.archive.org/web/20141226124024id_/http://www.foxsports.com:80/arizona/story/scooby-wright-unanimous-all-american-arizona-football-121714
Scooby Wright becomes Arizona's 4th unanimous All-American
20141226124024
Updated DEC 17, 2014 7:17p ET TUCSON, Ariz. -- With Wednesday's announcement of the American Football Coaches' Association, Football Writers of America Association and Sporting News All-America teams, Arizona sophomore linebacker Scooby Wright becomes the school's first unanimous All-American since cornerback Chris McAlister in 1998. Wright -- winner of the Bronko Nagurski and Chuck Bednarik awards as the nation's top defensive player and the Lombardi Trophy as best lineman/linebacker -- was previously named to the Associated Press and the Walter Camp Football Foundation All-America teams. In addition to Wright and McAlister, two other Wildcats have earned unanimous All-America honors: defensive tackle Rob Waldrop in 1993 and defensive end Tedy Bruschi in 1995. Through 13 games, Wright has 153 total tackles, 28 tackles for a loss, 14 sacks and six forced fumbles -- ranking in the top five nationally in all four categories. Wright was ninth in Heisman voting -- the best finish ever for a UA player, coming one year after Arizona running back Ka'Deem Carey was 10th. Carey was a consensus All-American in 2012 and 2013.
Sophomore linebacker Scooby Wright joins Chris McAlister, Tedy Bruschi and Rob Waldrop as the only unanimous All-Americans in Arizona football history.
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http://fortune.com/2014/12/11/sec-chair-no-drop-dead-date-for-equity-crowdfunding-rules/
http://web.archive.org/web/20141230130948id_/http://fortune.com:80/2014/12/11/sec-chair-no-drop-dead-date-for-equity-crowdfunding-rules/
SEC chair: No ‘drop-dead date’ for equity crowdfunding rules
20141230130948
The Securities and Exchange Commission is in no rush to finalize equity crowdfunding rules, despite having already missed its Congressionally-mandated deadline by around two years. Following her speech this morning at the Dealbook Conference, SEC chair Mary Jo White told Fortune that her agency does not believe it has any “drop dead date” to complete its rule-making. “We’ve gotten a lot of comments [on proposed equity crowdfunding rules] and our staff is actively working through them,” she added. Equity crowdfunding, which would help small businesses raise up to $1 million in funding from the general public via online platforms, was part of the 2012 JOBS Act. The SEC was supposed to finalize equity crowdfunding rules by the end of 2012, but did not do so, in part, because of perceived antipathy toward the concept from former agency chair Mary Shapiro. Mary Jo White indicated during her confirmation hearings that she would push the process forward, and did get proposed rules out in October 2013. But the SEC recently again delayed issuance of final rules, this time to October 2015 — which means that they would be unlikely to go into effect no earlier than January 2016. But, based on White’s comments today, it could be even later.
At the SEC, deadlines don't always matter.
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http://www.people.com/article/john-oliver-new-years-eve-last-week-tonight
http://web.archive.org/web/20141231231500id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/john-oliver-new-years-eve-last-week-tonight
'Last Week Tonight' Host on the 'Worst' Holiday : People.com
20141231231500
12/29/2014 AT 01:00 PM EST preached to many a choir in a Web exclusive when he railed against New Year's Eve for being the absolute worst holiday known to man. "New Year's Eve is like the death of a pet. You know it's going to happen, but somehow, you're never really prepared for how truly awful it is," Oliver said. "New Year's Eve is For its combination of the three "least pleasant things known to mankind," as told by Oliver: "forced interaction with strangers; being drunk, cold, and tired; and having to stare at for five solid minutes waiting for him to tell you what the time is." Of course, Oliver is not here to simply tell us what we already know – he's got solutions for getting you – yes, you – out of all obligations courtesy of some "excellent and specific excuses." For example, if you've been invited to a friend's house, "Do you really want to sit on your friend's sofa and watch hummus turn brown all night? No, nobody does." Indeed. So, what you do is "simply tell [your friends] you're doing a cleanse. … Not technically not an excuse," Oliver admits, "but the beauty is there will be no follow-up questions, because nobody wants to hear about your f---ing cleanse." returns from hiatus on Feb. 8 and airs Sundays at 11 p.m. ET on HBO.
One of the reasons involves Ryan Seacrest's face
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http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/well-fueled-kerwynn-williams-runs-for-100-yards-in-first-nfl-game-120714
http://web.archive.org/web/20150101192107id_/http://www.foxsports.com:80/arizona/story/well-fueled-kerwynn-williams-runs-for-100-yards-in-first-nfl-game-120714
Well-fueled Kerwynn Williams runs for 100 yards in first NFL game
20150101192107
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- It is called a Ker-wich -- a double peanut butter and jelly sandwich, dipped in milk. Kerwynn Williams has one every day, sometimes two. It fortified him as he set the Western Athletic Conference total offense record, and it worked again Sunday in his first NFL start. After he was elevated from the practice squad on Friday, Williams became the first Cardinals running back to rush for 100 yards this season when he hit exactly that mark in a 17-14 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, revitalizing a running game that had gained a combined 99 yards the last two games and now will be without starter Andre Ellington for the rest of the year. The first three days of the week, Williams was the Chiefs' Jamaal Charles, giving the Cardinals' defense preparatory looks. Sunday, the next running back up outrushed Charles, who had 91 yards and scored two touchdowns. "That's storybook stuff," Larry Fitzgerald said. "I wasn't expecting today to happen," Williams said. Williams' teammates were not surprised. Defensive end Calais Campbell started chuckling before a question about Williams was finished. "I feel a lot better that he did that in a real NFL game, because he has been running through us all year," Campbell said. "Some guys were like, 'Slow down, you go too hard,' but he earned himself an opportunity and he capitalized on it. I told him before the game, you only get so many opportunities. Make the best of this one. The rest of the game you could see his confidence grow. He was a fighter." Williams was signed to the practice squad Sept. 18 after he was cut by Minnesota. Vikings assistant coach Kirby Wilson recommended Williams to good friend and Cardinals coach Bruce Arians. "He has been the only guy on our practice field the last three weeks that made our players go, 'Wow,'" Arians said. Stepfan Taylor started the game and Marion Grice played, but it was Williams who had the bulk of the carries and made the most noise. Williams and Taylor had six carries apiece in the first half, but Williams ripped off 9- and 15-yard runs on the go-ahead series in the third quarter and had all the running back carries the rest of the way. "Stepfan was going to start it and get it and get us off to a good start and I was going to find a hot hand between one of the two young guys, and we found one," Arians said. Williams, 5-feet-8 and 198 pounds, ended his Utah State career in 2012 with 6,928 all-purpose yards, still the WAC record. He led the Aggies with 1,512 yards rushing before going in the seven round of the 2013 draft to Indianapolis -- Arians was on that staff. He spent time on the Colts' and Chargers' practice squads last season. "Quickness, explosiveness and an unbelievable change of direction," Arians said of Williams' attributes. "He can break down a guy in a hole and make him miss him. And he's got power for a smaller guy." Williams said he was prepared for spot duty but ready for anything. "I knew he (Arians) was going to feel it out and it was going to be running back by committee," Williams said. "For me, this week was the same as any other week. Coach (Stump Mitchell) does a great job preparing us all like we are going to play every week. I felt that added a different dimension to the offense, being able to run the ball." Of his mindset while on the practice squad, Williams said: "I just try to do my best to give the defense a good look that they're going to face on Sunday. I want them to be prepared as possible." Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgerald makes a catch against the Chiefs during Sunday's first half. Fitzgerald returned to the starting lineup and caught four passes for 34 yards after he missed the previous two games with a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee suffered in the first half of the Detroit game. He was targeted nine times. Fitzgerald did not look 100 percent but he seemed to say that does not matter at this point in the season. "I was good enough to go," he said. "In December football, we need all hands on deck. There are a lot of guys in this locker room that are banged up and hurting. You just have to fight through. To be 10-3 is something that's rare. We know we have something special going here. Everybody wants to be a part of it." Michael Floyd also had four receptions, tying Fitzgerald for the team high. Cornerback Antonio Cromartie left the game after suffering an as-yet undiagnosed injury with 10:47 remaining the fourth quarter. The Cardinals initially called it an Achilles' tendon injury but Arians said after the game that tests are still being performed. "His Achilles' looks in good shape, so we'll keep our fingers crossed for him out there," Arians said. Cromartie was a Pro Bowler in San Diego the last two seasons, and his loss could be challenging for team that likes to put corners Cromartie and Peterson on an island. Justin Bethel replaced Cromartie. "Every day I just try to get a little better, so whatever happens I will be able to go out and still perform at the same level he was playing at and not let there be any drop-off on the defense," Bethel said. *By clicking "SUBSCRIBE", you have read and agreed to the Fox Sports Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. An ankle injury to guard Paul Fanaika opened the door for Jonathan Cooper to make his first NFL start, and the offensive line did not appear to miss a beat with Cooper at left guard and Ted Larsen moved from the left side to the right. The Cardinals had a season-high 141 yards rushing, and quarterback Drew Stanton was sacked just twice. "First start, I was pumped to get it, and glad I could get a victory as well," said Cooper, the Cardinals' first-round pick in 2013 who missed last season because of broken leg. "It's definitely been tough, and it makes it even more tough when you have friends and family saying you should be doing this or you should be doing that. My biggest thing was patience. Patience and have faith." Defensive tackle Frostee Rucker had the first two-sack game of his nine-year career as the Cardinals had five sacks, giving them 23 in the last five games. "I was fortunate," Rucker said. "I'm not playing for stats. The offense carried us all game, and we came up big when we it counted." Rucker has four sacks this season. Calais Campbell and Alex Okafor lead the team with seven after getting one apiece Sunday. Follow Jack Magruder on Twitter
After he was elevated from the practice squad on Friday, Kerwynn Williams became the first Cardinals running back to rush for 100 yards this season when he hit exactly that mark in a 17-14 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.
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http://fortune.com/2015/01/02/enterprise-software-in-2015-bubbles-box-and-kim-jong-un/
http://web.archive.org/web/20150102194944id_/http://fortune.com/2015/01/02/enterprise-software-in-2015-bubbles-box-and-kim-jong-un/
Enterprise software in 2015: Bubbles, Box and Kim Jong-un
20150102194944
It was a busy and fruitful year for enterprise-software companies: Zendesk ZEN , HortonWorks HDP and New Relic NEWR went public, while privately-held heavyweights like Box, Nutanix, Atlassian, Palantir, AppDynamics* and Cloudera pushed beyond $1 billion valuations. As we look forward to 2015, it’s clear we’ll see more enterprise action in the public and private arenas (and more cyber-terrorism, but more on that later). Despite some froth in the market—and my feeling that some private enterprise-software valuations will soften next year–I’m still very bullish on this sector. We’re still in the early innings of a major shift in the way companies manage their IT operations and deliver core business software to customers. Here are four more in-depth predictions about how enterprise software may evolve in 2015. 1. “Customer success” will become a C-level position in many companies. It’s been a decade since software-as-a-service (SaaS) caught on in a big way. But now that everyone’s convinced SaaS is the best way to sell and deploy enterprise software, we’re entering a new phase: Moving away from simply doing whatever it takes to acquire new customers to figuring out ways to keep them and optimize their success. In a subscription model, after all, the real money lies in keeping your customers happy over the long haul. The freemium model only works at the beginning of a new-customer relationship. So I think 2015 will be the year companies hire C-level “customer success” executives—Chief Customer Officers, or CCOs, tasked with reducing customer churn to zero. Many large companies already have VPs of customer success, but I think up-leveling this critical function is inevitable as SaaS companies increasingly require comprehensive, data-driven programs to keep customers buying renewing expensive products and services. 2. It will be harder to break into–and stay in–the “billion-dollar club.” Unicorn alert! At the end of 2014, there were at least 48 private U.S. companies valued at $1 billion or more by VC firms, versus 27 at the start of the year. This number includes all private companies, not just enterprise tech firms, but it’s still a telling figure since there were only ten such companies during the height of the dotcom boom in 2000. In 2015, I predict entry into that exclusive club is going to get more difficult, as choppy public markets set the tone for less-bubbly, private-company valuations. Late this year, HortonWorks and New Relic priced IPOs below the valuations of their last private financings, putting recent investors underwater. Both companies ultimately had their market caps rise above $1 billion. But their initial decisions to price shares lower cannot be ignored. Now, other mature enterprise companies could see a softening in their valuations as late-stage investors proceed cautiously to avoid down-rounds when their portfolio companies go public. 3. Box will have a successful IPO and Wall Street will finally “get” its business model. Despite Box’s on-hold IPO and lowered expectations for pricing, the company is still a huge success and has an extremely compelling business model. I predict Box not only will stage a successful IPO in 2015, but finally prove to investors that its “compounding renewal” model will create significant and durable equity value. Here’s how it works: If the company signs up a group of customers paying $1,000 for Box for a year, that same cohort will pay $1,300 the next year, and $1,690 the year after that. That’s a 130% customer-renewal rate. Why? Simply put, as customers use Box, and as they grow, they store more and more files with the service, requiring them to upgrade to pricier service packages with more storage. It’s a nifty lock-in arrangement. Box’s S-1 document shows a renewal rate of 144% in fiscal 2013 and 136% in fiscal 2014. In parallel with the compounding revenue growth is an equally important decrease in costs to support those customers over time. The below chart from the S-1 shows how decreasing customer-maintenance costs over time yield attractive operating margins for Box as customer cohorts mature. Sure, Box is spending tons on sales and marketing, which is what has been worrying Wall Street. However, given the 30% compounding nature of the company’s revenue–coupled with declining operating costs–this spending makes sense. 4. Cyber-security takes center stage. The recent attack on Sony has every corporate Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) on the planet scared to death. We now have nation states such as North Korea attacking private companies and releasing confidential information for political purposes. More importantly, these attacks are working. The effect in the VC and tech world? Expect even more high-profile investments in cyber-security companies, based both here and overseas, trying to fight online attacks in new ways. Roger Lee (@rogerleevc) is a general partner with Battery Ventures in Menlo Park, Calif. His investments include Angie’s List, Blue Jeans Network, Gainsight, Groupon, Kontagent, Lotame, Narrative Science, PrimeRevenue, TrialPay, Veradocs and World Golf Tour. * Denotes a Battery Ventures portfolio company.
Some enterprise software valuations may soften in 2015, but there's still good reason to be bullish on the sector.
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http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/trumbo-d-backs-pound-giants-091514
http://web.archive.org/web/20150103195541id_/http://www.foxsports.com/arizona/story/trumbo-d-backs-pound-giants-091514
Trumbo, D-backs pound Giants
20150103195541
Updated SEP 16, 2014 3:26a ET PHOENIX -- Mark Trumbo's bat put a dent in San Francisco's NL West hopes. Wade Miley's left arm didn't do the Giants any favors either. Trumbo hit a grand slam off Ryan Vogelsong, Miley pitched seven effective innings and the Giants dropped further behind in the NL West with a 6-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks Monday night. Joaquin Arias had three hits and Buster Posey a run-scoring single for the Giants, who dropped four games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West. "They scored all three runs with two outs," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "We had a couple of pretty good opportunities, but couldn't get it close enough to put a little more pressure on them." A pair of losses to the Dodgers over the weekend hurt San Francisco's NL West chances, but the Giants were still in control of the NL wild card, entering Monday's game three games up on Pittsburgh for the top spot. What the Giants couldn't afford was a letdown in a three-game series at Chase Field, where they had won 16 of 22 games and six straight series since 2012. The start of this series against the struggling Diamondbacks didn't go so well. Miley (8-11) bounced back from his shortest outing of the season by slowing down his mechanics, allowing one run. Trumbo started Arizona's homestand strong and kept it going against the Giants, hitting his ninth homer off Vogelsong (8-11) in the third inning and a run-scoring single off Juan Gutierrez in the seventh. Trumbo has six hits and nine RBIs the past three games. "He's kind of hitting his stride lately, swinging the bat much better, more comfortable," Arizona manager Kirk Gibson said of Trumbo. Vogelsong pitched 6-2/3 scoreless innings against the Diamondbacks his last outing, but was in trouble by the third in his 30th start of the season. The Diamondbacks loaded the bases against him and Trumbo cashed in, ending a 120 at-bat homerless streak by lifting his second career grand slam just over the wall in right. Arizona loaded the bases again in the sixth against Vogelsong, but Javier Lopez ended the threat by inducing a groundout on his first pitch. Vogelsong allowed four runs and six hits with four walks and five strikeouts. It was a bad inning; it wasn't very good," Vogelsong said. Miley had his shortest outing of the season his last start against the Giants, lasting just two innings after giving up three runs and five hits. The left-hander tried to throw too hard in that outing and spent the days in between trying to slow things down. He did against the Giants in his 100th career start, escaping a jam in the second inning and giving up one run on Brandon Crawford's groundout in the seventh. "You've just got to put those behind you -- those (games) are going to happen," said Miley, who struck out four. "You've just got to make adjustments and go on to the next one." Giants: 1B Brandon Belt was activated before the game after clearing concussion protocols. He had been on the DL since Aug. 8. Diamondbacks: OF David Peralta (back) has resumed all baseball activities and could join Arizona for its final road trip. Giants: RHP Jake Peavy, Tuesday's starter against Arizona, has allowed two earned runs or less in six straight starts. He pitched 5-2/3 innings of one-run ball in a 6-2 victory over Arizona on Thursday. Diamondbacks: RHP Josh Collmenter is 2-0 with a 0.65 ERA over his last four starts, leaving him one win shy of matching his career high of 10.
Mark Trumbo hit a grand slam and had five RBI as the Diamondbacks took the series opener from San Francisco.
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http://www.people.com/article/ferguson-juror-sues-prosecutor
http://web.archive.org/web/20150106075821id_/http://www.people.com/article/ferguson-juror-sues-prosecutor
Juror in Ferguson Case Sues Prosecutor, Says Current Information Is 'Not Entirely Accurate'
20150106075821
St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch 01/05/2015 AT 09:45 PM EST A grand juror in November's indictment case of Ferguson police officer in November wants the chance to be heard – so he's suing the county prosecutor. In a federal lawsuit filed Monday on behalf of "Grand Juror Doe" by the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri, the unnamed juror claims that St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch's description of the grand jury's deliberation was "not entirely accurate – especially the implication that all grand jurors believed that there was no support for any charges," according to the complaint obtained by PEOPLE. The juror is only identified as a St. Louis County resident. "Plaintiff would like to speak about the experience of being a grand juror, including expressing plaintiff’s opinions about the evidence and the investigation, and believes plaintiff's experience could contribute to the current public dialogue concerning race relations," according to the suit. "In Plaintiff's view, the current information available about the grand jurors' views is not entirely accurate – especially the implication that all grand jurors believed that there was no support for any charges. Moreover, the public characterization of the grand jurors' view of witnesses and evidence does not accord with plaintiff's own." In November, a jury of nine whites and three blacks decided , the unarmed black 18-year-old whose death ignited weeks of protests. Though grand jurors are typically sworn to secrecy, "any interests furthered by maintaining grand jury secrecy are outweighed by the interests secured by the First Amendment," the suit states. When announcing the verdict in November, McCulloch stressed that the grand jurors were "the only people who heard every witness ... and every piece of evidence." The panel met for 70 hours and heard from 60 witnesses, he said. But the lawsuit argues that "from [Doe's] perspective, although the release of a large number of records provides an appearance of transparency, with heavy redactions and the absence of context, those records do not fully portray the proceedings before the grand jury." The suit goes on to say that "by sharing plaintiff’s experience, plaintiff could aid in educating the public about how grand juries function. Plaintiff would also like to use Plaintiff's own experiences to advocate for legislative change to the way grand juries are conducted in Missouri." A spokesman for the prosecutor has yet to comment.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri has filed a lawsuit against the case's prosecutor on behalf of "Juror Doe"
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http://www.people.com/article/coachella-2015-lineup-revealed
http://web.archive.org/web/20150106215715id_/http://www.people.com/article/coachella-2015-lineup-revealed
AC/DC, Jack White and Drake to Headline 2015 Coachella Festival
20150106215715
From left: Angus Young of AC/DC, Jack White and Drake 01/06/2015 AT 04:45 PM EST Get your body paint and hippie garb ready, music fans. Coachella announced its on Tuesday, and the names are as big as ever. , long a showcase for both emerging and established artists, runs for two consecutive weekends in April as tastemakers flock to the southern California desert to soak in three days of live music. will kick things off April 10, headlining that night and April 17 alongside Interpol, Steely Dan, the Alabama Shakes and many others. will preside over the festival on April 11 and 18, headlining acts that also include the Weeknd, Belle and Sebastian, headlines April 12 and 13, performing alongside Florence and the Machine, Ryan Adams, Kaskade and more. You don't have long to wait before you can get in on the action: Tickets go on sale Wednesday at 3 p.m. ET. For those about to RT http://t.co/EsOQgp3sxH pic.twitter.com/93W006ZOju
coachella 2015, coachella, coachella ac/dc, coachella drake, coachella jack white, coachella music and arts festival
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http://www.people.com/article/mike-huckabee-slams-jay-z-beyonce-pimp-obama
http://web.archive.org/web/20150110053250id_/http://www.people.com/article/mike-huckabee-slams-jay-z-beyonce-pimp-obama
Former - And Maybe Future - Presidential Candidate Mike Huckabee Says Jay-Z is 'Pimping' Beyonce
20150110053250
From left: Mike Huckabee, Beyoncé and Jay Z 01/09/2015 AT 07:30 PM EST It's probably a safe bet that, if Mike Huckabee runs once more for president, neither will be on the campaign rally playlist. The former Arkansas governor and Fox News talk-show host – a conservative Republican and musician himself who knows how to get attention – is coming out with a new book, in which he levels a scalding review of Jay Z and Beyoncé and their "Drunk in Love" duet at the Grammys. "Beyoncé is incredibly talented – gifted, in fact," Huckabee writes in the book, which hits stores until Jan. 20. "She has an exceptional set of pipes and can actually sing. She is a terrific dancer – without the explicit moves best left for the privacy of her bedroom. Jay Z is a very shrewd businessman, but I wonder: Does it occur to him that he is arguably crossing the line from husband to pimp by exploiting his wife as a sex object?" The former Baptist minister, whose 2008 campaign Boston's "More Than a Feeling" as its anthem after the band objected, also went after the man who ultimately prevailed in that year's race. Both President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama have talked about being fans – and friends – of Beyoncé, with the president telling PEOPLE just that his wife and daughters, Sasha and Malia, "are in their Beyoncé world." Huckabee chides Mrs. Obama for this, with a knock at her healthy-eating work in the nation's schools: "With the first lady so concerned about making sure her daughters' bellies don't ingest unhealthy food, how can she let their brains ingest obnoxious and toxic mental poison in the form of song lyrics? If lived out, those lyrics would be far more devastating to someone's health than a cupcake." Huckabee hasn't announced a decision on trying again for the White House in 2016. But he ended his Fox News show on Jan. 3 just in case. "I cannot bring myself to rule out another presidential run," Huckabee said in his last broadcast. "So as we say in television, stay tuned."
In his new book, the former Arkansas governor slams the Obamas for associating with music's royal couple
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https://fortune.com/2015/01/13/tesla-ceo-says-china-sales-weak-promises-model-x-by-3rd-quarter/
http://web.archive.org/web/20150114093542id_/https://fortune.com/2015/01/13/tesla-ceo-says-china-sales-weak-promises-model-x-by-3rd-quarter/
Tesla CEO says China sales weak, promises Model X this summer
20150114093542
(Reuters) – Tesla Motors TSLA plans to boost production of electric cars to “at least a few million a year” by 2025 from fewer than 40,000 last year, Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said Tuesday. Speaking at an industry conference in Detroit, Musk said Tesla may not be profitable until 2020. In addition, Tesla sales in China were unexpectedly weak in the fourth quarter. He blamed a misperception by city-dwelling Chinese consumers that they might have difficulty charging their electric cars. “We’ll fix the China issue and be in pretty good shape probably in the middle of the year,” he said. Tesla shares fell 7 percent in after-hours trade to $190.22 from a close of $204.25 on the Nasdaq. During 2014, Tesla stock rose nearly 48 percent. Musk, who last year said Tesla will begin phasing in “autopilot” features on its Model S sedan, predicted that the company will be first to market with a fully self-driving car, but likely not until after 2020. While Tesla may have a driverless car ready in five years, the vehicles may not receive regulatory approval for another two to three years after that, he said. Musk also said the company’s long-delayed Model X sport utility vehicle will be launched this summer, while the lower-priced, higher-volume Model 3 is on track for a 2017 introduction. The Model 3 will be critical to Tesla’s goal of reaching an annual sales level of 500,000 vehicles a year by 2020, a target which Musk also reaffirmed. If Tesla hits its target of a few million vehicles by 2025, it would put the company on par with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles , which sold 2 million vehicles last year in the United States. Musk said Tesla likely would not achieve profitability using generally accepted accounting principles until the Model 3 ramps up to full production in 2020, although it may report non-GAAP profits before then as sales volume rises. Musk told attendees at the Automotive News World Congress that “we could make money now if we weren’t investing” in new technology and vehicles such as the Model 3 and expanded retail networks, Musk said. On another topic, Musk said he was open to partnerships with retailers to sell Tesla vehicles, but not until after the company no longer has production bottlenecks. “Before considering taking on franchised dealers, we also have to establish (more of) our own stores,” he said. Musk said “we will consider” franchising “if we find the right partner.” He did not elaborate, but said Tesla “is not actively seeking any partnerships” with other manufacturers “because our focus is so heavily on improving our production” in Fremont. Last year, Tesla delivered about 33,000 Model S sedans. Musk said the current wait for delivery is one to four months. Tesla already has presold every Model S that it plans to build in 2015, Musk said. He said he did not see the Chevrolet Bolt, a low-priced electric car planned by General Motors Co for 2017, as a potential competitor to he Model 3. “It’s not going to affect us if someone builds a few hundred thousand vehicles,” he said in reference to the Bolt, which GM expects to price to compete directly with the Model 3. But “I’d be pleased to see other manufacturers make electric cars,” he said.
Tesla shares fell 7% in after-hours trading.
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http://fortune.com/2015/01/15/caesars-files-chicago-bankruptcy-halted-by-delaware-judge/
http://web.archive.org/web/20150115230147id_/http://fortune.com/2015/01/15/caesars-files-chicago-bankruptcy-halted-by-delaware-judge/
Caesars casinos files for bankruptcy
20150115230147
(Reuters) – The operating unit of Caesars Entertainment Corp, the largest U.S. casino company, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Thursday in Chicago to cut $10 billion of debt, but a Delaware judge intervened to halt the case before it got started. The legal standoff marked the opening of a new phase in what have already been complex and contentious debt negotiations after the company ran up years of losses. Caesars maintains it has the support of its senior noteholders to implement the bankruptcy plan, which would reduce the operating unit’s debt to $8.6 billion from $18.4 billion. The bankruptcy was filed overnight by Caesars Entertainment Operating Company Inc and 179 affiliates in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago. However, junior noteholders, led by the Appaloosa Management hedge fund, filed an involuntary bankruptcy petition against the operating unit on Monday in Delaware. They argued at an emergency hearing in Wilmington on Thursday that their case should take precedence and the bankruptcy should proceed in Delaware. Kevin Gross, the Delaware judge, agreed to put the Chicago proceeding on hold, but said he would allow routine “first-day” requests, such as those that would enable employees to be paid. Gross asked what agreements or plans he might be disrupting by issuing a stay and taking time to sort out which court would handle the case. “There is no deal with the first-lien noteholder, there is no deal with second-lien noteholders and there is no deal with unsecured creditors,” said Bruce Bennett, a Jones Day attorney who represents the junior noteholders. He argued the backing of senior noteholders was bought with impermissible payments. Kenneth Pasquale, an attorney for holders of bank debt who oppose Caesars’ debt plan, said he thought the company filed in Chicago because the case law in that court was more favorable for giving a legal shield to non-parties. That could be key if creditors pursue fraud allegations against officers and directors of the operating unit. Creditors have alleged that asset transfers in the past two years have put choice properties such as the Linq entertainment complex in Las Vegas beyond their reach. Much of the debt Caesars CZR hopes to cut is a legacy of the $30 billion leveraged buyout of Harrah’s Entertainment that was led by private equity firms Apollo Global Management and TPG Capital in 2008. The deal ran into trouble almost immediately as the economy slid into a deep recession and gambling options proliferated in the United States to the point of saturation. Caesars also failed to get a foothold in Macau with its access to the Chinese market. The bankruptcy filing culminates months of negotiations and financial maneuvers that Caesars has said were aimed at freeing up cash for the operating unit. Under the restructuring plan, the operating unit will be split into a casino company and a publicly traded real estate investment trust. Properties across the entire Caesars network are open and will operate without interruption throughout the reorganization process, the company said. As the Delaware hearing was underway, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Benjamin Goldgar in Chicago told a packed court he was postponing his hearing for two hours while Gross heard arguments in Wilmington. After routine orders are entered in Chicago, the parties were expected to argue in Gross’s court later this month whether the involuntary petition was valid. “I would hate to bring the case (to Wilmington) and then dismiss the involuntary. That would be a little bit of egg on my face,” Gross said.
The biggest arm of the casino company has filed for Chapter 11 to escape a huge debt load.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2015/01/10/chandor-good-year/QuU7k6VRHmYXUbIuSAQZtO/story.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20150119061651id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/movies/2015/01/10/chandor-good-year/QuU7k6VRHmYXUbIuSAQZtO/story.html
J.C. Chandor’s good ‘Year’
20150119061651
Six years ago, J. C. Chandor was ready to throw in the towel. While working as a commercials director and industrial documentary producer, he struggled for more than a decade to get his first narrative feature off the ground. In 2006, financing collapsed on what was supposed to be Chandor’s debut film just a week before it was to start shooting. “I’d been through a very bumpy road. I had so many false starts and had sold scripts that then nothing happened with them,” said Chandor, whose third film, “A Most Violent Year,” opens Friday, starring Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain as a husband and wife trying to build a business during the height of the early ’80s violent crime wave in New York. By 2009, Chandor and his family had fled the high rents of the Big Apple for Providence. He was all but ready to give up on his filmmaking dreams but decided to take one last crack at writing a new script. During a four-day trip to Colorado for a job interview, he penned a screenplay he’d been thinking about for several years. The whole thing was so slapdash, he didn’t even tell his wife until some potential producers showed interest. That screenplay, “Margin Call,” became Chandor’s breakthrough film. A story of Wall Street malfeasance told from the inside of a large investment bank as the economic meltdown unfolds, it earned Chandor an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. A meditation on our cyber-future, a searing history lesson, and a tale of survival stood out. “I know it sounds melodramatic, but that script for ‘Margin Call’ really was my last kind of hurrah in trying to make it as a filmmaker,” Chandor said. I was like, Something is either going to come from this or it’s not. And if not, then I’m done.” “Margin Call” led to back-to-back successes. Chandor’s nearly wordless 2013 film, “All Is Lost,” which premiered at Cannes, starred Robert Redford as a man fighting for survival while adrift at sea. “A Most Violent Year,” with its echoes of a 1970s Sidney Lumet crime drama, captured the National Board of Review awards for best film, best actor, and best supporting actress. Chandor is now hard at work on a big-budget action drama, starring Mark Wahlberg, about the collapse of the Deepwater Horizon-BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Relaxing on a sofa at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, Chandor is a voluble and animated presence. Raised in suburban New Jersey, he’s wearing a baseball cap with the logo for Standard Heating Oil, the company run by the central character in his new film. Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac in J. C. Chandor’s “A Most Violent Year.” Chandor’s persistence in the face of adversity is a quality to which the protagonist in “A Most Violent Year,” Abel Morales, could deeply relate. Abel embodies the American dream of the self-made entrepreneur, with his heating-oil business. While Chandor embraces that notion to an extent, he said he was also interested in “undermining a little bit of that myth of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Even the most self-reliant kind of American dream story, there’s always lots of other people who have helped that person in one way or another to get to where they are.” As the film begins, Abel is facing pressure from all fronts. He’s working to close a property deal. But someone has started hijacking his trucks, and the district attorney is opening an investigation into his business. Chandor was intrigued by the moral and ethical gray areas that people face in undertaking any kind of ambitious artistic or business endeavor. “What are the compromises that you make along the way — financial, ethical, moral, emotional, and/or familial — to get where you want to be and accomplish your goals?” His idea for a character study about an ambitious husband-and-wife business team didn’t really come to life until he merged it with another idea about an exploration of violence. When Chandor went to drop off his daughter at school a few days after the Sandy Hook shootings, there was an armed guard at the front door of her elementary school — and that got him thinking about the escalation of violence in society. “You have this one horrible core act of violence. But the real greater damage for society is the waves that go out,” he said. “You look at 9/11 and our reaction to that initial act of violence. So I started to think about those ripples.” Chandor began googling crime statistics and learned that 1981 was one of the worst years on record in New York for violent crime. That gave him the era in which to set the film and the underlying subtext. “In a way, the movie is about people trying to isolate themselves from that violence of the day,” Chandor said. At first, he’d been talking with Javier Bardem about playing Abel, but they couldn’t come to an agreement about the conception for the character. So Chastain, who was already attached to the project, suggested her pal Oscar Isaac for the part. The two had known each other for more than a decade since their days as fellow acting students at Juilliard, and Isaac’s breakthrough role in “Inside Llewyn Davis” had just premiered at Cannes. “It’s kind of wild, isn’t it — that now we’re in this movie together?” said Isaac, dapper and mustachioed, with Chastain curled up alongside him on a bright red couch. “She definitely put me on J. C.’s radar and lobbied for him to consider me.” Their friendship gave them a leg up during a condensed shoot. “We were able to talk to each other very openly about things and not feel like we were going to hurt each other’s feelings. That allowed for a lot of work to get done quickly, because we didn’t have to tiptoe around each other,” said Isaac, who has a major role in the upcoming “Star Wars” film. Chastain’s scheming Anna might not be Lady Macbeth exactly, but the actress did have an unusual inspiration for the character. “When I sat down to talk to J. C. after I read it, I said, ‘You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I see her as Dick Cheney,’ ” Chastain said, with a smile. “Cheney really helped Bush a lot and, I think, did a lot without Bush’s knowledge. And I like that I get to play that kind of part, because I don’t see those complexities so much in female characters. [Abel] gets to be this honorable guy and gets to be ignorant of some negative things that she’s doing behind the scenes to help him.” Both Isaac and Chastain praise Chandor for his willingness to be open to suggestions and collaboration. “Some directors are very controlling about how they want a moment to be. They sometimes puppeteer their actors. But J. C. likes to discover things in the moment,” said Chastain, who helped get Armani to make her costumes. As a struggling filmmaker before his recent string of success, Chandor said he was putting his family in financial jeopardy; now the problem is he doesn’t get to see them enough. But he also knows, unlike his protagonist, that he’s still been lucky “as all heck.” “Momentum in our business, especially after your first film, can come and go,” he said. “So I’ve been fortunate recently. But I was also prepared in that I had these other movies that I wanted to do lined up. I realized that I could do this job and do it well, and so I wasn’t going to mess around.”
After almost quitted the business, filmmaker Chandor eyes a third straight success with “A Most Violent Year.”
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Tools for tracking data use to avoid hefty phone fees
20150121064150
The smartphone in your pocket gives you the power to chat, text, take selfies, and do a million other things. But it also burns through your data plan with your wireless carrier faster than you think. And who likes to pay that extra fee when you go over your limit? There are, of course, built-in systems on your phone to help you track your mobile data use. But many apps can be even more useful in keeping you on the right side of your monthly data limit. DataMan Next (right) is an elegant way to monitor your iPhone’s data-slurping. Its modern design presents information clearly and swiftly. To begin, you enter basic information like your monthly data allowance and when your bill is due. The app’s main screen is very simple: In the middle is a big figure showing the percentage of your monthly allowance used, and at the top is a large text alert. When this alert says “safe,” accompanied by a check mark, you are in the clear. This means the app has estimated that, at your current data consumption rate, you will not go over your limit. There is also a tally of how much total data you have used and how much you have downloaded over Wi-Fi. Best of all, the app’s backdrop changes color to warn you when you are using too much. Green for good becomes red for bad. You can tweak several settings in DataMan, including the color scheme. I love its minimal design, but some users have reported that the app occasionally seems to lose track a little of how much data has been used. Free for iOS and Android An alternative is My Data Manager. It has some of the same modern, minimalist design ideas as DataMan. But its reports have more detail, which may suit users who are keen on knowing exactly how they are using their phones. The app’s main screen has clear graphics and text to tell you how much of your monthly data has been used. A few other screens, accessible with a swipe, show your data consumption habits more visually, with graphs. There’s also a map so you can see where you tend to use mobile data more frequently. In some places, you may think that you are connected to Wi-Fi networks but, in fact, you are not. In the Android version, My Data Manager advises you about which apps are using more data. This information may help you adjust your phone use habits — such as checking Facebook a little less frequently. My Data Manager also has nice features, such as one for setting an alarm to let you know when you have reached your daily budget or a target, like 90 percent of the month’s allowance. It also lets you track data use on shared or family plans so you can tell who has been using the most data. Free for iOS and Android Onavo Count is also popular, and it is also modern in design, with clear displays so it is easy to understand how much of your data allowance you are using and how you are using it. It works in much the same way as its rivals, although it has a few unusual features, like a report on your “data life,” which shows you if you are spending more of your data budget on categories like music or movies. This information may prompt you to think about how you use apps like Spotify to stream music on the go. The app also lets you see how your data habits compare to other users’ averages. Free for Android, $1 for iPhones Data Usage is another good option. Its complexity is similar to that of My Data Manager, and it offers some of the same features, such as tracking shared accounts. But its design is a little more traditional, relying on plain text and simple visualizations to keep you advised on your mobile data consumption. Data Usage can be customized to suit your particular needs, and this may appeal to people who want to know how much data they use daily. A few words of caution: This app has not been updated in a while on Android, which could affect how it runs on your particular phone. Also, individual cellphone networks often have apps available to help you manage how much mobile data you use, so do not forget to search the app stores for apps with the name of your carrier. I have been stung with high mobile data bills. Perhaps these apps can help you avoid the same problem.
The smartphone in your pocket gives you the power to chat, text, take selfies, and do a million other things. But it also burns through your data plan with your wireless carrier faster than you think.
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Why Millennials don't trust ads, real estate or social security
20150122111425
Gen Y is apparently suspicious of tradition: according to a new report, millennials are over conventional advertising, home ownership and the promise of social security. Millennials value authenticity more highly than the content itself when consuming news, according to a survey of 1,300 Elite Daily readers, nearly all in the millennial age range between the ages of 18 and 35, released by Elite Daily and Millennial Branding. As a result, they are relying on new ways to consume media, with 33 percent selecting blogs as their top media source. Fewer than 3 percent rank television news, magazines and books as influencing their decisions and only 1 percent said a compelling advertisement would make them trust a brand more. “They’re used to not trusting CEOs and politicians and just corporations in general,” says Dan Schawbel, founder of the Gen Y research and management consulting firm Millennial Branding. “That’s why they like blogs so much. Blogs, they feel, are written by an individuals, there’s typically not an agenda, and it’s a personal account of their thoughts and how they’re feeling, and so they can better align with that, especially if the content is written by someone who understands them or someone who is a millennial themselves.” The rejection of traditional media as inauthentic comes part and parcel with the trend of millennials discarding other norms accepted by previous generations. For example, the majority of millennials (59 percent) would rather rent a house than purchase one. As a result, homeownership, once the mark of adulthood, is increasingly delayed. Why are millennials trashing tradition? Don’t just blame millennials’ delayed marriages and love for newfangled technology. Most of the individuals surveyed in the study have come of age in a rough economic climate, something that has had a huge effect on their spending habits. Around three-quarters of millennials surveyed believe that the economy has negatively impacted their ability to save and spend money. In fact, homeownership isn’t down simply because millennials are turned off by tradition – 61 percent say that they just can’t afford to buy a home right now. Millennials aren’t expecting things to get better either, with 62 percent saying that they don’t believe they will receive social security at age 66. “They’re definitely less trusting. They don’t want to have the same careers as their parents. They are brand loyal, but to get their attention is much harder,” says Schawbel. “There’s a reason why brands spend so much money trying to reach them… They’re definitely harder to get, [but] there are 80 million in America, so you can’t really avoid them.” 3 Ways Brands Are Marketing Nostalgia in the Age of Throwback Thursday Attention Millennials: How to Excel at the Dying Art of Phone Conversations (Infographic) Reading Rainbow Breaks Record for Most Backers on Kickstarter…and the Campaign Isn’t Over Yet
In a new study, a third of millennials rank blogs as their top media source. But not even online posts can convince them to buy a house.
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Boston food truck company goes national
20150123013449
The Boston-based event company Food Truck Festivals of New England is going national. The company, which has been renamed Food Truck Festivals of America, LLC, said Tuesday that it was planning ticketed food-sampling events in at least three cities outside of New England. Its first food truck roundup will be held on March 21 at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Fla., during Red Sox spring training. “It was inevitable, especially since we cannot produce festivals year round in New England due to the cold weather months,” said Anne-Marie Aigner, the executive producer of Food Truck Festivals of America, in a statement. The Florida event will be held on March 21. The company also has planned events in Columbia, S.C., and Albuquerque, N.M., to be held in April. Aigner and Janet Prensky, the company’s founders, have organized 20 day-long food truck events since 2012 where patrons pay for tickets to sample dishes and order meals from a collection of rolling restaurants gathered in one place. Currently, the company has 12 events planned for 2015, according to its website. Its first event in the Boston area will be held in Jamaica Plain on May 10.
The newly renamed company Food Truck Festivals of America is planning events in Florida, South Carolina, and New Mexico.
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Dozens of terror suspects arrested across western Europe as US attempts to atone for Paris snub
20150125012148
Dozens of terror suspects have been arrested across Western Europe, with chilling new details emerging of the attacks being planned by jihadists in Belgium. It emerged today that the intelligence community was aware for weeks of the Belgian terrorist plot to murder police on the streets and in police stations. The plan was disrupted spectacularly with a shoot-out that left two would-be terrorists dead, with 17 subsequently arrested. Soon after came the arrests of more than two dozen others across western Europe. In the UK, a young female terror suspect arrested when she arrived at Stansted airport. In France, two more suspects linked to the Paris terror attacks were arrested, while in Germany two alleged ISIL members were grabbed. It comes as the US finally offered its heartfelt condolences to France in the wake of its recent bloodshed. Secretary of State John Kerry was in Paris working hard to overcome the presumed snub over the US not being adequately represented in the leaders march against terrorism. Judging by the body language of French president Francois Hollande though, more will need to be done. Watch the video for the full story. Do you have any news photos or videos?
Dozens of terror suspects have been arrested across Western Europe, with chilling new details emerging of the attacks being planned by jihadists in Belgium. 
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A Navy coat tradition, made in East Boston
20150126031955
Massachusetts has its share of peacoat industry contractors, but none like this. By the end of the month, Sterlingwear Boston will have stitched about 40,000 peacoats this year for the Navy at the company’s East Boston factory, where scores of workers sit at rows of sewing machines on a cement factory floor nearly the size of a football field. It’s like a set piece from a bygone era, when America was all about making things. Frank Fredella, the 84-year-old chief executive, often walks the floor, as he did on a recent morning, chatting with employees over the steady hum of 200 sewing machines. “When those machines are going,” Fredella said, cocking his head to listen, “it’s music to my ears.” While talk about the Massachusetts economy often buzzes around innovation, startups, and the latest app, Sterlingwear has perfected the art of manufacturing the rugged peacoat worn by Navy enlistees worldwide. The company just entered its fifth decade producing the classic garment — which continues to sell well among civilians, too — in an innocuous taupe-colored warehouse off Route 1A. Inside, hundreds of workers cut wool and sew button holes as inspectors tug at the seams of nearly finished coats. “Built like a battleship,” promotional literature states proudly, “but with the lines of a clipper.” Navy and other military contracts have helped Sterlingwear thrive in the post-industrial era. Under the federal Berry Amendment, passed in 1941, the military is required to buy domestically. The rules were designed to protect the nation’s industrial base and supply chain during periods of adversity and war, and the tradition continues even though the military occasionally runs into problems finding manufacturers stateside. The peacoat is about form and function — with a wide, stiff collar that can be raised to keep wind out — but includes no Gore-Tex, Velcro, or zippers. The design dates back 400 years to Europe, and the peacoat name is derived from the Dutch word for a coarse woolen cloth. Today, the familiar anchor-embossed buttons are made by Emsig Manufacturing Co., a global company with a plant in Putnam, Conn. The navy blue worsted wool comes from Northwest Woolen Mills in Woonsocket, R.I. Fredella’s father, Lorenzo, who immigrated to the United States from Italy in 1920 and worked at Massachusetts textile factories, started the company in 1965. Frank Fredella, a decorated Korean War veteran, followed in his footsteps, working in area textile mills with his father and attending Boston University at night. In the mid-1960s, Frank and his brother, Anthony, persuaded their father to act on his dream of opening their own company. They named it Viking Clothing Inc. and found a niche doing contract work for retailers. In 1968, the company landed its first contract with the Navy for peacoats. The company changed its name to Sterlingwear in 1982 after acquiring a local manufacturer of outerwear. While the company’s core business is making the coats, it has also manufactured Air Force dress jackets, women’s Army skirts, and Marine Corps berets. Sterlingwear also has a growing line of civilian clothes and since 2009 has opened retail stores in the Pheasant Lane Mall, South Shore Plaza, and at its East Boston headquarters. Fredella said total annual revenue is as much as $15 million. Fredella lives in a modest six-room house in Woburn with his wife of 61 years, Josephine. He rarely goes on vacation, employees said, spending most days in his office reviewing patterns on a mannequin, or making the rounds. “He pretty much knows everybody’s name, and he can hear if a machine is out of kilter,” said sales director Jack Foster. Government peacoat needs fluctuate, so the company has a second factory in Fall River to boost the 300-person workforce by another 150 if it lands an additional contract. Many of them are members of New England Joint Board UNITE Local 1 union, which represents New England textile and manufacturing workers. Government work can be steady, but it’s not immune to economic swings. After the federal cutbacks known as sequestration, about 50 Sterlingwear workers were laid off in 2010. Those employees have been slowly rehired, and Fredella said the company’s commercial business is poised to increase. Although the coats are more expensive than ones produced in Asia — the women’s “authentic peacoat” retails for $259 — retailers who use domestic manufacturers save on shipping costs. And US consumers are increasingly eager to buy American-made items, he said. “That’s where we compete,” Fredella said. “People want American-made, but they can’t find it.” Fredella said he has fielded offers to relocate elsewhere in the United States or overseas, but he can’t imagine leaving behind Boston and a workforce that often feels like a second family. The “family” includes Saadia Idane, who emigrated from Morocco in 2001 and has been working at Sterlingwear since. She inspects the peacoat stitches, button holes, and back vents. Her job, along with her husband’s income from driving a taxi, has allowed them to send their daughter to Boston College. Nearby, Joseph Sortino of Cambridge carefully pressed collars into shape on an ironing board, one of the final steps before the jackets are bagged individually and sent to military supply warehouses around the nation. Sterlingwear makes 40,000 peacoats for the US Navy a year. Sortino is among a group of Italian-American employees who have worked at Sterlingwear for more than 40 years. He sometimes spends 10 or more hours a day on his feet. The 81-year-old smiled as he carefully handled coat after coat. He said he’s nowhere close to considering retirement. “I don’t get tired,” he said, “because I like what I do.”
Massachusetts has its share of defense industry contractors, but none like this. Sterlingwear Boston peacoats for the US Navy -- 40,000 of them this year.
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With Pringles, Kellogg looks to expand overseas
20150127032531
NEW YORK - Kellogg is hoping Pringles will satisfy its craving for a salty snack. The food giant is best known for its lineup of sweet breakfast items, including Frosted Flakes and Eggo frozen waffles. But yesterday, it became the world’s second-biggest savory snack maker behind PepsiCo Inc.’s Frito-Lay with a $2.7 billion deal to buy the potato snack brand from Procter & Gamble Co. The addition of Pringles bolsters Kellogg Co.’s cupboard of salty snacks such as Cheez-It and Keebler’s Club crackers. It also positions the company to expand at a time when the appetite for on-the-go foods is growing worldwide, particularly in emerging markets like China and India. “When you have people moving to the cities and becoming urbanized, they’re less likely to eat foods they grow themselves,’’ said Tom Graves, an analyst for Standard & Poor’s who follows Kellogg. “There’s a bigger opportunity to sell packaged foods.’’ Kellogg, which gets most of its revenue from North America, is looking for Pringles to help it expand into a global snacking company. Pringles, known for its iconic tube packaging, is sold in more than 150 countries and gets two-thirds of its $1.5 billion in annual revenue from overseas. It is difficult to quantify growth in the global snacking market, but its popularity continues to grow in the United States as more people adopt the school of thought that it is better to eat five or six small meals a day, rather than the conventional wisdom of eating three large ones. Between 2008 and 2018, the number of “snacking occasions’’ throughout the day in the United States is set to increase by 19 percent, according to market researcher NPD Group. And in the past year, sales of snack foods rose 3.3 percent to $16.6 billion, according to Nielsen. That is on top of a 1.8 percent growth the previous year. Pringles has also benefited from the snack rush. Shipments of the brand increased 5 percent in the latest quarter, according to P&G. P&G wanted to sell Pringles, the last of its food businesses, to focus on its core household and consumer goods products. P&G also owns the Boston-based Gillette brand. Kellogg was able to swoop in to buy Pringles from P&G after Diamond Foods Inc.’s proposed $1.5 billion acquisition of the brand fell through. Speculation had been growing that Diamond’s offer was in trouble after the San Francisco company disclosed a week ago that it was replacing its chief executive and top finance officer after an internal investigation found that the company improperly accounted for payments to walnut growers. Diamond, which makes Emerald Nuts and Pop Secret popcorn, now needs to restate two years of financial results. Last week, Cincinnati-based P&G said it was evaluating the deal and keeping all options open. The company even said that Pringles had “attracted considerable interest from other outside parties.’’ Kellogg expects to complete the Pringles acquisition during the summer, possibly on June 30. If the deal closes around that time, Kellogg anticipates it will add about 8 to 10 cents per share to its 2012 earnings before accounting for the acquisition and one-time costs and changes to its buyback program. One-time costs are expected to be between $160 million and $180 million, with approximately $70 million to $90 million of those costs likely to be recognized in 2012. Kellogg said its debt is likely to increase by about $2 billion and that it will limit stock buybacks for about two years to allow the company to reduce its debt. P&G expects an after-tax gain of $1.4 billion to $1.5 billion, or about 47 cents to 50 cents per share, from the deal with Kellogg. Diamond noted the termination of its deal was mutually agreed upon, and that it will not pay any breakup fees as a result.
Kellogg is hoping Pringles will satisfy its craving for a salty snack. The breakfast giant is best known for cereals including Frosted Flakes and Eggo frozen waffles. But on Thursday, it became the world’s second-biggest savory snack maker behind PepsiCo Inc.’s Frito-Lay with a $2.7 billion deal to buy the potato snack brand from Procter & Gamble.
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Courtney Love Guest Stars on Empire - and She Looks Incredible!
20150129073303
01/28/2015 AT 07:35 PM EST 's latest gig has her rocking more than her usual guitar. The Hole frontwoman is headed to Fox's – and PEOPLE has an exclusive first look at her bedazzled appearance on the new hit show. and Taraji P. Henson as the patriarch and matriarch behind a a successful record label. And Love, 50, will have a recurring role on the series as "a hard rock powerhouse, who is part of Empire Entertainment’s stable of artists," according to FOX. Though Love – who recently walked the red carpet at Sundance with her daughter to promote their new documentary – is known for her music, this isn't the first time she's shown off her Love has starred in the films The singer's first episode of airs Feb. 11 at 9 p.m. on Fox. Taraji P. Henson, Terrence Howard and Courtney Love on Empire
The musician will guest star on the Fox series as "a hard rock powerhouse"
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MFA, Worcester base pithy shows on a single work in context
20150201224913
Museum of Fine Arts, boston Detail of “Adam and Eve” by Gustav Klimt. An occasion in itself, the first ever display of a painting by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) at the Museum of Fine Arts, also confirms a new trend in museum showmanship — and I like it. It involves negotiating with other institutions to borrow, for a few months, single works of art, and then making a bit of a fuss over them. Put them on display. Adorn them with one or two, maybe half a dozen, other works from your own museum’s collection — works that enhance or illuminate some aspect of the borrowed work. And voila! There’s your show. In this era of rising borrowing costs and ballooning overheads (often the result of ill-conceived expansions), this more modest approach to temporary exhibitions is at once practical and commendable. It’s all about focus. The Museum of Fine Arts has been mounting such shows for several years under the auspices of its Visiting Masterpieces series. The program has an improvised, what-will-they-pull-out-of-the-hat-next? aspect that I enjoy. Since 2010, the museum has played host to Van Gogh’s “The Sower” (from the Van Gogh Museum), Cezanne’s “The Large Bathers” (from the Philadelphia Museum of Art), Renoir’s “Dance in the Country” and “Dance in the City” (the Musee d’Orsay) as well as the Capitoline Brutus and works by Caravaggio and Piero della Francesca from Italy. It has borrowed the Klimt, which was painted within 12 months of the artist’s death and left unfinished, from the Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna. Inevitably, these loans involve a quid pro quo — usually a work or works sent from the MFA to the lending institution. But such arrangements seem more spontaneous and civil than the more brutish business of organizing large-scale blockbusters, with their colossal logistical and financial challenges and necessarily long lead times, and obviously preferable to gutting the museum of its masterpieces for traveling shows that raise revenue. The MFA’s “Visiting Masterpieces” approach is also being pursued by other museums in the region. The Worcester Art Museum recently launched its so-called “Master Series,” which is all about spotlighting a work — often borrowed, but sometimes taken from Worcester’s own collection — and pairing it with one or two others. Presently, it is showing a gigantic Norman Rockwell drawing, recently acquired from the Higgins Armory Museum, and Raphael’s beautiful “The Small Cowper Madonna,” which is on loan from the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. Raphael’s “The Small Cowper Madonna.” The visiting Raphael has been paired with a similar painting of the Virgin and Child from Worcester’s own collection, which the museum acquired in 1940, believing it to be a Raphael. That attribution was long ago set aside. It’s easy to see why — especially when you see it next to “The Small Cowper Madonna,” which Raphael painted as a young man, shortly after coming to Florence from Urbino. A Virgin and Child once believed to be by Raphael. The Worcester picture is lovely enough, but there is something thwarted and incomplete about it. The background landscape feels insubstantial; the infant Christ’s fingers are absurdly stubby; and his mother’s face — with its half-closed eyes and strikingly long, straight nose — is stylized to the point of vacancy. Note, too, the way the arc describing the back of the boy’s head perfectly touches the arc of the Virgin’s cheek. As a compositional conceit, it’s suspiciously contrived — not at all a trick Raphael would have played. Raphael epitomized instead the Italian ideal of sprezzatura: the notion, which was soon to be developed by Baldassare Castiglione in “The Book of the Courtier” (1528), of a personal freedom and nonchalance that avoids any appearance of over-diligence. His art expressed what Raphael’s contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, called “a grace beyond measure.” It is exciting, up close, to see Raphael’s under-drawing in “The Small Cowper Madonna.” We can see, in these visible outlines, the beginning of what we think of now as the modern style — a style that was massively influential not only in Raphael’s day, but for the next 400 years. I’m talking about Raphael’s special way of combining an unprecedented naturalism, a fidelity to the three-dimensional appearance of reality, with a form of idealization — a style. In unexpected ways, that distinctive combination raises its head again in the work of Gustav Klimt, which is part of what makes these two mini-exhibitions so interesting to think about in tandem. In Raphael, style amounts to an ongoing conversation between the earthly world of appearances (with all its imperfections) and a divine or ideal realm. You can see the dialog at its most rudimentary level in the contrast between, on the one hand, the realism of the fabric that is stretched across the Virgin’s bust so that it forms creases at the seam, and, on the other, the idealization expressed by the uninflected curve of her jaw line and the continuous, apparently boneless curve of her right shoulder. In Raphael’s many studies for his paintings of the Virgin with the infant Christ (and often John the Baptist), what stands out are the circling motions of his pen. You can feel the beginnings of a Christian theology in these simple-seeming motions. For Raphael, the circle was a perfect form, linked to the divine. But in his drawing, the circles, even as they seem to search for the perfection of completion, are never actually complete. Instead, they are left as unfinished arcs, or they are distended into ellipses — imperfect circles, suggestive of the earthly, rather than the heavenly realm. Of course, these ellipses and incomplete arcs also serve important pictorial functions. On the one hand, they are decorative: They establish rhythms and echoes across the surface of the picture. But they are also fully alive, fully plastic (bendable, malleable); their smallest inflections help Raphael carve out the illusion of space, pushing his figures back behind the flat surface of the image into an imaginary depth, an earthly, embodied landscape. Repeated with small variations, they also convey bodily animation. Raphael’s easy naturalism is reinforced in a painting like “The Small Cowper Madonna” by his beautiful rendering of light and his subtle modeling. The way this naturalism harmonizes so comfortably with the divine is what makes his works so fresh, and so timelessly beautiful. Raphael forged a style, as personal and unmistakable in its way as any 20th-century style, but it was a style of unassailable integrity. By 1917, when Klimt painted his “Adam and Eve,” on show at the Museum of Fine Arts, the world had moved on from the idea that the relationship between an ideal world and reality — between the heavenly realm and the “fallen” world — could be expressed so comfortably, so seamlessly. Yet Klimt’s art expressed exactly the same underlying tensions as Raphael’s. It was the tension between naturalism and idealism; between a decorative organization of the picture’s surface, and a convincing illusion of reality. Against Raphael’s repeating arcs, Klimt expressed the scurrying, flickering, twitchy character of modern life with his wild, unraveling line, full of serpentine energies ominously disturbed. The line, for instance, that defines the contour of Eve’s left side (on our right) has no natural grace or proportion — not by Raphaelesque standards, anyway. It seems to ripple and bend wherever it will. And yet Eve’s frontally displayed body, with its veinous pallor, thick thighs, and pink knees, also feels extremely naturalistic. “If he wants to make a woman, let him make a woman,” said Picasso after seeing Matisse’s “Blue Nude (Memory of Biskra)” in 1907. “If he wants to make a design, let him make a design. This is between the two.” The same thing could be said of Klimt — but with a crucial difference: Where Matisse struggled endlessly to unite his feeling for decoration with his fidelity to sensual reality, Klimt was happy to play up the dissonance. It is often observed that Klimt’s preoccupations overlapped with those of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, who was thinking and writing and treating patients in the same social milieu in Vienna in which Klimt was painting. The painter’s unfinished rendering of Eve (which may have been the last woman he ever painted) suggests a similar desire to excavate the instinctual and especially the erotic side of existence, buried beneath layers of civilization and repression. Klimt, who was the cofounder and first president of the Vienna Secession, had been painting erotic subjects since the 1890s. But to be addressing this theme in 1917, against a backdrop of mass death and destruction — and indeed the artist’s own impending death — must surely have felt charged. (Freud at the same time was cogitating on ideas that would soon become “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” — his brilliant, speculative meditation on the so-called “death drive.”) In the Bible, the story of Adam and Eve is linked not with a knitting together of heavenly and earthly realms, as in the art of Raphael, but with a fall from perfection, with the curse of original sin. But in this painting Klimt is less interested in any traditionally Christian take on original sin, and more concerned with emphasizing Eve’s powerful eroticism. She may, as she emerges from the thigh of the shadowy male figure of Adam behind her, represent the liberation of female sexuality, but it is a sexuality you feel Klimt, and men in general, might feel threatened or overwhelmed by. His Eve, in other words, is not just a pretty woman. She is the archetype of the femme fatale — that evergreen product of the patriarchal imagination that was especially in vogue in Klimt’s day. What are we to make of Klimt’s vision a century later? His ideas, and his take on female sexuality, do not seem particularly current. It seems that he, like Freud and like his Scandinavian contemporaries Edvard Munch and August Strindberg, wanted to register the radical, tragic nature of the conflict between the sexes — to see it in all its terrible grandeur. Although these visions suggest strong streaks of misogyny — Strindberg, for instance, was “mocked and maddened,” as Germaine Greer once wrote, “by the very inscrutability of the female body compared to the pathetic exposure of male libido” — they might in some ways contain truths ignored by our current tendency to trivialize the problem of male-female relations. Still, aesthetically, I find Klimt’s style uncomfortable. At times, he can seem like a society portraitist and decorator looking for, but never quite finding, a deeper purpose. His much younger protégé, Egon Schiele, represented here by a charcoal and watercolor drawing and a drypoint from the MFA’s collection, pushed his master’s delicately dissonant aesthetic powerfully in the direction of naturalism — but it was a neurotic naturalism that frequently tipped over into histrionics. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston “Two Nudes (Lovers)” by Oskar Kokoschka. The same tendency manifested itself, albeit with different results, in the work of Oskar Kokoschka. The MFA’s Kokoschka, “Two Nudes (Lovers)” from 1913 — a portrait of the artist awkwardly embracing his lover, the legendary Alma Mahler, in a dismal-looking Eden — hangs here next to Klimt’s “Adam and Eve.” The juxtaposition intensifies, by contrast, the Klimt’s decorative aspects, just as the Klimt’s blushing fragility brings out the blowsy Expressionism of the Kokoschka. Neither is especially enhanced by the pairing. Klimt’s drawings, it must be said, are among the most beautiful of the 20th century. They turn Raphael’s incomplete arcs into looping, dancing tangles that twitch with erotic energy. Two are included here, along with Ferdinand Hodler’s famous “Secession” poster from 1904, rounding off a fascinating, provocative display. Gustav Klimt’s Adam and Eve At: Museum of Fine Arts, through April 27. 617-267-9300. www.mfa.org At: Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, through Sept. 27. • More from Sebastian Smee
Two current exhibitions — one built around Klimt at the Museum of Fine Arts, the other around Raphael at the Worcester Art Museum — offer illuminating confluences and contrasts.
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http://fortune.com/2015/02/02/ellen-pao-kleiner-discrimination/
http://web.archive.org/web/20150204084458id_/http://fortune.com/2015/02/02/ellen-pao-kleiner-discrimination/
Former Kleiner partner seeks $16 million in discrimination lawsuit
20150204084458
(Reuters) – Ellen Pao, a former partner at prominent Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, is seeking $16 million for discrimination and retaliation in a lawsuit against the firm, a Kleiner attorney said in court. The suit, filed in 2012, accuses the firm of holding her back from a promotion and better compensation after she complained about harassment by a male partner. The case helped spark a broad and ongoing discussion in Silicon Valley about sexism. Kleiner has denied the accusations of discrimination and retaliation, along with accusations that it did not take reasonable steps to prevent discrimination. At a hearing in San Francisco Superior Court on Monday, Kleiner attorney Lynne Hermle publicly disclosed the amount of damages sought for the first time. Hermle also said both sides have attempted to mediate the dispute. “To say it was nonproductive would be an understatement,” Hermle said. Monday’s hearing dealt in part with the issue of the valuation and ownership breakdown of Reddit, the social news site, where Pao currently works as interim chief executive officer. Knowing those details is key to establishing any damages that may have arisen from lost compensation at Kleiner, Hermle argued. Sarah Tauman, an attorney for Reddit, said her client would be willing to provide the latest internal valuation of the company, but didn’t want to provide further information such as the ownership breakdown, which would include Pao’s share. Private companies like Reddit generally strive to keep those details confidential. Judge Ernest Goldsmith gave Tauman until Thursday to file arguments on Reddit’s position. In a separate hearing Monday, Judge Peter Catalanotti ruled that Pao’s lawyers can question Amanda Duckworth, a public relations representative for Kleiner Perkins, but must limit the questions to issues such as Duckworth’s communications with third parties on Pao’s employment and communications. Catalanotti also ruled that Pao’s lawyers can question former partner Aileen Lee if they limit the questions to Pao’s employment, termination, and communications with an outside discrimination expert Kleiner hired, Stephen Hirschfeld.
Pao currently works as interim chief executive officer of Reddit.
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http://www.people.com/article/fan-chops-off-nose-tip-captain-america-villain-red-skull
http://web.archive.org/web/20150206035847id_/http://www.people.com/article/fan-chops-off-nose-tip-captain-america-villain-red-skull
Superfan Chops Off Tip of His Nose to Look Like Marvel Villain Red Skull
20150206035847
Red Skull (left) and Henry Damon Snap Stills/REX USA; Ariana Cubillos/AP 02/05/2015 AT 03:45 PM EST If you want to be a convincing villain, you have to look the part. And Henry Damon certainly does, having had surgery to remove the tip of his nose in an ongoing quest to look like Red Skull, the archenemy of Captain America, Britain's The Venezuelan resident, 37, who is said to be happily married, already had bumps added to his forehead and arms to look like the Nazi bad guy from the Marvel comics. And he's even going by the name "Red Skull" now. "He has loved comic books since he was a kid and always dreamed of being Red Skull, but never got around to doing it," says a friend. Seem a little … excessive? Well, it is. But Damon's doctor, who reportedly dropped out of medical school to focus on tattooing and extreme body surgery, says Damon isn't crazy. "Henry, aka Red Skull, is a physically and intellectually healthy person," the doctor says. "He's an excellent son, husband and father, who has an extreme taste for body modification." And he's not done yet. He's expected to get silicone implants on his cheekbones, chin and cheeks, and then dye his face red to complete the transformation. Federico Parra / AFP / Getty
Henry Damon has "an extreme taste for body modification," says his doctor
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http://www.9news.com.au/world/2015/02/05/13/45/un-chief-calls-for-truce-in-ukraine-town
http://web.archive.org/web/20150208035259id_/http://www.9news.com.au:80/world/2015/02/05/13/45/un-chief-calls-for-truce-in-ukraine-town
Ukraine to lobby Kerry for arms
20150208035259
Rocket fire has killed five people near a hospital in Ukraine. (AAP) US Secretary of State John Kerry has arrived in Kiev where pro-Western leaders hope Washington will send weapons to help them battle pro-Russian separatists. His visit on Thursday comes as international pressure grows for an immediate halt to the surging violence in eastern Ukraine, with 19 civilians and troops killed in the latest rebel push into government-held territory. In Brussels, NATO was set to agree a major boost to the alliance's defences near its Russian borders, including a quick-reaction spearhead force of 5000 troops. Despite growing talk of Washington arming Ukrainian forces, a State Department official said only that Kerry would unveil $US16 million ($A20.57 million) in US humanitarian aid. Kerry will meet President Petro Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin ahead of a security conference in Munich on Friday during which he will sit down with Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov. A tank lays damaged after heavy fighting in eastern Ukraine. (AAP) "We have a Russian government talking the talk of ceasefire, talking the talk of peace, even as it fuels this conflict," a senior State Department official said. Ukraine and its Western allies accuse Moscow of sending thousands of regular army troops and weapons to support the rebels who launched an uprising against Kiev in April. And while Moscow has repeatedly denied the allegations, the separatists are equipped with the advanced weaponry of a regular army. The fighting has claimed more than 5350 lives since April, including 220 in the past three weeks. President Barack Obama's nominee for defence secretary Ashton Carter said on Wednesday he was likely to support providing weapons. In a move is likely to irk Moscow, NATO will also decide on six "command and control" units in Eastern European nations to ensure the new quick reaction force hits the ground running. Do you have any news photos or videos?
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on pro-Russian rebels and Ukrainian forces to agree to a temporary truce in the frontline town of Debaltseve.
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http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2015/02/12/george-clinton-bringing-funk-back-boston/Q5FuHG58Zc0KDpr6VXUyGL/story.html
http://web.archive.org/web/20150215163943id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2015/02/12/george-clinton-bringing-funk-back-boston/Q5FuHG58Zc0KDpr6VXUyGL/story.html
George Clinton bringing the funk back to Boston
20150215163943
Long before Dolly the sheep or that recent hoax about dinosaur DNA, George Clinton was fascinated with the idea of cloning. In the outrageous mythology of the R&B great’s musical universe, one of Clinton’s many alter-egos, Dr. Funkenstein, was said to be on a mission to create “specially designed Afro-nauts capable of funketizing galaxies.” There’s little doubt they’ve thoroughly funked up this one, at least. Parliament-Funkadelic’s decades-long run as party music’s wide-reaching, weird-embracing genre of one is a direct link between doo-wop and the most up-to-the-minute hip-hop; according to Clinton, he was recently messing around in the studio with rap wunderkind Kendrick Lamar. The 74-year-old R&B guru, whose latest act of rejuvenation includes a fittingly eccentric memoir (“Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?”) and a triple album credited to Funkadelic (“First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate”), brings his sprawling entourage to the House of Blues on Saturday. Boston, says Clinton, has always been one of his favorite places to play. The city, he writes in his book, was “our introduction to three important letters: L-S-D.” P-Funk’s infamous anything-goes stage show, with glittering starchildren squeezed up alongside dudes in enormous pimp’s hats and one longtime member who was partial to wearing nothing but a diaper, was clearly a product of mind-expanding experimentation. He’ll be thinking of the old Sugar Shack, the soul-music venue that enjoyed a brief but prosperous run on Boylston Street in the late ’60s, when they pull into town. “People party a certain type of way” in Boston, Clinton said recently, on the phone from his home in Tallahassee. His groups have always drawn an especially broad mix in the city — “street people,” college students, serious music heads from Berklee. And it was in Boston that he was first schooled in the goals of the civil rights movement, he says. For years, Clinton kept the party going nonstop by using crack cocaine. In the book, he recalls an amusing moment when Chelsea Clinton — apparently a big-time P-Funk fan — is ushered backstage for a picture, and he finds himself hastily concealing a smoking pipe in his fist. He’s clean now, and he seems to be relishing his new role as the funky elder statesman. Double-breasted suits and stylish Borsalinos have taken the place of Clinton’s signature rainbow hair extensions. He claims he’s already well underway with the next Parliament record — just a double album, he thinks — with parts already recorded by the “Horny Horns,” Fred Wesley and Pee Wee Ellis. Though there are lots of hip-hop beats on the new Funkadelic album, in some ways Clinton is revisiting his earliest years in music, when he was dreaming of becoming a songwriter while working in a New Jersey barbershop, straightening hair. “It’s a way of life,” he says. “It’s still to me that same fun we had in the barbershop when we first started. We were just clowning kids.” From a young age, Clinton was drawn to the playful insults of “playing the dozens” — a precursor to the rapper’s diss, he notes — and the street slang of his parents’ generation. He remembers his mother using the descriptor “brown,” “as in ‘It’s done,’ like a cake. It’s cool, it’s finished, it’s ready.” Doo-wop, the music he grew up on, was full of nonsense language. Then the psychedelic era opened up a new world of possibilities. George Clinton, center, with the Parliament-Funkadelic “The poetic license of the psychedelic era just allowed you to be stupid,” Clinton says, “because everything was beautiful.” That looseness — with language, the body, with music — has carried through every P-Funk-related recording of the last half-century, from “Cosmic Slop” and “Aquaboogie” to “Atomic Dog” (“bow-wow-wow, yippie yo, yippie yay”). The music of the P-Funk All-Stars was a major component of rap’s early sampling years, with De La Soul, Dr. Dre and Digital Underground, to name just a few, basing hits on the Clinton universe’s bottomless supply of riffs. Next month, Clinton will be in London to take part in FutureFest, a “two-day trip to the future” that will also feature an appearance by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. For Clinton, who expects to perform and speak on a panel about copyright, a subject he knows well, the last 50 years have been one long trip into the future. For years after P-Funk’s heyday in the ’70s, he tried to score more chart appearances. And he occasionally succeeded. Now, however, he’s content to let the music find its niche. “It usually takes 10 years for people to catch onto your albums,” he says, citing the 1996 release “T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M.” (“The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothersip”) as one of the P-Funk All-Stars’ currently most-requested titles. “To me, you last longer if you’re not worried about being on the charts.” By now, his longevity is secure. Visiting the Los Angeles Lakers’ locker room back in the day, he was amused to see Magic Johnson stroll in blaring Funkadelic’s “(Not Just) Knee Deep” on his boombox. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar told his guests their music was the clubhouse soundtrack. “It’s ‘One Nation Under a Groove’ around here,” he said.
Parliament-Funkadelic’s decades-long run as party music’s wide-reaching, weird-embracing genre of one is a direct link between doo-wop and the most up-to-the-minute hip-hop. Boston, says George Clinton, has always been one of his favorite places to play.
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http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201502/kobe-bryant-i-cant-be-great-friend
http://web.archive.org/web/20150219175409id_/http://www.thepostgame.com:80/blog/dish/201502/kobe-bryant-i-cant-be-great-friend
Kobe Bryant: I Can't Be A Great Friend
20150219175409
Those who think Kobe Bryant is without a weakness are sorely mistaken. The Black Mamba, who has found time for more introspection recently, admitted in an interview with GQ that one of his greatest flaws is his inability to cultivate great friendships. When asked by interviewer Chuck Klosterman if he had friends, Bryant responded with this: "I have 'like minds.' You know, I've been fortunate to play in Los Angeles, where there are a lot of people like me. Actors. Musicians. Businessmen. Obsessives. People who feel like God put them on earth to do whatever it is that they do. Now, do we have time to build great relationships? Do we have time to build great friendships? No. Do we have time to socialize and to hangout aimlessly? No. Do we want to do that? No. We want to work. I enjoy working." Bryant has long been known as a loner and he's had lots of problems with teammates during his two decades in the NBA. But it's hard to argue with the results: Bryant has brought five championship trophies to Los Angeles and earlier in the 2014-15 he overtook Michael Jordan for third place on the NBA's all-time scoring list. The 36-year-old Bryant traces his lack of companions to his childhood in Italy. He told Klosterman of his struggles finding friends while his family moved around the country to accommodate his father's professional basketball aspirations. "Of course. It's not like I'm saying, 'I don't need friends because I'm so strong.' It's a weakness. When I was growing up in Italy, I grew up in isolation. It was not an environment suited to me. I was the only black kid. I didn't speak the language. I'd be in one city, but then we'd move to a different city and I'd have to do everything again. I'd make friends, but I'd never be part of the group, because the other kids were already growing up together. So this is how I grew up, and these are the weaknesses that I have." Bryant has been committed to basketball for so long that now that his playing days are limited he seems to be struggling with how to handle himself. After tearing his rotator cuff last month Bryant is out for the rest of the 2015 season, the third year in a row in which an injury has sidelined him for the end of the season. Bryant is set to make $25 million in 2015-16, but it's unclear whether he'll be able to make it through a full season. There's more uncertainty regarding who will be playing around him, as the Lakers are reportedly struggling to find guys who want to be Bryant's teammates. To read Bryant's entire GQ interview, see here. 2014-15 Highest Paid NBA Players Like us on facebook, follow us on twitter, and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hannah Davis: Before The SI Cover
Those who think Kobe Bryant is without a weakness are sorely mistaken. The Black Mamba, who has found time for more introspection recently, admitted ...
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http://fortune.com/2012/01/30/when-friends-and-work-just-dont-mix/
http://web.archive.org/web/20150220040144id_/http://fortune.com:80/2012/01/30/when-friends-and-work-just-dont-mix/
When friends and work just don’t mix
20150220040144
By Katherine Reynolds Lewis, contributor FORTUNE — When David Bakke was looking to move from restaurant management into finance, he immediately thought to contact a friend who worked at a mortgage-lending firm in Tampa. Based on the friend’s recommendation, Bakke was hired for a financial analyst position at the company. Then things turned sour. The job turned out to be little more than a secretary position. Instead of learning about risk management and financial forecasting as Bakke’s friend had promised, he was making photocopies, answering phones, and taking notes in meetings. When his friend learned of Bakke’s dissatisfaction, he tried to guilt trip him, saying, “If you quit, that’s going to damage my reputation around here. I got you hired on the spot.” Shortly thereafter, Bakke gave notice and left the firm. His friend hasn’t spoken with him since. “Fortunately, with my restaurant management background, I was able to get back into the industry,” says Bakke, 45, who now is working in financial services in Atlanta. “It wasn’t like I suffered any financial hardships out of the situation, but I did lose the friendship, which is unfortunate.” As our personal and work lives lap into each other, it heightens the need for better communication and forethought to avoid an uncomfortable situation like Bakke’s. The stakes are higher, because you don’t want to lose your friendship — or your job. Since we’re more likely to drop our guard or assume our friend has the same perspective we do, it’s important to bring hidden assumptions into the open. Give as much thought to due diligence and professional etiquette with your friend as you would with any work contact. Career strategist Darrell W. Gurney calls it a “free trade networking agreement,” in which you explicitly discuss the terms of an introduction, recommendation or other situation. You might say, “I’ll make the introduction. I’ll leave it to you to nurture and make the most of that connection,” says Gurney, author of Never Apply for a Job Again: Break the Rules, Cut the Line, Beat the Rest. Or, in Bakke’s case, his friend could have said, “I’ll recommend you for the job. You need to determine that it’s the right fit, or it could hurt my reputation.” In retrospect, Bakke would have questioned the hiring manager more closely to learn exactly what duties he’d be responsible for, and how soon he could advance to a substantive position in mortgage finance. He wouldn’t have relied on his friend’s representations before taking the job. So is it worth it to try to use your friendships in your climb up the career ladder? Matt Whitteker wouldn’t do it any other way. Whitteker, 27, met his business partner in the boxing ring. “There’s a huge white-collar following in boxing clubs,” he says. “You’d be surprised how many executives and CEOs go. The executives want that competition, even in their off hours.” The club’s coach told Whitteker to spar with Rob Imbeault, the chief executive of software firm 10Count. Before long, they were going out for drinks with other boxers. As they got to know each other, they naturally discussed Whitteker’s career — as he sought advice from the older, experienced executive — and their shared interest in business and technology. Four years later, Imbeault’s firm ended up acquiring the online transcription and call recording company that Whitteker founded, and giving Whitteker a job at 10Count. When networking with friends, be specific about your needs and interests and straightforward about your intentions, advises Shawn O’Connor, founder and CEO of Stratus Careers, a career counseling and training firm based in New York. Rather than just saying “I need a job,” let your friends know the job positions of individuals you want to meet, and the types of employers that interest you. Do your homework on the person and the firm. Don’t waste your friend’s time or the goodwill of your friend’s contact. “It’s hard for friends to dig deep into their networks,” O’Connor says. “If you’re going to use friends to try to develop your career, you really need to talk about what your expectations are.” One of O’Connor’s former clients asked her friends to help set up informational interviews, but in the meetings she pressed the contacts on whether they had any job openings or knew about any openings. “She lost a number of friends and soured her reputation in the industry as well,” he says. “People really felt used, in the sense that she was saying she was looking for one thing and doing something totally different. It came back to her friends from these senior people who they need for their career development.” To protect himself from this kind of scenario, O’Connor always emails a connection some details about what the friend is looking for and why he felt it would be a good fit. It’s better for all involved to take the time up-front to ensure a connection would be helpful. The connector should tell the friend and the connection a bit about the person they’re going to meet and their goals. If your friend can’t help you network, don’t take offense. “It’s so much better for everyone involved to say, ‘I don’t have anyone to connect you with,’ than to connect them to the wrong person,’ ” O’Connor says. After the connection has been made, follow-up with your friend about how the meeting went and how your job search is going. You should send a thank-you note or e-mail to a friend just as you would to a professional contact. And don’t limit yourself to friends. Broadcast journalist Daniel Goldstein, 40, was waiting to buy food at Roy Rogers when his wife struck up a conversation with the woman seated at the next table. It turned out she was looking to hire a writer and Goldstein’s background was a good fit. After a few conversations, an interview, and pay negotiation, he took the position. “You never know when, you never know where, and you always have to keep your ears and your eyes open. Be willing to sell yourself to anyone, anywhere, any time, even when you’re standing in line at Roy Rogers,” he concludes.
An innocent attempt at networking could cost you your job, your friendship, or both. Here’s how you can avoid disaster.
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http://fortune.com/2012/07/12/aereo-the-fight-is-not-over/
http://web.archive.org/web/20150222141504id_/http://fortune.com/2012/07/12/aereo-the-fight-is-not-over/
Aereo: The fight is not over
20150222141504
By Roger Parloff, senior editor FORTUNE — Aereo, the web TV startup backed by IAC/Interactive Corp. IACI , won a huge legal victory yesterday, fending off extinction at the hands of the major television networks, who say its service violates their copyrights. But whether the victory will amount to a full pardon or a mere stay of execution has yet to be determined. The plaintiffs, led by Disney’s DIS ABC, NBC Universal CMCSA , CBS CBS , and Fox NWS , will seek an immediate appeal. And even while ruling in Aereo’s favor, U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan hinted that she would have come out the other way if she were not bound by the language of an unusual 2008 appellate court ruling. Aereo, which is currently available only to New York City residents, charges subscribers $12 per month to enable them to watch live and recorded over-the-air broadcast television stations (but not cable) on their Apple AAPL iPhones, iPads and web browsers. When a cable company or satellite provider, like ComCast or DirecTV DTV , retransmits broadcast television signals to subscribers, it has to pay the copyright owners (broadcasters and television studios) for the privilege. That’s because, under the law, such a retransmission is considered a “public performance” of the programming, which copyright owners control. Aereo — the brainchild of engineer/CEO Chaitanya (Chet) Kanojia — claims it’s different, though, and, as a consequence, it doesn’t pay copyright owners squat. It maintains that it simply enables its subscribers to see their own “private performances” of the programs, in the same way that they could if they were sitting in their living rooms watching free, over-the-air TV with an old-fashioned rabbit-ears antenna plucking the signal out of the air. MORE: Megaupload and the twilight of copyright Aereo effectively rents the subscriber the modern-day equivalent of his own private, tiny, off-site rabbit-ears antenna. (Aereo keeps several thousand of these antennas — each the size of a dime — in a warehouse in Brooklyn, where they are hooked up to Aereo’s custom-made computer hardware.) Each antenna feeds signals into the equivalent of a DVR which is, again, private to each subscriber. When the subscriber wants to see or record a show, he remotely signals his DVR in Brooklyn to send the program he wants over the Internet to the subscriber’s iPhone or iPad or browser. The broadcasters say that Aereo’s purportedly innovative technology is actually just an inefficient, convoluted attempt to do an end-run around the copyright laws. If Congress requires cable and satellite providers to pay license fees to retransmit their over-the-air signals—and it clearly does — why shouldn’t Aereo have to do the same? In her remarkably lucid, 53-page ruling, Judge Nathan acknowledged that she probably would have ruled for the TV networks “but for” the existence of a 2008 ruling of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, by which she is bound. In that case — formally known as Cartoon Network v. CSC Holdings but usually just called Cablevision CVC — some movie and television studios challenged the legality of Cablevision’s cloud-based DVR service. Not surprisingly, the court found nothing objectionable with a remote-storage DVR, which simply relieved customers of the need to make space for a clunky, set-top DVR in their home. While there are many distinctions between Cablevision’s remote DVR service and Aereo’s live TV service, the most striking is that Cablevision already was paying copyright holders for the right to broadcast their live signals, while Aereo pays nothing. MORE: The quiet scandal of the HIV home test kit But that wasn’t the way the issue was framed in Cablevision. The problem there was that, to implement its remote DVR system, Cablevision started splitting the broadcast signal stream in two, sending one stream directly to subscribers for live transmission and looping the other through its remote DVR system for later relay to subscribers if and when sought. So in that case, the copyright holders were effectively asking to get paid twice—once for the live stream and once for the DVR stream. It was a bit of overreaching that, as we’ll see, seems to have now come around to bite the copyright holders in the butt. While there were potentially many reasons the Second Circuit might have ruled for Cablevision in that case, the one it selected was this: “Because each [remote storage] DVR playback transmission is made to a single subscriber using a single unique copy produced by that subscriber, we conclude that such transmissions are not performances ‘to the public,’ and therefore do not infringe any exclusive right of public performance.” That’s how the Second Circuit saved Cablevision from having to pay copyright holders twice. But now that very same logic seems to protect Aereo from having to pay copyright holders even once! (Reads like an Aesop’s fable, doesn’t it?) “Aereo has made substantial investments of money and human capital in its system,” Judge Nathan wrote in her ruling yesterday, “all in reliance on the assumption that the Second Circuit meant what it said in Cablevision rather than what it did not say. Particularly considering the role of district courts to faithfully apply their best understanding of the Second Circuit’sprecedent, this Court does not believe it would be appropriate to blaze a trail that runs opposed to the direction dictated by Cablevision.” MORE: Aereo is leaving the courts dazed and confused In an unusual coda, Judge Nathan noted that the ordinarily most difficult hurdle for a plaintiff to clear in a preliminary injunction case — proof that he faces immediate and “irreparable harm”—was actually met here. She thought so, she wrote, because: – “Aereo will damage Plaintiffs’ ability to negotiate with advertisers by siphoning viewers from traditional distribution channels, in which viewership is measured by Neilsen ratings, into Aereo’s service, which is not measured by Neilsen”; — “Aereo’s activities will damage Plaintiffs ability to negotiate retransmission agreements, as these companies will demand concessions to make up for this decrease in viewership”; — Cable companies might now refuse to pay any retransmission fees to networks if, as one witness testified, Aereo “can take the exact same product for free.’” Finally, Judge Nathan also declined an invitation by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization which submitted an amicus brief in the case, to find any general public interest in “free access” to broadcast television. “The same logic,” she wrote, “would support a finding that the public interest favors imposing no copyright restrictions on any form of redistribution of Plaintiffs’ broadcast television, as unrestrained piracy of that content would also increase public access to content broadcast over the free public airwaves. For example, distributing over the internet an infringing bootleg copy of a television program that was initially broadcast on the public airwaves increases access to that program. [EFF’s] argument thus bears an unacceptable resemblance to advocacy that copyright infringement of broadcast television is generally in the public interest, a point on which this Court cannot agree.”
The innovative web TV startup won a major legal victory this week. That doesn't mean its troubles are over.
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http://fortune.com/2015/02/23/how-rapper-pharrell-williams-networks-like-a-businessman/
http://web.archive.org/web/20150226004506id_/http://fortune.com:80/2015/02/23/how-rapper-pharrell-williams-networks-like-a-businessman/
How rapper Pharrell Williams uses his business connections
20150226004506
Erica Dhawan is the founder and CEO of Cotential, a consultancy that helps businesses solve challenges through networking. In their new book, Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence, Erica Dhawan and co-author Saj-nicole Joni explain how rapper Pharrell Williams uses his music connections to serve a higher purpose. Below, is an exclusive edited excerpt: Last month at the World Economic Forum at Davos, rapper Pharrell Williams made a big announcement to prime ministers, billionaires, and CEOs. He announced a concert over seven continents to mobilize support for a UN climate pact in Paris at the end of the year with his collaborator, Al Gore. Tackling climate change is not what we might expect from a rapper and hip hop producer, but that’s what makes Pharrell so unique. Pharrell Williams was never your typical rapper. He grew up in Virginia Beach; his Mom was a teacher, his Dad was a handyman. In school, he wasn’t the cool guy. He met his producing partner, Chad Hugo, during seventh grade band camp. Chad played the tenor saxophone and Pharrell played keyboards and drums. The two band-nerd friends formed a group called the Neptunes, which they imagined as a modern day incarnation of old-school Motown guy groups like Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, or The Temptations. From the beginning, Pharrell’s high-pitched falsetto was one of his most distinctive musical traits. By the time he and Chad graduated high school, the Neptunes were signed with top producer Ted Riley. But in the 1990s, rap ruled, and the Neptunes soon found success writing and producing songs like Wreckx-n-Effect “Rump Shaker” and Nelly’s “Hot in Herre.” By August 2003, Pharrell and the Neptunes had produced a stunning 20% of all the music being played on British pop radio and 43% of the music being played on American pop stations. It seemed Pharrell had that rare gift for creating music—tracks, hooks and lyrics—that was always one step ahead of the curve. Then, in 2006, he released his first solo single, “In My Mind,” and the album tanked. For Pharrell, the failure of the first album on which he’d fully fronted his own work was devastating. It took him a long time to see the reason behind it: he wasn’t being true to himself. He remembers that he was trying to “be like my peers—the Jays and the Puffs of the world, who make great music. But their purposes and their intentions are just completely different than what I have discovered in myself.” He took a step back and asked himself how could his music serve a higher purpose, “because I felt like I had amassed this big body of work, most—not all—but most of which was just about self-aggrandizement, and I wasn’t proud of it. So I couldn’t be proud of the money that I had; I couldn’t be proud of all the stuff that I had. I was thankful, but what did it mean? What did I do?” What he did was harken back to who he was as a kid in Virginia Beach, when he played in the marching band after school and spent hours on the weekends at the local skate park. He realized he’d never felt fully at home in the world of hardcore hip-hop, he was tired of trying to mimic the titans of that world—Jay Z and P. Diddy. He took his wealth, time and his energy and created i am OTHER, an organization dedicated to reaching young people who feel different and helping them use their unique talents to launch creative ventures. As Pharrell states in the organization’s mission statement, “We are proud to be different and believe that individuality is the new wealth. This shared philosophy flows through each pillar within our organization: music, film, television, apparel, tech and multimedia.” There’s a friendship behind Pharrell’s public success that harkens back to many connectionally intelligent friendships and partnerships throughout history. For example, Albert Einstein referred to his closest friend, Michele Besso, as “the best sounding board in Europe.” It was through their daily walks, discussing a shared love of the violin and scientific exchange, that Einstein was able to create his theory of relativity. As Einstein recalled at a lecture in Kyoto in 1922: That was a very beautiful day when I visited [Besso] and began to talk with him as follows: “I have recently had a question which was difficult for me to understand. So I came here today to bring with me a battle on the question.” After a lot of discussions with him, I could suddenly comprehend the matter. The next day I visited him again and said without greeting “Thank you. I’ve completely solved the problem.” In his book Powers of Two, Joshua Shenk explores the lives and accomplishments of scores of creative duos. Shenk shows that the romantic myth of the lone genius fails because it obscures the social, connected qualities of innovation. Shenk goes on to claim that the pair is a “primary creative unit,” because it can be seen in case after case as a fundamental, fractal, and recurring shape in the patterns of innovation. We agree: the creative pair is a natural and powerful expression of connectional intelligence that is often central to getting big things done. When Pharrell decided to reboot not only his career, but his entire approach to the music industry, and to focus on service and giving a voice to kids who were like himself, he turned to his close friend Mimi Valdes, the former editor-in-chief of Vibe and Latina magazines. Pharrell, who had long leaned on Valdes’ advice, asked her to join i am OTHER as creative director, not only to be his sounding board but also to bring to his many ventures her own mix of innovation and fierce integrity. “I was unsure at first,” she admitted. “I had never done this before. But I had to check myself—I have done this before. I know how to create content, and this is just a different form of content. Also, I know more than anybody how to help Pharrell execute his vision.” At i am OTHER, Pharrell funded and mentored kids who wanted to break into all of the fields to which he had access: fashion and entertainment, but also tech and manufacturing. He drew on the talent and creativity of the young people who had grown up on his music to start Bionic Yarn and other initiatives. Bionic Yarn, which creates textiles from recycled plastic bottles, has been tremendously successful, linking partnerships with companies like Kiehls, Cole Haan, and the Gap. He also created the Collaborative Fund, a venture capitalist fund that he described as “an investment fund focused on supporting and investing in the shared future. The fund centers around two macro themes, which we believe to be at the core of business innovation in the coming years: the growth of the creative class and the collaborative economy.” The investor team for the Collaborative Fund includes Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube; Chuck Temple, founder of OpenTable OPEN ; Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva; and Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. In addition to funding creative new companies, the Collaborative Fund has also funded innovative projects from the team at Sesame Street and Children’s Television Workshop. Inspired by his success, Pharrell did more—he co-founded a manufacturing company, Brooklyn Machine Works that crafts handmade bikes. And he founded From One Hand to AnOther, which has brought STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) curriculum to underserved kids in communities across the country. He was so busy and so satisfied and felt so fully himself that what he really needed to do, what he wanted to do, he said, was get back into the studio and make music again. The result was “Happy,” an unabashedly joyful song that went on to become the greatest hit of Pharrell’s career, selling millions of copies. Its 24-hour video, 24hoursofhappiness.com, reinvented and reinvigorated the music video format. And then the United Nations called. They wanted to partner with Pharrell to promote the International Day of Happiness on March 20, 2014. All around the world, people submitted videos of themselves—singing and dancing, serenading their loved ones, dancing with children, family, pets and friends. For Pharrell, who discovered, literally, a world of connection through embracing his otherness, this has been more than the biggest spike of his career. As he put it, it’s the discovery of his life’s work. “I didn’t know what my path was. I knew that I was meant to do something different. I knew that I needed to inject purpose in my music.” He called everything that led to his greatest failure, “just training.” Now when he considers any decision, creative or otherwise, he tells himself, “keep putting purpose in everything you do. Don’t worry about it; just put purpose in there.”
Pharrell Williams uses his music contacts to help contribute to educational and social issues.
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