Helping Elders Along the Digital Path

Abstract: A few days before my 100-year-old mother’s death this summer, she said she had only one regret: not being able to see her family in California again. But then I realized that I had my MacBook (with its built-in webcam) in my briefcase. A few phone calls later and my mother was using iChat to speak with and see her great-grandchildren for the first time in years. My mother, born in a Belarussian village before the advent of commercial radio, was by her late 90s using a cellphone, receiving e-mail messages from her family and asking me “what is this Twitter thing anyway?” She was far from the only centenarian using technology for more than just medical monitoring and protection against falls. Contrary to stereotypes, computers, social networks, e-mail and even video games are becoming essential parts of older peoples’ lives. Some of the highest growth rates in broadband use are happening among the elderly. The Pew Research Center found that broadband use for those 65 and older increased from 19 percent in May 2008 to 30 percent in April 2009. Since 2005, broadband use has tripled in that group. Although challenges remain for many older people, any number of products can help them become more involved in the digital age. Here’s a look at some of the most popular ones. IT ALL STARTS WITH THE PC While many digital devices like cameras or cellphones don’t require a PC, their use can be enhanced with a computer by helping users transmit photos or easily update a mobile phone address book. For those concerned that Microsoft’s Windows interface is too daunting for elders, Big Screen Live ( bigscreenlive.com ) simplifies the standard interface, making it easier to send e-mail messages, surf the Web, share photos, shop online or play games. Changes like fewer buttons, color-coded commands and larger type ease the Windows experience. While the company does not make a similar product for the Mac, older users who have sight and hearing problems can adjust a Mac’s on-screen appearance using the Universal Access pane found in the System Preferences folder. Screen background color, audio alerts and keyboard behavior are some of the features that can be adjusted. More information, including a video demonstration of accessibility settings, can be found at apple.com/accessibility . SMILE FOR GRANDMA! Video chatting has become a popular way to ease the isolation experienced by many older people with limited mobility. Free programs like Skype and iChat, and the built-in webcams on many computers, make it easy to do. For Mac users familiar with Terminal commands, the iChat program can be set up to accept all incoming video requests, making video chatting effortless for tech-challenged elders. In addition to online chats, Internet-connected digital picture frames from companies like Ceiva, D-Link and Kodak allow friends and family to continually send new images, helping older or less mobile people keep up with events. YOU NEVER CALL Several cellphone providers offer special models for older people, with louder audio and simplified keypads. Jitterbug ( jitterbug.com ) specifically markets itself to those with declining physical capabilities. The company offers a cellphone with large, easy-to-read buttons and displays and also allows customers to have an operator dial the calls for them. The operator can add addresses to a person’s contact list and, for additional fees, customers can have 24-hour voice access to a nurse or roadside assistance. Plans start at $15 a month for 50 minutes’ use for those who want a phone for emergencies. The Jitterbug phone costs $147 and is available without a contract. YOU NEVER WRITE For those who mainly use a computer for e-mail, PawPawMail ( pawpawmail.com ) takes the complexity out of the process. For $5 a month, users transmit and receive mail through PawPawMail’s Web site, which features simple graphics, large type and real names rather than potentially confusing e-mail addresses. The account manager, typically a younger family member, sets up the account, creating a list of approved e-mail senders; spammers and phishers cannot get through. If operating a computer, even one with a simplified interface, is a nonstarter, it’s still possible to be part of the e-mail world. Presto ( presto.com ) offers a specially designed $50 Hewlett-Packard printer configured to automatically dial in to its servers and download e-mail messages several times a day. For $12.50 a month (if prepaid yearly), the owner automatically receives, but cannot send, e-mail messages according to a schedule set by the user or account manager. To contact a user, the sender must be placed on an approved list, as with PawPawMail. Messages can include photos and PDFs. E-mail messages can be formatted as plain text in a variety of type faces and sizes, or as greeting cards. Presto also offers a range of downloaded messages, including Andy Rooney essays, puzzles, travel information, celebrity news and other topics. A hand-held device called Peek ( www.getpeek.com ) makes sending and receiving e-mail messages easy. Peek, which looks a bit like a BlackBerry, charges $19.95 a month for unlimited e-mail and text messaging , considerably less than plans from cellphone providers to do the same tasks. The $50 Peek Pronto allows users to view attached Word, JPEG and PDF files, and receive news and weather headlines. It works with most standard e-mail providers like AOL, AT&T, Google, Yahoo and Verizon. There is no monthly contract, so potential users can try the service and make sure they are comfortable with the small keyboard. While imagining your elderly uncle using high-tech devices to keep in touch might at first seem far-fetched, it’s only a matter of time before it is second nature. Just remember: today’s Web jockeys are tomorrow’s grandparents.

Elderly
Computers and the Internet
Wireless Communications
Electronic Mail
Cellular Telephones


U.S. Accuses 6 of Smuggling Disguised Elephant Ivory

Abstract: They came through Kennedy Airport from Africa in boxes marked “African Wooden Handicraft” and “Wooden Statues.” Inside those innocuous cartons, federal authorities said on Wednesday, were what appeared to be delicately carved and colorfully painted wooden objects, looking like statues, decorative snakes and musical instruments. But hidden inside the objects, the authorities said, was hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of African elephant ivory being smuggled into the United States. Some tusks were coated with clay to look like pottery or stone, they said. Six people on Wednesday were accused of taking part in a trans-Atlantic ring that routinely sneaked ivory, much of it elaborately carved, out of three African countries — Uganda, Ivory Coast and Cameroon — that prohibit such exports and then slipped it past customs agents at Kennedy Airport in the elaborately disguised packages. Once the ivory — which cannot be legally imported into the United States — made it through customs, the authorities said, it was quietly sold to dealers of African art for enormous profits in New York and other states. After tracking the six suspects for two years, federal agents arrested them early Wednesday in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Texas. All were charged with conspiracy to smuggle ivory into the United States, a felony that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. “The defendants plundered precious natural resources for personal profit,” Benton J. Campbell, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said on Wednesday. “Their illegal trade threatens the continued existence of an endangered species and will not be tolerated.” African elephants, the largest land animals on Earth, have been hunted for their ivory tusks and teeth for centuries, causing such steep declines in their numbers that by the late 1980s most countries had either banned the sale and importation of ivory or enacted severe restrictions. In the United States, importing elephant ivory was made a crime in 1976, and the government signed the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. Poaching elephants for their ivory is still the primary factor in the decline of their populations in Africa, wildlife officials say. According to a criminal complaint [pdf] unsealed in United States District Court in Brooklyn, investigators tracked the ring that was broken on Wednesday for more than two years, using close surveillance, infiltration by undercover agents and examinations of bank, phone and shipping records. The investigation involved agents of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security. Investigators said they discovered eight shipments of highly valued ivory to the United States, one of which a trafficker was paid $15,000 to bring from Cameroon. They said that the ivory in just one shipment was worth $165,000. “It is expensive in Africa,” one of the six accused people, Bandjan Sidime, 36, a native of Guinea, was recorded as saying, according to the complaint. “Always the ivory price go up like a diamond, like gold, all the time. It changes every day.” Mr. Sidime said the ivory was so expensive, in part, because getting it out of Africa meant bribing so many people along the way, the complaint said. Rather than seize all the illegal shipments when they arrived at Kennedy, investigators let some of the hidden ivory, detected by X-rays of the art objects, go through and tracked them as they were delivered to various locations in New York. Besides Mr. Sidime, officials arrested Kemo Sylla, 32, a native of Liberia; Seidou Mfomboutmoun, 35, from Cameroon; Mamadi Doumbouya, 39, a native of Ivory Coast; and Drissa Diane, 43, and Mamadou Kone, 43, both of whom are naturalized United States citizens. Lawyers for the accused could not be immediately reached for comment on Wednesday.

Smuggling
Elephants
Ivory
Kennedy International Airport (NYC)
International Trade and World Market


As Lin’s Stock Rises, So Does MSG’s

Abstract: Linsanity, which has swept up Knicks fans and raced through sporting goods stores, is gripping Wall Street as well. On Monday, shares of Madison Square Garden Company , which owns the Knicks, the arena where they play and the cable network that broadcasts their games, hit a record high because of the sudden emergence of Jeremy Lin, the team’s previously unknown point guard . Shares of MSG rose 3.8 percent Monday to a record-high $32.32, with three times the average number of shares being traded. Analysts who follow the stock say that Lin could not only continue to benefit ticket prices, merchandise sales and television ratings, but also provide the impetus to end the dispute between MSG and Time Warner Cable , which has been unable to broadcast Knicks games this year. “No doubt on the court Mr. Lin’s accomplishments rank with the career starts of LeBron James, Isiah Thomas and Shaq,” Rich Tullo, the director of research at Albert Fried & Company, wrote to investors. So, Tullo asked, will Lin help the Knicks and MSG off the court, too? “In our view, the answer is yes.” Sales of all merchandise at the Knicks’ official online store and Facebook page have risen more than 3,000 percent in the past week, said Delivery Agent, which runs the online store. Some items, like the Jeremy Lin replica home jersey, are sold out . There is nothing new about teams, networks or merchandise makers cashing in on a player’s success. Detroit went crazy over the Tigers’ Mark Fidrych in 1976, and the Los Angeles Dodgers experienced Fernando-mania over Fernando Valenzuela in 1981. Ditto when Ichiro Suzuki made his debut in Seattle with the Mariners in 2001. Ricky Rubio is making a splash with the Minnesota Timberwolves this season. But Lin is unique because of how quickly he has turned into a star on the court and a moneymaking machine off it. Lin’s emergence has created a frenzy for Knicks tickets, even in other cities. The average price for tickets to games in New York has risen to more than $100 a ticket, from $85, according to Jason Berger, who runs the ticket broker AllShows.com . “We had sold more front-row seats in the last month than we had for the entire season last year,” Berger said. “There are still some good deals out there for future games, but we expect those deals to be harder to find as the excitement grows.” Plenty of fans are tuning in. MSG Network had its highest-rated Knicks broadcast Saturday, when the team played in Minneapolis. In the four games Lin has started, the average household rating on MSG Network has increased 70 percent compared with the previous 20 games. Despite the hype, Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG, said the Knicks would have to have a lot more success before he is convinced Madison Square Garden will benefit over all. “Lin has helped the stock price, but the underlying business has not changed,” he said. “No one knew him a week ago, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Madison Square Garden
MSG Network
Stocks and Bonds
New York Knicks
Lin Jeremy
Basketball


Computer Experts Unite to Hunt Worm

Abstract: An extraordinary behind-the-scenes struggle is taking place between computer security groups around the world and the brazen author of a malicious software program called Conficker. The program grabbed global attention when it began spreading late last year and quickly infected millions of computers with software code that is intended to lash together the infected machines it controls into a powerful computer known as a botnet. Since then, the program’s author has repeatedly updated its software in a cat-and-mouse game being fought with an informal international alliance of computer security firms and a network governance group known as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Members refer to the alliance as the Conficker Cabal. The existence of the botnet has brought together some of the world’s best computer security experts to prevent potential damage. The spread of the malicious software is on a scale that matches the worst of past viruses and worms, like the I Love You virus. Last month, Microsoft announced a $250,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the Conficker author. Botnets are used to send the vast majority of e-mail spam messages. Spam in turn is the basis for shady commercial promotions including schemes that frequently involve directing unwary users to Web sites that can plant malicious software, or malware, on computers. Botnets can also be used to distribute other kinds of malware and generate attacks that can take commercial or government Web sites off-line. One of the largest botnets tracked last year consisted of 1.5 million infected computers that were being used to automate the breaking of “captchas,” the squiggly letter tests that are used to force applicants for Web services to prove they are human. The inability of the world’s best computer security technologists to gain the upper hand against anonymous but determined cybercriminals is viewed by a growing number of those involved in the fight as evidence of a fundamental security weakness in the global network. “I walked up to a three-star general on Wednesday and asked him if he could help me deal with a million-node botnet,” said Rick Wesson, a computer security researcher involved in combating Conficker. “I didn’t get an answer.” An examination of the program reveals that the zombie computers are programmed to try to contact a control system for instructions on April 1. There has been a range of speculation about the nature of the threat posed by the botnet, from a wake-up call to a devastating attack. Researchers who have been painstakingly disassembling the Conficker code have not been able to determine where the author, or authors, is located, or whether the program is being maintained by one person or a group of hackers. The growing suspicion is that Conficker will ultimately be a computing-for-hire scheme. Researchers expect it will imitate the hottest fad in the computer industry, called cloud computing, in which companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems sell computing as a service over the Internet. Earlier botnets were devised so they could be split up and rented via black market schemes that are common in the Internet underground, according to security researchers. The Conficker program is built so that after it takes up residence on infected computers, it can be programmed remotely by software to serve as a vast system for distributing spam or other malware. Several people who have analyzed various versions of the program said Conficker’s authors were obviously monitoring the efforts to restrict the malicious program and had repeatedly demonstrated that their skills were at the leading edge of computer technology. For example, the Conficker worm already had been through several versions when the alliance of computer security experts seized control of 250 Internet domain names the system was planning to use to forward instructions to millions of infected computers. Shortly thereafter, in the first week of March, the fourth known version of the program, Conficker C, expanded the number of the sites it could use to 50,000. That step made it virtually impossible to stop the Conficker authors from communicating with their botnet. “It’s worth noting that these are folks who are taking this seriously and not making many mistakes,” said Jose Nazario, a member of the international security group and a researcher at Arbor Networks, a company in Lexington, Mass., that provides tools for monitoring the performance of networks. “They’re going for broke.” Several members of the Conficker Cabal said that law enforcement officials had been slow to respond to the group’s efforts, but that a number of law enforcement agencies were now in “listen” mode. “We’re aware of it,” said Paul Bresson, an F.B.I. spokesman, “and we’re working with security companies to address the problem.” A report scheduled to be released Thursday by SRI International, a nonprofit research institute in Menlo Park, Calif., says that Conficker C constitutes a major rewrite of the software. Not only does it make it far more difficult to block communication with the program, but it gives the program added powers to disable many commercial antivirus programs as well as Microsoft’s security update features. “Perhaps the most obvious frightening aspect of Conficker C is its clear potential to do harm,” said Phillip Porras, a research director at SRI International and one of the authors of the report. “Perhaps in the best case, Conficker may be used as a sustained and profitable platform for massive Internet fraud and theft.” “In the worst case,” Mr. Porras said, “Conficker could be turned into a powerful offensive weapon for performing concerted information warfare attacks that could disrupt not just countries, but the Internet itself.” The researchers, noting that the Conficker authors were using the most advanced computer security techniques, said the original version of the program contained a recent security feature developed by an M.I.T. computer scientist, Ron Rivest, that had been made public only weeks before. And when a revision was issued by Dr. Rivest’s group to correct a flaw, the Conficker authors revised their program to add the correction. Although there have been clues that the Conficker authors may be located in Eastern Europe, evidence has not been conclusive. Security researchers, however, said this week that they were impressed by the authors’ productivity. “If you suspect this person lives in Kiev,” Mr. Nazario said, “I would look for someone who has recently reported repetitive stress injury symptoms.”

Computer Security
Conficker
Computers and the Internet
Computer Viruses
Spam (Electronic Mail)


Paper Details Sites on Mars With Plumes of Methane

Abstract: In early 2003, a plume of methane gas rose from the surface of Mars . The big unanswered question is, What belched? Subsurface Martian cows are highly unlikely. But scientists are seriously considering the possibility of bacteria. A team of researchers reported Thursday that the bursts of methane originated from three specific regions in the planet’s northern hemisphere, where it was midsummer. The gas came out at a rate of 0.6 kilograms a second, the scientists said, and the plume contained 19,000 metric tons of methane. “This is the first definitive detection of methane on Mars,” Michael J. Mumma of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., the leader of the research team, said at a news conference, “and the first definitive maps and identification of active regions of release.” The findings appeared in a paper published online Thursday by the journal Science. Dr. Mumma said additional scientific papers describing other time periods of the observations, which span from 2001 to last year, were being prepared. Methane — the simplest of hydrocarbon molecules, with one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms — is fragile in air. It falls apart when hit by ultraviolet radiation in sunlight. That means any methane in the Martian air must be recent. When the presence of methane was reported in 2004 by three teams of scientists, the findings generated surprise and skepticism because only a few explanations seemed to be plausible. One was geothermal chemical reactions involving water and heat in volcanoes or underground hot springs. But evidence for recent volcanism on Mars is scarce. Also, volcanoes would be expected to spew other gases like sulfur dioxide, and those are not plentiful in the planet’s atmosphere. A second possibility is biological. On Earth, a class of bacteria known as methanogens breathes out methane as a waste product. NASA’s current Mars strategy is to look for signs of water and perhaps life in the planet’s distant past. “Perhaps we need to also think in terms of present-day life holding on somewhere in the subsurface,” said Lisa M. Pratt, a professor of geological sciences at Indiana University who participated in the news conference but was not involved with the research. Even if the source turns out to be geological in origin or to have come from long-extinct bacteria, the sites would still be prime locations to look for other microbes that thrive on methane as food. “It gives us a bull’s-eye to go after,” Dr. Pratt said. Because of the difficulty in measuring methane, many scientists wondered if the earlier reports really showed methane or if all three teams had been misled by their data. Dr. Mumma’s group used telescopes in Hawaii to examine the light reflected off Mars. Different molecules absorb different wavelengths of light, and the scientists reported seeing black lines in the spectrum corresponding to methane and to water vapor. As Mars rotated, bringing different areas into view of the telescope, the scientists could measure variations in the concentrations. The concentrations in 2003 were densest over three regions — known as Terra Sabae, Nili Fossae and Syrtis Major — and as high as 45 parts per billion. The scientists said that mineralogy of the surface suggested these areas had flowing water in the far Martian past. Nili Fossae had been under consideration for the landing site for NASA’s next surface rover, the Mars Science Laboratory, but was not among the four finalists announced in November. Last month, scientists reported that the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had spotted exposed outcrops of carbonate rocks in Nili Fossae, perhaps the vestige of ancient lakes and seas. At the news conference, Michael Meyer, the lead scientist for the Mars program at NASA headquarters, said that a recent decision to delay the launching of the rover to 2011 from 2009 could allow reconsideration of Nili Fossae. An instrument aboard the science laboratory would be able to detect methane at levels of 100 parts per trillion.


At Least 9 Drown While Camping in Mexico

Abstract: MEXICO CITY, Aug. 19 (AP) — A rapid river current swept away 15 members of a religious group in western Mexico on Sunday, drowning at least nine, a state civil protection official said. Twenty-five members of the Universal Christian Church were carried away by the Cuiztla River on Sunday morning when the water rose suddenly, said the official, Oscar Gilberto Barragan of the civil protection department for the state of Jalisco. At least nine bodies, including those of a 10-month-old infant and two children ages 5 and 7, were recovered by rescue workers. Three victims had not yet been identified, and six were still missing. The victims belonged to a group of 60 church members who were camping alongside the river in Rancho Ixcamilpa, about 40 miles northeast of Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco.


Dilma Rousseff Loses Support From Key Part of Brazilian Coalition

Abstract: RIO DE JANEIRO — A crucial part of Brazil’s governing coalition withdrew support for President Dilma Rousseff on Tuesday, a move that could increase the likelihood of her impeachment and deepen Brazil’s political and economic crises. The leadership of the Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, or the PMDB, which has 68 members in the lower house of Congress, the most of any party, voted to split with Ms. Rousseff’s Workers’ Party. That lays the groundwork for more of its members to vote to impeach Ms. Rousseff. That will most likely happen next month. Several of Ms. Rousseff’s ministers, who belong to the PMDB, were asked by their party leaders to step down. They included the health minister, Marcelo Castro, who had been leading the country’s efforts to address the Zika virus outbreak, and the civil aviation minister. The request comes just months before the start of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Increased government paralysis is seen as one consequence. After the PMDB decision, Ms. Rousseff canceled a trip to Washington, where she was supposed to participate in a nuclear security summit meeting this week. In Brasília, Romero Jucá, a senator who led Tuesday’s meeting, which lasted less than five minutes, said, “Nobody in the country is authorized to serve in any federal appointment in the name of the PMDB party.” While the PMDB includes both longtime opponents and supporters of Ms. Rousseff, she cannot afford to lose any votes in Congress. After narrowly winning re-election in late 2014, Ms. Rousseff has struggled to show leadership as bad economic news worsened, and an unprecedented corruption scandal widened involving the state oil company, Petrobras. While Ms. Rousseff has denied that her campaigns received any illegal money, or that she had any knowledge of corruption at Petrobras, criticism of her grew this month after she named the former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to her cabinet. That appointment was seen in some circles as a way to shield him from arrest by prosecutors who are investigating graft accusations against him. Subsequently, impeachment proceedings against Ms. Rousseff began in a committee in Brazil’s lower house. That committee is expected to vote in April. The full house would then vote. If it voted to impeach, and then the Senate voted to open proceedings, Ms. Rousseff would be suspended for 180 days while she went on trial. Brazil’s vice president, Michel Temer, who leads the PMDB, but did not attend Tuesday’s meeting, would then temporarily take over, with the ability to appoint ministers and enact policy. Ms. Rousseff still has opportunities to thwart impeachment, or at least delay the proceedings. If the full lower house voted to impeach, she could appeal to the high court and the Senate would have to await a ruling before voting on whether it could commence its own impeachment deliberations. Moreover, at any time between now and then, Ms. Rousseff also has other legal remedies. “She can appeal at any moment she finds something legally questionable occurring in the process,” said Brasílio Sallum Jr., a professor of sociology at the University of São Paulo and an expert in Brazil’s political processes. Her legal strategy aside, many question how the removal of Ms. Rousseff, by itself, would help the country out of its predicaments. “Impeachment alone may not be the solution to the crisis,” said João Augusto de Castro Neves, the Latin America regional director of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm. That is largely because many other leaders, particularly in the PMDB, have been implicated in the Petrobras investigation. While Mr. Temer has not been implicated, he would be vulnerable to political fallout from problems faced by his colleagues. It is also unclear how much public support he has. His approval ratings are not much higher than Ms. Rousseff’s. “All of these scenarios — one in which she survives, the other one in which Temer takes over, and the new elections scenario — they all point to very tough policy making in the next year or two,” Mr. Castro Neves said. He foresaw “governments that are relatively weak or won’t have enough political capital to do everything that needs to be done to fix the economy.” It is unclear how much public support the PMDB will have. Following the vote on Tuesday, Marina Silva, a longtime critic of Ms. Rousseff, denounced the PMDB for its move, saying it was “equally responsible” for the country’s political and economic crisis. The party is widely viewed as one that stands for no principles or ideology except staying in power. It does not field candidates in presidential elections but rather looks to play a decisive role in helping the winner. It has long been an irritant to both Ms. Rousseff and her predecessor, Mr. da Silva. State Department officials have taken note. In a 2004 cable, made available by WikiLeaks, American diplomats observed that “the PMDB has never pretended to be more than a high-maintenance ally-of-convenience whose constant sniping often exposes coalition fissures.” Whether the PMDB leadership’s decision to abandon Ms. Rousseff will prove politically expedient remains unclear. Some prominent members have sharply criticized it. On Tuesday, Brazil’s minister of agriculture, Kátia Abreu, a PMDB member, defended Ms. Rousseff in an interview with Globo Rural. Ms. Abreu said that she thought what was happening to Ms. Rousseff was unmerited and that impeachment would be “traumatic” for the country.

Dilma Rousseff
Brazil
Brazilian Democratic Movement Party
Corruption
Workers' Party Brazil


The Drive Inside That Separates Top Rugby Players

Abstract: WELLINGTON — Mental strength, or lack of it, is often the difference between winning and losing. How many times do you see an athlete crack under pressure and turn a chance to win into a defeat? In rugby it typically manifests itself in bad decision-making. Pushing for a try when three points from a drop goal would do or giving away a penalty at a crucial point in the game because of overeagerness or lack of discipline. The best players are those that can keep a cool head in high-pressure situations. Back in rugby’s amateur days, sports psychology was often seen as psycho-babble and the use of mental-skills coaches was unheard of. If a player had admitted talking to a “shrink” he would have been ridiculed and more likely than not seen as the weak link in the team. But now no team is complete without one. Coaches have come to realize that little separates professional athletes physically and that much depends on how players mentally prepare for a match and react during the game itself. “There’s been a real drive for that over the last decade I guess,” said Dave Rennie, who will take over as coach of the Chiefs Super Rugby club in September. “It probably wasn’t readily accepted initially by a lot of players, but I think if you talk to the modern-day players, they would acknowledge that a lot of players they are playing against have a similar physical ability and similar skill set, and it is generally the people with the mental strength who can consistently perform.” Andrew Hore of the New Zealand All Blacks can see the benefits of having a mental-skills coach working with a team, although he chooses to use his own mentors when the situation requires it. “I definitely think there is a place for them,” said Hore, who has played 50 tests for New Zealand and over 100 Super Rugby matches for the Hurricanes. “Even if only 1 person out of the 22 is going to get benefit from it then, it’s something to look at. “Some people have mental-skills coaches they talk to, and other people have mentors they ring up and get the brutal facts about how you are playing. “I’ve got a couple of guys like that who I can ring. I ring my dad every day and he tells me if I play well.” Dave Hadfield, a mental-skills coach who has worked with most of the New Zealand provincial teams, the Hurricanes and Crusaders Super Rugby teams and New Zealand’s Under 17s and Under 20s side, says ignorance has been the biggest hurdle the profession has had to overcome. “Sports psychology in general is not that well understood. In the past a lot of players would think you must be nuts to need it. They’ve felt that talking to someone who worked in that area was a sign of weakness. “It’s much more accepted now because most of the modern coaches have much more knowledge of that area,” he said. “If you talk to any top level coach and ask, ‘How important is the mental side of sport?’, you will not find one who does not say it’s critically important. “The challenge becomes how you integrate that knowledge into your program. That’s often where coaches struggle. I would say a lot of work I do is with coaches helping them to understand the area better so they can apply it and use it in their coaching.” So what does a mental-skills coach actually do? According to Hadfield, the role is far-reaching. He works with team management and coaches in establishing a team culture and setting goals, along with establishing the systems and structures that teams need to reach those goals. His work with players includes pre-match preparation, building confidence, helping them deal with pressure — on and off the field — and dealing with expectations and failure. “The performance focus area is huge. The ability to focus on what you need to focus on, when you need to focus on it, for as long as you need to focus on it with as much intensity as you need, that’s a critical part of mental strength,” Hadfield explained. So is dealing with failure such as making mistakes on the field. “There are two kinds of error in a game. One is an error that doesn’t have any lessons for you in that moment, e.g. you drop a pass. The second kind of error is where you need to learn from it and adjust and adapt during a game, e.g. your angle of defense is wrong and you are getting beaten by your opposite player,” Hadfield said. “With the first type of error you’ve just got to flush it from your mind. When people are learning how to do that, you give them a physical trigger like clicking their fingers, or slapping their thigh. “With the second type of error you may need to get advice from a team-mate and you have to learn, adjust and adapt as you go along. “When you make an error the most important thing is you figure out what the error was and what you need to do to fix it and get on with it.” Take England flyhalf Jonny Wilkinson and Australia inside center Elton Flatley, who both showed immense mental strength in dealing with pressure during the epic 2003 Rugby World Cup final. Flatley kicked a penalty in the 80th minute to take the game into extra time and tied the scores at 17-17 late in extra time. Wilkinson was able to forget about the three drop goals he had missed during the game to kick the winning one with just 25 seconds of extra time remaining. Confidence also plays a huge part in success. A player short on confidence often makes mistakes or poor decisions. Hadfield says helping a player build confidence can start with something as simple as making a list of their strengths, writing down what advantages they will have over the opposition or the areas of their game they have improved on. But he has also used hypnosis to take a player back to their best performance. “When they are imagining that you get them to squeeze a thumb and forefinger together or get them to squeeze an earlobe or clench their fist to give them some physical anchor to that emotional state which they can return to in a game.” Dealing and coping with expectation is also crucial, never more so than in a World Cup year. The levels of expectation obviously differ depending on the team. The All Blacks, for example, are touted as the likely World Cup winners every time the tournament rolls around because of their performances in the years between each tournament. Yet aside from 1987, their only Cup victory, they have failed to cope with those expectations. For others, reaching the quarterfinals or winning a match in their pool group would be seen as a great achievement. Trying to ignore those expectations is counterproductive, Hadfield said. But how you deal with it will affect the outcome. “To say there is not pressure is to avoid the obvious I think. Expectation is either a weight on your shoulders bearing you down or it’s a warm wind of confidence blowing at your back.”


In Rhino Horn Case, Judge Sees a Criminal Instead of a ‘Naïve Kid’

Abstract: Michael Slattery Jr. stood in court with his hands clenched behind him as if they were still in the shackles that had just been removed. It was time for his sentencing on Friday, in federal court in Brooklyn, an often surreal setting in which very different versions of the same human are described for the judge’s careful consideration. One version: Michael Slattery Jr. is an unschooled, illiterate Irish landscaper in his early 20s who has shown a knack for his family’s dealings in antiques. He was arrested, three years after making a sale, for trafficking in the horns of an endangered species of rhinoceros. He has spent four uncomfortable months in federal detention; he feared for his safety and was placed in solitary confinement, where a lack of vitamins temporarily affected his vision. “I nearly went insane inside the room,” he stammered on Friday before Judge John Gleeson of United States District Court. “I’m not a bad person.” He prayed in his cell. His mother dabbed her eyes in the courtroom, and his younger brother crossed himself in prayer. Another version: Mr. Slattery is a link in the international organized-crime ring that finds rhino horns in dusty attics and on shop walls and sells them, ultimately for an estimated $30,000 a pound, to Asian buyers who believe they have medicinal properties. He is a member of the community known as the Irish Travelers, and members of that group have found a lucrative niche in the rhino game. “Irish Travelers appear to have cornered the global market in supplying antique rhino horns to the traditional Chinese medical market,” Eamon Dillon, an Irish journalist, wrote in his book “Gypsy Empire,” published last year. Mr. Slattery has admitted that, in 2010, he traveled to Austin, Tex., where he paid a day laborer — and, more important, a Texas resident — to buy a mounted black rhino head from a taxidermy auction house on his behalf. It is illegal for nonresidents to buy such a head, and he pleaded guilty to having done so. He was with his brother John and another Irishman, Patrick Sheridan, prosecutors said; neither man has been charged, and neither is believed to be in the country. They paid $18,000 for the head with two horns. They brought the horns to Queens and met an Asian collector who steered them to a buyer who, in a shopping mall teahouse, paid $50,000 for those horns and two more. So valuable are the horns in certain corners that they were quickly resold to someone else for $80,000, and then again for $108,000, all before they left the country, prosecutors said in court filings. By then, the Irishmen were long gone. Image Michael Slattery Jr. sold horns of endangered black rhinos. Credit US Attorney's Office - Eastern District of New York The judge received dozens of letters from people who copied and pasted calls for a maximum sentence from a conservation website. Mr. Slattery’s lawyer argued that his client was being treated like a poacher with a shotgun in sub-Saharan Africa. “There are levels of evil and malevolence, from someone shooting a rhinoceros to a young man buying a head in Texas,” the lawyer, Lawrence Hochheiser, said. No rhino was harmed, after all, in the commission of this crime, he said; the one mounted on the wall in Texas had been dead for decades. The lawyer filed several letters from supporters. “I have always found them helpful, honest, honourable and cooperative on any enquiries that I had to make,” Con Brosnan, a retired detective in Ireland, wrote of the Slattery family. A priest, the Rev. Maurice Costello, praised the “very nice and hard-working young man” in a letter. Mr. Slattery told the judge that he had seen no connection between his actions and a vanishing species. “I didn’t understand that this was going to end up with other animals getting killed and this and that and otherwise,” he said. Judge Gleeson listened to it all, and disagreed. “ ‘I didn’t make these drugs, all I did was distribute them,’ ” he said by way of comparison. “ ‘I didn’t create this child pornography, I just distribute it.’ ” “He is no naïve kid,” the judge continued. “He came here from another country to buy, in Texas, this rhino mount.” Prosecutors asked for a two-year prison term; the defense wanted Mr. Slattery released, noting he had served four months. Judge Gleeson split the difference and handed down a sentence of 14 months. By then, the courtroom had filled with lawyers appearing in the next matter on the docket, a case involving credit cards. Most seemed to pay close attention to this strange scene before them. Rhino horns? The judge appeared to feel the same way. “I’ve been doing this a long time,” he said. “I’ve never seen a rhino horn case before.”

Endangered Species
Rhinoceros
John Gleeson
Texas
Smuggling
Criminal Sentence
Poaching
Michael Slattery Jr


Time Inc. to Set a Lonely Course After a Spinoff

Abstract: Sometime late next year Time Inc., the company that all but created the modern magazine business, will leave its home of more than five decades, the Time & Life Building in Rockefeller Center, and head to new quarters in downtown Manhattan. It is a pragmatic move aimed at reducing costs, but one filled with symbolism for a company that is starting over in fundamental ways. On Monday, the nation’s largest magazine publisher will begin trading as an independent company — stock symbol: TIME — with an uncertain future. What was once a jewel in terms of profit and stature is now a drag on the share price of Time Warner, its parent company, and is being spun off with little ceremony and a load of debt. Absent the diversified portfolio of Time Warner, Time Inc. will be going it alone with more than 90 magazines and 45 websites in a market that views print as a thing of the past. The new entity will start off with $1.3 billion in debt, including $600 million that will go toward a one-time cash dividend to Time Warner shareholders. That stands in stark contrast to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which was given a $2 billion cash cushion when it was spun off into a separate company last year. At approximately three times earnings, Time Inc.’s debt is high-risk, and Moody’s has rated it at less than investment grade. As recently as 2006, Time Inc. produced about $1 billion in earnings, a figure that is now down to $370 million. Revenue has declined in 22 of the last 24 quarters, which has tried the patience of both investors and Jeffrey L. Bewkes, Time Warner’s chief executive. There are few bright spots in the business. Though Time magazine is still profitable, big brand names like Fortune and Entertainment Weekly are not making large contributions. Worse, the celebrity category is down across the industry, hurting People magazine, which produces the bulk of Time Inc.’s profits. Newsstand sales, once a lucrative part of the People franchise, have dropped by almost half in the last five years. Current forecasts show the magazine coming up $25 million short of projections for the year. Against this backdrop, leaders at the company acknowledge that many of Time Inc.’s most prominent publications will be fighting not just for attention in a crowded media marketplace, but for survival. “Every stock needs a dream, something to buy into, but what is the dream here?” said Michael Nathanson, an analyst at MoffettNathanson who used to work at Time Inc. “What this company needs is new ideas, and I haven’t heard any coming out so far. They are highly leveraged, and leverage can be a good thing if you are growing, but that hasn’t been that story here.” It is a stark turn of fortune for a company that was started by Henry R. Luce in 1922, the kernel around which a giant entertainment conglomerate formed. Life magazine introduced the country to bold stories told in photos, and Time magazine became a byword for stature, offering accessible news analysis that is still imitated all over the industry. People magazine christened an era in which celebrities became a kind of American royalty. The company even birthed the premium cable television channel with HBO, which last year earned about $1.8 billion in profits — and which is staying with Time Warner. The task of turning around the company has fallen to Joseph A. Ripp, the 62-year-old chief executive hired last September. A former chief financial officer of both Time Inc. and Time Warner, Mr. Ripp is self-confident, decisive and direct, and is considered a keen financial operator. He is not speaking publicly as the spinoff approaches, but he has made it clear to employees and during a recent road show for investors that he did not take the job to bleed the company dry, and that he thinks Time Inc.’s illustrious brand names and its relationship with 150 million Americans — all of them in its database — will serve as a platform for growth. Time Inc. will not have the cash to make splashy acquisitions, but Mr. Ripp appears to prefer to make discrete purchases of assets that can be bolted onto the existing company. Last week’s acquisition of Cozi, an organizer app for families that can be integrated into websites at properties like Real Simple, Food & Wine and Cooking Light, is an example of the approach he has articulated. Mr. Ripp has also set about slashing costs in a culture where liquor carts once rolled in the halls and stories were chased all over the globe at great expense. According to two people with knowledge of the strategy, leaders at the company met with editors of Time Inc. publications last week and told them they were expected to make deep cuts in staffing and other areas — totaling 25 percent of editorial costs — in the coming months. In some respects, the spinoff of Time Inc. is not a surprise. In recent years Mr. Bewkes has relentlessly focused on Time Warner’s core business of entertainment and programming, spinning off AOL and Time Warner Cable in 2009. Executives at Time Warner say those moves created billions in shareholder value, with the run-up in Time Warner Cable stock, gains at AOL and improved share price at Time Warner. They predict that Time Inc. will likewise find new life as an independent company. So far, investors seem to agree. The pre-spinoff price rose to $23.48 on Friday, up from an initial price of $20.75. That would value the new company at about $2.6 billion, according to Bloomberg. In an email, Mr. Bewkes said: “I started my career at a Time Inc.-owned company, and its future is very important to me personally as well as for our shareholders. We’ve worked hard with Joe and his team to create a financial structure that will allow them to thrive as an independent company, and I have every expectation that will happen.” Still, Time Inc. is being sent off into the world with a less-than-inspiring portfolio. While Time Warner is keeping CNNMoney, a profitable website, the new company will have to pay its parent hundreds of millions of dollars for IPC, a struggling British magazine company that has no other likely buyer. Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting paid $200 million for Bleacher Report, a digital-only site with great fan loyalty, while Sports Illustrated has languished at Time Inc. Given the debt and lack of growth opportunities, skeptics have suggested the spinoff is more akin to a burial at sea. “They will be the only pure magazine company out there, and that’s not a story that Wall Street will want to hear,” said Reed Phillips, a media investment banker with DeSilva & Phillips. The problems Time Inc. will face are not unique in an industry confronting steep challenges. But interviews with analysts and dozens of current and former Time Inc. executives suggest that a series of management missteps, a lack of investment from Time Warner and downsizing in preparation for the spinoff may have added to the degree of difficulty. Image Time Inc. will leave the Time & Life Building in Rockefeller Center, and head to new quarters in downtown Manhattan soon. Credit Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times Under Mr. Ripp, all manner of cost-cutting appears to be on the table. In almost every meeting with investors and employees, he reminds them that he is constantly reviewing staffing levels. Some of Time Inc.’s magazines could be sold, and the company’s real estate holdings could also be reduced, including a large campus for Southern Progress in Birmingham, Ala., and IPC’s very valuable headquarters in London. Turmoil within the company has been chronic. Time Inc. has churned through a series of chief executives over the last four years. Jack Griffin arrived from Meredith in 2010, but was pushed out within six months after employees revolted. Laura Lang, an advertising executive brought in to reconceive the business, never found her footing in 15 months and left last year with a severance of nearly $20 million, which outraged the rank and file. Frustrated, Time Warner began to explore its options. Tax implications made an outright sale untenable. An attempt to merge Time Inc. with the Meredith Corporation in early 2013 fell through. Mr. Bewkes had a batch of iconic magazines, but he couldn’t keep them, and no one wanted them. With the Meredith deal dead, and with the successful spinoffs of AOL and Time Warner Cable still a fresh memory, Time Warner quickly pivoted to a spinoff. Mr. Ripp was recruited to take on the challenge. As the former vice chairman of AOL, Mr. Ripp had seen both the possibilities and perils of digital businesses, and his time as a print executive convinced him that historical divisions between editorial and sales were an expensive anachronism. Soon after arriving, he proposed that editors report to the company’s business side, and not to the editor in chief, as they had in the past. That did not sit well with Martha Nelson, the editor in chief who had turned People magazine into a behemoth and started InStyle; she left the company. Other top executives followed, and Mr. Ripp began assembling his own team, including a longtime associate, Jeffrey J. Bairstow, now Time Inc.’s chief financial officer. The hiring of Norman Pearlstine, 71, a former editor in chief of Time Inc. who returned last year as chief content officer, was viewed as a signal that the integrity of the editorial product still mattered. But employees have complained that in the selection of Mr. Ripp and Mr. Pearlstine, Time Inc. anointed leadership figures tied to the very past it was trying to shed. The new company will place a much bigger emphasis on video. It has backed 120 Sports, a video start-up that takes a mobile-first approach. People Now, a new entertainment show, and The Chat, from Fortune, will be part of the mix. A video hub called The Daily Cut will pull in content from the various Time Inc. brands. Magazines will be more closely integrated — stories from Money will appear on the website of Time, for example. Native advertising — advertising designed to more closely resemble the content it appears alongside — is baked into new websites for Money and Fortune, which have been built from scratch now that CNNMoney will belong to Time Warner. Independence can have significant upsides. For decades, the print division shipped all its earnings to the corporate parent, leaving little money for acquisitions or improvements, a practice that one editor likened to Time Warner pulling up a Brinks truck in front of the building. Mr. Ripp says he believes that after a string of missed opportunities, Time Inc. has the brands, personnel and wherewithal to thrive. But he has made it clear to the staff that he did not bring any magic bullets when he took over, and that it was up to the magazine operators to rejuvenate their publications. “I can’t fix it,” Mr. Ripp has said repeatedly in meetings with senior managers. “You have to figure out a way to fix it.”

Magazine
Time Warner
Mergers and Acquisitions
TV
News media,journalism
Stocks,Bonds


At Ethical Brew in Teaneck, Live Folk Music Meets Social Action

Abstract: Paul Goldman was not trying to show off his big-heartedness when he took a first date to an Ethical Brew concert in Teaneck. But he figured demonstrating an interest in charity wouldn’t hurt. “I just thought, I know it’s going to be a good show, and I know it’s for a good cause, and who wouldn’t appreciate that?,” said Mr. Goldman, of Clifton, before the folk artist Pat Wictor picked up his guitar and played for a crowd of about 100. “There’s not that many places around where you can hear this kind of music,” continued Mr. Goldman, whose recent first date did not lead to a second. No matter, he said: “This is kind of my circuit.” Since it presented its first show in 2013, Ethical Brew has become a favorite local venue for fans of thoughtful, mellow singer/songwriters like Mr. Wictor, a regular at major folk festivals with a national following. Concerts take place at the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County, a chapter of the American Ethical Union , a humanist organization that emphasizes “deed before creed.” The local Ethical Culture Society’s headquarters are in a church-like building in a residential neighborhood. Shows take place around once a month, and a portion of the proceeds from ticket sales goes to charity. The next performance will be by the New York City-based husband-and-wife duo, the Kennedys, on April 9. There is no stage in the nondescript room where concerts take place. Refreshments are cobbled together and sold by the Ethical Society’s youth group, and the stacking chairs, fanned in a semicircle around a bare-bones playing area, are not especially comfortable. But the intimate setting combined with the magnanimous mood that attends each show makes for a welcoming environment. And not just for the audience. “Folk singers don’t make a whole lot of money, so when you’re invited to do a show like this, where you know you’re helping somebody, that’s definitely a motivating factor,” said Mr. Wictor, who usually performs as one third of the band Brother Sun . Image Ethical Brew has become a favorite local venue for fans of thoughtful, mellow singer/songwriters like Pat Wictor, a regular at major folk festivals with a national following. Credit Bryan Anselm for The New York Times The somebody being helped changes from show to show. Each artist names a favorite charity before booking a date, and about half the proceeds from ticket sales — most shows cost $20 for adults and $15 for students — are donated to the artist’s chosen cause. Mr. Wictor picked Women in Transition , a Philadelphia women’s shelter. “I have a dear friend who was helped by them years ago,” said Mr. Wictor. At a merch table in the back of the room, a two-song EP he recorded to benefit Women in Transition was for sale, in addition to Brother Sun CDs and three solo recordings. Organizations supported by Ethical Brew have included Doctors Without Borders , the choice of singer/songwriter Ellis Delaney ; and WhyHunger , which benfitted from a concert by the Jen Chapin Trio . The Kennedys’ show will support the Northern New Jersey Sanctuary Coalition , a collective of local religious congregations, human rights groups and individuals that was founded by the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County to support and advocate for people seeking political asylum. A member organization of the Sanctuary Coalition found local housing recently for two refugees from Syria, one from Yemen and another from Eritrea, said Dr. Joe Chuman, leader of the Ethical Culture Society of Bergen County. Dr. Chuman, who attended Mr. Wictor’s show, made it clear that neither he nor Ethical Culture has a religious agenda with the concerts and charitable efforts: “I’m like the rabbi, except we’re a humanistic congregation.” So far, one show a year has benefited the Sanctuary Coalition, said Perry Stein, the co-founder, with his wife, Beth, of Ethical Brew. Other philanthropic groups get approved through the Ethical Culture Society’s social action committee. Charities aren’t the only beneficiaries of the concerts. “The important thing to note is while everyone at Ethical Brew is a volunteer, the artists are paid,” said Mr. Stein. Musicians’ fees are set aside before ticket sales and the subsequent charitable donations are tallied, he said. “What we offer is concerts with some social action that happens from just buying a ticket.” Up-and-coming folk artists like 18-year-old Annika Bennett , a freshman at New York University from Nyack, N.Y., also benefit from the series, as they are given the chance to perform as opening acts for the headliners. Ms. Bennett, whom Mr. and Mrs. Stein discovered last year on their regular travels to folk festivals, warmed up the crowd for Mr. Wictor at the February show, playing a 25-minute set of original songs, to sturdy applause. “It’s great of them to have me when I’m not the one bringing all the people out,” said Ms. Bennett. “They’re giving me an opportunity, and they’re helping other people. That’s what makes a place like this so cool.”

Folk music
Music
Ethical Culture Society
Teaneck NJ
Philanthropy


Minnesota Vikings at Detroit Lions Preview

Abstract: Vikings (6-7) at Lions (9-4) 4:25 p.m. Sunday, Line: Lions by 8 Detroit has had a solid season, with its defense outshining its offense. The Lions face teams with losing records in two of the final three weeks and have a chance to win at least 11 games for the first time since 1991. But defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh has been a recent distraction by making it clear that his agent will decide where he plays next season. Frequently fined for being overly aggressive, Suh is a driving force on the interior defensive line. If this is his last home game for the Lions, they will struggle to do as well next season. Pick : Lions

Minnesota Vikings
Detroit Lions
Football


A Nebraska Ghost Town, With a Name From Mars, May Be Reborn

Abstract: MARS, Neb. — If you turn north on the two-lane road, keep driving when it becomes gravel and stop near the county line, you can see signs of life on Mars. As settlers moved west in the 19th century, a few chose to stake their futures on this hilly land in northern Nebraska. The pioneers turned wood, mud and sod into buildings — a school, a post office, a granary, their homes. But as the decades passed, most of this town they worked so hard to create, a place they named Mars, receded back into the hills. Like so many Midwestern towns that were planted but never quite took root, today’s Mars is more notable for what it was than what it is. Skunks have taken over a crumbling wooden house that dates to the 1800s. An old hog barn has collapsed on itself. The school and post office are long gone. And the patch of dirt where Samuel Haskin, the town’s founder, once had a dugout home is now the site of an archaeological dig. Were it not for D. R. Haskin, a great-great-grandson of the pioneer, it seems Mars would be largely forgotten, a blank spot on the map. Video D.R. Haskin, a great-great-grandson of the pioneer Samuel Haskin, takes us on a tour through the ghost town of Mars, Neb. Mr. Haskin, however, has made it his mission to preserve his ancestors’ legacy by operating a campsite in the former town’s park, writing historical fiction novels about the settlement and excavating the dugout home. The hope, Mr. Haskin said, is to create a written record and then a living re-creation of Mars, a place that he believes can offer lessons of value far beyond these cornfields and dusty roads. “There were sacrifices. There was hardship,” Mr. Haskin said. “All of us living in the state of Nebraska owe our lives to the early pioneers.” To understand what Mars was, you need both a tour guide and an imagination. It would be easy to drive past the former settlement, which was never incorporated or plotted out, without knowing a town had once been there. Unlike some of its ghost-town cousins in the Wild West, Mars and other faded map dots on the Plains lack the boarded-up saloons and tumbleweed-laden Main Streets that can make preservation and attracting tourists easier. Image A mail wagon carrying members of the Haskin family in 1890. Samuel, the founder of the town, is the passenger in the front seat. His fourth wife, Charlotte, sits behind the driver. Credit via Haskin Family M. J. Morgan, a history professor at Kansas State University, studies forgotten towns in that state, where she said there are about 9,000 of them. The reasons that places thrived or faded vary from region to region, and Professor Morgan said the towns’ stories and the pioneers behind them merited study. “It’s not sentiment. It’s not being drawn to the whole idea of a lost place,” said Professor Morgan, who is the research director at Kansas State’s Chapman Center for Rural Studies. “It’s very much about the vital lives of people and why they came and what they hoped for and what their dreams were. You read the writings, and people literally believed that their little town would grow to rival Chicago or St. Louis.” Mr. Haskin said his great-great-grandpa never had visions of Mars spawning the next great metropolis. But he did want to make a life, a town and a home for his family. When it was founded in 1879, Mars was called Jessup, and there were big hopes that the railroad would soon be rolling through. Those trains never came, and the town struggled in its early years. Before long, Jessup lost its post office, a mark of legitimacy and a crucial means of connecting to the outside world. Eager to win back mail service, the founders proposed a post office about 100 yards north, Mr. Haskin said, just across the Knox County line. They ended up with renewed postal service and, in 1886, a fresh name: Mars, chosen because the town of Venus was a few miles down the road. Image D. R. Haskin, a descendant of Mars’s founder, in an area that was once part of downtown. Credit Ryan Henriksen for The New York Times Even with that new post office and lofty name, Mars failed to grow. It is believed that the population never reached 100. By 1897, Mr. Haskin said, the general store was gone. The post office was shuttered in 1910. The Mars School held on decades longer, even when there was no town to speak of, but it closed in 1960. Ron Carlson, 67, attended the Mars School as a child and grew up in a small house that for a time lacked indoor plumbing and electricity. Mr. Carlson, a semiretired farmer, now spends most summer weekends in a trailer at the Historic Mars Campground . Chance Jacobsen, Mr. Carlson’s teenage grandson, has worked part time for years to help keep up the grounds and excavate the dugout home of the original Mr. Haskin. Mr. Carlson said he would play on the site of that dugout as a child and would walk to school through Mars’s former downtown, which today is little more than a patch of grass on a hill. Still, Mr. Carlson said, much of the town’s pioneer history never registered with him until he had grown up and left home. Through diaries and memories and archaeology, D. R. Haskin has kept the Mars name alive. He hosts an annual party for Samuel Haskin’s birthday (the most recent would have been his 194th) and speaks of using the old granary, which has been restored, and a reconstructed dugout to tell the stories of those long-ago settlers. Mr. Haskin’s ultimate goal? Simple: “Put Mars back on the map.”

Nebraska
Mars
Samuel Haskin
D. R. Haskin
Historic preservation
Agriculture
Rural area


Super Rugby Has Its Eye on Asia

Abstract: WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Super Rugby’s bosses have not ruled out their competition eventually going global, but for now their priority is deciding who gets to join the revamped tournament beginning in 2016. Sanzar, the governing body of Super Rugby, has confirmed that in 2016, the competition will expand from 15 to 18 teams that will be split into four conferences. The current five-team conferences in Australia and New Zealand will remain. South Africa will increase its number of teams from five to six, and they will be joined by a team from Argentina and one that has yet to be decided. Those eight teams will be split into two four-team conferences. The team from Argentina will come from Buenos Aires. Steve Tew, the chief executive of the New Zealand Rugby Union, said interest in becoming the 18th Super Rugby team had already come from the West Coast of the United States, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan. It has also been suggested that Southern Europe could be a location. The decision of where the new team will be based will be determined by a tender process. But in reality, interested teams from Asia and the United States will be the front-runners. Both are commercial markets that the Sanzar nations of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa are eager to break into. In recent years, Australia and New Zealand have played in Hong Kong and Tokyo. There is also a rugby sevens presence in both those locations, as they host a leg of the World Sevens Series. There is a global drive for a greater rugby presence in Asia in the lead-up to the Rugby World Cup in Japan in 2019. Bill Pulver, the Australian Rugby Union boss, made no secret about where Australia’s preferred option was. “Our strong preference is for the 18th team to come from Asia, as we believe this will attract significant commercial opportunities for us in the future,” he said. Tew is more open-minded, which is no surprise, given that New Zealand’s three major teams — the All Blacks, the All Blacks Sevens and the Maori All Blacks — receive significant sponsorship from the insurance company AIG. AIG is headquartered in New York, and the company is eager to raise the profile of rugby in its home market through New Zealand’s successful teams. Image Bjorn Basson of Bulls, center, was tackled by Western Force players during the Super 15 Rugby Union match in Perth last month. Credit Greg Wood/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images But Tew stressed the location of the new team would have to work from a draw and travel perspective. He also made it clear they were looking to take Super Rugby beyond traditional markets. “If we only ever have rugby in the countries we all know — the British Isles, France and the Sanzar countries — then eventually we will fall behind,” he said. “We need to grow the game. ” The revamped competition will have six derby matches in each of the Australian and New Zealand conferences, two fewer then are played currently. Trans-Tasman matches would increase, with every New Zealand franchise playing every Australian one. The New Zealanders would then play against every team in one South African conference, with the Australians playing teams from the other conference. The following year they would switch. Those travel and draw logistics also make Europe a less likely option at the moment, as does the fact that Europe already has well-established competitions that involve teams from the Six Nations unions — England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. The recent agreement to revamp club and provincial rugby in Europe extended to inclusion of second-tier nations like Georgia, Portugal, Romania and Spain. Playing a team in Asia or the United States would be less of a travel issue for the players, particularly as New Zealanders and Australians would play the new team only once every two years. Despite that, interest in the tournament from broadcasters in either region should not be diluted. In fact adding either the United States or Asia to the mix would be likely to make the bidding process for broadcast rights more competitive. Currently, Sky Television New Zealand and Foxtel in Australia hold the rights for the competition for their respective markets, while Supersport has the rights in South Africa. Wherever the location, the club will need to prove it has sound rugby, financial and commercial structures in place and it will need to reassure the Sanzar unions that it will not poach talent from their franchises. The issue of New Zealand players’ being lured across to Australia to prop up their newer franchises, the Western Force and Melbourne Rebels, has been a bone of contention for the N.Z.R.U., and Tew warned, “We will have a strong discussion with anyone coming into our competition about staying away from our players.” That could put a team from Japan ahead of the opposition, as there is already an established domestic league in Japan. There are also several Japanese players playing in Australian and New Zealand Super Rugby franchises.

Rugby
Asia
New Zealand
Australia
South Africa
Argentina


An Audition on a Global Stage

Abstract: For the blue-chip prospects who will compete at the world junior championship, which begins Wednesday in the Czech Republic, a defining moment awaits. The tournament, for players younger than 20, offers the closest approximation of the intensity of the N.H.L. playoffs. “It’s the first time players of any leagues, at any level, are really playing for something important,” said Tom Kurvers, the director of player personnel for the Phoenix Coyotes. “Players get measured, and they get remembered based on their performances in this event.” Nearly all of the players have been studied by scouts at international tournaments for 17- and 18-year-olds. Most have been drafted by N.H.L. teams. A handful are top prospects for the 2008 draft; several will not be eligible for the draft until 2009. In Canada, the tournament is as much a part of the holiday culture as Boxing Day. “The country of Canada basically sits down on the couch for two weeks and watches these games,” said Kurvers, a Minnesotan who played for the United States in the 1982 tournament. “They’ll watch whatever countries are playing and then paint their faces red and cheer for Canada when they’re on.” Kurvers will have his eye on two of his organization’s top draftees: Kyle Turris, the third overall pick in 2007, who will play for Canada; and Chris Summers, a defenseman for the University of Michigan, who will play for the United States. He scouted Canada’s selection camp in Calgary, Alberta, and came away impressed with two players eligible for the 2008 draft: Steve Stamkos, a center for the Sarnia Sting of the Ontario Hockey League, who landed atop the December rankings of the International Scouting Services; and Luke Schenn, a defenseman for the Kelowna Rockets of the Western Hockey League, who climbed to No. 4 in the rankings. Nikita FilatoV, a dangerous wing for CSKA Moscow, could be the first European taken in the 2008 draft. Colin Wilson, a lanky playmaking center from Boston University, whose father, Carey Wilson, played in the N.H.L., is the top 2008 prospect on the United States team. There are also several top prospects for the 2009 draft: John Tavares, a high-scoring wing for the Oshawa Generals of the O.H.L.; Jordan Schroeder, a small, quick forward for USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program; and Victor Hedman, a 6-foot-5, 220-pound 17-year-old from the Swedish hockey hotbed Ornskoldsvik. Another Stastny When Quebec traded the future Hall of Famer Peter Stastny to the Devils in 1990, a high-scoring second-year center named Joe Sakic stepped in as the engine that drove the Nordiques. Two Stanley Cups, five 100-point-plus seasons and 17 years later, Sakic, 38, is sidelined with a stubborn groin injury. But his team, now known as the Colorado Avalanche, has stayed near the top of the N.H.L.’s Northwest Division thanks to a high-scoring second-year center named Paul Stastny, Peter’s son. With 43 points in 35 games, Stastny, who turns 22 on Thursday, was among the top 10 N.H.L. scorers before Saturday’s games. Is the torch being passed? Stastny laughed at the notion. “I don’t know about that,” he said, adding that Sakic “has been the best player for the Avs for the 19 years he’s been playing.” Stastny, a surprising finalist for the Calder Trophy as the rookie of the year last season, said he did not believe in sophomore slumps. On the advice of his father — “the biggest role model I’ve had in my life” — he took a few weeks last summer to savor a successful first season, then got back to work, building up his strength and speed. The work paid off starting on opening night: Stastny scored three goals. Centering a line with the veteran scorers Ryan Smyth and Milan Hejduk, Stastny scored 12 points in 10 games with Sakic out. Oilers Playing for Ties? Last week, the Edmonton Oilers set an N.H.L. record by participating in four straight shootouts, which meant they had played four straight tie games. Playing for ties through 60 minutes — and the automatic point that comes with it, win or lose, under the N.H.L.’s idiosyncratic system — seems to be the Oilers’ new modus operandi. They finished regulation and overtime with the score tied in 12 of the season’s first 35 games. That was four more times than the closest team, Anaheim. For every one of those 60-minute ties, the Oilers also managed to keep it tied through the five minutes of overtime and make it to a shootout — which happens to be something they are egood at, going 10-2. Without the shootout, the team’s record through Friday would be 6 victories, 18 losses and 12 ties. One way to discourage teams from playing for ties would be to award 3 points for regulation-time victories and 2 points for overtime or shootout victories, as in international tournaments and most European leagues. Such a measure was proposed to the N.H.L. general managers’ committee last season, but a faction led by Anaheim’s Brian Burke voted it down. A First for Women Women’s hockey made a stride last week with the announcement that the International Ice Hockey Federation would induct three of the sport’s stars into its Hall of Fame in May in Quebec. Cammi Granato of the United States and Angela James and Geraldine Heaney of Canada will become the first women inducted in the players category. The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto has no female players as members.


Jim Palmer, at 70, Is Still Talking Pitching

Abstract: BALTIMORE — It is noon on a Wednesday, and Jim Palmer walks from his home to a favorite spot in Little Italy, Da Mimmo, where he has been dining for decades. The restaurant is empty, which means that you can hear the chefs pounding the veal in the back. There will be many more customers later. The first time Palmer came here, in 1984, it was also empty. He peeked in and backed away, but the owner impressed him. When she was younger and part of an Orioles fan club, she explained, she had always wanted his autograph. Palmer dutifully tried the restaurant, loved it, and when he learned it was struggling, he gave it a plug to a local columnist. Now here it is, all these years later, thriving. So is Palmer, who strikes you, in his adopted hometown, as a bit like Rocky Balboa in “Creed,” the last movie in the “Rocky” series. That character carried himself, in Philadelphia, with the easy confidence of a neighborhood legend who had starred in the 1970s, never had to prove himself again, and never abandoned his roots. That is Palmer in Baltimore — minus the loneliness that shrouded Rocky. Palmer, at 70, is anything but lonely. He is married with a stepson and two grown daughters, and still works road trips and home games in the Orioles’ broadcast booth. He is surrounded by baseball, and by fans who adore him. “I always tell people now, Tell them who I used to be,’” Palmer said. “Fathers will come up to me at card shows, or they see me at the ballpark and go, ‘He was one of the greatest pitchers ever.’ I never really thought of that. I mean, I was proud of what I was able to do, but everything we did was a collective thing.” The Orioles have played in six World Series, and Palmer is the only player who was there for them all. He won a game in each of their victorious series — in 1966, 1970 and 1983 — and was swiftly inducted to the Hall of Fame. Palmer had eight 20-victory seasons in a nine-year span and won three American League Cy Young Awards. He is a proud member of the last generation of pitchers who worked 300 innings in a season, having done so four times. “When I got into the Hall of Fame, I said my biggest fear about baseball is if you pay more for less, that’s probably what you’re going to get,” he said. “And I was kind of talking about pitching.” Palmer talks a lot about pitching, and his lifetime of doing it, in a new memoir written with Alan Maimon, “Nine Innings To Success” (Triumph). The book uses examples from Palmer’s life to illustrate broader points, and its author understands his good fortune in achieving it all. Palmer arrived in the majors in 1965 in relief of Robin Roberts, a future Hall of Famer who was also a roommate and mentor. He finished the next season by throwing a shutout in the World Series at Dodger Stadium, beating one of his heroes, Sandy Koufax, in the last game of Koufax’s career. “I go up there and Koufax throws me the first high fastball — shooooo ,” Palmer said, mimicking the sound. “Now he throws me the curveball and it looks the same. The same! And John Roseboro catches it on the ground. And I’m going, this is Sandy Koufax.” Palmer was describing what turned out to be the last strikeout Koufax ever got. He retired after the World Series, his arm ruined. It is almost forgotten that Palmer was nearly gone, too. He pitched just nine games the next season and blew out his rotator cuff in the minors in 1968. “I heard everything pop,” he said. “It was like Rice Krispies.” That might have been the end. The Orioles were so stumped that they ordered Palmer to have his teeth pulled as a remedy for the shoulder. Palmer passed an exam to become a life-insurance salesman. He was such an afterthought that the Kansas City Royals and the Seattle Pilots passed on him in the expansion draft. “Mark Trumbo asked me, ‘How did guys deal with Tommy John surgery, ligament problems and all that?’ ” Palmer said, referring to the Orioles outfielder. “I said they had a sore elbow and nobody really knew why. Some got better, some didn’t.” Palmer was one of the lucky ones. One night in December 1968, at a Baltimore Bullets basketball game, a friend who worked for a drug company listened to Palmer describe his problems. The friend, Marv Foxman, left at halftime, went to his car and brought Palmer a brown paper bag filled with pills of Indocin, a nonsteroidal, anti-inflammatory pain reliever. Palmer took them as Foxman instructed, went to winter ball in Puerto Rico and found his 96-mile-an-hour fastball again. Just like that, he was on his way, a hard thrower with remarkable durability who would be baseball’s biggest winner (186 victories) in the 1970s. Pitchers then, Palmer said, were not necessarily better than those today. The difference is the standards. He loved pitching when he did, largely for the challenge of working deep into games, the way Roberts had before him. “That’s what you did, because you could do it,” Palmer said. “You really learn a lot about yourself. It takes guile, intelligence, conditioning, guts.” One pitcher, he said, stands out today — not only for his talent, but, it seems to Palmer, for his drive to go further than most: the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw, who pitches at the same park where Palmer beat Koufax nearly 50 years ago. The game he analyzes has changed from the one he played, but Palmer is eager to see the modern master in July. “I’ve never met him, but I’m going to meet him this year,” he said, smiling. “We’re playing out at Dodger Stadium.” Mr. Versatility One of the more impressive parts of Kris Bryant’s early career has been his willingness to play multiple positions. Last season, when he was the National League rookie of the year for the Chicago Cubs, Bryant played mostly at third base, appearing in the outfield only 19 times. Now, he rarely stays in one spot very long. Bryant has gone more than a month since he played more than three games in a row at one — and only one — position. From April 15 through 19, he played just third base. Since then, Bryant has bounced among third, left field, right field and even first base (for one out). He has played multiple positions in about a third of his games. “There’s so many guys in this clubhouse that might play a certain area, and I might need to make a sacrifice and move somewhere else for them if they’re swinging the bat hot,” Bryant said at Wrigley Field recently. “At first, it’s a little hard to prepare yourself each day, because it’s a change of scenery. You’re in left field, right field, third base — it’s different. Now I’m a little more used to it.” Bryant’s versatility has allowed Manager Joe Maddon to rotate Javier Baez and Tommy La Stella into the lineup at third base. Without a designated hitter spot in the N.L., Maddon said, outfield days give Bryant “almost like a day off” compared to the physical demands of third base. Staying sharp mentally in the outfield can be a challenge. “Playing the outfield is a little different in terms of my offensive side, because you have more time to think about it out there, which can be a good thing or a bad thing,” Bryant said. “I think this year, so far, I’ve made it a good thing, because last year, when I was playing the outfield, I was thinking a lot about my at-bats. This year, I’m a little more focused on the whole defensive side of things.” Bryant’s statistics are essentially the same at third base or the outfield, and he has worked at the plate to improve one offensive trait in particular. “Making more contact,” Bryant said. “I know that I’m going to be above average in terms of my strikeout numbers, but if I could just cut down on that a couple of percentage points, it can only help me.” After leading the N.L. in strikeouts last season, with 199, Bryant had just 40 coming into the weekend. He struck out in 30.6 of his plate appearances last season and had cut that rate to 19.6, helping the Cubs to the majors’ best record. Honoring Gwynn A regrettable fashion trend in baseball, going back more than 20 years, is the way most players wear their pants: pulled down to their shoe tops, with no stirrups or socks showing. “It’s been like that for a while,” said Jon Jay, an outfielder for the San Diego Padres. “But guys wear different stuff underneath.” For Jay — for every game — that means socks depicting Tony Gwynn, the Hall of Famer who spent 20 seasons with the Padres through 2001. The socks are in the classic Padres colors — yellow, brown and orange — that Gwynn wore early in his career. “Growing up, he was the best hitter around,” said Jay, like Gwynn a left-handed hitter. “I’ve always had a swing that went to left field, and he always hit that 6-hole — that was his patented move. I remember just always admiring his swing and the way he could hit the ball to all parts of the ballpark.” Jay chose No. 19 with his previous team, the St. Louis Cardinals, partly because of Gwynn. Since coming to the Padres, he said, he has learned more about Gwynn, including his reliance on video to prepare for games. “Mike Tompkins, our video guy, was around him, and I asked him a ton of questions about Tony,” Jay said. “He revolutionized it.” Jay has met Tony Gwynn Jr., but he never met Gwynn, who died of salivary gland cancer in 2014. Gwynn’s family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Monday against Altria Group, Inc., the tobacco giant formerly known as Philip Morris, and several other defendants involved in inducing Gwynn to begin using smokeless tobacco, or dip, at San Diego State in the 1970s.

Jim Palmer
Orioles
Baseball
Alan Maimon
Books


China: More Cancellations for Norway

Abstract: China called off several more official visits with Norwegian officials over the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo last Friday, the Norwegian government said Wednesday. China, which had already canceled two cabinet-level meetings this week, called off a trip planned for next week by 17 senior Norwegian civil servants, Norway ’s Foreign Ministry said. A visit by Chinese judicial officials to Norway this week has also been postponed, according to the Foreign Ministry. Some lower-level contacts between the two nations were continuing, which led some analysts to suggest that China might not want to jeopardize its long-term relations with Norway. “We regret that many important meetings with Chinese counterparts have been canceled or postponed,” said Ragnhild Imerslund, a spokeswoman for the Norwegian Foreign Ministry.


Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn, Residents Outraged by Homeless Shelter Plans

Abstract: Carroll Gardens can remember a time decades ago when its southern edge was not the fetching brownstone- and row-house-rich magnet it has become for young strivers and couples with children — a time when the neighborhood was studded with vacant buildings. That is why much of the generally politically liberal Brooklyn neighborhood has been seething about a letter sent 10 days ago notifying the local community board that, with New York City’s go-ahead, a nonprofit agency would be opening a 170-bed shelter for men in a refitted 10-condominium building on a block of tidy three-family walk-ups. Many residents said they believed the shelter would set the now-thriving neighborhood back to its ragged and treacherous days. “To jam 170 homeless men into this neighborhood is a numbskull idea,” said Buddy Scotto, head of the Carroll Gardens Association. “I didn’t spend my whole life helping make Carroll Gardens a decent place to let somebody do a dumb idea like this.” The city’s homeless population has risen sharply in the past year, reaching more than 46,000 adults and children, compelling the Bloomberg administration to open 10 shelters since June, sometimes to bitter opposition. Because the Carroll Gardens neighborhood is proud of its liberal cast, residents like Maria Pagano have taken pains to say they are not opposed to housing the homeless or accommodating other social-service institutions; the neighborhood already has a residence for battered women and a busy methadone clinic. “We already have people in our community who are borderline homeless,” said Ms. Pagano, president of another neighborhood association. But they are opposed to crowding 170 men into what is now 10 apartments, and they are skeptical about vague assurances about security, social services and how residents will be screened. They say they worry about troublesome, possibly violent men wandering their streets. Shelter residents can include sex offenders and former convicts. The project does not need the community’s approval: before opening shelters, the city is legally obligated only to notify community boards. Mattresses and refrigerators have already been hauled in, but the nonprofit organization running the project said it did not yet have an opening date. The fast-forming storm regarding the proposed shelter gained speed Wednesday when the Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, and three local legislators sent a letter to Seth Diamond, the commissioner of homeless services, questioning the project’s scale and noting a possible conflict of interest. The building’s listed representative is Charles Wertman, a real estate lawyer who is a member of the board of Housing Solutions USA, which recently merged with Aguila Inc., the organization that will operate the shelter. “Given that the City of New York will pay substantial sums for the rent of the building, this suggests a large potential conflict of interest,” said the letter, which was signed by Mr. Markowitz, Councilman Brad Lander, State Senator Daniel Squadron and Assemblywoman Joan Millman. In an e-mail, Mr. Wertman said that he was a real estate lawyer who handled transactions for the building 10 years ago but that a man named Alan Lapes owned the property, not him. “Nor,” he added, “will I receive any financial gain from any business transaction regarding the property.” It was a coincidence, he said, that Housing Solutions is engaged with a property he once represented. The proposal is being studied by the Investigation and Homeless Services Departments, spokeswomen for those agencies said. Robert V. Hess, a former commissioner of homeless services, is the chief executive of the merged organization, though he waited the necessary period before working for an agency contractor. Carroll Gardens, which borders gritty Red Hook and genteel Park Slope, is notable for brownstones with unusually large, gated front yards adorned with flowering bushes and aged trees. The blocks at its southern edge, along the Gowanus Expressway, are more roughly hewed, with three-family apartment houses originally built for workers in nearby factories. But the cachet of Carroll Gardens has gradually lifted the appeal of the southern blocks as well, with at least four new condo buildings around the corner from the proposed shelter, fine restaurants along Smith and Court Streets, and spas and kickboxing studios open or about to open. The working-class walk-ups now attract young couples like Jeff Moy, an executive assistant in television, and his pregnant wife, Laura, a schoolteacher, who live four houses down from the proposed shelter. “My wife comes home from school pretty late, and I’m concerned about her safety,” Mr. Moy said as he walked his dog one morning. Not everybody is opposed. Mousa Gerdan, a Palestinian immigrant who owns a small deli at 556 Court Street, around the corner, says he thinks that the shelter will provide some food-stamp-using customers for his sandwiches and snacks just as the methadone clinic a block away already does. He pointed out that he already sees homeless men sleeping on the benches and under the highway bridges. “They’re homeless, they don’t harm you,” he said. “They just buy and leave.” As for the condo residents who oppose the shelter: “They don’t give me no business,” he said.

Homeless Persons
Carroll Gardens (NYC)
Aguila Inc


Housing Market’s Future Has Many Variables

Abstract: HOUSES are just buildings, but homes are often beautiful dreams. Unfortunately, as millions of people have learned in the housing crisis, those dreams don’t always comport with reality. Economic and demographic changes may severely impair the value of a home when it’s time to sell, a decade or more in the future. Will a particular home still be fashionable then? Will social and economic shifts tilt demand toward new designs and types of communities —even toward renting rather than an outright purchase? Any of these factors could affect home prices substantially. An ever-changing economy requires constant geographical repositioning. In the 19th century, for example, housing was often built near factories and warehouses, with apartments or houses containing numerous small rooms intended to accommodate many people per structure. In those days, before air-conditioning, these buildings often had large porches for access to cooling breezes. Early in the 20th century, many houses were built around streetcar routes. Then, when the Interstate Highway System started in the 1950s, suburbs bloomed along the path of superhighways. With cheaper cars and relatively cheap gasoline (despite spikes in the 1970s and after 2005), housing developments became more dispersed. A culture that prized privacy and individuality left many neighborhoods without sidewalks or nearby community gathering places. Houses were cheaper to build this way, and they grew larger. In the last century, shifts like these helped explain why inflation-corrected prices for existing homes typically changed by plus or minus 15 percent in a decade, even without national bubbles. Further changes are inevitable, but hard to predict. For example, governments may now be reluctant to spend much on infrastructure like new highways or high-speed rail. But what will happen in 10 years — and what are the possible effects for the housing market? We live in what’s been called an ideas economy, with a shrinking industrial base and a greater premium on knowledge and personal connections, which make social, educational and business networking ever more important. New social media haven’t reduced the importance of geographical neighborhoods. In his 2009 book, “ The Great Reset : How New Ways of Living and Working Drive Post-Crash Prosperity,” Richard Florida argues that the modern economy requires a different layout: “The coming decades will likely see more intense clustering of jobs, innovation and productivity in a smaller number of bigger cities and city-regions,” he writes. That outcome would certainly affect prices of existing homes. It seems a plausible direction for housing development, but it’s certainly not guaranteed. AT the moment, walkable urban areas — pleasant places where people can stroll to work and to restaurants — are becoming more popular. Last year, a Brookings Institution study of the Washington area by Christopher B. Leinberger and Mariela Alfonzo concluded that such neighborhoods, where creative people cluster, show the highest property values. Far-flung suburbs are losing value relative to cities and close-in suburbs that offer such walkable areas. And these denser places seem to fit in better with more environmentally conscious values, too. Attitudes toward renting have also been changing. A MacArthur Foundation survey, conducted by Hart Research Associates in February and March, asked Americans if they thought that, “given our nation’s current situation,” buying a home had become more or less appealing. Fifty-seven percent said it had become less so, with only 27 percent saying it had become more appealing. When asked if they agreed with the statement, “For the most part, renters can be just as successful as owners at achieving the American dream,” some 61 percent agreed; 28 percent did not. Perhaps that trend will continue. Renting, which connotes mobility, might come to be identified with a high-status lifestyle in the new economy. If renting does become more important, owners of existing housing will be affected unevenly. A 2011 study from the Department of Housing and Urban Development concluded that conversion from ownership to rental properties has often been difficult: It has been more common for some townhouses and other “attached” homes that are relatively small and old and located in central cities. Much of the owner-occupied housing stock of today doesn’t fit that bill. There is another problem. It’s not just that many houses today don’t convert easily to rental property. In addition, they haven’t been designed to foster their use as components of continuing-care retirement communities. Yet, as baby boomers retire, the demand for such places will probably grow at the expense of conventional housing. In the wake of the housing crisis, and amid shifting demographics, it’s plausible that a broad change in thinking is ahead, reducing demand for large suburban homes. After all, the national psyche has absorbed the tribulations of the millions of people who have been living in homes worth less than their mortgages, struggling to make payments and yet unable to sell. Smaller living quarters may become more socially acceptable. This future for housing is possible, but we don’t really know. The housing haze is very thick, and, as I’ve said in other columns , so many things affect home prices that it is hard to foresee prices for a particular home years from now. Forecasting is indeed risky, because of factors like construction productivity, inflation, and the growth and bursting of speculative bubbles in both home prices and long-term interest rates. The outlook is so ambiguous that there is no single answer to the question of housing’s potential as a long-term investment. If you want to settle down for a quiet life and watch your children grow up in a nice neighborhood, you might well act now to lock in an ultralow mortgage rate . Then again, if you’re restless, ambitious and determined to be mobile, it might be sensible to rent rather than own. Calculating the best economic return may not even be possible, given the uncertain investment potential. Instead, it may be wisest to choose the housing that best meets your personal needs, among the choices you can afford.

Housing
Rent
Economy
Suburb
Real Estate
US Economy
Mortgage loan