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http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2001/07/27/2001-07-27_louima_cop_wins_a_review.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20110210055132id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/archives/news/2001/07/27/2001-07-27_louima_cop_wins_a_review.html | LOUIMA COP WINS A REVIEW | 20110210055132 | By MICHELE McPHEE SPECIAL TO EXPRESS
Friday, July 27th 2001, 2:22AM
A federal appeals court has ordered a review of the Abner Louima torture trial to determine whether a key witness may have misidentified one of the officers involved.
The decision by the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals could spark a new trial for ex-cop Charles Schwarz, who's serving a 15-year federal sentence.
At issue is the testimony of Officer Eric Turetzky, who said he saw Schwarz lead Louima into Brooklyn's 70th Precinct bathroom shortly before the 1997 attack on the Haitian immigrant.
But retired Sgt. Pat Walsh recently come forward to dispute that. Walsh says Turetzky told him six days after the attack that he saw "either Officer Thomas Wiese or Charles Schwarz walking Louima toward the bathroom" and that "he only saw them from the rear."
Based on Walsh's affidavit, the appeals court ordered the trial judge to determine if the prosecution suppressed evidence.
Sources said Walsh may have waited to retire to come forward because he feared retribution. | By MICHELE McPHEE SPECIAL TO EXPRESS A federal appeals court has ordered a review of the Abner Louima torture trial to determine whether a key witness may have misidentified one of the officers involved. The decision by the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals could spark a new trial for ex-cop Charles Schwarz, who's serving a 15-year federal sentence. At issue is the testimony of Officer Eric Turetzky, who said he saw Schwarz lead | 2.481481 | 1 | 25.098765 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/2002/11/15/2002-11-15_cast_of_poets_takes_b_way_a_.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20110211065346id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/archives/entertainment/2002/11/15/2002-11-15_cast_of_poets_takes_b_way_a_.html | CAST OF POETS TAKES B'WAY A LONG WAY FROM MIDTOWN | 20110211065346 | By ISAAC GUZMAN DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER
Friday, November 15th 2002, 8:42AM
RUSSELL SIMMONS DEF POETRY JAM ON BROADWAY
Written and performed by Staceyann Chin, Mayde Del Valle, Suheir Hammad, Georgia Me, Black Ice, Tendaji Lathan, Lemon, Poetri, Beau Sia. Directed by Stan Lathan. At the Longacre Theatre, 220 W. 48th St. Tickets: $25-65.(212) 239-6200.
In "Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway," poets Langston Hughes and Gil Scott-Heron get due respect alongside rappers Tupac Shakur and Chuck D. But there is no mistaking that hip hop comes first in this theatrical version of an HBO series, which opened yesterday at the Longacre Theatre.
With a mult-culti cast of nine young spoken-word artists, the night of poetry, stories and beats sounds like an authentic shout from the streets. The performers use their words as crowbars, attempting to pry open the door to America's pancultural scene. It opens just a crack, but this two-hour glimpse is broader and more honest than most of what the traditional media have done.
"I want to hear the poem about the Jamaican Rastaman who has never smoked weed," says Staceyann Chin in the show's opening number. "I want every poem to be about me," adds Beau Sia.
For the most part, the poets present their work individually, standing before a set of stylized stoops and doorways. But occasionally, they collaborate in groups of two or three, as do Chin and Black Ice on "Jammin'," a tribute to Jam Master Jay, Bob Marley and other artists who have been caught up in violence.
While a deejay named Tendaji spins records in the interludes, the performers - unlike rappers - recite without accompaniment. Their rhymes and phrases set the beat without music, allowing us to hear more clearly each poet's style.
While much of today's rap is dominated by hyperbolic violence, sexuality and boasting, these audacious new voices present a far more subtle world-view. Outrage is tempered with humor. Bleakness is leavened by joy.
"We are everywhere," proclaims Sia in "The Asians Are Coming, the Asians Are Coming." "Programming your Web sites and making your executives look smart and getting into your schools for free. There's no shutting me up until the egg roll is recognized as American food."
Whether the topic is domestic violence, racial profiling or the insidious threat of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, the issues are always given a human face here. While the message of tolerance is hardly new, the specificity in the poets' stories raise them above stereotypes.
Among the standouts in the cast are Sia, who intentionally sabotages his fauxaggressive stance with self-effacing humor. Mayde Del Valle turns her mother's kitchen - "she could turn Spam into filet mignon" - into a forum for cultural pride.
The performer called Poetri is consistently moving in his absurdist tales about heartbreak and money troubles. At one point he announces: "No longer will I try to look my best for women who don't know I'm in love with them - from now on, I'm dating myself."
While there are a few poems that lack bite, "Def Poetry" makes fusty old Broadway an outlet for genuine voices from the city's culturally diverse neighborhoods. If producer Simmons can bring a new audience to the Longacre - he's set ticket prices lower than those at most Broadway houses, but higher than at Nuyorican Poets Cafe - he will again have ushered a new form of urban expression into the American mainstream. | In "Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam on Broadway,"poets Langston Hughes and Gil Scott-Heron get due respect alongside rappers Tupac Shakur and Chuck D. But there is no mistaking that hip hop comes first in this theatrical version of an HBO series, which opened yesterday at the Longacre Theatre. With a mult-culti cast of nine young spoken-word artists, the night of poetry, stories and beats | 9.4 | 0.986667 | 33.12 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/2005/08/16/2005-08-16_filmmaker_s__untold_story__d.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20110212042511id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/archives/entertainment/2005/08/16/2005-08-16_filmmaker_s__untold_story__d.html | FILMMAKER'S 'UNTOLD STORY' DRIVES INQUIRY IN RACIAL KILLING | 20110212042511 | By JOE NEUMAIER DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER
Tuesday, August 16th 2005, 9:57AM
The murder of Emmett Till has haunted the life of Keith Beauchamp.
Now Beauchamp, 34, the director of "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till," is helping justice be done. The documentary, which opens tomorrow at Film Forum, recounts the horrifying tale of Till, a 14-year-old ÂAfrican-American from Chicago who was murdered while visiting cousins in Mississippi in 1955. But it was no Âordinary slaying. After allegedly whistling at a white woman outside a Âgeneral store, Till was taken from his cousin's home, beaten beyond recognition and horribly mutilated.
Upon seeing her son's body, Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open-casket funeral in ÂChicago that drew thousands of Âmourners. Photos of Till's butchered corpse shocked the world and were a flashpoint in the civil rights movement.
Beauchamp's film has sparked new investigations into the case, which the filmmaker first heard about as a child growing up in Baton Rouge, La.
"I was 10 when I first saw the famous photograph, which was about Emmett's age when he was killed," says Beauchamp, who is African-American. "I couldn't believe something like that could happen." In 1989, ÂBeauchamp was beaten by an undercover police Âofficer for dancing with a white girl at a high school dance.
"That incident woke me up to the Âracism that still exists in the world," he recalls.
The son of an ROTC instructor and college teacher, Beauchamp planned on being a criminal-justice lawyer Âspecializing in civil rights cases, but Âafter dabbling in filmmaking in New York, he changed course to become a director. He wanted to make a fictional film about Till, until he befriended Till-Mobley, who convinced him to make a documentary.
"She said to me, 'Keith, you have to tell the story truthfully,'" he remembers.
Beauchamp quit his job as a security officer at Barneys and Estee Lauder to pursue the project full time, using money his family had saved for his law-school tuition to finish his documentary. After scouring microfilm and newsreels, and researching the subsequent trial - in which two Mississippi men were acquitted of the murder, before confessing in Look magazine not long after the trial that they were guilty - Beauchamp managed to interview family members and others who have rarely spoken out.
Several of those Beauchamp interviewed claimed that other people - possibly involved but never investigated or charged half a century ago - were still alive. At the urging of Till-Mobley, and with support from prominent black lawmakers and officials, Beauchamp rallied the Mississippi Âdistrict Âattorney's office and the U.S. Justice Department to reopen the case.
Till-Mobley died in 2003. But last May the Justice Department did Âreopen the case, and in June Âexhumed Till's body to determine further the cause of death - spurred on by the information in Beauchamp's film.
The case is now ongoing.
"Mrs. Till-Mobley was so strong, so clearheaded," says Beauchamp. "And she had an aura that could move your soul. I'm doing this because I kept a promise to her." | By JOE NEUMAIER DAILY NEWS FEATURE WRITER T he murder of Emmett Till has haunted the life of Keith Beauchamp. Now Beauchamp, 34, the director of "The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till,"is helping justice be done. The documentary, which opens tomorrow at Film Forum, recounts the horrifying tale of Till, a 14-year-old ÂAfrican-American from Chicago who was murdered while visiting cousins in Mississippi in 1955. But it was no Âordinary slaying. After allegedly | 7.181818 | 0.977273 | 34.318182 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2003/08/19/2003-08-19_ah-nold_still_awol__actor_lo.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20110220025535id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/archives/news/2003/08/19/2003-08-19_ah-nold_still_awol__actor_lo.html | AH-NOLD STILL AWOL Actor Lowe stands in for him | 20110220025535 | By HELEN KENNEDY DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Tuesday, August 19th 2003, 8:06AM
WASHINGTON - Under fire from blistering radio ads calling him a liberal who wants to triple taxes, Arnold Schwarzenegger remained AWOL yesterday.
Instead, his new campaign adviser - TV actor Rob Lowe - went on the entertainment show "Extra" to speak for him.
"I know that when I'm on a set, I want to know who the director is. I don't want to have to guess," said the Democratic actor, who played a presidential aide on NBC's "West Wing."
"That's what Arnold will bring to this state. He's a leader."
Lowe said the campaign would be "a tremendous sacrifice for Arnold and for the family to give up their way of life, the privacy they value so much."
Under fire for ducking voters and reporters, despite his vow to campaign "door to door," Schwarzenegger released a statement saying he would consider participating in debates.
He said he wants to take on Gov. Gray Davis - whom he is not technically running against - and "other major candidates on the ballot."
Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) is negotiating the ground rules of any debate.
"Californians are going to love seeing Arnold Schwarzenegger debating Gray Davis and the other candidates," Dreier said.
Spokesman Rob Stutzman said the campaign is considering several offers, including a California Broadcasters Association debate Sept. 17 for any of the 135 candidates who top 10% in the polls. So far, that includes only Schwarzenegger and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.
Because he is not a candidate to replace himself, Davis has not been invited to debates.
"Gray Davis isn't on the same part of the ballot as Arnold, Angelyne, Gary Coleman, Larry Flynt and all the others," said Davis spokesman Gabe Sanchez.
Schwarzenegger has yet to address any issues that concern Californians: the budget, taxes, immigration, health care, agriculture, water rights, sprawl and smog. He has held two three-minute press conferences and has granted no interviews to California reporters, unless you count "Access Hollywood."
Instead, his supporters have spoken for him, leading to mistakes like Friday's comments from investor Warren Buffett that Californians should pay more property taxes.
"Now Arnold Schwarzenegger's team wants to triple our property taxes," Simon says in a new radio ad, the first of the recall campaign. "Don't send a liberal to do a tax fighter's job."
Schwarzenegger did not respond, though his spokesman called it "complete nonsense."
"The candidate doesn't need to respond to every candidate in single digits that makes a charge," Stutzman said airily.
Schwarzenegger plans to unveil his economic team tomorrow and may answer some questions at that event. | WASHINGTON - Under fire from blistering radio ads calling him a liberal who wants to triple taxes, Arnold Schwarzenegger remained AWOL yesterday. Instead, his new campaign adviser - TV actor Rob Lowe - went on the entertainment show "Extra"to speak for him. "I know that when I'm on a set, I want to know who the director is. I don't want to have to guess,"said the Democratic | 7.285714 | 0.974026 | 21.415584 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/2000/03/07/2000-03-07_top_doc_missed_cancer___wome.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20110224035938id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/archives/news/2000/03/07/2000-03-07_top_doc_missed_cancer___wome.html | TOP DOC MISSED CANCER & WOMEN DIED. PATIENT TOLL, LAWSUITS CLIMBED AS PIONEERING BREAST SPECIALIST LOST DIAGNOSTIC SKILL WITH AGE | 20110224035938 | THIS DAILY NEWS INVESTIGATION WAS REPORTED AND WRITTEN BY STAFF WRITERS RUSS BUETTNER AND WILLIAM SHERMAN. IT WAS LED BY BUETTNER
Tuesday, March 7th 2000, 2:12AM
Maria Cohen thought for six years that she was perfectly healthy, because her doctor kept telling her that there was no sign of cancer in her breasts.
Cohen, a physician herself, had good reason to feel assured. She was being treated by Dr. Herman Zuckerman, who was renowned for his ability to diagnose breast cancer.
But Zuckerman was wrong, and by the time Cohen's cancer was diagnosed, it was too late. The disease killed her.
Cohen was among 21 women and their survivors who sued Zuckerman from 1988 through 1998, alleging that he mistakenly told them they were cancer-free, delaying treatment that could have saved their breasts - or their lives.
Five have died of cancer since filing their suits.
Among them were Chaya Meisels, daughter of Moses Teitelbaum, grand rebbe of the Satmar Hasidic sect, Maryann Keleher, who consulted Zuckerman after discovering a lump in her right breast, and Jacqulyn Landry Jackson, a founding member of the famed 1950s singing group The Chantels, whose hits included "Maybe" and "He's Gone."
Zuckerman's 21 suits place him sixth on the Daily News list of New York's most sued physicians. Only three of his suits have been dismissed.
Twelve of Zuckerman's patients have won malpractice payments totaling $3.7 million, according to the National Practitioner Data Bank.
Only seven New York doctors and 71 nationwide made a larger number of payments of at least $30,000 during the period covered by the database, September 1990 through 1998.
Zuckerman was one of the first radiologists to unlock the secrets of breast cancer from the faint shadows on mammograms. And for decades he was the doctor for women to see when they wanted extra confidence that all was well or, if the news was bad, to learn it as early as possible.
For decades, they were right to put their lives in his hands. But then age took its toll.
Zuckerman, who earned his medical license two months before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, continued to practice into his 80s. During his later years, the quality of his mammograms declined, and his interpretations of them became unreliable.
He began telling women their mammograms showed no signs of cancer, even as tumors grew and spread.
The state Health Department's Office of Professional Medical Conduct ultimately filed charges against Zuckerman involving eight patients and won the surrender of his license. But it took 11 years from the time of Zuckerman's first error for that to happen.
In the meantime, many more patients fell victim to his fading skills.
Anne Saile, director of the office, acknowledged that action against Zuckerman was too slow but said the disciplinary process has been strengthened and moves faster.
The News' list of most sued doctors includes three who drew the attention of the Office of Professional Medical Conduct. Zuckerman was one of them.
As such, his story does more than describe a fall from grace of a once fine doctor.
It also reveals an enormous gap between the actions of the agency and patient expectations of swift, sure protection from doctors hit with large numbers of malpractice accusations.
The News informed Zuckerman in writing that he had been identified as among the most sued physicians in New York, gave him a list of suits and offered him an opportunity to discuss the issues. He did not respond to repeated requests for an interview.
Modern mammography has existed only since the late 1960s, when equipment improved and studies found that regular mammograms saved lives through early diagnosis.
Zuckerman built a respected reservoir of experience.
"He certainly had read more mammograms than anyone in New York City - and perhaps anywhere - in the early years," said Dr. Barron Lerner, a Columbia University medical historian.
"Everybody went to him. Everybody called him the grandfather of mammography."
Time is everything in diagnosing breast cancer. Women diagnosed at stage one of the disease - those with a tumor of 2 centimeters or smaller - have a 98% survival rate after five years. If the cancer advances to stage three - a larger tumor or lymph node involvement - the survival rate can drop below 50%.
The speed at which breast cancer progresses varies from woman to woman.
Maria Cohen knew time was of the essence. Her mother and sister had died of breast cancer, meaning her chances of developing the disease were high. And she was a doctor herself, with offices in Co-op City in the Bronx.
So, when she discovered a lump in her right breast in February 1981, she immediately brought it to the attention of her doctor, who sent her to Zuckerman for mammograms. For six years, Zuckerman told Cohen that the lump wasn't cancerous.
Then in July 1987, a new Zuckerman mammogram raised suspicions. A biopsy showed that the lump was malignant.
Cohen underwent chemotherapy and a mastectomy. But it wasn't successful. She died at the age of 61.
Her husband, Dr. Sol Cohen, sued Zuckerman, alleging that his poorly taken mammograms delayed his wife's diagnosis. Cohen settled the suit with Zuckerman for $780,000.
"It's obviously a horrible feeling that there was at least a good possibility that the outcome could have been avoided if she had gone to somebody else," Sol Cohen said.
Jacqulyn Jackson saw Zuckerman in 1990, after a Yonkers doctor recommended a biopsy to explore an irregularity in her mammography. Jackson wanted a second opinion.
Zuckerman asked her how old the Yonkers doctor was and then criticized him as being one of "these young new doctors," Jackson wrote in an affidavit. Zuckerman said her breasts were cystic - meaning they contained fluid-filled masses that usually are benign - and that she didn't need a biopsy.
"I don't know who this [doctor] is, but don't let anyone cut you," she quoted Zuckerman as saying in court papers.
Jackson returned two years later for a checkup. A nurse told her the lump was still there. Zuckerman told her he would call with results. He never did. Instead, he faxed them to the doctor who had referred Jackson to Zuckerman.
The lump was malignant. Jackson underwent a mastectomy. She died at age 56 in December 1997.
Jackson won a settlement of an undisclosed amount weeks before her death.
Maryann Keleher said in her suit that Zuckerman told her she needn't worry about a lump in her breast. By the time her cancer was discovered, it had spread to her lymph nodes. She underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy. But it was too late. She died in June 1995, a month short of her 51st birthday.
Her suit died with her. She had no relatives to continue the action.
Meisels' suit, too, was dropped. Her family filed it after the expiration of the 21/2 -year statute of limitations.
New Jerseyan Barbara Walters lived to vent her anger.
"This man threatened my life with what he did," said Walters, who works with her husband, Murray, at the family auto-parts business, Advanced Automotive of Jersey City.
"For three years in a row, I was told to go home, I was fine. He took away my best defense."
Walters' great-grandmother had died of breast cancer at age 32. Her grandmother died of the disease at 36. Her mother was diagnosed through mammography at the age of 64 and lived.
Because of that history, Walters was vigilant about regular mammograms. In 1993, a New Jersey doctor found something that concerned him and wanted to do a biopsy. Walters sought a second opinion.
"I had been told that Zuckerman was the top radiologist for mammography - if you want to be sure, go to him," Walters said.
Zuckerman's waiting room at Fifth Ave. and 87th St. was packed when Walters arrived in February 1993. His rates were the highest she had ever paid. She was told he had the best equipment and trusted no one else's mammograms. All that built confidence.
Then she met the then-79-year-old Zuckerman. Something didn't seem right.
"He squeezed my breast like you do when you're checking a piece of fruit," she said. "I don't know what that old geezer was doing. I laughed about it with my husband. He seemed old, too old to practice. But I was told he was so wonderful."
Zuckerman told Walters that her breasts were cystic and that she had nothing to worry about. He told her the same thing in 1994 and again in 1995.
In 1996, Walters received a letter that Zuckerman sent to all his patients, announcing that he was retiring at the age of 82.
He said that he was bequeathing his practice to New York University Medical Center. He encouraged patients to see the physician who would be performing mammograms in his office.
Having gotten her third clean bill of health just months earlier, Walters waited until her annual gynecological checkup for her next mammogram.
When that day came, her doctor sent her straight to a hospital for a biopsy. It was positive for cancer. A once-tiny tumor in her left breast had grown to 2 centimeters, and the disease had spread to her lymph nodes.
Walters had chemotherapy, radiation and a lumpectomy that deformed her left breast. Even after reconstructive surgery, her appearance bothers her.
"They had to do a lot of surgery," she said. "When I look in the mirror, I'm reminded of [Zuckerman] every day. Doctors like him should be stripped of their ability to have anything to do with a patient's care."
Walters won a $750,000 settlement.
Malpractice cases mounted steadily against Zuckerman - one in 1987, three in 1988 and one to three a year from 1991 through 1998. The Office of Professional Medical Conduct was notified about each of them and its outcome, as required by law. But it was not until May 1995 that the agency filed charges against him.
They were resolved after seven months of negotiations.
Zuckerman was allowed to remain in practice until March 3, 1996, as long as a board-certified radiologist was involved in "all aspects" of Zuckerman's treatment of patients.
Neither Zuckerman nor the state notified his patients that serious questions had been raised about his diagnostic skills during the prior decade.
Then, the grandfather of mammography announced his retirement in a gentlemanly letter to his patients that alluded to an esteemed career - and ignored its deadly coda.
"Having reached the age of 82, and acknowledging my debt to the numerous physicians and patients who have offered me so much respect and kindness over the years, I am retiring from practice at this time," Zuckerman wrote to his patients. | top doc missed cancer & women died Patient toll, lawsuits climbed as pioneering breast specialist lost diagnostic skill with age Maria Cohen thought for six years that she was perfectly healthy, because her doctor kept telling her that there was no sign of cancer in her breasts. Cohen, a physician herself, had good reason to feel assured. She was being treated by Dr. Herman Zuckerman, who was renowned for his ability to diagnose breast cancer. But | 25.464286 | 0.892857 | 23.130952 | medium | medium | extractive |
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/gossip/2001/03/13/2001-03-13__victoria_gotti_facing_one_c.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20110625110200id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/archives/gossip/2001/03/13/2001-03-13__victoria_gotti_facing_one_c.html | VICTORIA GOTTI FACING ONE CRISIS AFTER ANOTHER | 20110625110200 | BY MITCHELL FINK WITH LAUREN RUBIN
Tuesday, March 13th 2001, 2:20AM
Call this the winter of Victoria Gotti's discontent. Fresh from her broken 16-year marriage to the incarcerated Carmine Agnello, the novelist's life has taken yet another turn as she finds herself immersed in a Florence Nightingale-like role, dispensing care to two men in her life.
One of them is her father, John Gotti, who is in a prison hospital in Springfield, Mo., where he is suffering from throat cancer. His condition has worsened since the cancer was discovered during a routine hospital checkup last September. And it hasn't helped that the cancer occurred in the same spot in Gotti's throat where a malignant tumor was removed over two years ago.
The other man is Andy Capasso, 55, the construction honcho who, in the early 1980s, was embroiled in an extramarital affair with former Miss America Bess Myerson at the time the city's Commissioner of Cultural Affairs under Mayor Ed Koch.
Capasso and Victoria Gotti have been friends for some time. But in January, when Gotti pulled the plug on her marriage after surveillance tapes seemed to reveal that Agnello was having an affair with his secretary, she turned to Capasso.
The two went out on a couple of dates and apparently hit it off nicely. Now, Capasso, too, has cancer, and is very ill. When Gotti isn't checking on her father, she is at Capasso's side.
Adding to Victoria's troubles: Agnello's assets have been frozen, including the $17,500 a month in support that he's supposed to be paying her.
The beat goes on for Julia Roberts. With her selections as year's best actress by the Hollywood Foreign Press, National Board of Review, Los Angeles Film Critics, London Film Critics, British Academy Awards, People's Choice Awards and most recently by the Screen Actors Guild on Sunday, the Oscar seems like a foregone conclusion. America's prettiest woman is that much of a favorite to win.
Roberts and boyfriend Benjamin Bratt, who carried around his own SAG award for the win by "Traffic" for best ensemble cast, reveled into the night Sunday, appearing first at People magazine's post-SAG soiree at the Shrine Auditorium in downtown L.A., site of the awards show.
Roberts and Bratt next went to the HBO party at Spago in Beverly Hills, where they hung out with Sarah Jessica Parker and Roberts' new best friend, "Sopranos" star James Gandolfini, who was her co-star in "The Mexican."
MAYBE THIS YEAR FOR BURSTYN
One of Julia Roberts' biggest competitors in the best actress category, Ellen Burstyn, will definitely be at the Big Dance on March 25. But she missed the Academy Awards when she won for 1974's "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore" because she was appearing on Broadway in "Same Time, Next Year."
Basically, she didn't feel she could take the night off.
"You had an obligation to the work, not to the awards," Burstyn says in Talk magazine's upcoming Oscar issue. "You know, people waited four or five months to get tickets to that show. I didn't think it was fair that they should wait that long to see it and then half of the cast would be gone to pick up an award. It wasn't my value system."
Despite the fact that Roberts is the overwhelming favorite to win the Oscar, Burstyn admits she would like to get her hands on a second gold statuette. The first one is in the bathroom, she says, and it's getting nothing but older.
"After a while, you know, it gets pitted," she says. "The bottom is falling out and the gold plating is pitted. ... So I need a new one. I want a whole new one. I don't want a replacement. I want another one, a whole new one."
Of course, with Roberts around this year, I fear Burstyn may have to start thinking of another project that will get her back to the Oscars, as they say, "Same Time, Next Year."
Who was that buxom twentysomething blond who couldn't keep her hands off Howard Stern at Nobu?
Mind you, this was not just some babe coming on to the separated shock jock at his favorite downtown restaurant. They were there together, seated side by side against a wall, having dinner. She was awfully animated, and he didn't seem to mind one bit.
True to their word, reps waited until yesterday to release details surrounding actress Lauren Holly's marriage over the weekend to investment banker Francis Greco.
As I predicted last week, the two were hitched Saturday in Canada. The ceremony took place at Holy Rosary Church in Toronto and was attended by family and close friends, including actors Amanda Peet, who also served as maid of honor, Noah Emmerich, Bridget Moynahan and Leslie Stefanson, who first introduced the couple. The bride and her attendants wore gowns designed for them by Escada. The men's suits were designed and custom-tailored by Francis Fine Clothier, a company owned by the groom's parents, Frank and Pina Greco.
After a brief honeymoon, Holly will begin filming the TNT movie "Boss Lear," opposite Patrick Stewart and Oscar nominee Marcia Gay Harden. | Call this the winter of Victoria Gotti's discontent. Fresh from her broken 16-year marriage to the incarcerated Carmine Agnello, the novelist's life has taken yet another turn as she finds herself immersed in a Florence Nightingale-like role, dispensing care to two men in her life. One of them is her father, John Gotti, who is in a prison hospital in Springfield, Mo., where he is suffering from throat cancer. His condition has worsened s | 12.045977 | 0.988506 | 44.804598 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.aol.com/2011/09/26/laurel-indiana-dead_n_981045.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20110927010555id_/http://www.aol.com/2011/09/26/laurel-indiana-dead_n_981045.html | Laurel Indiana Dead: Police Say Some Were Shot | 20110927010555 | LAUREL, Ind. -- Some of the five people found dead at two homes in rural southeast Indiana had been shot, and autopsies to confirm the cause of death are planned for Monday, state police said.
Police said it was not clear if any suspects remained on the loose or were among the dead, and warned residents of the sparsely populated, wooded area near the town of Laurel to be careful.
"We have five dead people and we're trying to find out how they died," said Sgt. Jerry Goodin, spokesman for the Indiana State Police. "Some of the victims had gunshot wounds, or what appear to be gunshot wounds."
The Marion County coroner's office in Indianapolis was scheduled to perform autopsies Monday.
Police did not immediately release the identities of the victims, pending notification of family members. Goodwin said Sunday he did not know "if the shooter or shooters could be among the deceased."
A multi-agency investigation into the killings began after the Franklin County Sheriff's Department responded to a call Sunday afternoon about a child wandering along a road near Laurel, about 50 miles southeast of Indianapolis, according to a state police statement.
A deputy spoke with the child and neighbors, then called for backup to search the two homes. Police found a dead male inside a recreational vehicle and the bodies of two males and two females at the other home across the street. The statement didn't say if the dead were adults.
Goodin told The Associated Press that it was too early in the investigation to rule out the possibility that one or more suspects were on the loose and cautioned neighbors until that could be clarified.
"They should be vigilant," Goodin said. "They need to make sure they keep the doors locked. If they see any suspicious people, absolutely they should dial 911. | Associated Press LAUREL, Ind. -- Some of the five people found dead at two homes in rural southeast Indiana had been shot, and autopsies to confirm the cause of death are planned for Monday, state police said. | 8.756098 | 1 | 37.195122 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/08/britain-and-immigration | http://web.archive.org/web/20110930111909id_/http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/08/britain-and-immigration | The Right realises that net migration targets are daft | 20110930111909 | THE AUGUST bank holiday weekend looms, so your blogger will allow himself a spot of sunny optimism (to offset the grey rainclouds scudding across the horizon, in traditional English fashion).
The official British 2010 immigration figures came out yesterday, and the newspapers are duly filled with angry or resigned reports of the headline finding: that net annual inward migration—which Conservative ministers have promised to reduce to "the tens of thousands" by the next general election—instead rose by 21% in 2010, as 239,000 more people took up residence in Britain than departed.
The right wing press was duly cross. The Daily Mail, casting around for someone to blame, attacks the Liberal Democrats, the junior party in David Cameron's Conservative-led coalition government, calling them "immigration-obsessed" and saying:
the Tories — shackled by Nick Clegg’s obsessively pro-immigration Lib Dems — have not been remotely firm enough on reducing non-EU workers and overseas students...We can only hope yesterday’s daunting statistics will serve as a wake-up call to Mr Cameron, and that he will realise that he cannot afford to pander to his junior Lib Dem partner for a moment longer.
Eleven million people voted Tory because, after the madness of the New Labour years, they wanted immigration reduced to manageable levels. Mr Cameron will not be easily forgiven if he lets them down
On the left, the Guardian's focus is on findings by Oxford University's migration observatory that unemployment, especially youth unemployment, has not been reduced by the government's moves to cap non-EU skilled migration. The Guardian reports:
The government's cap on migration to Britain from outside Europe is being more than offset by a renewed rise in migration from Poland and other EU countries, immigration experts have warned.
British employers are increasingly turning to EU migrants to fill the gaps left by the government's clampdown on the recruitment of overseas skilled labour from outside Europe, according to Oxford University's migration observatory.
Given all the gloom, why I am still cheered by the debate? Well, the argument is finally becoming more realistic and nuanced.
The Conservative's pledge to reduce net migration below 100,000 a year was always a cock-eyed foundation for good policy-making, because it failed to acknowledge the huge role played by factors beyond the government's control, such as migration flows by EU nationals and emigration by British citizens. That condemned the government to tugging and yanking with reckless zeal on the few levers available to it, such as caps on non-EU foreign students or skilled workers, and hang the consequences for British universities and businesses.
At last, from left to right, these points are being acknowledged, and the futility of a net migration pledge admitted. Here is Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator:
Poor David Cameron. He pledged to reduce annual net migration from the current 240,000 to the "tens of thousands" and what happens? Net migration in 2010 was up by 21 per cent from 2009. In a way, he deserves the flak he'll get because this was a daft target that could only have been set by someone poorly-advised about the nature of immigration. And the target allows success to be presented as failure.
And here is the Daily Telegraph:
David Cameron’s pre-election promise to reduce net immigration to the “tens of thousands” was always a hostage to fortune. In choosing to highlight the net figure, he risked seeing his ambitions thwarted by a phenomenon beyond the Government’s control, namely emigration. The bald figures published by the Office for National Statistics yesterday showed a 20 per cent rise in net immigration last year to 239,000 – just short of the record set under Labour. But, in fact, the number of people coming to this country to settle hardly changed; it was the sharp fall in emigration that caused the net figure to rise
There is also a welcome acknowledgement that immigration is a fiendishly complicated issue, ill-suited to quick headlines, and what looks to me like an unprecedented effort to dig beneath the numbers and puzzle out what is actually going on. Several papers, noting the sharp rise in Britain's Polish population, now estimated at a half million, sent reporters to speak to Poles and ask them about their job prospects, their plans and what they think of Britain. Good. We all need to keep talking and listening to each other.
It is true that as the different outlets puzzle over the numbers, they do so astride their own favourite hobby-horses.
Thus the Daily Mail, a newspaper with a lot of retired readers who are very concerned about pensions, ponders the dramatic fall in overall emigration numbers in 2010, and suggests:
Fewer Britons are emigrating because falling incomes and pensions mean hundreds of thousands have abandoned the dream of retirement or a new life in France, Spain, Australia or the U.S.
The recession has also reduced the number of Britons able to take jobs elsewhere in the world. Emigration fell by more than a fifth in two years after the recession began in 2008
There is probably something to that, but Bagehot would add to that list of reasons falling house prices (or at least a flat housing market in much of Britain), which make it hard for Britons to sell up and move to the sun, the strength of the euro against the pound (which makes life expensive for retirees in the Dordogne and the Costa del Sol) and the spectacular bursting of a housing bubble in Spain (accompanied by lots of newspaper articles about desperate British retirees living in half-finished housing complexes in the Spanish sun, in flats worth half what they paid for them).
Fraser Nelson, a hawkish sort who never saw a tax he did not want to cut or a labour market regulation he did not want to revoke, decides that falling emigration is essentially a vote of confidence in the deficit-cutting Cameron government, but that immigration is a problem and can only be reduced by making the labour market more flexible. He writes that emigration:
is a compliment to Cameron: the most sincere vote people can make is with their feet. And in our globalised world, countries have to compete for people. Britain is as attractive as ever it was to immigrants, and more natives are staying put.
Cameron should only ever have pledged to stem the inflow. Governments of free countries can't stop people emigrating, so the net figure, ie the inflow minus the outflow, is not something he could or should have given a pledge on. In my view, Britain's immigration inflow is driven primarily by a demand for migrant labour (foreign nationals account for almost the entire employment rise under Cameron so far). This can only be changed by radical labour market reform (tax, regulation etc), which I don't expect to happen. So I'd say Cameron has a snowballs's chance in hell of meeting his target. Today's figures will be the first of many over the next four years making that point
This is a blog posting, not a finished article for the print edition, so readers must be tolerant if I do not attempt a comprehensive immigration plan of my own. Instead, in addition to my sigh of relief that the British immigration debate seems to be growing up, bear with me if I offer a couple of small reasons why the numbers are even more confusing that today's reporting suggests.
For one thing, pace a lot of today's reporting, some "foreign-born people" are in fact British. To make it personal, four of Britain's 239,000 net migrants last year were Bagehot and his immediate family, moving back to London after many years abroad. On paper, our little band looks pretty foreign: out of the four of us, three are foreign-born. But we are all British citizens, and the three of us born overseas were born to British families who were posted abroad at the time.
For another, it is rash to assume you can keep track of EU nationals, who come and go without visas or passport checks, and often do not bother to register with their local embassy (I know that my family and I never registered with the British Embassy when living in Brussels or Washington DC).
For instance, a quick scan of the numbers released yesterday by the Office of National Statistics suggests there are just 58,000 French citizens living in London, and 111,000 French in Britain overall. That sounds low to me: there are parts of London where French is more common than English on the pavements, and French schools in London are full to bursting. The French consulate has 113,000 citizens registered in Britain, and I know French diplomats think there are many more who do not bother to register.
One last thought. The newspapers today give a lot of prominence to the immigration minister, Damian Green, a rather centrist sort whose job obliges him to stamp around saying fire and brimstone things about this government's "radically changed" immigration policy, and Britain's "addiction" to immigration. My hunch, though, is that the government minister with the best chance of re-shaping the labour market is the reformist education secretary, Michael Gove.
In all the welter of reporting today, to me the single most telling lines come from a commentary by the Oxford migration observatory:
as the Government continues to focus on reducing non-EU net migration, employers may turn increasingly to EU migrants to fill positions. In a recent survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development 34 per cent of employers said they intend to respond to the government’s new policies by recruiting more EU migrants where only 23 per cent said they intend to respond by increasing the skills of their current workforce
If ministers really want something to think about, I would think about that finding, not least because they can do something about it.
Now, I do not mean ministers demanding that firms be bullied into hiring British workers first. It is not the job of a business struggling to survive the current economic crisis to fix a British education system that has been failing school-leavers and society for decades by hiring the wrong people.
I would go further: I think that Britain has been lucky to receive hundreds of thousands of hard-working, well-educated and energetic foreigners, and should be more grateful to such migrants, instead of blaming them for the weakness of our own young job seekers. But nor do I cheer the idea millions of young Britons condemned to joblessness by their own lack of employability.
Keep the borders as open as possible—in a globalised world, Britain has everything to gain by recruiting the best and hardest-working from around the world, and offering them the chance to work legally, rather than languish in a lawless black market. But equip the young growing up in Britain to compete for and create tomorrow's jobs. Let there be a contest for tomorrow's jobs, but let it be a fair one. Then Britain has a chance of being the kind of prosperous, energetic place people want to live in.
update at 22pm on Friday. In the interests of fairness and clarity, I should note that Fraser Nelson in the Spectator (unlike some of today's daily newspapers) was writing about foreign nationals as opposed to foreign-born citizens. Mr Nelson raises a genuine concern: Britain has seen more jobs created since the end of the credit crunch than almost any other member of the G7, but some 90% of the increase in working-age employment under Mr Cameron involves foreign nationals, in the 12 months for which we have data. Where I really part company with Mr Nelson's blog is in his prescription, if I have understood it aright. I must admit I am too dim to follow how cutting tax and regulation will increase the willingness of employers to hire British workers specifically, as opposed to foreign nationals. Until then, though it sounds pious, I still think the key is radical improvements to British education and training, and so I am left pinning my hopes on Mr Gove, the education secretary. Given the choice between a keen Pole and a semi-literate native, I am not surprised employers go for the Pole. But shutting out Poles until you have fixed British education strikes me as protectionism, more or less, and that never does wonders for a country's competitiveness. | THE AUGUST bank holiday weekend looms, so your blogger will allow himself a spot of sunny optimism (to offset the grey rainclouds scudding across the horizon, in traditional English fashion).The official British 2010 immigrat | 65.081081 | 0.945946 | 27.918919 | high | high | extractive |
http://www.cbsnews.com/1606-500251_162-7384326.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20111012114624id_/http://www.cbsnews.com/1606-500251_162-7384326.html | Credit scores: The best and worst in the U.S. | 20111012114624 | A.G. Holder could be subpoenaed by Issa
The chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) says he could send subpoenas to the Obama administration, including Attorney General Eric Holder, as soon as this week. CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports on the "Fast and Furious" scandal. | CBS News video: Credit scores: The best and worst in the U.S. - Experian Credit named Wausau, Wisc. to be the most credit-worthy town in America, while Haringen, Texas rated last. Jeff Glor reports. | 1.431818 | 0.386364 | 0.431818 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.aol.com/2011/10/12/amina-farah-ali-hawo-mohamed_n_1007948.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20111014211922id_/http://www.aol.com:80/2011/10/12/amina-farah-ali-hawo-mohamed_n_1007948.html | Amina Farah Ali, Hawo Mohamed Hassan Talk Of Jihad In Recorded Calls: Prosecutors | 20111014211922 | MINNEAPOLIS — Two Minnesota women accused of funneling money to a terror group in Somalia talked about collecting money for al-Shabab, supporting fighters instead of other charities and the possibility that FBI was listening in on their conversations, according to hours of recorded phone calls played for jurors.
Prosecutors have built the bulk of their case by playing more than 80 phone calls recorded during a 10-month wiretap on the home and cellphones of Amina Farah Ali, 35. In those calls, prosecutors allege, Ali is heard talking to her co-defendant, 64-year-old Hawo Mohamed Hassan, as well as leaders of al-Shabab in Somalia. The calls include recordings of teleconferences in which the women gave religious lectures and collected donations.
Ali and Hassan are accused of being part of a "deadly pipeline" that routed money and fighters from the U.S. to Somalia. The women, U.S. citizens of Somali descent, are charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. The women have said they were raising money for needy refugees in Somalia.
The recorded calls are all in Somali. Jurors are following along with written transcripts that have been translated into English by the government.
In one October 2008 call between Ali and Hassan, prosecutors allege that as the two women were discussing where the money should go, Ali said the priority be those who stand up for Islam. "Let the civilians die," she said. In a Feb. 10, 2009, teleconference, Ali told others, "Let's forget about the other charities – how about the jihad?"
Ali and Hassan are among 20 people charged in Minnesota's long-running federal investigations into recruiting and financing for al-Shabab, which the U.S. considers a terror group with ties to al-Qaida. Investigators believe at least 21 men left Minnesota – home to the country's largest Somali community – to join al-Shabab. Though others have pleaded guilty to related charges, the women are the first to go on trial.
Ali faces 12 counts of providing such support – for allegedly sending more than $8,600 to the group from September 2008 through July 2009. Hassan faces three counts of lying to the FBI.
Since last week, prosecutors have been methodically presenting evidence to connect Ali's phone conversations to the counts against her, matching dollar figures mentioned in calls to phone numbers or accounts of al-Shabab members, and to receipts from hawalas, or money transfer businesses.
According to some of the wide-ranging calls, Ali gets updates from an al-Shabab member about the fighting in Somalia. In many, she tells others how to send funds to Somalia. She gives fictitious names and the numbers of al-Shabab accounts to those who will be sending the money, and talks about sending it in small amounts to avoid detection, prosecutors said.
In one call, Ali explains she will not get a license for her charity because she doesn't want to report where the money is going. "I don't want to lie to God," she said.
Ali's attorney, Dan Scott, noted during cross-examination of FBI Special Agent Michael Wilson that his client took steps to ensure the money people donated specifically for orphans went to the orphans – and nowhere else. In one call that took place in November 2008, Scott notes, Ali ticks off a list of donations, totaling $7,000, that went to a variety of causes including the wounded, mentally ill, poor people – and al-Shabab.
Scott also noted that after the U.S. declared al-Shabab a terror group in February 2008, the FBI made no attempt to "inform her that she should not be sending money to this newly declared foreign terrorist organization."
In one call between Ali and Hassan, dated May 6, 2009, Hassan and Ali talk about sending girls out to collect money in Seattle, North Carolina, and elsewhere. In that call, Hassan says others should "forget about the families at this moment, because the frontline is empty."
In another call between Ali and Hassan, on April 3, 2009, the two women talk about how anyone could be listening in to the teleconferences, including "all troublemakers, FBI and people sent by them and filth."
In a teleconference on Feb. 10, 2009, an unidentified man asks who the fundraising is for. Ali replies: "Brother, whom do you want to give it to? The orphans, the poor ... the Mujahidin (holy warriors)? Actually, jihad is your duty brother. What are you going to pledge?" | MINNEAPOLIS — Two Minnesota women accused of funneling money to a terror group in Somalia talked about collecting money for al-Shabab, supporting fighters instead of other charities and the possibility that FBI was listening in on their conversations, according to hours of recorded phone calls played for jurors. Prosecutors have built the bulk of their case by playing more than 80 phone calls recorded during a 10-month wiretap on the home and cellphones of Amina Farah Ali, 35. | 10.264368 | 0.965517 | 41.678161 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/29/us/reagan-wants-end-of-two-term-limit.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20111104035609id_/http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/29/us/reagan-wants-end-of-two-term-limit.html | REAGAN WANTS END OF TWO-TERM LIMIT | 20111104035609 | WASHINGTON, Nov. 28— President Reagan says that after leaving office he ''would like to start a movement'' to repeal the constitutional amendment that limits Presidents to two terms.
Mr. Reagan, in a restatement of a past position, said the limitation interfered with the right of the people to ''vote for someone as often as they want to do.''
The President discussed the amendment and other issues in a television interview conducted by the British personality David Frost that is to be broadcast this weekend along with discussions with two former Presidents, Jimmy Carter and Gerald R. Ford. The program is to be followed in later weeks with interviews with candidates now seeking the Presidency.
Whether Mr. Reagan will campaign actively to repeal the amendment remains to be seen. He has declared strong support for two proposed constitutional amendments, one to allow states to bar abortions and the other to prohibit Federal deficits, but has not worked for their passage. Not a Top Priority
The two-term limit, established by the 22d Amendment in 1951, was pushed to ratification by Republicans concerned over the four terms won by a Democratic President, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Since then, only three Presidents have been elected to second terms - Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon and Mr. Reagan - all Republicans.
In 1986, a White House spokesman, Albert R. Brashear, said that although Mr. Reagan had argued for repeal of the 22d Amendment on the ground that a President's effectiveness was restricted in a final term, ''he's never mentioned that as a top priority.''
In the Frost interview, Mr. Reagan said: ''I would like to start a movement to eliminate the constitutional amendment that was passed a few years ago that limits a President to two terms. Now I say I wouldn't do that for myself, but for Presidents from here on.''
The Frost series, ''The Next President,'' is syndicated and will be broadcast at various times across the country. In New York, the first program will be broadcast at 11 P.M. Sunday on Channel 9.
In the interview with Mr. Frost, Mr. Carter said that use of proceeds from secret arms sales to Iran to support of the Nicaraguan rebels was ''much more serious'' than the Watergate scandal that brought down the President Nixon. The Presidents Disagree
''Watergate was a very simple, relatively insignificant crime of breaking into an office and trying to steal some things from the Democratic Party,'' Mr. Carter said. He did not mention the subsequent cover-up of the break-in that reached into the White House.
Mr. Carter continued: ''The Iran scandal has damaged our nation in the Mideast-Arabian Gulf area, and internally as well. The difference is that when Nixon made his Watergate mistakes, the country was in a punitive mood. The press was determined to punish President Nixon, the Congress had that inclination and maybe the general public did as well.''
Because of what Mr. Carter called the ''horrible experience'' of Watergate, he said Congress, the press and the nation were averse to punishing Mr. Reagan as severely. He added that while he considered the Iran-contra affair more serious than Watergate, he approved of protecting the Reagan Administration from the full consequences. Comments of Ford
When Mr. Frost conveyed Mr. Carter's assessment of the Iran-contra affair to Mr. Reagan and asked if he agreed, the President replied, ''No, no.''
Mr. Ford was also critical of some aspects of the Reagan Administration's handling of the arms sales to Iran.
''I think, in my Administration, we would have carefully supervised any high-risk covert or overt operation,'' Mr. Ford said. Mr. Reagan has been criticized by a Presidential review panel and a Congressional committee of inattention to the activities of subordinates.
When Mr. Frost asked Mr. Ford if he would have agreed to exchange arms for American hostages, Mr. Ford answered, ''I don't think so, if my Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State advised strongly against it.''
Mr. Reagan agreed to such a deal against the advice of his Secretary of Defense at the time, Caspar W. Weinberger, and Secretary of State George P. Shultz.
Mr. Ford said, ''I would have listened to the arguments of others, but I can't imagine overruling the two top Cabinet officers and taking the judgment of some individuals of lesser responsibility.'' | LEAD: President Reagan says that after leaving office he ''would like to start a movement'' to repeal the constitutional amendment that limits Presidents to two terms. | 27.903226 | 0.967742 | 27.16129 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2011/11/music-africa | http://web.archive.org/web/20111105040323id_/http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2011/11/music-africa | Searching for a new sound | 20111105040323 | Nov 4th 2011, 11:49 by G.M. | LONDON
AS THE music industry searches for new voices and talent, entrepreneurs are pinning their hopes on emerging African artists both from the continent and the diaspora. Africa Unsigned is an Amsterdam-based start-up music label founded by Pim Betist that promotes African artists. Under Mr Betist's watch, Africa Unsigned has invested €525,000 (about $725,000) in helping more than 40 artists and bands tour and release albums that represent what they deem the "new African sound," such as Kenya's acoustic vocal group Sauti Sol. "I like to call them the East African Boyz II Men," Mr Betist says. "The music industry is broken, and we have to fix it," Mr Betist said. He is confident that can be done. Africa Unsigned relies heavily on a fan-funding platform similar to the one employed by Mr Betist's previous effort Sellaband.com, which eventually went bankrupt but has since re-launched. Mr Betist is not the only taste-maker focusing his efforts on Africa. After promoting successful, Grammy award-winning American hip hop and soul artists like The Roots and Erykah Badu for more than a decade, the Brooklyn-based online hip-hop community OkayPlayer now has a sister site called OkayAfrica that promotes African musicians in similar genres. Unlike Africa Unsigned, OkayAfrica is not a standard record label, but it has committed $500,000 to developing an online platform for such artists as Seun and Femi Kuti, K’naan, Bajah + The Dry Eye Crew, and Afrikan Boy. "We're looking to break the mold of 'world music' and highlight those on the continent really pushing the boundaries and innovating with cutting edge music," said Ginny Suss, OkayAfrica's site manager. "Forward-thinking stuff that fuses hip hop, electronic music, and reggae with more traditional sounds."
Sales fluctuate. K'Naan, for example, sold 70,000 albums in 2009 but dropped to 44,000 in 2010. But his digital album sales rocketed from 233,000 in 2009 to 485,000 in 2010. A 2010 UN report claims that demand for music and other "creative industry" products has remained stable during the global recession, and global exports of creative goods and services, e.g. music, more than doubled between 2002 and 2008. The report concluded that for developing countries, creative industries could prove to be "one of the most dynamic sectors of world commerce." Africa is mentioned throughout the report, as is the Creative Africa initiative, a long-term strategy to help the continent benefit economically from its creative talents and cultural heritage. Earlier this year Wired Magazine described an "entrepreneurial boom" in Africa full of "vast new tech opportunity." Aware of this, Africa Unsigned makes their music available through mobile phones, whose availabilty and use have soared throughout Africa since the late 1990s. Last March, at a "Marketing 21st Century Music in Africa" discussion panel at the annual South By Southwest festival (SXSW) in Texas, Ngozi Odita, who lives in New York and describes herself as a curator of comtemporary African culture, argued that music and culture is Africa's strongest export. As evidence, she cites Kanye West, the award winning hip-hop artist and producer who earlier this year signed Nigerian musicians D’Banj and Don Jazzy to G.O.O.D music, the record label and artist management firm he founded in 2004. Artists on African record labels such as Storm 360 regularly tour Africa and overseas. Ms Odita, originally from Nigeria, runs the media site Society HAE, a hub for contemporary African culture and music. This summer she organised "Live From the Continent," an event at the Lincoln Center at which African artists such as South Africa's Spoek Mathambo performed. She is producing a music showcase of 12 African music acts this spring at SXSW. "In the 90s, they always said there was a brain drain in Africa. People got their education, and then left the country. Now, people believe they can be successful in their own countries," she argues. "It's indicative of the opportunities now available on the continent, and the direction the country is moving in. People have their own vision. There's been a changing of the guard. Artists are making music, but are conscious of what their role is, wanting Africa to be different than the Africa they have known." | AS THE music industry searches for new voices and talent, entrepreneurs are pinning their hopes on emerging African artists both from the continent and the diaspora. Africa Unsigned is an Amsterdam-based start-up music l | 20.560976 | 0.95122 | 22.073171 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.nydailynews.com/2.1353/zynga-cuts-30-upcoming-ipo-article-1.986168 | http://web.archive.org/web/20111206042048id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/2.1353/zynga-cuts-30-upcoming-ipo-article-1.986168? | Zynga, online gaming giant, cuts 30% of own value for upcoming IPO | 20111206042048 | Zynga is pulling back on its stock offering amid weak performance for recent Internet IPOs.
The online game company behind the social networking phenomenon FarmVille has cut its value by 30%, hoping to avoid the fate of companies like Groupon, Pandora and Angie’s List — stocks that fizzled after they went public.
The markdown puts Zynga’s value at around $9 billion, assuming it hits the high end of the spectrum listed in its offering. Just two weeks ago, a filing listed its value at $14.05 billion, based on a third-party assessment.
“We’ve definitely seen a pullback in recent Internet IPOs,” Internet analyst Frederick Moran of Benchmark Co. told the Daily News.
“Investors’ appetite may have been tempered somewhat.”
But even after reducing its value, Zynga is still looking to pull off a monster-sized IPO that would be the biggest offering from an Internet company since Google started trading.
Zynga is looking to raise as much as $1 billion by offering 100 million shares priced between $8.50 and $10, it said in an updated filing.
The company plans to set its final price on Dec. 15 and to start trading the next day.
Founded five years ago, Zynga made its name with viral games like FarmVille, one of the most popular games on Facebook.
While its games are free to play, the company makes money by selling virtual items, such as tractors and weapons, that players then use in games.
Zynga isn’t the only online company poised to go public. Facebook is said to be looking to raise $10 billion in an IPO next year. | Online game company is pulling back on its stock offering amid weak performance for recent Internet IPOs. | 17.722222 | 1 | 13 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-201112221130--tms--succinvctnxw-a20111225dec25%2C0%2C7917049.story | http://web.archive.org/web/20120102093638id_/http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-201112221130--tms--succinvctnxw-a20111225dec25,0,7917049.story | Online job mecca trying to weather the storm | 20120102093638 | What does the company do? Online employment service
Q. I thought the sky was the limit for my shares of Monster Worldwide Inc., but apparently I was wrong. What are the prospects now?
A. Despite robust international growth and the powerful role of the Internet in job placement, the stock of this Internet job-search pioneer is pressured by the uncertain economy.
The strong employment network that the company has assembled since it was founded faces obstacles such as high unemployment and a growing number of online competitors.
Shares of Monster Worldwide (MWW) are down 69 percent this year following last year's 36 percent gain.
The company, which earned $31.8 million in the third quarter compared to a loss of $5.7 million a year earlier, recently approved a plan to purchase up to $250 million of its now-bargain-priced stock through April 2013. It also expressed caution about near-term economic uncertainty.
Consensus analyst opinion on shares of Monster Worldwide is "buy," according to
, consisting of four "strong buys," four "buys," six "holds" and one "underperform."
Monster Worldwide began as a conventional publishing house but transformed itself into an Internet job operator with major operations in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Latin America. The Monster Employment Index, a monthly hiring barometer it formulates for several regions, presents forecast data culled from a wide range of career websites and online job listings.
The firm is in excellent financial health with little debt and a reputation for operating efficiency, though it is heavily dependent on classified advertisements. Besides its ability to target audience sectors, it provides personalized career advice. It has used the economic downturn as an opportunity to aggressively expand its market share.
"While I've been in Monster, the competitive environment has been intense on a global basis," Sal Iannuzzi, the firm's chairman, president and CEO, said in his third-quarter earnings call. "All metrics support our conclusions that we are gaining global share."
To stay relevant versus the competition, Monster Worldwide purchased HotJobs from
last year. It has introduced the cloud-based SeeMore search platform; the BeKnown professional networking application on
; and the Veterans Talent Index to help connect military veterans with prospective employers.
Monster Worldwide earnings are expected to increase 41 percent in 2012 versus the 51 percent predicted for the staffing and outsourcing services industry, according to Thomson Reuters. The five-year annualized earnings gain is projected as 17 percent compared to 16 percent for its peers.
Q. Please give me your opinion of Royce Special Equity Investment Fund. It was suggested to me. | About Monster Worldwide Inc. | 103.2 | 0.8 | 2 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/21/style-decor-office-forbeslife-cx_nr_0222officestyle.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20120117125934id_/http://www.forbes.com/2008/02/21/style-decor-office-forbeslife-cx_nr_0222officestyle.html | What's Your Office Style? | 20120117125934 | Take a look around your desk. What do you see? A chipped mug with the congealed remnants of yesterday's latte, a mountain of unopened mail, a pen holder so overstuffed that it can't accommodate the pens you use? If so, enjoy your stay--because you are probably going to occupy cubicle hell for the long term.
But if your desk is only conspicuous because of its absence of clutter, exuding an organized, professional ambiance, don't get too attached. The next promotion could very well be yours.
It's not your fault. You've probably been wrapped up in a demanding project, up against deadlines and haven't had time to organize, or maybe you just got back from vacation and haven't had a chance to create mayhem. Regardless, your current cube decor and office style speaks volumes about your personality--and your colleagues and bosses are taking note.
"It sounds cliché," says Sam Gosling, a personality researcher at the University of Texas, Austin, and author of the upcoming book Snoop, which examines the behavioral footprints people leave behind, "but the more research I've done, the more I've come to believe that what's going on outside the mind reflects what's going on inside the mind."
For instance, if you find yourself surrounded by knick-knacks and symbols of personal relationships with friends, family and pets, you're more likely to be in a woman's office. Men's offices, on the other hand, tend to display items pertaining to sports and personal achievements.
Since we spend more waking hours at work than we do at home, it's natural to want to decorate our office or cube spaces, creating a home away from home.
Go ahead; personalizing your space is a win-win that's good for you and your company. Meredith Wells, a researcher from the University of Eastern Kentucky who has examined people's relationships with their work spaces, says people who decorate their offices often have higher levels of job satisfaction and psychological well-being, leading to higher levels of employee morale and lower turnover. | Your work space says more about you than you think. | 37.454545 | 0.909091 | 0.909091 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://mashable.com/2010/08/21/classic-games-iphone/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20120122114357id_/http://mashable.com/2010/08/21/classic-games-iphone/ | 10 Classic PC Games on the iPhone | 20120122114357 | Apple’s iPhone may mark a second golden age of computer gaming for a lot of reasons. The open marketplace means anyone can create a game; from major companies to just a couple of talented people in a garage. The result is a new boom in innovation, the likes of which we haven’t seen in about 20 years.
Even with all the potential for innovation, maybe you still want to relive that first golden age of gaming. If you’re excited for how new tech can update the classics, then this list is for you: 10 of the greatest, most influential, straight-up classic computer games ever made, all available on and completely remastered for Apple’s handset, and in most cases also playable on the iPod touch and iPad.
There are so many phenomenal PC game ports for the iPhone that we had a hard time narrowing it down to just 10. We couldn’t help but sneak in a very special bonus at the end. Flip through the gallery below for the list and be sure and tell us about your favorites too.
The mother of all first-person shooters, this game is so iconic that it spawned a web community dedicated to getting other devices to play it. As for the iPhone, we can safely say: "It plays Doom."
A masterwork of interactive storytelling, this game was unlike any that came before it. Blatant imitators have been making games for more than 15 years now.
An educational game that became part of an entire generation's zeitgeist, The Oregon Trail got a radical renovation for the iPhone. The graphics are improved, and there are a lot of fun mini-games to now play during your journey.
One of the funniest games of all time, The Secret of Monkey Island was made by the illustrious LucasArts adventure game studio. You can play the game as it originally appeared, or you can play the voiced and redrawn version. The iPhone remastering of the sequel just came out, too.
It's not very often that a game comes out that can be called a classic just over a year after its release. Few would dispute that Plants vs. Zombies is deserving of the title. It's hard to believe that the game originated on the PC, though, because once you play it on a touchscreen, you won't want to go back.
Not as well-known as The Secret of Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky was a point-and-click, cult hit adventure game. Solve the mysteries and meet the strange characters of a post-apocalyptic world in this one.
The PC wasn't known for its platform jumping games. But Prince of Persia was a uniquely PC take on the console-dominated genre. This remastered version is faithful to the original, including its unforgiving difficulty. Watch yourself.
Rogue is the great grandfather of World of Warcraft. Until that hugely popular MMO hits the iPhone, this is one of your best bets. As with Monkey Island, you can play either the remastered version or the original (in this case an ASCII-text only affair). Yes, Rogue is really that old, but its influence is strongly felt even today.
Everyone knows SimCity. This iPhone version is basic compared to some of the later offerings in the series, but when you're playing on the go, that's probably okay.
Another cult hit, Worms was the final evolution of an obscure genre of games that involved calculating angles and wind speeds to deliver lethal volleys at friends. Worms was more action-oriented and hilarious, and the franchise has been a staple for gamers for a long time now.
Frotz isn't a game on its own, but we had to include it because it's one of the most exciting classic PC gaming apps for the iPhone.
It's kind of like an iBooks or Kindle for interactive fiction. Text-based adventure games were immensely popular in the late 70s and early 80s; if you remember those times, you won't want to miss Frotz. It runs many of your old favorites, plus new adventures made by enthusiasts who are still being creative today.
- 10 iPad Games Worth Paying For - 10 Awesome Vintage Video Games You Can Play Online - 10 Cool Konami Code Easter Eggs - 10 Fun Casual Games for Android Phones - HOW TO: Download Google Pac-Man Game for Free | Check out 10 of the greatest, most influential, straight-up classic computer games ever made, all available on - and completely remastered for - Apple's handset. | 26.625 | 0.96875 | 13.09375 | medium | high | extractive |
http://mashable.com/2010/08/15/essential-resources-roundup-2/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20120126065926id_/http://mashable.com/2010/08/15/essential-resources-roundup-2/ | 25 Essential Social Media Resources You May Have Missed | 20120126065926 | If you’ve some catching up to do this weekend, we’ve got a list that’s hot and fresh from the Mashable HQ kitchen. This is your one-stop shop for all the resources you might have missed.
In the social media department, you’ll find some useful tools to track those pesky Twitter unfollowers, some handy tips for dealing with Twitter complaints, and some funny web comics.
Tech and mobile brings you some great Safari extensions for power-browser and some cross-platform development tools for the versatile mobile app builder.
Check out the business category for a look at current web design trends, a behind-the-scenes peek at the offices of 360i, and analysis of social gaming — the next big money maker on the web.
Looking for even more social media resources? You can find this guide every weekend, where you can check out all of the lists-gone-by.
For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
For more tech news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s tech channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.
For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook. | We're back with some resources -- "you may have missed" -- hot and fresh from the Mashable HQ kitchen. | 11.043478 | 0.695652 | 3.913043 | low | low | mixed |
http://mashable.com/2008/10/17/social-profiles-after-death/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20120127040204id_/http://mashable.com/2008/10/17/social-profiles-after-death/ | What Happens to Our Social Profiles After We Die? | 20120127040204 | It is safe to say that anyone reading this probably has one or several accounts on any of the major social networking sites. The same can be said about our family and friends. All of these sites pretty much serve the same function. They allow us to post and share our innermost thoughts, share pictures, music, goofy applications, and network with friends, family and coworkers.
Social networking sites may in time change ownership. They and the data stored on them will almost certainly exist longer than their creators. All too often, these profiles serve as online memorials, obituaries, and a last place for loved ones and the general public to honor the dead.
This is a subject that has made me very uneasy. Due to a recent death in my family, this topic keeps repeating back and forth in my subconsciousness. This particular family member did not have a social networking profile, and was not active online. But if they had, some underlying questions would need to be answered:
1. Do we have the password for the social networking accounts?
2. If not, what are the next steps for gaining access to the accounts?
3. Do we make the profile private if the family wishes to grieve silently?
4. Do we leave the profile intact and public?
5. Do we let the profile become an online memorial for the deceased?
In an email exchange with a New York Times reporter, Tom Anderson, the president of MySpace, said “the company does not allow people to assume control of the MySpace accounts of users after their deaths.” “MySpace handles each incident on a case-by-case basis when notified, and will work with families to respect their wishes,” he added, also noting that at the request of survivors the company would take down pages of deceased users.
Delving further into the subject, I ended up on a site that I had not visited since its creation in 2006. The site is MyDeathSpace and it bills itself as “Your global resource for MySpace.com member obituaries.” It’s an archival site that contains news articles, online obituaries, and other publicly available information about deceased MySpace members.
There are more than 12,000 profiles listed on the site, mainly of younger people. If you need a dose of what reality is, visit this site. I was overcome with shock, horror, and sadness upon learning how some of these people died. Most of these deaths were gruesome and premature, and resulted from accidents, suicides, murders, etc. The site also shows the profiles of many of the criminals suspected and charged with many of these heinous crimes. Overall, MyDeathSpace shows how reckless and senseless society can be.
Reading the memorials and newspaper blurbs gave me a brief snapshot into people’s lives. Sadly, the more I read, the more my curiosity was peaked. I wanted to know more about how the person died, and how they lived. I skimmed through the comments left on their MySpace profiles, and looked through their blog postings, pictures etc. The Majority of the profiles I saw had last login dates well past the person’s date of death.
Family members of the deceased have since logged in, and turned these profiles into online shrines. They monitor the comments, various dates of importance, and in a small way continue to let their loved one live on, perhaps forever thanks to cyberspace. I can see this helping in the healing and grieving process for families of the deceased. The profiles reflect this for the most part, as they are updated and kept in meticulous condition. It’s a way for the family to maintain connections with the deceased’s friends, while also allowing the grieving process to take place in a global public forum.
Comments are left by friends, family members and random strangers. I guess with the belief that the deceased person, in another dimension might be reading it. Many of the comments are written as though the individual were alive today. When in reality, it has been several years since the death. Birthdays, holidays, and significant dates of importance, of both the lives of the author, and the deceased keep the profiles active in memoriam.
Then there are other profiles of members who are frozen in time. The last login dates for their MySpace profiles are often the day before, or several days before they met their fateful demise. The pages were last updated by the deceased, and have not been touched since then.
These are the profiles that are especially ghostly. Their last pictures, their last words, and their favorite song usually decorate their profile. Chatter to and from friends about their upcoming plans, and about what they did the days and nights before, is all that remains. I wonder if the surviving family members even know if these profiles exist.
I think it’s only fitting for us to live on in cyberspace when we perish from this earth. I certainly would not have an issue with my family members honoring me in such a way. I also realize that not every family is comfortable with such an open and public grieving process.
One comment I read from a murdered teenager’s mother sticks in my head. The mother basically said, “It’s been three years since my daughter’s death, it’s unhealthy for the grieving process to still be taking place.” She was referring to her daughter’s MySpace profile being flooded daily with encouraging words of support. The fascination with death is only human nature. We fear, embrace and must learn about the unknown. Sites like MyDeathSpace exist for this reason.
Do you want yourself or your loved ones memorialized online?
Image by Kevin Dooley under Creative Commons license. | A growing number of people belong to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, but what happens to their profiles after they die? | 44.52 | 0.76 | 1.08 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/07/science/navy-moves-to-aid-shrike-imperiled-by-its-gunnery-practice.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20120201070634id_/http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/07/science/navy-moves-to-aid-shrike-imperiled-by-its-gunnery-practice.html | Navy Moves to Aid Shrike Imperiled by Its Gunnery Practice | 20120201070634 | THE San Clemente loggerhead shrike, possibly the most endangered bird in North America, may have a better chance to survive because its landlord, the Navy, is moving to protect the wild population and to breed the shrike in captivity, conservationists say.
The bird, found only on San Clemente Island in the Pacific Ocean 75 miles northwest of San Diego, is a subspecies of the loggerhead shrike, a predatory songbird that ranges widely but sparsely across the United States and southern Canada. A survey of the island by biologists in November turned up only 15 shrikes; another 10 are in a breeding facility recently opened by the Navy on the island.
The Navy has owned the 56-square-mile island since 1933, using it mainly for ship-to-shore bombardment training and for practicing simulated landings on an aircraft carrier. The shrike was added to the Federal Endangered Species list in 1977, and last summer the American Bird Conservancy threatened to sue under the Endangered Species Act to force the Navy to take steps to save the bird from extinction.
The loggerhead shrike is a robin-size bird with striking gray, black and white plumage, a black mask and a strong hooked bill. Shrikes hunt small birds, mice, lizards and large insects, but since they lack the sharp talons of hawks and owls, they have to impale prey on thorns or barbed wire to tear the animals into eatable pieces.
The San Clemente loggerhead shrike is smaller and lighter in color than shrikes on the California mainland, and scientists recognized the bird as a distinct subspecies in 1903. Ornithologists visiting the island around that time found the shrike ''tolerably common'' and ''well distributed.'' But by the mid-1980's, minimum estimates of the bird's breeding population ranged from 11 pairs to 5 pairs. Moreover, most of the shrikes were concentrated in canyons at the southwest end of the island, near the Navy's bombardment targets, where wildfires started by exploding shells threatened their nesting sites.
In a 1990 report on the ''Natural History and Management of the San Clemente Loggerhead Shrike,'' published by the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology, two researchers, Thomas A. Scott and Dr. Michael Morrison, wrote: ''Biogeographic factors shaped the distribution of this subspecies, but human actions, specifically the introduction of exotic species, have altered the ecosystem of San Clemente Island and subsequently jeopardized the shrike's existence.''
Goats were introduced to San Clemente Island around 1875 by a ranch worker and their numbers exploded ''through neglect'' after the Navy took control of the island, the scientists reported. By 1976, when the Navy began killing and trapping goats, much of the island's native vegetation and shrike nesting habitat had been destroyed, they said.
A population of feral domestic cats has existed since the turn of the century, and black rats are believed to have arrived aboard Navy ships in the 1930's. Predation on incubating adult shrikes, nestlings and newly fledged young, particularly by cats and a small native fox, ''is a critical factor in the decline of shrikes on the island,'' the authors concluded. During the five-year study, predators raided 49 percent of the shrike nests, and 45 percent of the surviving fledglings died before they became independent of their parents.
The Navy removed the last of more than 27,000 goats from San Clemente Island in 1992, and Sandy Vissman, an endangered species biologist at the Fish and Wildlife Service's field office in Carlsbad, Calif., said vegetation on the badly eroded island had begun to recover. But for years, conservationists have chafed over what Gerald Winegrad, a staff lawyer for the American Bird Conservancy, called the Navy's ''heel dragging'' in carrying out a recovery plan for the shrike.
In a letter to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt and Defense Secretary William Perry in July, Mr. Winegrad said the Navy, despite repeated warnings from the Fish and Wildlife Service, ''continues to conduct military operations that have placed the species in jeopardy of extinction.'' He said the Navy had refused to consult with the wildlife agency and had failed to carry out measures to increase the shrike population.
In response, the Navy has agreed to introduce a program to control the rats and feral cats; to develop a plan to control fires using tanker planes in partnership with the Forest Service, and to restrict shore bombardment in shrike habitats.
''We're not doing anything different,'' said Jan Larson, the Navy's natural resources manager at North Island in San Diego. ''We were forced to do it a little more quickly when the American Bird Conservancy came into the picture.''
Five pairs of San Clemente loggerhead shrikes have been moved from quarantine at the San Diego Zoo to the island's new captive breeding building. Dr. Nancy Harvey of the zoo's Center for the Reproduction of Endangered Species, which will operate the breeding program, says she hopes to raise and release 40 juvenile shrikes this year and to add another dozen birds to the captive population. ''This is the first attempt to restore an endangered songbird through captive breeding, and we need to grind out as many young as we can because of the heavy losses to predators,'' she said.
Photo: A November survey found only 15 robin-size San Clemente loggerhead shrikes on San Clemente Island; 10 more are held in a breeding facility. (Dr. Sandy Vissman) Map of the Pacific Ocean showing location of San Clemente Island. | THE San Clemente loggerhead shrike, possibly the most endangered bird in North America, may have a better chance to survive because its landlord, the Navy, is moving to protect the wild population and to breed the shrike in captivity, conservationists say. The bird, found only on San Clemente Island in the Pacific Ocean 75 miles northwest of San Diego, is a subspecies of the loggerhead shrike, a predatory songbird that ranges widely but sparsely across the United States and southern Canada. A survey of the island by biologists in November turned up only 15 shrikes; another 10 are in a breeding facility recently opened by the Navy on the island. | 8.524194 | 0.983871 | 53.596774 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/02/smart-paint | http://web.archive.org/web/20120203063907id_/http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/02/smart-paint | Oi! You’ve missed a bit... | 20120203063907 | HOW much easier it would be to locate and repair damage to bridges, wind turbines and other dumb objects if those objects could tell you what the problem was. Researchers at the University of Strathclyde, in Britain, led by Mohamed Saafi, are therefore trying to give them a voice, by devising a new sort of smart paint.
It is composed of what sounds like a bizarre mixture: fly-ash, a fine-grained waste product from coal-fired power stations; carbon nanotubes, cylindrical molecules made of elemental carbon; and two binding agents, sodium silicate and sodium hydroxide. The result is a material similar to cement, which makes a suitably tough paint. When it dries, the fly-ash acts as a tough coating, able to withstand the elements in exposed places. The carbon nanotubes are there to conduct electricity.
The smart bit is that the tubes’ conductivity is affected by cracks in, or corrosion of, the painted surface. When put under stress, for example, the nanotubes bend and become less conductive. If inundated by chloride ions, as a result of corrosion by salt water, their conductivity increases. A simple measurement of voltage should therefore allow engineers to monitor damage.
The paint’s inventors are testing it by wiring painted surfaces up to batteries. Dr Saafi hopes, though, that once it is deployed for real, a painted structure might itself generate the necessary current from the kinetic energy of traffic vibrations or of a turbine’s whirling blades.
The voltage running through any part of the painted area can be measured remotely, using an array of electrodes distributed across its surface, and data for the entire structure dispatched, via a central transmitter, to a computer. Using a medical-imaging technique called electrical-impedance tomography, Dr Safi and his colleague David McGahon are devising software with which to draw a conductivity map of an entire painted structure.
Several sorts of paints have previously been created with nanotechnology. Sometimes the goal is to bind the paint tightly to the material it has been applied to. Sometimes it is to channel water molecules efficiently, thus keeping a surface clean. Perhaps most exotically, some paints incorporate tiny particles of silver, which capture atmospheric pollutants. But Dr Saafi’s smart paint appears to be new in several ways.
It is cheap, so it is possible to imagine whole structures being built out of it, instead of cement. It also versatile, theoretically able to detect a broad range of stresses and pollutants. The next stage of development will be to slap it onto a large object, and see how well it works. If it performs well, there are currently 3,500 wind turbines—and counting—in Britain alone that could do with a lick of it. | HOW much easier it would be to locate and repair damage to bridges, wind turbines and other dumb objects if those objects could tell you what the problem was. | 17.064516 | 1 | 31 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/11/03/us-usa-politics-guide-idUSTRE4A20N420081103 | http://web.archive.org/web/20120306000125id_/http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/11/03/us-usa-politics-guide-idUSTRE4A20N420081103 | Clues to election result could come early | 20120306000125 | By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent
WASHINGTON | Mon Nov 3, 2008 4:11am EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some of the earliest returns in Tuesday's U.S. presidential election could provide big clues about the outcome.
Trends in the race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain could become clear soon after the first polls begin to close at 6 p.m. EST in Indiana.
Obama and McCain are locked in a surprisingly tight duel in Indiana, a Midwestern state that has voted Republican in every White House race since 1964. A breakthrough win for Obama, or even a neck-and-neck struggle, would be an encouraging sign of broad strength for the senator from neighboring Illinois.
But if McCain appears to be cruising to a relatively easy win in Indiana it could signal trouble for Obama, who is challenging McCain in about a dozen states won in 2004 by Republican President George W. Bush.
The first public sign of Democrat John Kerry's loss in 2004 came from a worse-than-expected 20-point blowout in Indiana.
"If Obama wins Indiana, the election is over," Democratic consultant Doug Schoen said. "Even if it's close, within 2 or 3 points, it probably suggests a big Obama win nationally. If it's more than 4 points for McCain, it's going to be wait and see for a while."
The next round of tests is at 7 p.m. EST when voting ends in Georgia, parts of Florida and the battleground state of Virginia -- another place where Democrats have not won a presidential vote since 1964 but have made gains in recent statewide races.
"If Obama wins Virginia by a decisive margin, it's a pretty strong suggestion he's going to win the election," Schoen said. "If McCain wins by more than a few points that could suggest movement toward him."
At 7:30 p.m. EST, polls close in the states of Ohio and North Carolina.
By 8 p.m. EST, all polls in Florida will be closed. Florida's 27 electoral votes and Ohio's 20 electoral votes are two of the biggest prizes still up for grabs on Tuesday.
MCCAIN MUST WIN THEM ALL
McCain, an Arizona senator who faces a perilous path to gaining the 270 electoral votes he needs to win, essentially has to carry all of those early battleground states to have a realistic chance.
A setback in any would increase pressure on McCain to make up for the loss with an upset of Obama in Pennsylvania, which Democrats have taken in the past four presidential elections. Voting in Pennsylvania, which has 21 electoral votes, also ends at 8 p.m. EST.
The presidential race is not the only battle with an early bellwether. The first returns could offer hints about the fight for control of the U.S. Senate as well.
Democrats are expected to dramatically boost their narrow 51-49 control on Tuesday but need to pick up nine seats to reach a 60-seat majority that would give them the muscle to defeat Republican procedural hurdles.
The first crucial Senate showdown is in Kentucky, where Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is in a tough fight for re-election and, like Indiana, polls begin to close at 6 p.m. EST.
"Indiana offers an early tip about the presidential race, and Kentucky will do the same for the Senate," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University poll.
"If McConnell wins Kentucky, there is no way the Democrats get to 60," Brown said. "We're going to know two things fairly early -- whether it's a presidential blowout and whether the Democrats have any shot at 60 seats. Those are two big questions." | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some of the earliest returns in Tuesday's U.S. presidential election could provide big clues about the outcome.Trends in the race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John | 20.285714 | 1 | 19.914286 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/04/13/catherine-zeta-jones-checks-mental-hospital-treat-bipolar-disorder-report-says/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20120306005500id_/http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/04/13/catherine-zeta-jones-checks-mental-hospital-treat-bipolar-disorder-report-says/ | Catherine Zeta-Jones Checks Into Mental Hospital To Treat Bipolar Disorder, Report Says | 20120306005500 | Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones checked herself into a mental hospital to treat Bipolar II Disorder, her rep tells People magazine.
Zeta-Jones made the decision to enter treatment following her husband Michael Douglas’ battle with cancer,her rep said.
“After dealing with the stress of the past year, Catherine made the decision to check into a mental health facility for a brief stay to treat her Bipolar II disorder,” the rep said in a statement. “She’s feeling great and looking forward to starting work this week on her two upcoming films.”
The 41-year-old actress spent about five days in the facility, People reports.
Bipolar disorder is a mental illness that affects an estimated 6 million Americans. It is traditionally marked by elevated moods, followed by alternating periods of depression. Those afflicted with bipolar II tend to have bouts of depression, where mood swings last longer and the elevated moods are less dramatic.
“There’s no question it’s been a stressful year,” a friend of the actress tells People. “Catherine has had to deal with Michael’s illness and that’s been hard. She went in for a few days because she’s about to start working, and wanted to make sure she’s in top form, which she is.”
Zeta-Jones and Douglas have two children, Dylan, 10, and Carys, 7.
Douglas, 66, recently announced that he is free of cancer of six months of chemotherapy and radiation. | The 41-year-old star was treated for five days, her rep tells People magazine. | 17 | 0.823529 | 4.117647 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/12/19/kim-kardashian-and-kanye-west-would-be-one-americas-most-hated-celeb-couples/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20120313054957id_/http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/12/19/kim-kardashian-and-kanye-west-would-be-one-americas-most-hated-celeb-couples/ | Kim Kardashian And Kanye West Would Be One Of America's Most Hated Celeb Couples, Expert Says | 20120313054957 | Coupling up in Hollywood can be a business arrangement, one that bolsters the brand value of both parties.
That all goes out the window if collectively, two individuals raise the ire of the American public even more than they do separately.
Meet Kim Kardashian and Kanye West.
Last week we learned there may be a burgeoning romance between reality television star and the polarizing rapper after the pair were all over each other at an after-party following a Jay-Z concert on Tuesday night. Celebrity number crunching experts tell Fox411 this pairing could possibly result in the most toxic celebrity couple of all time.
“We are starting out with two individuals with the deck stacked against them, and when you put the two of them together, they will be a turn off to the majority of the audience,” explains Steven Levitt, the President of Marketing Evaluations.
Levitt’s company measures Q scores, a measure that quantifies the likability of a particular personality. They poll a cross section of the American public on how warmly or coldly they feel about a particular celeb.
Using the scores, Levitt can objectively show that a Kanye-Kim Kardashian union would be unfavorable to the extreme.
Levitt tells us that Kanye West has a positive Q score of 15. The average for personalities in the rap and hip hop community among Kanye’s peers is an 18. That’s not terrible. What is bad is his negative Q, which is a 58, where the average negative score for the rap community is a 40.
“While his positive rating isn’t dreadful his negative is way beyond the average for the category,” Levitt said.
The last time Levitt’s company ran the numbers on Kim Kardashian was in August, before her disasterous 72 day marriage to Kris Humphries further soured the public against her.
“My guess is the numbers would not improve if we ran them now,” Levitt said. But even in August, Kim’s likability was low, generally and amongst her reality starring cohorts.
Kim’s positive Q score is a 12 and her negative is a whopping 53. The average in the reality television category is a positive score of 18 and a negative of 32.
“When you look at Kim and Kanye together you see that the audience does not favor either of them,” Levitt said. “For the most part they turn off the general audience."
Even the tabloid magazines, who typically love celebrity couplings, say they don’t want to see a West-Kardashian union.
“Right now Kim needs to focus on repairing her image and winning back the public's approval and their trust in her. Kanye West is a horrible choice. Those two would be the most hated couple in America if they started dating,” explains In Touch Senior Editor Dorothy Cascerceri. “He's extremely outspoken to the point of self-absorbed and conceited in the eyes of many. She needs to go with someone who the public already loves.”
Qualitatively and quantitatively Kim and Kanye are a bad match. The real question is whether there is any more toxic coupling?
“Only if you threw Lindsay Lohan into the mix,” Levitt said. | Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Would Be One of America's Most Hated Celeb Couples, Expert Says | 34.444444 | 0.833333 | 2.166667 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/27/books/a-sacred-evil.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20120315232347id_/http://www.nytimes.com/1999/06/27/books/a-sacred-evil.html | A Sacred Evil - NYTimes.com | 20120315232347 | THE HOLOCAUST IN AMERICAN LIFE
This book will be welcomed by those who value the role of conjecture in American culture. But those who prize findings verified by firm proof will want to read ''The Holocaust in American Life'' with caution. Peter Novick, a historian at the University of Chicago, is not unaware of the problem he faces, and he meets it with intellectual courage and conviction. Does news media coverage of an event, he asks, even a disaster like the Holocaust, reflect or create the concern it seeks to cover? ''We can only speculate,'' he concludes, ''based on fragments of evidence, often ambiguous poll results and seat-of-the-pants impressions.'' Despite this admission, he remains unapologetic in anticipation of the dissent his contrarian posture is bound to arouse.
His speculation concerns the impact of the Holocaust on American consciousness during the past 25 years. (But he might have been addressing the previous quarter-century too.) As soon as we assert, as Novick does, the centrality of the Holocaust in American life, we raise a number of difficult issues, beginning with the question ''Which Holocaust?'' The expression ''the Holocaust'' has no intrinsic content. We paint its blank canvas with the palette we possess, and who can tell what meager brushstrokes might result from such an endeavor? How many American Jews today, to say nothing of American gentiles, can identify Sobibor or Chaim Rumkowski, explain the use of mobile gas vans or Zyklon B, tell us the importance of Lodz or Babi Yar? When they remember ''the Holocaust,'' are they thinking of the 300,000 Jews deported to their death from Warsaw in the summer of 1942, or the heroic but doomed uprising in the ghetto the following spring? It makes a difference.
Moreover, when we try to measure the impact of ''the Holocaust'' on American Jewry, which Jews do we mean? There is no such creature as ''the American Jewish community.'' Secular Jews like the author approach the topic in one way. But devout Jews have to wrestle with questions of covenant and belief that are of little consequence to Novick. He cites a few examples of efforts to sacralize the catastrophe, asking how many Jews choose the word ''awe'' to describe ''their emotions when contemplating the Holocaust.'' But we have no idea how many, and no way of finding out. Novick's tone implies that the number is large, but hunches do not make good history.
Novick offers without evidence his surmise that ''it has become standard practice to use the term 'sacred' to describe the Holocaust and everything connected with it.'' I do not recall ever having used that term to describe the Holocaust, nor do I find it in the writings of numerous Holocaust commentators whose work I respect. Novick properly deplores attempts to mystify mass murder, but we never learn whether those attempts echo a few influential voices or a prevailing tendency in the American response to that grim event.
Novick's main thesis is that over the decades the Holocaust has ''moved from the margins to the center of how American Jews understand themselves and how they represent themselves to others.'' Is this true? He is unsure enough to admit in his next sentence that ''so far as self-understanding is concerned, there's no way of knowing just how many American Jews, and which American Jews, ground their Jewish identity in the Holocaust, but the number appears to be large.'' No doubt if one searched one could find handfuls, maybe sizable handfuls, of Jews for whom Novick's notion is correct. But like hunches, handfuls do not make good history.
As Novick grows more specific in his challenges to conventional thinking about the Holocaust, he forces us to reconsider many traditional views, and this is the real merit of his volume. Much ink has been spilled on the issue of whether the Holocaust is unique, but Novick asks what we would accomplish even if we could prove that it was. Those who feel that it is more important to explore an episode in history than to define it will be cheered by this question. But others will argue that Nazi Germany's decision to invade more than a dozen countries with the eventual intention of murdering every last Jew in the territories under its control was indeed unprecedented, and knowing this contributes to our understanding of what Hitler and his cohorts called ''the final solution of the Jewish question in Europe.'' Novick does not quell the dispute, but he introduces some provocative rejoinders to those who believe that it has already been settled. | THE HOLOCAUST IN AMERICAN LIFE By Peter Novick. 373 pp. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. $27. | 37.5 | 0.5 | 1.416667 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/09/08/us-cancer-prostate-idUSN0719931320080908 | http://web.archive.org/web/20120429230839id_/http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/09/08/us-cancer-prostate-idUSN0719931320080908 | Pain relievers may complicate prostate screening | 20120429230839 | WASHINGTON | Mon Sep 8, 2008 2:12am EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Taking a popular class of pain relievers that includes aspirin and ibuprofen lowers the levels of a protein in a man's blood that doctors use to screen for prostate cancer, U.S. researchers said on Monday.
But the researchers said it is unclear whether this means these men have a lower risk for developing prostate cancer or these medications may make it harder to detect prostate tumors with a common screening blood test.
The study involving 1,319 U.S. men age 40 and up found that those who took nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, known as NSAIDs, nearly every day had prostate specific antigen, or PSA, levels about 10 percent lower than men who did not take them.
PSA is a protein produced by cells in the prostate gland, and elevated levels in the bloodstream may indicate the presence of prostate cancer or other prostate conditions.
The researchers said it would be premature for men to take these drugs with the hope of lowering prostate cancer risk.
Many men over age 50, and some younger, in the United States and other countries get blood tests measuring PSA levels annually to screen for prostate cancer.
The study by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, New York, said the medications may mask a man's risk of getting prostate cancer by lowering PSA levels while his risk remains unchanged.
"If you're a guy who's close to the upper limit of normal (in PSA levels) or would have been over the upper limit and now you're under it because of this, that could certainly change whether or not you would be referred for a biopsy (to check for a tumor)," Dr Eric Singer, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.
NSAIDs are used by millions of people for headaches, minor pain, arthritis, lowering fever and reducing swelling.
Among them are aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin and other brands) and naproxen (Aleve and other brands).
"While our results are consistent with other research that indicates that certain painkillers may reduce a man's risk of getting prostate cancer, the new findings are preliminary and don't prove a link," Edwin van Wijngaarden, another of the researchers, said in a statement.
The study, published in the American Cancer Society's journal Cancer, also found that men who regularly took acetaminophen (Tylenol) also had lower PSA levels. But the finding was not statistically significant because of the limited number of men in the study taking it.
There is a debate in the medical community about the value of PSA tests, with some saying that routine screening turns up many prostate tumors that pose no threat to a man's life and can lead to unnecessary prostate cancer treatment.
Experts are awaiting the results of clinical trials ongoing in the United States and Europe that may answer the question of whether PSA screening actually saves lives.
Prostate cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed form of cancer in men worldwide, with about 780,000 men diagnosed per year, and the sixth mostly deadly form in men, with about 250,000 deaths per year, the American Cancer Society said. | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Taking a popular class of pain relievers that includes aspirin and ibuprofen lowers the levels of a protein in a man's blood that doctors use to screen for prostate cancer, U.S. | 16.184211 | 1 | 38 | medium | high | extractive |
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/05/couple-married-64-years-wears-matching-outfits-for-35-of-them/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20120529094623id_/http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/05/couple-married-64-years-wears-matching-outfits-for-35-of-them/ | Couple Married 64 Years Wears Matching Outfits for 35 of Them | 20120529094623 | Mel and Joey Schwanke have been married for 64 years.
That’s a feat just on its own, but what the Fremont, Omaha, couple have done for the last 35 years of their marriage is another accomplishment altogether.
Every day for the past 35 years, the fabric of his tie has been an exact match to that of her dress. They have 146-custom made outfits matching just like that.
“We don’t dare go somewhere without (being in) matching outfits,” Mel Schwanke, 86, told ABC News affiliate KETV 7 in Omaha. “Every day, my tie matches her dress.”
And the patterns on those matching outfits are often floral, because the pair owned an area flower shop for 60 years.
The couple had a closet specially built when they built their home, and each day they go through the process of selecting 81-year-old Joey’s dress, and her husband’s tie, KETV reported.
The pair said they’ve been matching outfits for so long that they don’t remember how it first started. | ABC News Mel and Joey Schwanke have been married for 64 years. That’s a feat just on its own, but what the Fremont, Omaha, couple have done for the last 35 years of their marriage is another accomplishment altogether. Every day for the past 35 years, the fabric of his tie has been an exact match to that of her dress. They have 146-custom made outfits matching just like that. “We don’t dare go somewhere without (being in) matching outfits,” Mel Schwanke, 86, told ABC News affiliate KETV 7 in Omaha. “Every day, my tie matches her dress.” And the… | 1.682927 | 0.99187 | 32.439024 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/knapp/article/49ers-look-for-new-ways-to-stay-fit-in-offseason-3585336.php | http://web.archive.org/web/20120623211444id_/http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/knapp/article/49ers-look-for-new-ways-to-stay-fit-in-offseason-3585336.php | 49ers look for new ways to stay fit in offseason | 20120623211444 | At the suggestion of a friend, Jonathan Goodwin added boxing to his offseason routine, alternating quick bursts of pounding his fists into a trainer's mitts with other short sets of exercise. The 49ers' center also played some kickball with his wife in a co-ed league near his South Carolina home.
The boxing regimen put him in sync with his fellow linemen who stayed in the Bay Area, working on new fitness techniques with strength and conditioning coach Mark Uyeyama. The kickball? That was fairly original.
"It was another way to get me out running, and I usually play pitcher, and most of the girls bunt, so I had to work on springing up and making the play," Goodwin said, "so I honestly think with me having to do that, it's helped with quickness and reaction time."
As a big guy entering his 11th year in the NFL, Goodwin needs to find alternatives to running laps, to counter both tedium and the stress on his knees. Every player should be trying to reinvent a piece of himself in the offseason, seeking ways to stay fresh, mentally and physically.
The 49ers' revival last season, ending in an overtime loss a game shy of the Super Bowl, led a lot of people to see them as just a few roster tweaks away from a Lombardi Trophy. They loaded up on wide receivers, and if even one of them produces like a typical second option, the team will be vastly upgraded at the position. But the "one player away" theory doesn't work on its own. The returning players from a team like the 49ers have to move forward, or work at moving forward so they can stay at the level they achieved before.
The boxing routine is new, and all of the linemen are doing it. Goodwin was surprised when he talked to teammate Daniel Kilgore and learned that he had independently chosen the same activity. It's possible that the regimen has become trendy in the NFL, but Goodwin, who played on the 2010 championship team in New Orleans, said he hadn't heard of anyone else trying it.
"Maybe so, maybe so, but hopefully it's just our little secret, and nobody else is doing it," he said. "Like I said, it's been good for me, it's given me more endurance and given me stronger punches."
Given how important it is for a lineman to establish superiority at the second of impact, boxing should probably have been a staple of practices for a while now. "It was translates really well to the football field," left tackle Joe Staley said.
Vernon Davis hasn't donned the gloves. Instead, the tight end got back onto the basketball court this offseason, seriously returning to what he calls his "first love" as an athlete for the first time since he entered college. He played with his brother, Dolphins defensive back Vontae Davis, Browns linebacker and former Maryland teammate D'Qwell Jackson, plus some young prospects in Washington, D.C.
"It was fun," Davis said, "and the more I played, the better I got at it again. I mixed it up, a day of this, and then a day of lifting or other things. I feel like, for me, my footwork is what I wanted to focus on the most."
Linebacker Patrick Willis mixed something old with something new. He loves to fish, and he discovered that Randy Moss, a fellow Southerner, sees himself as a bassmaster in the making. So off they went together to enjoy a Bay Area fishing hole as guests of former Shark Owen Nolan, now the host of a Canadian fishing show.
"He's my best fishing buddy," Willis said. "We went fishing a couple of times now and I've out-fished him both times."
Their outings might not make a difference if Moss at 35 can't still play at close to peak form. But in the past, his emotional fitness determined whether teams got the shouldn't-miss Hall of Famer or the "I play when I want to play" Moss. Being on a good team has always brought out the best in Moss, so the 49ers have that in their favor.
Bonding with Willis can only add extra incentives. Tanking would be a real chore for anyone who had to face the earnest linebacker in the locker room afterward.
At some point, they might want to drag Staley out to the water with them. He has an affinity for fishing, too. Boxing is all new, however. "I'm not really a fighter," he deadpanned. "I'm from the suburbs."
Gwen Knapp is a Chronicle sports columnist. E-mail: gknapp@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @gwenknapp | At the suggestion of a friend, Jonathan Goodwin added boxing to his offseason routine, alternating quick bursts of pounding his fists into a trainer's mitts with other short sets of exercise. The boxing regimen put him in sync with his fellow linemen who stayed in the Bay Area, working on new fitness techniques with strength and conditioning coach Mark Uyeyama. Every player should be trying to reinvent a piece of himself in the offseason, seeking ways to stay fresh, mentally and physically. The 49ers' revival last season, ending in an overtime loss a game shy of the Super Bowl, led a lot of people to see them as just a few roster tweaks away from a Lombardi Trophy. [...] the tight end got back onto the basketball court this offseason, seriously returning to what he calls his "first love" as an athlete for the first time since he entered college. [...] off they went together to enjoy a Bay Area fishing hole as guests of former Shark Owen Nolan, now the host of a Canadian fishing show. Tanking would be a real chore for anyone who had to face the earnest linebacker in the locker room afterward. | 4.101322 | 0.929515 | 27.052863 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2012/06/paraguayan-politics/node/21557583/email | http://web.archive.org/web/20120627020749id_/http://www.economist.com/blogs/americasview/2012/06/paraguayan-politics/node/21557583/email | Paraguayan politics | 20120627020749 | Jun 25th 2012, 21:45 by S.G.
WHEN Fernando Lugo was elected as Paraguay’s president in 2008, it was hailed as a crucial step forward for democracy in the landlocked South American country. Even after the 35-year rule of Alfredo Stroessner, a military dictator, came to an end in 1989, candidates from his conservative Colorado Party won the next three presidential elections. The victory of Mr Lugo, a former bishop, was the first time in modern history that Paraguay underwent a peaceful transfer of power to an opposition party.
But Mr Lugo’s hold on power was always precarious. He depended on an awkward legislative coalition between his leftist allies and the more centrist Liberal party. From the start, he faced resistance from politicians and businesses close to the country’s landed elite. Whilst in office, lurid revelations that he had fathered at least two children, in violation of his vow of celibacy, lost him the respect of many of his core supporters. He further disappointed them by failing to deliver on a central campaign promise to redistribute ownership of land.
Mr Lugo’s numerous political enemies had long been looking for an opportunity to oust him. This month they got their chance. On June 15th police tried to evict a group of landless farmers from a remote forest reserve near the Brazilian border. The resulting clash claimed 17 lives. Mr Lugo replaced his interior minister and police chief and ordered an investigation, but his leftist base demanded stronger action. The president then made himself even more vulnerable by sacking his interior minister, a Liberal, and replacing him with a former state prosecutor with links to the Colorados. That caused his coalition to fracture, and left him with virtually no political allies.
Although Mr Lugo had just one year left in office and cannot run for re-election, his rivals saw little reason to let him serve out his term. On June 21st the lower house of Congress voted to impeach him, charging him both with failing in his duties regarding the deaths of the farmers and with various cases of malfeasance earlier in his presidency, including allowing his leftist allies to hold a meeting in an army base and not taking sufficient action against a guerrilla group. Mr Lugo was given all of two hours to prepare his defence. The next day the Senate removed him by a vote of 39 to 4. He was succeeded by the vice-president, Federico Franco, who had already turned against Mr Lugo.
The speed of events—the entire process took 31 hours—seemed to have caught Mr Lugo unawares. Hours after being deposed, he seemed almost serene, smiling on television and saying his nephews would help him clear his belongings from the presidential palace. But by June 24th, after the leaders of most Latin American countries had denounced his impeachment, he became defiant. He now says he plans to set up a rival government and attend a summit meeting of Mercosur, the South American trade block, on June 28th. Mr Franco’s officials also say they will send a delegation to the event.
The outcome of the standoff may well depend on the response of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s president. Brazil is Paraguay’s biggest trading partner, and its purchases of electricity from a dam the two countries share are crucial for the Paraguayan economy.
In 2009, when the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, was deposed and exiled in a military coup backed by the courts and legislature, Brazil not only refused to recognise the de facto government but also let Mr Zelaya take shelter in the Brazilian embassy after he sneaked back into the country. But unlike the ouster of Mr Zelaya, which was illegal because the Honduran constitution has no provision for the removal of a president, there is no question that Paraguay’s Congress had the authority to impeach Mr Lugo. Moreover, Ms Rousseff, who took office in 2011, has pursued a much more moderate foreign policy than that of her predecessor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
So far, Ms Rousseff has not tipped her hand. Latin America’s most strident leftist governments—those of Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Cuba and Bolivia—have all announced they will not recognise Mr Franco’s government, and Venezuela says it will cut off its exports of hydrocarbons to Paraguay. Argentina, which currently holds Mercosur’s rotating presidency, now says that Mr Franco will not be welcome at the group’s summit. But Brazil has merely “condemned” the way Mr Lugo was removed. With the next Paraguayan election scheduled for April 2013, Ms Rousseff will need to act quickly if she decides to intervene on Mr Lugo’s behalf. | WHEN Fernando Lugo was elected as Paraguay’s president in 2008, it was hailed as a crucial step forward for democracy in the landlocked South American country. | 30.517241 | 1 | 29 | medium | high | extractive |
http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/49ERS-GAME-REVIEW-3948331.php | http://web.archive.org/web/20121015071212id_/http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/49ERS-GAME-REVIEW-3948331.php | 49ERS GAME REVIEW | 20121015071212 | They scored their fewest points since 2010, didn't reach the red zone and their strengths - mistake-free play and the NFL's leading rushing game - were nearly nonexistent. Alex Smith's two interceptions on the first two possessions of the third quarter allowed the game to get away. The 49ers also got away from their ground game: They called eight runs after the first quarter and finished with 80 yards, 115 below their average. Where is that Buffalo defense?
Some of New York's 26 points can be explained by the 49ers' turnovers and poor special-teams play: The Giants gained only 33 yards while scoring 13 points on three second-half drives. But how to explain the performance of RB Ahmad Bradshaw (116 yards, TD) who gashed the 49ers in the second half? Bradshaw had 93 yards on 16 carries in the final two quarters against a usually suffocating front seven that looked gassed by the end. The 49ers also had no sacks.
Leading 10-3, the Giants set the second-half tone, and soon took a two-touchdown lead, thanks to David Wilson's 66-yard kickoff return to open the third quarter. It was the latest gaffe by a coverage unit that entered ranked 30th in the NFL. David Akers' missed 43-yard field goal try was a deflating end to a promising game-opening drive. Akers also missed a 52-yard try before halftime. A bright spot: Tarell Brown's blocked field-goal attempt late in the second quarter looked like a momentum-changer at the time.
Jim Harbaugh said it himself: The plan wasn't good. And Harbaugh's challenge of Bradshaw's obvious non-fumble in the second quarter wasn't too hot, either. The 49ers' first two possessions consisted of 12 plays each - and netted a combined three points. Those possessions slowed after the 49ers inserted Colin Kaepernick. Did the shuffling of QBs disrupt the offensive flow? Harbaugh acknowledged it might have.
The 49ers were the favorites, playing at home, with plenty of motivation on the heels of last season's loss in the NFC title game. Instead of delivering a we're-the new-kings statement, they sustained their worst loss of the Harbaugh era. | The Giants gained only 33 yards while scoring 13 points on three second-half drives. Leading 10-3, the Giants set the second-half tone, and soon took a two-touchdown lead, thanks to David Wilson's 66-yard kickoff return to open the third quarter. David Akers' missed 43-yard field goal try was a deflating end to a promising game-opening drive. The 49ers were the favorites, playing at home, with plenty of motivation on the heels of last season's loss in the NFC title game. Instead of delivering a we're-the new-kings statement, they sustained their worst loss of the Harbaugh era. | 3.351563 | 0.96875 | 25.984375 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2009/04/24/swimwear-supermodel-joanna-krupas-favorite-sexy-stay-piece-suits/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20121024053304id_/http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2009/04/24/swimwear-supermodel-joanna-krupas-favorite-sexy-stay-piece-suits/?intcmp=related | Swimwear Supermodel Joanna Krupa's Favorite Sexy Stay-Put One-Piece Suits | 20121024053304 | Swimsuit supermodel Joanna Krupa is teaming up with NFL bad boy Terrel Owens for ABC's new all-celeb prime-time reality-show "The Superstars," set to air June 23.
The show pairs pro athletes with celebrities and sends them into demanding sports competitions.
Which got us to thinking. How will Krupa, and the other cuties involved, keep their, um, assets in place during the demanding sport stunts?
PHOTOS: Joanna's Top 10 Sexy Stay-Put Swimsuits for Summer.
The Polish stunner, who talked to FOXNews.com's Pop Tarts column a few weeks ago, and who has has been voted the sexiest swimsuit model in the world by magazines around the globe, gave us some of her best tips for staying sexy on the beach when non-stop jet ski, volleyball and jogging action is on the menu.
PHOTOS: See more amazing Joanna Krupa photos at Joannakrupa.com.
Krupa also took us on an exclusive shopping spree at BestSwimwear.com and picked out 10 one-piece swimsuits that she -- and you -- can trust to keep everything looking sleek and sexy, while avoiding embarrassing pop-outs, wedgies, and dreaded top-fall-offs! | Sexy suits that stay put when non-stop jet ski, volleyball and jogging action is on the menu | 11.5 | 0.95 | 11.45 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/television/2012/09/28/call-midwife-more-sweet-than-bitter/mocZDl0hk5g7RRFslVG6mI/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20121102225234id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/television/2012/09/28/call-midwife-more-sweet-than-bitter/mocZDl0hk5g7RRFslVG6mI/story.html | ‘Call the Midwife’ more sweet than bitter | 20121102225234 | ‘Call the Midwife” was a massive hit in England when it aired there earlier this year. The six-part drama, which begins a run on PBS tomorrow night at 8 on Channel 2, actually drew slightly higher ratings than “Downton Abbey,” the series that, along with “Sherlock,” has revived PBS’s cachet among American audiences.
Set in 1957 in the gritty East End of London, though, “Call the Midwife” is about as far as you can get from a lush Yorkshire country estate. And the subject matter, which includes a number of difficult births, primitive obstetrics, shrieking women, and at least one syphilitic lump, is not exactly crumpets and tea. Rather than the upstairs-downstairs setup of “Downton,” “Call the Midwife” is more of a downstairs-downstairs situation, with dire poverty, dirt, insect-ridden tenement buildings, and desperation. There is no glamour here.
Why would this series, based on the memoirs of Jennifer Worth, become so addictive and so popular? Because despite the blood and the labor, “Call the Midwife” is filled with heart. Written and produced by Heidi Thomas of “Cranford” and the new “Upstairs Downstairs,” the show’s focus is always on uplift, on the gems of humanity and redemption found in the darkest of corners. Thomas captures the rising sense of optimism for England’s then-new National Health Service, which brought free health care to the needy, and she draws us into the inspiring way one young nurse — Jenny Lee (Jessica Raine) — learns the power of compassion during her service.
Plus, the regular characters are quite appealing, even while the pregnancy cases of the week sometimes end poorly. The midwives, some of whom are nuns, live together in Nonnatus House, a convent. Sister Monica Joan (Judy Parfitt) is an off-kilter poet, while Chummy (Miranda Hart) is a sweetly klutzy aristocrat. OK — at moments, I wondered if they all might start singing, “How do you solve a problem like Maria.” They can be a little too darn lovable. But “Call the Midwife” isn’t meant to be a deep character study. These women lead with kindness, even when, as with Sister Evangelina (Pam Ferris), it’s cloaked in gruffness. They try to bring out the best in the women they help, many of whom are depressed and — heavens! — fallen.
As Jenny, encountering the lives of the lower class for the first time, Raine is a particularly welcoming presence. She’s a calm-faced actress who, at moments, resembles a young Judy Garland. In the premiere, she has to help a woman who already has 24 children. Jenny does not take a judgmental stance toward this mother — and Thomas doesn’t seem to want us to, either. We are meant to be touched by all the love in that crowded home and between the mother and father. Personally, I would have preferred to see “Call the Midwife” delve further into the hard times that a poor family with 24 kids had to deal with, instead of the more romanticized version we get.
But this is not that show. There’s more sweet than bitter here, as the midwives make their way through the slums on their bicycles. I suspect that is why the series, which has already been renewed for a second round of episodes, struck a chord in England, and why it just might do the same here. While “Mad Men” invites us to look back and compare and contrast, “Call the Midwife” is more interested in touching us with poignant stories about less cynical times. Where there is life, this show about birth suggests, there is hope. | The six-part drama, which begins a run on PBS tomorrow night, actually drew slightly higher ratings than “Downton Abbey,” the series that, along with “Sherlock,” has revived PBS’s cachet among American audiences. Set in 1957 in the gritty East End of London, “Call the Midwife” is about as far as you can get from a lush Yorkshire country estate. And the subject matter is not exactly crumpets and tea. | 8.471264 | 1 | 21.873563 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2012/11/13/hill-delivers-unevenly-while-nas-offers-crowd-pleasing-example/MNVVtGbmCX1qYtNKuQhnqK/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20121117111225id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2012/11/13/hill-delivers-unevenly-while-nas-offers-crowd-pleasing-example/MNVVtGbmCX1qYtNKuQhnqK/story.html | Hill delivers, if unevenly, while Nas offers crowd-pleasing example | 20121117111225 | An hour spent waiting for a show to start on Sunday night in the body heat-fed oven of a sold-out House of Blues can feel like much longer, but the irony alone made it almost worthwhile: In the 14 years since Lauryn Hill’s solo debut exploded to critical and commercial acclaim, her fans have made patience their guiding principle, and even they were getting a little anxious. So when Hill finally took the stage, long after tour coheadliner Nas delivered his own strong performance, the audience breathed a collective sigh of relief that, at least for the night, the wait was …
This is an article preview. The full story is available to BostonGlobe.com subscribers. | An hour spent waiting for a show to start on Sunday night in the body heat–fed oven of a sold-out House of Blues can feel like much longer, but the irony alone made it almost worthwhile: In the 14 years since her solo debut exploded to critical and commercial acclaim, Lauryn Hill's fans have made patience their guiding principle, and even they were getting a little anxious. So when Hill finally took the stage, the audience breathed a collective sigh of relief. | 1.404255 | 0.978723 | 20.553191 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.sfgate.com/athletics/knapp/article/A-s-C-spedes-Prieto-have-bond-that-translates-3478887.php | http://web.archive.org/web/20121121173200id_/http://www.sfgate.com/athletics/knapp/article/A-s-C-spedes-Prieto-have-bond-that-translates-3478887.php | A's Céspedes, Prieto have bond that translates | 20121121173200 | Ariel Prieto finished shagging balls in the Coliseum outfield earlier this week and came into the dugout puffing pretty heavily for a guy who says he just celebrated his 17th birthday.
The official bio for the former A's pitcher, now interpreting for fellow Cuba native Yoenis Céspedes, lists him as 42, and his birthday as Oct. 22. But Prieto also celebrates April 7, 1995, the day he remembers coming to the United States.
"It's my birthday," he said with a big smile.
The A's always treated him well, he said, but the process of acclimating a foreign ballplayer to the United States had not fully evolved. Prieto had a part-time translator at the ballpark, he said, but he had to navigate the outside world on his own. Prieto and Céspedes stayed at the same hotel for the A's first homestand, and they plan to share a house. On Easter Sunday, Prieto said, they went to visit the family of a potential personal chef for the A's new outfielder.
The role of interpreter has expanded over the years as teams invest more money in players who have been stars in other countries.
Five years ago, Boston paid $51.1 million to the Seibu Lions for the right to sign pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, and committed $52 million more to a six-year contract. The deal called for an interpreter who was also a liaison and personal assistant. The Red Sox hired a young Harvard graduate, a Canadian of Japanese descent, for the role.
Prieto appears to be the first mentor/interpreter whose experience so closely matches that of his protege. Prieto was 25 when he arrived in the majors, Céspedes 26. Prieto got a signing bonus of roughly $1.2 million. Céspedes got a four-year, $36 million contract.
Prieto studied some English in Cuba, but he still felt overwhelmed.
"Once you try to learn English quickly, it's hard," Prieto said. "Even now, when I speak English, it's hard for me, and I am considered one of the best."
Prieto played parts of five seasons in Oakland, as injuries undermined his career. In Cuba, he said, politics had threatened to take him out of baseball forever. In the early '90s, after the fall of the Soviet Union cut off subsidies to Fidel Castro, the poverty of the island motivated more players to consider defection. The young standouts, who scouts found most appealing, tended to be taken off Cuba's international traveling squads.
Prieto said he was dumped from the national team and later learned that he was targeted as a flight risk.
"They never tell me straight what is going on, but I heard it from someone," he said. "They didn't want me anymore, so I get out of there."
Prieto couldn't defect because he was removed from traveling teams. Instead, he escaped on a family visa, granted to his wife in her maiden name and sponsored by her father, who had left Cuba and become an American citizen. Later, Prieto told reporters that he had deliberately tanked his last year in Cuban baseball to lower his profile, so his departure would not be noted by authorities in Havana.
In July 1995, he arrived in Oakland and checked into an airport hotel. He'd have to call his bilingual agent to put in room-service orders for him. For his first spring training, he flew from Miami to Arizona via Dallas, and felt lost during the layover, unable to read the boards directing him to his next flight. His agent tried to ease the difficulties by introducing him to a local family.
"For me, they are like my parents," Prieto said. "They did what my mom did for me when I grew up. ... We still are communicating all the time."
Prieto's separation from his mother ended late in 2011, after 16 years. She and one of his nieces came to Miami, which his family calls home. He has led an itinerant existence, making a living in baseball. He worked in Arizona as an instructor for the A's before they tapped him to help with Céspedes' transition.
During games, MLB rules exclude Prieto from the dugout. Hitting coach Chili Davis speaks Spanish and translates instructions for Céspedes.
"Un poco," manager Bob Melvin said when asked how much Spanish he knew.
When the team was in Japan two weeks ago, Melvin said, he found himself looking at all the unfamiliar signage and currency, trying to imagine how he'd fend for himself if, like Céspedes, he ended up working in a foreign land.
Prieto said Céspedes has already taken to one element of American life.
"Steak. He didn't eat too much steak over there," Prieto said, laughing. "I say, 'OK, you love streak. Me, too. So let's go eat steak.' "
Godfrey (0-1) vs. Beavan (0-1)
Colon's comfort zone: Bartolo Colon is the first A's pitcher to make three consecutive starts against the same team without missing a turn in the rotation. His career numbers at Safeco: 9-1 with a 2.09 ERA.
Gwen Knapp is a Chronicle sports columnist. Twitter: @gwenknapp. gknapp@sfchronicle.com | Ariel Prieto finished shagging balls in the Coliseum outfield earlier this week and came into the dugout puffing pretty heavily for a guy who says he just celebrated his 17th birthday. The official bio for the former A's pitcher, now interpreting for fellow Cuba native Yoenis Céspedes, lists him as 42, and his birthday as Oct. 22. Prieto and Céspedes stayed at the same hotel for the A's first homestand, and they plan to share a house. On Easter Sunday, Prieto said, they went to visit the family of a potential personal chef for the A's new outfielder. The role of interpreter has expanded over the years as teams invest more money in players who have been stars in other countries. Five years ago, Boston paid $51.1 million to the Seibu Lions for the right to sign pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka, and committed $52 million more to a six-year contract. The Red Sox hired a young Harvard graduate, a Canadian of Japanese descent, for the role. Prieto played parts of five seasons in Oakland, as injuries undermined his career. [...] he escaped on a family visa, granted to his wife in her maiden name and sponsored by her father, who had left Cuba and become an American citizen. For his first spring training, he flew from Miami to Arizona via Dallas, and felt lost during the layover, unable to read the boards directing him to his next flight. Bartolo Colon is the first A's pitcher to make three consecutive starts against the same team without missing a turn in the rotation. | 3.407166 | 0.954397 | 24.889251 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201211/nbaer-hilariously-freaks-out-roller-coaster | http://web.archive.org/web/20121126231730id_/http://www.thepostgame.com:80/blog/dish/201211/nbaer-hilariously-freaks-out-roller-coaster | NBAer Hilariously Freaks Out On Roller Coaster | 20121126231730 | Robin Lopez should be used to heights by this point. The 7-footer is the tallest player on the New Orleans Hornets, and he's probably been one of the biggest guys around for most of his life.
But sometimes, the biggest trees fall the hardest.
That was certainly the case for Lopez on a recent day at Disney's Magic Kingdom. Robin, along with his twin brother and Brooklyn Nets center Brook, took a turn on the roller coaster "Splash Mountain."
As you'll notice in the photo, which was published Thursday on Grantland, Brook looks like he's having a blast. Robin, however, seems scared out of his mind. His facial expression, along with his flowing locks, provide for one hilarious image.
Lopez should be happy that he wasn't too tall to ride the roller coaster in the first place. Other NBA centers haven't been so lucky.
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This text will be replaced | Robin Lopez should be used to heights by this point. The 7-footer is the tallest player on the New Orleans Hornets, and he's probably been one of the ... | 6.46875 | 0.96875 | 30.03125 | low | high | extractive |
http://bostonglobe.com/business/2012/11/26/cyber-monday-deals-major-online-retailers/2gRgRSNKMHtZ6shLfLy1eM/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20121129101442id_/http://bostonglobe.com:80/business/2012/11/26/cyber-monday-deals-major-online-retailers/2gRgRSNKMHtZ6shLfLy1eM/story.html | Cyber Monday deals at major online retailers | 20121129101442 | NEW YORK (AP) — Americans clicked away for deals on Cyber Monday, which is expected to be the biggest online shopping day in history. It’s estimated that this year’s Cyber Monday will be the biggest online shopping day of the year for the third year in a row: According to research firm comScore, Americans are expected to spend $1.5 billion, up 20 percent from last year on Cyber Monday. Early results show that online shopping was up 24.1 percent compared with the same time period a year ago, according to figures by IBM Benchmark released at noon. Sales from mobile devices, which …
This is an article preview. The full story is available to BostonGlobe.com subscribers.
To see the full article, please sign up or log in. | Experts estimate today will be the biggest online shopping day of the year for the third straight time and Cyber Monday deals abound. | 6.125 | 0.75 | 7.333333 | low | low | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/07/24/comcast-offering-new-options-for-high-speed-internet-service/Kumoj0WLBJBUBi0hF1ardN/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20121201084659id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2012/07/24/comcast-offering-new-options-for-high-speed-internet-service/Kumoj0WLBJBUBi0hF1ardN/story.html | Comcast offering new options for high-speed Internet service | 20121201084659 | Comcast Corp. said that starting this week, it is doubling the speeds of two of its existing Internet speed tiers in certain markets, including Greater Boston, at no additional cost to home subscribers. Xfinity Blast customers will now get download speeds of up to 50 million bits per second; previously, they could get 25 million bits per second, Comcast said. Extreme 50 customers will now receive speeds of up to 105 million bits per second. The previous high was 50 million bits per second. According to the company, this is the seventh time since 2002 that it has increased speeds for customers. Comcast …
This is an article preview. The full story is available to BostonGlobe.com subscribers.
To see the full article, please sign up or log in. | Comcast Corp. said that starting this week, it is doubling the speeds of two of its existing Internet speed tiers in certain markets, including Greater Boston, at no additional cost to home subscribers. Xfinity Blast! customers will now get download speeds of up to 50 million bits per second; previously, they could get 25 million bits per second, Comcast said. According to the company, this is the seventh time since 2002 that it has increased speeds for its customers. | 1.622222 | 0.988889 | 29.9 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.people.com/people/article/0%2C%2C20218110%2C00.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20121211204138id_/http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20218110,00.html | Bernie Mac's Death: What Happened? | 20121211204138 | By Hilary Shenfeld and Ivory Jeff Clinton
08/09/2008 at 07:00 PM EDT
Bernie Macâs wife and daughter were with him until the very end, says the late comic's sister-in-law in a personal and touching interview with PEOPLE that took place Saturday.
Speaking of a heartbreaking moment between her younger sister, Rhonda, and the 50-year-old actor-comedian – who
to complications from pneumonia in a Chicago hospital at 2 a.m. Saturday – Mary Ann Grossett says that the night before Mac died, "He struggled for his life. He couldn't breathe.
"He opened his eyes on his own and looked at Rhonda. She called his name, and he opened his eyes and nodded to her. She smiled at him and told him, 'Don't leave me ⦠'I'm waiting for you to come back.' He shrugged his shoulders, and she said that's when she knew he was tired. He signaled to her that his body was tired."
Rhonda, Macâs wife since 1977, and their 30-year-old daughter, Je'Niece, were with him when he died. "[The doctors] were working on him," says Grossett. "They tried to resuscitate him two times. One time he came back for about an hour. Then he went into cardiac arrest the second time."
Prior to that, the couple had last communicated on July 31. "He told his wife [non-verbally] that he could breathe on his own, and he wanted the ventilator out. He motioned that he wanted it out," says Grossett.
The sister-in-law says Mac's inflammatory lung disease contributed to his death. "He had sarcoidosis, but it was
," she says. "But because he had it, his immune system was compromised. He had an infection ... He was on a new medication that suppresses the immune system, and that's where the pneumonia came from."
She reveals that Mac – having trouble breathing and running a fever – was actually hospitalized on July 24, eight days before the
for his admittance. The actor was diagnosed with pneumonia and immediately placed on a ventilator.
"He was critically ill when he was in the hospital," says Gossett. "He was in intensive care the whole time."
She adds that doctors kept the star sedated, although he was conscious at times and he contracted a second strain of pneumonia while in the hospital.
Of her widowed sibling (like Mac, Rhonda is 50), Grossett says, "Sheâs devastated. However, she's at peace about his transition because of her faith in God. Her faith is what is sustaining her."
She says of the couple's enduring union, "They had 30 years of marriage. That's unprecedented in today's time, particularly for celebrities. That brings joy to her. They loved each other and respected each other on a daily basis. She was by his side to the very end."
Recalling the couple's early years, when they were still in their teens, Grossett says, "When they started dating, he said, 'Girl, you better come on board this train, because I'm going to be rich.' And her response was, 'Okay,' and they were married. That's how he charmed her, with his sense of humor."
She adds, "When they got married they were kids. He was 20 and she was 19. They both grew up together, and they both matured in this marriage.
"What she will treasure the most is the fact that she was his wife for 30 years – and not only was she his wife, but she was his best friend. She's going to miss him dearly."
Macâs funeral is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 16, at an undisclosed location. The family requests that donations be made to the Bernie Mac Foundation for Sarcoidosis, 40 E. Ninth St., Suite 601, Chicago IL 60605.
PEOPLE pays respect to stars who have passed on with our | His sister-in-law tells PEOPLE, "He struggled for his life. He couldn't breathe" | 38.142857 | 0.952381 | 8.190476 | high | high | extractive |
http://www.usatoday.com/big-page/money/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20121214172511id_/http://www.usatoday.com/big-page/money/ | Financial, Economic and Money News | 20121214172511 | { "asset_collection": [{"headline": "McAfee repeats innocence claim", "photo": {"crops": {"1_1": "http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/USATODAY/2012/12/14/afp-515993850-1_1.jpg"}}, "links": {"html": "/story/tech/2012/12/14/mcafee-says-he-is-innocent/1769095/"}}, {"headline": "How many holiday gifts made in USA?", "photo": null, "links": {"html": "/videos/money/business/2012/12/14/1768405/"}}, {"headline": "Stocks falling despite upbeat econ news", "photo": {"crops": {"1_1": "http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/USATODAY/2012/12/14/ap-wall-street_008-1_1.jpg"}}, "links": {"html": "/story/money/markets/2012/12/14/stocks-friday-12-14/1769293/"}}, {"headline": "Discovery pays $1.7 billion for global expansion", "photo": {"crops": {"1_1": 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"/story/money/business/2012/12/14/best-buy-schulze-bid-extension/1769455/"}}, {"headline": "Track your stocks and funds in real time, free", "photo": {"crops": {"1_1": "http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/promo/2012/10/08/newtracker-1_1.png"}}, "links": {"html": "/story/money/personalfinance/2012/09/29/portfolio-tracker-intro/1597081/"}}, {"headline": "Investing: How to start with just a little money", "photo": {"crops": {"1_1": "http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/USATODAY/2012/12/13/couples-money2-1_1.jpg"}}, "links": {"html": "/story/money/columnist/waggoner/2012/12/13/investing-waggoner-small-amounts-money/1766921/"}}, {"headline": "GM trucks through the years", "photo": {"crops": {"1_1": "http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/USATODAY/2012/12/12/1902-1_1.jpg"}}, "links": {"html": "/picture-gallery/money/cars/driveon/2012/12/13/gm-trucks-through-the-years/1764397/"}}, {"headline": "New GM trucks unveiled: Improved enough?", "photo": {"crops": {"1_1": 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{"crops": {"1_1": "http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/USATODAY/2012/12/12/doing-taxes-1_1.jpg"}}, "links": {"html": "/story/money/columnist/krantz/2012/12/12/higher-tax-rate-stocks-investing/1751399/"}}, {"headline": "Reviewed.com: The best cameras for holiday gift giving", "photo": {"crops": {"1_1": "http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/promo/2012/11/01/boydci-1_1.jpg"}}, "links": {"html": "http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/Features/2012-DigitalCameraInfo-Best-of-Year-Awards.htm?utm_source=usat&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=collab"}}, {"headline": "Holiday shopping: buying guides, videos, stories", "photo": {"crops": {"1_1": "http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/promo/2012/11/21/afp-515416097-1_1.jpg"}}, "links": {"html": "/topic/0ebeecee-3c11-43c5-87ce-ca2a67432463/holiday-shopping/"}}, {"headline": "Cosmetic surgery laws often aren't enough", "photo": {"crops": {"1_1": "http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/USATODAY/2012/12/10/xxx-irma-lecroy01-1_1.jpg"}}, "links": {"html": "/story/money/2012/12/10/cosmetic-surgery-laws-effect-debated/1759839/"}}, {"headline": "'Black Friday' success prompts retail name game", "photo": {"crops": {"1_1": "http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/USATODAY/2012/12/07/b07-free-shipping-14-1_1.jpg"}}, "links": {"html": "/story/money/business/2012/12/10/holiday-shopping-branded-days/1751893/"}}, {"headline": "Gift Guide: USA TODAY's top holiday picks", "photo": {"crops": {"1_1": "http://www.gannett-cdn.com/media/USATODAY/promo/2012/11/27/gift-guide-promo-am-1_1.jpg"}}, "links": {"html": "/topic/d89521fc-ea7c-4c97-9744-67aa94cef5b6/holidaygiftguide/"}}], "aws": "money/main", "aws_id": "money_main", "templatename": "fronts/coverview" } | The latest breaking financial news on the US and world economy, personal finance, money markets and real estate. | 109.238095 | 0.47619 | 0.47619 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/Seahawks-crush-49ers-42-13-4142673.php | http://web.archive.org/web/20121224132643id_/http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/Seahawks-crush-49ers-42-13-4142673.php | Seahawks crush 49ers, 42-13 | 20121224132643 | Seattle -- The home crowd was deafening, but the message sent by the home team Sunday night was even more earsplitting: Look out for us in January.
In a much-anticipated meeting between NFC West teams, the Seahawks humiliated the 49ers 42-13, handing Jim Harbaugh the worst loss of his 31-game tenure in San Francisco on his 49th birthday.
After the beat-down was over, the 49ers acknowledged the obvious: They were bullied and battered by the more aggressive team.
"They came out and were more physical than we were," safety Donte Whitner said.
Summed up cornerback Carlos Rogers: "It was a punch in the face."
Despite the drubbing, the 49ers (10-4-1) still have a half-game lead on the Seahawks (10-5) for the division title and can clinch the NFC West crown with a win over visiting Arizona (5-10) on Sunday. The 49ers slipped to the No. 3 seed in the NFC behind Green Bay (11-4) and won't have a first-round bye if the Packers win at Minnesota in their regular-season finale.
After Sunday night's rout before a typically raucous crowd at CenturyLink Field, the 49ers are surely hoping their postseason calendar doesn't include another date with the Seahawks, who have won their past three games by a combined 150-30.
Two months after a 13-6 loss in San Francisco, it took Seattle 72 seconds to top that Week 7 point total as running back Marshawn Lynch rumbled 24 yards for a tone-setting touchdown on their second play.
The Seahawks led 21-0 just 55 seconds into the second quarter, didn't punt until the third quarter and held a 35-6 edge with 18 minutes left. The 49ers hadn't allowed 35 points since a 45-10 loss to the Falcons on Oct. 10, 2009.
"We didn't do good enough," Harbaugh said. "We didn't coach well enough. We didn't play well enough."
Their defensive collapse coincided with the loss of All-Pro defensive tackle Justin Smith, whose streak of starts dating to 2001 was snapped at 185 because of an elbow injury. Smith missed the majority of the second half of San Francisco's 41-34 win at New England on Dec. 16, and the statistical drop-off since he was sidelined is startling.
In their past six quarters, the 49ers have allowed 48 first downs, 73 points and 753 yards. On Sunday, they surrendered a season-high 176 rushing yards, collected one sack and allowed four touchdowns on Seattle's four trips to the red zone. The Seahawks converted 11 of 12 third-down plays before a kneel-down in the final seconds. Linebacker Aldon Smith (19.5 sacks) was held without a sack for the second straight game after posting at least one in his previous seven games.
On Sunday, ESPN reported the 49ers were "hoping" Justin Smith would be available in the postseason. After the game, Harbaugh said he didn't know when Smith would be back.
"I think not having Justin is a huge deal," Whitner said. "Just a year ago, he was up for the Defensive Player of the Year, not only for what he does against the run but what he does against the pass also. How he helps Aldon out over there also, eating up two guys, allowing him to go one-on-one. He's a huge part of this defense. We all know it."
On Lynch's first-quarter touchdown run, he ran past Smith's replacement, four-year veteran Ricky Jean Francois, en route to a 26-carry, 111-yard performance, his third straight 100-yard game against the 49ers.
"I've had to mentally prepare myself for (Smith) not coming back," Jean Francois said. "He's a big part of our defense, but all I can do is be Ricky Jean Francois. We would love Justin to come back, but if he doesn't, I'm here to pick up that space."
The defense was a disaster. The loss was a total team effort.
On offense, quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who called two timeouts with the play clock ticking down and was flagged for two delay-of-game penalties in the first half, had the lowest rating (72.0) of his six-start career.
The special teams also faltered. With the 49ers trailing 14-0 early in the second quarter, David Akers' 21-yard field-goal attempt was blocked by Seattle's Red Bryant, and the loose ball was returned 90 yards for a touchdown by cornerback Richard Sherman.
Sherman, who played for Harbaugh at Stanford, had referred to his old coach as a "bully" earlier this season. And Sherman, who added a fourth-quarter interception in the end zone, and wide receiver Doug Baldwin, another Harbaugh protege, played key roles in pushing around the 49ers.
Baldwin (four catches, 53 yards) scored Seattle's final two touchdowns on passes of 4 and 6 yards from dynamic rookie quarterback Russell Wilson, who has thrown 16 touchdown passes and three interceptions in his past eight starts.
Whitner theorized that the 49ers weren't properly focused. Linebacker Patrick Willis couldn't pinpoint a precise cause, but knew that somehow something had gone terribly wrong.
"Whatever it was," Willis said, "it wasn't good."
The 49ers' 42-13 loss in Seattle on Sunday prevented them from clinching the NFC West title and dimmed their hopes of grabbing the conference's No. 2 seed and a first-round bye in the playoffs. A look at what can happen in Sunday's regular-season finales:
For S.F. to win division: 49ers beat Arizona or Seattle loses to St. Louis
For S.F. to get No. 2 seed: 49ers beat Arizona and Green Bay loses or ties at Minnesota
Note: All three of the games that matter - Cardinals-49ers, Rams-Seahawks and Packers-Vikings - begin at 1:25 p.m.
Eric Branch is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: ebranch@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Eric_Branch | In a much-anticipated meeting between NFC West teams, the Seahawks humiliated the 49ers 42-13, handing Jim Harbaugh the worst loss of his 31-game tenure in San Francisco on his 49th birthday. Despite the drubbing, the 49ers (10-4-1) still have a half-game lead on the Seahawks (10-5) for the division title and can clinch the NFC West crown with a win over visiting Arizona (5-10) on Sunday. The 49ers slipped to the No. 3 seed in the NFC behind Green Bay (11-4) and won't have a first-round bye if the Packers win at Minnesota in their regular-season finale. After Sunday night's rout before a typically raucous crowd at CenturyLink Field, the 49ers are surely hoping their postseason calendar doesn't include another date with the Seahawks, who have won their past three games by a combined 150-30. On Sunday, they surrendered a season-high 176 rushing yards, collected one sack and allowed four touchdowns on Seattle's four trips to the red zone. On Lynch's first-quarter touchdown run, he ran past Smith's replacement, four-year veteran Ricky Jean Francois, en route to a 26-carry, 111-yard performance, his third straight 100-yard game against the 49ers. On offense, quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who called two timeouts with the play clock ticking down and was flagged for two delay-of-game penalties in the first half, had the lowest rating (72.0) of his six-start career. With the 49ers trailing 14-0 early in the second quarter, David Akers' 21-yard field-goal attempt was blocked by Seattle's Red Bryant, and the loose ball was returned 90 yards for a touchdown by cornerback Richard Sherman. [...] Sherman, who added a fourth-quarter interception in the end zone, and wide receiver Doug Baldwin, another Harbaugh protege, played key roles in pushing around the 49ers. Baldwin (four catches, 53 yards) scored Seattle's final two touchdowns on passes of 4 and 6 yards from dynamic rookie quarterback Russell Wilson, who has thrown 16 touchdown passes and three interceptions in his past eight starts. 49ers' playoff scenarios The 49ers' 42-13 loss in Seattle on Sunday prevented them from clinching the NFC West title and dimmed their hopes of grabbing the conference's No. 2 seed and a first-round bye in the playoffs. | 2.540881 | 0.968553 | 41.186583 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/articleGallery/Comeback-gives-49ers-NFC-title-4209718.php | http://web.archive.org/web/20130121175413id_/http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/articleGallery/Comeback-gives-49ers-NFC-title-4209718.php | Comeback gives 49ers NFC title | 20130121175413 | The San Francisco 49ers celebrate with head coach Jim Harbaugh, center, after the NFL football NFC Championship game against the Atlanta Falcons Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013, in Atlanta. The 49ers won 28-24 to advance to Super Bowl XLVII. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) Photo: Dave Martin, Associated Press
The San Francisco 49ers celebrate with head coach Jim Harbaugh,...
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh hugs Vernon Davis after the NFL football NFC Championship game against the Atlanta Falcons Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013, in Atlanta. The 49ers won 28-24 to advance to Super Bowl XLVII. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) Photo: Dave Martin, Associated Press
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh hugs Vernon Davis after...
San Francisco 49ers' Colin Kaepernick celebrates after the NFL football NFC Championship game against the Atlanta Falcons Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013, in Atlanta. The 49ers won 28-24 to advance to Super Bowl XLVII. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) Photo: Dave Martin, Associated Press
San Francisco 49ers' Colin Kaepernick celebrates after the NFL...
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) talks with Running back Frank Gore (21) before a play in the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) talks with Running back Frank Gore...
San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh during warm ups before the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh during warm ups before the...
Offensive tackle Alex Boone (75) and Offensive guard Mike Iupati (77) help Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) up after a sack int he first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Offensive tackle Alex Boone (75) and Offensive guard Mike Iupati...
San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) during the second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) during the...
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh talks to his players after the NFL football NFC Championship game against the Atlanta Falcons Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013, in Atlanta. The 49ers won 28-24 to advance to Super Bowl XLVII. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)
Photo: Dave Martin, Associated Press
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh talks to his players...
49ers Darcel McBath, (28) Perrish Cox, (20) , Anthony Dixon, (24) and Donte Whitner, (31) celebrate at the end of the game, as the San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC Championship game on Sunday Jan. 20, 2013, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Ga. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
49ers Darcel McBath, (28) Perrish Cox, (20) , Anthony Dixon, (24)...
San Francisco 49ers fans before the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers fans before the San Francisco 49ers game...
San Francisco 49ers' Frank Gore gets past Atlanta Falcons' Dunta Robinson (23) for a first down during the first half of the NFL football NFC Championship game Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey) Photo: Mark Humphrey, Associated Press
San Francisco 49ers' Frank Gore gets past Atlanta Falcons' Dunta...
San Francisco 49ers Tight end Vernon Davis (85) runs through an attempted tackle in the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers Tight end Vernon Davis (85) runs through an...
49ers Leonard Davis, (68) head coach Jim Harbaugh and Jonathan Goodwin, (59) celebrate the victory, as the San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC Championship game on Sunday Jan. 20, 2013, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Ga. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
49ers Leonard Davis, (68) head coach Jim Harbaugh and Jonathan...
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh reacts after the NFL football NFC Championship game against the Atlanta Falcons Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013, in Atlanta. The 49ers won 28-24 to advance to Super Bowl XLVII. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) Photo: Dave Martin, Associated Press
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh reacts after the NFL...
Tight end Vernon Davis (85) runs through an attempted tackle by Atlanta Falcons snapper Thomas DeCoud (28) int he second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Tight end Vernon Davis (85) runs through an attempted tackle by...
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) celebrates with Running back LaMichael James (23) following a touchdown in the second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) celebrates with Running back...
Running back LaMichael James (23) scores a touchdown in the second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Running back LaMichael James (23) scores a touchdown in the second...
San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh during the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh during the first half of the...
San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh during the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh during the first half of the...
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) and coach Jim Harbaugh during the second half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) and coach Jim Harbaugh during the...
Running back LaMichael James (23) scores a touchdown int he second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Running back LaMichael James (23) scores a touchdown int he second...
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) celebrates with Running back LaMichael James (23) after a touchdown in the second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) celebrates with Running back...
San Francisco 49ers' Colin Kaepernick (7) celebrates with Leonard Davis and Daniel Kilgore (67) after the NFL football NFC Championship game against the Atlanta Falcons Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013, in Atlanta. The 49ers won 28-24 to advance to Superbowl XLVII. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) Photo: Dave Martin, Associated Press
San Francisco 49ers' Colin Kaepernick (7) celebrates with Leonard...
Linebacker Aldon Smith (99) and the defensive line during the first quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Linebacker Aldon Smith (99) and the defensive line during the first...
San Francisco 49ers Tight end Vernon Davis (85) runs through an attempted tackle in the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers Tight end Vernon Davis (85) runs through an...
Atlanta Falcons running back Jacquizz Rodgers (32) is tackled by Linebacker Patrick Willis (52) during the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Atlanta Falcons running back Jacquizz Rodgers (32) is tackled by...
Atlanta Falcons running back Jacquizz Rodgers (32) is brought down by San Francisco 49ers Linebacker Aldon Smith (99) and Linebacker Patrick Willis (52) during the first half of the the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Atlanta Falcons running back Jacquizz Rodgers (32) is brought down...
Linebacker NaVorro Bowman (53) talks with a ref during the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Linebacker NaVorro Bowman (53) talks with a ref during the first...
the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC...
San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) during the second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) during the...
San Francisco 49ers Running back LaMichael James (23) runs pass Atlanta Falcons cornerback Chris Owens (21) during the second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers Running back LaMichael James (23) runs pass...
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) is sacked in the first quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) is sacked in the first quarter of...
Cornerback Tarell Brown (25) takes down Atlanta Falcons running back Jason Snelling (44) in the second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Cornerback Tarell Brown (25) takes down Atlanta Falcons running...
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh watches his team during the first half of the NFL football NFC Championship game against the Atlanta Falcons Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013, in Atlanta. Photo: Dave Martin, Associated Press
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh watches his team during...
San Francisco 49ers Offensive tackle Alex Boone (75) talks with teammates before the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Luanne Dietz, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers Offensive tackle Alex Boone (75) talks with...
Matt Ryan connects with running back Jason Snelling (44) past San Francisco 49ers Safety Dashon Goldson (38) in the first quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Matt Ryan connects with running back Jason Snelling (44) past San...
San Francisco 49ers Linebacker Aldon Smith (99) during the second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers Linebacker Aldon Smith (99) during the second...
Running back LaMichael James (23) runs past Atlanta Falcons cornerback Chris Owens (21) and running back Jason Snelling (44) int he second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Running back LaMichael James (23) runs past Atlanta Falcons...
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) is sacked during the fist half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) is sacked during the fist half of...
San Francisco 49ers Linebacker Patrick Willis (52) takes down Atlanta Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez (88) in the first quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers Linebacker Patrick Willis (52) takes down...
San Francisco 49ers Offensive tackle Joe Staley (74) and Offensive guard Mike Iupati (77) before the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Luanne Dietz, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers Offensive tackle Joe Staley (74) and Offensive...
ATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 20: Colin Kaepernick #7 and Frank Gore #21 of the San Francisco 49ers answer questions in the post game news conference after the 49ers defeated the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome on January 20, 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) Photo: Kevin C. Cox, Getty Images
ATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 20: Colin Kaepernick #7 and Frank Gore #21...
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh celebrates with the team after the NFL football NFC Championship game against the Atlanta Falcons Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013, in Atlanta. The 49ers won 28-24 to advance to Super Bowl XLVII. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) Photo: Dave Martin, Associated Press
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh celebrates with the...
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh celebrates with his team after the NFL football NFC Championship game against the Atlanta Falcons Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013, in Atlanta. The 49ers won 28-24 to advance to Super Bowl XLVII. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) Photo: Dave Martin, Associated Press
San Francisco 49ers head coach Jim Harbaugh celebrates with his...
ATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 20: (L-R) Leonard Davis #68 and head coach Jim Harbaugh and Jonathan Goodwin #59 of the San Francisco 49ers celebrate as they walk off of the field after they won 28-24 against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome on January 20, 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) Photo: Streeter Lecka, Getty Images
ATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 20: (L-R) Leonard Davis #68 and head coach...
ATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 20: (L-R) Aldon Smith #99 and quarterback Colin Kaepernick #7 of the San Francisco 49ers celebrate in the locker room after the 49ers defeat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome on January 20, 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) Photo: Kevin C. Cox, Getty Images
ATLANTA, GA - JANUARY 20: (L-R) Aldon Smith #99 and quarterback...
San Francisco 49ers' Colin Kaepernick has water thrown on him as he celebrates with teammates after the NFL football NFC Championship game against the Atlanta Falcons Sunday, Jan. 20, 2013, in Atlanta. The 49ers won 28-24 to advance to Super Bowl XLVII. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) Photo: Dave Martin, Associated Press
San Francisco 49ers' Colin Kaepernick has water thrown on him as he...
Frank Gore and LaMichael James greeted each other after the game. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Frank Gore and LaMichael James greeted each other after the game....
49ers Anthony Davis, (76) and Alex Boone, (75) soak up the victory inside the locker room at the end of the game, as the San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC Championship game on Sunday Jan. 20, 2013, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Ga. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
49ers Anthony Davis, (76) and Alex Boone, (75) soak up the victory...
49ers head coach Jm Harbaugh talks with a referee in the fourth quarter, as the San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC Championship game on Sunday Jan. 20, 2013, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Ga. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
49ers head coach Jm Harbaugh talks with a referee in the fourth...
Jim Harbaugh is held back by a referee while yelling after an instant replay call went against the 49ers in the fourth quarter. The San Francisco 49ers played the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship Game in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga., on Sunday, January 20, 2013. The 49ers defeated the Falcons 28-24 and advancing to the Superbowl. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Jim Harbaugh is held back by a referee while yelling after an...
Aldon Smith winks at the camera after the 49ers defeated the Falcons on Sunday. The San Francisco 49ers played the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship Game in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga., on Sunday, January 20, 2013. The 49ers defeated the Falcons 28-24 and advancing to the Superbowl. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Aldon Smith winks at the camera after the 49ers defeated the...
Frank Gore (left), Vernon Davis, and Colin Kaepernick celebrated Gore's game winning touchdown in the fourth quarter. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Frank Gore (left), Vernon Davis, and Colin Kaepernick celebrated...
Frank Gore, Vernon Davis and Colin Kaepernick (l-r) celebrated Gore's game winning touchdown. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Frank Gore, Vernon Davis and Colin Kaepernick (l-r) celebrated...
Justin Smith signals that the storm has been weathered after the 49ers take possession on downs with 1:09 left in the game. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Justin Smith signals that the storm has been weathered after the...
Frank Gore (left), Vernon Davis and Colin Kaepernick - three offensive architects of the victory - celebrate Gore's go-ahead score in the fourth quarter. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Frank Gore (left), Vernon Davis and Colin Kaepernick - three...
Jacquizz Rodgers is levitated by 49ers, including NaVorro Bowman (53), Ray McDonald (91) and Aldon Smith (99). Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Jacquizz Rodgers is levitated by 49ers, including NaVorro Bowman...
Donte Whitner (31) signals Chris Culliver's interception, as Carlos Rogers tries to lend a hand in the third quarter. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Donte Whitner (31) signals Chris Culliver's interception, as Carlos...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
San Francisco 49ers fan Alex Gonzalez outside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fan Alex Gonzalez outside the Georgia Dome in...
San Francisco 49ers fans congregated at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club tailgate in the Yellow Lot of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans congregated at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club...
A stand up paddle boarder sports a Colin Kaepernick jersey at the Mavericks Invitational on Sunday, January 20, 2013. Photo: Mathew Sumner, Special To The Chronicle
A stand up paddle boarder sports a Colin Kaepernick jersey at the...
Wide receiver Michael Crabtree (15) fumbles the ball on the one yard line during fourth quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Wide receiver Michael Crabtree (15) fumbles the ball on the one...
Quarterback Matt Ryan (2) connects with wide receiver Roddy White (84) past San Francisco 49ers Safety Dashon Goldson (38) in the first quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Quarterback Matt Ryan (2) connects with wide receiver Roddy White...
San Francisco 49ers fan Sagar Modi inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fan Sagar Modi inside the Georgia Dome in...
Wide receiver Michael Crabtree (15) fumbles the ball on the one yard line during fourth quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Wide receiver Michael Crabtree (15) fumbles the ball on the one...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
San Francisco 49ers fan Sagar Modi inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fan Sagar Modi inside the Georgia Dome in...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan walked away after greeting Colin Kaepernick at midfield. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan walked away after greeting Colin...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
John Abraham and Corey Peters sit on the sideline dejected in the fourth quarter. The San Francisco 49ers played the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship Game in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga., on Sunday, January 20, 2013. The 49ers defeated the Falcons 28-24 and advancing to the Superbowl. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
John Abraham and Corey Peters sit on the sideline dejected in the...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
49ers Michael Crabtree, (15) fumbles the ball on the one yard line in the fourth quarter, as the San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC Championship game on Sunday Jan. 20, 2013, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Ga. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
49ers Michael Crabtree, (15) fumbles the ball on the one yard line...
Niner's fans celebrated along 24th Street after the San Francisco 49er's beat the Atlanta Falcons in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, January, 20, 2013. Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle
Niner's fans celebrated along 24th Street after the San Francisco...
A Niner's fan pushed a trash can onto 24th Street and was promptly arrested by SFPD during celebrations and residents helped clean it up after the San Francisco 49er's beat the Atlanta Falcons in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, January, 20, 2013. Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle
A Niner's fan pushed a trash can onto 24th Street and was promptly...
Fans honked their horns and hung out the windows of cars during celebrations along 24th Street after the San Francisco 49er's beat the Atlanta Falcons in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, January, 20, 2013. Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle
Fans honked their horns and hung out the windows of cars during...
Will-G beat on a newspaper stand along Mission Street after the San Francisco 49er's beat the Atlanta Falcons in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, January, 20, 2013. Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle
Will-G beat on a newspaper stand along Mission Street after the San...
Francisco Duartez shaved the 49ers logo onto the side of his head as he celebrated along 24th Street after the San Francisco 49er's beat the Atlanta Falcons in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, January, 20, 2013. Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle
Francisco Duartez shaved the 49ers logo onto the side of his head...
Cesar Martinez celebrated along 24th Street after the San Francisco 49er's beat the Atlanta Falcons in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, January, 20, 2013. Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle
Cesar Martinez celebrated along 24th Street after the San Francisco...
Ben Mosqueda played a vuvuzela along Mission Street after the San Francisco 49er's beat the Atlanta Falcons in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, January, 20, 2013. Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle
Ben Mosqueda played a vuvuzela along Mission Street after the San...
Niners fans celebrated at 24th and Mission Streets after the San Francisco 49er's beat the Atlanta Falcons in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, January, 20, 2013. Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle
Niners fans celebrated at 24th and Mission Streets after the San...
A Niner's fan pushed a trash can onto 24th Street during celebrations after the San Francisco 49er's beat the Atlanta Falcons and was promptly arrested by SFPD in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, January, 20, 2013. Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle
A Niner's fan pushed a trash can onto 24th Street during...
A Niner's fan pushed a trash can onto 24th Street during celebrations after the San Francisco 49er's beat the Atlanta Falcons and was promptly arrested by SFPD in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, January, 20, 2013. Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle
A Niner's fan pushed a trash can onto 24th Street during...
A SFPD officer swept broken glass out of the street after a fan threw a trash can into the middle of 24th Street during celebrations after the San Francisco 49er's beat the Atlanta Falcons and was promptly arrested by SFPD in San Francisco, Calif., Sunday, January, 20, 2013. Photo: Jason Henry, Special To The Chronicle
A SFPD officer swept broken glass out of the street after a fan...
Falcon fans reacted to the last Atlanta possession in the fourth quarter. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Falcon fans reacted to the last Atlanta possession in the fourth...
Patrick Willis stopped running back Jason Snelling for a short gain in the second half. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Patrick Willis stopped running back Jason Snelling for a short gain...
Matt Ryan lost a fumble in the second half recovered by Aldon Smith. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Matt Ryan lost a fumble in the second half recovered by Aldon...
Atlanta coach Mike Smith congratulated Jim Harbaugh on the victory. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Atlanta coach Mike Smith congratulated Jim Harbaugh on the victory....
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) celebrates with Running back Frank Gore (21) following a touchdown in the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) celebrates with Running back Frank...
49er fans greeted Frank Gore as he walked to an interview after the game. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
49er fans greeted Frank Gore as he walked to an interview after the...
San Francisco 49ers huddle before a play during the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers huddle before a play during the San Francisco...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
49ers Patrick Willis, (52) tackles Atlanta's quarterback Matt Ryan, (2) in the fourth quarter, as the San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC Championship game on Sunday Jan. 20, 2013, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Ga. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
49ers Patrick Willis, (52) tackles Atlanta's quarterback Matt Ryan,...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
Kicker David Akers (2) in the fourth quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Kicker David Akers (2) in the fourth quarter of the San Francisco...
Matt Ryan throws under pressure in the fourth quarter. The San Francisco 49ers played the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship Game in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga., on Sunday, January 20, 2013. The 49ers defeated the Falcons 28-24 and advancing to the Superbowl. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Matt Ryan throws under pressure in the fourth quarter. The San...
Linebacker Aldon Smith (99) takes down wide receiver Roddy White (84) during the fourth quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Linebacker Aldon Smith (99) takes down wide receiver Roddy White...
the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
Colin Kaepernick speaks with Matt Ryan after the 49ers defeated the Falcons on Sunday. The San Francisco 49ers played the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship Game in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga., on Sunday, January 20, 2013. The 49ers defeated the Falcons 28-24 and advancing to the Superbowl. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Colin Kaepernick speaks with Matt Ryan after the 49ers defeated the...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans inside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia...
LaMichael James hurtled some defensive players during a fourth quarter run back from a punt. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
LaMichael James hurtled some defensive players during a fourth...
Frank Gore and his ten year old son Little Frank waited for an interview on television after the game. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Frank Gore and his ten year old son Little Frank waited for an...
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) talks with Running back Frank Gore (21) about a play prior to the snap late in the fourth quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) talks with Running back Frank Gore...
Cornerback Carlos Rogers (22) blocks a pass intended for wide receiver Roddy White (84) during the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Cornerback Carlos Rogers (22) blocks a pass intended for wide...
San Francisco 49ers Linebacker Aldon Smith (99), Defensive tackle Ray McDonald (91), Linebacker NaVorro Bowman (53 and Offensive tackle Joe Staley (74) pick up Atlanta Falcons running back Jacquizz Rodgers (32) during the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers Linebacker Aldon Smith (99), Defensive tackle...
Frank Gore looked at some 49er fans after finishing an interview for television. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Frank Gore looked at some 49er fans after finishing an interview...
Colin Kaepernick was mobbed by photographers after the contest. The San Francisco 49ers beat the Atlanta Falcons 28-24 to win the NFC title and advance to the Super Bowl Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Colin Kaepernick was mobbed by photographers after the contest. The...
Wide receiver Michael Crabtree (15) runs past Atlanta Falcons cornerback Asante Samuel (22) in the fourth quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Wide receiver Michael Crabtree (15) runs past Atlanta Falcons...
Both teams react after Wide receiver Michael Crabtree (15) fumbles the ball on the one yard line in the fourth quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Both teams react after Wide receiver Michael Crabtree (15) fumbles...
Wide receiver Michael Crabtree (15) runs past Running back Rock Cartwright (28) and snapper Charles Mitchell (26)during the second half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Wide receiver Michael Crabtree (15) runs past Running back Rock...
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) and Wide receiver Michael Crabtree (15) with coach jim Harbaugh during the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) and Wide receiver Michael Crabtree...
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) during the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) during the first half of the San...
Tight end Vernon Davis (85) is pushed out of bonds by Atlanta Falcons linebacker Akeem Dent (52) during the second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Tight end Vernon Davis (85) is pushed out of bonds by Atlanta...
Running back Frank Gore (21) takes the field at the start of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Running back Frank Gore (21) takes the field at the start of the...
Tight end Vernon Davis (85) in the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Tight end Vernon Davis (85) in the first half of the San Francisco...
Atlanta Falcons kicker Matt Bryant (3) kicks a field goal in the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Atlanta Falcons kicker Matt Bryant (3) kicks a field goal in the...
Running back Frank Gore (21)during the second half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Running back Frank Gore (21)during the second half of the San...
quarterback Matt Ryan (2) in the second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
quarterback Matt Ryan (2) in the second quarter of the San...
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) during the second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) during the second quarter of the...
San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) is sacked by Defensive tackle Ray McDonald (91) in the first quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) is sacked by...
Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones (11) catches a pass int he first quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones (11) catches a pass int...
Cornerback Chris Culliver (29) and Safety Dashon Goldson (38) break up a pass in the first quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Cornerback Chris Culliver (29) and Safety Dashon Goldson (38) break...
San Francisco 49ers fan Quince Rgainous at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club tailgate in the Yellow Lot of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fan Quince Rgainous at the Georgia 49ers Fan...
San Francisco 49ers fans congregated at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club tailgate in the Yellow Lot of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans congregated at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club...
49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick warms up before as the San Francisco 49ers take on the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game on Sunday Jan. 20, 2013, at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Ga. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick warms up before as the San...
Running back Anthony Dixon (24) runs through a hole created by Offensive guard Mike Iupati (77) and Tight end Vernon Davis (85) in the fourth quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Running back Anthony Dixon (24) runs through a hole created by...
Atlanta Falcons running back Jacquizz Rodgers (32) is brought down by San Francisco 49ers Linebacker Aldon Smith (99) and Linebacker Patrick Willis (52) during the first half of the the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Atlanta Falcons running back Jacquizz Rodgers (32) is brought down...
Linebacker NaVorro Bowman (53) talks with a ref during the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Linebacker NaVorro Bowman (53) talks with a ref during the first...
wide receiver Julio Jones (11) runs past San Francisco 49ers Linebacker Patrick Willis (52) in the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
wide receiver Julio Jones (11) runs past San Francisco 49ers...
the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC...
Defensive tackle Isaac Sopoaga (90) before the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle
Defensive tackle Isaac Sopoaga (90) before the San Francisco 49ers...
Offensive tackle Anthony Davis (76) during the first half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Offensive tackle Anthony Davis (76) during the first half of the...
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) is sacked during the fist half of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7) is sacked during the fist half of...
Running back LaMichael James (23) runs past Atlanta Falcons cornerback Chris Owens (21) and running back Jason Snelling (44) int he second quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle
Running back LaMichael James (23) runs past Atlanta Falcons...
Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones (11) runs past San Francisco 49ers Safety Dashon Goldson (38) in the first quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones (11) runs past San...
San Francisco 49ers Linebacker Patrick Willis (52) takes down Atlanta Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez (88) in the first quarter of the San Francisco 49ers game against the Atlanta Falcons in the NFC Championship game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, GA., on Sunday January 20, 2013. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle
San Francisco 49ers Linebacker Patrick Willis (52) takes down...
San Francisco 49ers fan Temeka O'Bannon, in her company's shades (World of Vision Co), at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club tailgate in the Yellow Lot of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fan Temeka O'Bannon, in her company's shades...
San Francisco 49ers fan Pierce Borras, a San Francisco native now living in Savannah, GA at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club tailgate in the Yellow Lot of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fan Pierce Borras, a San Francisco native now...
San Francisco 49ers fans congregated at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club tailgate in the Yellow Lot of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans congregated at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club...
San Francisco 49ers fans congregated at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club tailgate in the Yellow Lot of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans congregated at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club...
San Francisco 49ers fan Brandon Johnston, from Albuquerque, NM at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club tailgate in the Yellow Lot of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fan Brandon Johnston, from Albuquerque, NM at...
San Francisco 49ers fan Alex Gonzalez outside the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fan Alex Gonzalez outside the Georgia Dome in...
San Francisco 49ers fans congregated at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club tailgate in the Yellow Lot of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans congregated at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club...
San Francisco 49ers fan Pierce Borras, a San Francisco native now living in Savannah, GA at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club tailgate in the Yellow Lot of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fan Pierce Borras, a San Francisco native now...
San Francisco 49ers fans congregated at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club tailgate in the Yellow Lot of the Georgia Dome in Atlanta Georgia for the NFC Championship on January 20, 2013.Photo by David Walter Banks for The San Francisco Chronicle. Photo: David Walter Banks
San Francisco 49ers fans congregated at the Georgia 49ers Fan Club... | NFC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME: 49ERS 28, FALCONS 24 Big comeback puts S.F. in 1st Super Bowl in 18 years The franchise that pioneered the West Coast offense and provided some of the most enduring throw-and-catch plays in NFL playoff history secured its first Super Bowl berth in 18 years Sunday by preventing a potential completion. After 58-plus exhilarating minutes, the 49ers beat the Falcons 28-24 after linebacker NaVorro Bowman reached over Atlanta wide receiver Roddy White and batted down a 4th-and-4 pass from San Francisco's 10-yard line with just more than a minute left. A year after losing a heartbreaker in the NFC title game, the 49ers won a heart-stopper that included the biggest comeback in NFC Championship Game history. Bowman's breakup at the 5-yard line can't rival "The Catch" for sheer drama, but it will endure as a signature moment for a resurgent franchise that secured its first postseason road win since Jan. 8, 1989. Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones had five catches for 100 yards and a 46-yard touchdown in the first 10 minutes. Defensive coordinator Vic Fangio noted that cornerback Tarell Brown blanketed Jones on his 20-yard touchdown catch to open the second quarter. The good coverage was trumped by a great catch in the right corner of the end zone. Trailing 24-14 at halftime, the NFL's third-ranked defense found its groove in the final two quarters. With the Falcons leading 24-21 in the third quarter, Ryan threw a pass to wide receiver Roddy White ... who slipped, resulting in an interception by cornerback Chris Culliver. On Atlanta's next drive, Ryan took his eyes off a shotgun snap at San Francisco's 28-yard line, and the bouncing ball was recovered by outside linebacker Aldon Smith. [...] after Frank Gore's 9-yard touchdown run with 8:23 left capped the 49ers' rally, San Francisco caught its biggest break on the Falcons' ensuing drive. On 3rd-and-2 from midfield with just more than four minutes left, Falcons wide receiver Harry Douglas broke free from cornerback Carlos Rogers, who fell down after jamming Douglas at the line. After a review, it was ruled that Douglas secured a 22-yard catch, which - had he stayed upright - could have been a 50-yard, go-ahead touchdown. Fittingly for a franchise whose five Super Bowl wins were headlined by Joe Montana and Steve Young, quarterback Colin Kaepernick did plenty of heavy lifting in his ninth career start. | 21.735849 | 0.607966 | 1.077568 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://bostonglobe.com/business/2013/03/12/state-unveils-new-plan-end-homelessness-among-veterans/gAv3CnCv5ISCwfajeHrraK/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20130315051415id_/http://bostonglobe.com:80/business/2013/03/12/state-unveils-new-plan-end-homelessness-among-veterans/gAv3CnCv5ISCwfajeHrraK/story.html | State unveils new plan to end homelessness among veterans | 20130315051415 | Lieutenant Governor Tim Murray on Tuesday detailed a plan to reduce the number of homeless veterans in Massachusetts by 1,000 by the end of 2015, which would effectively eliminate the problem.
There are about 1,181 homeless veterans, accounting for roughly 19 percent of all homeless adults, according to the state.
In addition to providing housing, Murray said, the plan focuses on prevention, intervention, and public and private partnerships. It comes from months of work involving more than 200 parties, including shelter providers, government officials, and nonprofits, he said, speaking before he toured the New England Center for Homeless Veterans in downtown Boston.
“We will continue to leverage this partnership to deliver critical resources proven to be effective in ending homelessness,’’ Murray said.
The proposal calls for 250 “permanent supportive housing units” specifically targeted to help the estimated 450 chronically homeless veterans in Massachusetts. It also includes plans to seek 700 federal housing vouchers — worth $1,200 to $1,300 a month — for veterans over the next two years with the help of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Homeless veterans are mostly men, many of them with physical and mental disabilities, according to a state report. But increasingly, female veterans also are at risk, as are younger veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Murray said.
Even before this initiative, the number of homeless veterans in the state had been dropping. In January 2012, there were 1,181 homeless veterans, based on a survey that was part of a national campaign. Each year, that program counts the number of homeless people in the nation on one particular night. The Massachusetts number for veterans represents a 7 percent drop from 2011 and a 26 percent decline from 2010 as the state has improved its outreach to homeless veterans through peer programs and added housing help.
Coleman Nee, secretary of the Department of Veterans’ Services, said the plan will help the state be the first to wipe out homelessness among veterans.
“Massachusetts leads the nation in providing benefits and services to our veterans and their families,’’ Nee said. “No one who has ever worn the uniform of this great nation should struggle to find a roof over their head.” | Lt. Gov. Tim Murray on Tuesday detailed a plan to reduce the number of homeless veterans in Massachusetts by 1,000 by the end of 2015, effectively eliminating the problem. There are about 1,181 homeless veterans, accounting for roughly 19 percent of all homeless adults, according to the state. Murray said his plan -- which, in addition to providing housing, focuses on prevention, intervention and public and private partnerships -- comes from months of work involving more than 200 parties, including shelter providers, government officials and nonprofits. | 4.336735 | 0.938776 | 14.877551 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2013/04/11/putting-trance-back-into-transcendentalist/FcjxznaMnOhJluh9phBR3K/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20130419075841id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/movies/2013/04/11/putting-trance-back-into-transcendentalist/FcjxznaMnOhJluh9phBR3K/story.html | Putting the trance back into Transcendentalist | 20130419075841 | Henry David Thoreau plays an enigmatic role in Shane Carruth’s hypnotic thriller — an oxymoronic term to describe a film that is truly sui generis. The reclusive, 19th-century Transcendentalist’s “Walden” provides a key link in a circular conspiracy that extends from a pig farm to the frontiers of consciousness. Is this Philip K. Dick-like plot benevolent or malignant or none of the above? Figuring that out is just one of the film’s sanity-stretching pleasures. More lyrical than Carruth’s stunning debut feature, “Primer,” it seems at various times like the work of a more spiritual David Cronenberg or a more malign Terrence Malick. Above all it is seductive; and while I feel compelled to see it again, I don’t have high hopes that it will make any more sense.
That’s more or less the state of mind the film’s protagonists find themselves in. The first, Kris (Amy Seimetz), gets tasered and kidnapped by some creep who forces her to swallow what looks like a mescal worm. As seen in the film’s elliptical, nearly wordless opening sequence, this worm infests the roots of a blighted orchid — reminiscent of the source of the drug Death in “A Scanner Darkly.” The worms are processed into a liquid that two teenage test subjects drink, after which they display unnaturally synchronized behavior in a series of exercises.
But for Kris the effect is more drastic; she regresses to a robotic state, sleepily following her keeper’s commands, signing over all her assets to him. That accomplished, she goes into a kind of withdrawal, and when the now-engorged worm starts visibly crawling beneath her skin, she tries to remove it with a butcher knife. Finally, after a procedure that merges her identity with that of a pig, she’s released, without memory and with her life in ruins. The pig, meanwhile, joins dozens of others in a pen, where they root about contentedly, like the sailors in the “Odyssey” metamorphosed by Circe.
Maybe William Burroughs could explain what’s going on — and this only 25 minutes into the film. Things settle down a bit when protagonist number two, Jeff (Carruth), arrives on the scene. He apparently has been similarly victimized; and as if to demonstrate that love is stronger than mind-melding worms, Kris and Jeff fall in love and team up to find out what the heck is going on.
Or is love just part of the process? And what about the weird guy tending the pigsty — why does he record odd sounds and distort them and then sell them as CDs? And why are all the zombified victims reading or reciting passages from Thoreau; isn’t he the hero of nonconformism? Entranced by the disorienting editing, the oblique narrative, and the lulling soundtrack, I found that despite such questions, it all seems to make sense. It’s when the film is over that the real questioning begins. | Thoreau plays an enigmatic role in Shane Carruth’s hypnotic thriller – an oxymoronic term to describe a film that is truly sui generis. The reclusive, 19th-century Transcendentalist’s “Walden” provides a key link in a circular conspiracy that extends from a pig farm to the frontiers of consciousness. Is this Philip K. Dick-like plot benevolent or malignant or none of the above? Figuring that out is just one of the film’s sanity-stretching pleasures. More lyrical than Carruth’s stunning debut feature, “Primer,” it seems at various times like the work of a more spiritual David Cronenberg or a more malign Terrence Malick. Above all, it is seductive. While I feel compelled to see it again, I don’t have high hopes that it will make any more sense. | 3.763158 | 0.993421 | 86.861842 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20130524-rhapsody-in-blue | http://web.archive.org/web/20130608014901id_/http://www.bbc.com:80/autos/story/20130524-rhapsody-in-blue | Renault unveils Twin'Run concept | 20130608014901 | Well this is a bit more like it.
Instead of mucking about with arty teaser concepts, Renault's given us a proper mid-engined tribute to the R5 Turbo and Clio V6. OK, so it's still just a concept, and ultimately it only serves to preview what the next Twingo will look like, but lordy it's cool. And it's an actual, proper racer.
Called the Twin'Run, it was bolted together by Tork Engineering and Poclain Vehicules (a French motorsport chassis tuner), and features a spaceframe with composite bodywork on top, and a Megane Trophy V6 in the middle. As in an actual 3.5-litre, 320hp engine from the manufacturer's one-make racing series.
Renault assures us it'll lay down the power, too. The engine's attached to a twin-clutch SADEV six-speed sequential ‘box and limited-slip differential. There's also double-wishbone suspension with independent pivots on the front and rear axles, Ohlins spring shock absorbers and chubby 22mm front/25mm rear anti-roll bars.
There's some snazzy aero on board as well, with a vent channelling the air flow under the car. On top of that, as is mandatory, there's a ruddy great big spoiler. Cooling intakes also sit just in front of the rear wheel, and some giant extractors replace the rear passenger window glass.
While we're on the subject, the rest of the cooling system is also pretty swish. A bunch of the pipework's been fabricated in polished aluminum, and by setting it in the cabin floor, Renault's made a feature of them.
So, how does it drive? We'd imagine pretty well – there's 43/57 weight distribution, it gets from 0-62mph in 4.5 seconds, it's made from lightweight carbon panels (though we've not been told exactly how much it weighs) and it's rear-wheel drive with its engine in the middle. Rally champion Jean Ragnotti (he who won the Tour de Corse in a Renault 5 Turbo Group B rally car) helped tweak the chassis, and says: "Following this first drive, I'd say that this is a sound car with a strong pedigree. It's easy to control. You can feel straight away that it's a sports car. In terms of balance and ride, it brings the R5 Turbo to mind to some extent.
"The gearbox is smooth and you've got powerful brakes. Excellent traction with a responsive engine delivering full power at all revs, rounder and with more torque than the R5 Turbo, making it particularly efficient and easy to drive, unlike the R5, which required more technique. It's definitely an efficient car with surprisingly good vertical comfort, including in zones of high compression where we're still a long way from the travel stops. All we need to sharpen our attacking edge a bit more are racing tIres. There's a slight roll but no understeer. A gradual performance, no surprises, taking corners easily. This concept car is a worthy heir to the Maxi 5 Turbo."
This story originally appeared on TopGear.com. | A mid-engine tribute to a genuine rally hero, the R5 Turbo, Renaultâs new concept looks ready to race a blue streak. | 23.346154 | 0.653846 | 1.115385 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2013/06/06/when-exotic-vacations-wrong-wish-you-were-here/4AHDVXf3twxqe3iZDUMh2M/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20130608231000id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/movies/2013/06/06/when-exotic-vacations-wrong-wish-you-were-here/4AHDVXf3twxqe3iZDUMh2M/story.html | When exotic vacations go wrong in ‘Wish You Were Here’ | 20130608231000 | Despite the inviting title, Kieran Darcy-Smith’s fragmented mystery joins the ranks of other recent films (Julia Loktev’s “The Loneliest Planet” and Eli Roth’s “Aftershock” are disparate examples) that suggest that those seeking exotic getaways might be better served staying home and watching “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.” But if you do decide to travel abroad, this film offers some tips on how to stay safe and sane — that is, if you can extract them from the teasingly elliptical, flashback-addled, nerve-racking narrative.
For one thing, don’t go all “Heart of Darkness” if you are traveling to some vacation destination in the developing world, such as Cambodia. That seems like the direction that Australians Dave (a Russell Crowe-ish Joel Edgerton), his wife, Alice (co-screenwriter Felicity Price), and Alice’s sister Steph (Teresa Palmer) are heading when they take up an invitation from Alice’s new boyfriend, Jeremy (Antony Starr), to rough it for a week in Southeast Asia.
Shown in blighted-bliss montages, the exotic highlights include the raucous hedonism of dance parties on the beach, the ick factor of a marketplace offering fried worms and pet tarantulas, and the evil aura evoked by a visit to a memorial for victims of the 1970s Khmer Rouge genocide. Good times and seeming high spirits notwithstanding, the four Aussies are tourists teetering on the edge, so when Jeremy is seen smiling and examining a local cop’s revolver, it seems like an invocation of Chekhov’s rule about having a loaded gun in the first act of a play.
To keep things suspenseful and cryptic, Darcy-Smith and Price dart around in chronology, merging flashbacks to the doomed vacation with the present tense angst and friction of the three who return home. The fourth, Jeremy, is missing, his fate and whereabouts unknown, or so it seems from the others’ fractured recollections. The bits and pieces of fact and fiction take a while for the filmmakers to piece together, and as with Tarantino, they employ the device of repeated scenes, seen from new points of view, to arrive at a solution of the central enigma.
Holding this scattered plot together, more so than the puzzle-piece editing and overhanging mood of guilt, derangement, and desperation, are the performances — Edgerton’s as Dave especially. Last seen as Tom Buchanan, in “The Great Gatsby,” and the gung-ho SEAL Team Six commander in “Zero Dark Thirty,” he plays someone here with similar bluster, but with not much backing it up. He’s a weakling who tries to keep his weaknesses a secret, a family man not content with a civilized life that includes a Saab, a nice home, a respectable job, a fetching wife and two cute kids, with a third on the way.
As the stress of what really happened during their lost week presses both Dave and his wife into unfortunate behavior, it becomes increasingly clear that the real problems being explored are domestic, not foreign. The “here” in the title refers not so much to a holiday abroad as to the unexamined life within. | Despite the inviting title, Kieran Darcy-Smith’s fragmented mystery “Wish You Were Here” joins the ranks of other recent films (Julia Loktev’s “The Loneliest Planet” and Eli Roth’s “Aftershock” are disparate examples) that suggest that those seeking exotic getaways might be better served staying home and watching “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.” But if you do decide to travel abroad, this film offers some tips on how to stay safe and sane — that is, if you can extract them from the teasingly elliptical, flashback-addled, nerve-racking narrative. | 5.451327 | 0.973451 | 40.584071 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/05/28/summer-tourism-outlook-sunny/Cp2BplXDVtF6CRoP9HtTKP/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20130610063013id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2013/05/28/summer-tourism-outlook-sunny/Cp2BplXDVtF6CRoP9HtTKP/story.html? | Summer tourism outlook: Sunny | 20130610063013 | Not even the rainy and chilly weather last weekend could dampen a growing optimism that the New England tourism industry is nearly fully recovered from the Great Recession and on its way to busy summer season.
From Maine’s Old Orchard Beach to Cape Cod’s Yarmouth Port, hotels, restaurants, and other tourism-related businesses said they had a strong Memorial Day weekend, and expect the rest of the summer to be even better as improving job, housing, and stock markets lift consumer confidence and spending.
“It seems like the economy is finally working for us, not against us,” said Erik Lindblom, who with his wife, Sarah, owns the 15-room Captain Jefferds Inn in Kennebunkport, Maine.
The Captain Jefferds Inn was booked solid over the weekend — and not one guest canceled a reservation, despite the nasty weather on Saturday, in an apparent sign that people are determined to enjoy summer vacations this year.
“So far this month, we’re up 50 percent in bookings,” said Sarah Lindblom. “We’re very optimistic about the summer.”
The summer is the most important season for tourism in much of New England, accounting, for example, for about 40 percent of annual visitors in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, according to tourism officials.
In Portsmouth, N.H., tourism officials expect hotel occupancy to continue to climb this summer after rising above prerecession levels last year. The outlook is bright enough that Colwen Management Inc. is pushing ahead with a new, 120-room hotel, now under construction as part of a mixed-used development in the city’s downtown.
Bookings at the three other hotels Colwen owns in Portsmouth are above last year, said Mark Stebbins, a partner Colwen, which owns 24 hotels in New England and New York.
“All our hotels are doing better,” said Stebbins. “The economy has improved, and it’s definitely helped a lot
On Cape Cod, hotel occupancy rates hit lows, respectively, of 65 percent and 81 percent in July and August of 2009, the worst year of the recent economic downturn, according to the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce. But hotel occupancy rates on the Cape last year steadily climbed back, hitting 84.8 percent and 92 percent in July and August last year, pushing occupancy rates and prices above their prerecession levels, according to data.
Meanwhile, advanced summer bookings are ahead of last year in many cases, leading some to believe the Cape could experience a tourism boom this summer — as long as the weather holds up, said Wendy Northcross, chief executive of the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce.
“We’re crossing our fingers,” Northcross said.
Greta Rybus for the Globe
Carol Savard of Massachusetts shopped in Portsmouth, N.H. Tourism officials there expect hotel occupancy to continue to climb this summer.
But sometimes, even the weather isn’t a deterrent. On Saturday, the Old Yarmouth Inn restaurant in Yarmouth Port was packed with customers, despite the raw weather. Business was up 20 percent over the holiday weekend compared with the same time last year.
“There are three things people do on the Cape when it rains: They shop, they go to the movies, or the go out to eat,” said Arpad Voros, the restaurant’s co-owner.
“It was a great start to the summer. All indications are we’re going to see a strong season.”
For some Cape businesses, improvement is coming more slowly. Retailers say consumers remain cautious about spending. Jerry Swartz, a manager at the Glass Half Full, a popular liquor and cigar store in downtown Provincetown, said customers were mostly buying bottles of wine in the $10 range when the economy was at its weakest a few years ago; today he’s seeing more people requesting slightly finer wines in the $15 to $25 range.
“We’re still not at the ‘give me the best’ stage of people buying wine,” said Swartz.
“The recovery has come in fits and starts. But it’s getting better.”
In New Hampshire, the data also point to improving trends. Last year, the number of summer visitors to New Hampshire was about 13.5 million, up from about 12.9 million in 2006, while summer spending hit about $1.8 billion last year, up from $1.6 billion in 2006, said Mark Okrant, a professor of tourism management at Plymouth State University.
As a result, many business owners are optimistic. “It could be huge, an extraordinarily busy summer,” said Evan Mallett, owner of the 68-seat Black Trumpet Bistro in downtown Portsmouth.
In Portsmouth, the 150-seat Oar House restaurant had to close its outdoor patio due to Saturday’s unremitting rain and strong wind gusts.
But Juliet Introcaso, the general manager, viewed that as a short-term setback.
“You can just sense people feel better about the economy,” she said.
“It will pick up. We’re hopeful about the season. Very hopeful.” | oNot even the rainy and chilly weather last weekend could dampen a growing optimism that the New England tourism industry is nearly fully recovered from the Great Recession and on its way to busy summer season. From Maine’s Old Orchard Beach to Cape Cod’s Yarmouth Port, hotels, restaurants, and other tourism-related businesses said a strong Memorial Day weekend, and they expect the rest of the summer to be even better as improving, job, housing, and stock markets lift consumer confidence and spending. “It seems like the economy is finally working for us, not against us,” said Erik Lindblom, who with his wife, owns the Captain Jefferds Inn in Kennebunkport, Maine. The summer is the most important season for tourism in much of New England. | 6.678082 | 0.993151 | 21.760274 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2013/06/13/still-corners-match-made-heaven-london/rHbQcOYyxSr1fb49kUezCP/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20130618021611id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2013/06/13/still-corners-match-made-heaven-london/rHbQcOYyxSr1fb49kUezCP/story.html | Still Corners a match made in heaven, or London | 20130618021611 | The origins of Still Corners could have been plucked from the plot of a romantic comedy starring your favorite cutesy couple. Greg Hughes, who grew up in Arizona and Texas, had followed his heart to London and was interested in putting together a band. One day he got on a train that was diverted to the wrong station and encountered Tessa Murray, who was in the same predicament.
They were the only people standing on the platform. She asked if he was lost. He was, but he ended up meeting a musical partner with whom he shares a tremendous amount of chemistry.
“I know, I know,” Hughes says recently on speaker phone from a hotel with Murray in the room. “Everyone has a hard time believing that story, but it’s completely true. We got to chatting, and that’s when she said she was missing choir [practice].”
The rest is best seen in the rearview mirror: He was looking for a singer, they started making demos, and that’s it.
As Still Corners, their roles are fairly defined: Hughes writes most of the music and lyrics and plays all of the instruments on the band’s two albums. Murray brings the songs to life with an celestial soprano she honed from singing in various choirs. You could say she’s the Julee Cruise to his David Lynch. They flesh out their live shows, including Sunday’s performance opening for Chvrches at Paradise Rock Club, with two extra members.
Released on Sub Pop Records, the duo’s first album was a shadowy affair, cloaked in hazy, electronic pop with Murray’s voice buried in the rubble. “Creatures of an Hour,” from 2011, courted comparisons to Broadcast, but its new follow-up puts the band more in the company of Beach House, who also happen to be signed to Sub Pop.
Where the debut was insular (according to Murray), “Strange Pleasures” is panoramic, starting with its opening missive: “The Trip” invites the listener to take exactly that, a nocturnal journey through lush, silvery landscapes. An after-hours vibe permeates the whole album, from song titles (“Midnight Drive,” “We Killed the Moonlight”) to its fluid production. They’ve cleared out the cobwebs for a glossy sophistication that makes their debut, in retrospect, sound like a rehearsal.
“I think the first album was a very cathartic record. I went through a bad breakup, and I think it reflected all of that in the songs. Everything was very pulled back,” Hughes says. “From the production standpoint, I wanted to make this new one a bit bigger and widescreen. Epic, I guess.”
Murray, in particular, has emerged from her cocoon on “Strange Pleasures” and emotes with a breathlessness that somehow is both detached and compelling. On “Beginning to Blue,” her voice is a siren call you swear you could grasp – but it’s far beyond your reach. It’s swirling in the stratosphere.
“Creatures of an Hour” used one part of her voice, she says, but the new songs call for a more nimble approach, putting her upfront in warm, spectral arrangements couched in shimmering guitars and liquid synth-pop.
“There’s more of me coming through the singing this time,” Murray says. “From a listening perspective, what I love about the guitars on this record is that they’re so lyrical. It’s not often that you can sing along to guitar parts.”
For whatever reason, the idea of Murray anchoring the band as its vocalist wasn’t apparent to either of them immediately. Hughes was auditioning different singers but never found what he was looking for.
“I think initially there was never a plan for me to join the band. I was just helping out with the demos while the search for a singer continued,” Murray says. “It got to a stage where Greg would say, ‘This just doesn’t sound right.’”
“It didn’t sound like Tessa,” Hughes interjects.
“I thought his songs were really cool. I was kind of impressed by the way Greg made my singing sound, because I had never really heard myself recorded before,” she says. “It was only when I was listening to those demos of the other singers that I realized – and this is probably bad to say – ‘Hey, mine sound really good!’”
Reflecting on how it all happened by happenstance, Murray sums up what makes Still Corners sound so natural, so unfettered: “Someone was moving chess pieces around to make it work, I think.” | As Still Corners, the roles of Greg Hughes and Tessa Murray are fairly defined: Hughes writes most of the music and lyrics and plays all of the instruments on the band’s two albums. Murray brings the songs to life with an celestial soprano she honed from singing in various choirs. You could say she’s the Julee Cruise to his David Lynch. They flesh out their live shows, including Sunday’s performance opening for Chvrches at Paradise Rock Club, with two extra members. Released on Sub Pop Records, the duo’s first album was a shadowy affair, cloaked in hazy, electronic pop with Murray’s voice buried in the rubble. | 7.354839 | 0.991935 | 59.58871 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2013/06/11/mozart-violin-and-viola-played-bemf/DXlufjot6mGxPzkzWxVweN/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20130618223225id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2013/06/11/mozart-violin-and-viola-played-bemf/DXlufjot6mGxPzkzWxVweN/story.html | Mozart’s violin and viola, played at BEMF | 20130618223225 | Jordan Hall was packed on Monday night for the first mainstage concert of the Boston Early Music Festival, an evening of Mozart’s chamber music. The performers were all accomplished period instrument specialists, but, it’s fair to say, they were not the only draw of the evening. This was also the North American debut of Mozart’s own violin and viola, which arrived in town on Friday, hand-delivered by representatives of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation, the owner of both instruments.
Interestingly, both instruments are of good quality, but neither would be considered an example of exquisite 18th-century craftsmanship. The violin, researchers suggest, dates from roughly 1700 and was probably made in Mittenwald, Germany, by a member of the Klotz family of luthiers. The viola’s maker is still unidentified, but the physical object itself tells a story. Its large body was cut back, probably in the early-1800s, suggesting it was at that time still regarded as an instrument for actual musical use, not as a prized relic of music history. Around 100 years later, a silver plate was affixed to the viola’s fingerboard, proudly announcing it as “Mozart’s Viola” and listing the names of its owners dating back to the year of the composer’s death. Somewhere in the intervening century, its aura had been recognized, bestowed, or invented, depending on how one views such things.
Nevertheless, these days the Mozarteum Foundation is interested in having the instruments played more frequently again. For Monday’s concert, the violin and viola were taken up by two veteran performers, Amandine Beyer and Milos Valent, respectively. The program too was thoughtfully assembled to showcase both instruments via two Violin Sonatas (K. 303 and 306), the Duo in G-Major for violin and viola, and the warmly lit “Kegelstatt” Trio for clarinet, viola, and fortepiano (though alas no “Sinfonia Concertante”). Still, even basic details about these instruments remain elusive. Sources tell us Mozart played on the 1786 premiere of the “Kegelstatt” Trio — could it have been on this viola? Did it sound anything like what was heard here? We will never know.
In Valent’s hands the dusky warmth of the instrument’s lower strings came through with particular richness. The viola’s middle and upper registers seemed slightly less open, the sound taking on a somewhat pressed quality on the occasions when Valent tried to project more fully into the depths of Jordan Hall. It was tempting to hear in the viola’s sonic profile a pointed reminder from the composer’s day: that these works were conceived to be played in private homes or chamber-sized spaces.
With Valent joined by clarinettist Eric Hoeprich and fortepianist Kristian Bezuidenhout, the group gave the trio an elegant, soft-spoken reading. The same qualities marked the two violin sonatas, as vibrantly dispatched by Bezuidenhout and Beyer, whose playing throughout the night was lithe and streamlined. The violin’s tone itself was appealingly clear and bright, if somewhat modest for a hall of this size.
In the Duo, even with the relatively brisk tempos Valent and Beyer chose for all three movements, the performance had a relaxed charm, especially in the tenderly autumnal adagio. For his solo contribution to the program, Bezuidenhout offered Mozart’s Prelude and Fugue (K. 394), placing a superbly controlled technique at the service of music-making notable for its sense of freedom and fantasy.
The sound of the Mozart’s instruments will presumably improve as they are played more often, but, as was clear already from Monday’s demonstration, they provoke the listener to think imaginatively about the particulars of Mozart’s musical world. While receiving the crowd’s applause at one point, Valent held up the viola, giving credit where it was due.
BEMF, too, deserves credit for presenting these instruments on their first trip to the United States. The evening was recorded by WCRB Classical New England, which will broadcast portions of the concert on June 16 at 3 p.m., along with another Mozart performance on these same instruments by violinist Daniel Stepner and violist Anne Black. The violin and viola will also be on display June 12 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., at the BEMF exhibition at the Revere Hotel in Boston. | Jordan Hall was packed on Monday night for the first mainstage concert of the Boston Early Music Festival, an evening of Mozart’s chamber music. The performers were all accomplished period instrument specialists, but, it’s fair to say, they were not the only draw of the evening. This was also the North American debut of Mozart’s own violin and viola, which arrived in town on Friday, hand-delivered by representatives of the Salzburg Mozarteum Foundation, which owns both instruments. Interestingly, the violin and viola are both of respectable quality but neither would be considered as examples of exquisite 18th-century craftsmanship. The violin, researchers suggest, dates from roughly 1700 and was probably made in Mittenwald, Germany by a member of the Klotz family of luthiers. | 5.662069 | 0.97931 | 57.613793 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/08/16/tips-weigh-best-resale-home-improvements/vjn87nycu63pyN8AteU2UL/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20130827013006id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2013/08/16/tips-weigh-best-resale-home-improvements/vjn87nycu63pyN8AteU2UL/story.html | 6 tips to weigh the best resale home improvements | 20130827013006 | Homeowners are opening their wallets. A rebound in the housing market has made them more willing to invest in renovations that could boost the value of their homes even more in a rising market.
Spending on home remodeling has picked up over the past 18 months and is expected to rise nearly 20 percent to $151 billion by the fourth quarter, according to a recent report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University.
Many homeowners decide to make upgrades with the idea that the bigger kitchen or finished basement will make their home more enjoyable. But those looking to sell should know that not all home improvement projects will boost the value of a home.
Here are six tips when considering investing in home improvement projects:
The classic example here is installing a swimming pool. A pool could make your home a tougher sell and it’s unlikely you will recover your expenses, says Richard Borges, president of the Appraisal Institute, a professional association of real estate appraisers.
It may be a deal-killer for buyers who might not want to take on maintenance costs or safety risks for small children.
The principle holds true for other large projects that can alter the structure of the property, such as adding a second garage. In some neighborhoods, they may be a common feature that becomes a selling point. But if it’s not common, it could discourage buyers who don’t have a need for it.
Some home improvements can help lift a home’s resale value, especially updates to features like cabinets and appliances that are clearly dated.
The key is to select finishes and appliances that don’t go well beyond what a buyer might find in similarly priced homes in the area. The term appraisers have for that is ‘‘overimprovement.’’
Consider a homeowner in a neighborhood with modest homes who splurges on pricey countertop finishes like quartz or marble. They’re not likely to recoup the cost when appraisers look at recent sales of comparable homes that may not have such lavishly appointed kitchens.
This applies to everything from lighting to flooring and bathroom fixtures.
One of the home improvement projects that’s least likely to produce a return on the investment is a room addition that expands the size of a home beyond its original floor plan, says Borges.
Projects that require tearing down an exterior wall often involve moving doors, windows, and other features, which can drive the costs higher than, say, converting an attic into a bedroom, which uses existing space.
Also, making major changes to the original structure, even when permitted by the city, runs other risks. ‘‘When you become the oddball, the only home in the neighborhood with four bedrooms, probably the fourth bedroom is not going to be that desirable,’’ Borges says.
One way to gauge whether a home improvement project is worthwhile is to estimate how much of what you spend will be recovered at resale.
For example, if you spend $1,000 on siding, and it only adds $500 to the resale value of your home, that upgrade is giving you a 50 percent return on your investment.
Remodeling magazine’s latest cost-value study, which is based on surveys of real estate agents, can help provide a ballpark reference. You can find it here: www.remodeling.hw.net/2013/costvsvalue/national.aspx
That said, when home prices are rising fast enough, like during the last housing boom, it’s easier to recover costs spent on home improvements. The alternative scenario also holds true.
Prioritize repairs and curb appeal
Making the master bedroom bigger or converting a downstairs closet into a half-bath might seem like good investments, but not if you need to upgrade your roof or fix window seals.
Those fixes may not be aesthetic upgrades, but often make a home easier to sell.
Replacing your front door might cost you $1,500, but it’s the type of upgrade that can make a home attractive to buyers, says Sal Alfano, editorial director of Remodeling magazine.
The magazine says replacing the front entry with a 20-gauge steel door is the upgrade from which homeowners can expect to recoup the most money among renovations that cost less than $5,000. The magazine estimates a recovery of 85.6 percent of the cost.
Before moving forward on a home improvement project, consult with a real estate agent or an appraiser who knows your market. They should be able to gauge how the upgrade could affect the sales price of your home. That can help you determine how much of your investment you’re likely to recoup.
Almost all appraisers are independent and set their own fees. A consultation could cost between $500 and $1,000. Real estate agents might be willing to offer their assessment for free, perhaps with the understanding that they might earn your business when it comes time to sell. | Homeowners are opening their wallets. A rebound in the housing market has made them more willing to invest in renovations that could boost the value of their homes even more in a rising market. Spending on home remodeling has picked up over the past 18 months and is expected to rise nearly 20 percent to $151 billion by the fourth quarter, according to a recent report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. Many homeowners decide to make upgrades with the idea that the bigger kitchen or finished basement will make their home more enjoyable. But those looking to sell should know that not all home improvement projects will boost the value of a home. Here are six tips when considering investing in home improvement projects: | 6.781022 | 1 | 39.423358 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/oct/12/heritage.iran | http://web.archive.org/web/20130829181417id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2005/oct/12/heritage.iran | Persia in pieces | 20130829181417 | A rallying Tehran poster from the 1980s. © British Museum
Tulips of martyrdom stain the image red. Young, modern Iranians march between ancient Persians, while the ruins of Persepolis stand in the light of the minaret. This Tehran poster from the 1980s (right) was produced to rally the nation after the invasion by Iraq, and proclaim that the Islamic Republic of Iran is heir to the great empire of Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes, as it, like them, confronts an enemy from the west. Across 2,500 years, despite political revolutions and a different faith, Iranian patriotism calls for the same, ultimate sacrifice.
Better than anything else could, the poster presents the thesis that the ancient Persian empire is important not just because of what it achieved and the works of art it produced, but because it still shapes the consciousness of modern Iran.
Indeed, you could say it still shapes the entire Middle East, for the countries we group under that heading are those, from Turkey and Egypt to the frontiers of Pakistan and China, that from the 6th to the 4th centuries BC made up the Persian empire, by far the largest political unit that the world had then seen. The particular questions of wide empire - how to manage communications over huge distances, how to weld hopelessly disparate peoples into one coherent system - were first asked, and answered, in Persia.
From early on, certainly from Cyrus's conquest of Babylon in 539BC, this was an empire based on acknowledging difference: of faith (the rights of different religious groups were recognised and protected), of custom (national habits and administrations were not disturbed), even of trading (some parts of the empire had coinage, others not). It was Cyrus's devolved, flexible empire that allowed the Jews, captive in Babylon, to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple, and the Jews loved and revered him for it. In Jerusalem Cyrus was the Anointed of the Lord.
The view from Athens was, of course, different. From the periphery of the civilised world, the Greeks skirmished with the Persian imperial power, rather as the Boers did with the British. The Athenians both belittled and demonised the Persian giant, in a brilliant campaign of negative spin, designed to keep their own spirits up and their allies in line - Athens had put together a "coalition of the willing" to fight the Persians, and it had turned out to be highly profitable. They wanted it to continue, so the Persians were presented as a threat to civilisation, despicable but dangerous.
As the Persians wrote very little about how they ran their affairs, the Greek propaganda of the 5th century BC has for centuries gone virtually unchallenged - indeed, for Edward Said, it was the beginning of Europe's long habit of misunderstanding and ill-informed contempt of the Middle East. The British Museum exhibition aims to look at the Persians as they might have looked at themselves, to present the imperial achievement that is central to modern Iran's understanding of itself as the natural great power between China and the Mediterranean.
The Shah's extravaganza at Persepolis in 1971 was a clear attempt (by no means his only one) to appropriate the inheritance of Cyrus. The Islamic Revolutionary authorities of the 1980s did exactly the same in the poster. And last month the vice president of the newly elected regime in Tehran made the first visit abroad of any member of the government, to open the British Museum exhibition. If we are to make sense of modern Iran, clearly we need to begin by thinking again about ancient Persia.
· Persians is at the British Museum, London WC1, until January 8. Unbroken Arc: What Persia Tells Us About Modern Iran, a public forum supported by the Guardian, is at the museum on Tuesday October 18. Booking: 020-7323 8181 or through: thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
· See a gallery of the five objects here | British Museum director Neil MacGregor introduces objects that tell the story of the largest political unit the world, in 500BC, had ever seen. | 29.038462 | 0.692308 | 1.307692 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/aug/21/heritage.austria | http://web.archive.org/web/20130830082559id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/aug/21/heritage.austria | Analysing Freud's couch | 20130830082559 | Letting it all hang out ... Freud's couch. Photograph: David Sillitoe
Why did Sigmund Freud make his patients lie on couches? Why didn't he tell them to sit up straight, or psychoanalyse them standing up? The solution to this mystery has been found and is on display in a fascinating exhibition in Freud's old apartment in Vienna, part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of his birth.
In Freud's day, reclining in mixed company was an extremely risque business. "If a visitor is announced, you are to receive him in a standing position - never lying on the chaise longue," warned Konstanze von Franken in her Handbook of Good Form & Fine Manners, published in Berlin in 1922. Even sitting upright on a couch, rather than a straight-backed chair, was seen as far too forward. "A gentleman never takes a seat on the sofa," declared Herr Schramm in his book of etiquette, Good Form & Proper Deportment (Berlin, 1919).
In light of such stern advice, Freud's invitation to his patients to lounge about seems remarkably daring - rather like a modern analyst inviting his patients to strip off and clamber into bed. So why did Freud risk opprobrium by asking those who visited him to adopt such a provocative position? The answer lies in the extraordinary things that happen when people do their thinking (and talking) lying down.
As an enthusiastic practitioner of hypnosis, Freud had seen how lying down liberated people from conventional trains of thought. Although he abandoned hypnotism soon after he moved into his apartment in Vienna's Berggasse, he retained a hypnotist's couch to assist him in his new technique of free association. Freud found that lying down promotes a loss of control that encourages more instinctive conversation. And no wonder - the word couch (from the French coucher) doesn't only mean to lie down; it also means to put an idea into words.
The safer English word, sofa (from Arabic suffa) has none of the same connotations, so it's ironic that Freud's couch - a gift from a Viennese patient - ended up in prim Hampstead, where Freud spent his final years, after fleeing to England to escape the Nazis. Today his couch has pride of place at 20 Maresfield Gardens, the house (now a museum) where he died in 1939.
At Berggasse, meanwhile, the Freud Museum has gathered an array of artworks about couches, from Max Ernst to Man Ray. Andy Warhol's erotic movie, Couch, is screened every Sunday. Rachel Whiteread's Amber Bed lies slumped against a wall. There's a photo of Oscar Wilde lying on a chaise longue. The subtext is clear: Freud's famous couch may have finished up in London and not Vienna, but there's no way he could have explored the subconscious on an English three-piece suite. | William Cook: Why did Sigmund Freud make his patients lie on couches? Why didn't he tell them to sit up straight, or psychoanalyse them standing up? The solution to this mystery has been found and is on display in a fascinating exhibition in Freud's old apartment in Vienna, part of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of his birth. | 8.283582 | 0.970149 | 61.149254 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/jan/27/art2 | http://web.archive.org/web/20130901091835id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/jan/27/art2 | Art: Laura Cumming reviews From Russia | 20130901091835 | French and Russian Master Paintings 1870-1925 from Moscow and St PetersburgRoyal Academy, London W1; until 18 Apr
Kasimir Malevich painted his revolutionary Red Square in 1915. It remains a picture without precedent. There was Abstraction before it, but nothing as radical as this dazzling form - more of a parallelogram, in fact - its scarlet edges vibrating against a white ground, advancing like a brave new spirit.
A figure as much as a form? Indubitably. Malevich, one of 14 children born to a Ukrainian worker, subtitled it 'Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions'. And although his subtitles are nearly as hard to fathom as his euphorically apocalyptic manifestos, you cannot misinterpret the visual language of this figure tilting through space or the life force brimming through Red Square
Ten years later, the Reds suppressed Malevich. After the revolution, it became a crime to exhibit Abstract painting. He was forced back to figuration, purged by Stalin and, 20 years later, died destitute. But his picture is irrepressible, incomparable. Nothing can put out its fire.
For proof, go if you can to the extraordinary gathering of images drawn from Russia's state museums now at the Royal Academy. Everyone knows that this was almost a no-show, that the government passed legislation to protect the art from possible seizure by restitution claimants. Anyone interested in art probably knows it's essentially a standoff between the French and Russian avant-garde. But the version of modern painting revealed here is still full of surprises as the Russians gradually release some of the missing masterpieces of 20th-century art.
Gertrude Stein liked to quip that America was the oldest country in the world because it entered the 20th century first. But she couldn't be more wrong from the perspective of art. America limps in pathetically late compared with both France and Russia. Matisse is a Fauve by 1905, Picasso paints Les Demoiselles d'Avignon two years later. Kandinsky dates - or backdates - his tendentiously titled First Abstract Painting 1910. Malevich's blazingly minimal Suprematism still looks as though it burst out of nowhere in 1913.
The crisscrossings between the two countries are continuous and astoundingly fast and can be mimicked by visitors to this show. Look at the gravely beautiful Monet Haystack in the first room and then go to Kandinsky in the last: this was what made the Russian quit law for painting. The Frenchman Carolus-Duran is palpably influenced by the flamboyant Ilya Repin, whose portrait of a barefoot Tolstoy looks remarkably like Rasputin as Santa Claus. Picasso's massive Farm Woman, her mouthless mug hacked out of wood, mute as a totem, speaks to Natalia Goncharov's monumental peasants three years later.
The Russians went west - Tatlin visited Picasso, Alexandra Exter worked with Leger, Chagall settled in Paris - giving new protein to French painting. And with the arrival of Diaghilev, Leon Bakst and the Ballets Russes, the city went wild for Russia. Simultaneously, the French started to go east, literally in the case of Matisse who was stunned by the candlelit icons in Orthodox churches. And those two great collectors, the rouble zillionaires Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, shuttled back and forth between Moscow and Paris bringing home the most advanced French art of the early 20th century.
'Shchukin,' said Daniel Kahnweiler, dealer of dealers, 'was almost the only important collector of avant-garde art.' And so it seems from this exhibition: not only had he acquired 37 Matisses, including La Danse and The Red Room, but reams of van Goghs, Cézannes, Gauguins and 50 Picassos by 1909 when he opened his palace on Sundays to the public. 'If a picture gives you a psychological shock, buy it,' he advised. 'It's a good one.' How wildly unorthodox he was can be construed from a photograph showing the Gauguins among ormolu clocks and imperial furnishings. Go from that interior to the original pictures - a super-fertile scene, say, of glowing guavas, raspberry rivers and peach-breasted girls, the paint laid down with leaden deliberation as if Gauguin were trying to keep himself under control - you may imagine why Shchukin's wife was not the only Muscovite scandalised by his collection.
La Danse, never seen in Britain before, is puffed as the main draw of this show. It turns out to be the Mona Lisa of modern art -celebrated, yet unlovable. The eye stalls over and again, tripped by the wrangled limbs of those vast, brick-red figures and it seems to me infinitely less captivating than a magnificent work like The Red Room. With its absorbed and absorbing dreamer harmoniously contained by her milieu - and his art - this is deepest Matisse: radiant, daring and full.
But the French can take care of themselves. The revelations here are nearly all Russian - not the samovars and onion domes, though even these are eccentric variants on the apples and guitars of French Modernism; and not just comparatively unknown names such as Pyotr Miturich, decoupling colour and line as gracefully as RB Kitaj 60 years in advance; but the unseen works by the heroes of Russian painting.
Isaac Levitan, Chekhov's favourite artist: it would be hard to think of a more beautiful image of late afternoon light turning field to fire than his Summer Evening 1900. Or Tatlin, whose Fish Seller, haloed by his own catch, still seems to be arriving on the canvas in a vortex of arcs and dabs. Or Chagall's much-reproduced Promenade, in which the man on the ground pulls his lover into the air like a kite, her legs dancing free in the breeze.
Russian museums have been sending pictures out to earn their living for a few years now - Picassos and Rembrandts in exchange for money to repair the rooms where they hang. Obviously the bigger the names the greater the funds, but still you can't help wishing that From Russia was weighted far more to the Russians. Then it would have been possible to show as never before in the UK the point at which Russian art takes off from France in a trail of blazing images. From Ivor Grabar's Post-Impressionist snowdrift to Malevich's Red Square is a 10-year sprint for Russia that takes France, never mind America, about another half century.
In 1935, when Malevich died, two of his canvases were smuggled into America in an umbrella. But much of the most advanced art in this show was buried by communism and lost to the public - in Russia as elsewhere - for decades. State suppression of the avant-garde didn't just halt an aesthetic revolution, it distorted the history of modern art.
Terrific. It was worth all the diplomatic drama, although I see the Russian point of view. My wife was most interested in the development of the Russian art as a result of the French influence, whereas I like the French work.
It's amazing to see so many great works in such a confined space. I saw La Danse in St Petersburg. I used to teach modern dance so I'm particularly fond of it. The portrait of the bride and groom being blessed was particularly striking.
A great show. I loved it. My favourite piece was the portrait of Anna Akhmatova by Natan Altman. It showed a great twist between the Russian and French work. And the Gauguins and Picassos were lovely. A coup for Norman Rosenthal.
I'd read Hilary Spurling's books on Matisse, so I was excited to see The Red Room and La Danse. It was good to see so many female Russian artists and sad to think that the revolution stopped all that.
It's amazing how much life there is in La Danse. The conceit of the big French pieces with the Russian art it inspired worked very well. The exhibition had a really good flow to it, but the Renoirs were atrocious. | Art: Communism viciously buried the avant-garde, but now - at last - Russia is letting the world see what it concealed | 60.72 | 0.88 | 1.6 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/oct/20/raphael-drawing-world-record-auction | http://web.archive.org/web/20130908031436id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/oct/20/raphael-drawing-world-record-auction | Raphael drawing expected to break world record at auction | 20130908031436 | Head of a Muse by Raphael. Photograph: Christie's Images Ltd 2009
A drawing by Raphael that played an important part in the execution of one of his greatest works is expected to achieve a world record price at auction, Christie's announced today.
Head of a Muse was drawn by Raphael as a study for a figure in one of his frescoes at the Vatican. If it achieves its estimate of £12m-£16m then it will easily break the auction record for an old master drawing shared by Michaelangelo's The Risen Christ and Leonardo da Vinci's Horse and Rider, which both sold separately for £8.1m.
The drawing was part of Raphael's preparations for one of the towering artistic achievements of the Renaissance. While Michaelangelo was standing on his scaffold painting the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, Raphael was nearby painting his frescoes in the Stanza della Segnatura which Pope Julius II intended to use as his library.
Head of a Muse was for a figure in Parnassus which shows Apollo holding court on the mountain, surrounded by his muses.
The drawing is to be offered at public auction for the first time in 150 years as part of Christie's Old Masters sale on 8 December.
Benjamin Peronnet, Christie's head of old master drawings, said the auction house was "extremely excited" by the sale. "This truly exceptional drawing offers us a glimpse into the working mind of a genius. It presents us with the immediacy of his thoughts and ideas, capturing the precise moment at which the artist's hand and mind were applied to paper."
The drawing, which measures just over 30cm by 22cm, has, at various times, been part of some of the finest collections of art. At the time it was first recorded, in 1725, it was owned by the celebrated Dutch collector Gosuinus Uilenbroeck. It was later owned by Sir Thomas Lawrence – the painter who amassed an amazing collection of old master drawings – and after that King William II of Holland.
Also at the sale will be an important late portrait by Rembrandt, Portrait of a Man, half-length with his arms akimbo, estimated at £18m-£25m; and a major Baroque painting by Domenichino, Saint John the Evangelist, expected to sell for £7-£10m. | Head of a Muse done as study for Vatican fresco estimated to reach up to £16m in Christie's sale | 19.954545 | 0.772727 | 1.5 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.nydailynews.com/2.1353/black-friday-shoppers-tackle-early-bird-deals-h-m-macy-urban-outiftters-best-buy-article-1.456968 | http://web.archive.org/web/20130913093334id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/2.1353/black-friday-shoppers-tackle-early-bird-deals-h-m-macy-urban-outiftters-best-buy-article-1.456968 | Black Friday shoppers tackle early bird deals at H&M, Macy's, Urban Outiftters, Best Buy and more | 20130913093334 | Shoppers loosened their purse strings and swarmed the stores to snag deep Black Friday discounts, bringing some relief to recession-weary retailers.
Lines snaked outside stores long before sunrise on the biggest shopping day of the year, amid early signs that consumers are willing to spend if the prices are right.
At the Queens Center Mall, hundreds waited for shops to open at midnight. At Best Buy near the Bronx Terminal Market, more than 200 people braved soggy weather at 2 a.m.
At least 7,000 people stood outside Macy's in Herald Square as the doors swung open at 4 a.m., up 40% from last year, the store said.
"I cut out the newspaper ads and I got my coupon. I came prepared," said Manhattan student Daniel David, 20, joining the Macy's horde.
"I'm moving fast, trying to beat everyone and get done by sunrise."
Experts said there were more young people and more men joining the Black Friday fray this year. And more people were bargain-hunting for themselves - not just gifts.
"I love Black Friday," said Luseny Maldonado, 17, a senior at Queens Vocational and Technical High School who was one of the early birds at Queens Center Mall.
"I'm gonna grab jeans, shoes, bags, shirts - all for myself!"
Retailers view Black Friday as a barometer of their bottom line. For consumers, it's become something of a sporting event.
"I like that people get all crazy and run around to get their hands on stuff," Maldonado said. "It's such an adrenaline rush."
Though official numbers won't be out until later in the weekend, the National Retail Federation predicted that 138 million Americans would shop between yesterday and tomorrow - up from 134 million last year.
One-day - or one-hour - door busters were the lure for many New Yorkers who are still watching their wallets closely as the economy recovers.
"I'm here for one reason - deals, deals, deals," said Norma Sylvan, 66, of Fort Greene, Brooklyn, who got to Target in Brooklyn's Atlantic Center at 4 a.m. She spent $500 on a flat-screen TV, microwave and other electronics.
"This is what it's all about. It's the only day to do this so I had to come."
In the Bronx, Milton Rodriquez, 37, cut his family Thanksgiving dinner short to wait outside Best Buy for a new laptop.
He was first in line and equipped with a chair, blanket, umbrella, snacks and a portable DVD player to pass the time.
"The laptop I'm getting is $189 and normally $500," he said. "How could I not sit out here for it?"
Despite the throngs who made a mad dash for sale signs, some shoppers refused to be caught up in the Black Friday frenzy.
"I'm going to shop after Christmas because it's much cheaper than the prices are now," said Caroline Generas, 25, from Manhattan, peering into the window of Daffy's near Herald Square.
"That's when you can get the real deals. Now it's just chaos." | Thousands of New Yorkers wasted no time getting their hands on a bargain Friday, forming long lines outside some of the biggest name chain stores long before midnight. | 21.3 | 0.8 | 1.466667 | medium | medium | abstractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/aug/10/chinese-artist-police-attack | http://web.archive.org/web/20130915165731id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/aug/10/chinese-artist-police-attack | Leading Chinese artist Ai Weiwei claims police attacked him | 20130915165731 | Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist commissioned to create an installation for the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, says police attacked him. Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist commissioned to create an installation for the Tate Modern Turbine Hall, says that plain-clothes police assaulted him and his assistant today as he attempted to file a complaint about a previous attack.
The artist who designed the Beijing national stadium, known as the Bird Nest, said that he was kicked and shoved outside a police station in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province in south-west China.
"Some undercover police tore our shirts and tried to grab our cameras. There were maybe 10 of them. They pushed and kicked us," he said in a telephone interview. "Now we are being attacked because we complained about last time. It is so ironic."
Ai and several other activists were detained in Chengdu last year to prevent them attending the trial of a campaigner investigating schoolchildren's deaths in the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. The subject has become highly sensitive because of allegations that shoddy construction, linked to corruption, was to blame for the high death toll in schools.
Ai said a policeman punched him in the head in that incident, leaving him with painful headaches, and he underwent surgery in Germany weeks later after doctors spotted internal bleeding.
Today he went to Chengdu's city police department, but says it refused to take his complaint and referred him to the police station at Jinniu.
He said that as he arrived at that building he was surrounded by men who assaulted him and his assistant, and told him: "If you want justice, go back to the US."
Ai lived in America for several years but is still a Chinese citizen.
He said that he recognised one of the men from his detention last year and believes the group were plain-clothes officers.
He added: "I tried to go through the judicial system to make a report [about the earlier assault], but no one will give us any answers. They have pushed us from one place to another.
"China's judicial system is totally corrupt and paralysed. Even with a case that people internationally know, they don't give a shit."
Ai said he was now at the complaints office but that he had been refused a receipt for his report and feared they would simply drop it in the bin. He said: "We have to make the effort, but we can't really win.
"We know we can't really get [satisfaction] but we still have to go through the system – if you don't do it, that's your own fault for giving up your rights."
An employee at Jinniu police station said they was not aware of any incident there today. The propaganda department at Chengdu's city police department refused to comment. | Creator of Beijing's Bird Nest stadium says he was attacked while trying to report a previous assault by security forces | 26.761905 | 0.761905 | 1.047619 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/nov/10/andy-warhol-artworks-auction-price | http://web.archive.org/web/20130917184352id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/nov/10/andy-warhol-artworks-auction-price | Two Andy Warhol artworks sell for combined total of £60m in New York | 20130917184352 | A Coca-Cola bottle by Andy Warhol which sold at Sotheby's in New York last night. Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters
Andy Warhol was this week emerging as the star of contemporary art sales in New York with a 1962 painting of a young, between husbands, Elizabeth Taylor selling for $63m (£39m) and a Coca-Cola bottle selling for $35m. The 2.1 metre (7 feet) coke bottle had eight bidders battling it out at Sotheby's last night before it eventually went for a price well in excess of the $20-25m estimate. For Sotheby's, it was a buoyant contemporary sales night with $225.5m being spent, above the estimate of $214m and considerably more than the $134m spent at last year's equivalent sale.
The previous evening at Phillips de Pury's new Manhattan saleroom, Warhol's 'Men in Her Life' – based on an image of Taylor – hadachieved the second-highest price paid for a Warhol at auction, with the record set at Christie's in 2007 when $71.7m was paid for Green Car Crash (Green Car Burning I).
The next Warhol up for auction will be a Campbell's vegetable soup can due to be sold at Christie's tonight with an estimate of $30-50m. | Prices fetched at separate auctions for a painting of a young Elizabeth Taylor and a Coca-Cola bottle | 13.578947 | 0.789474 | 3.210526 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/19/typography-photograph-favourite-fonts | http://web.archive.org/web/20130919174738id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/19/typography-photograph-favourite-fonts | Typography - photograph your favourite fonts | 20130919174738 | Everyday we encounter hundreds of different typefaces on road signs, letters, tickets and buildings. Many of us don't notice the font itself, concentrating instead on reading the words. There are some designs that are instantly recognisable, though. Helvetica is perhaps the most well known; it even has its own film, and taken out of context, many London Underground users would still recognise the Johnson typeface used on all their signs.
The Observer New Review has made a gallery of 10 of the best fonts from around the world, and now we'd like to collect together your favourites.
Over the next few weeks, we’d like you to take photographs of the different typefaces that catch your eye, and share them with us via GuardianWitness. The lettering can be on everyday products, labels, signs or even clothes. We are also particularly interested in seeing fonts you think have been misused and are unsuitable for the message they are conveying.
Christian Schwartz, the designer of our very own font Guardian Egyptian, said, "Type design is about the subliminal elements," so take a moment to take a closer look at the fonts you see everyday and we’ll create an online gallery of your pictures.
Share your photos via the blue button on this page, or download the GuardianWitness mobile app to post your images while on the move.
• GuardianWitness is the home of user-generated content on the Guardian. Contribute your video, pictures and stories, and browse news, reviews and creations submitted by others. Posts will be reviewed prior to publication on GuardianWitness, and the best pieces will feature on the Guardian site. | Road signs, menus, bus tickets and messages on T-shirts, take a snap of the typefaces on everyday objects that catch your eye, and share them with us | 9.575758 | 0.787879 | 3.939394 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/aug/14/photographer-murray-ballard | http://web.archive.org/web/20131009225702id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/aug/14/photographer-murray-ballard | Photographer Murray Ballard's best shot | 20131009225702 | Some action … a 'patient care bay' being filled with liquid nitrogen. Photograph: Murray Ballard
This was taken at a cryonics facility in Phoenix, Arizona, called the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. Cryonics is the process of freezing – or suspending – a body in liquid nitrogen at around –130C immediately after death. There are only three such centres in the world. People sign up in the hope that scientific advances will one day bring them back to life.
Here, a "patient care bay" is being pumped full of liquid nitrogen. I presume Hugh, the facilities engineer standing on the ladder, will be suspended when he dies. Dr Mike Perry, the patient caretaker in the background, monitors the vats for leaks and keeps them topped up, as the nitrogen boils off in the desert heat.
In 2006, when I took this, 75 people were suspended in vats here, each of which can accommodate up to four whole-body patients. People can also just have their heads stored. These go into drawers and it's a lot cheaper.
It's a small industry, with about 2,000 people signed up worldwide. There aren't patients coming in regularly, so when I started taking pictures here, there wasn't much to shoot. Then this happened – some action, nitrogen being pumped in. The noise was ear-shattering.
I've always been interested in subjects that mimic photography's ability to preserve something, such as embalming and taxidermy. I discovered cryonics in an article entitled Freezer Failure Ends Couple's Hopes of Life After Death. At first I was sceptical. One criticism levelled at the process is that it's only for the wealthy, but most of the people I've met pay for it through life insurance.
Cryonicists say they don't know what medical practices will exist in the future, but they do talk about nanotechnology and brainscanning, which would allow your identity to be downloaded on to a computer and implanted into a new, young body. Cryonics can seem pretty sensible, if you want to be immortal – though I don't think I do.
Studied: BA in photography at Brighton University.
Influences: Adam Broomberg, Oliver Chanarin, Julian Germain, Jim Goldberg ... I could write a long list.
Top tip: Wait until you have fully realised a project before putting it out in the world. Don't worry if it takes you years – it probably will. | 'This is a cryonics lab. Four whole bodies can be frozen in each vat. But just getting your head done is cheaper' | 18.192308 | 0.730769 | 0.884615 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/television/2013/10/03/ali-and-supreme-court/VqKzFB2MGK89j9xNsACd2N/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20131010233729id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/television/2013/10/03/ali-and-supreme-court/VqKzFB2MGK89j9xNsACd2N/story.html | ‘Ali’ and the Supreme Court | 20131010233729 | “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight” is set in a boxing ring of sorts. The new HBO movie takes place in the Supreme Court of 1970, where the justices and their young clerks are addressing the case of Muhammad Ali’s conscientious objector status as a devout Muslim. The battle is quiet, political, and insidious, and the punches come from behind and — with President Nixon pushing for the justices to uphold Ali’s conviction — from above. But it is a significant battle whose issues involving the role of the Supreme Court continues to resonate to this day.
Oddly, “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” which premieres on Saturday night at 8, is underwhelming — and especially so, given the drama of the situation, which includes antiwar protesters outside the court and the pressures due to Ali’s very public persona. It’s not boring, thanks to strong performances by Christopher Plummer as the ailing Justice John Marshall Harlan and Frank Langella as conservative Justice Warren E. Burger. But still, the loose script, by Shawn Slovo, doesn’t drive home the size and intensity of the moment. It meanders through the lives of the justices and their clerks when it should zero in on the case at hand.
Our way into the story is through Harlan’s new clerk, Kevin Connolly (Benjamin Walker), who pushes Harlan to keep his eyes on the law, not on the politics of the court. He argues about the cases with the other clerks, including an Ivy League snob played by Pablo Schreiber with a painful upper crust accent (why, why?). Schreiber has one of the entertaining lines, as his character mockingly announces, “The Nation of Islam — what is that?” Why we need to know about Kevin’s pregnant wife is unclear, but it’s one of the small detouring bits that only serves to throw the movie off point.
The cast keeps giving us respected names and faces — Fritz Weaver as Hugo Black, Harris Yulin as William O. Douglas, Peter Gerety as William Brennan Jr., Barry Levinson as Potter Stewart, Ed Begley Jr. as Harry Blackmun, and Danny Glover as Thurgood Marshall, who recused himself from the case. None of them, though, seems to have more than a handful or two of lines and a single character trait. Only Plummer and Langella get to shine, as they embody opposite approaches to their jobs.
Director Stephen Frears has folded in many lively clips of Ali from the 1960s and ’70s, which animate the story. At the same time, they call attention to all the energy and sharpness that’s missing. | “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight” is set in a boxing ring of sorts. The new HBO movie takes place in the Supreme Court of 1970, where the justices and their young clerks are addressing the case of Muhammad Ali’s conscientious objector status as a devout Muslim. The battle is quiet, political, and insidious, and the punches come from behind and – with President Nixon pushing for the justices to uphold Ali’s conviction – from above. But it is a significant battle whose issues involving the role of the Supreme Court continues to resonate to this day. But the movie is underwhelming – and especially so, given the drama of the situation, which includes antiwar protesters outside the court and the pressures due to Ali’s very public persona. | 3.496503 | 0.979021 | 44.615385 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/oct/23/3d-mini-me-statues-models-printing | http://web.archive.org/web/20131024014151id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/oct/23/3d-mini-me-statues-models-printing | 3D mini-me statues: 'This must be what Z-list celebrity feels like' | 20131024014151 | In the northwestern region of the Amazon rainforest, the Jivaroan tribes used to shrink the heads of their slaughtered enemies and mount them on sticks as triumphant hunting trophies. Sliced open to remove the skull, the flesh was boiled and mixed with hot gravel and sand, in the belief that the spirit of the victim would now serve the victor.
Latterday head-shrinkers can now be saved all that mess and bother by heading to Selfridges, where similar kinds of black magic are being practiced in the pop-up iMakr store: there you can get yourself shrunk down and 3D-printed as a six-inch figurine. First launched in Tokyo's Harajuku district last year, in the cradle of teenage novelty trends, the phenomenon of the 3D photo booth has quickly spread around the world: the service is now offered in Walmart and will soon be rolled out in Asda stores, so you can pick up a self-portrait with your groceries, for around £40.
In Selfridges, iMakr's portraits will set you back £159 and up. "Ours is the latest technology," says Sylvain Preumont, founder of iMakr, as he ushers me into an octagonal Tardis, where 48 cameras await to capture my soul in 360 degrees.
Standing in the brightly lit booth, hearing the surround-sound of SLR shutters snapping simultaneously, feels like being in the middle of a paparazzi scrum, but one that might end with you being beamed to another dimension. Thankfully, you just end up on the computer. The photos are then mapped and joined together using software that generates a "point cloud" of your body, a kind of three-dimensional map of dots, before creating a polygonal mesh, like a digital chicken-wire model. After a few hours of processing and manual fixing – creating voids beneath skirts and inside jackets, where the cameras can't see – the model is sent to a printer the size of an industrial chest freezer.
In a similar process to ink-jet printing, a print head shuttles back and forth, spitting out microscopic dots of ink and binder, only instead of a sheet of paper, there is a bed of plaster dust. Each time the printer passes, another layer of powder is dragged across the bed, 0.1mm thick, until the model is built up – at a rate of 28mm per hour, taking around five hours to build a six-inch figurine.
Just like those rubber-moulded models beloved of craft shops, the printed figures are essentially just made of plaster of Paris, water and ink, the finished objects then dunked in a bath of super-glue to fix the colour and make them a bit more durableSeeing yourself being extracted from a bed of powder is a surreal sight, like watching an archaeological excavation, knowing that you are the embalmed mummy lying beneath the sand. Your little body comes out looking like a snow-encrusted yeti, before an airbrush and paintbrush are employed to dust away the excess powder and reveal the multicoloured mini-you in all its disturbing glory.
Colours are still to be perfected – flesh tones verge on the corpsey, while my blondish locks came out black. But other details are remarkable, from the knot of my shoelaces to the moth-eaten hole in my jumper. Now all that remains is to work out what to do with this slightly sinister, staring miniature of myself, frozen in an eternal grin. It's freaking me out, standing watching me on my desk. I just hope there's some space on my granny's mantlepiece.
The question of what to wear perplexed me. Should I test the printer and dress up like Leigh Bowery? Or turn up wearing nothing but a feather boa and a thong, as a friend suggested? I tried to invent an outfit that would both maintain my modesty and reveal my caesarean scar, as I was curious to see what the 3D printer would make of that red line of which I have grown so fond. Until it dawned on me that I was really just having my photograph taken, not auditioning for reality TV, so I went in my normal clothes. Which turned out to be the biggest mistake of all.
"Would you tie your hair back," said the Frenchman in charge of the studio, looking at my dark scruffy bob with a concerned face, "as hair that looks like – like yours … well. It will come out looking like a helmet. And your outfit! This is going to be interesting." Given that his prior instructions had said the computer liked details and pattern and colour, rather than solid black, I thought my candy-striped pink shirt would be perfect. And the trousers printed with little hieroglyphic people all over them. And the leopard-skin shoes and the wodge of red lipstick and gold chains.
It turns out, when he had told me to wear patterns, something had got lost in translation. What he meant was texture, like denim jeans or a knitted sweater. Still, they managed to make my mini-me, and it's certainly a fun thing to have. It must be, as everybody I've shown it to has burst out laughing. "You look so GRUMPY!" they say. (I was told to cross my arms!) "You look kind of sallow and DIRTY," they add, as my face is yellow and the clothes are all sort of washed in grey. "I can only tell it's you from the clothes, not the face," said a member of my own family.
I love the physicality of it, though: her tummy curves in just the way that mine does, the slight bulge in the calves is exactly right – the shape of it is me. My plan now is to get my little girl to pose for one every year of her life, and line them up on the mantelpiece like Russian dolls, to see how the technology improves as she grows. Although I worry that in about five years' time we'll have done away with these statues altogether, and my mantelpiece will be crowded with 3D holograms.
"Why would anyone want to have a statue made of themselves?" a friend asked me. "I can understand why you would want to have one made" – she is all too aware of my overweening self-regard – "but why would anyone else want to do it?"
It was a fair question, and one I put to mini-you guru Sylvain Preumont when I pitched up for my statue-making session. "Children will want to get one for their grandmother for Christmas," explained Sylvain, an effortlessly stylish and articulate French-born entrepreneur, "and then there are the people with a little bit of an ego."
I am definitely part of the second market. But there is a problem. I have turned up with a colleague from the Guardian – young, dynamic, smiley. He would easily pass for a member of One Direction. I feel ancient and dishevelled in his company. And there is a second problem. I have in part ignored Sylvain's instructions on what to wear. "Avoid plain, uniform colours, especially black," he told me in an email. "The software likes details and remarkable points." I have made a point of wearing a ridiculous pair of green trousers, but kept on a black jumper – supposedly slimming, you see. He makes me take it off. Now I look truly absurd: green trousers, red T-shirt, battered black hiking boots. I also have a cold and suddenly realise this is going to be a fiasco.
It doesn't help that I am too tall for the booth, so the top of my head will be sliced off. Sylvain and his assistant, Pankaj Raut, say they will rectify this by adding in the top of my head. I suggest superimposing the head of George Clooney on the body of Brad Pitt, but this doesn't find favour. "Perhaps we could give you a hat or a crown," says Sylvain, who is considering making a set of chess pieces from the 3D Guardianistas.
I try three poses, all hopeless: hands in pockets, arms folded, hand on chin to suggest deep thought. My cold is getting worse. Why did I agree to do this? A few minutes later, Pankaj shows me the pictures. They say the camera does not lie, so the evidence is unendurably brutal. My self-image is of a saturnine figure: tall, athletic, dangerous. So who is this grey, shambling old bloke dressed like a dustman?
I have seen enough. What on earth is the statue going to look like? Can I take out an injunction to stop the Guardian using it? I make my excuses and leave. "Perhaps you should have done it naked," says my friend when I relate my depressing experience. "Like Michelangelo's David after he's eaten all the pies."
I've been in this position once before, and it was just as awkward. I'd returned from Seoul, where I'd been teaching, to find that the mother of one of my students had sent me a framed A3 pencil drawing of my face that she'd copied from a yearbook. It was a perfectly good drawing but what was I supposed to do with it? I could keep it, but that'd be an act of incredible vanity. In the end, I gave it to my mum. Which is just as vain. Perhaps more so. "You know what you need, mum? A massive picture of my great big face hanging on your wall for ever." She's still got it, to the eternal chagrin of my little brother, forever annoyed that a Korean woman didn't draw his face a decade ago.
So this gives me a feeling of deja-vu. I've got a little 3D-printed figurine of myself, and it is extraordinary. You can see tiny details, like the outline of my phone in my pocket. It's not perfect – my head seems proportionately very tiny, plus I don't appear to have any eyes at all – but it still looks a thousand times more like me than my Guardian byline photo.
But what to do with it? Put it on my desk as part of a larger shrine to myself? Give it away to someone whose life I wrongly assume will be improved by a tiny me forever blindly gurning at them from the fireplace?
It doesn't help that in both the drawing and the figurine I'm pulling the exact same pretending-to-think-with-your-fingers-on-your-chin pose that photographers apparently delight in forcing me into. Both times I've tried to subvert things by pulling a slightly funny face, and both times the end effect has been one of such colossal smugness that even I want to punch myself in the face.
Reluctantly, I think I'm going to keep it. If nothing else, in years to come it'll be a handy reminder of how terrible my dress sense was when I was 33. Perhaps it'll make a nice stand-in on a nativity scene – the Three Wise Men could temporarily become the Two Wise Men and That Eyeless Bell-End Doing the Annoying Thing With His Face.
Here I go, stepping into the future. You make sure you are standing on your mark – the lenses are essentially focused on a column of space in the middle of the booth, so you can't pose with your arms out to the side or your mini-me will emerge partially limbless – and the cameras click. This must be what Z-list celebrity feels like. For a "civilian", as Brigadier General celebrity Elizabeth Hurley refers to normal people, it's It's an unsettling experience. I don't want a picture of me taken from any angle. I wonder who will actually take up the opportunity in a department store when they have to pay for the privilege of having their every flaw rendered in plastic for posterity? The aesthetically fortunate? The supremely self-confident? The tragically deluded?
I watch the computer screen as my "point cloud" is generated. Do you remember reading reading the bit in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory when Mike Teavee gets sent, in millions of tiny pieces, through the air to emerge on the TV screen at the other end? The mental image that conjured up is what I'm looking at now.
Gradually, a familiar figure takes shape. It's six inches high and has a slightly rough surface that, together with the fact that the colour of my green top seems to have bled into my face, neck and arms, makes me look as if I'm covered in a light layer of mould. As symbolic representations of the ultimate truth of existence go, it's not bad, but I'm not sure it's what I would be expecting had I got this done as a Christmas present for a loved one.
Apart from that – well, the figure looks five months pregnant even though it isn't and slightly melted. The back view is horrendous. Which is to say, it is completely accurate, a triumph of modern technology and it went straight in the bin. | You can now get a 3D figurine made of yourself in the time it takes to do your shopping. So how does it feel to meet your double? Five Guardian writers find out | 74.085714 | 0.885714 | 1.171429 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2013/11/07/review-pianist-benjamin-grosvenor-longy-school-tuesday/W1tOkE3zUeiCD6xm0c8KeP/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20131112034905id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2013/11/07/review-pianist-benjamin-grosvenor-longy-school-tuesday/W1tOkE3zUeiCD6xm0c8KeP/story.html | Review: Pianist Benjamin Grosvenor at Longy School Tuesday | 20131112034905 | CAMBRIDGE — Benjamin Grosvenor called his first recording “This & That,” and that title could have applied to the Celebrity Series recital the 21-year-old British pianist gave Tuesday evening at Longy School of Music. Mendelssohn’s Andante & Rondo capriccioso, Schubert’s G-flat Impromptu, and Schumann’s “Humoreske” were followed, after intermission, by Frederic Mompou’s “Paisajes,” two of Nikolai Medtner’s 38 skazki, Ravel’s “Valses nobles et sentimentales” in the original piano version, and Liszt’s Gounod paraphrase “Valse de Faust.” It was a geographically diverse program, from Catalonia to Russia, of pieces one hardly ever hears, and it attested to Grosvenor’s range.
The performance, moreover, attested to his considerable gifts. He possesses a forthright touch, a firm sense of line, a big dynamic range, and a technique that made even the finger-busting Liszt sound like child’s play. What he doesn’t yet have is a distinctive musical personality. The Mendelssohn and the Schubert both received sensitive readings that never made them sound like salon pieces. But they were cautiously shaped, and the Mendelssohn could have been more melting, the Schubert — particularly that glorious opening melody — more rapt.
“Humoreske” is one of Schumann’s greatest piano works, and one of his least played. He told his future wife, Clara, that he was “laughing and crying” when he wrote it, and the piece, with its many brief sections, is a challenge to integrate. Here the opening “Einfach” section was careful, almost static, and later “Einfach and zart” was restless rather than simple and tender. Grosvenor did embody the elusive innerness of “Innig,” but the extroverted moments of the piece were earnest and stormy; the eccentric humor of Schumann’s favorite authors, Jean Paul and E.T.A. Hoffmann, escaped him.
“Valses nobles et sentimentales” was a bigger disappointment, neither noble nor sentimental but heavy-handed — hammer-like at times — and hard-toned, with little of Ravel’s bittersweet gaiety or charm or wit. At times Grosvenor seemed to be playing the piano rather than the music. And though the programming of Mompou’s three landscape pieces and Medtner’s two folk tales was imaginative, they were little more than pleasant interludes. The Liszt, however, found Grosvenor in his element, thumping out the waltz, skipping and sighing, tossing off pearly scales and trills and rippling glissandos. It made me wish he had programmed Liszt’s B-minor Sonata.
As encores, he offered the Godowsky arrangement of Isaac Albéniz’s “Tango” and Morton Gould’s “Boogie Woogie Etude.” There’s no question about his ability to play the piano, or to entertain. Perhaps for a 21-year-old that’s enough. | CAMBRIDGE — Benjamin Grosvenor called his first recording “This & That,” and that title could have applied to the Celebrity Series recital the 21-year-old British pianist gave Tuesday evening at Longy School of Music. Mendelssohn’s Andante & Rondo capriccioso, Schubert’s G-flat Impromptu, and Schumann’s “Humoreske” were followed, after intermission, by Frederic Mompou’s “Paisajes,” two of Nikolai Medtner’s 38 skazki, Ravel’s “Valses nobles et sentimentales” in the original piano version, and Liszt’s Gounod paraphrase “Valse de Faust.” It was a geographically diverse program, from Catalonia to Russia, of pieces one hardly ever hears. And the performance attested to his considerable gifts. He possesses a forthright touch and a firm sense of line. What he doesn’t yet have is a distinctive musical personality. | 3.421384 | 1 | 100.27044 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/11/12/shire-buys-viropharma-billion-deal/s9lcARNUYfaZCrmSCZchMM/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20131117211250id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2013/11/12/shire-buys-viropharma-billion-deal/s9lcARNUYfaZCrmSCZchMM/story.html | Shire buys ViroPharma in $4.2 billion deal | 20131117211250 | LONDON — The drug maker Shire PLC, seeking to strengthen its portfolio of treatments for rare diseases, said Monday that it would buy ViroPharma Inc. for about $4.2 billion in cash.
The Dublin-based drug maker would pay $50 for each share of ViroPharma, a bio-pharmaceutical company based in Exton, Pa. That represents a 27 percent premium on the company’s closing price Friday, the last trading day before the deal was announced.
Shares of ViroPharma soared 25 percent to close Monday at $49.42.
ViroPharma focuses on serious diseases with few, if any, available therapies.
Its products include Cinryze, which is used to prevent and treat attacks of hereditary angioedema, a rare genetic disorder that can cause dangerous swelling of the throat or larynx.
It also makes the seizure drug Buccolam and the antibiotic Vancocin.
The company generated $428 million in worldwide revenue last year.
ViroPharma said last month that US sales of Cinryze, which account for most of its revenue, climbed 22 percent in the third quarter to $102.2 million. It expects North American sales for the treatment to total $405 million this year.
Shire said Cinryze will act as a complement to one of its drugs, Firazyr, which treats acute hereditary angioedema attacks.
ViroPharma also is developing maribavir, a potential treatment for a virus that can lead to serious disease or death in people with compromised immune systems.
The experimental drug has received an orphan drug designation from both European and US regulators. That could lead to market exclusivity if the drug is approved.
The companies expect the deal to close by the end of this year or soon after. | The drug maker Shire PLC plans to strengthen its rare disease treatment portfolio by spending $4.2 billion in cash to buy the biopharmaceutical company ViroPharma Inc. The Dublin-based drug maker said Monday that it will pay $50 for each share of ViroPharma, which is based in Exton, Pa. That represents a 27 percent premium on the US company’s closing price Friday, the last trading day before the deal was announced. Shares of ViroPharma soared before markets opened and after the deal was announced, while Shire’s US-traded stock also climbed. ViroPharma focuses on serious diseases with few, if any, available therapies. Its products include Cinryze, which is used to prevent and treat attacks of hereditary angioedema, a rare genetic disorder that can cause dangerous swelling of the throat. | 2.176871 | 0.945578 | 11.680272 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.msnbc.com/all/no-food-stamps-no-turkey | http://web.archive.org/web/20131126082840id_/http://www.msnbc.com/all/no-food-stamps-no-turkey | After the hunger cliff, a stark Thanksgiving | 20131126082840 | For the first time that she can remember, Naquashia LeGrand’s household may go without Thanksgiving dinner. Her family is just too broke, living too close to the margin, to pull off a big turkey dinner, she said.
“Always having Thanksgiving, that’s something my family always made sure we had,” said the New York native. “And just to hear that out of my grandmother’s mouth, it broke me.”
Welcome to the post-hunger cliff holiday season. At the beginning of November, the federal food stamps program was cut by $5 billion, meaning smaller benefit checks for the 47 million Americans who rely on the program. That cut has made this time of year more precarious than ever for millions of households.
Food pantries around the country are reporting a precipitous rise in the number of new visitors as people who were previously able to make do on food stamps get hit with cuts they can’t afford. It will be a long time before the effect of the cuts can be accurately quantified, but the raw numbers currently being reported are suggestive. Previously, many food stamp recipients were able to stretch their benefits until the third week of the month. Since November 1, they have been visting pantries earlier, and in greater numbers.
PHOTO ESSAY: One family, trying to keep food on the table
New York City’s largest emergency food pantry, the Brooklyn-based Bed Stuy Campaign Against Hunger, has reported a 35% increase in clients since November 1. The River Fund food pantry in Queens, which opens its doors to the community every Saturday, reported 824 client visits on one Saturday alone.
“Typically we would see between 600 and 700,” visitors, wrote Otto Starzmann, the pantry’s chief production officer, in an email. “So this is a marked uptick. For next Saturday, we’re bracing ourselves for even more people.”
In northern states, expenses generally increase during the winter months as heating bills rise. A 2010 survey [PDF] by the food bank network Feeding America found that nearly half of its clients—46%, to be exact—had at one point been forced to choose between paying for food and paying for utilities. In addition to losing food stamp money, about 300,000 families across the country have seen their home heating assistance get reduced as a result of the across-the-board federal budget cuts known as sequestration.
Many food pantries and soup kitchens offer special Thanksgiving Day programs to help families like the LeGrands. But Joel Berg, executive director of the New York Coalition Against Hunger said those one-day programs do little to ease the crunch through the rest of the season.
“The two days out of the year with the least hunger in America are Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Berg told msnbc. But even on those two days, many food pantries are seeing their resources strained and are facing shortages of Thanksgiving turkey.
“Thanksgiving is always a busy time for us,” said Margarette Purvis, CEO of Food Bank for New York City. “This year it’s a little different. I’m watching soup kitchen and pantry managers make very difficult decisions.”
The Thanksgiving rush is just the latest in a long series of rolling crises for food banks. Before the holiday season, the cooling weather and the hunger cliff, food pantries were already struggling to meet record demand. To make matters worse, olling budget cuts known as the sequester, eliminated a chunk of the government subsidies which help food banks store and distribute their food.
“Food banks have never been here before. This is new territory for us,” said Marianne Smith Vargas, the chief philanthropy officer for the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore.
Her food bank has been hit hard because a large portion of the residents in the surrounding area are federal employees and federal contractors. When the shutdown occurred in October, many of those on furlough ended up accessing food pantries for the first time. In addition, the shutdown seems to have gouged the food bank’s fundraising efforts.
“We’re behind on fundraising this year as well,” said Vargas. “Probably about $450,000 down from what we raised in the same time frame last year.”
After the winter has passed, around March, the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia will be better equipped to gauge the effect of the hunger cliff on its community and 400 member pantries. By then, the food stamp program may have already received other harsh cuts at the hands of Congress.
Members of the House and Senate are debating food stamp cuts in a Farm Bill conference committee. The Democrat-controlled Senate has proposed $4 billion in additional cuts to food stamps over the next decade while the Republican majority in the House has passed a bill that would cut nearly ten times that.
Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, said Senate Democrats will not accept “double digit”-level food stamp cuts. That leaves open the possibility that $9.9 billion or less could still be excised from the program. Even if that does not happen, $6 billion more in automatic cuts are expected to occur over the next couple of years.
“As each day goes by and there’s silence from our leaders, it makes you feel not hopeful,” said Purvis. | The holiday season season is going to be a meager time of year for millions of Americans who saw their food stamps cut earlier this month. | 38.444444 | 0.888889 | 1.851852 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/tonight-article-1.651358 | http://web.archive.org/web/20131210075923id_/http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/tonight-article-1.651358 | TONIGHT - NY Daily News | 20131210075923 | " So how does Luke respond to Lorelai's impulsive cliff-hanger proposal? I know, but I'm not saying - except to say that it's thoroughly in keeping with this show's quirky characters. And while Lorelai is reacting to what happens with Luke, she's also got to deal with a sudden and deep rift with daughter Rory, who's done the unthinkable and moved in with her grandparents. Lauren Graham (l.) and Alexis Bledel star. . 8:00 (NBC) "The Biggest Loser.
" It's back, making NBC the biggest loser of all. . 9:00 (Fox) "House.
" The second-season premiere does a lot of things very right. It gives Hugh Laurie, as House, a compelling medical mystery to solve. It gives guest star LL Cool J a meaty role as a Death Row inmate. It gives us a taste, though too brief of one, of Sela Ward, returning as House's ex, and now his current co-worker - and it spreads good scenes to the regular cast as well. SEASON FINALES . 10:00 p.
" Literally moments after Tommy (Denis Leary) uttered aloud how odd it was to feel happy, with him finally reunited with his family, a hit-and-run driver claimed his son in last week's bloody, emotional climax. Now comes the season finale, with Tommy out to track down the man who killed his child. Great show. PREMIERES . 8:00 p.
m. (WGN) "Da Vinci's Inquest.
" Based on the true story of Larry Campbell, a former coroner who now serves as Vancouver's mayor, this series stars Nicholas Campbell (no relation) and is one of Canada's most popular dramas. | TONIGHT
SEASON PREMIERES
8:00 p.m. (WB) "Gilmore Girls." So how does Luke respond to Lorelai's impulsive cliff-hanger proposal? I know, but I'm not saying - except to say that it's thoroughly in keeping with this show's quirky characters. And while Lorelai is reacting to what happens with Luke, she's also got to deal with a sudden and deep rift with daughter Rory, who's done the unthinkable and | 3.896552 | 0.91954 | 61.356322 | low | medium | extractive |
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20131220-four-shocking-data-thefts | http://web.archive.org/web/20131220210125id_/http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20131220-four-shocking-data-thefts | Four shocking customer data breaches | 20131220210125 | It was not all fun and games in the aftermath of a widespread Sony PlayStation Network hack in 2011.
The incident affected some 70 million gamers around the world and became one of the biggest corporate leaks ever. The attack on the PlayStation Network (PSN) caused an outage that lasted a few days. During that time, usersâ passwords were hacked, making personal information and payment data vulnerable.
The UK Information Commissionerâs Office (ICO) fined Sony Computer Entertainment Europe following the breach, pointing to the countryâs Data Protection Act and stating the attack âcould have been preventedâ. Data protections in the UK are stronger than those in many other countries.
Users of gaming networks are often distracted by the games themselves and not paying close attention to their accounts, one reason video game companiesâ databases are common hacking targets. Big players like Sony and Nintendo and smaller-scale companies like Franceâs Ubisoft have reported illegal attempts to access into their systems.
KEEP-SAFE TIPS: Children often divulge personal information unnecessarily when creating profiles for gaming and other networks. Make sure they â and you â are only sharing whatâs absolutely required to log in or play.
Be sure you know what information had been collected. A userâs location and card payment information are commonly requested, for instance. If you trade in or sell a console, be sure to wipe it of saved sensitive information first. | Target isn't alone when it comes to customer information being stolen. Your credit and debit cards are vulnerable to hacker attacks. How to protect yourself | 9.428571 | 0.392857 | 0.392857 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/29/john-stezaker-whitechapel-gallery | http://web.archive.org/web/20131223125233id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/jan/29/john-stezaker-whitechapel-gallery | Brian Dillon on John Stezaker at the Whitechapel Gallery | 20131223125233 | The English artist John Stezaker, whose uncanny collages are the subject of a career-spanning exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, tells a revelatory tale about the origins of his luminous art. Stezaker was born in Worcester in 1949; when he was 13 his family moved to London, and around this time his parents supplanted their crackling old snapshot albums with a new slide projector. The teenager was fascinated by the apparatus, and especially by the single demonstration slide that came with it: a wide-angle photograph of two men overlooking the Thames, with the Palace of Westminster and a lurid sunset behind them. Stezaker swiftly grasped that the projected image might be used to make art, thus obviating the tedium of freehand drawing. But when he took the machine to his bedroom, he found all he could squeeze on to a sheet of paper was a corner of the picture: Big Ben, a few turrets and a stretch of red sky. He tried painting over it in his best approximation of an "expressionist-psychedelic" style, but when he turned off the projector the result was "horrific".
In light of the artist's subsequent romance with the found photograph, this anecdote is almost too apt to be true. By the time he enrolled at the Slade in the late 60s, his main influences were Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke: painters whose use of photographs overlapped with and trumped, in expressive terms, the pop art of a few years earlier. But Stezaker was a student too at a time when a wholesale critique of the pop-cultural image was being launched by such thinkers as Guy Debord; the Situtationists' scurrilous repurposing of media imagery became an exemplary strategy for him, alongside his abiding, and then unfashionable, interest in surrealism. (He recalls being shown Max Ernst's Une semaine de bonté, based on the illustrations to earlier novels, by William Coldstream on his first day at the Slade.) Schooled also on the recently translated writings of Walter Benjamin, for whom the conjunction of photograph and caption had altered forever how we looked at images, Stezaker began making work with text and pictures, intent on exposing the mystique of the visual.
It was a move that was very much of its time – London-based artists such as Victor Burgin and Susan Hiller (whose own Tate Britain show opens on Tuesday) were doing parallel things in very different registers – but for Stezaker it was a dead end. He suspected that his territory was the collective fascination with image itself rather than the conceptual urge to undermine that fascination. At this point, in the mid-70s, that sliver of sunset from his adolescence unexpectedly returned. He had since learned that the complete photograph was also a hugely popular postcard, but it was still the skewed portion in the corner that obsessed him. And he began to realise, with a mixture of conceptual insight and lingering emotional attachment, that it required little or no artistic intervention beyond his first excision of the haunting fragment. (The resulting work, The End, is in the Whitechapel show.) The image itself was the work of art and, although the various painstaking subtleties of his style remained to be worked out, the mature Stezaker aesthetic was coming into focus.
He was not, of course, the first artist to deploy the found photograph, or combine such photographs, without comment. It was a favoured trick of his surrealist precursors, from Ernst to the pages of Georges Bataille's late-20s journal Documents. But it's important to gauge his careful distance from the tradition of photomontage – a term he avoids, in favour of "collage". As Stezaker sees it, the great monteurs such as John Heartfield and George Grosz always worked at some remove from the image itself – indeed, this was often the critical or satirical point of their work: to conjure radical ideas out of pictures that otherwise allured the everyday viewer. With his residual romanticism and often frank embrace of 20th-century glamour, Stezaker is perhaps closer to an artist such as Hannah Höch, whose Album of 1933 juxtaposes press imagery with ravishing fashion illustrations and fragments of a sublime or disturbing nature. In Stezaker's collages as in Höch's, images sidle up to and seduce one another, shying from overarching arguments or narratives.
That's not to say that there isn't a degree of knowing distance – and a strain of disturbing violence – in Stezaker's work. It is first of all a historical distance. Early on, he began to work with actors' portraits (mostly black-and-white) and film stills from the middle of the 20th century – images he culled from defunct cinemas and picture agencies that were then going out of business. (Stezaker once bought the entire contents of one such establishment, although the prints are now so precious and rare that he cannot bring himself to make work out of them.) The film stills are especially peculiar artefacts: posed publicity shots taken during production rather than frames reproduced from the finished film. Like the colourful, scenic postcards with which Stezaker often overlays them, they hold the same kind of attraction that Victorian engravings held for the surrealists. The distance – inflected with nostalgia and absurdism – is essential, because one of the things Stezaker is engaged in is a daring rescue of images from the memory dump of the recent past.
It's hard to say precisely what the artist does with such images. In a sense, practically speaking, it's ludicrously simple: he places one picture on top of another. Consider Negotiable Space I, from 1978. The larger, "background" image shows a psychoanalyst at his desk, his analysand stretched on a couch, a medicine cabinet in the corner and a photograph of Freud on the wall. In the centre of the image, and seeming to threaten the foreground of the scene, is a colour postcard showing a train emerging from a tunnel – its edge obscuring the face of the patient. The inference seems clear at first: this is a comically "Freudian" emanation from the unconscious of the figure on the couch – except that this initial schematic response won't exhaust the collage. The crude intrusion of the postcard makes us notice oddities about the film still – a lattice of shadows around the Freud portrait, the surprising expanse of empty floor at the bottom of the picture – as well as curious details by which the two images rhyme: railway tracks aligning with the desk so that it, too, looks about to charge out of the frame.
There are many other works of this type. In the Trial series classical ruins, a picturesque waterfall and the Bridge of Sighs at St John's College, Cambridge, all erupt among the anxious monochrome attitudes of a cinematic courtroom scene. In an untitled collage from 2008, a crowd of Hollywood bathing beauties is framed and almost overwhelmed by a sideways-on photograph showing the complicated sculptural entanglement of St George with his dragon. But the signature Stezaker gesture is more frequently the cut and splice of two or more images, doing suggestive violence to both. Here is a young Lauren Bacall, her face diagonally bisected by roiling floodwaters or – the series is entitled Film Portrait (Disaster) – obliterated by an image of torn-up trees. Here, in a series titled Third Person, are lesser stars whose faces are half-hidden by anonymous silhouettes, from the depths of which a third image obtrudes: a garish landscape or an eerie flight of birds. And in recent works the background picture may also explode through the centre of the interposed image, in a cartoon flash worthy of Roy Lichtenstein.
The mystery of Stezaker's art may be said to reside in these precise and shocking cuts. He has spoken of the moment when he takes a blade to the sleek surface of an old bromide print as one of heightened anxiety and tension – having handled and gazed at these images for months or even years, he likes to get the incision over and done with as swiftly as possible. Unfinished works in his London studio have the look of gaping wounds, something like the suddenly opened slit, product of a slip of the thumb in the kitchen, described by Sylvia Plath's poem "Cut": "a sort of hinge / Of skin, / A flap like a hat, / Dead white." They remind us that historically photographs have been as much things to be touched as looked at, that our fascination with them is at once visual and tactile, almost grisly.
This impression of keen-eyed assault is strongest (and frequently funniest) in Stezaker's cutting and suturing of close-up portraits. Everywhere in his work there are faces made monstrous, comical or weirdly attractive by their carving up and careful wedding with others. In fact one series is called Marriages, and shows pairs of men and women – mostly, it seems, they are actors' studio portraits – incongruously conjoined to suggest new faces. A mustachioed man in a pullover meets a wavy-haired blonde to produce a figure with an oddly raffish cavalier look; a middle-aged woman with a complex hairdo acquires the aquiline nose of the actor she obscures. For all their strangeness, however, the faces are also exquisitely aligned, the arc of an eyebrow or the thrust of a jaw running on from one image to another, so that the whole is bizarrely credible as a glamorous or grotesque new being. One's eye moves tirelessly, entranced, between the two faces and their Frankenstein offspring.
What is less endearing, and more alarming, about these "married" faces is the extent to which their own eyes have frequently been attacked by Stezaker's scalpel. (There's a reminder here of the founding image of surrealist oculism: the slitting open of a woman's eye – replaced at the last edited moment by that of a cow – in Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's 1929 film Un chien andalou.)
More generally in his work, it's often through the eye that the incision passes: whether vertically (as in the splicing of two faces) or horizontally, as in a series titled Love, where a narrow strip of the same image is inserted along the eye line, so that the subject stares out at us with expanded, blurred and alien orbs. The result is that the people in Stezaker's collages seem to suffer a variety of austerely rendered optical afflictions, from a squint or strabismus to full enucleation: in the series Blind, the eyeballs have been razored out along a straight line and the edges of the photograph brought together again.
Such images are part of Stezaker's continued investigation of the intimate strangeness of the photographed human face, the way it exposes and veils at the same time the feeling, thinking creature within. This fascination finds its fullest expression in his Masks series. Here there are no cuts, just the judicious placing of colour postcards over monochrome portraits. They're among Stezaker's slyest and most unsettling works, because what they intrude into the portraits is a series of gaping holes: chasms and waterfalls that cleave faces in two, yawning caves and sunlit sea arches that tunnel into unknowable interiors. These collages are the more ghastly and comical for once again being perfectly aligned: clumps of rock become noses, the arches of a stone bridge a pair of gawping eyes.
The Masks return us to another, less nostalgic, story that Stezaker tells us about his development as an artist. As a student, he happened on a photograph in an old medical textbook that showed a woman's face half eaten away by a rodent ulcer – inside and outside had become horribly confused. Stezaker closed that book with the thought that he must never look at it again, but in other ways he has not stopped looking since.
John Stezaker is at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, until 18 March 2011. | John Stezaker's collages using black-and-white film photos and old postcards are nostalgic but also uncanny and absurd. As a career-spanning exhibition of his work opens at the Whitechapel Gallery, Brian Dillon pays tribute to a sly romantic | 49.478261 | 0.804348 | 2.23913 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/entertainment/repair-kit-fixing-gma-checklist-viewers-face-morning-article-1.803988 | http://web.archive.org/web/20140109143414id_/http://www.nydailynews.com:80/archives/entertainment/repair-kit-fixing-gma-checklist-viewers-face-morning-article-1.803988 | HERE'S THE REPAIR KIT FOR FIXING 'GMA' A CHECKLIST TO HELP VIEWERS FACE THE 'MORNING' | 20140109143414 | SPENCER CHRISTIAN is leaving after 12 years. A new executive producer reportedly is being sought. The program itself is inconsistent and stagnant. There's even sniping between the co-anchors. To note that ABC's "Good Morning America" is in trouble, in both ratings and content, is to state the obvious. Suggesting what steps can be taken to correct its problems that's tougher. Tough, but not impossible. Here's a starting checklist of what the folks at "GMA" can do to avoid being DOA. DEFINE YOUR GOALS. Since ABC News took control from ABC Entertainment, "GMA" has been the victim of inconsistent guidance, and mandates, from upper management. (Former host David Hartman told me a few months ago that the single best thing ABC could do to fix the program was decide what it wanted "GMA" to be, and stick to that vision.) Changing the program's overall tone from month to month, and often from day to day, confuses those who produce and appear on it as well as those who try to watch it. WHEN THERE'S HARD NEWS, TRY HARDER. Yesterday, with both impeachment proceedings and the latest Iraqi conflict on the front burner, "GMA" got to trot out lots of its A-list correspondents: Cokie Roberts, Bill Blakemore, Ann Compton. With the bench strength of ABC News one of the organization's best assets, news staffers should be tapped vigorously whenever possible and given the opportunity, when appropriate, to analyze as well as report. FIND COLLEAGUES WITH CHEMISTRY. Spencer Christian's easy affability will be sorely missed once he steps down. Yesterday, to use only the most recent example, Lisa McRee reacted to co-anchor Kevin Newman's off-the-cuff jokes as though he were a puppy soiling her rug. If this means the show has to start from scratch, so be it; neither Newman nor McRee should be considered essential. "Today" works because that crew really does seem like one big happy family. At "GMA," the family is visibly dysfunctional. What you need, at this hour, are anchors who are both friendly and authoritative. Imagine Cokie Roberts in one of the chairs, and you'll get the picture. HIRE MARQUEE CONTRIBUTORS. When it comes to specialists, "GMA" should pay the bucks to hire well-known experts and critics, not home-grown wanna-bes. Every little reason to tune in helps. CONDUCT STRONGER INTERVIEWS. This actually is easier to do than it sounds. First, allot a little more time for big interviews, and even feature them as such, to give the subject more time to breathe. Second, instruct all interviewers to listen and react, rather than just push to the next question (both Newman and McRee are guilty of rushing through prepared question lists). Third, start with a strong opening query. Yesterday, Newman opened an interview on the impeachment vote by asking Republican Congressman Scott Klug of Wisconsin, "Let me ask you the question that you have probably been asked hundreds of times in the last few days . . .
" Even if Klug lets Newman ask that question, ABC shouldn't. GET A NEW SET. This will be taken care of sometime next year, when ABC moves to its announced Times Square set. It may not help, but it sure can't hurt. ALLOW TIME FOR CASUAL CONVERSATION. Once a new morning cast is in place, give them time to breathe, time to let them know each other and, most important, time to let viewers know them. Before throwing to local stations at the end of each half hour, take a minute to talk rather than promote. HIRE BOB KEESHAN. If the above steps all fail to dent the ratings, revert the morning time slot to the original "Captain Kangaroo. | SPENCER CHRISTIAN is leaving after 12 years. A new executive producer reportedly is being sought. The program itself is inconsistent and stagnant. There's even sniping between the co-anchors.
To note that ABC's "Good Morning America" is in trouble, in both ratings and content, is to state the obvious. Suggesting what steps can be taken to correct its problems that's tougher.
Tough, but not impossible. Here's a starting checklist of what the folks at "GMA" can | 7.591837 | 0.969388 | 29.969388 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/advertising/platforms/mobile/10280434/Relevance-is-the-key-to-mobile-success.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140114130018id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/advertising/platforms/mobile/10280434/Relevance-is-the-key-to-mobile-success.html | Relevance is the key to mobile success | 20140114130018 | Then there are push notifications, which have become a great method to reach readers who have maybe downloaded your news app. (Typically, these can include push notifications, app-originated notifications, and in-app alerts).
Users here have a high expectation that messages will be both relevant to them and add value to their everyday lives
And the choices don’t end there. Mobile social is another (increasingly popular) way to communicate with your mobile audience. And soon there also will be HTML5 push notifications, giving us a method of messaging users who are on our mobile Web pages.
But one key factor we need to think about above all is relevance.
The challenge for all news media companies and advertisers (because mobile is such an individual and personal medium), is that users here have a high expectation that messages will be both relevant to them and add value to their everyday lives.
Increasingly sophisticated analytics is one aiding factor, but testing pre-campaign and thinking it through pre-execution is worth the trouble. We have to align the choices — or, indeed, channels — with the user experience on mobile.
For instance, a text message might get great adoption or response, but it is not perhaps a channel that a user would associate with our “app communication.” Instead, we might well benefit by directing users to mobile Web sites.
Email is becoming ubiquitous on mobile; however, sometimes the volume alone can overwhelm our audiences and lead to them ignoring emails. “Push,” however, is more closely linked with reaching users who have downloaded the publisher’s app already.
Also, there are a number of messaging opportunities in the app experience itself, from push notifications to in-app alerts, and one of the challenges is matching the channel with the target user experience on mobile. It’s not rocket science but it’s amazing how many people don’t get this. User experience can be as important as the content itself!
One great way to get started is by asking your readers to get involved with a panel, survey, or via your customer service team, asking which types of communications they want, when, and how they want them. Qualitative reader opinion can be worth its weight in gold!
Modern audiences are increasingly being driven by instant gratification and, even today, the fastest way to reach them with an interactive message can be via SMS
And it’s important for audiences to think of mobile messaging as a two-way communication channel. It needs to be a dialogue. Ultimately, you want them to receive your messages at a time, place, and manner in which they want them. Don’t forget this!
You also need to think about mobile as being interactive. Modern audiences increasingly are driven by instant gratification and, even today, the fastest way to reach them with an interactive message can be via SMS: They send something to you in the form of a request from a short code … and get something back right away.
As ever, do have a clear strategy and, within this, develop a tactical messaging plan. Your “light” app users, for instance, might be targeted with messages that encourage re-engagement, while your “heavier” users might be encouraged to share certain content via their social networks.
If you are relevant, you can motivate your readers to be your ambassadors! And, referriing back to the industry report ( INMA’s 2013 Outlook report), remember: mobile + social = rapid engagement levels for the future.
Crack this and we unlock better engagement and increased customer loyalty. | Mobile platforms are an important way to message our readers 24 hours a day and relevant content is crucial. | 33.619048 | 0.714286 | 0.809524 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.buzzfeed.com/aaronc13/a-12-year-old-shot-and-wounded-two-other-children-at-a-new-m | http://web.archive.org/web/20140115025717id_/http://www.buzzfeed.com/aaronc13/a-12-year-old-shot-and-wounded-two-other-children-at-a-new-m | A 12-Year-Old Shot And Wounded Two Other Children At A New Mexico Middle School | 20140115025717 | Your Post Has Been Launched!
The suspect is in custody and one victim is still in critical condition while the other has been upgraded to satisfactory. A staff member also sustained minor injuries attempting to neutralize the situation. posted on January 14, 2014 at 5:44pm EST
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A 12-Year-Old Shot And Wounded Two Other C...
Students reunited with families at the shooting.
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Texas hospital: Boy shot in NM school still critical and again in surgery; girl's condition now "satisfactory" - @JimVojtech
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Preview Thumbnails Save Thumbnails Choose a new image Save | The suspect is in custody and one victim is still in critical condition while the other has been upgraded to satisfactory. A staff member also sustained minor injuries attempting to neutralize the ... | 8.176471 | 1 | 32.058824 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.foxnews.com/archive/allison-mcgevna/index.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140224120308id_/http://www.foxnews.com/archive/allison-mcgevna/index.html | Allison McGevna | Fox News | 20140224120308 | A group of teenage girls staged a protest and runway show in New York City's Times Square Tuesday to challenge Teen Vogue magazine to publicly commit to using “photoshop-free,...
In an episode of "Auction Kings," which airs May 31, North was finally reunited with his stolen sword. He took some time to chat with Fox411 about the experience and why the...
At the Time 100 Gala, Lauer told Fox411.com that before he was hired at “Today,” he was at his “wit’s end” after being out of work for almost two years.
The Anti-Defamation League is calling on retailer Urban Outfitters for a shirt they claim bears a symbol strikingly similar to the one used to identify Jews by the Nazis during...
In Denzel Washington’s new thriller “Safe House,” the actor did his own stunts in a scene where he was waterboarded.
Hugh Jackman says his new line of fair-trade, charitable coffee, tea and chocolate products could make the perfect Valentine’s Day gift.
Celebrity stylist Mary Alice Stephenson gave a group of wounded female veterans and veteran caregivers a red carpet makeover this week as part of a salute to those who take...
Some stars of the fashion world give back to a group of teens battling life threatening illnesses.
Two days after news surfaced that a jihadist had made violent threats against him, late-night comedian David Letterman tightened security at the Manhattan theater where he...
Conflicting accounts surfaced Tuesday about whether hip hop mogul P. Diddy was escorted to a club performance in New Jersey Friday by a convoy of on-duty New York City and New... | Browse stories from Allison McGevna on FoxNews.com | 45.428571 | 0.142857 | 0.142857 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/03/03/headband-could-help-brain-comunicate-with-computers/90HC7YkJtl2iRNoKw0fnEJ/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140304093559id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/03/03/headband-could-help-brain-comunicate-with-computers/90HC7YkJtl2iRNoKw0fnEJ/story.html | Headband could help brain communicate with computers | 20140304093559 | With hundreds of lives riding on every decision, the job of air traffic controller ranks near the top of almost any list of the world’s most stressful jobs. The stakes are so high that the Federal Aviation Administration has increased staffing and rest requirements in recent years to help keep controllers alert in the tower.
But imagine if a computer could know the precise moment an air traffic controller approaches mental overload, and reassign some of his responsibilities to a fresher colleague.
Technology in development at Tufts University’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab could do just that. Computer scientist Robert Jacob and biomedical engineer Sergio Fantini are working on a headband to read brain activity, enabling a computer to determine whether the wearer is bored, fatigued, or sharp.
In a tower full of air traffic controllers wearing headbands, the computer could automatically shift flight assignments, depending on which controllers show higher levels of mental acuity.
The possibilities for the brain scanner are not limited to air travel. The researchers and their students also have used the device to generate movie recommendations for wearers, based on how their brains respond to other films. In another experiment, pianists practiced on an electronic keyboard while wearing the headband. As their brain signals indicated mastery of a melody, a computer added complexity to the songs by playing harmonies.
For now, the headband prototype is a bit clunky; it connects to a desktop computer through two fat cables.
Eventually, Jacob and Fantini envision integrating the brain scanner with a wearable computer, such as Google Glass. They see the technology as part of a future in which humans communicate with computers through thoughts instead of mouse clicks.
“Computers have gotten phenomenally better in the last 50 years — faster, more powerful — and humans haven’t,” Jacob said. “The bottleneck is now with the human, not the computer. So it’s important to put resources into communicating better with computers.”
A Tufts student viewed a computer simulation of air traffic control operations while wearing a brain-scanning headband.
The technique for analyzing and acting upon brain activity is called functional near infrared spectroscopy, or fNIRS. A row of small red lights embedded in the headband beams light waves through the skull and onto the prefrontal cortex of the brain.
A computer connected to the headband cannot literally read the wearer’s mind, but it can gauge the person’s level of mental exertion by measuring the amount of light absorbed by the brain.
A heavily taxed brain draws more blood than one working easily, and therefore absorbs more light. That tells the computer the wearer may be overwhelmed.
Every brain is different, so base line testing of each individual is required to determine the point at which performance begins to suffer.
In a private demonstration last week, Sam Hincks, a graduate student at Tufts, wore the headband while playing with a computer simulation of an air traffic control operation. The simulation required him to safely navigate screen icons that represented airplanes through a field of obstacles to their targets without crashing. At any one point, Hincks had four to seven planes under his command, with the headband scanner and computer determining how many he could handle by reading his brain signals.
In more extensive tests conducted by the Tufts professors, headband wearers increased their ability to safely navigate planes by an average of 35 percent when the computer adjusted their workload based on their brain activity, instead of at random.
Unlike some other means of monitoring brain activity, fNIRS does not require the user to wear electrodes or apply adhesive gel, an advantage the Tufts scientists hope will encourage broad adoption.
The headband could, however, be used in conjunction with electrodes to not only read brain activity but also to stimulate it. For example, the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio has been experimenting with electrical stimulation to improve soldiers’ mental acuity. Jacob and Fantini’s research is unrelated, but they said the headband could be modified to include a stimulator.
In its current form, the headband causes no pain and needs only low levels of light to be effective. Wearing it is not like exposing the brain to a prolonged CT scan, which could be dangerous.
“The level of light we’re sending is comparable to the level of light your brain would be exposed to on a sunny day,” Fantini said.
The headband has been tested only in the lab, and its creators — though they can imagine several commercial applications — have no concrete plans to bring it to market. If a business approached them about licensing the technology, they would listen, but Jacob and Fantini said they are not interested in launching a startup of their own.
“We’re basic researchers,” Jacob said. “It would be delightful if these things do filter into the world, but I’d like to believe that’s not our mission. Our mission is to invent new scientific ideas and spread them, and hope they are useful to someone.” | h With hundreds of lives riding on every decision, the job of air traffic controller ranks near the top of almost any list of the world’s most stressful jobs. The stakes are so high that the Federal Aviation Administration has increased staffing and rest requirements in recent years to help keep controllers alert in the tower. But imagine if a computer could know at the precise moment that an air traffic controller approaches mental overload, and reassign some of his responsibilities to a fresher colleague. New Technology in development at Tufts University’s Human-Computer Interaction Lab could do just that. Computer scientist Robert Jacob and biomedical engineer Sergio Fantini are working on a special headband to read brain activity, enabling a computer to determine whether the wearer is bored, fatigued, or sharp. | 6.655172 | 0.986207 | 36.462069 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.nbc.com/about-a-boy/episode-guide/season-1/about-a-girl/104 | http://web.archive.org/web/20140321121409id_/http://www.nbc.com:80/about-a-boy/episode-guide/season-1/about-a-girl/104 | About a Girl | Episodes | About a Boy | NBC | 20140321121409 | Marcus' science lab partner Hannah Bickleman is torturing his soul; he's in love. He's pretty sure he's not getting an invite to her birthday party, so he wants Will to teach him the art of seduction. That's when Dakota pulls up outside; she's attending the talk circle Fiona's hosting for the moms in Marcus' grade in an attempt to negotiate some friends for him. Will invites Dakota to stop by afterwards, but she's done with him. Next door, Fiona opens the discussion with her talking stick, focusing on Hannah's mom, Joanne. Marcus' old school had a mandatory all-inclusive invite policy, but the Berkeley moms aren't having it, beyond advising Marcus to join a sports team. After the moms leave, Dakota commiserates; middle school is tough for everyone. Fiona invites her to stay for a glass of wine and a fledgling friendship is born. The next day at school, Hannah passes Marcus a party invitation... then asks him to pass it to the kid sitting next to him.
After school, Marcus commiserates with Will, who advises that girls like bad boys. Just then, Dakota pulls up for a yoga session in Fiona's backyard. Deciding to practice his own bad boyishness, Will takes off his shirt and pretends to fix his motorcycle. Despite Fiona's advice to look inward, Dakota can't help but look at Will's manly pulchritude. The next day at school, Marcus tries to sell himself as a bad boy to Hannah, causing her to nearly blow up the science lab. He spills the whole story to Fiona when she comes down to the principal's office to pick him up - he's no bad boy! After persuading Hannah's mother to invite Marcus to the birthday party, Fiona balls out Will for his bad boy advice. But Will stands his ground; Marcus needs game to get noticed by Hannah! After Fiona storms off, Marcus pokes his head through the dumbwaiter, over the moon to have received an invite to Hannah's party! Could playing the bad boy have paid off?
Convinced his own game is suffering, Will marches over to Dakota's apartment. He's just offered a heartfelt apology when a cranky lady opens the door and tells him to get lost. Luckily, Dakota lives across the hall, and she's ready to get it on, since she just dropped her kids at Hannah's birthday party. They're ripping each other's clothes off when Dakota mentions what a nightmare the party will be. Some crazy lady convinced Hannah's mom to invite a pale kid with the horrible nickname Mucus. The seduction slams to a halt when Will and Dakota realize they have to get to the birthday party on the double - Mucus is Marcus! In fact, Marcus is standing next to the chip table looking pathetic after all of his moves are rebuffed. Will hatches a plan to extract Marcus, while Dakota tricks Hannah into a bathroom. There, Fiona asks her to dance with Marcus. Hannah has the power to make a difference - she can do a mean thing or a really good thing. Hannah screams and runs out of the room. Will runs up to beg Fiona and Dakota for money; they need to bribe the DJ so he won't play Marcus' requested slow jam, which will result in utter humiliation. No bribes are needed, however; in a surprise move, Hannah agrees a dance. It's only one dance - but it's the absolute best moment in all of Will's young life. | When Marcus verges on complete humiliation in pursuit of a girl, Will steps in. | 42.6875 | 0.6875 | 0.8125 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/31/phyllida-barlow-sculptor-tate-britain-interview | http://web.archive.org/web/20140331215603id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/31/phyllida-barlow-sculptor-tate-britain-interview | Phyllida Barlow: 'Just going to art school doesn't make you famous' | 20140331215603 | In the middle of Tate Britain's Duveen Galleries, with their arches and columns and barrel-vaulted ceilings, Phyllida Barlow is standing, hard hat in hand, looking faintly bewildered. There is the sound of drilling, wood being stacked, materials unfurled, as men stand around, arms folded, attending to the rigging of a sculpture. One is inside a large cardboard column, which stands in absurd contrast to the grandeur of the galleries. Barlow's commission for the Duveens, entitled dock, involves seven enormous sculptures; these include a collection of polystyrene boxes covered in a cement wash and suspended from the ceiling.
I ask Barlow if she enjoys directing such a large team. "No," she says. "I find it very demanding. It makes me extremely self-conscious." Having 10 people waiting for her command is "absolutely horrendous", she adds, and when someone asks if a sculpture is in the right position, "the only thing I'm thinking is, 'I haven't a clue.'"
Barlow's modesty seems surprising, given the scale on which she works. Over the course of the next few hours, she tells me she isn't that good at making, isn't very good at detail, that she tried to learn welding four times, and found it comical "wearing these huge gloves and blackened glasses – you can't pick anything up!"
When she was an art student in the 1960s, Barlow found the idea of painting – with its flat, rectangular form – restrictive. "With the other materials I began to discover, clay and plaster, there was a looseness, an approximation. You could maybe do something that was incredibly bad, but there was a way of approaching it that could be very exciting, like just pushing it over, or allowing things to break."
Barlow's work embraces mess, absurdity, chance, precariousness. Although she creates on a massive scale, her sculptures are often described as anti-monumental, the monument and its downfall contained within a form made of ordinary materials: cardboard, rags, rubber, tape, tarpaulin, paper, polystyrene. "It's that notion of gravity pulling on things, making things collapse, and that potential to collapse," she says.
Our era has been defined by falling monuments. The statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Iraq gave us "that extraordinary image of him just held in mid-fall". The collapse of the Twin Towers provided "the kind of crucial phenomenon of all our lives, because it was the absolute collapse of the ultimate phallocentric object, and them coming down as though they were curtseying. Unfortunately, it had a beauty about it, and how do you talk about that? It's too much, isn't it? So, in the collapse of a monument, there is a tragedy, a triumph, a beauty, and also an immense grief. The monument has this extraordinary range of emotive qualities."
Barlow, who turns 70 this week, has spent her adult life making sculpture, enjoying her greatest success by far over the last 10 years. She had her first major show in a public gallery, at the Serpentine, in 2010, with fellow sculptor Nairy Baghramian; and her Duveen commission follows in the celebrated wake of the runners Martin Creed sent sprinting through the space in 2008, and the decommissioned fighter planes installed by Fiona Banner in 2010.
As a child, born in Newcastle then living in London, Barlow remembers a trip to Paris with her parents when she was six, which set her course. They visited an artist's studio and her father stumbled into a stack of glasses – a terrible crash that everyone found hilarious. Then she and her sister were taken to the toilet, to find it was a hole in the ground with, she says, shit everywhere. "It was just a very, very strong experience – the studio, the atmosphere." She decided to become an artist.
Postwar Britain was creatively "a great time for children – improvising and making do with what was around". It was a time of boxes transformed into dolls' houses. "This recycling of things was very attractive."
She went to study at Chelsea College of Art, meeting her husband Fabian Peake there when she was 18. A series of shop leases on the King's Road came to an end, and students watched the Victorian facades come down, then scavenged in skips for materials. She went on to the Slade until 1966, and then began teaching, and having children; she and Peake have five in all. When they were tiny, she says, there was very little time to make art, so she started working at night.
"It would often only be a couple of hours, or even an hour, quite late. And that moment of absolute peace and calm was very good in the dark. It also seemed a way of saying, 'I don't know what this is going to end up being, I just want contact with the materials. I remember mixing plaster, and a lot of it was mixed quite badly, but just letting that be." In those days, she was working in total isolation. "No contact really with any artists and absolutely zero exposure, so it was like firing blanks. Meanwhile, I was watching the art world change, in the 80s, really forming itself into a hardcore art-world industry."
The couple shared the childcare and the experience gave their work urgency. "We both have a four-hour clock within us," she says, defined by the requirements of the school run. After taking a break from teaching when her children were small, she returned in her 40s, first at Brighton, then Camberwell, then the Slade. With her students including Rachel Whiteread, Tacita Dean, Douglas Gordon and Martin Creed, she is often described as one of the great art teachers of her generation. She brushes this idea away. "People always roll the credits and say I taught Tacita Dean and Douglas Gordon. I think [those artists] find it laughable. Martin Creed actually said I was the best teacher who never taught him. I was much more aware of those students who were struggling, because I could completely empathise with that. I knew so much what it was like to find it difficult to make things work."
That may be true, but the joy of spending time with Barlow is in her playfulness, her obvious love of making. Since she started out, the role of the artist has changed, noses hardening, attitudes understandably becoming more commercial, in an environment where supporting yourself is incredibly expensive. But Barlow doesn't seem to bend to these pressures. She is an artist who has championed such forms as the blob and the lump – a comic and interesting course, but not an obviously commercial one.
Up until recently, her sculptures were usually dismantled after her shows, the materials being recycled. This began as a completely practical notion, she says. "Where do I store this stuff? I don't want to hold onto it, I want to keep going and have a very mobile relationship with making sculpture." Since she started being represented by the gallery Hauser & Wirth a few years ago, her work has been sold, but she says this hasn't changed her relationship "with how it performs and how I make. It has just changed the destiny of these objects, and their destination."
Barlow has weathered the fallow times, to be celebrated as one of the country's greatest sculptors, her career built on resilience, curiosity and commitment. "I don't think you necessarily have to be outstandingly good at something to want to do it," she says, "and the store put on achieving excellence very young is quite unpleasant, as though people become destined from an early age to either achieve, or not achieve. Just because you go to art school doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be famous overnight, and what about all the other qualities which help people to keep going – putting up with disappointment, for instance? If all you've ever had in your life is praise, praise, praise, you're probably not a particularly healthy individual."
I leave her in the middle of her team, hard hat on, humility intact, the show taking shape all around her.
• Phyllida Barlow's Tate Britain Commission 2014 is open from today until 19 October | She's taught everyone from Martin Creed to Rachel Whiteread, but it's only now, at 70, that Barlow is getting her dues as an artist. As her Tate Britain commission opens, she talks to Kira Cochrane about collapsing towers, unhealthy praise and the joy of making bad art | 30.2 | 0.836364 | 1.454545 | medium | medium | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/04/05/rascals-dinosaurs-bieber-and-more/eh2kd08eqSWyQ8BgzYQOaJ/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140406003731id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/04/05/rascals-dinosaurs-bieber-and-more/eh2kd08eqSWyQ8BgzYQOaJ/story.html | Rascals, dinosaurs, Bieber, and more | 20140406003731 | We’ve always had a soft spot for Hal Roach’s “Our Gang” shorts of the 1920s and ’30s, and their quaintly mischievous, kid’s-eye view of the world. It’s a nostalgic affinity that made us curious about the made-for-DVD release “The Little Rascals Save the Day” (2014) — but it made us leery too. Was anyone asking for a feature update, especially when that had already been tried? (Remember the 1994 theatrical version? No? Exactly.) Why not just try steering your kids to the vintage stuff? Much of its bright energy is pretty timeless, even if the trappings aren’t. The group’s interaction progressively pays no real mind to race or gender, He-Man Woman Haters Club silliness notwithstanding. While this new “Rascals” has landed in the appropriate spot with a straight-to-video release, the good news is that it’s an affectionate reprise of classic gags and elements, with some contemporary friendship moralizing that’s a reasonable fit. Spanky (Jet Jurgensmeyer), Alfalfa (Drew Justice), and their pals learn that Grandma (Doris Roberts) is about to lose her bakery to a rich developer (Greg Germann). So they set out to raise some quick cash in their usual, comically time-tested way: with a “Taxi Kab Servis” that turns into a runaway kiddie-car fiasco, and by competing for a talent-show prize as the International Silver String Submarine Band. If seeing this gang save the day also preserves a little of that classic “Rascals” spirit for our kids, that’s a nice save too. (Universal, $22.98; Blu-ray, $29.98)
Parents looking for a dash of girl power to help justify all that Disney-princessy viewing have a very high-profile option in “Frozen,” of course. But Disney’s made-for-DVD division tries serving up another with this “Peter Pan” spinoff — or, more accurately, a variation on the Tinker Bell ’toons they’ve been cranking out the last few years. Christina Hendricks voices Zarina, a Pixie Hollow runaway who falls in with the pirates of Skull Rock, and tangles with a cabin boy destined to become Captain Hook (Tom Hiddleston). Joan from “Mad Men” plays pixie — sounds like Roger Sterling’s next acid trip. (Disney, $29.99; Blu-ray, $36.99)
TEEN TITANS GO! SEASON 1, PART 1 (2013)
This could just be the most addictively wacky, template-be-darned superhero makeover since Adam West first squeezed into Bat-tights. Cartoon Network had already given all-business Robin and friends a broadly bouncy visual tweak a few years back — and now, in this new series, they’ve got the comedic tone to match. Who knows why so many episodes revolve less around superheroics than food fixations — “Pie Bros,” “Burger vs. Burrito,” “Meatball Party,” etc. — but they’re fun. And for any parents who remember the dramatically heavy Titans comics of the ’80s, the ’toon engagingly shows that there’s more than one way to keep characters relevant. (Warner, $19.97)
Animated park critters Will Arnett, Katherine Heigl, and Brendan Fraser angle to get their paws on a nut shop’s stash. Colorful, but the meandering storytelling spins its wheels like rodents in a Habitrail. (Universal, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.98; 3-D, $49.98; April 15)
In a feature narrative extension of the BBC documentary franchise, Justin Long voices a runty Pachyrhinosaurus (think Triceratops) who’s destined for big things — and who banters with avian pal John Leguizamo throughout. Plays best when the story’s exotic sights and sounds do more of the talking. (Fox, $29.98; Blu-ray, $39.99)
THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (2013)
It’s Tolkien time again, complete with two hours of behind-the-scenes material from Peter Jackson and his team. (As ever, though, expect an extended cut of the film to arrive on disc in several months’ time.) (Warner, $28.98; Blu-ray, $35.99; 3-D, $44.95; April 8)
LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE: SEASON 1 (1974-75)
The Ingalls family comes to Blu-ray in the sentimental series’ hi-def debut. Extras: Pilot movie; 40th anniversary retrospective; Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert’s original screen tests. (Lionsgate, $38.99)
THE BEST OF MR. PEABODY & SHERMAN, VOL. 1 (1959-63)
It’s surprising that this collection of classic Jay Ward cartoons didn’t get a fresh push timed to the movie, but you’ll still find copies on Amazon and elsewhere from a 2012 reissue. (Classic Media, $6.99)
Pattie Mallette and Justin Bieber in “Justin Bieber’s Believe.”
Well, it’s an opportunity to bond with your ’tweens, anyway. And maybe it’s also a scared-straight opening: Missy, you’d better “Belieb” you’ll wind up in trouble, too, if you get up to craziness like that. Bonus observation to torture — er, delight your kids with: “Believe” director Jon M. Chu (“G.I. Joe: Retaliation”) is headed back to Hasbro-land with a live-action adaptation of “Jem and the Holograms.” (Universal, $29.98; Blu-ray, $34.98; April 8)
THE GABBY DOUGLAS STORY (2014)
The inspiring Olympic gymnast’s recent Lifetime biopic gets a DVD encore. (Sony, $22.99; April 15)
SOFIA THE FIRST: THE FLOATING PALACE (2013)
Disney Junior’s reigning princess magically morphs into a mermaid for an adventure under the sea, complete with a guest appearance by Ariel. (Disney, $19.99; April 8)
KING KONG VS. GODZILLA (1963)
Worried that kid curiosity about next month’s CG-heavy “Godzilla” remake could backfire, and lead to some sleepless nights? There’s always the safer alternative: the granddaddy of all slugfests between guys in rubber monster suits. Or does Blu-ray treatment make this more intense than we remember? (Nah.) (Universal, $19.98)
Titles are available now unless specified. | We’ve always had a soft spot for Hal Roach’s “Our Gang” shorts of the 1920s and ’30s, and their quaintly mischievous, kid’s-eye view of the world. It’s a nostalgic affinity that made us curious about the made-for-DVD release “The Little Rascals Save the Day” (2014) — but it made us leery, too. (Remember the 1994 theatrical version? No? Exactly.) Why not just try steering your kids to the vintage stuff? Much of its bright energy is pretty timeless, even if the trappings aren’t. While this new “Rascals” has landed in the appropriate spot with a straight-to-video release, the good news is that it’s an affectionate reprise of classic gags and elements, with some contemporary friendship moralizing that’s a reasonable fit. | 7.726708 | 0.993789 | 53.850932 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.msnbc.com/all/click3-worst-fox-interview-ever-conducted | http://web.archive.org/web/20140412225644id_/http://www.msnbc.com/all/click3-worst-fox-interview-ever-conducted | #click3 Worst Fox interview ever conducted | 20140412225644 | 1. FoxNews.com anchor Lauren Green interviewed religion scholar Reza Aslan about his new book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. In the interview she questions Aslan’s intentions “You’re a Muslim, so why did you write a book about the founder of Christianity?” They go on to spar for nearly 10 minutes. Born from their exchange is the amazing #foxnewslitcrit.
2. David Ortiz got a little angry during a game and ruined the dugout phones. Good thing his teammates came back with a solution: can phones
3. Widely agreed upon fact: the cast of Saturday Night Live has been making its viewers crack up for decades. Lesser known fact: the cast of Saturday Night Live has been making its own actors crack up for decades. The AV club has thrown together a “best of” for your amusement. | 1. FoxNews.com anchor Lauren Green interviewed religion scholar Reza Aslan about his new book Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth. In the interview | 4.969697 | 0.878788 | 7 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/04/12/while-heroin-epidemic-rages-bain-seeks-profit-drug-treatment-centers/SVDjqnSOcsZKzhoTm6imKJ/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140413043022id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/04/12/while-heroin-epidemic-rages-bain-seeks-profit-drug-treatment-centers/SVDjqnSOcsZKzhoTm6imKJ/story.html | While heroin epidemic rages, Bain seeks profit in drug treatment centers | 20140413043022 | The clinic parking lot is jammed at 10:30 on a Monday morning. Inside a bustling waiting room, patients talk to staff members and wait their turn at the medicine window. A young blond woman fights off sleep, slumping against a suitcase.
Everyone is here for one reason: to get a dose of methadone.
Clinics like this one on Topeka Street in Boston can be lifesavers for addicts trying to kick heroin or other opiates. Reports of heroin overdoses and deaths are on the rise as cheap and potent versions of the drug — sometimes laced with the pain medication fentanyl — flood the market. Governor Deval Patrick has declared it a public health emergency.
For Bain Capital, it’s also a potential profit opportunity.
The Boston-based private equity firm recently took over Habit OPCO Inc., the largest chain of substance treatment facilities in Massachusetts, with 13 locations from Boston to Springfield. Bain paid $58 million to acquire the for-profit centers through CRC Health Corp., a California company it has owned since 2006. CRC Health is the biggest provider of substance abuse treatment and behavioral health services in the country.
This foray into one of the most challenging, and financially complex, areas of health care may seem contrary to the kind of dealmaking Bain Capital is best known for — investments in brand-name companies like Dunkin’ Donuts and Bright Horizons child care.
But as opiates ravage communities from rural Vermont to Hollywood, treating addiction has become big business. The push for national health care, and recent changes to federal health insurance laws could make it even more attractive. Substance abuse treatment is a $7.7 billion industry, according to a recent report by IBISWorld Inc., a New York research firm, and growing at an annual rate of about 2 percent.
Heroin and prescription drug addiction is “a giant problem in Boston; it’s a giant problem across the country,’’ said General Barry R. McCaffrey, who served as drug czar in the Clinton administration and has been on the CRC Health board since before Bain was involved with the company. Methadone is often stigmatized, he acknowledged, but for some addicts — when it’s used in combination with counseling and other treatments — the substitute drug makes a dramatic difference in their lives.
“Methadone will allow you to go from a dangerous, chaotic life to getting control of your life, getting your children back, getting a job,’’ McCaffrey said.
In 2012, there were 669,000 heroin users nationwide, up nearly 50 percent from 455,000 in 2009, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Dive into those numbers and you will find many addicts who don’t fit the stereotype of back-alley junkies.
Opiates are affecting “a more middle- and upper-middle-class demographic,” said Deni Carise, deputy chief clinical officer for CRC Health. “Addiction has always been an equal opportunity illness.’’
That may mean more well-insured clients, but treating them remains a tricky business proposition.
For one, health care professionals say addicts can be difficult patients. Beyond that, running a clinic is expensive and labor intensive.
Habit OPCO charges patients $135 a week for methadone treatment. That includes daily doses of liquid medication, access to doctors and nurses, therapists, and other services. Some people have private insurance; others use Medicaid, the government program for low-income people; or they pay cash.
Many patients take methadone, an opiate that’s safer than heroin, for months or years. It doesn’t cure addiction, but relieves withdrawal symptoms and allows many people to function and work without getting high. While Habit OPCO follows up with patients, it’s often hard to know how their recoveries will play out over the long term.
“Our success stories don’t want to be out there bragging that they used to be heroin addicts. Sometimes, they leave treatment with us and we don’t hear from them again,’’ said JoAnne Forson, a regional vice president with Habit OPCO. “It’s very different from other forms of health care, where people take pride in being a survivor and want to talk about that.”
Formerly known as Habit Management, the company started in Kenmore Square in 1985. Soon after, it launched a van program in Brockton, and now treats about 860 people a day in Boston alone, according to Forson, who has been with the company for 20 years. The Boston clinic is located in a worn industrial area near the Southeast Expressway and the Greater Boston Food Bank.
Even as it treats 30,000 people a day at 145 facilities, the footprint of CRC — Habit OPCO’s parent — is relatively small. The company has 2 to 3 percent of the market, according to industry reports and CRC itself. Drug recovery treatment is responsible for the lion’s share of its $456 million in annual revenues, including $43.4 million from Habit OPCO.
Many health care providers involved in substance-abuse treatment believe methadone clinics are an essential option. News last week that Boston officials plan to close the only city-run methadone center, near Boston Medical Center, has alarmed some doctors.
“It’s hard to find a good methadone clinic,’’ said Dr. Kevin P. Hill, director of the Substance Abuse Consultation Service at McLean Hospital in Belmont. The staff at the city clinic, just blocks from Habit OPCO’s Boston location, “are very highly thought of,’’ he said. “They’re certainly one of the best, if not the best, and treat some of the most difficult patients.’’
If the city-run operation shuts down, just four licensed methadone clinics will remain in Boston, two of them for-profits, according to the state Department of Public Health. Without singling out Habit OPCO, Hill said he worries for-profits cut corners that diminish the quality of care.
“The problem I find with some of the for-profit clinics is the absolute minimum required by law becomes the absolute maximum they’re willing to do for their patients,’’ Hill said.
Staff at CRC and at Habit OPCO say profits are not their priority. That’s an unusual position to take for executives at an enterprise owned by Bain. The investment firm makes money by buying companies and reselling them at a profit, often after reducing staff and costs.
“Frankly, the way to make a lot of money in this particular business is to do it badly,’’ CRC’s Carise said. “We’re just not going to do that.’’
Both CRC and Habit OPCO were previously owned by venture capitalists, so this is not their first foray into for-profit management. But private equity firm ownership can add a financial burden by heaping debt on a company’s books.
Bain bought CRC for $723 million, putting $295 million of its investors’ money down and borrowing the rest. CRC currently owes $775 million to bankers. The interest payments alone are $49 million a year — enough to wipe out most of CRC’s $64.8 million operating profit in 2012.
So far, Bain’s bet on methadone clinics has not paid off. Not only does the firm still have all of its money in CRC, it still owns the company after eight years. Typically, Bain sells within five to seven years.
All of that increases the pressure to grow profits at CRC and Habit OPCO. Bain executives declined to comment, but CRC officials said they consider acquisitions like Habit OPCO to be opportunities to increase scale and bring in more business. In addition, CRC’s Carise said, the federal Affordable Care Act and a law requiring equal insurance coverage for mental health conditions will give clinics more access to private payers, and help make services more affordable for people who were previously uninsured.
For now, the revenue trend is heading in the right direction for Bain. CRC’s net income of $6.3 million in 2012 marked an improvement from $2.5 million in 2011, and a loss of $46 million in 2010. Figures for 2013 are not available, because the company no longer has to make them public.
“This field, substance abuse, is going to be more changed than any other,’’ Carise said. “We’ve pretty much convinced the country now that this is a health care issue. This isn’t about bad people trying to become good. This is about ill people trying to get well.’’ | The clinic parking lot is jammed on a Monday morning at 10:30. Inside the bustling waiting room, patients talk to staff and wait their turn at the medicine window. A young blond woman fights off sleep, slumping against a suitcase. Everyone is here for the same reason: to get a dose of methadone. Clinics like this one on Topeka Street can be lifesavers for addicts trying to kick heroin or other opiates. Reports of drug overdoses and deaths are on the rise as cheap and potent heroin — sometimes laced with the pain medication fentanyl — floods the market. Governor Deval Patrick has declared it a public health emergency. Substance abuse counselors call it a crisis. For Bain Capital, it’s also a potential profit opportunity. | 11.776978 | 0.964029 | 11.035971 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/04/10/noisy-neighbors-esh-monolith-intrikit-loop-minded-individuals/cChcgjmKuz2X3I8fmReH3N/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140419074002id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2014/04/10/noisy-neighbors-esh-monolith-intrikit-loop-minded-individuals/cChcgjmKuz2X3I8fmReH3N/story.html | ESH the Monolith & Intrikit, ‘Loop Minded Individuals’ | 20140419074002 | You can now read 10 articles each month for free on BostonGlobe.com.
ESH The Monolith & Intrikit
Loop Minded Individuals: A Hitchhiker’s Guide to a Verse
Let’s start with the obvious here: The “loop minded individuals” in question are producers ESH the Monolith (Boston) and Intrikit (Sterling, Conn.), who provide the ten instrumentals over which the album’s roster of 15 artists display their respective rhyme skills. First, the good, starting with the opening cut “A Hitchhiker’s Guide,” a track that revels in wanderlust behind a dusty guitar twang and strong verses from both producers, their only ones on the album. Even better are XL’s tortured soul-baring performance on “Chuck Wepner” (with fellow Kreator Big Juan balancing things with dark humor) and “War Drum,” a rugged posse cut fueled by the titular bellicose percussion and smooth delivery of Brooklyn’s Roc Doogie alongside Moe Pope and Euclid. And now, the bad: Seez Mic’s graphic and humorless sex romp “Follow Her” and deebee’s insipid impression of a poor man’s D-Tension on the decidedly not “Best in Show.” The verdict: Both producers consistently impress with diverse and textured instrumentals, which the featured lyricists match with slightly less proficiency.
Available April 22 on limited edition cassette via Four Finger Distribution
© 2014 Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC
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Continue reading by subscribing to BostonGlobe.com for just 99¢. | Let’s start with the obvious here: the “loop minded individuals” in question are producers ESH the Monolith (Boston) and Intrikit (Sterling, CT), who provide the ten instrumentals over which the album’s roster of 15 artists display their respective rhyme skills. First, the good, starting with the opening cut “A Hitchhiker’s Guide,” a track that revels in wanderlust behind a dusty guitar twang and strong verses from both producers, their only ones on the album. | 3.06383 | 0.989362 | 52.521277 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.people.com/article/oklahoma-inmate-dies-after-botched-execution | http://web.archive.org/web/20140502235008id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/oklahoma-inmate-dies-after-botched-execution | Oklahoma Inmate Dies of Heart Attack After 'Botched' Execution Is Halted | 20140502235008 | 04/30/2014 at 11:00 AM EDT
Oklahoma prison officials halted an inmate's execution after a new drug combination left the man writhing and clenching his teeth on the gurney. He later died of a heart attack. Clayton Lockett, 38, was declared unconscious 10 minutes after the first of three drugs in the state's new lethal injection combination was administered Tuesday evening. Three minutes later, he began breathing heavily, writhing, clenching his teeth and straining to lift his head off the pillow. The blinds were eventually lowered to prevent those in the viewing gallery from watching what was happening in the death chamber, and the state's top prison official eventually called a halt to the proceedings. Lockett died of a heart attack a short time later, the Department of Corrections said. "It was a horrible thing to witness. This was totally botched," said Lockett's attorney, David Autry.
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Click here for instant access to the Digital Magazine | Execution marked the first time Oklahoma used the sedative midazolam as part of its drug combination | 11.625 | 0.5625 | 0.8125 | low | low | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/04/30/what-does-walmart-not-sell/3H5vHc27eqhYlESQYpojcM/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140504000301id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2014/04/30/what-does-walmart-not-sell/3H5vHc27eqhYlESQYpojcM/story.html | What does Walmart not sell? | 20140504000301 | NEW YORK — Walmart is bringing one-stop shopping to another area: auto insurance.
The world’s largest retailer has teamed up with new website AutoInsurance.com to let shoppers quickly find and buy insurance policies online in real time to cut down costs.
The service is available immediately in eight states — Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas. It will be available nationwide in the next few months.
The news raises the question: Is there anything that the world’s largest retailer doesn’t sell?
Surprisingly, the answer is plenty.
You can find food, medicine, and dog toys at Walmart, but chances are you didn’t buy your pet there. By the same token, you can pick up a wedding veil at Walmart, but not a traditional white wedding gown. And there are plenty of battery-powered cars for kids at Walmart, but no life-size versions for grown-ups. All that could change someday.
Walmart says that almost anything is possible as it pushes to cement its reputation as a place where shoppers can stop in for grocery staples like milk and eggs and also cross off a number of other things on their to-do list. In keeping with the vision of its founder, Sam Walton, Walmart continues to look to expand its offerings of products and services at lower prices than its competitors.
Analysts say the pressure to expand its offerings is only intensifying as Walmart continues to face competition from online rival Amazon.com, which is expanding into new products and services.
‘‘We are all about one-stop shopping,’’ says Deisha Barnett, a Walmart spokeswoman.
In auto insurance, Walmart and AutoInsurance.com will let shoppers quickly find and buy insurance policies online to cut down costs. That move comes just a few weeks after Walmart launched a money transfer service.
What other services could be on the horizon? Brian Sozzi, an equities strategist who follows Walmart, believes the retailer will continue to focus on adding services.
The possibilities are legion. Shoppers can order caskets online from Walmart and they can even buy life insurance in 217 Walmart stores. But they’ll have to go elsewhere to arrange funeral services. And while customers can turn to Walmart to help them file their taxes, they have to go elsewhere if they need assistance writing their will.
‘‘Anything is fair game,’’ says Walmart’s Barnett. | The news that Walmart will be selling auto insurance raises the question: Is there anything that the world’s largest retailer doesn’t hawk? | 18.076923 | 0.923077 | 9.230769 | medium | medium | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/05/07/ariad-pharmaceuticals-iclusig-sales-percent/0Pj6CUtK4tEYTtL3kWq2hK/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140511015926id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2014/05/07/ariad-pharmaceuticals-iclusig-sales-percent/0Pj6CUtK4tEYTtL3kWq2hK/story.html | Ariad Pharmaceuticals: Iclusig sales up 25 percent | 20140511015926 | Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Cambridge biotechnology firm, said Wednesday that first-quarter net product revenues from sales of Iclusig, the company’s leukemia treatment that was briefly taken off the US market last year, were $8 million, up 25 percent from $6.4 million in the same quarter a year ago.
In a Wednesday press release, the company added that first-quarter revenues were $11.8 million, up from $6.5 million for the same period a year ago.
In October, Ariad temporarily stopped marketing Iclusig in the US after the Food and Drug Administration issued a warning that the drug carried “the risk of life-threatening blood clots.” A month later, Ariad eliminated 160 jobs, or 40 percent of its US workforce. In December, Ariad received approval to relaunch Iclusig after addressing safety concerns.
In a statement Wednesday, Harvey J. Berger, MD, Ariad’s chairman and chief executive, said: “As we reintroduce Iclusig into the US market and continue with the European launch this year, our key priorities are to rebuild confidence in Iclusig and to improve the benefit/risk profile of the drug. Early launch data in the US represent approximately 10 weeks of promotion with a revised product label and show strong market support for Iclusig from community and academic physicians and across a wide spectrum of patients with Philadelphia-positive leukemias. We are making solid progress in both the US and European markets, giving us confidence in our full-year outlook for Iclusig.”
For the quarter, Ariad reported a net loss of $49.8 million versus a loss of $64.7 million for the same quarter a year ago. | Ariad Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Cambridge biotech, said first quarter revenues were $11.8 million, up from $6.5 million for the same period a year ago. | 10.533333 | 0.966667 | 14.7 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.people.com/article/country-radio-kacey-musgraves-ashley-monroe | http://web.archive.org/web/20140518063614id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/country-radio-kacey-musgraves-ashley-monroe | Kacey Musgraves, Ashley Monroe : People.com | 20140518063614 | 05/15/2014 at 10:00 AM EDT
Ashley Monroe, Kacey Musgraves and Brandy Clark
Spend any time at all listening to country radio these days and the gender gap becomes clear. With the occasional exception of
, you'll be hard pressed to find a female voice on the air – or a song about something other than drinking on a dirt road/in a field/on the beach/in a truck.
And that gap on country airwaves seemed all the more vast after listening in at
benefit for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum last week. From hard-rocking Brantley Gilbert to Reba McEntire's traditional twang; from Urban's pop stylings to Mary Chapin Carpenter's Americana vibe; from Underwood's pipes to Kacey Musgraves's storytelling, the lineup was a reminder of how big a tent country music can be.
In that spirit, here's our call to country radio's gatekeepers: Keep that tent open wide! It's not just about getting more women's voices out there (though we should), it's about remembering how good the genre can be when it tells the many, nuanced stories of our lives rather than reducing everything to the bottom of a Dixie cup.
Here are six artists we want to hear more of:
Yes, she's been hyped – and deservedly so. But despite the Texan's meticulously crafted songs like "Merry Go 'Round" and "Follow Your Arrow" – and a sound that can only come from a honky-tonk-loving heart – country radio continues to look the other way.
"It Is What It Is," a beautiful shrug of a song (co-written by Brandy Clark and Luke Laird) about resignation in a doomed relationship.
Like Musgraves, she had one of last year's best releases with her Vince Gill-produced
, but even with her pal Miranda Lambert singing praises and some Pistol Annies cred (she and Lambert form two-thirds of the group), Monroe still hasn't found a place on radio as a solo artist. It's our loss – just listen to her album's title song or the wicked humor of "Weed Instead of Roses."
"Two Weeks Late," heavy on the pedal steel, it takes on "woe-is-me" with a wink.
Already a hit-maker for other artists – she co-wrote Miranda Lambert's "Mama's Broken Heart" (with Musgraves and Shane McAnally) and The Band Perry's "Better Dig Two" – Clark saved some of her best work for last year's debut,
. Lyrically witty (have a listen to her single "Stripes"), Clark has a voice that's rounded and rich. Her songs are ready-made for country radio, but you won't find her voice there.
"Hold My Hand, " a vulnerable ballad about that moment when you meet your partner's former lover.
As the granddaughter of Hank Williams (and daughter of Hank Jr.), she's country royalty, but has zero pretention in her person or her music, which can stand proudly on its own against the backdrop of that lofty family legacy. Her voice is plaintive and her song stories (like the tear-jerker "Waiting on June") are layered.
Title tune "The Highway," an ode to the road, from her third album out last year.
With her high voltage live show, Stovall and her fiddle (she's been playing professionally since she was 12) prove country chicks can rock as hard as any guy. Her band, which has played together since 2006, has just released its first single – here's to hoping it gets airtime.
"Baby Come On With It," the band's debut, in which Stovall puts her own spin on the ubiquitous drinking tune.
Rose has flown under our radar until recently, but what a haunting voice hers is. She comes by her country writing chops naturally – her mom is Liz Rose, who co-wrote several
hits including "You Belong with Me" – but Caitlin is cut from a different cloth. Her second album,
, mixes vintage country (think Patsy Cline) with indie pop and old-school jazz. We're not sure she even has country radio in her sights, but we know we'd love to hear her there.
"Waitin'," a Rose tune from
, which was covered by Scarlett (Clare Bowen) on ABC's | Here are some amazing artists you're not hearing when you tune in | 67.461538 | 0.846154 | 1.307692 | high | medium | abstractive |
http://time.com/105380/credit-suisse-tax-evasion-criminal-charges/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20140519234657id_/http://time.com/105380/credit-suisse-tax-evasion-criminal-charges/ | Credit Suisse Criminal Charges for Aiding Tax Evasion | 20140519234657 | The Swiss bank Credit Suisse pleaded guilty Monday to helping U.S. citizens commit tax evasion over the course of several decades, the Department of Justice announced. Credit Suisse will pay the Department of Justice, the Federal Reserve and the New York State Department of Financial Services a total of $2.6 billion in penalties, the largest payment ever in a U.S. criminal tax case. The banking giant is the first the first global financial institution to face a criminal conviction from U.S. authorities in more than a decade.
Credit Suisse bankers aided thousands of wealthy Americans in concealing their money from U.S. authorities, the Department of Justice said. The bank helped American clients set up shell accounts to shuttle their money overseas and then solicited false IRS documents to make the accounts seem legitimate. According to a U.S. Senate subcommittee report released in February, Credit Suisse recruited new clients at bank-sponsored events, like golf tournaments in Florida and a gala in New York. In one instance, a Credit Suisse employee handed a client secret bank statements hidden in a copy of Sports Illustrated during a breakfast meeting. Credit Suisse had 22,000 U.S. customers with about $13.5 billion in their Swiss accounts in 2006, the “vast majority” of which was undeclared to U.S. authorities, according to the report.
“This case shows that no financial institution, no matter its size or global reach, is above the law,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a release announcing the conviction. “Credit Suisse conspired to help U.S. citizens hide assets in offshore accounts in order to evade paying taxes. When a bank engages in misconduct this brazen, it should expect that the Justice Department will pursue criminal prosecution to the fullest extent possible, as has happened here.”
As part of its deal, Credit Suisse must disclose its cross-border activities and cooperate in requests for account information from the U.S. government. The bank must also provide info about other banks that helped transer funds into secret accounts and close the accounts of Americans who improperly report their assets to the U.S. government.
The move comes as part of an overall crackdown by the Department of Justice on offshore bank accounts. As part of the same investigation, the Department of Justice has indicted eight Credit Suisse executives since 2011. Two of them have pled guilty to criminal acts.
Credit Suisse earned $2.6 billion in profits in 2013 and generated $28.3 billion in revenue. | Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to Federal criminal charges Monday, for helping clients avoid tax payment by sending money overseas. The global banking giant will pay a total of $2.6 billion in penalties | 13.057143 | 0.914286 | 3.085714 | low | medium | mixed |
http://time.com/105487/gopro-ipo-nasdaq-gpro/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20140520000214id_/http://time.com/105487/gopro-ipo-nasdaq-gpro/ | GoPro Plans IPO - TIME | 20140520000214 | Action camera company GoPro is getting ready to go public. The wearable camera manufacturer, whose incredibly resilient devices are often used to film extreme sports, is seeking to raise $100 million in an initial public offering in the United States, the company revealed today.
Founded in 2004 with a wrist-mounted, waterproof camera used for surfing, GoPro is now the biggest camera brand in the world. The company sold 3.8 million HD cameras in 2013 alone and generated nearly $1 billion in revenue (up from $526 million in 2012 and $234 million in 2011). The company’s profits have increased steadily in recent years, rising from $25 million in 2011 to $60 million in 2013.
Because the company operates in such a narrow market, it’s not clear how much more it can grow just hawking durable cameras. Revenue growth in 2013 was slower than it was in 2012. GoPro is attempting to increase the strength of its brand by making it easier to share footage shot with its cameras. The downloadable software GoPro studio allows users to easily edit photos and videos, then share them online. A GoPro mobile app provides similar functionality. Between them they’ve helped make GoPro a ubiquitous force in the world of online video—clips with “GoPro” in the title racked up more than 1 billion views in the first quarter of 2014.
GoPro will trade on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol GPRO. | The head cam maker revealed in its S-1 filing Monday that it had over $1 billion in revenue last year and raked in $60 million in profits. It hopes to raise $100 million through its public offering and will trade as GPRO on Nasdaq | 5.729167 | 0.6875 | 1.854167 | low | low | mixed |
http://time.com/108871/boston-bombers-tsarnaev-explosives/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20140522151207id_/http://time.com/108871/boston-bombers-tsarnaev-explosives/ | Suspected Boston Bombers Used Christmas Lights To Construct Explosives | 20140522151207 | The suspected Boston Marathon bombers used parts from Christmas lights and model cars to construct the sophisticated explosives used in the attack, federal prosecutors said in a Wednesday court filing.
Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two suspects in the April 16, 2013 bombings that killed three people and injured 264 others. His brother and alleged accomplice, Tamerlan, died during a police shootout following the search for suspects.
Prosecutors said in the filing the sophisticated nature of the explosives gave reason to believe that the brothers received assistance, the Boston Globe reports.
“In short, the facts and circumstances known to law enforcement at the time they interviewed Tsarnaev provided ample reason to believe that the Tsarnaevs did not act alone,” the prosecutors said in the filing, according to the Globe.
Prosecutors also said the brothers appeared to have crushed and emptied fireworks containing black powder for the bombs, but investigators did not find significant traces of the powder at the brothers’ residences or cars.
The filing also argues the court should not suppress statements Dzhokhar Tsarnaev made to FBI agents while being treated in a hospital after his arrest because investigators had to determine if the suspect had accomplices who could have posed a threat. Tsarnaev’s defense has argued that the interrogations are inadmissible because he was interrogated without access to a lawyer. | Prosecutors say the sophistry of the explosives gave investigators reason to believe that the suspects may have had accomplices, prompting them to question Dzhokhar Tsarnaev while he was being treated in the hospital. | 7.314286 | 0.828571 | 2.085714 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/05/15/airlines-expect-more-travelers-fly-this-summer/5UkUYpLXlGZU98rG5ivmHK/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140524003418id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/business/2014/05/15/airlines-expect-more-travelers-fly-this-summer/5UkUYpLXlGZU98rG5ivmHK/story.html | Airlines expect more travelers to fly this summer | 20140524003418 | NEW YORK — More travelers will take to the skies this summer, the US airlines’ trade and lobby group predicted Thursday.
About 210 million passengers — or 2.28 million a day— are expected to fly on US carriers between June 1 and Aug. 31. That’s up 1.5 percent from last summer and the highest level in six years, according to the trade and lobbying group, Airlines for America. US carriers are increasing the available seat miles they fly by 4.5 percent.
The forecast includes 29.9 million travelers — or 325,000 a day — flying US airlines to international destinations, an all-time high. Canada, Mexico, Britain, Germany, and Japan are the top five nonstop international destinations, based on published schedules.
Airlines for America does not forecast summer airfares. The average cost of a ticket last year was $381, up 0.1 percent from 2012.
Airlines typically charge more for tickets around holidays and other peak travel times and industry watchers expect a slight increase this summer. Those fares do not include the price of checking luggage — typically $50 roundtrip — or any associated change fees. Airlines collected $3.35 billion in baggage fees last year and an additional $2.81 billion in reservation change fees. | More travelers will take to the skies this summer, the US airlines’ trade and lobby group predicted Thursday. | 11.7 | 1 | 20 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/11/obituaries/rabbi-zvi-kook-dies-israeli-ultranationalist.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140525201211id_/http://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/11/obituaries/rabbi-zvi-kook-dies-israeli-ultranationalist.html | RABBI ZVI KOOK DIES | 20140525201211 | TEL AVIV, March 9— Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, spiritual mentor of Israeli ultranationalists, died this morning in Jerusalem. He would have been 91 years old next month.
Hundreds of militants who defiantly squatted in the occupied West Bank or in Sinai to forestall the return of the territories to the Arabs were graduates of the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, the Jerusalem religious college he headed for nearly six decades.
The funeral this afternoon was attended by thousands. The procession from the school to the ancient cemetery on the Mount of Olives was led by students bearing the bier with the body wrapped the rabbi's prayer shawl.
Rabbi Kook was born in Russia and migrated to Palestine in 1904. He was the son of the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine under the British mandate. In 1922 he was appointed head of the yeshiva and remained active until he was taken ill a few years ago. Whereas other yeshivas used Government regutalions enabling them to obtain military deferments for their students, Rabbi Kook said it was a religious duty to serve for the defense of Israel.
His political credo stemmed from his religious convictions. In an interview, he said: ''We are not a nation of conquerors. We are returning to the land of our fathers. No one, no prime minister, has the authority to renounce any part of the country. It belongs to the entire people of Israel, to the Jews of Pakistan, the United States and the Soviet Union.''
He said Arabs were entitled to civil rights individually but not as a nation. ''This country belonged to us for generations past in accordance with history, the Bible and the Prophets,'' he said. ''There was a hiatus. We were dispersed. Now we have returned as a free people.''
The rabbi's wife died early in their marrige. They had no children. | Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, spiritual mentor of Israeli ultranationalists, died this morning in Jerusalem. He would have been 91 years old next month. Hundreds of militants who defiantly squatted in the occupied West Bank or in Sinai to forestall the return of the territories to the Arabs were graduates of the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva, the Jerusalem religious college he headed for nearly six decades. | 5.042254 | 0.985915 | 36.309859 | low | high | extractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/sep/07/donald-hamilton-fraser-obituary | http://web.archive.org/web/20140527214759id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2009/sep/07/donald-hamilton-fraser-obituary | Donald Hamilton Fraser | 20140527214759 | Donald Hamilton Fraser, who has died aged 80, was one of the most distinctive and idiosyncratic of the generation of British painters that emerged in the years following the second world war. He was no less distinctive in his physical presence, being immensely tall.
As an artist, he remains difficult to categorise, for while he openly admitted the influence of the modern French school, with which he became closely familiar in the year he spent in Paris in the mid-1950s, the course he subsequently followed was never to be anything but his own. In England, too – where in the early 50s artists such as Joe Tilson, Frank Auerbach and Jack Smith were among his student contemporaries – he was never to be a party to any critical group or circle. Tachisme in general was, admittedly, a close interest of his in those years, with its primary concern for surface, gesture and matière, but Fraser's resolution of the possibilities it afforded was personal.
If we can recognise in his work a broad sympathy with such artists as Nicolas de Staël, in particular, and with Braque and Matisse, it remains the case that he took from them only what he needed. Formal simplicity, clarity of colour, immediacy in the handling and a swift graphic line would stamp his work as unmistakably recognisable for the rest of his career.
Like so many artists of his time, Fraser would engage directly, if only for a while, with abstraction – which we tend to forget was so central and divisive a debate from the 1940s well into 1960s, when "are you figurative or abstract?" was a constant question. In his case it was to be a brief period in the mid-1960s, when he experimented in paintings based on torn-paper collage. But he soon returned to the figuration which had always been at the heart of his work, the most part on landscape and still-life. Later he was also to work from the figure, with a particular focus on dancers, born of a lifelong love of the ballet. For all that, his work, both before and after that abstract interlude, was always informed by the formal pictorial disciplines that are for ever abstract.
Fraser was born in London and educated at Maidenhead grammar school, Berkshire, after which he trained as a journalist with Kemsley Newspapers. Only after completing his national service in 1949 did he decide to study the painting that had long been a private interest. By the time he left St Martin's School of Art in 1952, he was already attracting notice, and, in 1953, the gallery Gimpel Fils gave him the first of many one-man shows. That year he was awarded a French government scholarship to study for a year in Paris, and it was there, perhaps braced by that refreshing French acceptance of the natural place of the artist in the world, that he was to come into a full confidence in himself as a painter, and to find his true way.
In 1954, in a ceremony at the British embassy in Paris, he married Judith Wentworth-Sheilds, a fellow student from St Martin's. On their return to London, Fraser, helped no doubt by his earlier experience as a journalist, worked for a while for Arts Review – in those days an indispensable guide to the British art world – but was soon able to devote himself entirely to his own work. Then, in 1958, Carel Weight, the then professor, took him on as a tutor in the painting school of the Royal College of Art. He was to remain in the post for the next 25 years, fondly remembered by his students for an unfailing understanding and unprescriptive guidance.
In 1975 he was elected an associate and, in 1985, a full member of the Royal Academy (a historic distinction latterly discarded), which, as his work suffered to some extent from the vagaries of fashionable critical attention, became increasingly the principal showcase for his work. He nevertheless exhibited where and whenever he could, with a tally to his name of some 70 one-man shows at home and abroad by the time of his death. His work never lost its integrity, nor did it lose its appeal to the more general, and open-minded, public.
Modest in his own regard, he was ever generous and encouraging to his fellow artists, both as friend and teacher, and the contribution he made to the life of the arts went far beyond his own work, significant though that was. Ever profligate of his time, he served on innumerable exhibition panels, was for 14 years a member of the Royal Fine Arts Commission, and was a vice-president of the Royal Overseas League from 1986. Always a supporter, he had served on the council of the Artists' General Benevolent Fund since 1981, and was its chairman for several years in the 1980s.
He is survived by Judith and their daughter.
• Donald Hamilton Fraser, painter, born 30 July 1929; died 2 September 2009 | Obituary: Original, idiosyncratic painter and tutor at the Royal College of Art for 25 years | 56.764706 | 0.823529 | 1.764706 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.people.com/article/kim-kardashian-kanye-west-honeymoon-spoof-photos | http://web.archive.org/web/20140527222516id_/http://www.people.com/article/kim-kardashian-kanye-west-honeymoon-spoof-photos | Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Go Camping in Spoof Honeymoon Photos | 20140527222516 | 05/27/2014 at 06:00 PM EDT
Models spoofing Kanye West and Kim Kardashian
wedding, is it possible that
just want to slum it on the honeymoon – by going camping?!
Still, it's fun to imagine it. And now you can, thanks to these amusing photos starring look-alikes of the celebrity couple taken by Alison Jackson, who's made us laugh before with her parody photos of the royal family.
– which has included a stay at the five-star Castlemartyr Resort in Cork, Ireland – check out all the post-wedding activities they're enjoying in this alternate universe.
What better way to scoot away from Florence than with a quick selfie (see above) in front of your getaway car? Not even a chauffeur to ruin the moment!
Alison Jackson / Travel Channel / REX USA
Relaxing on a private jet. But where are they off to?
Alison Jackson / Travel Channel / REX USA
Well, isn't this romantic? No five-star hotels or award-winning chefs here. Just a couple in love, camping in an RV – and feasting on a picnic of strawberries and champagne.
Alison Jackson / Travel Channel / REX USA
Luxury yacht? Hardly. What this couple wants is a relaxing paddle down a river in a canoe. But they'll have to put the work in!
Alison Jackson / Travel Channel / REX USA
It's nothing but the most fun honeymoon diversions for these two. Who will win this epic match of swingball?
Alison Jackson / Travel Channel / REX USA
When you marry a musician, you want to hear the music – preferably not in a fashionable nightclub, but around a campfire. Can the s'mores be far off? | Who knew the celebrity couple was so into canoeing, picnicking and swingball? | 24.214286 | 0.571429 | 1.142857 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/may/29/my-best-shot-david-lachapelle-rape-of-africa-naomi-campbell | http://web.archive.org/web/20140529220803id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/may/29/my-best-shot-david-lachapelle-rape-of-africa-naomi-campbell | David LaChapelle's best shot: Naomi Campbell and the rape of Africa | 20140529220803 | 'Critique of a global society fuelled by greed' … A detail from David LaChapelle's The Rape of Africa. Photograph: David LaChapelle. Click to view full image
In 2009, I read an exposé about the gold trade in National Geographic magazine. Then, later that year, I found myself looking at Botticelli's Venus and Mars in London's National Gallery. I was struck by its power. It's a postcoital scene: Mars, god of war, is sleeping on all his spoils, while Venus, goddess of love, is looking unsatisfied. Things haven't changed much, I thought. Greed and war versus love and beauty.
I decided to take elements from the painting and transform them. Satyrs became child soldiers; I made Venus's dress ripped, alluding to rape, and there's a mine visible through a hole in the backdrop. I was thinking a lot about the gold mines in Africa, the deplorable conditions for workers and damage the mines do to the environment. They are so huge you can see them from space.
I wanted Venus to represent Africa, a continent that has been, and continues to be, raped – because that's where all the resources lie. Botticelli used Simonetta Vespucci, an aristocrat famous for her beauty, as his model. Who, I wondered, is today's best known beauty of African descent? Naomi Campbell came to mind.
The photograph, called The Rape of Africa, is a critique of consumerism, of a global society fuelled by greed and power. I made it right after the financial collapse, when we were being advised to invest in gold and gold production spiked tenfold. The irony is that by putting your money into a safer security like gold, you are ensuring more devastation, more climate change, more destruction in Mother Africa, where our species began.
A strange thing happened when the shot was on display in New York. Joseph Kony, the Ugandan warlord credited with inventing child soldiers, was in the news. His story resonated hugely with themes in the photograph. There was also the trial of Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia, and the story of Naomi being handed a bag of diamonds after a dinner Taylor and Nelson Mandela were present at. People asked me if I had put the big diamond next to her on purpose, but I hadn't. I didn't know anything about it at the time.
The shoot was like a circus: there were kids crying and goats and chickens running around. I enjoy the theatricality of putting shots together, with set-builders, make-up artists and models all working in unison. It's noisy, but I can focus in chaos. It took about 10 days to build the set but the process started long before that, with research, sketches and casting.
People who see my work often become obsessed with the process. They assume it's all done in post-production, but you can't do this on Photoshop. I now document everything I work on, to show that everything is real and was there on the set. When you see this picture large, you can see every pore on Naomi's skin. The mine was a model and photographed separately, so it could be in focus at the same time as the foreground – but it was all there.
I stopped working for magazines in 2006 because I felt I had said all I had to say in that world. I didn't want to work with celebrities or do fashion any more. It didn't occur to me that I could make photographs like this one for galleries. To be honest, I didn't think the art world would have me.
Studied: North Carolina School of the Arts.
Influences: Michelangelo, Michael Jackson, Odilon Redon.
High point: "When Jablonka Galerie filled their entire booth at Frieze with my photographs."
Low point: "After making the films Rize and Red Piano, my assistant told me we'd been working for 11 months without a day off. I remember being gutted. I knew I couldn't go back to magazines, but I couldn't see any other place for my photography."
Top tip: "Turn off your cellphone, iPad and computer and cut all the time you spend on social media to an eighth. If you don't, you will never develop your intuitive voice."
• David LaChapelle: Land Scape is at Robilant and Voena, London W1, until 18 June. | 'I chose Naomi Campbell to represent Venus and Africa, a continent that has been raped for its resources,' David LaChapelle tells Karin Andreasson | 32.407407 | 0.851852 | 2.703704 | medium | medium | mixed |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/mar/23/vincent-van-gogh-home-auction | http://web.archive.org/web/20140530040503id_/http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/mar/23/vincent-van-gogh-home-auction | Vincent van Gogh's London home up for auction | 20140530040503 | "I'm getting on well here", Vincent van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo in January 1874. "I've got a lovely home ..."
On Tuesday that very home – in Brixton, London SW9 – will go under the hammer, having been put on the market for the first time in 65 years. The Guardian went to view the property at 87 Hackford Road on a crisply sunny spring day that would have delighted Van Gogh himself.
In the letter, he advised Theo: "Do go on doing a lot of walking and keep up your love of nature, for that is the right way to understand art better and better. Painters understand nature and love her ..."
Amazing that Van Gogh probably wrote those words in this suburban house where dry unkempt plants – like something from one of his tangled paintings of the asylum garden that would later become his only patch of nature – contrast with the flaking white paint of the house front, and the ceramic blue of its proud plaque declaring that Vincent van Gogh, painter, lived here 1873–1874.
Inside the Grade II listed building, yellowing sheets from ancient editions of the Salvation Army's newspaper, the War Cry, float on battered floorboards. Cobweb-covered plastic fruits hang in the kitchen. Ceilings on the upper floors hang down, ruptured, revealing slipped roof timbers. But everywhere you look amid the decay, traces of Vincent van Gogh impose themselves
The house, as Savills auctioneers put it in their catalogue, is "in need of modernisation". Yet the fact it has never been converted into a plush modern home means that raw Victorian archaeology survives just beneath the rotting linoleum and decrepit wallpaper.
The shape of the interior from the Victorian days when Van Gogh lived here is clear in its layout of front and back bedrooms, each with its own cast-iron fireplace. Van Gogh must have warmed himself before these fires after his winter walks.
Presumably he also made his way to the outside toilet, which survives in all its glory. There are some (modern) gardening tools propped up next to the vintage porcelain receptacle, ready to make some inroads on the overgrown, matted garden of nettles, shrubs and a few little blue flowers.
Again, the colours of a Van Gogh painting come to mind – and in fact, in one of his letters home from Hackford Road, he describes planting flowers and shrubs in this very garden. Could a couple of these plants be descended from his seedlings?
Van Gogh came to work in London for the art dealer Goupil & Cie in 1873. He was 20, with his mature life as an artist years in the future. The dealers' premises were in Covent Garden, and he walked home from work every evening, for he was a lifelong lover of romantic pedestrianism.
But the idyllic life he seems to have enjoyed for a time in this house was not to last. Its black iron fireplaces and large sash windows witnessed his first great heartbreaking experience of love.
The intense and romantic Dutch lodger was deeply attracted to Eugénie Loyer, the 19-year-old daughter of his landlady. His love spills over into his letters as he transcribes Keats's poem of love and desire, The Eve of St Agnes, and an even more heated Romantic work by Michelet on the Mystery That Is Woman.
But his interest was totally unrequited and became deeply embarrassing. Van Gogh's sister Anna moved in with him, but soon both Van Goghs were forced to leave for new lodgings in Kennington.
It's a shame a film company can't rent the house before it is sold to make a drama here, for the exact layout of the Victorian house in which the 21-year-old Van Gogh suffered the agonies of unrequited love is preserved.
Entering a front bedroom with its austere fireplace and timeworn sunlit floorboards, you can easily picture the redheaded lodger standing in the doorway, asking Miss Eugénie if she has read Keats's poetry, and if she would care for a walk in the afternoon sun. On the stairs, a view through the window of newly budding March trees against a pale blue cloud-ruffled sky is just like a painting – one Van Gogh must have seen every day when he lived here.
Van Gogh always dreamed of a happy home. When he moved into the Yellow House in Arles years later, he would fill it with simple furniture – a wooden chair, a wooden bed – and decorate it with paintings of sunflowers. His lodgings in London, just like the Yellow House where he was to rage at his guest Gauguin, brought him both joy and suffering.
Imagine restoring this house and giving it the yellow walls and wooden furniture that he makes so magical in his paintings in Arles. You could have your very own Vincent's Room. It's expected to fetch more than £400,000 at auction on Tuesday evening. It would be amazing to bid. Instead, on the way out, I pluck a flower in his memory. | The Brixton house where the artist lived as a young man is all the better for being in need of modernisation | 46 | 0.857143 | 1.52381 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/active/10870371/King-Juan-Carlos-I-of-Spain-elephant-hunter-biker-and-dictators-protege-who-helped-deliver-democracy.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140603103329id_/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/active/10870371/King-Juan-Carlos-I-of-Spain-elephant-hunter-biker-and-dictators-protege-who-helped-deliver-democracy.html | King Juan Carlos I of Spain: elephant-hunter, biker, and dictator's protege who helped deliver democracy | 20140603103329 | King Juan Carlos speaks during his first official address as King during a ceremony where he was crowned and proclaimed King of Spain (AP)
However, behind the scenes, Juan Carlos was secretly in contact with liberals, exiles and other regime opponents, meetings that grew in regularity as Franco's health deteriorated. Following Franco's death in November 1975, it was the turn of the general's hardline allies to be dismayed, as the new king began a careful dismantling of the autocratic state that they had assumed would sustain them in power. While a former leader of Franco's Movimiento Nacional was installed as prime minister, a constitutional monarchy was established, Leftist parties legalised, and socialist leaders invited into the royal palace. In June 1977 – less than two years after Franco's death – Spain held its first post-war democratic elections.
From that point onwards, Juan Carlos, a blood relative of Britain's Queen Victoria and France's Louis XIV, might have hoped to revert to the kind of duties more familiar to his counterparts in Britain and Europe, mixing royal engagements with his passions for skiing, hunting and yachting.
King Juan Carlos at the 26th Copa Del Rey Yachting Regatta, Palma de Mallorca, Spain (Rex)
But in early 1981, he was thrust back into the centre of political life when a group of disgruntled army officers attempted to seize power. Unhappy at the role Spain's new parliament had been given in the running of the country, they assumed that Juan Carlos would actually back them. They were wrong.
Drawing on contacts that he had cultivated during his own armed forces training in the 1950s, Juan Carlos telephoned key officers to voice his opposition to the coup, and refused to take calls from those hoping to change his mind. Dressed in his uniform as Captain-General of the Spanish armed forces, he then gave a television broadcast calling for democratic government to be upheld, effectively scuppering the coup.
King Juan Carlos of Spain sends out a televised message to condemn the coup attempt against him in Madrid, Spain (Getty)
It was a move that won him the support even of Spain's communist leader, Santiago Carrillo, the man who had dubbed him Carlos the Brief. As Mr Carrillo put it: "Today, we are all monarchists."
The next quarter-century helped seal the King's popularity, with few of the gaffes and rows that dogged his counterparts in Britain. Frugal by royal standards, he shunned the opulent Palacio Real, remaining in the more modest Zarzuela Palace outside Madrid and trimming budgets for royal courtiers. He also cultivated a certain everyman appeal, broadcasting as a radio ham and riding incognito around Spain on his motorbike.
The then, Prince Juan Carlos as Prince with his wife Princess Sofia riding his motorbike in the grounds of Zarzuela Palace, Madrid, Spain (Reginald Davis/ Rex)
That latter pastime sparked many stories – possibly urban legends – of fellow bikers unexpectedly receiving royal assistance when broken down on lonely roads.
Most importantly for his image, though, the private life of the man hailed as the saviour of new, democratic Spain was also seen as off-limits to the country's newly-free press. Rumours of his occasional womanising and disco-crawling were simply seen as the legitimate pursuits of a good-looking, charismatic monarch.
Instead, his approval ratings of up to 80 per cent – far higher than most European royals – reflected a sense of general content in Spain as it moved from an ex-dictatorship where many areas lacked roads or running water into one of Europe's more prosperous and liberal states, with strong feminist and gay rights movements. Juan Carlos himself won praise from the gay rights lobby when he backed a gay marriage bill introduced in 2005.
Only in more recent years has the royal star begun to wane, with the king facing particular criticism when he broke his hip during an elephant-hunting trip in Botswana in 2012.
King Juan Carlos of Spain whilst on a hunting trip in Botswana (Splash News)
Quite aside from a chorus of disapproval from animal rights campaigners, the expensive, privately-funded safari came as his subjects bore the brunt of austerity cuts caused by the Eurozone crash. The king was also accompanied by Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, a German aristocrat who was said to have an “intimate friendship” with him, although she later claimed he was simply a friend. (PIX) By then, polls showed that 62 per cent of Spaniards were in favour of Juan Carlos abdicating.
Nonetheless, when Spain's prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, finally announced the abdication on Monday, he made a point of hailing it as "proof of the maturity of our democracy.” For whatever problems may have beset Juan Carlos in recent years, few would argue that without him, Spain's young democracy might never grown up in the first place. | Despite gossip about his private life, King Juan Carlos I of Spain will be remembered as a defender of his country's young democracy | 36.384615 | 0.692308 | 1.384615 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/music/2014/06/08/sans-opening-act-morrissey-closes-deal/uLmtjE9erMoU5nhZbhOIEM/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140612014841id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/music/2014/06/08/sans-opening-act-morrissey-closes-deal/uLmtjE9erMoU5nhZbhOIEM/story.html | Morrissey closes the deal | 20140612014841 | When the lights went down, there she was: Queen Elizabeth II scowling and flipping the bird with both hands. The image, presumably Photoshopped, was projected onto two screens as a backdrop for perhaps the only artist who could get away with such brazen and politically charged humor. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Morrissey.
As the opening visual for “The Queen Is Dead,” a song by the Smiths, his former band, it was a fitting greeting for Morrissey’s show at Boston Opera House on Saturday, perfectly mirroring his attitude of not giving a damn. He was the Morrissey everyone had come to see and hear: uncompromising, grandly entertaining, and emoting at the peak of his powers.
A month in and a little more than a month before the release of his new album, “World Peace Is None of Your Business,” Morrissey’s latest tour arrived trailing its share of problems. He had canceled and postponed the two gigs just before Boston after he and his crew came down with a virus, and Kristeen Young, who has been his opening act for several years, abruptly announced her departure from the tour.
As such, there was no opener besides a rather haphazard collection of videos shown on a screen. Like a tour of Morrissey’s bookmarked YouTube favorites, the footage was a mishmash of everyone from the Ramones to British comedians to the author James Baldwin.
If there was any turmoil lingering behind the scenes, though, it wasn’t apparent in the performance. Morrissey and his lean five-piece band are a well-oiled machine, and he has been playing with most of these guys since the mid-2000s (and a lot longer in the case of guitarist and musical director Boz Boorer). Together they have fine-tuned what makes Morrissey’s attack so fearless: The music and lyrics deliver a punch to the gut, while Morrissey’s voice, which is sounding stronger, more nimble than ever, finesses the notes. He’s a protest singer masquerading as a cabaret artist.
The show was notably fixated on his introspective side, eschewing obvious material (including “Everyday Is Like Sunday,” one of his signature songs) for deeper cuts (“Yes, I Am Blind,” “Certain People I Know,” and “Trouble Loves Me”). For “Asleep,” a Smiths B-side, Morrissey crooned under the glow of a single spotlight, as Gustavo Manzur caressed the keys and Matthew Walker added faint percussion on drums.
Morrissey also previewed a sizable piece of his forthcoming album. “The Bullfighter Dies,” in particular, stood out for its classic Morrissey chorus: “Hooray, hooray/ The bullfighter dies/ And nobody cries,” he sang with genuine glee, right in line with his staunch support of animal rights.
The evening ended as expected: with the usual sport of fans trying to ambush the stage for . . . well, a hug. A few broke through, past security guards eager to shove intruders back into the crowd. Over the last chords of “First of the Gang to Die,” Morrissey tore off his shirt and tossed it into the audience, bidding farewell with three little words that tied it all together: “I love you.” | Morrissey’s latest tour arrived at the Boston Opera House trailing its share of problems, but if there was any turmoil lingering behind the scenes it wasn’t apparent in the performance. | 18.470588 | 0.970588 | 6.147059 | medium | high | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/06/14/biom-bionic-ankle-gives-amputees-natural-movement/nfEuNYOUghcl9ChjuzF5BN/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140614023656id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/06/14/biom-bionic-ankle-gives-amputees-natural-movement/nfEuNYOUghcl9ChjuzF5BN/story.html | BiOM bionic ankle gives amputees natural movement | 20140614023656 | When Brian Frasure enters the room, it’s virtually impossible to tell that he’s an amputee.
“Most amputees walk with a limp, and that’s because of the prosthesis,” said Frasure, who lost the lower part of his left leg in college after miscalculating a leap onto a moving freight train.
Today, Frasure walks as if that accident never happened. He wears a bionic ankle made by BiOM, a small Bedford company performing some of the most cutting edge work in the field of artificial limbs.
The BiOM ankle is programmed to replicate all the natural functionality of the foot and ankle. It gives Frasure the sort of flexibility and movement he took for granted before his accident.
“It kind of felt like I had my calf muscles again,” Frasure said about the first time he wore the BiOM three years ago.
Prosthetic technology has made tremendous gains in recent years. As a result of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the Pentagon invested millions of dollars to help spur those developments. One of the key figures driving much of that innovation is Hugh Herr, who leads the Biomechatronics research group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Herr is an amputee himself. He lost both of his lower legs after a mountain climbing accident in 1982 and has devoted much of his professional career to designing better ankles for amputees. In 2006, Herr created a company called iWalk to make a sophisticated bionic ankle that he developed with his group inside the MIT Media Lab.
Last year, iWalk changed its name to BiOM and aimed to expand the customer base for its ankle. So far, about half of the 1,000 people who have been fitted with the BiOM ankle are veterans wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan.
BiOM wants the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service to cover the cost of its bionic ankle so seniors and other Medicare patients can receive the benefits of bionic technology. For that to happen, BiOM must convince the government that its ankle will substantially improve lives and help reduce other medical costs.
At a price of $52,000, the ankle isn’t cheap. “Neither is a hip replacement,” argued Timothy McCarthy, the former chief executive of BiOM. “We will save them money over time.”
Because the BiOM ankle helps propel wearers forward as they walk, it does not produce some of the strain caused by a traditional prosthesis. Its sleek metal casing houses a complex array of sensors and microprocessors controlling a carbon spring that acts as the foot. And the ankle comes with enough computing power to be custom-programmed for every user.
“The beauty of what Hugh’s done is to replicate muscle tendon function,” said McCarthy. “That’s the mystery.”
Herr doesn’t intend to stop with the ankle. He wants to use the core technology to build bionic limbs and other joints.
A dramatic display of the BiOM’s potential came during a recent TED conference talk, at which Herr spoke about the promise of bionics. At the end of his talk, he was joined on stage by Adrianne Haslet-Davis, a ballroom dancer who lost the lower part of her left leg in the Boston Marathon bombings. Wearing a customized BiOM ankle, she danced in public for the first time since she lost her leg.
When Haslet-Davis performed a rhumba, the artificial foot responded in much the same way a natural foot and ankle would move during the dance. Those dance moves were the result of about 200 days of intense work inside Herr’s MIT lab.
The current BiOM ankles aren’t designed for dancing — or other strenuous activities beyond walking. But Herr envisions a future in which bionic technology can undo all physical disabilities. | A bioic ankle prosthesis made by BiOM of Bedford helps amputees walk with flexible movement. | 44.75 | 0.875 | 1.625 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/06/14/new-kendall-square-research-center-puts-pfizer-center-innovation-and-collaboration/sWYRcNgDBW6F8MtzoTQoeP/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140617100449id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/06/14/new-kendall-square-research-center-puts-pfizer-center-innovation-and-collaboration/sWYRcNgDBW6F8MtzoTQoeP/story.html | New Kendall Square research center puts Pfizer at the center of innovation and collaboration | 20140617100449 | CAMBRIDGE — This is what happens when Big Pharma meets Kendall Square.
Abandoning their closed-door offices and cloistered campuses, scientists at Pfizer Inc.’s new research center here are experimenting with the vibe of working in open spaces, sharing ideas, and mixing it up with their academic and biotech neighbors. Trading in stodgy for hip, they even have a lab with black walls dubbed the “pink flamingo lounge.”
Pfizer’s gleaming 280,000-square-foot research center, which formally opens Monday at a ceremony featuring Governor Deval Patrick and MIT president L. Rafael Reif, will work on therapies to expand the drug maker’s pipeline in rare diseases, inflammation, neuroscience, and cardiovascular diseases. But it will also be working on a new kind of research approach.
While the company has historically deployed the standard pharmaceutical industry model of in-house, siloed drug discovery, the new research center here has stolen a page from the collaborative culture and open architecture of the entrepreneurial startups that dot Kendall Square.
“No one has an office here,” said Jose-Carlos Gutiérrez-Ramos, the Spanish-born Pfizer senior vice president of research and development, who also has an open workstation surrounded by colleagues. “We want interaction between scientists inside and outside. We really want to have a strong laboratory culture, with experimentation and collaboration at the center of everything. Collaboration and innovation is what we came here to do.”
Hundreds of white-coated researchers, many with freshly minted PhDs, already have moved into the complex and two smaller sites nearby. The atmosphere is a cross between serious science and move-in day at a college dormitory.
All around the building, workers are wheeling heavy boxes of equipment while electricians on ladders install lighting fixtures. “When you’re moving furniture and doing experiments at the same time, that’s when you know you’re alive,” said Gutiérrez-Ramos.
In a sleek visualization lab, chemist Kevin Hallock brandishes a wand-like flystick to rotate a colorful image of a human brain projected on a giant screen. Hallock, sporting antenna-spiked 3-D glasses, is trying to identify the molecules that act on the brain’s various regions to help develop treatments for disorders such as depression or Alzheimer’s disease.
Nearby, in another lab, a team of drug designers pores over laptops that display the ribbon-like crystal structures of proteins. “You can think of these proteins as locks, and we’re trying to design the keys,” said the team’s leader, medicinal chemist Kathy Lee.
Upstairs, in a black-walled suite crammed with custom-made microscopes, neuroscientist Joel Schwartz is examining nervous system tissues, another building block of drug discovery. “Welcome to the pink flamingo lounge,” he jokes.
Senior vice president Jose-Carlos Gutiérrez-Ramos wants Pfizer’s scientists to interact and share ideas.
The research center has been under construction for three years on the site of a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology parking lot at the corner of Portland and Albany streets, though its address is 610 Main St. It will consolidate about 1,000 researchers and support staffers located in far-flung sites from Alewife to Memorial Drive, including some who recently moved here from the Pfizer research campus in Groton, Conn.
Many will work in partnership with other local university and industry scientists, reflecting the push by New York-based Pfizer, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, to supplement its own research with collaborations. That philosophy is also guiding sister research sites in Groton, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Cambridge, England, which work in areas ranging from cancer to vaccines.
The new lab is key to Pfizer’s goal of winning regulatory approval of two new medicines a year, said Mikael Dolsten, the company’s president of worldwide research and development. To do that, Pfizer scientists must work with scores of compounds and bring multiple drug candidates into human testing each year.
Pfizer’s decision to plant its flag in the heart of the local life sciences cluster “is a real recognition of our confidence in Cambridge, Mass., to become one of the leading hubs of biomedical research for us in the future,” Dolsten said. “Every year, we hope to see discoveries coming from Cambridge that will help us to bring medicines to the market.”
Generating successful new therapies from its research labs and growing number of research partnerships will become more important after the recent collapse of Pfizer’s bid to acquire London-based AstraZeneca plc, the Anglo-Swedish drug maker that has its own research center in Waltham, off Route 128. That will be far from easy for Pfizer.
Scientist Li Li worked in the bright second-floor lab of the new Pfizer building in Kendall Square.
Part of the challenge is Pfizer’s sheer size — its market value exceeds $187 billion. That means the pharma giant, in order to grow, must constantly bring out new drugs, particularly so-called blockbusters that ring up annual sales of $1 billion or more, said Seamus Fernandez, analyst at Boston health care investment bank Leerink Swann
“For a company of Pfizer’s size,” said Fernandez, “you need five blockbusters simultaneously to move the needle. It’s a herculean task.”
Pfizer’s strategy includes making the research center a gathering place for scientists from area universities, teaching hospitals, and biotech startups, as well as patient advocates from foundations willing to advise — and help fund — research into treatments for diseases such as Parkinson’s, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, lupus, and diabetes.
Pfizer chemist Kevin Hallock sported antenna-spiked 3-D glasses.
Joan Finnegan Brooks, who has cystic fibrosis and advises drug makers as a volunteer, originally worked with researchers at FoldRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., a Cambridge rare diseases startup. After the company was bought by Pfizer in 2010, the drug giant reached out to her.
“The important thing from my perspective is that Pfizer is open to have that voice at the table,” Brooks said. “A lot of companies say they want patient input [on drug development], but they do it after everything is cooked, and that doesn’t result in the best outcomes. Pfizer is a big company, but there’s been a sea change in how companies are dealing with patient communities.”
Pfizer has 25 to 30 research collaborations under way in the Boston area. That number is expected to increase with the opening of the Kendall Square research center, said Gutiérrez-Ramos. He downplayed the risks that collaborators from other companies could get an edge by eavesdropping on Pfizer’s proprietary drug discovery methods and technology.
“There are a few things — the chemical structure of a drug or the protein sequence of a therapeutic antibody — where we need to take precautions,” he said. “However, those are only 10 percent of our activity. The other 90 percent can be shared.” | Pfizer Inc.’s new research center here has stolen a page from the collaborative culture and open architecture of the entrepreneurial startups that dot Kendall Square. | 49.814815 | 1 | 16.62963 | high | high | extractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/07/04/recent-movie-reviews/lQrQZmcQLv3Mzvj2orulXM/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140705052150id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/movies/2014/07/04/recent-movie-reviews/lQrQZmcQLv3Mzvj2orulXM/story.html | Recent movie reviews | 20140705052150 | ★★★½ Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case The world’s most famous artist, Ai Weiwei, may also be the most persecuted. Andreas Johnsen picks up his story after the events of Alison Klayman’s 2012 documentary, in which Ai’s online campaign against Chinese government oppression earned him 81 days in solitary. At first he seems broken, but his art and defiance revive him. (Peter Keough) (89 min., unrated)
★★ Begin Again A struggling songwriter (Keira Knightley) joins a burned-out producer (Mark Ruffalo) to record an album on the streets and rooftops of New York. What felt authentic and fresh in John Carney’s 2006 indie hit “Once” has curdled into calculation in his follow-up. Pleasantly predictable if you’re in the mood; unbearable if not. (104 min., R) (Ty Burr)
★★½ Deliver Us From Evil An unrecognizable adaptation of real-life cop/demonologist Ralph Sarchie’s memoir of his work as an exorcist, this latest creep show from Scott Derrickson perfunctorily resolves the tough questions about good and evil and then follows the formula such films have followed since “The Exorcist.” Derrickson has a knack for atmosphere and suspense, however, and fans of cheap thrills will have fun. (117 min., R) (Peter Keough)
★★★ Earth to Echo This family sci-fi adventure feels designed to, yes, echo “E.T.” As it turns out, the movie is a wonderful surprise. Echo himself, a generically precious alien, is the least of it. The funny, moving, authentic bond among the kids in the story is the unadvertised draw. And the found-footage aesthetic actually cooler than the perkily vanilla ad spots hint. (89 min., PG) (Tom Russo)
★★★★ Life Itself Steve James (”Hoop Dreams”) has fashioned a tremendously moving documentary from the life and career of film critic Roger Ebert. It’s a great story, from Ebert’s Chicago newspaper beginnings to his TV partnership with Gene Siskel to the health issues that seemed only to purify him in later years. With Martin Scorsese, Werner Herzog, and Ebert’s heroic wife, Chaz. (121 min., R) (Ty Burr)
★★★½ Snowpiercer With this ferocious science fiction saga about a train carrying the remnants of humanity across a new Ice Age, Korea’s Bong Joon-ho ascends to the master level of commercial filmmaking. It’s an allegory of the have-nots bum-rushing the front cars to get at the haves, envisioned with spectacular detail and not for the faint of heart. Chris Evans stars. (126 min., R) (Ty Burr)
Tammy ★★ The new Melissa McCarthy comedy is something unusual: a congenially terrible movie. A road film that pairs the star’s small-town screw-up with her whiskey-soaked grandma (Susan Sarandon), it’s a scattershot mess. But it’s also a female-centric slapstick comedy set in the American underclass, and everyone here seems to appreciate the difference. With Kathy Bates, Mark Duplass, and Gary Cole. (97 min., R) (Ty Burr)
★★½ Third Person The latest multi-character pile-up from “Crash” writer-director Paul Haggis is a watchably swank melodrama before mind games, over-length, and general pomposity bring it down. A glamorous cast broods in Rome, Paris, and New York, but only Olivia Wilde manages to make her character credible (for a while, anyway). With Liam Neeson, Adrien Brody, and Mila Kunis. (137 min., R) (Ty Burr)
★★★ Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia A portrait of a lion in winter: novelist, essayist, public intellectual Gore Vidal in the months before his death. The documentary wants to be a career overview and final platform for his political scorn; it’s better at the latter only because listening to him was always better than hearing about him. (83 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)
★★ The Grand Seduction It’s a familiar story: Local yokels show unexpected shrewdness by conning a city slicker. In this Newfoundland-set comedy a mayor fools a young doctor into taking up residence in his down-and-out fishing village. Cute and toothless, it offers some inspired moments from misused indie talent Don McKellar. (112 min., PG-13) (Peter Keough)
★★★ The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz An informative, moving documentary intent on eulogizing Internet activist Swartz, who hung himself in 2013 as the US government prepared to punish him with possible prison time for allegedly downloading public documents. Director Brian Knappenberger is hardly non-partisan and some nuances are lost, but his film is a worthy memorial. (104 min., unrated) (Ty Burr)
★★½ Ivory Tower An earnest, agenda-heavy documentary that tries to cover every aspect of the crisis in American higher education and nearly drowns in a sea of topics and talking heads. Worth seeing for the conversations it deserves to start but it’s an unfocused survey course where a sharp, probing seminar is needed. Directed by Andrew Rossi. (90 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
★½ Jersey Boys To appreciate this big-screen jukebox musical about the 1960s hitmakers The Four Seasons, you need to bring nostalgia, sentimentality, and a taste for dentist-drill close harmonies. Otherwise it’s a generic Italian-American theme park ride, drably directed by possibly the worst man for the job, Clint Eastwood. With John Lloyd Young re-creating his Broadway role as Frankie Valli. (134 min., R) (Ty Burr)
★★★★ Othello If not Orson Welles’s best film, then his strangest and most perfectly realized. Welles portrays the general who loves not wisely but too well in this cubist pastiche, and each scene is a visual poem. In the end, Othello’s nemesis is not Iago but the roles and society that confine them both. (90 min., unrated) (Peter Keough)
★★★½ The Signal William Eubank’s feature debut shows intelligence, imagination, and style as well as a debt to old TV shows like “The Twilight Zone” — to which it ultimately suffers by comparison. Three college kids track down a hacker and find instead a Hazmat-suited Laurence Fishburne and lots of loose ends and plot tangles. (97 min., PG-13) (Peter Keough)
★ Transformers: Age of Extinction The longest, loudest, and most ludicrous entry in the “Transformers” franchise, this fourth installment features a would-be inventor and junk collector (Mark Wahlberg) who buys a beat-up tractor trailer that turns out to be Optimus Prime. But a fanatical CIA director has deemed the Autobots terrorists, and the Decepticons return, threatening world destruction and more sequels. (165 min., PG-13) (Peter Keough)
★★ Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago Lydia B. Smith takes on a premise that Chaucer would have approved of as she follows the stories of six pilgrims on the titular 1,200-year-old, 500-mile trek across Spain. Though some subjects spark interest, by the end they have all been homogenized into acolytes of a New Age brand of Christianity. In English, Spanish, and French, with subtitles. (84 min., unrated) (Peter Keough)
★★★ Whitey: United States of America v. James J. Bulger Joe Berlinger covers familiar ground in this account of the wicked ways of Whitey Bulger, his flight from justice, his Mephistophelian pact with the FBI, and his capture and trial. Berlinger also speculates on government cover-ups, but the film succeeds mostly as a vindication of Bulger’s victims and their survivors. (107 min., R) (Peter Keough) | Capsule reviews of new releases. | 259 | 0.5 | 0.833333 | high | low | abstractive |
http://www.people.com/article/justin-bieber-tom-hanks-instagram-dance-scooter-braun-wedding-video | http://web.archive.org/web/20140708092205id_/http://www.people.com/article/justin-bieber-tom-hanks-instagram-dance-scooter-braun-wedding-video | Justin Bieber Shares a Video of Tom Hanks Owning the Dance Floor | 20140708092205 | 07/07/2014 at 08:00 PM EDT
Justin Bieber and Tom Hanks
This video has everything: Tom Hanks,
, a yarmulke and "This Is How We Do It."
Yes, you read that right (and no, this isn't
speaking). The star of cinematic treasures
busted a move to Montell Jordan's 1995 jam – and the Biebs got it all on camera.
"Haha Tom Hanks singing 'This Is How we do it' dressed like a Rabbi lol #thatdancetho," Bieber, 20, captioned his Instagram video of the actor getting down on the dance floor as the crowd goes wild.
What event could possibly bring Hanks, 57, and the pop singer together? The wedding of Bieber's manager Scooter Braun and cancer activist Yael Cohen, who tied the knot in Canada over the weekend.
also posted photos from the star-studded nuptials, but it's safe to say Hanks and Bieber's clip takes the (wedding) cake.
Watch the video – already liked by more than 360,000 Instagram users – below: | The actor boogied to the 1995 party hit "This Is How We Do It" | 13 | 0.8125 | 3.5625 | low | medium | mixed |
http://www.people.com/article/jenny-mccarthy-leaving-the-view-engaged-donnie-wahlberg-twitter | http://web.archive.org/web/20140710143516id_/http://www.people.com:80/article/jenny-mccarthy-leaving-the-view-engaged-donnie-wahlberg-twitter | Jenny McCarthy Opens Up About Reinvention, Romance & Twitter Hate | 20140710143516 | 07/08/2014 at 09:55 AM EDT
is starting a new chapter of her life, leaving
after just one season and preparing to
model turned actress, activist and author – is no stranger to reinvention.
"When I first moved out to L.A. and I was a Playmate, I'd be asked, 'What do you want to do?' I'd reply, 'Comedy.' They'd say, 'Honey, that's funny. A Playmate in comedy? That's never going to happen.' But then I was on
," she says in the fall issue of
magazine, on newsstands July 29.
"Later, I said I wanted to write a book and they said, 'That's hilarious. No one would pick up your book,' " she continues. "Now, I have 10 books. I almost enjoy the challenge. You tell me I can't do it? Guess what – I'm the rule-breaker."
Fadil Berisha / New You
McCarthy, 41, also reflects on what makes former New Kids on the Block boy-bander Wahlberg, 44, The One.
"He's my mirror. Things were always unbalanced in my previous relationships – I've either been a teacher or a student," says McCarthy, who has
with ex-husband John Asher and dated
. "With Donnie, we're just equal. I have my own identity and goals and he has his, yet we're so similar we work on them together."
But McCarthy hasn't always gotten love from viewers. Reflecting on the "Twitter hate" she's weathered in the past for her
has found such a link), she tells the magazine: "You have to be strong enough as a woman to voice your opinion, and sometimes you can get really beat up. ⦠People are either with you or against you, and if you take a position and people don't agree with it, they can hate you for life. When really, it's just a position you hold, that has nothing to do with your personal self." | The TV personality, who has been let go from The View, calls fiancé Donnie Wahlberg her "mirror" | 19.809524 | 0.666667 | 0.952381 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2014/07/12/the-ticket-theater/MCkJWzUFu9zEQ4EaRIdpVM/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140718023905id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com:80/arts/theater-art/2014/07/12/the-ticket-theater/MCkJWzUFu9zEQ4EaRIdpVM/story.html | Theater - Theater & art - The Boston Globe | 20140718023905 | JUNE MOON You can’t call this a top-drawer comedy by any means, but there’s still plenty to savor in this 1929 satire of Tin Pan Alley by Ring Lardner and George S. Kaufman. Directed by Jessica Stone (“Last of the Red Hot Lovers,’’ “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’’), it features Weymouth’s own Nate Corddry as an aspiring lyricist from Schenectady who finds Gotham strewn with tempting diversions. (Pictured: Rachel Napoleon.) Through July 13. Williamstown Theatre Festival, Main Stage, Williamstown. 413-597-3400, www.wtfestival.org
A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC Ethan Heard’s able cast delivers the goods in this 1973 musical about lovers sorting themselves out over the course of a turbulent weekend at a country estate in turn-of-the-20th-century Sweden. Stephen Sondheim’s exquisite score does the rest. Through July 19. Berkshire Theatre Group, Colonial Theatre, Pittsfield. 413-997-4444, www.berkshiretheatregroup.org
ASTRO BOY AND THE GOD OF COMICS Animation, video, puppetry, and rapid-fire sketching will combine for the New England premiere of Natsu Onoda Power’s romp through the life of manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka, the Japanese creator of Astro Boy. July 18-Aug. 16. Company One Theatre. At Plaza Theatre, Boston Center for the Arts. 617-933-8600, www.companyone.org
I AM A CAMERA Ruby Wolf dazzles as a pre-“Cabaret” Sally Bowles. Go, so you can say you saw her when. Through July 19. Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, Wellfleet. 508-349-9428, www.what.org | A guide to area theater performances, including “June Moon,’’ “A Little Night Music,’’ “Astro Boy and the God of Comics,’’ and “I Am a Camera.’’ | 7.820513 | 0.871795 | 2.666667 | low | medium | mixed |
http://fortune.com/2014/03/20/stein-mart-from-43-to-1-3-billion-in-three-generations/ | http://web.archive.org/web/20140802001714id_/http://fortune.com:80/2014/03/20/stein-mart-from-43-to-1-3-billion-in-three-generations/ | Stein Mart: From $43 to $1.3 billion in three generations | 20140802001714 | Jay Stein’s family embodies the American dream. His grandfather immigrated to the U.S. and opened a general store in Greenville, Miss., in the early 1900s. Some 70 years later Stein began transforming the family’s single shop into a chain of department stores that sell upscale brands at bargain prices. Stein Mart SMRT has grown into a publicly traded company with 266 locations in 29 states and $1.3 billion in revenue. Even after coronary bypass surgery, Stein, 68, couldn’t make retirement stick. He’s back running the company and, seemingly, as ambitious as ever. His story:
My grandfather Sam Stein immigrated to New York City in 1905 with $43 in his pocket. He came from what was then Russia, now Poland, to escape all the persecutions of the day. I took the family to Ellis Island 100 years later to the day to celebrate. After, we went to the address listed next to his signature in the logbook, and it’s now right by a Louis Vuitton store in downtown Manhattan. He should have bought the building.
My grandfather was a runner on Wall Street, delivering paperwork, but he didn’t like New York. It was too big and bustling for him. So he saved all his nickel tips until he had enough to leave, and went to Memphis. There was this firm that would give immigrants a bag of merchandise — things like needles and thread and socks — and they’d go out, sell, and send the money back. My grandfather would take a steamboat every week down the Mississippi Delta and sell to farmers and farmhands whatever he could carry.
He got off the steamboat in Greenville, Miss., and saw that the town was building a new synagogue. He said to himself, “They must be good to their Jews here, and it looks like a great town.” He settled and kept going out to the farms until someone in town said, “You need a general store,” and lent him the money to do that.
He married and had four kids, and the store was part of the whole family’s life. Life was really good for our family in this great, sweet Southern town. Unfortunately, in 1933, during the Depression, my grandfather had a heart attack and died. My father, Jake, the oldest, was on a football scholarship at the University of Alabama, and he quit school and came back to work in the store.
MORE: Planting the seeds for 1-800-Flowers.com
Eventually the town expanded, and a better location opened up down the street. My father told his brother and sister to open up the new store, and he would take care of selling out the merchandise in their old space. That going-out-of-business sale did so well that a light went on for my father. He told his brother and sister to keep running the new store, and he would make the old space a promotional store. He had stumbled on the off-price model that would make us a hit — selling to people who needed great merchandise at really deep discounted prices.
I came along in 1945, and my early life was based around school, home, and working. I was always in [my dad's] store. Something needed to be done, you did it. We didn’t have a lot of job titles. In the late 1950s, early 1960s, we expanded in the same location. My uncle was visiting, and he asked if they had a name for the new building. When my father told him no, my uncle said, “I’ve got a friend of mine who’s opening stores in Arkansas; his name is Sam Walton and he calls his Wal-Mart.” That’s how Stein Mart got the name. Before that it was Stein’s.
I went to prep school in Jacksonville, where I live now, and college at New York University. I came back to Greenville in 1967, and I remember the first day. I parked the car, crossed the street, and I said, “What’s my life going to be like?” I thought about it for 30 seconds, opened the door, and there it was — whatever “it” was going to be.
MORE: The sweet smell of Jo Malone’s success
The arrangement wasn’t particularly peaceful. My father wanted to keep the operation small and didn’t think we needed records. He felt very comfortable doing business the way he’d been doing it the last 30 years. His work ethic was traumatic for me. He was a workaholic and would never leave the store. When I went on dates on Friday night, they’d have to start at 9 p.m. because my father would still be working and I felt guilty leaving before him. My father was a his-way kind of guy, and if you deviated at all, he wouldn’t be pleased. On the other hand, he was sought after in every respect in the community and in the congregation for his enlightenment. But when it came to the store, he wouldn’t budge.
Part of our merchandise was selloff from Saks Fifth Avenue, and Saks kept trying to get us to take more. For years I kept talking about opening a store in a larger city, and one day my father said, “Let’s go look.” In 1977 we went to Memphis and found a vacant 30,000-square-foot space. My father looked at it and said, “We’ll take half of it.” I said, “What are we going to do with half of it? We ought to take the whole thing!” Right in front of everybody we went at it again. The landlord made it economically feasible so we could take all of it.
Opening day was magical. Thousands of people showed up. Everyone would go straight to ladies apparel. I said, “Oh, my God, we’re going to run out of ladies’ goods in three days.” I went back to New York to buy more merchandise and didn’t know where to begin. I was introduced to Phil Dobular, a buyer who specialized in off-price deals and was in between positions. He knew everyone in the New York market. He was, and still is, the funniest individual who ever lived. The combination of Brooklyn and Greenville was unbeatable. He worked with me for 25 years.
MORE: Hobie Alter – founding father of the surfing industry
In Greenville we’d hire our friends’ wives who wanted to work during Saks’ promotions. They saw the merchandise first and got discounts. On opening day in Memphis this lady Jane Carruthers comes to me. She was right out of the Junior League — the apex of Memphis culture and society. She said, “Can I work here? I’ve got a few friends that would like to, too.” They were the most charming, lovely four ladies I’ve ever met. That was the birth of the Boutique Program — we’d hire local women and they would spread the word. It gave us wonderful credibility, and they enjoyed it. Whenever we’d open a store, the Boutique Program just worked. It was a really important part of our early growth.
We started to focus more on systems and processes. Our first hire in Memphis was a fabulous manager, Carl Davis. He helped us enormously and took us to the next level. He started doing inventory management, which my father didn’t want in Greenville. At that point we needed more expertise. We hired Jack Williams between stores No. 3 and 4 to handle operations. My father said, “What’s he going to do?” My father didn’t understand it if he wasn’t going to work on the floor selling. But my father would listen to Jack and respected him. Sometimes his most important function was telling my father we were going to open a new store. Jack was a friend, counselor, and partner. He semiretired three years ago, but he still comes into the office almost every day.
We hit No. 10 and kept going. We went public in 1992 with about 46 stores. We did the IPO to attain personal liquidity for our family and establish a currency for expansion.
MORE: The rise of the Tweezerman
I had a bypass 15 years ago and thought, Maybe I shouldn’t do this day to day, and maybe there’s other people who can do it better. We tried with three different CEOs and failed for every available reason. They weren’t merchants. You’ve got to have a merchant running a retail operation. After our third unsuccessful try, I took the position of interim CEO. Sixteen months into it a reporter came to me and asked, “When are you going to drop the interim title?” I said, “Right now.” I didn’t realize the consequences, and our general counsel came in and said, “We have to make a public announcement!”
Our folks really embraced me coming back. It’s just been perfect. We’ve got the best organization we’ve ever had. I’m a lot happier than I was the first time we built it. I’m more secure, more self-assured. Now we’re at 266 stores, and we’re going to open about 10 this year and 15 next year. I think we can double our size. One day we’ll find a business partner that can keep the same standards and atmosphere, and we’ll merge our company. I’m in no hurry, and I’m very particular. We’ll do the right thing. It’s legacy. It’s got our name on it.
People work with you, not for you. In the early days if we had made the wrong hire just once, we would have been done. Hire good people who are a lot smarter than you are. Treat them well, love them, and embrace them.
Location, location, location. When you make a bad buy as a merchant, it can take six weeks to sell out. But a bad buy in real estate can take 10 years to get out of. Bad locations cost you a lot of money.
Grow slowly. We got to 10 stores and said, “Perhaps we can open 10 more.” Don’t wake up one morning and say you want 100 stores, because you’ll stretch yourself and your resources too quickly.
This story is from the April 7, 2014 issue of Fortune. | Jay Stein transformed his family's store into the Stein Mart off-price chain. | 128.25 | 0.9375 | 1.6875 | high | medium | mixed |
http://www.people.com/article/cheryl-hines-marries-robert-kennedy-jr-hyannis-port-massachusetts | http://web.archive.org/web/20140803011111id_/http://www.people.com/article/cheryl-hines-marries-robert-kennedy-jr-hyannis-port-massachusetts | Cheryl Hines Marries Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | 20140803011111 | Cheryl Hines and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
updated 08/02/2014 at 07:35 PM EDT
After dating for more than two years, Cheryl Hines and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said "I do" before a cheering crowd of friends and family Saturday at the Kennedy compound in Hyannisport, Massachusetts – under a tent at a home once owned by President John F. Kennedy and wife Jackie.
The actress, 48, and the political activist, 60,
"It's fun that the two families are coming together," she told PEOPLE in June. "It's very sweet that way. I come from a big family and the Kennedys are a big family. It feels natural. It feels fun."
Hines wore a white strapless tea-length gown by Romona Keveza for the ceremony, which took place during the family's annual reunion. Besides many Kennedys, other guests, according to PEOPLE's sources, included Larry David, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Sen. Ed Markey, Kevin Nealon and Ed Begley.
It's the second marriage for Hines, who has a daughter, Catherine Rose, 10, with her former husband. It's the third marriage for Kennedy. He has two children with his first wife, Emily Black, and four children with his second wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy
in May 2012 at age 52.
star is looking forward to being Mrs. Kennedy. "It feels great because you know you are going to be with the person you really like to be with for a very long time," she told PEOPLE last month. "And that's a great feeling." | The actress becomes a Kennedy in an early evening Saturday ceremony in Hyannisport | 23.769231 | 0.692308 | 1 | medium | low | abstractive |
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/08/05/constant-challenges-certainties-for-new-ceos-market-basket/TLtsq6IQ7sUMMW3abHO1VJ/story.html | http://web.archive.org/web/20140807212115id_/http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2014/08/05/constant-challenges-certainties-for-new-ceos-market-basket/TLtsq6IQ7sUMMW3abHO1VJ/story.html | Constant challenges, no certainties for new CEOs at Market Basket | 20140807212115 | Help wanted: Two chief executives to replace one cult hero at regional grocery chain. Will be scorned by employees loyal to former boss, and may be fired within weeks. Successful candidates will share ridicule and uncertainty.
That might as well have been the ad James Gooch and Felicia Thornton responded to when they applied to become co-CEOs of Market Basket — and now their situation is becoming more precarious.
As the Demoulas family supermarket spectacle drags through a fourth week, Gooch and Thornton, who were appointed in June, are trying to return Market Basket’s 71 stores to normal operations while ownership of the company hangs in limbo, shelves are bare, and thousands of workers continue their crusade to bring back the ousted president, Arthur T. Demoulas.
It’s gotten so bad that Gooch’s mother has received nasty phone calls from Arthur T. supporters, according to a company spokesman.
Even some of those who refuse to work for the new leaders are starting to feel pangs of sympathy for them.
RELATED | Shirley Leung: A simple ‘sorry’ could solve Market Basket feud
“Yeah, of course I do,” said food delivery driver Roger Smith, a 12-year company veteran who plans to remain on strike unless Arthur T. Demoulas is reinstated. “They were just hired to do a job, just like we were.”
At the top of Gooch and Thornton’s unenviable to-do list is overseeing a job fair to recruit potential replacement workers. Any new hires would fill gaps left by Market Basket employees who quit or get fired. After two days of interviewing internal candidates, Wednesday marks the first time the company will consider outside applicants — a move that could further antagonize its deeply insular workforce.
Gooch and Thornton still have to figure out how to enforce a deadline they set for employees to get back on the job. While most full-time workers have continued to report for duty — protesting on their own time — hundreds of others have been staying away from the stores and ignored Monday’s deadline to return. Some are showing up for work, but openly encouraging customers to boycott Market Basket.
Meanwhile, Gooch and Thornton’s positions appear just as unstable. Market Basket’s board of directors is mulling offers to purchase the majority shares controlled by Arthur S. Demoulas, Arthur T.’s cousin and rival. At any moment, the board could pull the trigger on a sale that almost certainly would mean pink slips for the executive tandem.
But for all of the drawbacks, the top gig at Market Basket does have perks — probably millions of them.
RELATED: Thousands gather at Market Basket rally
Two store-level managers who attended question-and-answer sessions with Gooch and Thornton shortly after the leadership change said they were open about having guaranteed contracts that will pay them for three years, no matter how long they survive. Chief executives at a company the size of Market Basket would typically command annual salaries of between $1 million and $3 million, said Clark Waterfall, managing director of BSG Team Ventures, an executive search firm in Boston.
Through a spokeswoman, Gooch and Thornton declined to comment on their compensation packages. They also turned down a request for interviews.
Waterfall said that given the chaos, many high-level job candidates wouldn’t want to run Market Basket. But for certain people, he said, the challenge might be appealing.
“There’s not really a downside if you’re an executive in transition,” Waterfall said. “It’s such a mess already that if things go south, are you really going to be blamed? And if you somehow right the ship, there’s a lot of upside.”
Gooch and Thornton definitely fit the mold of executives in transition.
Gooch stepped down under board pressure as chief executive of Radio Shack in 2012 after failing to turn around the troubled electronics retailer.
Thornton cited personal reasons when she resigned in 2011 as chief executive of Knowledge Universe, a Portland, Ore., company that runs classroom and online courses from pre-K to graduate school.
Their co-CEO arrangement is unusual, said Andy Zelleke, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School. But it’s not unprecedented. In the grocery business, Whole Foods Market Inc. operates under two chief executives, and BlackBerry had two for almost 20 years before longtime partners Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis left in 2012.
RELATED: Meet the Market Basket protesters
Market Basket workers tend to focus on the job cuts that both CEOs oversaw in their previous jobs. Thornton served as chief financial officer of supermarket operator Albertson’s between 2001 and 2006, a period when the grocery chain closed 165 stores and laid off about 20 percent of its managerial and administrative staff.
Gooch also led downsizing efforts at Radio Shack.
Those track records alarmed Market Basket employees from the start, and early interactions with the executives did little to put them at ease. Managers who met Gooch and Thorton described them as distant.
One galvanizing moment occurred last month when the CEOs fired eight high-ranking employees who led pro-Arthur T. demonstrations. Despite their decades of service, the workers were not called into an office or even dismissed over the phone — termination letters and no-trespassing orders were delivered by courier to their homes on a weekend.
Such actions, seen as cold-blooded, make it easy for Market Basket employees to demonize Gooch and Thornton, said Erik Gregory, who directs the organizational and leadership psychology program at the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology.
“It’s the ‘othering’ effect, where we can marginalize people we don’t really know and attach our fears to them,” Gregory said. “The courier delivery validated those fears.”
A dozen people who worked with Gooch or Thornton at other companies declined to comment or did not respond to interview requests.
Their reign at Market Basket may end up being brief, but it’s been packed with enough drama for an entire career.
For instance, they spent their fourth day on the job at Indian Ridge Country Club in Andover — not to network on the golf course, but to quell a panic caused by the Market Basket board. The company owns the country club, and its staff is partial to Arthur T. Demoulas. Board members allied with Arthur S. marched into the clubhouse — accompanied by a police escort — intent on firing the club’s managers. In the end, the managers stayed and the board apologized.
Then there was a seemingly innocuous public statement by Gooch and Thornton that referred to store staffers as “employees” instead of their preferred moniker, “associates.” The semantic faux pas caused an uproar among Market Basket workers. They said it proved the CEOs did not understand the chain’s culture.
John Garon, a front-end manager at the Burlington Market Basket, said Gooch and Thornton were doomed from the start — because neither one is named Arthur T.
“They’re not part of the Market Basket family,” Garon said. “Would we have been welcoming to anyone? No, but that’s not the point.” | Help wanted: Two chief executives to replace one cult hero at regional grocery chain. That might as well have been the ad James Gooch and Felicia Thornton responded to when they applied to become co-CEOs of Market Basket — and now their situation is becoming more precarious. As the Demoulas family supermarket spectacle drags through a fourth week, Gooch and Thornton are trying to return Market Basket’s 71 stores to normal operations while ownership of the company hangs in limbo. | 15.647727 | 1 | 24.75 | medium | high | extractive |
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