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Steelers Defeat Bills 1916 in OT

This Pittsburgh Steelers vs. Buffalo Bills match-up was a tale of two halves (and then some overtime). The Steelers completely dominated the Buffalo Bills in the first half, heading into the locker room with a 13-0 lead. But the Steelers blew the lead and had to keep this exciting. This game actually went into overtime. The Bills, who were predicted to go 0-16 this season, gave the six-time Super Bowl Champions a run for their money.
But it wasn’t so in the first half. On the very first drive, they went 78 yards, with running back Rashard Mendenhall scoring on a 1-yard touchdown run, his ninth rushing TD of the season. He also ran for a season-high 151 yards. It was a beautiful 13-play, 78-drive led by quarterback Ben Roethlisberger that took 7:54 off the clock.
On the second offensive possession, new kicker Shaun Suisham (how glad is coach Mike Tomlin right now for getting rid of Jeff Reed?) kicked a 45-yard field goal, his first since the release of Reed. Then, with three seconds left in the first half, Suisham kicked a 46-yarder after an 8-play, 54-yard drive, making the score 13-0 at the end of the second quarter. All four of Siusham’s kicks were 40+ yards.
Pittsburgh’s time of possession during the first half was 23:55, compared to the Bills’ 6:05.
The Steelers had 18 first downs while Buffalo only had 4 and gained 225 total yards compared to Buffalo’s 51. But then big mistakes and even bigger penalties plagued the Steelers during the second half.
The Bills had new life after a costly penalty that will have the experts talking: With 4:45 to go in the third quarter, linebacker James Harrison, who’s been fined a crap load of money this season for helmet-to-helmet hits, drove quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick to the ground. He was penalized for roughing the passer, and then three plays later, the Steelers defense gave up a huge play: Fitzpatrick hit running back Fred Jackson for a 65-yard touchdown catch and run. The score became 13-7, and with the Bills holding the Steelers’ offense to their first three-and-out, the game actually became exciting.
Early in the fourth quarter, when the Steelers got the ball back after Buffalo kicked a 29-yard field goal that made the score 13-10, Mendenhall had the ball stripped from him by safety Jairus Byrd. The Bills took possession at the Pittsburgh 23-yard line. Three plays later, it was a 13-13 game.
The Bills’ offensive line were able to protect Fitzpatrick, with the Steelers defense sacking him only once. With quick passing, the Steelers secondary looked completely suspect.
With 11:25 left in the fourth quarter, Ben Roethlisberger led a drive that ended with a 48-yard field goal. The drive began when Mendenhall ran 42 yards to the Buffalo 38. But a holding penalty on guard Chris Kemoeatu took that away (Kemoeatu had trouble with lineman Kyle Williams all game). Roethlisberger made up for it and completed a 26-yard pass to Heath Miller, and, on third-and-17, he scrambled from the 29 for a first down to the Bills’ 47.
Unfortunately, receiver Emmanuel Sanders dropped an easy pass for a first down, and Suisham kicked a field goal, making the score 16-13.
Later on in the fourth quarter, safety Troy Polamalu intercepted a deflected pass by Fitzpatrick as the Bills were driving down the field. That made it seem that the Steelers would pull out the win. But on the Steelers next offensive drive after the turnover, they burned through all of the Bills’ 3 remaining timeouts, but penalties on Chris Kemoeatu (holding) and Jonathan Scott (false start) gave the Bills the ball back. Buffalo got the ball at their 46 with just 46 seconds left in regulation. They got to the Steelers’ 31 with 7 seconds left and Lindell kicked a 49-yard field goal.
Overtime was equally exciting, with Buffalo (2-9) blowing an opportunity to win with about 10:30 left. Wide receiver Stevie Johnson dropped a 40-yard touchdown pass in the endzone. Roethlisberger led an overtime-winning drive culminating in a Suisham 41-yard field goal with 2:14 left. He ended up completing 20 of 33 for 246 yards and no TDs and no interceptions.
But the Steelers penalties (10 for 107 yards) were inexcusable, after being penalized so much last week against the Oakland Raiders. But now the Steelers are 8-3, and with a big Sunday night game next week against the Baltimore Ravens, with so many playoff implications, they need to be more disciplined. There’s no way they can play like that against the Ravens and pull out a win. But, of course, a Steelers vs. Ravens match-up will be one exciting game.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Public Diplomacy Out for the US In Overseas

Public diplomacy — defined by the State Department as “engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences” — has become increasingly pass among American officials, scholars, and NGOS as a term and activity used to define how America should communicate with the outside world. Meanwhile, the governments of other countries — notably China and India — are enthusiastically embracing public diplomacy as a new and essential part of their foreign policy. Who’s the winner in such a situation — the USA or the rest of the world? Hard to say.
I. Public Diplomacy: Pass for the U.S.?
Public diplomacy was coined by Dean Edmund Gullion and the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy in the mid-1960′s. He and his colleagues wanted to find a way to characterize the many informational, educational, and cultural programs that were instituted, on an international level, after World War II, by US governmental and non-governmental entities:
The United States Information Agency (USIA), created as an independent USG agency in 1953 to combat Soviet anti-American propaganda, appropriated the term by the 1970s to justify its programs to Congress. In the process, public diplomacy became identified as an essentially overseas governmental activity. In the words of scholar Nicholas Cull:
Less than a decade after the collapse of communism, the USIA was consolidated into the State Department (1999), for a variety of reasons, among them: The powerful Republican Senator Richard Helms was “annoyed” by the Agency; with the so-called “end of history” after the U.S. “won” the half-century ideological struggle with the USSR, the USIA was considered an anachronism; the federal government wanted to cut spending (in the words of Joseph Duffey, the last USIA Director: “The idea of moving the USIA to the State Depart­ment was former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s idea. The central reason was money, because she was under enormous pressure because the budgets had not been increased”); the Agency “never really functioned as desired,” according to the Heritage Foundation.
A long-term historical pattern was also at work: When a global war ends, the USG “information” agency established to win “hearts and minds” overseas during such a conflict is terminated: WWI: the Committee on Public Information, 1917-1919; WWII: the Office of War Information 1942-1945; Cold War: the United States Information agency 1953-1999.
On a more down-to-earth level, “public diplomacy” was an American term with little meaning for most foreign audiences in our past century; indeed, in certain parts of the world, US “public diplomacy” practitioners (I had the privilege to be among them in the 1980s and 1990s) worked in the “Press and Cultural Section” at the Embassy where they were assigned, so named in order for their activities to be understandable to local contacts (in Eastern Europe, where I mostly served, these diplomats were considered spies by the communist authorities). And, here in the United States, while “public diplomacy” became part of the inside-the-Washington-beltway jargon, it would be hard to say that it was a term most Americans were familiar with.
The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of USIA marked the beginning of the demise of public diplomacy — as a term and, to some extent, an activity. By the beginning of the 2000′s, public diplomacy no longer had its own bureaucratic niche, although the State Department had by then created the position of Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs. Charlotte Beers, a marketing whizzkid selected to serve in that role at the beginning of the George W. Bush administration, was widely criticized for her simplistic efforts to “brand” America la her buy-Uncle-Ben’s-Rice campaigns, one of her advertising triumphs. During the early years of the Bush administration, public diplomacy was neglected and (some would say) turned into base propaganda to justify the war in Iraq. The dozens of reports appearing on the failure of public diplomacy after 9/11 had little impact in restoring it to its Cold War importance and indeed led to “report fatigue” regarding the subject. The so-called “listening tours” of Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen Hughes, active during the second term of the Bush administration, were ridiculed by both domestic and foreign media, contributing to public diplomacy’s loss of reputation and relevance. (1)
James Glassman, the last Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs in the Bush administration, suggested that public diplomacy as traditionally used had become an anachronism by coining the new term “Public Diplomacy 2.0.” With the perceived loss of importance of public diplomacy, strategic communication became a fashionable term in the early 2000′s, and often replaced it as a description for communication with foreign audiences, especially at the Pentagon (where public diplomacy, by those there familiar with the expression, probably has a flaky connotation). In the words of scholar Bruce Gregory (2008), “[t]he term strategic communication is gaining traction. Some see it as more inclusive than public diplomacy and more descriptive of a multi-stakeholder environment.” (He goes on to say that “[f]or most analytical and practical purposes, however, the two terms can be used analogously.”)
After the election of President Obama, it took more than a year for his administration to install a new Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs — Discovery Channel executive Judith McHale. By then, the USG’s buzzwords for truly communicating with the world were not public diplomacy but engagement — a word also used by Glassman and indeed, as a participle in the State Department’s definition of public diplomacy cited above; and also, to a lesser extent, smart power.
Economic/societal development — in contrast to the educational and cultural programs that formed an essential part of public diplomacy during much of the Cold War (and to some extent still do) — has under the new administration become a key part of the State Department’s engagement, despite development’s bureaucratic association with another USG agency, USAID. Ms. McHale, for example, recently proclaimed that George C. Marshall, best known for the European economic development/recovery plan after World War II that bears his name, was “the greatest example in our nation’s history of Public Diplomacy done right” (2). Her “developmental” approach to public diplomacy (or should I say engagement) is also illustrated by one of her major initiatives, the launch in Kenya of a new competition called Apps4Africa, which “challenges local coders and software developers to create software tools that will meet the needs of citizens across East Africa.”
The concern among the foreign-policy community, on both an official and grass-roots level, that the US government cannot adequately handle communications with foreign publics through its public diplomacy, a view prevalent during the Bush administration and still in existence today, resulted in the creation of the Business for Diplomatic Action by the person who helped coin the advertising jingle of the past century, “You Deserve a Break Today,” Keith Reinhard. And Kristin Lord, a scholar posited in a report [2008] that American public diplomacy be reformed by creating a new non-governmental organization called ‘USA World Trust’ that would do better than the government. The report stated this organization would, among other things, create exchange programs to bring foreign university professors, journalists, NGO representatives and government officials to the United States; it would send American experts abroad on speaking tours; it would understand foreign opinion through focus groups; and it would sponsor translations of American books into foreign languages.This emphasis on private-sector — rather than government — diplomacy was underscored by Ted Townsend, a Board member of U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy: “The idea of citizen diplomacy is separate of public diplomacy, related to the state department. The goal is to use people to people exchanges, eye to eye contact. The phrase that many people use is ‘one handshake at a time.’”
Under Secretary of State Judith McHale, to be sure, did attend the U.S. Center for Public Diplomacy’s recent November Washington summit, the goal of which was “to double the number of American volunteers of all ages involved in international activities at home or abroad, from an estimated 60 million today to 120 million by 2020.” The event was in fact co-sponsored by the State Department; but this could yet be another indication that Foggy Bottom agrees that a government-controlled “public diplomacy” is now longer the best (or predominant) form of US overseas “engagement.”
And then we have Kennedy Center Director Michael Kaiser who maintains that cultural diplomacy — arguably a subset of public diplomacy — is oh-so-twentieth-century:
But does traditional cultural diplomacy work? Do we need state-supported tours by American performing arts groups when without federal funding so many of our performers and performing arts groups are appearing all over the world?Finally, let’s not forget, as an important footnote, a new term used by public-diplomacy blogger extraordinaire Paul Rockower, “gastrodiplomacy” — the role of food (not indigestion) in diplomacy — which “public diplomacy” diplomats in the field consider an essential part of their activities, as sharing a good meal with a local and interesting contact of importance is (was?) one way to present and represent America abroad on a face-to-face basis.
II. Words of wisdom?
Recent statements by public diplomacy cognoscenti give strong indications of its declining importance, both as a term and (to a lesser extent) as an activity:
“‘Public Diplomacy’ is a term that should be abolished.”
–Widely-read blogger Matt Armstrong (November 23, 2010);
“The term ‘public diplomacy’ is now attributed to so many activities that is has lost useful meaning.”
–International Broadcasting expert Kim Andrew Elliott (October 7, 2010), who is adamant about keeping “public diplomacy” and US International Broadcasting separate;
“For Obama-era Global Engagement to mean more than Bush-era Public Diplomacy it needs to be more than Bush-era Public Diplomacy.”
–Scholar Nicholas Cull (June 5, 2009);
“I think that the more we can have people having direct conversations with each other — and through those conversations and initiatives, through history of cultures we can learn about each other and if we do that, at the people-to-people level, that will provide us with a path to a more peaceful and prosperous future. So it’s a key part of what we’re trying to do, to really have people engage with each other, to learn about each other. So it’s not public diplomacy, it’s not messaging, it’s not just a marketing campaign. It’s really fostering an environment where you can strengthen relationships between people.”
–Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Judith McHale (November 11, 2010).
Quite amazing — but not that surprising, given the history of the past 50 years — that we have an Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs minimizing the importance of public diplomacy! But then why not? Modesty may be the beginning of wisdom (3).
III. Public Diplomacy: la Mode Overseas
Irony or ironies: While the US “drops” public diplomacy, a term it created, the outside world (or at least foreign governments) embraces it.
That “public diplomacy” has become a global phenomenon is now quite evident (a conference was devoted to this subject some years ago). As I tried to illustrate in several essays for Place Branding and Public Diplomacy (2007), “public diplomacy” is now part of the official/media vocabulary of numerous countries, including, in tentative priority order for this year, according to the near-daily examination of articles pertaining to public diplomacy cited in my Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review: Israel (which also uses its traditional term “hasbara” to identify activities related to public diplomacy); China; India (which also uses “cultural diplomacy” extensively); Australia; Canada; Turkey; the UK; Japan; South Korea; the Philippines (where it is closely associated with tourism). There is some, but little, mention of public diplomacy in the case of sub-Saharan Africa (with the exception of South Africa and Ghana) and Latin America. Greece cites it to a limited degree, but as a rule Mediterranean countries (France, Italy, Spain) do not, despite their extensive cultural programs overseas. No one has better demonstrated that public diplomacy now goes beyond the walls of the U.S. government than the Dutch scholar Jan Melissen.
Most intriguing about public diplomacy as a global phenomenon is the case of China and India, whose public diplomacy activities have grown extensively in our new century. China has a new Public Diplomacy Research Center and its officials make frequent references of the need for public diplomacy to play a greater role in its foreign policy. Its hundreds of Confucius Institutes are located throughout the world. India, though less aggressively than its Asian neighbor, also underscores the importance of public diplomacy. So these two emerging powers, which some see as the countries that will define the nature of our new century, are taking up a foreign-policy tool — or at least the term that describes it — that the United States seems to be abandoning. They of course don’t see public diplomacy, as an activity that is difficult to define precisely, in the same way as the USG does, especially as regards the need for a firewall between domestic and international information dissemination by the government. According to the Smith-Mundt Act, the USG cannot implement public diplomacy programs at home; they are meant for overseas audiences. This distinction does not seem to have any relevance in the case of China and India.
I’m not quite sure what the implications of China’s and India’s adoption of public diplomacy are for international affairs, except that they evidently want to be increasingly recognized and “understood” globally, realizing that “soft power” is an important part of international affairs, not just demographic, economic, or military clout. As relatively new kids on the modern global power block (as America still is), the Chinese and Indian governments believe it is in their national interests to “explain” their growing impact on the rest of the world by “engaging, informing, and influencing key international audiences.” Much of what they are doing in public diplomacy seems to me like an unoriginal replica of USIA programs during the Cold War (doubtless their experts have read Nicholas Cull’s magisterial study on the subject), although both governments (especially of India) recognize that the digital age is here. Chinese authorities, meanwhile, filter unacceptable material from the Internet, including, evidently, this author’s totally harmless Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review.
In the U.S. today, there is a growing sense that in our “borderless” internet age, with a growing absence of a communications “center,” international communications should be in the hands of individuals rather than governments. (Americans, however, tend to forget that, as putative participants in a democracy, their government supposedly represents them, including overseas).
True, there were “people-to-people” exchanges during the Cold War between the United States and other countries, but today more than ever, I would say, Americans want to deal with the rest of world (when they actually want to, which is not always the case) without the “interference” of their government, while nevertheless not refusing, as a rule, its financial support when they do want to “engage” foreigners. The same may be true, to some extent, in China and India, but clearly in the case of these two countries public diplomacy is what it was for the USG in the Cold War — a government activity aimed to change the behavior of overseas audiences for its country’s national interests, including through its public diplomacy officers overseas.
IV. An Ending without a Conclusion
So, it seems that the “declining” world power, the United States, increasingly seeks “government-free” international communications, including among “ordinary” citizens from different countries; while the governments of “growing” powers like China and India feel a need to “sell” their countries overseas through state-run programs. While Americans are tiring of that American invention, government-directed public diplomacy, others in the world think it’s the way to go. What that all means in the future is not quite clear to me. Perhaps it doesn’t mean very much at all, and may have little, if anything, to do with the “losers-winners” games in international relations. There has been a temptation to overstress the impact of traditional public diplomacy — just as there’s been a tendency to dismiss it as worthless.
But I just find it ironic, as a historian, that many on the globe seem to be adopting what we Americans are dropping — public diplomacy, the term, and some of its governmental activities that seek to engage, inform, and influence key international audiences to promote a country overseas. Who’s right? The rest of our snall planet or ourselves? Time may tell.
***
(1) Such criticisms also resulted, ironically enough, in public diplomacy — due to its being highlighted in the media and official/semi-official reports — becoming part of the general vocabulary in the U.S.; it is now being used in ways that go beyond Gullion’s original definition, which suggests that no one quite knows what public diplomacy is in the first place, even if it is a commonly used term, at least among the media, think tanks, academe and NGOs
(2) The use of capital letters for “Public Diplomacy” suggests that Marshall was, according to McHale, the best implementator in history of this imperfect craft. Never mind that the term had not yet been coined when Marshall was Secretary of State, 1947-48. It should also be noted that, before innovative artistic programs eventually became a part of public diplomacy during the Cold War, Secretary Marshall, according to The New Yorker’s Louis Menand, had “announced that no taxpayer money would be spent on modern art …, and the State Department issued a directive that no artist suspected of being a Communist or fellow-traveler could be exhibited at government expense.”
(3) See also the 2004 article by Barry Zorthian, “Public Diplomacy Is Not the Answer,” posted at publicdiplomacy.org. Zorthian is a former senior foreign service officer who was in charge of the communications effort in Saigon for four a half years during the Vietnam War.

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Okinawa antibase governor Hirokazu Nakaima reelected

Along for the Ride Paris Deauville

After my trip to New York, I headed over to Paris to meet my bff, Lin Stranberg, a writer who lives in Toronto. While I was in New York, Lin was in Normandy spending time with friends, who had graciously lent us their pied-a-terre in Paris, a duplex they occasionally rent by the week. These slides tell the story of a whirlwind week seeing art, visiting friends, eating and shopping. Lin has included a few slides of a gem of a hotel she discovered in Deauville.
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There’s nothing quite like the rooftops and the steely skies of Paris in the fall. While I was making my way to the French capital from New York, Lin was hanging out in Deauville.
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This post was written on 11/07/10.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The Lone Ranger Danger

Seemingly exhausted from the 2010 election, Americans are nonetheless poised to jump on the 2012 presidential election treadmill. Polls comparing potential Republican candidates against each other and President Obama are emerging. Critics and supporters of both the president and his rivals for power are warming up and, in some cases, already hard at it.
It seems curious for a country that regularly criticizes the leaders it has to be so obsessed with picking new ones. We’re like the gambler who rails against his bad luck as he tosses the next chip on the table. This is not new. For all of our history, we’ve denounced the sitting president and focused on who we’d “honor” next. Washington couldn’t wait to step down, writing to Jefferson that “every action of my administration would be tortured … in such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be applied to a Nero; a notorious defaulter; or even to a common pickpocket….” But Washington may have had it easy, compared to modern presidents, subjected as they are to the 24/7 news cycle, the viral power of the Internet, and a population that is politically mobilized and flush with political resources as well as the time to use them.
Maybe our presidential leadership marathons of enchantment followed by disillusion are telling us something. America was, after all, founded on the distrust of leaders. We want our leaders to run the country – as long as they don’t try to run us. We threw out a king, avoided a strong central government with a singular head as long as we could, and even then struggled over what to call him, settling finally on the innocuous (and power-averse) salutation of “Mr. President”.
The founders of this nation were not enamored of leadership. In their world – and the history they drew upon – leaders were to be feared. They were those who abused power, often for life (King George III) or until overthrown or exiled ((Napoleon). The best “leader” to them was Cincinnatus, the humble Roman citizen who took power at the behest of his country and relinquished it to go back to the farm as soon as possible.
This historical experience may explain, in part, why in America anyone in a leadership position is fair game. We regularly bring down not just presidents but lesser political leaders (Nancy Pelosi can relate to this) and corporate titans too. It’s in our “civic DNA” to suspect and criticize leaders even as we yearn for them. No sooner do they get to the top than our innate fear of them kicks in.
Even if we could find a leader who has it all, however, our love/hate relationship with leaders may be telling us that we should not be looking for that. The “great man or great woman” model of leadership has serious flaws.
At least at the national level, our problems and possibilities are too many and too complex for one human being to understand and address. Can any president actually handle the myriad domestic and foreign issues that beset American today? Leadership in a republic demands something other than a “Lone Ranger” on a white horse. Remember, he only stayed at the top by hiding who he was and riding out of town as soon as he could claim any success.
What we need is not THE leader but leaders who foster active citizenship from millions of others. We need people who stimulate the creativity, energy and civic dedication of the multitudes, not people who drain it by being magnets that draw attention to their own deeds. Still further, when we focus on THE leader, we relinquish much of our own responsibility to bring about the changes we need in our society and ourselves. We need leaders who step back and make us do more of the work. As the Lone Ranger rode off into the sunset, he left it to the town – as he should – to deal with the future, trusting that they were up to it.
So before we engage in the 2012 leadership sweepstakes, perhaps we should give new thought to the qualities we seek in the next president. The charismatic, media savvy, photogenic, rousing speechmaker and overpromising candidate who acts like he or she can lead the country through the force of ideas and talents is not what we should be seeking. Before throwing our passions, our money, and our energy into searching for the president who will take charge and fix us, maybe we should ask what kind of leadership would really be good for an America that must take on more of the responsibility to fix itself.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Chinas Politburo Ordered Hack of Google Wikileaks Reveals

The Chinese government, which has been thought for some time to have been the source of the hacking of Google’s servers, leading to Google’s departure from China, was directed by China’s Politburo, according to diplomatic cables disclosed today by Wikileaks.
The New York Times reports the role of the Chinese government in the Google attacks.
For an overview of the the role of the Chinese government this event, and in related activites, we spoke with Joseph Menn, a technology reporter for the Financial Times and author of the book Fatal System Error.
More on the Wikileaks report is up on TechCrunch.
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Washington Post Budget Hocus Pocus

Possibly the most amazing aspect of the Commission on Fiscal Responsibity’s drive to reduce the federal “deficit” are proposals by its chairs and others to cut benefits payable by Social Security, although the program pays its own way and has generated robust annual surpluses, now totaling $2.4 trillion and projected to reach $4.2 trillion. Those assets will enable Social Security to pay its promised benefits in full until 2037 and about 75% thereafter. Two measures that draw strong support in polls — extending the payroll tax to higher pay and slowly increasing the payroll tax rate (1/20th of 1 percent per year for 20 years is one version) — would fully fund the program for 75 years. The program’s own modest shortfall — about 27 years away — is easily fixed with these proposals that the public supports.
Moreover, Social Security does not and, indeed, cannot add to the federal deficit: It is permitted to pay benefits only to the extent it has funds on hand and is prohibited from borrowing. Nonetheless, the November 24 Washington Post presented summaries of three “bi-partisan plans to reduce the deficit” which propose multiple Social Security benefit reductions. The commission co-chairs propose to cut benefits for the top 50% of earners (which hits many with quite modest incomes) and to raise retirement age (another benefit cut); both benefit cuts and raising retirement age poll badly. And, despite assurances by reduction advocates that those already retired and nearing retirement would be spared, all three plans would soon trim the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) formula. Advocates claim that a new “chained” COLA would more accurately reflect price increases by taking account of consumer substitution of less costly items in the “basket” used to measure price changes; a favorite illustration is switching from meat to chicken.
Decades ago, a book entitled The Poor Pay More demonstrated that consumers in low-income areas have limited choices. Hence substitutions may occur more readily in some economists’ position papers than in local markets, often high-priced “convenience” stores. Moreover, the chained version does not take adequate account of the typically higher medical care costs of older people. Further, the COLA measures the percentage difference in prices between two years ago and last year; the resulting percentage usually lags behind the current year’s typically rising prices.
The usual “reform” analysis address costs but seldom considers what benefit reductions mean to retirees, their families and the economy. Deficit hawks seem oblivious to the fact that Social Security provides the largest portion of senior income. And, as people age, their work income, if any, gets progressively smaller and Social Security’s importance becomes commensurately larger. And with advancing age, older people do less for themselves and either pay for services they formerly performed or go without. After the meltdown of value in 401(k)s and IRAs, Social Security has become even more vital than in the past. Meanwhile, the implementation of already enacted higher retirement age means lowered benefits for each new group of retirees.
Despite all this, the Bowles-Simpson and bi-partisan formula is “cut, cut, cut.” They seem not to notice that curtailing Social Security recipient income translates into lost purchasing power that further translates into lost sales, that further translates into employee layoffs, that further translates into less purchasing power, snowballing into more and more lost sales revenues and jobs.
Another “bi-partisan” proposal would establish a Social Security/Medicare payroll tax holiday in 2011. That would increase the Social Security funding shortfall — a curious thing to do when the claimed justification for surgery on Social Security is to reduce the federal deficit, lower burdens on future taxpayers or to enable Social Security to meet its long-term obligations. Mark that for the “you-gotta-be-kidding” file.
To demonstrate willingness to impose “pain” broadly, Bowles-Simpson (some now call it the B-S plan) would eliminate the recipients of ALL “tax expenditures” (that is, tax breaks) with the home owners’ mortgage tax deduction at the head of their list. By focusing on that popular tax break, they practically insure that tax expenditures won’t be touched. File in the “you-can’t-be-serious” category.
Most informed observers agree that the budget-killer biggie is galloping health care cost increases besetting public programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP (Child Health Insurance Plans), and private medical care insurance. B-S proposes a non-mandatory cap on total Medicare outlays. If that doesn’t work, B-S proposes studying the matter. Where do they find the courage for such bold initiatives? File in the “this-goes-beyond-kidding” folder.
One of the “bi-partisan” proposals for Medicare would no longer reimburse patient outlays but would provide prospective patients with “vouchers” but without limiting what providers could charge. File with “solutions-that make things worse.”
One would not know from the Washington Post presentation that Democratic Representative Jan Schakowsky, a commission member, offered a comprehensive proposal that did not include benefit reductions, but would curb deficits by imposing limits on defense expenditures (a feature it shares with other plans) and initiate improvements in Social Security revenues that enjoy popular support. The Post presentation notes only that “More partisan efforts approach the problem differently.” Slip this into in the “very informative” folder.
In sum, major portions of the Washington Post’s “bi-partisan” proposals carry a fictitious label (that Social Security contributes to deficits) damaging, unnecessary and/or fruitless remedies and offer savings on tax expenditures that are so politically unpalatable as to practically insure rejection.
While unlikely, the commission might cobble together the votes for a plan of sorts. But, the slanted, incomplete Washington Post presentation does not hold much promise of realistically addressing the nation’s actual needs to cut flab rather than essentials.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The Peace List 10 Gift Ideas for the Peaceful

Giving is such a powerful thing. During the holidays, choosing gifts that serve a purpose, keep up with our ideals and respect environmental concerns are paramount. Here are some gifts I think you will find have the meaning or experience you are looking to give to others.
1. Inner Peace Boots: Finding leather-free shoes can be a challenge. I was ecstatic when I found these boots for winter. They are leather-free and even have a peace sign on them. They are very comfortable and are all about the peace.
2. David Garrett’s Rock Symphonies: My sixth-grade teacher, whom I have not spoken to since, well, the sixth grade but who is now a Facebook friend of mine, asked me if I had ever heard of David Garrett. I Googled him and was amazed at what I found. That began my fascination with David and his music. My favorite songs are “Teen Spirit” and the Michael Jackson medley.
3. Jai Seed Vegan eCookbook: My latest obsession is this cookbook. Rich Roll, a vegan and one of the fittest guys in the world, according to Men’s Fitness, has created, with his wife, one of the best vegan cookbooks for the modern family I have found. I absolutely love this book. You can send it as a gift via e-mail!
4. Tree of Life Blessing Dish: Love this blessing dish! I have it on my dresser. It is a catch-all for coins and jewelry, but more importantly, it is a reminder of tolerance and peace. It is handmade in the U.S., consists of recycled pewter and is covered with a brassy finish.
5. Organic Carrot Cake: Words cannot describe how good this cake is. It is probably the best dessert I have ever eaten. The recipe was a family one that was passed down over the years. Each one of these cakes is handmade in small batches. All ingredients are organic.
6. Gaiam Organic Cotton Comforter: We spend close to 1/3 of our lives in our beds, so shouldn’t they be a sanctuary? This comforter is the absolute best one I have found. It is just as snug as a down comforter but does not contain down. It contains wool raised from humanely raised sheep. The cotton is organic and has a 250-thread count. It is heaven, to say the least.
7. BPA-Free Tugboat : One of my challenges as a mother of a four- and six-year-old is finding my kids BPA-free bath toys. My concern is that most plastic bath toys are filled with BPA. This is the best bath toy I have found that is BPA-free. The kids love it!
8. Organic Jacket by Patagonia: I am in love with this jacket. It is organic cotton canvas lined with fleece made from 86-percent recycled content. It is such a warm coat. It comes in both men’s and women’s styles. I have actually been wearing the men’s version and loving it. I love that it is recyclable through the Common Threads Recycling Program.
9. Organic Dog Bed: Our dog, Bosco, sure is going to be happy this holiday season! He is getting his own organic cotton dog bed! This bed is made of very durable organic cotton, and the filling is made from recycled plastic bottles. Also, this bed is made in the U.S.!
10. KIVA: Kiva.org provides loans that change lives. Giving back is one of the best gifts you can ever give. Giving a gift from KIVA is like giving 10-fold, because the recipient gets to go online and empower an entrepreneur in need — halfway around the world — in turn empowering the world.
You can keep up with Sandy by signing up for her daily living tips, following her on Twitter or becoming a fan on Facebook.

Follow Sandy Henson Corso on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/peacefulsandy

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The Simple Story of How the Hornets Improved that Sports Illustrated Failed to Mention

Ian Thomsen – of Sports Illustrated – penned a 2,000+ word article on Chris Paul and the New Orleans Hornets for the latest issue of the magazine. In “The Tipping Point” Thomsen details why the Hornets are a contending team in 2010-11. Last season the Hornets only won 37 games and finished out of the playoffs. As of Sunday morning, the Hornets are 12-3 and only one game behind the San Antonio Spurs (the team with the best record in the NBA).
Thomsen’s story explains this transformation by focusing on all the changes the Hornets have made. The team has a new head coach and new general manager. And of the fifteen players who have taken the floor for the Hornets in 2010-11, only six players were with the team last year (and one of these just departed). With all these changes, one shouldn’t be surprised to see the outcome on the floor has changed.
The Numbers Story
When we look at the numbers, though, a somewhat different tale emerges. Let’s start with the Hornets offensive and defensive efficiency. Per 100 possessions, the Hornets are scoring 103.9 points while only allowing 98.1. The difference between these two efficiency marks is 5.9. Such a mark is consistent with a team that should have won about 10 games this year. In other words, the team has been a little bit lucky so far (by the way, a team’s efficiency differential is a better predictor of future wins than a team’s current won-loss record).
Although the Hornets have benefitted from some good luck, it is also true that the team is better than what we saw last year. We can see what happened by moving from efficiency differential to Wins Produced (a metric derived from efficiency differential that considers the individual player box score statistics and team defense numbers).
The following table reports two sets of Wins Produced numbers. The first indicates what the Hornets’ players have produced in 2010-11. The second set reveals what the Hornets’ would have produced had per-minute performance not changed from what we saw in 2009-10.
The difference between these two sets of numbers allows us to see clearly how the Hornets have improved. After fifteen games, the Hornets’ Wins Produced stands at 10.1, and 5.4 of these wins can be traced to the production of Chris Paul. Had the performance of these players not changed, though, this team would only have produced 7.0 wins (as of Sunday morning). And of these 3.1 additional victories, 2.0 can be traced to the improvement in the play of Paul. Yes, changes in the production offered by the team’s star explains much of what has happened to the Hornets.
Now how did Paul “improve”? Much of that story can be seen by looking back at the 2008-09 season. Two years ago Chris Paul was the most productive player in the NBA and the Hornets won 49 games. This season Paul is even better than what we saw in 2008-09. But not much better. Had Paul maintained what we saw two years ago he would currently have produced 4.9 wins (or about win less than what he has produced so far this year).
So last season Paul’s performance declined. And the likely explanation for this decline is the fact Paul was hurt last year and missed 37 games. This year Paul appears to be healthy. And not surprisingly, his performance has returned to what we saw two years ago.
All of this suggests that much of what we are seeing in New Orleans in 2010-11 is Chris Paul getting healthy. In other words, the big story in the Big Easy is not that the team made substantial changes to its roster and management team. No, most of what we are seeing can be explained by one star player getting healthy.
The Less Interesting Story
Now to be fair to Thomsen, he does mention Paul’s injury in the 15th paragraph of the story (on the third page of the three-page story in the magazine). But Thomsen never mentions the fact Paul – relative to last year – is getting more steals, assists, rebounds, scoring more points per shot from the field, getting to the free throw line more frequently, and hitting a higher percentage of his shots from the free throw line (and consequently, he has a higher Wins Produced, as well higher marks in other metrics like Win Shares and Player Efficiency Rating).
All of this is not to say that the changes to the team’s roster, management, and ability to play defense (team defense – as noted – is part of the Wins Produced calculation) don’t matter. But much of what is going on is simply Chris Paul improving upon what he did last year. And this improvement is never mentioned by Thomsen.
So I think Thomsen has missed a big part of this story. I also think this is fairly common. Reporters tend to focus on stories that are dramatic or “interesting”. Imagine Thomsen tried to cover this story from the perspective I think the numbers suggest. Here is how it would read.
Two years ago Chris Paul was amazing and the Hornets won 49 games. Last year Chris Paul was hurt and the Hornets missed the playoffs. So why are the Hornets contending this year? Well, Paul is now healthy.
There you have it. And what do you have. A story that consists of 38 words that has no chance of appearing in Sports Illustrated. These words undermine the entire 2,000-word tale Thomsen is telling. Thomsen wants people to focus on all the “interesting” changes the Hornets have made. But if the story is just “Paul got healthy”, then readers would see that those “interesting” changes to the roster and management team didn’t make much difference. More importantly, Thomsen’s editor would have seen those changes didn’t make much difference. And if that happened, Thomsen’s story wouldn’t have been in Sports Illustrated.
The Better Story
Perhaps a different story, though, would be worth telling. Essentially, all the changes Thomsen focuses upon are probably not enough to keep Chris Paul in New Orleans.
To see this point, let’s remember that a few years ago Kevin Garnett was the most productive player in the NBA. But his teammates in Minnesota were not that productive, and consequently, KG didn’t experience much team success. Currently the same “tragic” story is taking place in New Orleans. As noted, Chris Paul is the most productive player in the game. But his team – as the efficiency differential indicates – suggests the Hornets are not really title contenders. And so Paul’s team – like KG’s teams in Minnesota — may once again disappoint in the playoffs.
For that outcome to be different, the Hornets are going to need even more changes. Specifically, the Hornets need more production from someone else on the roster. Currently the second most productive player on the roster is Emeka Okafor (who Thomsen never mentions in his article). Although Okafor is above average (average WP48 — or Wins Produced per 48 minutes — is 0.100), he is not as productive as the top players on the NBA’s contenders. And after Okafor, the team doesn’t have any players who are able to move far beyond average (yes, David West is only slightly better than average).
Until the Hornets find more productive talent, Chris Paul is probably going to finish each season with a crushing defeat in the playoffs. And since his decision to ultimately leave will be made in a future summer – after one of these crushing defeats – the Hornets have not really solved the problem the team faced a few months ago. In other words, the big story in the Big Easy probably has yet to be told. Whether that story ends with a title coming to New Orleans or Chris Paul making a “LeBronesque or KGesque” move to greener pastures remains to be seen. What we have seen is that the problem this team faced last summer (i.e. Chris Paul is not happy with his team) is probably going to return if the Hornets do not find Paul some better teammates.

This Blogger’s Books from
The Wages of Wins: Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sport (Stanford Business Books)
by David Berri, Martin Schmidt, Stacey Brook
Stumbling On Wins: Two Economists Expose the Pitfalls on the Road to Victory in Professional Sports
by David J. Berri, Martin B. Schmidt

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

NATOs Mission Impossible Its Effects on the Afghan Partisan Movement and on US

“The most extravagant idea that can be born in the head of a political thinker is to believe that it suffices for people to enter, weapons in hand, among a foreign people and expect to have its laws and constitution embraced.
No one loves armed missionaries; the first lesson of nature and prudence is to repulse them as enemies.”
Thus spoke French Revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre in warning against foreign entanglements, though he soon succumbed to the pressure of his peers and the public: To ostensibly secure France’s borders, he moved to belligerently impose the ideas of the Revolution in foreign lands, and shortly after lost his head on the guillotine to cheers of the crowd he had coddled.
“In counterinsurgency,” noted Acting Director of U.S. National Intelligence David Gompert, “the population is not just the field of battle but the prize.” The problem with our mission in Afghanistan is that each passing day not only makes that prize more unattainable abroad but brings new risks at home.
The NATO-led mission in Afghanistan is now near parity with the Red Army’s top troop strength, and has already lasted as long as the doomed occupation during the 1980s that facilitated the collapse of the Soviet Empire. NATO’s recent decision to fight for four more years in a war that cannot be won, on behalf of an untrustworthy and unpopular government, in order to solve a problem that no longer really exists, is a stunning waste of lives, treasure and the goodwill of the world’s peoples on whom our own national security ultimately depends.
Still, the United States and its allies persist in pursuing what one soldier in the field described to me as “a crazy dream.” As a result, NATO’s already diminishing credibility and, more portentously, America’s already declining influence in the world, likely will degrade faster and further despite newer, more positive plans for NATO’s future program elsewhere.
“As we approach our 10th year of combat,” intoned President Obama, “we must never lose sight of what’s at stake:” to deny al Qaeda a safe haven by “building democracy” with the good cop tactic of social “reconciliation and reintegration” (which no Taliban group has yet accepted) and the bad cop strategy of military “containment and counterinsurgency” in a country already tormented by three decades of constant war. Truth be told, although the Taliban and al Qaeda have had an unsteady alliance of convenience, there were never any Afghans in al Qaeda, and there is no significant al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan today. The one incontrovertible fact is that over the last five years or so, the greater NATO’s footprint in the country, the more widespread and lethal the Taliban insurgency has become.
The recent revelation in Britain’s newspaper The Guardian, that some Afghan migrs from the UK and other Western countries regularly return to fight with the Taliban against perceived Western occupation of their homeland, signals that the Afghan insurgency has become a partisan movement of the Global Age. “I work as a minicab driver,” one London-based Taliban part-timer said,” I make good money. But these people are my friends and my family and it’s my duty to come to fight jihad with them.”
The name “partisan,” which probably stems from the resistance of the Parthian people to Roman occupation 2,100 years ago, was first systematically applied to Jewish “zealots” and other “terrorists” just after the time of Jesus. Jewish partisans carried out suicide missions to incite Roman retaliation against the civilian population and so increase popular support for the rebels’ cause. Beginning with the Spanish guerrilla war against Napoleon and on through WWII, “partisan” came to mean a member of any irregular force formed from a population to fight foreign control of their territory. The hallmark of any successful partisan movement is wide-ranging local involvement, most tellingly from “part-timers” — the “bakers and candlestick makers” who work for the occupiers by day and the insurgency by night. Partisan strength lies in the social network within which the insurgency is embedded: in the dense fabric of families and friends that now extends, courtesy of globalization’s easy movement and communication, to fellow travelers among immigrant and internet communities.
Among the London cabbie’s fighting circle in Afghanistan we find farmers, teenage madrasa students, local officials, European part-timers, and old timers fighting, they say, “because the foreigners are here”; 30 years before “they were called Russians, but they are the same, all kafirs (infidels).” A century ago, British Army missionary T.L. Pennell wrote in his classic, Among the Wild Tribes of the Afghan Frontier: “The Afghans are never at peace except when they are at war! For when some enemy from without threatens their independence, then, for the time being, are their feuds and jealousies thrown aside, and they fight shoulder to shoulder … all desirous of joining some jihad.”
Today, “Taliban” is an umbrella term for those who collectively hate the “foreign invader” enough to turn even traditional enemies into friends. Since 2005, when NATO began ratcheting up military involvement, Taliban ranks have swelled many fold and their influence has spread to nearly every part of the country. The Taliban coalition now extends to almost all segments of the population, including the Pashtun’s traditional rivals: Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazara and others.
In describing the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire, T.E. Lawrence wrote: “the idea of nationality was independence of clans and villages, and their ideal of national union was episodic combined resistance to the intruder…. They were fighting to get rid of empire, not to win it.” Although far inferior in treasure and arms, the insurgents would beat the enemy with “a highly mobile striking force of the smallest size” that would squirrel to death the enemy’s desire and ability to hold on to as much territory as possible: “his stupidity is our ally, for he would like to hold, or think he held as [many] provinces a possible.” NATO’s present “surge” strategy against a similar kind of enemy, initiated by the Obama administration’s decision to send an additional 30,000 troops to assist in “pacifying” as many Afghan provinces as possible, also does not shine with intelligence or effectiveness. 2010 is the bloodiest year yet of fighting, with insurgent attacks up by two-thirds over last year.
In a report released in August 2009, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee warned that the Obama administration “has raised the stakes by transforming the Afghan war from a limited intervention into a more ambitious and potentially risky counterinsurgency.” The incoming chief of the British Army, General Sir David Richards, cautioned that the proposed counterinsurgency and nation-building mission in Afghanistan (which now costs over a billion dollars per week) “could last up to 40 years.”
A century before, Lord Curzon, the former Viceroy of India who had established the North West Frontier Province as a buffer zone to keep the Afghan tribes at arm’s length, rose in Parliament as a member of the opposition to warn the new British government against prolonged military engagement: “we are dealing with an enemy habituated to every form and habit of guerilla warfare, even if [military action] attended with maximum success, no permanent results can be obtained;” and if Britain further attempted to occupy their homeland the whole region would be “ablaze from one end to the other [causing] an intolerable burden on finances.” In Afghanistan, the more things change, the more they remain the same.
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Weekend Box Office 112810 Tangled and Harry Potter 7 face off over crowded Thanksgiving Burlesque Faster Love and Other Drugs open soft

Like a combination of Thanksgiving holidays past, it was a combination of Harry Potter holding down the fort against all newcomers, while a Disney animated property broke out of the gate. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I still won the three-day and five-day weekend derby, but Disney’s Tangled had a smashing debut that set a record for a three-day opening weekend for a standard Disney cartoon (IE – not Pixar). The Disney fairy-tale scored $49 million over the Fri-Sun portion of the weekend and amassed a whopping $69 million since opening on Wednesday. Inflation and 3D price-bump aside (56% of ticket sales were for the 3D version), this best the $42 million opening of The Lion King way back in summer 1994 (which was one of the top-five opening weekends ever at the time). It’s also the second-largest Thanksgiving opening weekend in history, behind the $80 million five-day and $59 million three-day opening weekend of Toy Story 2 back in 1999 (that $57 million debut was the third-biggest ever at the time). The lesson here is a simple one: Disney REALLY should have opened The Princess and the Frog in wide release over Thanksgiving last year.
Considering that Disney’s most recent animated features (Meet the Robinsons, Bolt, The Princess and the Frog) had opening weekends of around $25 million, the opening sprint for Tangled is all the more impressive. I took issue earlier in the year with Disney’s marketing campaign, which tried to make the film look less like a princess empowerment adventure and more like a boy-friendly action picture involving a roguish thief who sweeps Rapunzel off of her feet, but something obviously worked. I don’t have age or gender demo stats yet, but the film scored a very rare ‘A+’ from Cinemascore. That’s genuinely refreshing as A) the film is pretty darn good and B) it is indeed a ‘chick flick’ false advertising be damned.
I still contend that part of the success was about the release date, as Disney was in a better position to treat their 50th cartoon as a prime attraction of the holiday season. They shot themselves in the foot last year, opening A Christmas Carol at the beginning of November, thus causing them to put off the wide opening of The Princess and the Frog until December 12th. Frankly, most of the press attention for The Princess and the Frog occurred on Thanksgiving weekend, when the film was playing in just four theaters. By the time the film went wide, everyone was talking about Avatar.
Tangled opened on Wednesday with $11 million, giving the film a solid 6x five-day weekend multiplier. The legs on this picture are going to be about as long as Rapunzel’s hair (sorry…), and it has a solid chance of becoming Disney’s first traditional cartoon to cross $200 million since The Lion King. And yes, the film looks gorgeous in 2D, so the eventual loss of 3D theaters to The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Yogi Bear, and Disney’s Tron: Legacy shouldn’t be too much of an issue. With numbers like this, I seriously doubt that this is the last we see of the princess/fairy tale genre from the Mouse House.
The actual number-one film of the long weekend was still Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I, which scored another $76.5 million over the long weekend. With $50.3 million of that coming from the Fri-Sun portion (a reasonable for Harry Potter 59% drop), the film scored the second-biggest Thanksgiving holiday weekend ever, behind Toy Story 2 ($80 million), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ($81 million), and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ($82 million). At ten days, the seventh Harry Potter picture has amassed $220.4 million, which makes it (so far) the fastest-grossing Harry Potter film yet (the sixth picture had $222 million in twelve days). While the film still trails the 10-day total of Twilight: New Moon ($230 million), it has already begun to outpace the Twilight sequel on a day-to-day basis. That’s not to say that the film will make it much farther than the $302 million earned by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but it’s not going to completely collapse either, which was the fear following its severely front-loaded opening weekend.
The three remaining wide-openers had middling-to-weak debuts. Burlesque, a musical variation on All About Eve/Showgirls opened with $11.8 million over the Fri-Sun weekend and $17.2 million since opening on Wednesday. It’s not a terrible number, and it’s about in line with low-end expectations, but the Christina Aguilera/Cher melodrama cost $55 million to make (does Stanley Tucci get $20 million a picture now?), so this soft opening means that the film has to play overseas to avoid financial failure. This was an oddly costly project for the usually cheap Screen Gems, and as such will be the rare commercial misfire. Love and Other Drugs inexplicably opened on Thanksgiving weekend and paid dearly for it. The $30 million would-be Oscar bait Ed Zwick romantic dramady (starring Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal) opened with just $9.6 million over three days and $14 million over five. Fox sold this one pretty hard, with much free press regarding Hathaway’s plentiful nudity while carefully hiding the fact that she plays someone afflicted with Parkinson’s. It’s not a terrible opening, but surely the film would have been better served going out wide next weekend, with a single new wide release (The Warrior’s Way) rather than trying to be a date night/girl’s night out option on a family-centered holiday weekend. The film scored only 42% on Rotten Tomatoes and B- from Cinemascore, so prospects are pretty grim unless Anne Hathaway gets that much sought-after Oscar nomination
There has been an unofficial tradition of releasing lower-budget action pictures as counter-programming over the holiday (Ninja Assassin, Hitman, etc), and this year’s entry was Dyawne Johnson’s Faster. Sold as both a lean and mean R-rated action picture and The Rock’s return to pure action after spending his time making family entertainment like The Game Plan and The Tooth Fairy, the surprisingly thoughtful little movie opened with just $8.7 million over three days and $12 million over five. To be fair, in a crowded weekend such as this, Faster was all but guaranteed to get the smallest auditoriums amongst new releases, and CBS Films hasn’t exactly been a marketing powerhouse. Budgeted at just $24 million, the George Tillman Jr. picture should squeak to around $25 million and have a healthy life as a rental and/or cable curiosity.
There were two limited release openings, and they were a study in contrast. The King’s Speech opened on just four screens, and ended up with a stunning $87,000 per-screen average (the 17th-biggest ever and the 4th-biggest for four or more theaters). The Colin Firth vehicle/Oscar front-runner will expand over the next couple weeks. The last new release was The Nutcracker 3D, a Freestyle release that spawned some funny (and somewhat unfair) pans this weekend. The revisionist Nutcracker musical, which cast the classic ballet as a Holocaust parable set in 1920s Vienna, debuted on 42 screens and grossed just $68,000 three-day and $89,000 five day take. That’s a miserable $1,600 per-screen average. This one is supposed to go wide next weekend, so we’ll see if that actually happens. There has been talk that the picture (filmed in 2007 and held back for a mediocre 3D conversion) cost around $90 million. If that’s true, then this could be one of the biggest money losers in cinema history.
For holdover box office and a peak at next weekend, rest the rest of this article at Mendelson’s Memos.

Follow Scott Mendelson on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Wikileaks release of embassy cables reveals US concerns

Whistle-blowing website Wikileaks has released 250,000 secret messages sent by US embassies which give an insight into current American global concerns.
They include reports of Arab states – including the king of Saudi Arabia – urging the US to attack Iran and end its nuclear weapons programme.
Other concerns include the security of Pakistani nuclear material that could be used to make an atomic weapon.
The widespread use of hacking by the Chinese government is also reported.
The US government has condemned the release of state department documents.
The fact that the Saudis, Jordanians and others are deeply suspicious about Iran's intentions is well known. What has not been known until now is how strongly they have been pressing for American military action.
The leaks do not tell the Iranians anything they did not suspect, or perhaps have already picked up themselves.
But they will sharpen the debate over Iran's nuclear plans, and about the chances of military action by the Americans – or the Israelis.
The leaks are deeply embarrassing for the Americans, and will infuriate Arab leaders whose remarks have been quoted.
“President Obama supports responsible, accountable, and open government at home and around the world, but this reckless and dangerous action runs counter to that goal,” a White House statement said.
“We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorised disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information.
The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, says the US authorities are afraid of being held to account.
Earlier, Wikileaks said it had come under attack from a computer-hacking operation.
“We are currently under a mass distributed denial of service attack,” it reported on its Twitter feed.
No-one has been charged with passing the diplomatic files to the website but suspicion has fallen on US Army private Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst arrested in Iraq in June and charged over an earlier leak of classified US documents to Mr Assange's organisation.
Wikileaks argues that the site's previous releases shed light on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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Source:BBC

Alzheimers 10000 Joys and 10000 Sorrows an Interview with Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle

I had the privilege to spend some time recently with Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle, the author of ’10,000 Joys & 10,000 Sorrows: A Couple’s Journey Through Alzheimer’s’. Olivia’s book has been at the top of my recommended readings for anyone interested in an alternative approach to Alzheimer’s care, that includes mindfulness. What makes Olivia and her husband Hob’s journey so remarkable is the fact that they both used their long-time mindfulness practice to transform the way they lived with the illness.
I asked Olivia about the key lesson she learned from her experience:
How would you translate the lessons you learned for non-Buddhists?
I talked with Olivia about my work with Dr. Allen Power, and Nader Shabahangi, developing a new type of mindfulness-based training program for care partners of persons with a dementia diagnosis. We discussed the reductive language – terms such as dementia, caregivers . . . , and the current medical model that are being used to approach dementia care:
Our medical system is so oriented to pathology, that all they want is to find a diagnosis and to label you, and then everybody relates to the label and not to the person. I have such strong feelings about this. This is why I didn’t want to read a whole bunch of books about this, because I did not want to be walking around with everybody else’s context about it. I wanted to greet it as it came, as an experience, and not label it. About three months before he died, my husband said something that struck me: “They call it Alzheimer’s, but I don’t call it anything.” When you live in the world of pathology everything follows from that. You see the dark side. You see the demons more than what the person still has. It is a cascade of aftereffects.
Last, I asked Olivia for what she would like to see included in a care partner training such as a the one we are putting together:
I would hope that the training would cover some of the things that we have been talking about, like not locking people into the box called Alzheimer’s, exercising abilities they still have, appreciating the littlest things they can do. I would love for people to be trained in some kind of meditative practice within their own tradition, that would teach them about the preciousness of presence. It is such a gift to be present to somebody when everything is so unpredictable around them. I think you have to have some kind of contemplative side to stay calm and centered, and caring, and steady amidst uncertainty. I would also include being humble, not knowing what is going on for somebody whose mind has been so taken over by this illness. I feel there is a consciousness beyond the mind. I can hardly find the words for it. There is so much we don’t know and and need to be open to instead of assuming things.
Much wisdom to ponder here . . . Thank you, Olivia!

Follow Marguerite Manteau-Rao on Twitter:
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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

The GOP Strategy to Defeat Obama

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) the Senate Minority Leader has set the goal publicly: The top priority of the GOP in the 112th Congress is to deny President Obama a second term.
The first phase of the strategy is to inflict political defeats on the president during the “lame duck” session on issues such as New START, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), taxes and job creation.
New START: Consider this scenario. Sen. John Kyl (R-AZ), McConnell’s henchman on the issue, has refused to allow a vote on the treaty under the arcane rules of the senate. He insists that he must have a deal on modernizing the U.S. nuclear complex – an issue ignored by the GOP during the last administration. He now insists that funding must not only be in the President’s budget but approved by congress before going ahead with New START.
The treaty would have to begin the Senate Approval process again with any vote delayed until nuclear complex funding was locked in. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Kyl and others have said they want to change the treaty in ways that will require renegotiation with the Russians. The Russians, rightly questioning the seriousness and reliability of the American political process, will refuse and Kyl will then portray the president as weak and ineffective. The President’s “reset” policy will be declared dead as Russia pulls back from cooperating with the U.S. on Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan. In the absence of the New START verification regime, conservative think tanks and politicians will “discover” secret Russian strategic nuclear programs and will demand a U.S. response. The President and Democratic senators up for reelection in 2012 will be castigated as weak on defense and unpatriotic if they do not go along.
How should President Obama respond to this cynical strategy? First, if New Start is not voted on during the “lame duck” session, the President should call a special session of Congress between Christmas and midnight January 2 when the 111th Congress expires to deal with it. Second, President Obama and senior Senate Democrats should tell Kyl and the GOP that the additional $4.1billion for nuclear complex modernization is off the table if New Start is not approved this year.
DADT:The GOP is following a similar strategy of preventing a vote on DADT in the Senate version of the FY2011 Defense Authorization Bill. Sen. McCain (R-AZ), McConnell’s henchman on this issue, wants to stop inclusion of DADT in the bill so as to alienate President Obama from his liberal supporters and show him as ineffective in fulfilling a major campaign pledge. McCain has shown his lack of conviction by first asking for a vote to wait on a Pentagon study and, when the study appeared to be supporting repeal, by denouncing it as flawed. Would that he head the character and convictions of his wife.
Again, President Obama has a counter. He should arrange with the Majority leadership to make sure any Defense Authorization Bill is timed to come to his desk so he can exercise a pocket veto and require a special session of Congress between the holidays.
There are certainly similar strategies with appointed henchmen to deal with extending the tax cuts and other issues. A clear objective is to stop any Congressional action that could speed the recovery and give President Obama and the nation a victory. Why not? The strategy of delay and denial was used to slow health care reform and, if successful in the “lame duck” session, is sure to be used in the next Congress.
President Obama cannot afford to have the GOP strategy succeed in the “lame duck: session. He must use every one of his considerable presidential powers and communication skills to expose and thwart the cynical GOP strategy. He must be clear that the GOP is not interested in compromise. Their only interest is in negotiating the terms of presidential surrender.
The GOP goal and strategy are clear. The good of the country is in as grave danger as the Obama presidency. No more false negotiations. It is time to do battle.
###

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

New Prevention Advances Can We Now Imagine a World Without AIDS

Last week, UNAIDS announced that at least 56 countries have stable or declining incidence of HIV/AIDS. Yet on World AIDS Day this week, there are still two new infections for every person put on antiretroviral therapy. However, a series of promising new scientific results in prevention, including three breakthrough trials in just 16 months, offer the first glimmer of hope that we may finally be able to achieve the “three zeros” — zero new infections, zero stigma/discrimination and zero AIDS deaths.
Start with male circumcision, which studies in Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda have shown to reduce HIV acquisition by up to 60%. Funders such as the U.S. government, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and several African countries are seizing on these findings — and WHO’s and UNAIDS’ conclusion that “the efficacy of male circumcision … has now been proven beyond reasonable doubt” — to promote male circumcision actively as part of overall prevention efforts.
Meanwhile, last year’s release of the RV144 trial in Thailand, which provided the first evidence of the effectiveness of any vaccine in preventing HIV infection, and the discovery of new broadly neutralizing antibodies have renewed hope in the promise of HIV vaccines in the 21st century.
But perhaps the greatest excitement centers on Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), involving preventive use of antiretroviral drugs already proven in HIV/AIDS treatment. PrEP offers women in particular a prevention strategy for dealing with partners who refuse or are unable to use condoms or whose faithfulness is in question.
The scene was electric in Vienna, Austria, last July when the Centre for the AIDS Programme of Research in South Africa (CAPRISA) – with FHI and CONRAD as collaborating partners – announced that a form of topical PrEP, a vaginal gel containing the antiretroviral agent tenofovir, had been shown to reduce acquisition of HIV infection in women by 39% and of herpes by 51%. An even greater rate of protection — up to 54% — was recorded among women able to adhere to the trial regimen.
This CAPRISA 004 trial was the first to show a statistically significant result through use of topical gels — and subsequent mathematical modeling suggests that tenofovir gel could prevent 1.3 million HIV infections and 800,000 deaths over two decades in South Africa alone.
Next year, the International Partnership for Microbicides will initiate two trials to test another form of topical PrEP, a vaginal ring containing a new antiretroviral drug, dapivirine. In addition, CONRAD recently obtained funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to develop rings containing tenofovir and a contraceptive.
Oral PrEP is also being investigated. Last week, initial results from the IPrEx trial, led by the University of California at San Francisco with funding from the U.S. National Institutes for Health (NIH) and the Gates Foundation, indicated that a once-daily oral dose of Truvada (tenofovir/emtricitabine) is 44% effective in preventing HIV infection in high-risk men who have sex with men (MSM). As in CAPRISA 004, men who best adhered to the regimen achieved even higher levels of protection.
Results are expected in 2012 from the FEM PrEP trial oral prep trial led by FHI and funded by USAID testing Truvada and in 2013 from the Partners PreEP trial of Truvada and Viread, led by the University of Washington with funding from Gates. The VOICE (Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic) trial funded by NIH, brings the topical/oral PrEP field together by comparing the effectiveness and practicality of both Viread and Truvada pills and tenofovir gel.
All in all, HIV prevention is on a roll. But major scientific and practical challenges lie ahead. Further PrEP studies are required to validate effectiveness, establish dosage, determine long-term safety, assess impact on sexual behavior and evaluate any effect on HIV drug resistance. But in these days of economic challenges, lack of money for trials is already threatening to slow follow-up research on the CAPRISA 004 and IPrEx successes.
Other practical issues need to be addressed as well once these products are ready for the market. Cultural, marketing and logistical barriers must be overcome to increase demand and, since avoiding development of drug resistance requires PrEP to be used only by people known to be free of HIV, we will need to expand access to education and testing and implement protocols to avoid sharing and theft of prophylactic treatments.
Because the science is so promising, we urge everyone — from scientists to policymakers to the public — to use World AIDS Day Dec. 1 as a catalyst to build on these advances by mobilizing communities to embrace HIV prevention as a social norm and advocate for the funding required for the next round of research. Much work remains to be done, but by building support for these critical next steps, we can also build hope for a future World AIDS Day free of AIDS.
See the Global Health Council Position Paper on HIV/AIDS.

Follow Jeffrey L. Sturchio on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/globalhealthorg

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Life After 50 A Look at Whos Who in the Over 50 Club PHOTOS

Turning 50 is an interesting milestone for most people. We all have different reactions when we reach this new decade. When I hit 50, I was confused, overwhelmed and a bit nervous about what it meant, mostly because it happened so quickly. Realizing that I needed some guidance, I went to some of the best experts in the world, to get their advice, much of which is included in “The Best of Everything After 50.”
While writing the book, I did a little a research about the “after-50″ market. I had a lot of questions, but I also wanted to know more about the demographic I was about to enter. Turns out, I’m part of a pretty big club, and it’s growing every year. A few facts:
Every seven seconds someone in the U.S. turns 50.
Fifty percent of all consumer spending is by people over 50.
Almost half the U.S. population will be over 50 by 2015.
Even more entertaining, though, was the list of American icons who are in the club with me. (We’re getting George Clooney’s membership card ready; he’ll be inducted next May.)
Here are just a few members of the “Life After 50 Club.” Some have been in the club for several years (like me), and others are newbies. Take a look. I think you’ll feel pretty good about the company you’ll keep once you join.
PHOTOS:
Madonna
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Recognized as the world’s top-selling female recording artist of all time, Madonna defined the sound and the look of the 80s and 90s, and continues to reinvent herself, even in her 50s.
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The Best of Everything After 50: The Experts’ Guide to Style, Sex, Health, Money, and More
by Barbara Hannah Grufferman

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Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

How to Recover from a Shellacking

“President Obama — who admitted to getting a “shellacking” from Republicans in the midterm elections — took an elbow to the mouth while playing basketball yesterday morning with a group of family and friends in town for Thanksgiving,” reported the New York Post yesterday. That isn’t the only media outlet calling the president’s fat lip a metaphor for the president’s post-midterm state. “Many a fighter can throw punches, but to be successful in the ring, he must be able to take them as well. The boxer’s greatest test is not taken while standing on the canvas, but in getting off it,” says J.T. Young at Human Events. But how can Obama get back on track now that he’s been bruised?
Change the message: “Even after the ‘shellacking’ he took in the midterms, Obama is still trying to compromise, to better explain his positions, to appeal to reason,” says The Chicago Tribune’s John McCarron. “It’s as if he didn’t hear House Speaker-apparent John Boehner, R-Ohio, declare that the No. 1 mission of his GOP majority will be to make sure Obama is not re-elected. Like a whipped puppy to a cruel owner, this president keeps coming back, hoping for a different response.” Let’s hear some “outrage” for a change.
Stick to the current plan: Bill Clinton got through similar times in 1994 with patience. “Take your time; focus relentlessly on the economy; offer to cooperate with Republicans where you can, but draw clear lines when you cannot; and admit your own mistakes,” says the Los Angeles Times’ Doyle McManus. Looking ahead, Obama will try to “frame a new agenda around job creation — now that his initial approach, the $787 billion stimulus plan passed in 2009, has run out of gas.”
Force some compromise in the name of progress: He says “he is ready and willing to hear the Republicans’ ideas for dealing with jobs, taxes, energy and even nuclear weapons control,” writes The Washington Post’s David Broder. “Suppose there is a chance that he is serious” and that “he has reverted to his original philosophy of governing.” He wants to get the START treaty ratified and Bush tax cuts resolved. Republicans can test “Obama’s sincerity” by meeting with him in hopes of reaching a compromise. “Trust but verify. A good Republican approach.”
Reports of Obama’s “political death” are premature: Sure, he needs to focus on jobs, but “there are in fact several reasons for Obama’s supporters to be hopeful,” says Richard Wolffe in the Los Angeles Times. “The stock market, a central indicator of investor confidence, has regained most of the ground it lost since the financial meltdown of 2008. Growth has returned and employment is inching upward. Over the next two years, there is plenty of time for that growth and employment to accelerate.” There’s already reason for optimism.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

US Should Avoid Benign Neglect of Central Europe

BUDAPEST — Here and there in downtown Budapest, the bullet holes remain. It was more than a half-century ago when Hungarian freedom fighters dared to take to the streets and do battle with the Soviet Union. Expecting help – apparently promised, but never delivered – from the United States, the Hungarians were quickly outmatched and paid a terrible price at the hands of the Soviet military.
They endured Soviet control for more than 30 additional years, when communism finally collapsed and a new Hungary was born. Its path has not been easy. Democracy and a free-market economy require careful nurturing (and a generous allotment of good luck). Hungary’s progress has sometimes been inconsistent, but it keeps moving forward.
Much the same can be said about other major players in Central Europe – Poland, the Czech Republic, and other nations that emerged from Soviet domination determined to shape their own destinies. Despite difficulties they all have encountered, these countries share hopefulness about their future.
Hungary and most of the other states known during the Cold War as “the captive nations” have, with varying degrees of enthusiasm and effectiveness, developed democratic institutions. Their economies have recently suffered along with those of most of the world’s other nations, but there is good cause for optimism about their future.
These countries also share strategic importance. Although the United States is fixated on China, the Middle East, and places where it is engaged in combat, the long-term significance of Central Europe should not be overlooked. Don’t forget the giant bear that lives just to the east. Russia might no longer preside over an “evil empire,” but its military capacity and economic power remain formidable, and its intentions toward the West are not always benign.
American policy makers should remember that no one has ever benefited from trusting Russia. Central Europe learned this painfully, and while the United States must continue to deal as amicably as possible with Russia, vigilance must never lessen. As an adjunct to this, the Central European countries, with their friendly attitudes toward the United States, should not be neglected.
These important friendships can be enhanced through public diplomacy. Lots of good things are happening. Energetic and thoughtful U.S. ambassadors, such as Eleni Tsakopoulos Kounalakis in Hungary, provide upbeat American representation that the Central Europeans appreciate. But in conversations here with Hungarian officials and scholars, I found a desire for an even closer and more free-flowing bilateral relationship. An example: as in most of the rest of the world, the once popular American libraries, where films, cultural programs, and other U.S. offerings were easily accessed by the general public, have fallen prey to post-9/11 security and budget concerns and have been replaced by “American corners” at some universities. Safer and cheaper? Yes. Useful? Only in a much diminished way. New media tools provide virtual supplements to these ventures, but something significant is lacking without an on-the-ground, highly visible presence.
Hungarians are also eager for another kind of presence – a visit from President Barack Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Such a visit would, in the eyes of Hungarians with whom I spoke, help validate all that they have strived for during the past 20 years.
Any such pomp must be accompanied by the unending hard work of maintaining and strengthening relationships with Hungary and other Central European states. Without doubt, America has friends in this region. The task at hand is to remember the importance of these friendships and ensure their continued vitality.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Dont Taze My Junk Bro

One thing you can say about this whole TSA enhanced pat down mess: nobody will ever board Virgin Airlines again without ruefully grimacing. Folks are flipping out like wolverines bouncing off of submarine trampolines over new regulations requiring a prospective flier to submit to having his or her naughty bits exposed for all the world to see, or else agree to a groinal groping that would have our ancestors’ fathers brandishing shotguns outside of rural chapels or contemporary school children showing Federal Marshalls on the doll where the nasty agent put his hands. “Bad touch. BAD TOUCH!”
Most troublesome is not the compelling of passengers to slide into second base with complete strangers but rather the suspicion these decisions are being made on the fly with little forethought. Flight crews are subjected to the same sub rosa muggings. Face it, you and I, we don’t know nothing, but even we can figure out pilots don’t need explosives up their butt to bring down an aircraft when a second double bourbon at the airport bar will suffice.
Equal representation under the glove would also be nice. VIPs are exempt from screening, but nobody will divulge who qualifies as a VIP. That’s classified. Isn’t everything? We’re in the thick of classified creep. How long before it’s illegal for civilians to videotape pat downs due to “national security;” the federal equivalent of “Because I said so, that’s why.” Not to mention arresting so- called comedians for talking trash. “Don’t taze my junk, bro.”
The recent bleating from the front lines of the security wars is an indication the natives are restless. Business travelers have tired of securing our safety through their captive inconvenience. Then again, 50% of the people experiencing the procedure are in favor of it. Must be part of that large segment of society that enjoys having their inner thighs pawed and genitals, butts and breasts felt up. Me, not so much. I’ve had less intimate fifth dates.
The flying experience is in the throes of a death spiral, from the evaporation of our nuts and pillows and checked baggage to shedding shoes and surrendering fluids and providing peeks under our underwear to being frisked like common criminals. Where does it stop? What happens when some flippo- unit tries to blow something up with zipper shaped plastique? Will only the Amish fly? A single button bomb could result in us all wearing robes and then the terrorists do win.
How soon before we add body cavity searches to the casual molestations in our pre flight check- lists? Precipitating few outcries even when the airlines try to make some extra coin by piggy backing prostate exams. In the meantime, we fly the overly friendly skies and do whatever they want of us cattle and sheep: bend and cough and walk a little funny and act like nothing happened. More static and drool.
In the meantime, just direct me to whichever TSA screener didn’t volunteer for the job. And no ex- priests if you please. I might even wriggle and giggle and blush and bloom and slip the man attached to the blue rubber glove a card. Hey, they’re intent on creeping us out, why not return the favor? One last question: are we supposed to tip, or only if there’s a happy ending? Least they could do is provide a well- ventilated room for a post encounter cigarette.
Will Durst is a San Francisco based humor columnist who frequently tells jokes. Out loud. On stage. In front of people. Ideally.
Catch an example at DC’s Funniest Celebrity at the DC Improv, December 2, and Rancho Nicasio on Sunday, the 5.
His new CD, “Raging Moderate,” now available from Stand Up! Records on iTunes and Amazon.
Early next year: “Where the Rogue Things Go!” From Ulysses Press.

Follow Will Durst on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/willdurst

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

NFL Week 12 Tweet Dreams The Thankful Edition

Hypothetical tweets from real NFL figures!
@LanceMoore16 We’re thankful Roy Williams plays for the Cowboys. #thanksgivingturkey
@A_Cromartie31 (Antonio Cromartie) Rex Ryan is thankful we played Thanksgiving Day so that he could say no when Macy’s asked him to be a balloon in their parade. #fullofhotair
@davediehl66 Brandon Jacobs is thankful for Ahmad Bradshaw’s fumbleitis. #helmettossforgotten
@cutondime (LeSean McCoy) Andy Reid is thankful for Rex Ryan so that Andy’s not the heaviest NFL coach any more. #weightwatchers
@LFletcher59 (London Fletcher) Donovan McNabb is thankful that owner Dan Snyder believes any problem can be solved by throwing $75 Mil at it. #iscashokay
@bmac929 (Bryan McCann) Our team is thankful the Detroit Lions and New York Giants exist. #solongwade
@JaredAllen69 Brad Childress is thankful that he finally has time to realize his lifelong dream of starting an airport limo service. #notpickingupfavreagain
@AaronRodgers12 I’m thankful the Packers had the good sense to cut Brett Favre loose when they did. #timingiseverything
@LouisD_26 (Louis Delmas) Alphonso Smith is thankful we don’t play the Patriots again for four years. #toast
@JayCutler6 I’m thankful Todd Collins is my backup. #jobsecurity
@TonyGonzalez88 We’re thankful Roddy White decided to grow up. #deepthreat
@stylezwhite We’re thankful that other teams still don’t respect us. #blountinstrument
@TSutt22 (Tyrell Sutton) We’re thankful that we’re not on national TV more often. #closeyoureyes
@kerryrhodes Derek Anderson is thankful Matt Leinart was cut during training camp. #stilllookingoverhisshoulder
@NateClements Mike Singletary is thankful that Josh McDaniels didn’t look at the videotape of our walkthrough. #mightexplainthevictory
@sj39 (Steven Jackson) I’m thankful that I’m still in one piece. #itsamiracle
@BDR76 (Russell Okung) We’re thankful that Mike Williams thinks he’s back in college. #flashback
@StevieJohnson13 I’m thankful that Ryan Fitzpatrick is our quarterback instead of Trent Edwards. #smartguy
@Kold91 (Cameron Wake) Tony Sparano is thankful we have only two quarterbacks named Chad on our roster. #danglingchads
@DMcCourty32 (Devin McCourty) Tom Brady is thankful that Deion Branch is back. #randywho
@MikeThomasJAX I’m thankful for Hail Mary. #fullofgrace
@Tweez41 (Antoine Bethea) Peyton Manning is thankful for Reggie Wayne, Pierre Garcon, and Jacob Tamme. #onlyhealthyreceiversleft
@DerrickWard32 Our team is thankful Gary Kubiak will be fired soon. #donttalktomeaboutplayoffs
@VinceYoung10 Jeff Fisher is thankful my hand is injured. #doesntstophimfromtexting
@mvp86hinesward Ben Roethlisberger is thankful for Georgia law enforcement. #canitakeapicturewithyou
@QBComa92 (Shaun Rogers) Jake Delhomme is thankful for Derek Anderson so that people don’t think Jake is the worst starting quarterback in the league. #notsayingmuch
@terrellowens I’m thankful the season is almost over. #lookinthemirror
@raylewis52com I’m thankful for Georgia law enforcement. #prayingforjustice
@Huffy247 (Michael Huff) Al Davis is thankful that Jerry Jones keeps a high profile. #lanekiffinfanclub
@jcharles24 (Jamaal Charles) Todd Haley is thankful that Dwayne Bowe decided to group up. #stilllovesthoseroadtrips
@TimTebow Kyle Orton is thankful that @JayCutler6 demanded a trade. #whossorrynow
@AntonioGates85 Norv Turner is thankful that Philip Rivers is having a career season. #savinghisjob

Follow Scott Swanay on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/fantasy_sherpa

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Innovations in Newspapers Are Key to Survival

Amid all the gloom and doom of newspapers limping or folding, there’s a ray of hope in the print media landscape, thanks to innovative thinking and risk taking by publishers and editors who recognize opportunities to be seized at the right time.
“What we need to do is think in terms of a multitude of products, summarized under a brand, in a brand world, or even better in a brand experience world,” wrote Horst Piker, group CEO of the Austrian Styria Media Group, http://www.styria.com/en/styria.
Using multimedia, multi-channels and multi-platforms, Piker said in the foreword of a 73-page gem called “Innovations in Newspapers 2010 World Report,” ensures the target group feels it simply can’t live without a newspaper.
The key is using new digital tools and multimedia infographics to tell good stories across platforms, according to Chiqui Esteban, a consultant for Innovation International Media Consulting Group, http://www.innovation-mediaconsulting.com publisher of the book.
Esteban’s elements to the new narrative formats: the ability to organize large amounts of information, interactivity that challenges the reader, and involving the reader in creating information.
That may seem elementary. But what’s often overlooked are marketing and ad sales in a multimedia world, to which the book’s publisher dedicates a juicy chapter.
A case study of business side integration at Columbia’s Casa Editorial El Tiempo http://publicidad.eltiempo.com focuses on how the company and its commercial arm Media 24 broadened its reach by marketing all its properties in a coordinated manner.
El Tiempo newsroom (Innovation International)
Chapter authors Carlo Campos and Javier Ramirez Baares propose three models to organize ad sales: media platform centric (with teams handling newspaper, TV, radio, online, events, magazine, etc.) and branching into brands; brand centric (with teams organized by brands, which are then sold on all platforms); and, client centric (with teams for each client).
Columbia’s El Tiempo leads multimedia march (Innovation International)
They also place great value in brands, market intelligence and the importance of collaboration between areas, with a cautionary note that radical transformation from traditional models can only come from top management sold on the idea.
Juan Senor, partner at Innovation International Media Consulting Group, is the book’s guru on integrated newsrooms.
Juan Senor (Abu-Fadil)
He guides readers through the intricacies of newsroom workflows and management with a design aimed at what he calls “profit communities.”
“The challenge facing newsroom managers is to figure out how these increasingly complex communities can be kept in constant contact with their content, and newsrooms must be reorganized to produce more for those who pay and less for those who do not pay,” he said.
Senor explained that newsrooms could no longer use linear workflows of text and photos only, but must instead embrace the full experience of interactive digital narratives by combining text, photos, infographics, audio and video.
He added that the most effective newsrooms today were “those that remain in a permanent state of flux, constantly changing, adapting and adopting the latest digital platforms and devices that news consumers follow and adopt.”
Integrated converged newsrooms are de rigueur (Innovation International)
An interesting twist is the introduction of “i,” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/business/media/09iht-paper.html the Portuguese newbie that became a hit in under nine months from its launch when competitors were fading at best.
Portugal’s upstart i newspaper (Innovation International)
The paper http://www.ionline.pt/conteudos/home.html, with its avant garde approach and punchy manifesto, relied on “considerable viral marketing” rather than much advance promotion and managed to attract and retain a new generation of young readers, 25% of whom had not been newspaper regulars, the book said.
Another bright spot is the area of sports newspapers that seem to be growing audiences in print and online, in addition to sponsorships, stand-alone magazines, special editions, digests, readers’ clubs, and more.
Newspapers to multimedia sports brands (Innovation International)
Passion fuels their success, opined Innovation International consultant Antonio Martin, noting that such publications appeal across social classes and economic divides, particularly in a country like Brazil where soccer is akin to a religious experience.
“They share readers with tabloids and quality papers,” wrote Martin. “They offer journalism with impact in easy-to-read form, with strong visual impact.”
Across the pond, where newspapers have been licking their wounds of late, all is not lost. American papers are still winning Pulitzer prizes despite deep cutbacks and red ink galore.
Social media are readily stepping in to fill the gap, but not entirely replace reportorial and editorial teams.
“Having a newsroom social media director has become a must,” wrote Gabriel Sama, a 2010 Knight Fellow at Stanford University.
For newspapers to keep up with the mobile revolution, Diego Cenzano recommends: adopting easy to implement tools; organizing staff for daily chores and hiring outside help for the rest; picking the best available technology, but quickly changing it when something better comes up; letting technology contribute to new forms of storytelling; enhancing the user experience; and becoming application creators.
The cornucopia of information packed into “Innovations in Newspapers 2010 World Report” also highlights concepts for designing for the iPad and examines the vast new world of tablets.
It further strikes a positive note with a chapter on how to develop new revenue streams and increase customer loyalty during hard times with e-commerce and readers’ clubs.
New revenue streams (Innovation International)
It cites the Wall Street Journal’s www.wsj.com Wine Discovery Club launched in 2009 through which readers can purchase discounted wines.
A recurring theme in the book that newspaper publishers and editors should keep on hand is how to turn media companies into information engines because it’s no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity to survive.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Haiti Elections Despite Spectre Of Violence Citizens Are Eager To Vote PHOTOS

Port-au-Prince – The spectre of violence hung in the air like a storm cloud on the eve of Haiti’s general elections, threatening to shatter an unusually calm campaign season, with two of the frontrunners alleging assasination attempts and the country’s most popular party kept off the ballot.
Michel Martelly, the colorful konpa musician polling in third place, alleged early Saturday an assasination attempt had been made against him during a final rally Friday night in Les Cayes, a seaside city 196 kilometers from Port-au-Prince.
A press release suggested an opponent was behind the attack. “I saw someone approaching the candidate, I saw him taken to the side of the road and at that point, I heard shooting,” Richard Morse, the candidate’s first cousin and a witness to the event, said at a press conference Saturday.
For Morse, however, it was not clear whether the shots fired were aimed at the candidate or up into the air. “We are not pro-violence. We want a peaceful election process,” he said.
Martelly polls behind Mirlande Manigat, a Sorbonne-educated former First Lady, and Jude Celestin, the head of the government’s construction ministry and the hand-picked successor of President Rene Preval.
Manigat predicted a “festival of gunfire” would be unleased the night before the elections to intimidate voters.
Truck beds full of political supporters flew down the Panamerican Highway in the middle-class enclave of Petionville, cheering and waving flags. Beyond the roads recently paved stand piles of rubble, toppled buildings and dry ravines filled with trash. Political graffiti — for the candidates and even for past presidents — covered the walls in Port-au-Prince’s heavily populated Delmas neighborhood.
“Titid For Life,” read one, referring to the exiled former president Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whose Finme Lavalas party, which has branches in New York and Miami, and claims the allegiance of about 90 percent of Haiti’s voting public, was conspicuously kept off the ballot after two different sets of names were registered with Haiti’s provisional electoral counsel (CEP).
“For us, this isn’t just the exclusion of Fanmi Lavalas. What they want is to exclude the majority, the people. It isn’t democratic and it isn’t fair,” said Maryse Narcisse, a Lavalas party representative.
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Haitian presidential candidate Michel Joseph Martelly speaks before a rally in Champs-des-Mars, Port-au-Prince.
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Many expected violence to erupt with the election results. Ronald Antoine, a Haitian police officer and former U.S. Marine, predicted if Celestin were elected, he would not complete his five-year term. “The people won’t permit it,” he said. “They are already angry. Why should the government spend $5 million on a single candidate when so many people are hungry?”
Voter turnout also remained a huge unknown, with thousands of people waiting in lines around the city for voter registration cards.
At a crowded camp in the Plaza San Pierre, Tony Alusma, 24, said he was “eager to vote,” but wasn’t sure he would receive his voting card in time. He planned to cast his ballot for Martelly.
Conditions at the camp, Alusma said, were “not so good. There’s no very much electricity or food or water. But Martelly is a good Haitian and a funny guy. Although I didn’t like him in the beginning, he loves his country and will be very committed to the reconstruction.”
Across the street at the Hotel De Ville, hundreds of people crowded the staircase, listening for their name to be called over a loudspeaker and to receive their voting card.
Kathia Jean Baptiste, 18, said she had waited all day. “It’s the first time I’ll vote and I’ll wait because it’s my civil right,” she said.
Many contested the timing of the elections, which had been postponed from February, arguing the cholera epidemic that has taken more than 1,300 lives should take priority. But for Colin Granderson, head of the joint electoral observation mission to Haiti, a delay posed greater risks.
“In Haitian elections violence is part of the tradition,” he said.

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

10 Reasons Why You Should Get a Dog Instead of a Facelift PHOTOS

According to the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, American women underwent over 9 million cosmetic procedures last year. Americans spent almost $10.5 billion on cosmetic intervention in 2009.
During that same time, some 2 million dogs were euthanized in this country. The Humane Society estimates that animal shelters care for between 6 and 8 million dogs and cats every year in the United States.
As a dog lover and dog owner since childhood and a plastic surgeon for some 23 years, I believe I am an expert on the subject of the love of dogs and cosmetic surgery. While a facelift can be a wonderful and satisfying experience, I would like to share with you why I believe getting a dog is a better alternative:
They Offer A Lifetime Of Love
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The average facelift lasts approximately five to 10 years, depending upon technique and individual’s skin type. The average lifespan of a dog, depending on breed and size, is 12.8 years. However, long after your loving dog passes away, the memories of extraordinary times together will live in your heart forever. Once your facelift begins to sag, your only memory will be the price tag to have it re-done!
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This Blogger’s Books from
The Beauty Quotient Formula: How to Find Your Own Beauty Quotient to Look Your Best – No Matter What Your Age
by Robert Tornambe M.D. F.A.C.S

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com

Arianna Discusses Third World America On CBS Face The Nation VIDEO

Arianna appeared on CBS’s “Face The Nation” Sunday morning, along with Bob Woodward, Edmund Morris, and Ron Chernow, to discuss her book “Third World America.”
“I wanted to sound the alarm,” Arianna told host Bob Schieffer. With two-thirds of Americans expecting their children to be worse-off than they are, and with the U.S. lagging behind European countries in key areas, “We know there is something fundamentally wrong,” Arianna said. “That’s why we have that collective sense of anxiety and fear about the future.”
WATCH:
Edmund Morris, the author of a new biography of Teddy Roosevelt, said that he feels America has become a very insular society. As someone born outside of the U.S., he said he can view America through foreign eyes, “and not all I see is attractive.”
“I see an insular people who are insensitive to foreign sensibilities, who are lazy, obese, complacent, and increasingly perplexed as to why we are losing out place in the world to people who are more dynamic than us and more disciplined,” Morris said.
Arianna defended Americans from Morris’s criticism. “There is a lot of legitimate anger out there, the sense that somehow the game is rigged, that if you are powerful enough, that if you are running institutions that are too big to fail, you can get away with anything” she said.
WATCH:

Source:www.huffingtonpost.com