When You Can Take the Barbecue Out of Texas

Abstract: Can you take barbecue out of Texas and still call it Texas barbecue? A growing number of restaurateurs born or bred in Texas say you can, and they are opening establishments across America where customers can be indoctrinated into the unique tradition of Lone Star barbecue — smoked meat ordered by the pound, served on butcher paper, without sauce or utensils. While dozens of restaurants outside our borders claim to serve “authentic Texas barbecue,” in most cases, the description turns out to be little more than a marketing gimmick. But several places serving legitimate Texas barbecue have popped up around the country — from Compton, Calif., to New York City — and the proprietors of these restaurants remain true to the history and techniques of Texas barbecue. Close your eyes, put on some Willie Nelson, and you might not know the difference. Bigmista’s Barbecue Southern California Neil Strawder, who was raised in Galveston, started making barbecue while pursuing a more conventional career in financial management. What began as a hobby soon became an obsession as he researched cooking techniques on barbecue Web sites and eventually joined a competitive barbecue team. He turned his extracurricular activity into a legitimate business by opening Bigmista’s Barbecue in 2008. Mr. Strawder now slings smoked meat at farmers markets in cities like Long Beach, El Segundo and Torrance. His wife, Phyllis, takes care of the business side, while Phyllis’s stepfather, Blondie Croxton, helps out in the booth (and takes credit for Bigmista’s smoked pork ribs). Although Mr. Strawder doesn’t specifically characterize his barbecue as Texas-style — he calls it “Bigmista style” — his methods appear to be influenced by the regional technique, starting with a signature beef brisket smoked for 12 hours. Various locations. Bigmista.com . Bludso’s BBQ Compton, Calif. Kevin Bludso was born and raised in Compton — a predominantly Hispanic and black community in South Central Los Angeles — to parents who moved there from Texas. During the summers of his youth, Mr. Bludso’s family sent him to Corsicana, where he worked for his grandmother, who ran a small barbecue joint. At the time, he viewed the summer job as back-breaking work, but Mr. Bludso admits he soaked up everything his grandmother taught him about smoking meat. After leaving a career as a corrections officer, he began catering full time and eventually opened Bludso’s BBQ in 2008. The offerings here reflect an East Texas-style of barbecue with big portions of meaty ribs and brisket accompanied by traditional Southern sides of collard greens and potato salad . A number of Southern-style barbecue restaurants can be found in this area of Los Angeles, and Bludso’s adds a proud East Texas flavor to the mix. 811 South Long Beach Boulevard, Compton. (310) 637-1342, bludsosbbqandcatering.com Hill Country Barbecue Washington and New York Marc Glosserman has deep roots in Lockhart, a k a, the barbecue capital of Texas. His grandfather was a former mayor, and his father grew up there before moving to Austin to go to college. Although his parents eventually relocated to Washington, where Mr. Glosserman grew up, the family frequently returned to Lockhart. It was during one of those family trips in 2003 that Mr. Glosserman, who was working as a high-tech executive, grabbed lunch at one of the state’s most storied barbecue places: Kreuz Market. A discussion with Rick Schmidt, a friend and the owner of Kreuz, over a plate of barbecue convinced Mr. Glosserman that a career change was in order. He eventually moved to New York City, and in June 2007 opened Hill Country Barbecue Market in the Flatiron District of Manhattan to critical praise. He branched out to Washington in March 2011. Plaudits from East Coast critics are nice, but what do his Texas peers think of his big-city barbecue ventures? “I don’t want to speak for them,” Mr. Glosserman said. “But I’ll just say that the highest compliment we can get is when a Texan says we make great barbecue.” New York City: 30 West 26th Street, (212) 255-4544. Washington: 410 Seventh Street NW, (202) 556-2050, hillcountryny.com . Podnah’s Pit Barbecue Portland, Ore. Rodney Muirhead, Podnah’s pitmaster, grew up in Waxahachie, attended Texas A&M University and went to culinary school in New York. But it was a series of less-than-secure high-tech jobs that led him to Portland. After being laid off in 2004, Mr. Muirhead started smoking Central Texas-style barbecue and selling it at farmers markets under the name L.O.W. (Laid Off Workers) BBQ. He soon developed a devoted following in the Pacific Northwest city, prompting him to open a brick-and-mortar location in 2006. He changed the name to Podnah’s but did not change the menu, which features the trinity of Texas barbecue — trimmed spareribs, white oak-smoked brisket and spicy sausage. His food has never been a hard sell in Portland: “The city’s been great,” Mr. Muirhead said. “Not only is the population diverse — there are actually quite a few Texans — but this is the quintessential food city. Portlanders love authentic food of any type.” 1625 NE Killingsworth Street, (503) 281-3700, podnahspit.com

Barbecue
Texas
Restaurants
Meat
Cooking and Cookbooks


Agency Clears Mayor de Blasio and Nonprofit of Campaign Finance Violations

Abstract: The New York City Campaign Finance Board on Wednesday issued a blunt critique of a nonprofit closely linked to Mayor Bill de Blasio that has used unlimited donations to advance his political agenda, denouncing the group’s behavior while clearing it and the mayor of any campaign finance violations. The decision briefly soothed one irritant for Mr. de Blasio, a Democrat, whose administration is facing several different investigations at once, including federal and local inquiries into the nonprofit’s fund-raising activities. Yet the board appeared to find much that was troublesome, if not illegal, in the behavior of the group, the Campaign for One New York, which has amassed millions of dollars in donations to push for City Hall initiatives, including universal prekindergarten and an affordable housing policy. In a statement at a public meeting, the board said that the nonprofit’s fund-raising “plainly raises serious policy and perception issues,” exposing the limitations of the city’s current campaign finance laws, which strictly curb or ban contributions to political candidates to “reduce the appearance that influence can be bought or sold.” Calling on the City Council to pass legislation to tighten limits on contributions to nonprofits that are tied to specific politicians, the board added that “it defies common sense that limits that work so well during the campaign should be set aside once the candidate has assumed elected office.” The heavy skepticism that saturated the board’s report reflected the dismay of government watchdogs, who have characterized the Campaign for One New York’s license to operate outside of campaign finance limits as a major intrusion of money into politics — an expansion of “pay-to-play culture,” as Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union, put it on Wednesday. More than 95 percent of the funds raised by the Campaign for One New York, which shut down in March amid increasing scrutiny of its finances, would have been banned under the city’s normal campaign finance laws for political candidates, the board found. Most of the gifts far outstripped the $4,950 cap on individual donations to candidates, including a $350,000 donation from the American Federation of Teachers and $500,000 in two contributions from 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East. These were just three among at least a dozen six-figure contributions. Other gifts came from companies or people who did business with the city, including a $100,000 contribution from Two Trees Management Company, a real estate developer that had negotiated with the de Blasio administration over redeveloping the Domino Sugar Factory site in Brooklyn. Mr. de Blasio, who has raised money for the Campaign for One New York, has argued that the activities of the nonprofits tied to him are aboveboard because they voluntarily disclose all of their contributions, despite not being required to do so. “It’s not dark money if it’s disclosed,” he said in February. But the board said the nonprofit’s disclosures fell short of being “comprehensive” and fully accessible to the public. On Wednesday, a spokesman for the mayor, Eric Phillips, said that Mr. de Blasio had been a “lifelong advocate” of campaign finance reform, though he did not touch on the specifics of the legislation the Campaign Finance Board and watchdogs have suggested. “He looks forward to continuing the work to help get big money out of politics and to make sure everyone is playing by the same rules,” Mr. Phillips said. The board’s actions were far more muted than its words. Responding to a February complaint from Common Cause New York, a watchdog group, the board determined that because the nonprofit’s activities on behalf of the mayor had focused on his policy goals and took place more than three years before the election, there was not enough information to conclude that the organization had coordinated with the 2017 campaign. The board also clarified rules governing nonprofit advocacy groups that are affiliated with politicians. If such groups coordinate with a politician’s campaign to promote the politician in the run-up to an election, anything they spend will be treated as a donation to the candidate and subject to normal campaign finance limits. Run by former advisers to the mayor’s 2013 campaign, the Campaign for One New York functioned as a policy advocacy group, not a shadow re-election committee. But it checked a few of the other boxes the board outlined on Wednesday: Mr. de Blasio has helped raise funds for the group, and most of its spending has been on political consultants who routinely advise him. A spokesman for the Campaign for One New York, Dan Levitan — who doubles as one of those consultants — said the group was “pleased” with the decision. “The Campaign for One New York was formed to advocate for New York City’s progressive policy agenda,” Mr. Levitan said in a statement. “It never engaged in any election campaign activity for any candidate and shut down more than a year and a half before next year’s election.” But government watchdogs said the mayor and the nonprofit won a narrow victory on narrow grounds. “I’m looking at the philosophy underlying the campaign finance law, not whether this dollar or that dollar was spent for campaign purposes,” said Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause New York. “Don’t give the appearance that you’re selling out. It doesn’t sit right.”

Campaign finance
Bill de Blasio
Politics
Campaign for One New York
Campaign Finance Board NYC
NYC


Mets Waste 9th-Inning Comeback With Collapse in the 10th

Abstract: MIAMI, Sept. 20 — After the Mets squandered two three-run leads and suffered a devastating 8-7 defeat in 10 innings to the Florida Marlins on Thursday, closer Billy Wagner spoke with bandages around his torso and a concerned look on his face. “Wish and hope and pray,” Wagner said. “That’s all I can do.” He was speaking specifically of the back spasms that kept him out of the game in the ninth inning when he should have been protecting a three-run lead. But his words applied to his reeling team as a whole. Since leading the National League East by seven games on Sept. 12, the Mets have lost six of their last seven games and have seen their lead over the second-place Phillies trimmed to a game and a half with 10 left in the regular season. After the Mets rallied for four runs in the top of the ninth to take a 7-4 lead, the Marlins tied the score, 7-7, in the ninth against relievers Pedro Feliciano and Jorge Sosa, then won the game in the 10th on Dan Uggla’s double off the left-field against Sosa. Tom Glavine, the Mets’ starter, went only five innings, giving up 4 runs on 11 hits, including a three-run blast by Miguel Cabrera that erased the first Mets lead. “A lot of crazy stuff happening,” Glavine said. “Some of it, you can’t believe. We’ve lost every which way. It’s hard to believe it’s happening.” No team has ever had such a large lead so late in the season and failed to make the playoffs. Should the Mets relinquish first place to the Phillies, the Mets could still qualify for the wild-card berth, although they trail the San Diego Padres, the current wild-card leader, by a game. The injuries have been mounting for the Mets. Also missing Friday’s game was Luis Castillo, the second baseman, with a sore knee. Carlos Delgado, the veteran first baseman, hopes to return this weekend after missing more than two weeks. But Orlando Hernández, the veteran starting pitcher, is out indefinitely with a foot injury. Moises Alou, the veteran left fielder, is playing with a sore quadriceps and Paul Lo Duca, the catcher, has a sore right hand. Not all the Mets problems are physical. They seem to be emotionally fragile. For the third time in seven games, a player was ejected for arguing with a home plate umpire. This time it was Lastings Milledge, who started in right field. “I’m not commenting right now,” Milledge said. “It’s not a good time.” One of the big hits for the Mets was a bases-loaded double by Marlon Anderson, pinch-hitting in the ninth with one out against Kevin Gregg, the Florida closer. Three runs scored and the Mets led, 6-4. Carlos Beltrán drove in another run with a single. “I was saying, ‘Well, we’ve got this one,’ ” Beltrán said, recalling his mood at that moment. “We didn’t. They beat us.” Among the strange doings was an incident before the bottom of the eighth when Aaron Heilman, the fifth of seven Mets pitchers, was warming up. A ball sailed out of the stands from behind the Mets’ dugout and hit him on the left wrist. “It took my by surprise,” Heilman said. “It hit me square.” Curiously, two of the first six hits given up by Glavine were to Dontrelle Willis, Florida’s starter, and both were somewhat unusual. In the third, Willis reached first on a bunt single that landed on the left side of the infield between Glavine and third baseman David Wright. In the fifth, Willis doubled on what appeared to be a routine grounder to first base. But the ball hit the bag and caromed away from Jeff Conine and out into right field. Willis scored on a double by Hanley Ramírez to cut the Mets’ lead to 3-1. The rally did not end there. After Ramírez made the first out while trying to steal third, the Marlins put two more men on with singles. Then Cabrera hit a 2-2 pitch over the left-field fence, putting Florida ahead by 4-3. It was the fifth consecutive Marlins hit. Glavine finished the fifth inning with his pitch total at 107. Joe Smith relieved him to start the sixth. The Mets had taken a 2-0 lead in the first after Willis hit Milledge and Wright with pitches. After Beltrán reached first on a fielder’s choice, Alou drove home two runs with a two-out double. The hit gave Alou a 24-game hitting streak, the longest of his career and the longest in the league this season. He is playing despite pain in his left quadriceps. In the ninth, against Gregg, Lo Duca led off with a double and Carlos Gómez ran for him. When Rubén Gotay grounded to shortstop, Ramírez threw to third base, Gómez arriving ahead of the tag. Shawn Green walked to load the bases with no outs and the top of the batting order coming up. Reyes struck out swinging. Next came Anderson, a pinch-hitter, who hit a 3-2 pitch off the right-field wall for a three-run double. After the game, players shuffled back and forth from the training room and some filled plates with food. In the manager’s office, Willie Randolph sat behind a desk and spoke so softly that few in the room could hear him. “We’ll get them tomorrow, guys,” he said. “Tough loss.” Around the lockers, General Manager Omar Minaya circulated, smiling at some players, patting others on the back, making light conversation with a few more. On the wall, the digital clock clicked toward midnight.


Australian Billionaire Plans New Political Party

Abstract: SYDNEY, Australia — An Australian billionaire who is perhaps best known for his efforts to build a seaworthy replica of the Titanic says he will use his vast fortune to form a new political party to compete in federal elections scheduled for September. The tycoon, Clive Palmer, had been a major financial supporter of the conservative Liberal-National Party, from which he resigned last year amid quarrels about his political aspirations. Mr. Palmer says his newly minted United Australia Party, which he announced at a news conference on Friday, will be a serious challenger rather than a vanity project. “I’m running to be the prime minister of Australia,” Mr. Palmer told reporters. “I am standing because I think I can offer better service to the community than anyone else.” Mr. Palmer is a major player in Australia’s natural resource-driven economy. He owns considerable mining assets as well as a nickel refinery that he bought from the mining giant BHP Billiton and large coal and iron ore deposits in the states of Queensland and Western Australia. He made international headlines this year when he unveiled his plans for Titanic II , a $200-million replica of the doomed ocean liner that will be equipped with high-tech engines and modern amenities like air-conditioning. Mr. Palmer says that the ship, which will be built by China’s state-owned CSC Jinling Shipyard, could make its maiden voyage as early as 2016. Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the first woman to serve in that post in Australia, has seen her ratings plummet since January, when she announced that federal elections would be held in September. The unusually early announcement kicked off an election season that has been bruising and marked by infighting in Ms. Gillard’s Labor Party, and it remains to be seen what impact Mr. Palmer’s announcement will have on the race. Tony Abbott, the leader of the opposition Liberal-National coalition, is widely expected to become the next prime minister, but Mr. Palmer’s deep pockets and conservative stance on issues like climate change and taxes could steal crucial votes from Mr. Abbott, especially in Mr. Palmer’s home state, Queensland. The deputy leader of the Liberal Party, Julie Bishop, urged conservatives not to jeopardize the coalition’s chances by splintering the vote. “If you want to get rid of the Labor government, if you want to get rid of the waste and incompetence and inability to stop the boats, then you have to vote for the coalition,” she said in an interview with Sky News, referring to the rickety boats used by asylum seekers making the perilous crossing from Indonesia to the Australian territory of Christmas Island. “It’s got to be a vote for the Liberal Party and the National Party,” Ms. Bishop said, “That’s how you get rid of this government.” The Labor Party, however, seemed to welcome the announcement, which has the potential to at least partly reverse its flagging fortunes. “I think pretty clearly anyone who votes for a Clive Palmer-led party wasn’t a former Labor supporter, they’ll be a former L.N.P. supporter,” Anthony Albanese, the infrastructure and transportation minister, told the newspaper The Australian . “That’s his niche market,” Mr. Albanese said. “If the far-right want to fight with the not-so-far-right in Queensland, then good luck to them.”

Australia
Politics
Election
Clive Palmer


BASF Should Steer Clear of Bidding for Monsanto

Abstract: There is one thing the shareholders of the chemical company BASF should fear more than consolidation between its German rival Bayer and the American seed maker Monsanto: their own board wading in with a counterbid. Bayer’s bid for Monsanto puts BASF’s chief executive, Kurt Bock, on the spot. With agricultural revenue of 5.8 billion euros ($6.5 billion), BASF is one of the world’s big players in an industry where everyone seems to be enthusiastically coupling. Think of Dow Chemical’s merger with DuPont, and Syngenta’s planned takeover by ChemChina. Only BASF would be left on the shelf. Image Kurt Bock, the chief executive of BASF. Credit Uwe Anspach/European Pressphoto Agency Moreover, a Bayer-Monsanto tie-up may put BASF’s collaboration with the Americans at risk. BASF and Monsanto work together on research and development in plant biotechnology, giving a strong reason, perhaps, to spoil Bayer’s plans. Yet the math of a BASF counterbid would be a stretch. A 30 percent sweetener on Monsanto’s undisturbed share price would mean an interloper paying around $51 billion. That’s a premium equivalent to $12 billion. Jefferies analysts estimate that BASF could generate around $720 million of annual cost synergies from merging with Monsanto by 2020, but their $5.4 billion net present value — what they would be worth as a lump sum today — falls far short of justifying such generosity. By leveraging up to 3.5 times the combined entities’ earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, BASF could comfortably take on only about $30 billion of new debt. Unlike BASF, Bayer sells seeds, which suggests greater room for synergies. Yet Bayer’s chief executive, Werner Baumann, is already struggling to persuade his shareholders that an offer for the American seed group makes sense, even as his company’s shares have fallen 10 percent in a week. Mr. Bock sat on his hands while other potential merger targets like Syngenta and DuPont were snapped up. He can afford to do it again.

BASF
Monsanto
Bayer
Mergers and Acquisitions
Pharmaceuticals


Resurgent Wilson Is at Cutting Edge of Baseball’s Beard Movement

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — When the bullpen gates opened and Brian Wilson, bushy black beard and all, made his way to the mound in Game 3, the capacity Dodger Stadium crowd — itself dotted with dozens of synthetic bushy black beards — roared with delight. Never mind that the scene had shifted 400 miles to the south from the edge of McCovey Cove. Or that it was the eighth inning and not the ninth. It was like 2010 again. When Wilson anchored the back end of a devastating bullpen that season, the freaky, funky Giants rolled to their first World Series title since moving west. After torn elbow ligaments relegated him to cheerleader status when they won again last year, Wilson has recovered enough to solidify the Dodgers’ bullpen with the same ruthless efficiency he had as a closer. With Wilson once again a major presence in the playoffs and the hirsute Red Sox battling for the American League title, there is the potential for this year’s World Series to turn into, well, a hair-raising one. The Red Sox took the lead in their series with Detroit on Tuesday when Mike Napoli, with a beard resembling a Confederate general’s, belted a home run that delivered Boston’s 1-0 victory. Fear the beard, indeed. Wilson’s hair, quirky personality and interesting observations have somewhat obscured just how good he has been in the playoffs. Going into Tuesday’s game, he had pitched 162/3 innings in his postseason career without allowing an earned run. Even if his fastball no longer tops out at 100 miles an hour, he allowed no runs through the first three games of the National League Championship Series. After a leadoff single to Jon Jay on Monday, Wilson’s late-moving fastball caught Kolten Wong looking at a third strike, and his cutter did the same to Matt Carpenter. In between, he induced Adron Chambers into a forceout. “The regular season is more or less an audition,” Wilson said after Monday’s victory cut the Cardinals’ series lead to two games to one. “This is the show. This is where things count. You bring your A game in October and it’s final.” The Red Sox may have grown their beards to foster camaraderie after enduring their share of dysfunction the previous two seasons. Eventually, the beards acquired a certain mojo. Wilson grew his for the same reason he rips off the sleeves and collars of his T-shirts, and has intermittently worn a Mohawk since the age of 7 — because he can. He grew a beard earlier in his career, but it was not one that anyone noticed. And when he was sent to the minors, Wilson figured it was not appropriate to keep it. Until later, when it was. When Wilson was told recently that Houston Rockets forward James Harden, whose beard is the N.B.A.’s most prominent, had wanted to shave it off at one point but could not, he nodded in agreement. “I think that would be time vested,” Wilson said. “Whether it would be a person, a place an idea or a natural part of you, you become attached.” The Cardinals’ injured reliever Jason Motte has an impressively unkempt beard. But Joe Kelly, the rookie who had a strong start for St. Louis in the series opener, has a playoff growth that is somewhere between stubble and a beard. He laughed at the thought of taking the mound with a growth of Wilsonian proportions. “That’s a funny question,” Kelly said. “It’s taken a couple weeks for this. I would probably never know how that felt because my facial hair won’t grow that good.” The Dodgers under Joe Torre did not allow beards or long hair, even requiring Manny Ramirez to trim his dreadlocks. Don Mattingly, though, had no such restrictions when he succeeded Torre. No doubt he remembers the losing battle he fought as a Yankee player with George Steinbrenner to keep his mustache and long hair. As for what the Boss would have thought of these playoffs, Mattingly said, “Well, I’m sure as long as Wilson wasn’t on the Yankees, I’m sure he’d be fine with it.” The Yankees’ policy was once the standard throughout baseball. The former Dodgers great Don Newcombe, dapperly dressed in a suit and fedora, chuckled at how appearances have changed. He and his former Dodgers teammates would tease Roy Campanella when he showed up each year at spring training with a mustache. It would be gone the next day. “Some of the beards are outlandish, but if a player wants it and the manager is O.K. with it, who cares?” said Newcombe, at 87 still a regular at Dodger Stadium. Then he expressed curiosity about what would happen if Wilson were to join the Yankees. “I’d like to be alive to see that,” he said.

Baseball
Brian Wilson
Dodgers
Red Sox
Beards and Mustaches


Worry on Athletic Turf Prompts Some Digging

Abstract: Health officials are still trying to figure out whether the lead found in some artificial grass poses a serious health hazard for children who play on the fields. But even as testing and analysis continue, some officials in the New York region have torn up decade-old fields and laid down new lead-free synthetic surfaces. Others have decided that the lead does not pose an immediate health risk and are leaving their fields alone for now. In New Jersey, where health officials this month raised the issue of lead in the nylon fibers of synthetic turf, fields in Ewing, Hoboken and Newark are being replaced. The College of New Jersey in Ewing started ripping up the surface of its football field last week and hopes to lay down lead-free turf before commencement next month. In Newark, where lead was found in artificial grass at a soccer field, city workers have started laying down a new synthetic surface. In Hoboken, Mayor David Roberts said the City Council would vote on Tuesday on an emergency measure to rip up the surface of the waterfront soccer field at Frank Sinatra Park and replace it with a lead-free synthetic surface. The field has been closed since April 14, when state health officials revealed that tests had found lead in the fibers. Mr. Roberts said the city did its own tests and found the lead was not coming loose from the fibers, but decided it would be best to replace the turf anyway. “Someone would have to literally consume some of the grass fiber” to get enough lead to become sick, Mr. Roberts said. Four children who played there have been tested for lead at Hoboken University Hospital and none was found to have abnormally high levels, Mr. Roberts said. Concerns about lead surfaced this month as the result of testing done in 2007 by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services and federal health officials. They were sent to investigate the presence of lead in a contaminated scrapyard in the Ironbound section of Newark. When investigators saw children playing on the St. Charles Street athletic fields nearby, they feared the lead might have been blown there and they took samples. The samples revealed high levels of lead. But further testing showed the source was not the scrapyard but fibers of the artificial turf on the field. Health officials notified the city of Newark and went on to collect turf fiber samples from 12 other fields around the state. Results showed that 10 of the fields’ surfaces that were made from polyethylene had low or undetectable levels of lead. However, two fields with turf made of the same kind of nylon fibers as the field in Newark had lead levels 10 times higher than acceptable state standards. The lead found in the turf was traced back to lead chromate pigments used to color the material green. If the turf fibers degrade because of age and exposure to the sun, they can release a dust containing lead. Health officials say that if a child’s hand touches the dust, it could then be transferred to the child’s mouth. New Jersey health officials are conducting further tests to determine how readily the lead could be absorbed by the body. A spokeswoman for the health department said the results of those tests were expected to be released next month. There has been no rush to replace synthetic turf elsewhere. Nancy Clark, assistant commissioner of New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said the city had identified one field covered in the same kind of nylon turf that New Jersey health officials determined was manufactured with lead. Samples of the turf at the field, at Chelsea Park on 27th Street near 10th Avenue, showed the fibers did contain lead. But subsequent dust samples — similar to the kind of tests that would be done inside a home to determine whether lead paint dust was present — showed no hazard. “We determined that the lead was still embedded in the fibers and had not been reduced to dust that would be accessible to kids by hand or mouth,” Ms. Clark said. The turf will not be replaced. State health officials in Connecticut and New York said they were monitoring the findings from New Jersey but had no immediate plans to conduct their own tests. Although tests by the New Jersey health department have so far been inconclusive about the level of risk that lead in the turf fibers represented, the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission has started a broad investigation of lead in artificial turf. But Julie Vallese, director of public affairs for the commission, said: “The presence of lead is not enough for the agency, under our jurisdiction and statutes, to determine that there’s a risk. The lead needs to be accessible at a level of exposure that over a period of time would cause a health risk to children.” The benefits of synthetic turf over grass are obvious. Once installed, the surface never has to be mowed or watered; it has a life of about 10 years and can stand up to prolonged use throughout the year; and it does not have to be fertilized or sprayed with pesticides. Officials find that the initial cost of the fields is often recovered by the savings within a few years. Manufacturers, concerned that questions of health could hurt sales, point out that since synthetic turf was introduced about 40 years ago there have been no reported cases of any athlete getting lead poisoning or a disease linked to exposure to lead. “Synthetic turf poses no health risks, to our perspective, if the chromate is contained within the fibers,” said Michael Dennis, chairman of GeneralSports Venue, the company that is replacing the turf at the Newark soccer field. Still, decisions by local authorities to rip up fields contaminated with lead raise questions and reinforce the convictions of some people who have long been opposed to using synthetic surfaces in place of the real thing. Nancy O. Alderman, president of Environment and Human Health Inc., a nonprofit environmental advocacy group in North Haven, Conn., said that new concerns about lead have momentarily overshadowed longstanding issues about the scorching heat on some artificial fields and the contaminants from ground-up rubber tire granules spread on top of the synthetic turf as a cushion for athletes. “These issues certainly have a lot of parents around the country concerned and have really pitted parents against school districts, towns or athletic coaches who seem to be less concerned about it than parents,” Ms. Alderman said.


Challenging Uber, Lyft Bets on a Road Wide Enough for Two

Abstract: The word “monopoly” has a distinctly nefarious ring to it, conjuring up images of thuggish industrialists in smoky rooms, scheming to undermine their rivals. Yet in Silicon Valley, it’s not at all uncommon for one company to dominate a particular field. Google is the runaway leader in online search. Facebook is the largest social network in the world by a wide margin. Amazon is far and away the biggest e-commerce site. Even among so-called unicorns — private start-ups worth $1 billion or more — de facto monopolies are already the norm. As the technology writer Om Malik argued in The New Yorker recently, “Most competition in Silicon Valley now heads toward there being one monopolistic winner.” Airbnb dominates the apartment rental market, Snapchat is the big player in ephemeral messaging, and Spotify stands out as the major streaming music library. And when it comes to on-demand ride services, Uber, the most valuable private technology company in the world, is the clear leader. But while market dominance is hard to break, that doesn’t stop upstarts from trying. In the case of Uber, it is Lyft that is doing its best to keep up. On Monday, Lyft raised an additional $1 billion from investors including General Motors, increasing its total fund-raising to $2 billion. At the same time, it announced it was developing software for self-driving cars, and teaming up with G.M. to put more drivers on the road. These moves are part of Lyft’s bid to distinguish itself and avoid being muscled aside by the runaway market leader, an all-too-common experience for technology companies. “We’re gaining share in the United States,” said John Zimmer, Lyft’s president and co-founder. “That’s not what happens when one player has a complete monopoly.” Regardless of whether Lyft and Uber can both thrive, or if there is only one big winner in the booming ride-hailing industry, dominance in and of itself is not illegal. Problems arise only when a company “unreasonably restrains competition” or gains and holds power “through improper conduct,” according to the Federal Trade Commission’s definition of monopolization . Indeed, there is a line of thinking that celebrates monopolies. In a unanimous decision from 2004, the Supreme Court said the ability to create a monopoly was a powerful incentive that should be protected. “The mere possession of monopoly power, and the concomitant charging of monopoly prices, is not only not unlawful; it is an important element of the free-market system,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in that opinion. “The opportunity to charge monopoly prices — at least for a short period — is what attracts ‘business acumen’ in the first place; it induces risk-taking that produces innovation and economic growth.” In the book “Zero to One,” which he wrote with Blake Masters, the investor and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel offers tips on how to create monopolies, arguing that once achieved, they lead to more innovation. “Monopolies drive progress because the promise of years or even decades of monopoly profits provides a powerful incentive to innovate,” he writes. “Then monopolies can keep innovating because profits enable them to make the long-term plans and to finance the ambitious research projects that firms locked in competition can’t dream of.” And regulators have not been cracking down on Silicon Valley. Given how many big technology companies loom large in their respective markets, there have been relatively few big antitrust actions brought against tech giants. “This is different from the old monopolies of the industrial age,” Robert Reich, the former labor secretary, said of technology companies. Unlike United States Steel or Standard Oil, two of corporate history’s biggest brutes, today’s tech monopolies are rarely the exclusive provider of an essential commodity. Instead, many achieve their initial dominance by distinguishing themselves in a crowded marketplace, then rapidly taking market share thanks to the power of network effects — that is, the more people use a service, the more valuable that service becomes to other people, who join in and make the service all the more popular. Network effects helped Google, Facebook and Amazon run away from their competitors, and are helping Uber today. Google wasn’t the first search engine, Facebook wasn’t the first social network, and Amazon wasn’t the first to sell goods online. There are still many other sites for search, social and e-commerce. But despite an array of options, users keep coming back to the market leaders. Image Gary Reback, an antitrust lawyer who has battled Microsoft and Google, at his home in Portola Valley, Calif. He argues that tech companies have bought their way to dominance. Credit Elizabeth D. Herman for The New York Times Some argue, however, that the regulatory framework needs to adjust for a new kind of market dominance. “ The underlying problem here is that antitrust regulators are only looking at consumer welfare,” Mr. Reich said. “They aren’t looking at the long-term potential for total dominance of a network, the possibility of predatory behavior once a technology giant becomes entrenched, or political power.” (European antitrust laws are more expansive than those in the United States, resulting in continuing actions against Google and other big tech companies.) Along with network effects, another hallmark of today’s tech monopolies is that, perhaps fearing obsolescence, they diversify. While Microsoft still makes its Windows and Office software, it also owns Skype and has a big video gaming business. Google is now a subsidiary of Alphabet, a new parent company that is also home to a health care company, a self-driving-cars division and a venture capital firm. Amazon is expanding its cloud computing and streaming-media businesses. And Facebook has diversified into messaging with WhatsApp, photos with Instagram, and virtual reality with Oculus Rift. This, too, creates challenges for regulators. When mergers and acquisitions are part of the natural life cycle of start-ups and venture capital, it isn’t easy to block deals that might hypothetically reduce competition down the road. As a result, regulators have blessed many acquisitions that, to critics, appear to be deeply anticompetitive. Gary Reback, a lawyer who helped prompt a landmark antitrust investigation into Microsoft and is now pursuing Google in Europe, makes the case that Google bought its way to dominance in online advertising through the acquisition of DoubleClick, bought its leadership in mobile by purchasing Android and bought its strong mapping franchise in the deal for Waze. Similarly, Facebook bought two of its nearest rivals, WhatsApp and Instagram. If any of those deals had been blocked, Mr. Reback argues, behemoths like Google and Facebook might today be facing more concerted competition. “Once one of these companies gets a monopoly, it’s easy to spread the monopoly to adjacent markets by acquisition,” Mr. Reback said. “You would think antitrust enforcers would know this by now.” While monopolies in the tech industry are perhaps easier than ever to achieve, industry experts contend they are also more vulnerable than ever before. The advent of the smartphone and widespread access to broadband Internet connectivity have democratized access to creative new technologies. “Sun Microsystems. EMC. Cisco. All these were considered the dominant market players in their category at the time,” said Rich Wong, a venture capitalist at Accel Partners. “Then the vast majority of them got whacked by this thing called the cloud.” And of course, billions of people browse the web without Google, use other social networking apps besides Facebook, and shop on websites besides Amazon. Though no upstarts have replaced them yet, none are immune to disruption. As for Uber, if it’s not a monopoly already, it is the giant in the ride-hailing market, at least in the United States. One rival, Sidecar, shut down last month, and Lyft is its last meaningful competitor on a national scale. (Uber faces a tougher road abroad, where it is tangling with regulators in Europe, recently withdrew from Frankfurt and is fighting against entrenched rivals in China and other international markets.) As the underdog, Lyft is trying to put more drivers on the road and acquire new users. Like Uber, the company is private, and neither shares much information about performance. But Mr. Zimmer said the company was quickly increasing market share in the United States. He also sees the on-demand ride business as different from search or social media and more like telecommunications companies, where several big competitors can compete on service. “Just like AT&T and Verizon need three bars of coverage,” he said, “we get down to two to three minutes of wait time for a vehicle to arrive. Once it gets to that point, there’s no difference in behavior between services. That’s when you compete on experience.” Still, Lyft will be hard pressed to unseat Uber. “The network effects hold competition at stiff arm’s length,” said Steve Cheney, an entrepreneur and co-founder of Estimote, a micro-location platform for mobile developers. Or perhaps the ride-hailing market is big enough for both Uber and Lyft. Monopolies don’t necessarily mean there is no competition whatsoever. While a company like Uber may take a huge lead in market share, others, like Lyft, may still have room to profit and even prosper. Even Google has not managed to squash every other search engine. “Microsoft has a decent search business. A lot of Yahoo’s profits still come from searches on Yahoo properties,” said Roelof Botha, a partner at Sequoia Capital, which has investments in WhatsApp and Airbnb. “It’s more of a ‘winner takes most’ than a ‘winner takes all’ phenomenon.” Should that be the case in the ride-hailing industry, Uber and Lyft may become something truly competitive by Silicon Valley standards: a duopoly.


On Long Island, Tiny Plots at Montauk Shores Selling for Close to $1 Million

Abstract: MONTAUK, N.Y. — When they were growing up in the 1970s and ’80s, Cherie and Merry Doughan spent their summers at Montauk Shores, a mobile home park that is about as far east as you can live on the East End of Long Island and still have a roof over your head. Only the Montauk Association Houses, where Andy Warhol and Dick Cavett summered, and the lighthouse keeper’s place lie beyond. “It was the Wild West back then,” Cherie Doughan said. “Or I guess you’d call it the Wild East. People sure knew how to party.” Both sisters fondly recall the bathtub their father, Alpha, had found who knows where. It sat crookedly on the lawn in front of their white and beige Liberty mobile home, and their father would regularly fill it with suds and climb in with a case of beer or a big jug of Gallo wine. He would invite passers-by to join him for a drink, and many obliged, splashing in beside him. Image The view from a mobile home for sale at Montauk Shores. Credit Bryan R. Smith for The New York Times The tub is gone, replaced by a deck overlooking the Atlantic, but otherwise the home, 12 feet by 48 feet, is almost unchanged since it was trucked in in 1977. With great hesitation and sadness, the sisters are giving it up. “It was dad’s legacy,” said Merry Doughan, the less eager of the pair to sell. The unsentimental asking price: $1.1 million . A million-dollar mobile home is not an entirely new phenomenon, though it may be an entirely American one. Malibu, Calif., has two mobile home parks populated by rock stars, movie moguls and bedraggled surfers, and Aspen, Colo., has one as well. Image Cherie Doughan, with her mother, Jacqueline, and their dog Bucky hanging out on their first deck in the Park in 1977. Credit Collection of Cherie Doughan For those chasing that last bit of East End authenticity, it seems cedar shingles are out and aluminum siding is in. At the Park, as everyone calls it, lawyers, business people and socialites are beginning to replace the fishermen, farmers, surfers and municipal workers, like Alpha Doughan, a New York City firefighter who died in 2005. (New or old, don’t dare call it a trailer park, or risk excommunication from this white-capped, blue-collar paradise.) “I hate to sell it. I don’t want to sell it, I just don’t, but there it is,” Cherie Doughan said. She and her mother, Jacqueline, live in Placida, Fla., and her sister is in Houston, so they do not spend much time in Montauk anymore. The proceeds will help pay for their mother’s stay at an assisted living home. The family has been in the park since it looked like one. Tents first started popping up in the 1940s, and then trailers — the Doughans’ among them — and even five cabooses from the Long Island Rail Road. In 1972, a group of regulars bought the 20 acres overlooking the surfing and fishing hole of Ditch Plains and divided them into 199 parcels. Image The look of Montauk Shores owes much to Alpha Doughan, center, shown at a Fourth of July party in 1985. Credit Collection of Cherie Doughan The look of Montauk Shores owes much to Mr. Doughan, who had a contract with the Liberty mobile home company, and wound up selling its $5,000 trailers to many of his neighbors to put on their $10,000 plots. “He was kind of the mayor around here,” said Chris Shelby, a construction worker who came to Montauk Shores with his parents and then raised his children here. He recalled that Mr. Doughan collected half-finished kegs of beer and bringing them down to the beach for everyone to enjoy. And they all rave about the giant tuna he caught — 300 pounds in some accounts, 400 in others — that fed the entire park for days. Image The inside of a mobile home, like the wood paneling, is even reminiscent of the 1970s. Credit Bryan R. Smith for The New York Times With dark wood paneling, two stuffy bedrooms and an intact 1970s kitchen, the Doughans’ mobile home will almost certainly be replaced. The new owners will be basically buying the land, paying more than 100 times what Mr. Doughan did, for one of the primest parcels in Montauk Shores. It may not be one of the plots directly on the bluff over Ditch Plains, but it is on a larger, 2,000-square-foot lot, with room for a double-wide mobile home and a new deck, a luxury the narrower waterfront parcels, each 1,200 square feet, do not enjoy. The added space can mean a lot to someone willing to pay seven figures for a beach retreat. And the Doughans’ plot still has unobstructed ocean views, out over a plaza in the center of the park. Each of the 152 owners at Montauk Shores pays $1,100 a year in condo association fees and about $1,200 in taxes. That money, along with $1,415 a month from 47 leased lots — a great bargain considering some nearby houses rent for that much a night — has helped build and maintain paved roads, a recreation center for elderly residents, a playground and a pool. Image A stroll on Deforest Road near Montauk Shores. Credit Bryan R. Smith for The New York Times “If you think about it, it’s still one of the best deals on the East End,” said Helen Stubbmann, the Corcoran broker selling the Doughans’ property. But the deals are disappearing like hurricane-ravaged sand dunes. When Cherie Doughan moved to Florida in 1990, she sold a separate leased plot and home she had owned with her husband, who also grew up in the park, for $45,000 (the rent was $82 a month back in the late ’70s). Last year, an oceanfront trailer that had sat vacant for 15 years across from her parents’ home went for $775,000, $25,000 over the asking price. Jimmy Buffett, a longtime renter, tried to buy it years back, but his offer was turned down. Two more on the water sold for $874,000 and $899,000 this year, though one is an old cottage, newly renovated and grandfathered in. Otherwise, park rules dictate that residences must be wheeled in. “The worst part is, many of the new places are so generic, and not in the generic 1950s style we love so much here,” said Jo Shane, who has been coming to the park as a renter for the past eight years. Among the new owners are J. Darius Bikoff, one of the multimillionaire founders of Vitaminwater, who is helping to turn the neighboring East Deck motel into a private club, and Janet O’Brien, a popular caterer in the Hamptons. “You should really write about how awful it is,” Ms. Shane said with a wink, “since I’m trying to buy one.” Yet for all the new trailers and new neighbors, everyone still celebrates the community. Everybody knows everybody through barbecues and drinks on the decks, the children roam the dunes and ride bikes unsupervised, and the beach is a few steps away. “The only thing that’s really changed,” said Joyce Maguire, who bought her trailer for $40,000 15 years ago, “is the cars are a lot nicer.”

Mobile home
Housing
Beach
Real Estate
Montauk NY


China Will Feel One-Child Policy’s Effects for Decades, Experts Say

Abstract: China’s one-child policy, once called the Great Wall of family planning , was among the boldest strategies any nation has deployed in modern times to manage the size of its population. But after 35 years in force, experts say, the policy was having undesirable side effects: It upended traditional structures for supporting older adults and led to a widening imbalance in the number of men and women, one that could sow social unrest. Many in China welcomed the announcement on Thursday that the policy would be changed to allow two children per couple. But experts said that, because having one child has become the social norm in China, the change will have only a limited impact, while the old policy’s legacy will be felt for decades to come. Fertility Rate May Remain Low Demographers agree that around the world, fertility rates generally fall as wealth and women’s educational levels rise. Hazel Denton, a former World Bank economist who teaches demography and development at Georgetown University, predicted that over the long run, this effect would have more impact in China than the policy change. “Where women have a choice, and they have the opportunity to be educated and employed, they will choose a smaller family,” Dr. Denton said. Many wealthy countries, in fact, are more worried about their populations shrinking than growing. Most have fertility rates below the level needed to maintain a stable population — about 2.1 births per woman — and some have tried to create incentives for families to have more babies. Richard Jackson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies noted that China’s neighbors tend to have low fertility rates. In Hong Kong, the rate is about one child per woman, even though Beijing’s one-child policy never applied there. Dr. Jackson said the rate in China was about 1.5 births per woman before the policy change, in part because many exceptions to the one-child rule were made. The rule was most strongly enforced in cities, he said, while families in the countryside whose first child was a daughter were often allowed to try a second time for a son. He predicted that China’s fertility rate would probably climb to only 1.8 children per woman. A Lingering Gender Imbalance In a society with a widespread preference for sons, the one-child policy led to a significantly skewed ratio of men to women: There are now about 120 boys born in China for every 100 girls, Dr. Jackson said. “China will be living with the pernicious legacy of this gender imbalance for decades to come,” he said. “It should have lifted the policy years ago.” China’s One-Child Policy A look at how China’s restrictions on the size of families changed over the years. Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute noted that human populations will naturally give birth to slightly more male than female babies, but because boys are more likely to die than girls, the gender ratio tends to equalize by the time a generation reaches childbearing age. Demographers say there is a social preference for male children across East Asia, though not to the extremes seen in China. It remains to be seen whether permission to have a second child will make China’s families look more like its neighbors’. Caring for a Rapidly Aging Population While China’s birthrate would probably have fallen as the country developed, the one-child policy brought it down very suddenly. Dr. Jackson, an author of a 2008 report on aging in China , said that brought the unexpected consequence of a dire shortage of younger relatives to care for a rapidly aging population. The median age in China today is about 37, a year younger than the figure for the United States. By 2050, according to United Nations population projections , America’s median age will have climbed to 42 — but China’s will have shot up to 50. “Chinese leaders have probably taken a look at this prospect and decided they need to slow it down,” Samuel Preston, a demographer at the University of Pennsylvania, said. Dr. Jackson noted that in China’s Confucian culture, it is the duty of a son to support and care for his aging parents — but as a practical matter, the burden generally falls on his wife. “By not having daughters,” he said of the gender imbalance, “you end up not having daughters-in-law.” William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, said: “Clearly, China is facing an aging population and increasing elderly dependency.” As for dropping the one-child policy, he added, “It’s about time.”

China
Population
Birth control
Elderly care,Geriatrics


Thoroughbred Trainer Achieves 4,000th Win

Abstract: Todd Pletcher became the 10th thoroughbred trainer to reach 4,000 victories when Eagle Scout, with the jockey Luis Saez aboard, won the fifth race at Gulfstream Park in Hallandale Beach, Fla. Pletcher already is the No. 1 trainer in earnings, with more than $311 million in purse money.

Horse racing
Horse Jockeys and Trainers
Florida


Abdullah Leads North in Senior Bowl

Abstract: Ameer Abdullah of Nebraska rushed for 73 yards and added 40 receiving yards as he led the North to a 34-13 victory over the South in the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. Abdullah, the Cornhuskers’ No. 2 career rusher, was named the game’s most valuable player. The top passers were Bryce Petty of Baylor for the North and Garrett Grayson of Colorado State for the South. Petty was 9 of 13 passing for 123 yards with an interception, and Grayson completed 8 of 15 passes for 118 yards. ■ Lane Kiffin, who was reportedly a candidate to become the San Francisco 49ers’ offensive coordinator, said in a statement that he would return to Alabama for a second season as its offensive coordinator. (AP)

Lane Kiffin
College football
University of Nebraska


An Issue That Hits Home for Most of the Candidates

Abstract: WASHINGTON, July 5 — When it comes to health care, the personal is political. Presidential candidates may struggle to connect with voters on issues like job losses from a globalized economy or the daily anxiety of having a loved one in Iraq. But to a remarkable degree, almost every candidate in this race can speak from experience with the health care system, having endured his or her own health problems or those of close family members. And as they talk to voters about health care, they often allude to their own stories. Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, talks about sitting at the bedside of his mother, as she lay dying from ovarian cancer at the age of 53, “and she was spending time worrying about whether or not she would have anything left over, if she was able to survive the illness.” She died within six months, exhausting all her resources by the end, he said. Mr. Obama says he had to “spend a lot of time arguing with the insurer about when she had been diagnosed with this ovarian cancer, because they started making arguments that she had a pre-existing condition.” Former Senator John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat and a trial lawyer, describes his struggles with insurance companies after breast cancer was first diagnosed in his wife, Elizabeth, in 2004. “Here you have a former senator, presidential candidate, vice-presidential candidate, and I’m a lawyer. I’d get those statements from the insurance companies, I had no idea what they meant,” Mr. Edwards said in Iowa recently. “I felt like a blooming idiot.” But he and Mrs. Edwards, who is currently battling a recurrence of her cancer, also talk about how fortunate they feel to have access to the best medical treatment and how difficult it must be for families who do not. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, sometimes draws on anecdotes about her husband’s heart surgery in 2004 as a way of empathizing with voters who have their own memories — and frustrations — with the medical system, especially its bureaucracy. At one event in New Hampshire, as Mrs. Clinton made the case for a more cost-efficient and modern system of electronic recordkeeping, she recalled checking out of the hospital and confronting bills for medical supplies and treatments for her husband, a huge amount of paperwork created by antiquated accounting procedures. Democrats invoke their experiences as they make the case for a major overhaul of the health care system. But Republicans, like former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, who was treated for prostate cancer in 2000, argue that more governmental involvement in health care or any move toward the single-payer systems of Canada or Europe, is not the solution. “When is the last time anyone went from America to Europe for health care?” Mr. Giuliani asked recently. Mr. Giuliani said he sometimes fielded calls from people outside the country hoping to be accepted into cancer treatment centers in the United States — never the other way around. He describes the American system as “the best health care system in the world,” although he acknowledges it has flaws that he promises to address.

Health Insurance and Managed Care
Presidential Election of 2008


E.C.B. Warns of Dangers Ahead for Euro Zone Economy

Abstract: FRANKFURT — The European Central Bank warned Monday of a perilous year ahead as the sovereign debt crisis collides with slower economic growth and a dearth of market financing for banks. The dire prediction, contained in the E.C.B.’s twice-yearly report on the risks to the euro area financial system, came as E.U. governments fell short of their target to expand their backup plan for the euro by channeling more resources through the International Monetary Fund. By some measures, the stresses on the European financial system are approaching or even exceeding levels last seen after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. For example, market perception of the risk that two large banks in the euro area could fail in the next year has surpassed the previous peak in 2009, according to the E.C.B.’s Financial Stability Review. “The transmission of tensions among sovereigns, across banks and between the two intensified to take on systemic crisis proportions not witnessed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers three years ago,” the report said. But the E.C.B. deliberately avoided discussing one risk that clearly weighs on many investors, economists and political leaders: the possibility that the euro zone could break up. “I have no doubt about the euro,” Mario Draghi , the president of the E.C.B., told members of the European Parliament in Brussels. “The one currency is irreversible.” A teleconference among E.U. finance ministers ended Monday with an agreement by euro zone nations to contribute around €150 billion, or $195 billion, through the I.M.F. European leaders had committed to contribute “up to €200 billion” at a summit in Brussels on Dec. 9. Though noneuro members like Poland and Sweden are contributing to the fund, Britain said it would not decide until early in the new year, according to European officials not authorized to speak publicly ahead of the release of an official statement. Before the meeting Monday, Britain made it clear that it would only contribute as part of a broader contribution by the Group of 20 leading economies. It had leeway to loan only £10 billion, or $15.5 billion, without holding a fresh parliamentary vote, officials said. Tensions have been high among E.U. nations since Britain refused at the summit to agree on changes to the European Union ’s founding treaty to enable tighter coordination of financial policy. Most of the other 26 E.U. members opted to move ahead with an intergovernmental treaty to accomplish the same goal. Several negative developments are converging to raise tensions even higher than they already are, the E.C.B. said in its report. In the first three months of 2012 banks will need to roll over more than €200 billion in debt at the same time that governments and corporations also have unusually high financing needs. Yet investors have become pessimistic about Europe, and the market for bonds issued by banks is nearly lifeless. “The pressure that bond markets will be experiencing is very difficult if not unprecedented,” Mr. Draghi said. At the same time, credit crunches are already visible in some countries like Ireland, Vítor Constâncio, the vice president of the E.C.B., said Monday in Frankfurt. Meanwhile, slower economic growth, which could become a recession, is likely to lead to an increase in bad loans, which will further weaken lenders. Despite these threats, and suggestions from some members of European Parliament that the E.C.B. should intervene more forcefully in bond markets to take the pressure off countries like Italy, Mr. Draghi made it clear that E.C.B. sees its role as helping banks and not national treasuries. “The treaty forbids monetary financing,” he said. The E.C.B. disclosed Monday that it spent €3.4 billion intervening in bond markets last week, a big increase from the previous week but still far short of the massive intervention that some economists and elected officials would like to see. Instead, Mr. Draghi emphasized measures the E.C.B. is taking to help banks get through what he said would be “a difficult year.” Mr. Constâncio said that the bank addressed the bank funding problem when, earlier this month, it announced plans to begin lending money to banks at 1 percent interest for as long as three years. The action was one of a series of moves designed to ensure that banks have the money they need to support economic growth. The measures “will eliminate all excuses to say that credit could decelerate,” Mr. Constâncio said. Mr. Draghi praised what he said was progress by European leaders earlier this month to impose more discipline on members of the euro zone and create a more stable union. “The E.U. summit received much less recognition by markets and public opinion than it actually deserved,” he said. “It is a more significant step than what has been appreciated.” But he continued to put pressure on political leaders to swiftly deploy measures they have agreed on to contain the crisis, like the new euro area bailout fund. And he criticized European Union leaders for forcing banks to raise their reserves before mechanisms were in place to help them do so. “We didn’t do things in the right order,” Mr. Draghi said. “There is no alternative to banks being recapitalized but there are various ways and time frames of doing so.” European leaders also drew criticism from Mr. Constâncio, who said it was a mistake to pressure investors to accept a 50 percent decline in the value of their holdings of Greek bonds. That action this year put markets on notice that default of a euro zone country was not unthinkable, and raised pressure on other countries, Mr. Constâncio said. Political leaders have since said that Greece will be a unique case, a statement some investors have taken as an implied guarantee on the debt of other countries. Asked if there was in fact a guarantee, Mr. Constâncio put the onus on governments to implement policies “that will counter the risk of that happening.” In answer to questions from Parliament, Mr. Draghi defended an interview he gave to The Financial Times and published Monday, in which he discussed, and rejected, a euro zone breakup. Even to acknowledge the possibility was a departure from E.C.B. convention. Mr. Draghi said he was correct to discuss the dire consequences of euro zone dissolution. “The one currency is irreversible,” Mr. Draghi said in Parliament. “But you have a lot of people outside the euro area who spend a lot of time on what I think is morbid speculation.” Mr. Draghi played down the consequences if ratings agencies follow through on warnings to downgrade France and other countries. “We shouldn’t make too much of these ratings changes by credit rating agencies ,” he said. Stephen Castle reported from Brussels.

European Central Bank
European Parliament
European Union
European Sovereign Debt Crisis (2010- )
Euro (Currency)
Draghi Mario


New Face and a Call for Change Shake Up the Democratic Field

Abstract: DES MOINES — They rolled the dice. Whether it was because they were eager to leave behind the bitter divides of the last two decades or because they wanted to send a message that a small white state could transcend the issue of race, Iowa voters handed Senator Barack Obama a victory here Thursday and supported his improbable candidacy in defiance of those who warned he was too inexperienced in world affairs. Instead, what seemed to drive them was the idea that Mr. Obama would present a new face for America in the world, with a coalition of Democrats and independents dispelling skepticism and flooding caucuses in all corners of the state to support a man who came to Washington only three years ago. “We are one people,” Mr. Obama said. “And our time for change has come.” It was only a year ago that Mr. Obama, 46, a first-term senator from Illinois, formally decided to seek the Democratic nomination, which even some of his closest advisers feared could diminish his long-term potential. As he learned to become a presidential candidate on the fly, seasoned political hands worked to build an organization here unlike any other, which ultimately helped to nearly double the turnout from the caucuses four years ago. Mr. Obama praised Iowa voters for casting away a litany of concerns that his rivals had aired about his candidacy, like too little experience and questions of electability. But he conceded that his victory was only a beginning. “This was the moment when we tore down barriers that have divided us for too long,” Mr. Obama said. “When we finally united people of all parties and ages.” The strength of his performance — and a strong finish by former Senator John Edwards of North Carolina — shook the confidence of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign and created fresh uncertainty in the Democratic nominating contest. Even before Mr. Obama’s victory had been formally declared, the Clinton campaign announced that former President Bill Clinton would be dispatched to New Hampshire for a five-day blitz before the primary there on Tuesday. (It was Mr. Clinton who suggested that Mr. Obama’s candidacy would be a roll of the dice, a phrase that Mr. Obama turned into a mantra in recent days, often when appearing before overflowing crowds.) “I congratulate Senator Obama and Senator Edwards,” Mrs. Clinton, of New York, said to supporters, with her husband and her daughter, Chelsea, behind her. “Together we have presented the case for change.” With a confident smile, she added, “We’re going to get up tomorrow and keep pushing as hard as we can.” After a yearlong campaign built upon a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign and a network of grass-roots organizers, Mr. Obama was supported Thursday evening by younger voters, voters looking for change, independents and very liberal Democrats. At the same time, he was the first choice of one-third of female voters. In fact, the poll of Democrats as they entered the caucuses suggested that women were closely divided between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton. Among men, Mr. Obama did better, according to the poll conducted by Edison/Mitofsky for the National Election Pool of television networks and The Associated Press. While Mr. Obama’s candidacy gained steadily throughout the year, he also has capitalized on an unsteady electorate craving change. One of the largest applause lines he receives continues to be when he declares that President Bush will be out of office in only a year. “The huge difference was that we had the greatest organization ever built in this state,” said David Axelrod, the chief strategist for Mr. Obama’s campaign. “And it was built on the backs of idealistic kids who came in here not just because they believed in Obama, but they wanted to change the course of history and the world.” The Iowa caucuses winnowed the field of Democratic presidential candidates. Senators Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware dropped out of the race after the caucuses. “One of the charges against Iowa is that we don’t really represent the rest of the country, and here’s a chance to make a statement about the inclusiveness of Iowa,” said Jon Muller, 42, who voiced his support for Mr. Obama at Precinct 73. “I’m just ready for a change, as opposed to a Clinton or Bush.” At his caucus site at the Plymouth Congregational Church in Des Moines, supporters of Mr. Obama spilled out of the room, as they did in locations across the state. The results of the Iowa caucuses, with Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Clinton in a narrow fight for second place, heightened the importance of the New Hampshire primary, where a trove of independent voters were already leaning toward Mr. Obama. Mr. Edwards promised that his candidacy would continue. With his wife, Elizabeth, standing behind him, Mr. Edwards spoke to supporters at in Des Moines. “The one thing that’s clear from this result here tonight is that the status quo lost and change won,” Mr. Edwards said. Even though the Clinton advisers began lowering expectations for Mrs. Clinton’s performance weeks ago, saying that she had faced hardened, negative perceptions among Iowa voters that stemmed from her partisan and secretive image as first lady, the results raised new questions about her candidacy. Indeed, in the closing days of the race here, some of her advisers began recalling that Mrs. Clinton’s deputy campaign manager recommended in May that she skip the caucuses altogether, after internal polling found that she had high negative ratings in the state. She decided to compete here in spite of the fact that neither she nor her husband had deep political roots in the state. Still, Mrs. Clinton’s supporters had expected her to win. “I expected her to be first,” said Mario Gandelsonas, 68, an architect from New York who supports Mrs. Clinton and was in Des Moines on a work project. “But this is just the beginning. I know Hillary. She’ll be first, and she’ll beat them all in New Hampshire. This will give her incentive to fight even harder.”

Presidential Election of 2008
Obama Barack


China Ambivalently Affirms Dalai Lama’s Popularity

Abstract: HONG’AI, China — Despite the absence of road signs or promotional Web sites, a dozen or so people each day manage to find their way to this sleepy hamlet that sits in the fold of a dusky mountain in northwestern Qinghai Province. They congratulate themselves for having found the place — and for evading the police — but then come face to face with Gonpo Tashi, a squat, no-nonsense barley farmer who guards the entrance to the house where his uncle, the 14th Dalai Lama , was born 76 years ago. If the traveler speaks Tibetan, Mr. Tashi, 65, will peer warily out into the road before swinging open the heavy wooden doors and allowing entry to the modest home where China’s most reviled and revered spiritual leader spent the first three years of his life. If the visitor is Han Chinese, the country’s dominant ethnic group, the gatekeeper might grumble vaguely about “the rules” but then relent. But if the supplicant bears patently Western features, Mr. Tashi can be relied upon to throw up his hands with dramatic effect and shoo the interloper back toward the vehicle that made the hourlong drive from the provincial capital. “Leave, leave now,” he will shout. “If they come, you will be in trouble.” “They” refers to the local public security personnel who occasionally block the road to Hong’Ai or stand outside the Dalai Lama’s ancestral home, especially when there is trouble brewing somewhere on the expansive plateau where most of China’s 5.4 million ethnic Tibetans live. That this state-financed shrine to the Dalai Lama exists at all highlights Beijing’s complex and contradictory attitude toward a man it frequently describes as a terrorist, a separatist and “a wolf in monk’s robes.” Since relations between the exiled Tibetan leader and the Chinese government took a nose dive in the mid-1990s, even possession of the Dalai Lama’s picture is considered a crime. The government’s official line is that the Dalai Lama is agitating for an independent Tibet , even as he insists that he is seeking only meaningful autonomy. In recent months, the government has sought to blame him for the self-immolations of about two dozen Tibetans, a ghastly act of protest against Chinese rule that he has condemned. Hong’Ai, or Taktser as it is known in Tibetan, has long been on the receiving end of that official ambivalence. In the mid-1980s, when talks were proceeding reasonably well, the government rebuilt the Dalai Lama’s birthplace , which had been destroyed during the antireligious fervor of the Cultural Revolution. In 2010, the local Communist Party poured 2.6 million renminbi, or about $410,000, into Hong’Ai, upgrading the town’s 54 residences, including the Dalai Lama’s homestead, with the aim of turning the place into a lucrative tourist attraction. The improvements included tall, white-tile gates for every home and a colorfully painted but imposing wall in front of the Dalai Lama’s home that prevents visitors from peering inside. In an article about the town in 2010, the official Xinhua news agency boasted that the improvements to each house had cost more than 10 times as much as the average villager’s annual income. “Everyone was enthusiastic,” a township official was quoted as saying about the renovations. Mr. Tashi, the caretaker, made out particularly well, having received a modern toilet to replace an arrangement that involved two planks over a trench. “Maybe when I am too old to squat, the flush toilet will be useful,” Xinhua reported him as saying. Other official news accounts were slightly disparaging , calling him a “big shot” and pointing out that his family owns a car paid for with a handsome government salary augmented by visitor donations. Two of his three children, one article said, are Communist Party members. That same account said that Mr. Tashi had visited his uncle twice in the 1990s in India and that he yearned for his return. “I miss him very much,” he said. According to official figures, a majority of the town’s 274 residents are Han, and even those who describe themselves as Tibetan cannot speak their ancestral tongue. In a lengthy published interview with the author Thomas Laird, the Dalai Lama said that when he was a boy, his family spoke no Tibetan, only a dialect of Mandarin. It was not until he and his family moved to Lhasa — after high-ranking lamas identified him as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama — that he learned the Tibetan language. In his 1990 autobiography “Freedon in Exile,” the Dalai Lama described his hometown in bleak terms, recounting the crop failures and the harsh winters. His last visit was in 1955, four years before he fled to India during a failed uprising against Chinese rule. Those who make it past Mr. Tashi’s temperamental door policy report that there are a few utilitarian rooms surrounding a courtyard, its center anchored by a pole draped in multicolored Tibetan prayer flags. Just as eye-catching is the late model Volkswagen, covered by plastic drop cloth, that sits in one corner. One room contains a bed, another a yellow throne and a Buddhist shrine. Most of the two-story house is off limits to visitors, and the only nod to the Dalai Lama is a small painting of him on the ceiling. Photographs are forbidden. Those villagers willing to speak to foreign visitors were proud of their connection to a man who, under different circumstances, might have been the most powerful religious figure in the land. A 46-year-old woman who gave her name as Chobai and described herself as a distant cousin said she had once traveled overland to India to visit him. “We are all waiting for him to come back one day,” she said with a smile. Another woman a few doors down offered a tour of her home and the shrine that includes two photographs of the Dalai Lama, a distant relative. After a trio of Dutch tourists pounded on the front gate and refused to retreat, Mr. Tashi’s 45-year-old nephew stepped outside and watched with a mixture of curiosity and annoyance. When the police failed to materialize, he seemed to relax as one of the tourists, Lisanne de Wit, described a recent visit to Dharamsala, India, where the Dalai Lama lives. Ms. de Wit, a 19-year-old theology student, then made one last plea for entry, describing how she had endured a weeklong bus ride from Sichuan Province to reach this corner of Qinghai. The nephew shrugged and offered a sympathetic smile. “The order has come from above,” he said before shutting the door. “And there’s nothing you or I can do about it.”

China
Dalai Lama
Tibet
Communist Party of China
Politics and Government
Travel and Vacations


Unhappy Travelers Can Swap Out of Hotel Loyalty Programs

Abstract: I DON’T much like my bank. Yes, I know, welcome to the club. Also, I am not particularly fond of any airline. Yes, I know, welcome to that club, too. Nevertheless, I’m wedded to my bank, if only because it would take enormous effort to untangle all the various auto-pay deductions, direct deposits and other arrangements. And airline service? I wish I had real choices, but with capacity and route cuts, mergers and the overall commoditization of air service, none of us do anymore. But hotels? That’s where we do have a veritable cornucopia of choice. Business travelers who used to trade expertise about airline mileage loyalty programs are now more likely to swap advice and anecdotes on the ins and outs, and especially the considerable perks, of hotel loyalty programs. That is why a management consulting firm called CG42 will be publishing this week a study that surveyed more than 3,200 high-volume travelers belonging to various loyalty programs at the nine leading hotel companies. The study looks at “brand vulnerability” among hotel loyalty programs. It ranked them by which are judged to be the most vulnerable to members’ switching to competitors’ programs. Most business travelers have a decided preference in hotel companies but also tend to belong to multiple hotel loyalty programs. Last year, the first brand-vulnerability report by CG42 received considerable publicity when it evaluated loyalty attitudes in retail banking. In that report, “the frustration levels with banks were off the charts, but the switching dynamics in that category are very difficult,” said Stephen Beck, managing partner of CG42. Hotels are significantly different. In short, you may only wish you knew how to quit your bank, but you sure do know how to quit your hotel brand. In all, travelers frustrated with their primary hotel programs are projected to move more than $10 billion in spending this year to competing programs, Mr. Beck said. The study evaluated frustration levels at each hotel program in five main areas: dealing with incompetent staff and service; not having loyalty points properly credited; not having a promotional deal honored as advertised; difficulty redeeming loyalty points; and difficulty maintaining status level because points expire too quickly. Other frustrations included unsatisfactory physical condition of properties, billing mistakes and being nickel and dimed with extra fees for services like Internet access. “Some of the basic frustrations, like not having my points properly credited, create a floor upon which something like dealing with incompetent or unprofessional staff just adds fuel to the fire,” Mr. Beck said. “I am a frequent traveler, and when I have a problem with getting credits and I can’t resolve it on the Web site, I then pick up the phone and find myself frustrated, trying to explain my problem to somebody who doesn’t understand the program as well as I do,” he added. “So now I’m probably saying, ‘Gee, I have a pretty big point base here with this program, but I also have all the other hotel programs in my wallet. So where is my next stay going to go?’ ” Each of the nine companies in the study has numerous hotel brands in its management portfolio, of course. Here, ranked from the companies deemed to have the highest brand vulnerability in their loyalty programs to the lowest, are the CG42 standings: Carlson, Best Western, Wyndham, Marriott, Hyatt and Choice are in the higher vulnerability categories; Hilton, Starwood and InterContinental Hotels are on the least-vulnerable end of the scale. An abstract of the study will be posted Tuesday on its Web site, CG42.com , the company said, and I suggest consulting that for more detail. I described the gist of the report to the various hotel companies. There will be a follow-up column with more on their responses, as well as reader responses about hotel programs. While airline loyalty programs are diminishing in popularity, hotel loyalty programs are increasingly valued by travelers and by hotel companies themselves. Some responses in general: A Carlson spokeswoman pointed to the “relatively new” Club Carlson program, and a money-back guarantee for any guest who is not fully satisfied. She noted that there are no blackout dates on awards, and that loyalty points do not expire. A Wyndham spokeswoman also said there are no blackout dates on award redemptions. A spokeswoman for Choice said that the CG42 rankings “appear to be consistent” with industry trends but noted that the Choice Privileges program was judged “the second-best program over all” this spring at the annual Freddie Awards, which rank travel loyalty programs of all sorts. A Marriott spokeswoman said the company could not comment until it saw the full report. But I might note that the Marriott Rewards program has won a Freddie Award for best hotel loyalty program for five years straight. And I haven’t heard back from the other hotel companies. Yet.

Business Travel
Customer Loyalty Programs
Travel and Vacations
Hotels and Motels
CG42 LLC


At the Boston Marathon, Leading the Way for Women Fifty Years Ago

Abstract: In 1965, the year I first ran the Boston Marathon, there were no women in the field of about 400 participants. On Monday morning, more than 13,000 women will start the 120th Boston Marathon. The women’s running boom is one of the most revolutionary stories in sports, yet it is underchronicled. Running serves as the foundation for many other sports, and women began running before they poured into tennis, soccer and basketball. They also learned many profound lessons from their successes in running. The Boston Marathon gender barrier fell 50 years ago, on April 19, 1966. That’s when Roberta Gibb, 23, crossed the finish line in 3 hours 21 minutes 40 seconds — in front of more than two-thirds of the male runners that day. To honor her breakthrough, Boston Marathon organizers have named Gibb, who is known as Bobbi, grand marshal of this year’s race. Two months before the 1966 marathon, Gibb had written race officials to request an entry form. She received a curt reply: Sorry, we are an A.A.U. event, and A.A.U. regulations forbid women to compete in any race longer than 1.5 miles. Furthermore, “women are physiologically incapable of running 26.2 miles.” Gibb was stunned. Shy and artistic, she had no interest in sports per se, no athletic heroes and no penchant for protest. She knew only that she loved running for hours at a time. And that she had been handed an unusual opportunity. “It dawned on me that if I could run Boston, I could erase other false beliefs about women’s limitations,” she said. Image Gibb, after the Boston Marathon, completed the race in 3 hours 21 minutes 40 seconds. Credit Fred Kaplan/Sports Illustrated, via Getty Images On marathon day, Gibb disguised herself in a large blue hoodie and hid behind the forsythia bushes near the start line, concerned that the police might arrest any female runner they spotted. After creeping into the race, she feared that male runners would bulldoze her off the road. To the contrary, they were pleased to see her. When she told them she was worried that spectators and race security might interfere, the men responded that she shouldn’t worry. That they would take care of her and that she had as much right to run on a public road as they did. At the finish, Gibb was escorted to a brief but raucous news conference. The news media tried to goad her into saying she was a man-hater, but she refused to take the bait. “I said simply that I loved running, loved men, and believed in men and women doing things together,” she said. Gibb returned to Boston the next two Aprils, and was the first female finisher both years. Boston didn’t allow women to run officially until 1972, when Long Island’s Nina Kuscsik became the first official women’s champion. It was in 1967 that the marathon’s race director, Jock Semple, body-blocked Kathrine Switzer while the cameras clicked, producing one of running’s most famous, and harrowing, photo sequences. For the last three years, I have been researching and writing about the pioneers of women’s running, profiling 22 women from the late 1950s to the early ’90s. I call them the first ladies of running. The situations they faced — often laughable, sometimes infuriating, always daunting — today seem hard to believe. A good example: In the mid-1960s, the Indianapolis board of education ruled that a high school student, Cheryl Pedlow, shouldn’t run anywhere within sight of the boys and their teams. She might prove too great a “distraction” to them. Fortunately, Pedlow stuck with it, and in 1971 she set a marathon world record — 2:49:40. In mid-February, her daughter Shalane Flanagan qualified for her fourth consecutive United States Olympic team. Shalane’s mother never had a shot at the Olympics; she was too far ahead of her time, as there were no Olympic distance events for women. Among the 22 first women in my book, Grace Butcher, the only one I haven’t met, may be my favorite. A farm girl and poet from Chardon, Ohio, Butcher won the national championship for 880 yards in 1958. In 1976, just past her 40th birthday, she made a solo 2,500-mile motorcycle trip through New England, and wrote a feature article for Sports Illustrated. In it she noted, “What life is for, if it is for anything, is to find out what you do well, and then do it, for heaven’s sake, before it’s too late.” Like Butcher, other first ladies of running did many things well. Gibb is an accomplished painter and sculptor who also worked in the lab of the famed M.I.T. neuroscientist Jerome Lettvin. Julia Chase, the first woman to run a road race in the United States, in 1961, received a Ph.D. in zoology, studying bats and chimpanzees in the field. A quarter-century later, she earned a medical degree at 53 and switched to psychiatry. Switzer turned her attack by Semple into a personal drive to promote women’s running. It was her work with the Avon International Running Circuit that helped persuade the International Olympic Committee to hold the first Olympic marathon for women in 1984. Joan Benoit won that long-awaited race. The pioneer women’s runners were remarkably diverse — a fact worth celebrating. They included an 88-pound Japanese-American (Miki Gorman), a firebrand American (Mary Decker), a Southern belle (Gayle Barron) and a Norwegian legend (Grete Waitz). And yet they shared certain core traits. Most ran to affirm themselves and to explore their talents, not to protest rules or regulators. They simply wanted more and better chances to test their limits. All loved exercise, independence and nature. Long before studies linked fitness to cognitive health, they intuitively understood that running helped them feel and perform better. Oprah Winfrey set a standard, not for speed but for willpower. In 1994, more or less by happenstance, I ran the 1994 Marine Corps Marathon several yards behind Winfrey. Her effort was among the bravest I have ever witnessed in a marathon. In addition to the endless backslapping from thousands of fellow marathoners, she bore the burden of her personal weight struggles and a nonathletic history. Yet she trudged on. Determined. Oh, so determined. When we finally reached the last half-mile, with its steep climb to the finish line at the Iwo Jima Memorial, Winfrey actually picked up the pace. She chugged smoothly past other fatigued runners and finished in 4:29:20. “Life is a lot like a marathon,” she said later. “If you can finish a marathon, you can do anything you want.” Her example and her quotation launched the current and still-expanding boom in women’s running — a movement that was begun by Bobbi Gibb and the other first ladies of running.

Boston Marathon
Marathon
Roberta Gibb
Women and Girls


Hollywood and the City, Take 2

Abstract: By the early 1970s, New York’s reign as a television and filmmaking capital seemed to be over. The transplanting of Johnny Carson and the “Tonight” show to California, coupled with the demise of “The Ed Sullivan Show” the year before, Frank Rich wrote in The New York Times, “marked the end of Manhattan’s parity with Hollywood as a glitz capital for a national audience.” What a difference a few decades make. In “Scenes From the City: Filmmaking in New York” (Rizzoli), James Sanders masterfully revises and expands on his original book of the same title to capture the surge in movie and television production since 2006 (26 series today, from six in 2001), in 60 additional pages and about 120 new images (from “American Gangster” to “The Devil Wears Prada”). Don’t flatter yourself. The tectonic return to filmmaking’s roots — crowned by last week’s return of the “Tonight” show from Burbank — was not just a case of a city with another pretty face. In his chronological, lavishly illustrated backstage tour, Mr. Sanders, an architect and filmmaker himself, details how assiduously Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his predecessors wooed Hollywood with tax breaks and branding, and reaped not only revenues but also an intangible reward: the “power to convert the daily reality of the city into a magical transcendent realm.” Mr. Sanders also explains how the movies did not simply rediscover Midtown Manhattan and expand studios in Brooklyn and Queens, but focused their cameras on largely unexplored locations, including City Island and Floyd Bennett Field. A significant figure in Off Broadway theater in the 1960s is the subject of Jeremy Gerard’s “Wynn Place Show: A Biased History of the Rollicking Life and Extreme Times of Wynn Handman and the American Place Theater” (Smith and Kraus). “These were artists who may never have given much thought to working in the theater until prodded to do so by a fevered coalition of Manhattan literati, left-leaning religious and political agitators and, especially, disaffected theater partisans, all of whom had come under the spell of an unlikely breaker of molds named Wynn Handman,” Mr. Gerard writes. Mr. Handman nurtured budding playwrights and trained fledgling actors, like John Leguizamo and Frank Langella. In this overdue biography of an outstanding teacher and an adventurous company, Mr. Gerard, a former Broadway reporter for The New York Times, engagingly recounts Mr. Handman’s long and storied career “as a force against mediocrity and complacency.” Still debating where the Super Bowl was held? New Jersey typically gets short shrift in the credit department, a slight that Linda J. Barth hopes to rectify in “A History of Inventing in New Jersey: From Thomas Edison to the Ice Cream Cone” (The History Press). Edison’s legacy has pretty much survived intact. Some of the Garden State’s other claims to innovation may be subject to challenge. In any case, Ms. Barth, a teacher, has produced charming back stories for the development of a wide variety of things we take for granted, from M&M’s to Bubble Wrap and bar codes. The reasons? So many communications and pharmaceutical firms. So densely populated. So close to Philadelphia and New York.

James Sanders
Books
Jeremy Gerard
NYC
Linda J Barth


Life Outside the Hospital; Consequences of Cool; You’re So Far Away

Abstract: Long-Term Care TO THE EDITOR: “ Where Recovery Is Rare ” (June 24) suggests that for individuals who are dependent on ventilators, the only choice is death or living in an institution, such as a long-term acute care hospital. In fact, there are many people who use ventilators who live at home. For individuals 21 and under who are eligible for Medicaid, Medicaid pays for nursing care so children can live at home and go to school. For other children, there are waiver programs that allow them to receive nursing care and other Medicaid services outside the hospital. The waivers are named after Katie Beckett , who wound up living a full life until she died at 34. Even though she spent 12 hours a day on a ventilator and received nursing care, she graduated from college and worked. Our medical system should provide the services and supports to enable individuals who depend on ventilators to live in the community, with family and friends. Ellen Saideman Barrington, R.I. Social Mobility Re “ Cool at 13, Adrift at 23 ” (June 24): I wonder if simple complacency has anything to do with the cool kids ending up adrift in adulthood. I grew up in a small town in the ’80s. Many of the cool, attractive kids never left town after high school. They didn’t attend college and just continued their high school lives as adults in the safe cocoon of coolness. If they hadn’t been so cool and popular, perhaps they would have been unsatisfied with small-town life, gone to college or moved away. In other words, they likely would have experienced a much wider slice of life and maybe become actually cool and interesting. Giantjonquil, of St. Paul, posted to nytimes.com Good article to read before going to summer class reunions. Shirley Brantingham, posted to Facebook Neurology TO THE EDITOR: Re “ A Rare Visual Distortion ” (June 24): As a child, I very frequently experienced micropsia. As an adult, I had it only on rare occasions of extreme emotional stress. One time, I was sitting at a table with the man with whom I was breaking up. I rationally knew I could reach out and touch his hand, yet he had receded visually to such a great distance that to touch him seemed utterly impossible. I have been a visual artist all my life. When I first saw the portrait paintings and drawings by Alberto Giacometti , I was startled to see that he had captured that sensation — the seated lower bodies of the portrait subjects seemed very massive and near, but the upper bodies and faces had the appearance of being far, far away. This made me feel he had had this same distancing phenomenon and had captured it incredibly well. Jenny Badger Sultan San Francisco Wow, and here I thought I was the one who coined the term! I’ve always referred to this as my Alice in Wonderland syndrome. I even told my doctors that I sometimes felt like Alice. I got the usual raised eyebrow and a prescription for more antidepressants. LM, of Detroit, posted to nytimes.com Very interesting to learn that these visual phenomena are now at least partially understood. These experiences may be much more common (at least in childhood) than previously thought, because they often go unreported. I had a few episodes of micropsia in elementary school, usually associated with a fever, but I never bothered to tell anyone about them, as they weren’t at all frightening. In fact, they were oddly enjoyable. Julie, of New York, posted to nytimes.com