A Network Takes Us Out to a Ballgame

Abstract: IT is rare that media buyers form a consensus on anything, but in the case of the neophyte Major League Baseball Network, which had its premiere in January, they seem to agree that they like its chances of becoming a successful player in the television sports marketplace. Executives at the network, two-thirds owned by Major League Baseball and one-third owned by a group of cable and satellite operators, said that it was on target to meet its first-quarter ad revenue projections, with major advertisers like Sprint, I.B.M., Kraft, Domino’s Pizza, Geico, Progressive, Sony PlayStation , 2K Sports and Viagra , among others, already on the air. And none of them are among the 18 official M.L.B. sponsors, who, at some point this year, also are expected to jump in with varying amounts of advertising-dollar support. The cable operators Comcast , Time Warner and Cox, along with the satellite operator DirecTV, make up the one-third ownership group. The M.L.B. Network, while not available on basic analog cable, is available on digital basic or expanded digital basic channels on the cable systems that carry it.  M.L.B. is the fourth professional league to start its own television network, after the National Basketball Association, National Football League and National Hockey League. The M.L.B. Network started with availability in more than 50 million homes, more than any of the other league-owned networks when they began. “I think M.L.B. Network has all the ingredients for success,” said Sam Sussman, senior vice president and media director in charge of sports buying at the media agency Starcom. “It has solid distribution, good talent both in front of and behind the camera, and good content. It can provide viewers with accountability that not all start-ups can do.” Christine Merrifield, senior vice president and director of video investment and activation at the media agency MediaVest, agreed, saying, “It has the makings of a great network.” “It’s lean and its staff can put deals together very quickly and creatively,” Ms. Merrifield said. “And it is getting good traction not only from sports advertisers but also from some nontraditional sports advertisers.” Kevin Collins, senior vice president, director of national broadcast for the media agency Initiative, said that M.L.B. Network was following a pattern similar to ESPN’s when it started, “airing classic footage from its archives and studio shows while waiting to air live regular season games.” “Over time, this network will succeed, especially when the new television rights come up and they are able to add more live games,” he said.  The network has the rights to broadcast a number of preseason M.L.B. games and 26 regular season games, which will be shown every Thursday night beginning April 9 and be the exclusive baseball games broadcast nationally on that night. The network also carried more than a dozen World Baseball Classic games, which brought Sprint and I.B.M. into the network as presenting sponsors of the special nightly “W.B.C. Tonight” studio show, and W.B.C. games, respectively. Bill Morningstar, executive vice president, advertising sales for the M.L.B. Network, said he was in discussions with a number of advertisers in a range of categories, including beer companies, fast-food restaurants, banks and credit card companies, movies and pharmaceuticals. “Our motto has been to try to do a deal a day,” Mr. Morningstar said, “bringing in a steady stream of advertisers in small increments of dollars. We’re telling advertisers to give us a little money and grow with us.” That has resonated with Larry Novenstern, executive vice president and director of electronic media for the media agency Optimedia. “M.L.B. Network is a very good alternative for us,” he said, “to put some seed money down for clients and to see how the audience grows.” Mr. Novenstern said that M.L.B. Network executives had been “user friendly” in his talks with them. “What they need to be doing is looking outside the box, and they are,” Mr. Novenstern said, adding that one of Optimedia’s clients, Denny’s, which sponsors the Professional Bowlers Association tour and broadcasts but is looking to further invest in TV sports, is interested in the M.L.B. Network. Jason Kanefsky, senior vice president and director of national broadcast at the media agency MPG North America, said the M.L.B. Network was “pricing its Thursday night ad units to move.” But finding more advertising dollars for a new network in the current depressed economy will be a challenge, he said “There is no incremental money in the market and may not be for the rest of the year, so whatever money that’s put into M.L.B. Network will have to come from other networks,” Mr. Kanefsky said. Media buyers said that the talent the network had hired — Bob Costas, Al Leiter, Harold Reynolds and Barry Larkin, among others — had given the network credibility. Reaction to the network’s signature studio show, “M.L.B. Tonight,” similar to ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight,” also has been positive. With the start of the M.L.B. regular season on April 6, the network will expand its “M.L.B. Tonight” studio show to about nine hours, from one hour, each night. Tony Petitti, the former executive producer of CBS Sports who is now the M.L.B. Network president, said multiple sets in the studio would be used during the “M.L.B. Tonight” broadcasts, to “accommodate advertisers with in-studio signage opportunities.” The network’s plan to have two cameras in every major league ballpark, which can be used each night to provide live “look-ins” and postgame interviews, also will provide sponsorship opportunities for advertisers. Mr. Kanefsky of MPG said that there were so many avid fans around the country that “you can’t have too much baseball.”

Major League Baseball
Baseball
Television
Advertising and Marketing
Athletics and Sports
Comcast Corp
Time Warner Inc
Cable Television


Events in Connecticut for June 15-21, 2014

Abstract: A guide to cultural and recreational events in Connecticut. Items for the calendar should be sent at least three weeks in advance to ctcal@nytimes.com. Comedy COLLINSVILLE Bridge Street Live Mike Gaffney, Teddy Daniels and Joe Fernandes. June 20 at 8 p.m. $15 and $25. Bridge Street Live, 41 Bridge Street. (860) 693-9762; 41bridgestreet.com. RIDGEFIELD Ridgefield Playhouse Dana Carvey. June 19 at 8 p.m. $98 and $105. Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Road. (203) 438-5795; ridgefieldplayhouse.org. Film BRIDGEPORT The Bijou Theater A screening of the play “Caesar and Cleopatra,” starring Christopher Plummer and Nikki James. June 16 at 7 p.m. $10 and $12. The Bijou Theater, 275 Fairfield Avenue. thebijoutheatre.com; (203) 332-3228. HARTFORD Cinestudio “Queen Margot,” directed by Patrice Chéreau. Through June 19. “The Lunchbox,” directed by Ritesh Batra. June 20 through 26. $7 and $9. Cinestudio, 300 Summit Street. (860) 297-2463; cinestudio.org. HARTFORD Real Art Ways “Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago,” documentary by Lydia Smith. Through June 18. “Next Goal Wins,” documentary by Mike Brett and Steve Jamison. June 20 through 26. $4.50 to $10. Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street. (860) 232-1006; realartways.org. OLD SAYBROOK The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center “The Met in High Definition: ‘Rigoletto,’ ” screening of the opera featuring Zeljko Lucic. June 18 at 1 p.m. $15. The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main Street. thekate.org; (877) 503-1286. For Children HARTFORD Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts Laurie Berkner, kindie rock. June 21 at 3 p.m. $28.50 to $100. Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, 166 Capitol Avenue. (860) 987-5900; bushnell.org. NORWALK Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum Victorian Ice Cream Social, games, entertainment and hand-cranked ice cream. June 22, noon to 5 p.m. Admission is free. Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum, 295 West Avenue. (203) 838-9799; lockwoodmathewsmansion.com. NORWALK Maritime Aquarium “Food for Thought,” International Children’s Art Exhibit. Through Sept. 2. (203) 803-4376; creativeconnections.org. “Lorikeets.” See and feed tropical birds. Through Sept. 1. Free with museum admission. $12.95 to $19.95; children under 3, free. Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Maritime Aquarium, 10 North Water Street. maritimeaquarium.org; (203) 852-0700. NORWALK Stepping Stones Museum for Children “Healthyville,” exhibition on nutrition, fitness, hygiene and safety. Through Sept. 1. Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Stepping Stones Museum for Children, 303 West Avenue. steppingstonesmuseum.org; (203) 899-0606. RIDGEFIELD Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum “The Story of Fish and Snail,” reading by the author Deborah Freedman and art-making activities. Ages 2 to 5: 10 a.m. to noon on June 21. Ages 6 to 10: 1 to 3 p.m. Free with museum admission. $5 and $10. Members, K-12 teachers, active-service military families and children under 18, free. Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street. (203) 438-4519; aldrichart.org. WINDSOR LOCKS New England Air Museum “Open Cockpit.” Visitors climb into the cockpits of vintage aircrafts. June 15, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. $6.50 to $12; children under 3, free. New England Air Museum, 36 Perimeter Road. neam.org; (860) 623-3305. Music and Dance BETHEL Pizzeria Lauretano Roger Ball, jazz. June 15 at 6 p.m. $20. John Fumasoli and the Jones Factor, jazz. June 22 at 6 p.m. $15. Pizzeria Lauretano, 291 Greenwood Avenue. pizzerialauretano.com; (203) 792-1500. BRIDGEPORT The Bijou Theater Barnum Belting Beauties, cabaret. June 20 at 8 p.m. $20 and $25. The Bijou Theater, 275 Fairfield Avenue. thebijoutheatre.com; (203) 332-3228. COLLINSVILLE Bridge Street Live “Cash is King,” tribute to Johnny Cash. June 21 at 8 p.m. $22 and $32. Bridge Street Live, 41 Bridge Street. 41bridgestreet.com; (860) 693-9762. FAIRFIELD StageOne, Fairfield Theater Company Band of Heathens, alternative country. June 17 at 7:45 p.m. $22. Marc Broussard, pop. June 19 at 7:45 p.m. $42. Dustbowl Revival, country and bluegrass. June 20 at 7:45 p.m. $20. Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, funk and gospel. June 22 at 7:45 p.m. $38. StageOne, Fairfield Theater Company, 70 Sanford Street. (203) 259-1036; fairfieldtheatre.org. FALLS VILLAGE Music Mountain The Enso String Quartet, classical. June 15 at 3 p.m. $30 and $35. The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players. June 21 at 6:30 p.m. $27 and $30. $60 for dinner and show. The Juilliard String Quartet, classical. June 22 at 3 p.m. $60. Music Mountain, 225 Music Mountain Road. (860) 824-7126; musicmountain.org. HARTFORD Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers featuring Edie Brickell, bluegrass. June 19 at 7:30 p.m. $29.50 to $89.50. Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, 166 Capitol Avenue. bushnell.org; (860) 987-5900. MASHANTUCKET Grand Theater, Foxwoods Casino Jennifer Lopez, pop. June 21 at 8 p.m. $195 to $325. Diana Ross, R&B. June 22 at 7 p.m. $55 to $85. Grand Theater, Foxwoods Casino, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. (800) 200-2882; foxwoods.com. NEW HAVEN New Haven Green Dianne Reeves with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. June 21 at 7 p.m. Free. New Haven Green, 165 Church Street. (203) 865-0831; newhavensymphony.org. Image SIMSBURY Willie Nelson and Family will perform with Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas on June 15 at 6:45 p.m. at the Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center, 22 Iron Horse Boulevard. Tickets are $38 to $98. For further information: (800) 745-3000 or premierconcerts.com . Credit Jack Plunkett/Invision, via Associated Press NORFOLK Infinity Hall Curtis Salgado, blues. June 15 at 7:30 p.m. $25 and $40. Vanessa Carlton, pop. June 19 at 8 p.m. $34 and $49. Josh Ritter with John Fullbright, pop. June 20 at 8 p.m. $30 and $45. Who’s Bad, tribute to Michael Jackson. June 21 at 8 p.m. $40 and $55. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, swing. June 22 at 7:30 p.m. $45 and $65. Infinity Hall, 20 Greenwoods Road. (866) 666-6306; infinityhall.com. NORFOLK Norfolk Chamber Music Festival Yale Choral Artists. June 21 at 8 p.m. $25. Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, Routes 44 and 272. (860) 542-3000; norfolkmusic.org. OLD LYME The Side Door Sunna Gunnlaugs Trio, jazz. June 20 at 7:30 p.m. $25. Benny Sharoni Quartet, jazz. June 21 at 7:30 p.m. $25. The Side Door, 85 Lyme Street. thesidedoorjazz.com; (860) 434-0886. OLD SAYBROOK The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center Griffin House, folk. June 20 at 8 p.m. $25. The Boxcar Lillies with Brother Sun, folk. June 21 at 8 p.m. $25. Red Molly, folk. June 22 at 7 p.m. $25 and $28. The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center, 300 Main Street. thekate.org; (877) 503-1286. RIDGEFIELD Ridgefield Playhouse The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band and Robert Randolph and the Family Band, rock. June 15 at 8 p.m. $87.50. The English Beat, ska. June 18 at 8 p.m. $40. Beth Hart, blues. June 20 at 8 p.m. $37 and $45. Blue Öyster Cult, rock. June 21 at 8 p.m. $70. The Enchanted Garden All-Stars Band, world music. June 22 at 4 p.m. $10 and $20. Ridgefield Playhouse, 80 East Ridge Road. (203) 438-5795; ridgefieldplayhouse.org. SIMSBURY Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center Willie Nelson and Family, with Alison Krauss and Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas, country. June 15 at 6:45 p.m. $38 to $98. Simsbury Meadows Performing Arts Center, 22 Iron Horse Boulevard. (800) 745-3000; premierconcerts.com. UNCASVILLE Mohegan Sun Earth, Wind and Fire, soul and disco. June 21 at 8 p.m. $45.50. “Move Live on Tour,” Julianne Hough and Derek Hough. June 22 at 7:30 p.m. $30. Mohegan Sun, 1 Mohegan Sun Boulevard. (888) 226-7711; mohegansun.com. WALLINGFORD Oakdale Theater Young the Giant, alternative rock. June 21 at 8 p.m. $35. Oakdale Theater, 95 South Turnpike Road. (203) 265-1501; oakdale.com. WATERBURY Palace Theater of Connecticut Lauren Sevian Quartet, jazz. June 20 at 7 and 9 p.m. $20.50. Palace Theater of Connecticut, 100 East Main Street. (203) 755-4700; palacetheaterct.org. Outdoors ANSONIA Ansonia Nature Center Summer Solstice Drumming Circle. June 20 at 7 p.m. Free. Canned food items to benefit an area homeless shelter appreciated. Ansonia Nature Center, 10 Deerfield Road. ansonianaturecenter.org; (203) 736-1053. HAMPTON The Edwin Way Teale Memorial Sanctuary, Connecticut Audubon Society Bird Walk, guided hike to look for chestnut-sided warblers, indigo buntings and blue-winged warblers. June 20 at 8 a.m. $5 and $10. The Edwin Way Teale Memorial Sanctuary, Connecticut Audubon Society, 93 Kenyon Road. (860) 928-4948; ctaudubon.org. STONINGTON Stonington Historical Society, Old Lighthouse Museum Guided walking tours of Stonington Borough. June 8 and 22 at 2 p.m. $5 and $10. Stonington Historical Society, Old Lighthouse Museum, 7 Water Street. (860) 535-8445; stoningtonhistory.org. Spoken Word HARTFORD The Mark Twain House and Museum The Mouth, storytelling. June 20 at 7:30 p.m. $5. Mondays through Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Mark Twain House and Museum, 351 Farmington Avenue. (860) 280-3130; marktwainhouse.org. MASHANTUCKET Fox Theater, Foxwoods Casino Janet Evanovich discusses her book “Top Secret Twenty-One.” June 19 at 7 p.m. $20 to $75. Fox Theater, Foxwoods Casino, 350 Trolley Line Boulevard. (800) 200-2882; foxwoods.com. WESTPORT Westport Country Playhouse A staged reading of Jerry Sterner’s “Other People’s Money.” June 16 at 7 p.m. $30 to $100. Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court. westportplayhouse.org; (203) 227-4177. Theater EAST HADDAM Goodspeed Opera House “Damn Yankees (Red Sox Version),” musical comedy by George Abbott, Douglass Wallop, Richard Adler and Jerry Ross. Through June 21. $27 to $75. Goodspeed Opera House, 6 Main Street. (860) 873-8668; goodspeed.org. HARTFORD Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts “Ghost the Musical,” by Bruce Joel Rubin, Dave Stewart and Glen Ballard. Through June 15. $22 to $85. Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, 166 Capitol Avenue. (860) 987-5900; bushnell.org. HARTFORD Hartford Stage “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike,” comedy by Christopher Durang. Through June 22. $25 to $85. Hartford Stage, 50 Church Street. hartfordstage.org; (860) 527-5151. HARTFORD TheaterWorks Hartford “Love/Sick,” comedy by John Cariani. Through June 22. $15 to $65. TheaterWorks Hartford, 233 Pearl Street. theaterworkshartford.org; (860) 527-7838. HARTFORD XL Center “Varekai,” Cirque du Soleil. June 11 through 15. $32 to $105. XL Center, 1 Civic Center Plaza. (860) 249-6333; xlcenter.com. IVORYTON Ivoryton Playhouse “Fingers and Toes,” musical by Logan Medland. Through June 22. $15 to $42. Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main Street. ivorytonplayhouse.org; (860) 767-7318. Image LAKEVILLE “Recollecting and Other Things,” mixed media by Emma Kindall, is on view in “Memory ...Emotion ...Expression,” an exhibition of works by Michael Quadland and Ms. Kindall, through July 13 at the White Gallery, 344 Main Street. For further information: (860) 435-1029 or thewhitegalleryart.com . Credit Avery Danziger NEW BRITAIN Hole in the Wall Theater “Fifth of July,” drama by Lanford Wilson. Through June 28. $15 and $20. Hole in the Wall Theater, 116 Main Street. (860) 229-3049; hitw.org. NEW HAVEN Long Wharf Theater “Endurance,” Split Knuckle Theater Company. June 17 through 29. $55. Long Wharf Theater, 222 Sargent Drive. (203) 787-4282; longwharf.org. RIDGEFIELD Ridgefield Theater Barn “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson,” musical by Alex Timbers and Michael Friedman. Through June 28. $22 and $26. Ridgefield Theater Barn, 37 Halpin Lane. ridgefieldtheaterbarn.org; (203) 431-9850. ROWAYTON Shakespeare on the Sound, Pinkney Park “The Two Gentlemen of Verona,” by Shakespeare. Through June 29. $10 and $20 suggested donation. Shakespeare on the Sound, Pinkney Park, 177 Rowayton Avenue. shakespeareonthesound.org; (203) 299-1300. STORRS Connecticut Repertory Theater, at the Harriet S. Jorgensen Theater “The Sunshine Boys,” comedy by Neil Simon, featuring Jerry Adler and Richard Kline. June 19 through 29. $10 to $43. Connecticut Repertory Theater, at the Harriet S. Jorgensen Theater, 2132 Hillside Road. (860) 486-2113; crt.uconn.edu. TORRINGTON Warner Theater “Songs for a New World,” musical by Jason Robert Brown. Through June 22. $26. Warner Theater, 68 Main Street. (860) 489-7180; warnertheatre.org. WATERBURY Seven Angels Theater “Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?” Comedy by John Powers, James Quinn and Alaric Jans. Through June 15. $34 to $48.50. Seven Angels Theater, Plank Road, Hamilton Park. sevenangelstheatre.org; (203) 757-4676. WEST HARTFORD Playhouse on Park “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” musical by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin. Through July 20. $32.50 to $42.50. Playhouse on Park, 244 Park Road. playhouseonpark.org; (860) 523-5900. WESTPORT Westport Country Playhouse “Sing for Your Shakespeare,” musical revue conceived by Wayne Barker, Mark Lamos and Deborah Grace Winer. Through June 22. $25 to $85. Westport Country Playhouse, 25 Powers Court. westportplayhouse.org; (203) 227-4177. Museums and Galleries BRIDGEPORT Housatonic Museum of Art “Requiem for the Industrial Age,” Anna Held Audette. Through July 25. Mondays through Fridays, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Thursdays, 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Housatonic Museum of Art, 900 Lafayette Boulevard. housatonicmuseum.org; (203) 332-5052. COS COB Greenwich Historical Society “Enjoying the Country Life: Greenwich’s Great Estates.” Through Aug. 1. $8 and $10; members and children under 6, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Greenwich Historical Society, 39 Strickland Road. (203) 869-6899; greenwichhistory.org. COS COB The Drawing Room “Ebb and Flow,” group show. Through July 28. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Drawing Room, 220 East Putnam Avenue. thedrawingroom.cc; (203) 661-3737. DANBURY The Gallery at Still River Editions “Wide Awake in Dreamsville,” toy camera photographs by James Rohan. Through Sept. 26. Mondays through Fridays, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Gallery at Still River Editions, 128 East Liberty Street. (203) 791-1474; stillrivereditions.com. DARIEN The Darien Historical Society “Here Come the Brides: Grace and Elegance 1855-1950.” Through Aug. 31. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. The Darien Historical Society, 45 Old Kings Highway North. (203) 655-9233; darienhistorical.org. ESSEX Gallery19 “Nancy Lasar: Prints and Paintings” and “James Reed: Works on Paper.” Through June 30. Wednesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Gallery19, 19A Main Street. (860) 581-8735; gallery19essex.com. FAIRFIELD Art/Place Gallery “Internal/External,” works by Diane Pollack and Dave Pressler. Through June 29. Thursdays through Saturdays, noon to 4 p.m.; Sundays, 2 to 5 p.m. Art/Place Gallery, 70 Sanford Street. (203) 292-8328; artplace.org. FAIRFIELD J. Russell Jinishian Gallery “Master Marineworks,” Don Demers. June 21 through July 3. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. J. Russell Jinishian Gallery, 1899 Bronson Road. (203) 259-8753; jrusselljinishiangallery.com. FAIRFIELD Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery, Fairfield University “Jason Peters: Refraction.” Through June 27. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thomas J. Walsh Art Gallery, Fairfield University, 1073 North Benson Road. fairfield.edu/walsh; (203) 254-4062. GREENWICH Bruce Museum “Pasture to Pond: Connecticut Impressionism.” Through June 22. “iCreate 2014,” works by area high school students. Through July 6. “Tales of Two Cities: New York and Beijing.” Through Aug. 31. “Extreme Habitats: Into the Deep Sea.” Through Nov. 9. $6 and $7; members and children under 5, free. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive. brucemuseum.org; (203) 869-0376. GREENWICH Flinn Gallery “Other Worlds,” group show. Through June 18. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Flinn Gallery, 101 West Putnam Avenue. flinngallery.com; (203) 622-7947. GROTON Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art, University of Connecticut Groton Summer Exhibition, group show. June 13 through July 26. $3 suggested donation. Members and students, free. Wednesdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Alexey von Schlippe Gallery of Art, University of Connecticut, 1084 Shennecossett Road. averypointarts.uconn.edu; (860) 405-9052. Image NORWALK See and feed tropical birds at the exhibition “Lorikeets” through Sept. 1 at Maritime Aquarium, 10 North Water Street. Admission is free with museum admission. $12.95 to $19.95; children under 3, free. For information: (203) 852-0700 or maritimeaquarium.org . Credit Dave Sigworth GUILFORD Greene Art Gallery “Sail Away,” paintings by Brechin Morgan. Through June 15. Sundays and Mondays, noon to 4 p.m.; Wednesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Greene Art Gallery, 29 Whitfield Street. greeneartgallery.com; (203) 453-4162. HAMDEN Arnold Bernhard Library “The Lady Sligo Letters: Westport House and Ireland’s Great Hunger,” more than 200 letters. Through April 30. Mondays through Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Arnold Bernhard Library, 275 Mount Carmel Avenue. (203) 582-8633; quinnipiac.edu. HARTFORD Real Art Ways “Joell Baxter: Coverer.” Through June 27. “Olu Oguibe: iPad Prints.” Through July 6. “Cat Balco: The Ellipses Project.” Through Aug. 8. $3 suggested donation; members and cinema patrons, free. Daily, 2 to 9 p.m.; and by appointment. Real Art Ways, 56 Arbor Street. (860) 232-1006; realartways.org. HARTFORD The Mark Twain House and Museum “At Your Service,” photographs and artifacts. Through Sept. 1. $6 to $18; members and children under 6, free. Mondays through Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Mark Twain House and Museum, 351 Farmington Avenue. marktwainhouse.org; (860) 247-0998. HARTFORD Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art “Ruben Ochoa/MATRIX 169.” Through Sept. 7. $5 to $10; members and children under 12, free. Wednesdays through Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; first Thursday of every month, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 600 Main Street. (860) 278-2670; thewadsworth.org. KENT Ober Gallery “May Day Parade,” paintings by Victor Skersis. Through June 15. Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. Ober Gallery, 6 North Main Street. (860) 927-5030; obergallery.com. LAKEVILLE The White Gallery “Memory...Emotion....Expression,” Michael Quadland and Emma Kindall. Through July 13. Fridays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and by appointment. The White Gallery, 344 Main Street. (860) 435-1029; thewhitegalleryart.com. LITCHFIELD Wisdom House “Inner Light,” sculpture by David Colbert. Through Sept. 13. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wisdom House, 229 East Litchfield Road. (860) 567-3163; wisdomhouse.org. MYSTIC Maritime Art Gallery, at Mystic Seaport “Modern Marine Masters,” group show. Through June 15. Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Maritime Art Gallery, at Mystic Seaport, 47 Greenmanville Avenue. (860) 572-5388; mysticseaport.org/gallery. NEW BRITAIN New Britain Museum of American Art “NEW/NOW: Joe Fig.” Through July 20. “This One’s Optimistic: Pincushion.” Through Sept. 14. “Glass Today: 21st-Century Innovations.” Through Sept. 21. “Science Fiction Pulp Art.” Through Oct. 6. $8 to $12; members and children under 12, free. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. New Britain Museum of American Art, 56 Lexington Street. (860) 229-0257; nbmaa.org. NEW CANAAN Silvermine Arts Center Galleries The 64th Annual Art of the Northeast Exhibition. Through July 26. Wednesdays through Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m.; and by appointment. Silvermine Arts Center Galleries, 1037 Silvermine Road. silvermineart.org; (203) 966-9700. NEW CANAAN The Philip Johnson Glass House “Fujiko Nakaya: Veil.” Through Nov. 30. Tours are $30 to $100. Thursdays through Mondays, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Philip Johnson Glass House, 199 Elm Street. philipjohnsonglasshouse.org; (203) 594-9884. NEW HAVEN Artspace “Forced Collaboration,” group show. “Hyper Democratic Landscapes,” video installation by David Politzer. Through June 28. Wednesdays and Thursdays, noon to 6 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, noon to 8 p.m. Artspace, 50 Orange Street. (203) 772-2709; artspacenh.org. NEW HAVEN Azoth Gallery, at the New Haven Public Library “Infinities,” Maxwell Clark. Through July 23. Mondays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Azoth Gallery, at the New Haven Public Library, 133 Elm Street. (203) 387-4933; azothgallery.com. NEW HAVEN City Gallery “Life-Line,” works by Kathy Kane. Through June 29. Thursdays through Sundays, noon to 4 p.m.; and by appointment. City Gallery, 994 State Street. (203) 782-2489; city-gallery.org. NEW HAVEN Giampietro Gallery Paintings and drawings by William Bailey. Through June 28. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and by appointment. Giampietro Gallery, 91 Orange Street. giampietrogallery.com; (203) 777-7707. NEW HAVEN Kehler Liddell Gallery “Fragments: Tragedy and Hope,” Fethi Meghelli. Through June 29. Thursdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and by appointment. Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Avenue. (203) 389-9555; kehlerliddell.com. NEW HAVEN New Haven Museum “Nothing Is Set in Stone: The Lincoln Oak and the New Haven Green,” group show. Through Nov. 2. $2 to $4; children under 12, free. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m.; first Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. New Haven Museum, 114 Whitney Avenue. newhavenmuseum.org; (203) 562-4183. NEW HAVEN Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University “Tiny Titans: Dinosaur Eggs and Babies.” Through Aug. 30. $4 to $9; members and Yale ID holders, free. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, 170 Whitney Avenue. peabody.yale.edu; (203) 432-5050. NEW HAVEN Reynolds Fine Art A group show of Plein Air paintings. Through Aug. 4. Tuesdays through Thursdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Reynolds Fine Art, 96 Orange Street. (203) 498-2200; reynoldsfineart.com. NEW HAVEN Yale University Art Gallery “Byobu: The Grandeur of Japanese Screens.” Through July 6. “Five West Coast Artists: Bischoff, Diebenkorn, Neri, Park and Thiebaud.” Through July 13. “Jazz Lives: the Photographs of Lee Friedlander and Milt Hinton.” Through Sept. 7. “Contemporary Art/South Africa.” Through Sept. 14. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel Street. artgallery.yale.edu; (203) 432-0600. Image FALLS VILLAGE The Juilliard String Quartet will perform on June 22 at 3 p.m. at Music Mountain, 225 Music Mountain Road. Tickets are $60. For further information: (860) 824-7126; musicmountain.org . Credit Ruby Washington/The New York Times NEW HAVEN Yale-China Association “Paintings of Hong Kong Street Markets,” by Michael Sloan. Through June 30. Mondays through Fridays, 2 to 5 p.m., with appointment. Yale-China Association, 442 Temple Street. yalechina.org; (203) 432-0884. NEW LONDON Lyman Allyn Art Museum “Inside the Natural World of Jan Beekman,” nature paintings. Through Dec. 31. $5 to $10; members and children under 12, free. “Still Life Studio,” group show. Through Jan. 5. $5 to $10; members and children under 12, free. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Lyman Allyn Art Museum, 625 Williams Street. (860) 443-2545; lymanallyn.org. NORWALK The Leclerc Contemporary “Objective-Subjective,” group photography show. Through June 15. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Leclerc Contemporary, 19 Willard Road. (203) 826-8575; leclerccontemporary.com. NORWALK The Maritime Garage Gallery “Vicarious,” group show. Through Aug. 30. Weekdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Maritime Garage Gallery, 11 North Water Street. (203) 831-9063; norwalkpark.org. OLD LYME Cooley Gallery “Without and Without, Introducing the Art of Jasper Goodrich.” Through July 12. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Cooley Gallery, 25 Lyme Street. (860) 434-8807; cooleygallery.com. OLD LYME Diane Birdsall Gallery “The Magnified Eye,” group show. Through June 15. Wednesdays through Saturdays, noon to 6 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 4 p.m. Diane Birdsall Gallery, 16 Lyme Street. dianebirdsallgallery.com; (860) 434-3209. OLD LYME Florence Griswold Museum “Art of the Everyman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum.” “Thistles and Crowns: The Painted Chests of the Connecticut Shore.” Through Sept. 21. $8 to $10; children under 12, free. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Florence Griswold Museum, 96 Lyme Street. (860) 434-5542; flogris.org. OLD LYME Lyme Art Association Gallery “American Waters: A Marine Art Exhibition.” Through July 27. Mondays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Lyme Art Association Gallery, 90 Lyme Street. lymeartassociation.org; (860) 434-7802. RIDGEFIELD Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum “Jack Whitten: Evolver.” Through July 6. “Standing in the Shadows of Love: The Aldrich Collection 1964-1974 Robert Indiana, Robert Morris, Ree Morton, Robert Rauschenberg, Robert Smithson.” “Taylor Davis: If you steal a horse, and let him go, he’ll take you to the barn you stole him from.” “Jessica Jackson Hutchins: Unicorn.” “Michael Joo: Drift.” “Michelle Lopez: Angels, Flags, Bangs.” Through Sept. 21. $5 and $10. Members, K-12 teachers, active-service military families and children under 18, free. Tuesdays, free. Tuesdays through Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 258 Main Street. (203) 438-4519; aldrichart.org. RIDGEFIELD Seven Arts Gallery Works by Tom Bennett. Through June 15. Thursdays and Fridays, 4:30 to 7 p.m.; Saturdays, noon to 7 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Seven Arts Gallery, 54 Ethan Allen Highway. sevenartsgallery.com; (203) 278-3204. ROXBURY Minor Memorial Library “Kilmer Woods,” paintings by Karen Simmons. June 14 through July 26. Mondays, noon to 7 p.m.; Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursdays, noon to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Minor Memorial Library, 23 South Street. minormemoriallibrary.org; (860) 350-2181. SOUTHPORT Southport Galleries “Wood and Water,” paintings by Melissa Barbieri. Through July 10. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and by appointment. Southport Galleries, 330 Pequot Avenue. (203) 292-6124; southportgalleries.com. STAMFORD Fernando Luis Alvarez Gallery “To Women Interrupted,” works by Fernando Luis Alvarez. Through June 22. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fernando Luis Alvarez Gallery, 96 Bedford Street. flalvarezgallery.com; (888) 861-6791. STAMFORD Loft Artists Association “Attitudes,” Barbara Mathis. Through June 29. Saturdays and Sundays, 1 to 4:30 p.m. Loft Artists Association, 575 Pacific Street. (203) 247-2027; loftartists.com. STAMFORD P.M.W. Gallery “Suzanne Benton: From Paintings in Proust.” Through June 29. By appointment only. P. M. W. Gallery, 530 Roxbury Road. (203) 322-5427; pmwgalleryplus.com. STAMFORD Stamford Art Association “Small Works,” group show. “Transitions,” group show. Through July 10. Thursdays and Fridays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 3 p.m. Stamford Art Association, 39 Franklin Street. stamfordartassociation.org; (203) 325-1139. STORRS William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut “Ronnie Wood: Art and Music,” paintings, lithographs and pen-and-ink drawings. “Stagecraft: 50 Years of Design at Hartford Stage.” Through Aug. 10. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 1 to 4:30 p.m. William Benton Museum of Art, University of Connecticut, 245 Glenbrook Road. benton.uconn.edu; (860) 486-4520. WASHINGTON Gunn Memorial Library and Museum “Over There: Washington and the Great War.” Through Jan. 18. Thursdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Gunn Memorial Library and Museum, 5 Wykeham Road. (860) 868-7756; gunnlibrary.org. WASHINGTON Stairwell Gallery, at Gunn Memorial Library and Museum “Arthur Carter: Studies for Construction.” Through June 21. Mondays and Fridays, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Stairwell Gallery, at Gunn Memorial Library and Museum, 5 Wykeham Road. gunnlibrary.org; (860) 868-7586. WATERBURY Mattatuck Museum “Undefeated! The 1959 Croft High School Football Champions,” photographs and artifacts. Through July 12. “The Way We Worked,” paintings by Anna Held Audette and Duvian Montoya. June 22 through Aug. 3. “Haven and Inspiration: The Kent Art Colony,” group show. June 22 through Aug. 24. “Steel Garden,” sculpture by Babette Bloch. June 22 through Aug. 31. “Fancy This: The Gilded Age of Fashion.” Through Oct. 19. $6 and $7; members and children under 16, free. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Mattatuck Museum, 144 West Main Street. mattatuckmuseum.org; (203) 753-0381. WESTPORT Westport Arts Center “Scents and Soles,” Robert Cottingham and Nina Bentley. Through Sept. 7. Mondays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Westport Arts Center, 51 Riverside Avenue. westportartscenter.org; (203) 222-7070. WILTON Wilton Historical Society “Heidi Howard: Maker and Printer.” Through July 3. “Changing Times — Hand Tools Before the Industrial Revolution: Connecticut Tools of the Trades from the Walter R. T. Smith Collection.” Through Oct. 4. Tuesdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wilton Historical Society, 224 Danbury Road. (203) 762-7257; wiltonhistorical.org. WINDSOR 226 Jazz Art Java “We Have Many Faces,” Joe Sam, Alan Spriestersbach and Dennis Peabody. Through July 27. Weekdays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 226 Jazz Art Java, 226 Broad Street. (860) 219-1947; 226jazzorg. WINDSOR Windsor Art Center “Performance Scripts: The Babbletive and Scribbletive Arts by Edmond Chibeau.” Through June 21. Thursdays, 6 to 8 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Windsor Art Center, 40 Mechanic Street. windsorartcenter.org; (860) 688-2528.


The Host With the Most

Abstract: Senator John McCain hardly needs a holiday to give a party. Just last week, Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, presented a lavish feast for Republican governors gathering in Florida. From the 2004 Republican convention in New York City, Mr. McCain is still fondly remembered, at least among the A-list crowd, for holding an event for his 68th birthday at La Goulue on Madison Avenue and another soiree at Cipriani on 42nd Street. And in this bustling season of holiday parties, Mr. McCain was among the first to have an event, on Monday evening. The senator and his wife, Cindy, invited several hundred people to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington for a party to be paid for by his primary campaign account. Cameras were not only allowed, but also encouraged.

United States Politics and Government
McCain John


Chief Editor at People Magazine Is Promoted

Abstract: John Huey, on his fourth day as editor in chief of Time Inc., promoted Martha Nelson, the top editor at People magazine, to a new position as head of the People Group of publications yesterday, making her responsible for expanding the magazine's role as Time's leading profit generator. Larry Hackett, formerly the No. 2 editor at People, was appointed as managing editor, succeeding Ms. Nelson, the company said. In the role, Ms. Nelson will oversee People, Teen People, People en Español and People.com, the publication's Internet site, as well as take responsibility for book and television projects and other initiatives to expand the magazine's coverage of celebrities and American life. Ms. Nelson has been managing editor of People since 2002. In that time, Mr. Huey said, the magazine has fended off "an onslaught of competition" from rivals like Us Weekly and Star. The magazine has a circulation of 3.78 million, about 40 percent of which comes from newsstand sales, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Ms. Nelson had left People in 1993 to become the founding managing editor of In Style magazine, another Time Inc. publication. While the promotion does not answer the question of who will emerge as Mr. Huey's chief lieutenant, it puts Ms. Nelson in the position of being a contender for the No. 2 spot that Mr. Huey occupied before he took over the top job from Norman Pearlstine. Mr. Huey declined to comment on that possibility yesterday. But, he added, he did not know if he would replicate the previous Time Inc. structure. "If traditionalists find this management structure to be a departure from the past, they are right," Mr. Huey wrote in a note to staff members yesterday announcing Ms. Nelson's promotion. "The reason for that, pure and simple, is that the competitive environment we're operating in today is different. It is fast-moving, predatory and filled with opportunities that quickly become threats if we aren't positioned to act on them with speed and strategic certainty." Changes at Condé Nast (By Bloomberg News) Condé Nast Publications said that it was reorganizing management of some of its magazines after Mary G. Berner resigned yesterday as president of the company's Fairchild unit. Three magazines -- Jane, Details and Cookie-- will now report to the Condé Nast chief executive, Charles H. Townsend, the company said.


Maine Lawyer Credited in Fight for Gay Marriage

Abstract: PORTLAND, Me. — Most Americans have never heard of Mary Bonauto. But inside the tightknit world of gay legal advocacy, Ms. Bonauto is a quiet celebrity — a lawyer and mother of twins who some say is almost single-handedly responsible for the same-sex marriage cases now pending before the Supreme Court. “No gay person in this country would be married without Mary Bonauto,” said Roberta Kaplan, who went before the justices on Wednesday to argue one of the cases. As the top civil rights lawyer for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders , or GLAD, based in Boston, Ms. Bonauto has spent more than a decade plotting a careful strategy to advance gay marriage rights. She prompted Vermont to create civil unions in 2000, won the 2003 case that made Massachusetts the first state to legalize same-sex marriage and last year persuaded a federal appeals court that the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to gay couples, is unconstitutional. Yet in a quirk of fate, Ms. Bonauto watched her life’s work this week from the court’s spectator seats. The justices considered a Defense of Marriage Act case on Wednesday, but it was not Ms. Bonauto’s, which she argued and won before the federal appeals court in Boston but which Justice Elena Kagan has acknowledged discussing when she was President Obama’s solicitor general. Instead the court took up a similar case, Ms. Kaplan’s from New York, presumably so Justice Kagan would not have to recuse herself. “Am I disappointed?” Ms. Bonauto asked last week in her home here. “There is an element of disappointment, but I’m also incredibly excited. I feel like after all these years, you’re getting a hearing — a fair hearing — from the highest court in the land.” At 51, Ms. Bonauto is serious and unassuming. “She is not going to set a room on fire,” said Dean Hara, a plaintiff in Ms. Bonauto’s Defense of Marriage Act case . “But when she is arguing, she is really somebody to listen to.” Even her opponents offer kind words, saying they appreciate her civil tone. “She has always been the consummate professional, very courteous and gentle,” said Kris Mineau of the Massachusetts Family Institute , even as he said her courtroom victories had “degraded the value of marriage.” Ms. Bonauto works mostly from her home in this seaport city, where she and her wife, Professor Jennifer Wriggins of the University of Maine’s law school, are raising their 11-year-old twin daughters. Last year, the couple made the list of “ The Most Powerful Lesbian Moms in America ,” published by the Web site mombian.com. But Ms. Bonauto is too busy juggling legal briefs, homework and piano lessons to see herself as a woman making history. “That’s not how we experience our lives,” she said. Ms. Bonauto would be the first to say she builds on the work of others. As early as the 1970s, gay couples began suing for the right to marry, inspired by the 1967 Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia , which struck down state laws banning interracial marriage. In 1983, a young Harvard law student named Evan Wolfson wrote his third-year thesis on why gays should be free to marry. Mr. Wolfson was eventually hired by Lambda Legal, the gay advocacy group, where he joined what he called “a very small little network of people who at that time were dedicated to toppling the so-called sodomy laws” that criminalized homosexual sex. Among them was Ms. Bonauto. The daughter of a pharmacist and a preschool teacher from Newburgh, N.Y., she had come out, with some difficulty, while an undergraduate at Hamilton College. There, Ms. Bonauto was harassed over her sexual orientation, which she said contributed to her desire to “make life better” for others. By 1990, with a law degree from Northeastern University, she was working for GLAD in Boston. She had been there less than a week when a gay couple approached her with the idea of suing to get married. She said no, the timing was not right. “I would have cases of somebody who goes to a Dunkin’ Donuts and the wait person realizes it was a gay person and goes nuts,” Ms. Bonauto recalled. How could she pursue a seeming luxury like marriage, she reasoned, when gay people were being discriminated against in housing, employment and adoption and being harassed by the police? In 1991, a Honolulu lawyer, Dan Foley, did what Ms. Bonauto had declined to do and sued on behalf of three same-sex couples denied marriage licenses. The case prompted intense discussion in gay legal circles, recalled Mr. Wolfson, who later became Mr. Foley’s co-counsel and has since founded Freedom to Marry , a national advocacy group. Some, he said, thought marriage was “patriarchal and exclusionary,” while others said the gay rights movement “was supposed to be about liberation,” not joining heterosexuals. Still others, like Ms. Bonauto, worried that the legal foundation had not been laid and that a loss could lead to a gay rights setback. She was right to worry; Hawaii voters eventually amended their Constitution to allow a ban on same-sex marriage, much as California would. So the advocates opened up what Mr. Wolfson called “a second front” in Vermont — in part, he said, because the legal and constitutional climate was more hospitable there, and in part “because we had a really terrific talent in Mary.” Vermont’s decision to create civil unions did not entirely please Ms. Bonauto, who saw them as a “separate system” for gay people. Of all her legal victories, the 2003 Massachusetts case sticks with her. She still remembers clutching the Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling, and can still recite its first paragraph , including the declaration that the Massachusetts Constitution “forbids the creation of second-class citizens.” Once she had established a right to marriage, Ms. Bonauto went after the Defense of Marriage Act, which denied legally married gay couples the federal benefits that straight couples could have. Barney Frank, the former Massachusetts congressman, who is openly gay, said the move had sealed Ms. Bonauto’s reputation as a “first-rate lawyer and a first-rate strategist” who built on one victory after another. “She’s our Thurgood Marshall,” he said, referring to the Supreme Court justice who made history fighting racial discrimination. Ms. Bonauto was at first skeptical of the other gay marriage case before the court, the challenge to Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage. She feared the court was not ready to grant gay couples a broad constitutional right to marry. But public opinion has shifted so drastically since the case was filed in 2009, Ms. Bonauto said last week, she now believes the justices can find a way to “issue a marriage decision that the country would embrace.” She has witnessed that shift at home; last year, Maine became the first state where voters approved same-sex marriage, reversing a decision from 2009. “The things that scared people three years ago don’t scare people now,” Ms. Bonauto said. In the run-up to Wednesday’s hearing, Ms. Bonauto focused on helping Ms. Kaplan prepare. She coordinated “friend of the court” amicus briefs, and she arrived in Washington early to participate in moot court briefings. Ms. Kaplan said it “makes me crazy” that people do not know Ms. Bonauto’s work. Like Mr. Frank, she drew an analogy to Justice Marshall. “She conceived of a strategy just like him, over a long number of years, and then implemented it,” Ms. Kaplan said. “It was strategically brilliant, and she succeeded. No one else can say that.”

Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders GLAD


OSHA Cites Ashley Furniture Over Dozens of Safety Violations

Abstract: Ashley Furniture, one of the world’s largest furniture manufacturers, faces $1.7 million in penalties to settle charges that unsafe conditions at its manufacturing plant in Arcadia, Wis., led to more than 1,000 injuries. The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the company for dozens of violations, including disregard for safety standards that led to a number of gruesome injuries. In July, one worker lost three fingers while operating a woodworking machine, the agency said. The company also offered employees incentives to work quickly, a practice that encouraged dangerous factory conditions, the agency said. “Regrettably, Ashley Furniture has become a frequent flier for OSHA,” Thomas E. Perez, the labor secretary, said in an interview. “We have been inspecting this plant a number of times. We have found violations previously. They have been fined; we have come back. The fundamental challenge is they need to build a better culture of safety, and that hasn’t happened.” In a statement, Ashley Furniture said it “strongly disputes the allegations from OSHA” and “looks forward to the opportunity to present our evidence in the proper setting.” The company “strongly disagrees with each and every one of the agency’s assertions and believes the proposed penalties are grossly inappropriate and overzealous,” it said in an email. The penalties are on the large side for OSHA. In April, Republic Steel agreed to pay $2.4 million related to health and safety violations at several of its plants in Ohio and New York. OSHA has also placed Ashley Furniture in its Severe Violator Enforcement Program for its failure to fix a number of issues, including 12 repeated safety violations, each of which carries a penalty of up to $70,000. The agency had previously cited Ashley Furniture in 2014 when another worker lost part of a finger. OSHA opened its investigation after the more recent incident in July, and found that workers had suffered more than 1,000 injuries over a three-and-a-half-year period. Of those injuries, 100 were caused by similar machinery. Ashley Furniture employs about 4,500 workers at its facility in Arcadia, according to the agency. Mr. Perez said the company routinely blamed workers for their accidents. “I don’t quite understand how the worker can be to blame when the fact of the matter is, the machines lacked the proper safety mechanisms, which are not that expensive,” Mr. Perez said. “This is not splitting the atom.” Ashley Furniture did not properly protect its workers from machines with moving parts, the agency said. Machines would start unintentionally when workers were changing tools or blades, and could injure workers who came in contact with them. The agency also said that the company did not properly train workers on how to safely service equipment. Ashley Furniture has 15 business days to pay or contest the penalties. OSHA has conducted 33 federal inspections and 23 state plan inspections of Ashley Furniture since 1982, the agency said in a statement. Four inspections came after employees suffered finger amputations, and the agency has issued 96 serious violations as a result of its federal inspections. A violation is considered serious if “death or serious physical harm can result from a hazard an employer knew or should have known exists,” the agency said in a statement. Penalties of $1.7 million may be a drop in the bucket for Ashley Furniture, which had annual revenue of $3.85 billion as of October 2014, according to Forbes . Mr. Perez said he hoped that the latest round of penalties would help the company take appropriate action to protect its brand. “The failure to have appropriate and proper safety culture puts their brand in serious jeopardy,” Mr. Perez said. OSHA has not recorded any deaths at the Arcadia facility, according to a spokesman, Jesse Lawder.

OSHA
Ashley Furniture
Manufacturing
Accidents and Safety


Give BB&T Liberty, but Not a Bailout

Abstract: OVER much of the last four decades, John A. Allison IV built BB&T from a local bank in North Carolina into a regional powerhouse that has weathered the economic crisis far better than many of its troubled rivals — largely by avoiding financial gimmickry. And in his spare time, Mr. Allison travels the country making speeches about his bank’s distinctive philosophy. Speaking at a recent convention in Boston to a group of like-minded business people and students, Mr. Allison tells a story: A boy is playing in a sandbox, only to have his truck taken by another child. A fight ensues, and the boy’s mother tells him to stop being selfish and to share. “You learned in that sandbox at some really deep level that it’s bad to be selfish,” says Mr. Allison, adding that the mother has taught a horrible lesson. “To say man is bad because he is selfish is to say it’s bad because he’s alive.” If Mr. Allison’s speech sounds vaguely familiar, it’s because it’s based on the philosophy of Ayn Rand , who celebrated the virtues of reason, self-interest and laissez-faire capitalism while maintaining that altruism is a destructive force. In Ms. Rand’s world, nothing is more heroic — and sexy — than a hard-working businessman free to pursue his wealth. And nothing is worse than a pesky bureaucrat trying to restrict business and redistribute wealth. Or, as Mr. Allison explained, “put balls and chains on good people, and bad things happen.” Ms. Rand, who died in 1982, has all sorts of admirers on Wall Street, in corporate boardrooms and in the entertainment industry, including the hedge fund manager Clifford Asness, the former baseball great Cal Ripken Jr. and the Whole Foods chief executive, John Mackey. But Mr. Allison, who remains BB&T’s chairman after retiring as chief executive in December, has emerged as perhaps the most vocal proponent of Ms. Rand’s ideas and of the dangers of government meddling in the markets. For a dedicated Randian like him, the government’s headlong rush to try to rescue and fix the economy is a horrifying realization of his worst fears. Indeed, so many bad things are happening that many followers of Ms. Rand, known as objectivists, believe that the ugly scenario in her 1957 novel “Atlas Shrugged” — in which the government takes over industry as the economy progressively collapses — is playing out in real life. New regulations are being enacted by the day. The rich may be forced to pay for health care for the poor. The auto industry is a ward of the state. An activist administration occupies the White House. And, of course, the federal government has inserted itself into the nation’s banks, including BB&T, which accepted $3.1 billion in bailout money under the Troubled Asset Relief Program . “Rand predicted what would happen 50 years ago,” says Mr. Allison, who notes that his bank was forced to take the money, which he labels “a rip-off.” “It’s a nightmare for anyone who supports individual rights.” But as cringe-inducing as the government’s actions may be for objectivists like him, there is a silver lining: sales of “Atlas Shrugged,” which Ms. Rand considered her definitive work, are better than ever. In the first six months of 2009, Penguin Books shipped more than 300,000 copies of the book, which opens with the famous question, “Who is John Galt?” That’s 25 percent more than in all of 2008. “It’s just gone through the roof,” said Kara Welsh, publisher for the New American Library, a division of Penguin. There’s even a renewed effort to make a miniseries out of the book. The studio Lionsgate, along with the producers Howard and Karen Baldwin, hope to begin shooting as early as next spring. “It is incredibly timely,” said Michael Burns, vice chairman of Lionsgate. While book sales haven’t translated into a flood of new converts to objectivism, Yaron Brook, president of the Ayn Rand Institute , said attendance at this year’s Objectivist Summer Conference in Boston — where Mr. Allison delivered his speech — was the best yet for an East Coast event. (Attendance at conferences on the West Coast, where the institute is based, tends to be 25 percent higher, he says.) Among the participants was Dr. Shira Miller, who became interested in Ms. Rand’s writing in college. She says objectivism continues to provide her with “a moral philosophy for how to live a good and happy life.” Dr. Miller, who practices age-management medicine in Los Angeles, doesn’t accept Medicare or health insurance so there can be no third-party interference with her individual rights or those of her patients, she says. “Medicine is a product just like any other,” says Dr. Miller, likening it to toasters, computers or legal advice. “I should have the right to sell or trade it on my own terms, just like any other business owner.” For his part, Mr. Brook is encouraged by the new interest in Ms. Rand’s work, but feels that it has yet to have much impact on the political debate. He’s also struggling to change a popular perception that the financial crisis was caused by deregulation and the fiscal policies of a top Rand disciple: Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman. Mr. Brook argues that the problem wasn’t deregulation, but “misregulation.” He also says it’s unfortunate that Mr. Greenspan continues to be associated with Ms. Rand. While the two were close in the 1960s and ’70s, Mr. Greenspan abandoned objectivism decades ago, he says. Through a spokesman, Mr. Greenspan declined to comment. “If you look at every aspect of the political world, things are going against us, from health care to cap-and-trade ,” Mr. Brook says. “And it’s accepted wisdom that the financial crisis was caused by capitalism.” “In the narrow sense of objectivism, things have never been so good,” he adds. “When you look at the larger world, it’s pretty depressing.” THE enduring popularity of Ms. Rand bewilders her many detractors, who complain that her writing is melodramatic, heavy-handed and intellectually bereft. “To describe her as a minor figure in the history of philosophical thinking about knowledge and reality would be a wild overstatement,” says Brian Leiter, director of the Center for Law, Philosophy and Human Values at the University of Chicago. “She’s irrelevant.” Professor Leiter conducted an informal poll in March on his philosophy blog, asking, “Which person do you most wish the media would stop referring to as a ‘philosopher’?” The choices were Jacques Derrida, Ms. Rand and Leo Strauss. Ms. Rand won by a landslide, with 75 percent of the roughly 1,500 votes cast. Professor Leiter says Ms. Rand’s views on moral philosophy and objective reality are “simple-minded in the extreme.” “She doesn’t understand the historical positions of thinkers on these issues, such as Hume and Kant,” he says. “Even the minority of philosophers with some sympathy for her celebration of the virtues of selfishness usually find her general philosophical system embarrassing.” Others contend that a lack of constraints on self-interested and greedy business people set the financial crisis in motion — a view that tends to undermine Ms. Rand’s theories on the value and social benefits of unfettered ambition and limited government. “It takes a great leap of ideological blindness to look at the past few years and think that the main problem was too much government involvement,” said Robert B. Reich, a public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who was a labor secretary in the Clinton administration. Mark A. Thoma, an economist at the University of Oregon, says the financial crisis would have been worse if the government hadn’t rapidly intervened. “I completely disagree with the idea that letting the markets heal themselves is the best idea,” he says. “We tried that in the ’30s, and it didn’t work out so well.” Fiscal conservatives take an opposite tack, arguing that the government has intervened in overly aggressive and risky ways. They find much to praise in Ms. Rand’s economic views. Yet even for that crowd, her social views are a tougher sell. Ms. Rand was an ardent atheist who considered the cross a symbol of how “a man of perfect virtue” sacrificed himself for a bunch of losers. “It is in the name of that symbol that men are asked to sacrifice themselves for their inferiors,” she said. She had little time for women who stay home to raise children. Ms. Rand wrote sex scenes that one critic recently described as “dark, kinky and weird, but not in a good way,” in which normally tough businesswomen melt under the steely gaze and rough hand of übercapitalists. Even so, Ms. Rand’s books have sold briskly without the sanction of academics and book critics since they were published. Her black-and-white views were shaped by her upbringing in Russia, where her father’s pharmacy was taken over by Communists, who also suppressed free thought at her university. In 1926, she came to the United States, which she had idealized as a free nation that valued human achievement. A short, chain-smoking woman with a severe haircut and heavy Russian accent, she once worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood and fashioned herself as “a radical for capitalism.” As her reputation grew, she was interviewed by Johnny Carson, Phil Donahue and Playboy magazine. A member of her New York salon was the young economist Mr. Greenspan. Ms. Rand called him “the Undertaker” for his dark clothing and dour manner. Mr. Greenspan, who wrote an article for one of Ms. Rand’s nonfiction books advocating a gold standard, was among those who listened to and praised early drafts of “Atlas Shrugged,” which Ms. Rand started writing in 1946. It tells the story of Dagny Taggart, a brilliant and leggy railroad executive who steamrolls the “looters” and “moochers” who populate a deteriorating America to keep her trains running on time. She is part of a loose collection of can-do industrialists who struggle against a rising tide of government intervention that seeks to lessen competition and redistribute wealth “for the common good.” As conditions worsen, the most talented people flee society to an idyllic mountain retreat overseen by an ingenious inventor, John Galt, who wants to deprive a corrupt nation of its greatest minds and to facilitate its demise. He warns that the best thing the bureaucrats could do is “get the hell out of my way.” Mr. Brook, of the Ayn Rand Institute, says Ms. Rand understood then, in 1957, an emerging trend toward more government influence, where “somebody’s need is a claim against our wealth.” The problem with this, he says, is all too real. “The last 50 years have been an orgy of placing need above wealth creation, above personal pursuit of happiness,” Mr. Brook says. “I think we are seeing the consequences of that today.” MR. ALLISON of BB&T has the tall, lean frame, copper-colored hair and confident demeanor of many of Ms. Rand’s fictional heroes, including John Galt — a look “which would not seek forgiveness or grant it.” He also has a résumé befitting a Rand prophet. He started at BB&T, once known as the Branch Banking and Trust Company, in 1971 and became chief executive in 1989, when the bank had $4.7 billion in assets. By the time he retired as C.E.O. in December, he had overseen 60 bank and savings-institution acquisitions and turned BB&T into the 11th-largest bank in the nation, with $152 billion in assets, according to the bank. A 60-year-old who speaks in a rapid-fire Southern accent, Mr. Allison says the current financial crisis is primarily the government’s fault. He criticizes the Fed as trying to manipulate normal business cycles and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as facilitating mortgages to people who couldn’t afford them. The government’s remedies have made matters only worse, he says: “Almost everything that has been done since this crisis started is going to reduce our long-term standard of living.” Mr. Allison says the government forced BB&T and some other healthy banks to accept TARP money to obscure that they were simply trying to save several large banks like Citigroup. “Everyone thinks we got some kind of subsidy,” he says, noting that his company paid the money back in June, with interest. “It’s going to cost us about $250 million for money we didn’t want.” He suggests that government get out of the way and let businesses start making money again. An example of how to make money? Look no further than BB&T, which, he says, has a proven formula for success that centers on “an uncompromising commitment to reason.” Under Mr. Allison, new executives were handed a copy of “Atlas Shrugged.” All employees get a 30-page pamphlet describing BB&T’s philosophy and values: reason, independent thinking and decisions based on facts. “Wishing something is so does not make it so,” Mr. Allison says. “I guarantee that long before the rest of us knew, those geniuses at Lehman Brothers knew that something was wrong, but they evaded it.” Mr. Allison was introduced to Ms. Rand’s work in college, when he read her book “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.” He describes egalitarianism as the “most destructive principle in our society” and believes that the best employees should receive the most rewards. “It’s not true that everybody is equal,” he says. “A lot of business people don’t want to deal with nonperformance.” Mr. Allison cites two examples in which the bank’s philosophy guided its real-world decisions. After the Supreme Court upheld the right of local governments in 2005 to condemn private property and hand it to someone else for commercial development, he says, BB&T refused to make loans to developers who obtained property that way. He also says BB&T decided not to offer the controversial “pick a payment” mortgages that got so many of its competitors into trouble. Such loans, also known as “option A.R.M.’s” or “negative amortization loans,” allow borrowers to make payments that don’t even cover the interest on the loans, which causes the amount they owe to grow. “While we did not foresee the decline in the real estate market, we knew home prices would not continue to appreciate at 15 percent per year forever,” he says, adding that his bank knew that pick-a-payment loans would be trouble for many homeowners. “We believe Rand’s concept of the ‘trader principle,’ where life is about trading value for value, where both parties benefit from the transaction,” he says. MR. ALLISON says that only a small fraction of the bank’s employees are objectivists. Among the many who are not is his successor as chief executive, Kelly S. King. Bob Denham, a bank spokesman, says that “most employees don’t equate our values as being tied to John’s objectivist philosophy,” adding that “they just think of them as practical values, which they are.” Christopher Marinac, an analyst at the research firm Fig Partners, says the culture at BB&T is definitely different from that of most other banks, attracting employees who “have their heart and soul in their job.” He recalled attending his first analysts’ meeting at the bank a decade ago and being surprised when Mr. Allison launched into an hour-and-a-half lecture on philosophy. “I think those of us who are a little more open-minded got something out of it,” Mr. Marinac says. “Their employees drink the Kool-Aid. If they don’t drink the Kool-Aid, they don’t work at the bank.” Although BB&T has had problems during the financial crisis, it has outperformed its peers and remained profitable. After the government stress-tested major banks’ balance sheets in May, BB&T wasn’t required to raise additional capital. “The philosophy has clearly been a competitive advantage,” Mr. Allison says. Besides making speeches, Mr. Allison is also trying to spread Ms. Rand’s ideas to the nation’s colleges and universities. BB&T spends about $5 million a year to finance teaching positions and research on “the moral foundations of capitalism.” Mr. Allison, who is now teaching at Wake Forest University, says the money isn’t specifically slated for objectivism but rather to support the work of “free-market professors, especially those that have a serious interest in Rand’s philosophy.” Despite the current bleak state of capitalism, he’s also optimistic about the future. “In some ways, Ayn Rand filled in the ideas of Aristotle. It’s a whopping competitive advantage,” he says. “I personally believe objectivism will be the dominant philosophy in this country in 25 years.”

Economic Conditions and Trends
Rand Ayn
Banks and Banking
Subprime Mortgage Crisis
BB&T Corporation
Allison IV John A.
Rand Ayn Institute
Atlas Shrugged (Book)
Books and Literature


Noah Syndergaard Sparkles in Relief, but Mets Blow 4-0 Lead

Abstract: Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard played the role of vigilante on Saturday, throwing behind Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman Chase Utley with his 34th pitch of the game. For his action, he was ejected. Mets Manager Terry Collins did not seem to mind the act much. But realizing that Syndergaard, his prized starter, came well short of a day’s work, Collins used him as a relief pitcher during Tuesday night’s 6-4 loss to the Chicago White Sox at Citi Field. Syndergaard’s scheduled routine maintenance went swimmingly, however. He threw a scoreless seventh inning, punctuated by a swinging strikeout of Todd Frazier, the major league home run leader, with a 92-mile-per-hour changeup. The pitch ended the inning and held the Mets’ lead at 4-3. But after Syndergaard left, the White Sox roughed up Hansel Robles for three runs in the eighth inning, with the key damage a two-run homer by Tyler Saladino. “It’s pretty obvious,” Collins said of Robles’s trouble, “command of his fastball. He’s just got to make better pitches.” Steven Matz stifled the White Sox for five scoreless innings, but he was tagged for three runs in the sixth. The Mets had built an early advantage by putting a run on the board in the first and second innings. In the third, Neil Walker homered for the second straight game, floating a ball over the right-field wall to bring in Michael Conforto, spotting Matz a 4-0 lead. When Syndergaard entered in the seventh inning, the home crowd rose to its feet. He opened by unfurling a 100-m.p.h. fastball to the leadoff hitter Adam Eaton, before eventually striking him out with the same pitch. Mets fans again rose to salute Syndergaard after he retired Frazier. “The way I wanted it was for us to be up 8-0 and him pitching the ninth,” Collins said of Syndergaard. It would prove to be the last moment of joy in a game that whizzed past the Mets as fast as Syndergaard’s fastball behind Utley’s back.

Noah Syndergaard
Mets
White Sox
Baseball


Knicks Spoil Their Own Comeback With an Implosion in the 4th Quarter

Abstract: CHICAGO — Coach Derek Fisher allowed 2 minutes 3 seconds to elapse before he motioned to an official for relief. Fisher’s first timeout on Friday evening was a needed reprieve for the Knicks, who gathered near the bench and enjoyed a brief stretch during which the Bulls were prohibited from driving for layups, sinking 3-pointers and causing general mayhem. Once the timeout ended, the Knicks returned to the court at United Center and slowly seemed to grasp the cold reality of their situation. If they had any hope against the Bulls, they would need to spend the rest of the game chasing them, pursuing them, possession by possession, with little room for error or indecision. In some ways, then, the Knicks’ 108-81 loss was a classic example of the cruelest way to lose: to fall behind big (by 17 points), come all the way back and even take a second-half lead (by 2), only to let the game slip away again (this time for good, and in historically grim fashion). The Knicks (15-19) were undone by a horrifying fourth quarter in which they shot 2 of 19 from the field and were outscored by 31-8. Their eight points were the fewest in a fourth quarter in franchise history. Carmelo Anthony scored a team-high 20 points, and Jose Calderon added 18. Kristaps Porzingis had 9 points and 9 rebounds while shooting 4 of 14. Jimmy Butler finished with a game-high 23 points to lead the Bulls (19-12), and Pau Gasol collected 17 points and 8 rebounds. Chicago assembled a balanced effort without Derrick Rose, who was sidelined with hamstring tendinitis, and Joakim Noah, who missed the game with a sprained shoulder. It was the Knicks’ first game since Cleanthony Early was shot in the right knee early Wednesday morning during a robbery. The Knicks were seeking some semblance of normalcy, and Fisher said at the morning shootaround that he expected his players to approach the game with the right mind-set. For whatever reason, that did not appear to be the case. “Chicago was ready right from the start,” Fisher said. “I don’t think we were.” The Bulls scored the game’s first 11 points and led by 34-18 after the first quarter. For long stretches, the Knicks struggled to perform even the most menial tasks. During one possession, they tried to get the ball moving around the perimeter — except they threw one pass too many and Robin Lopez was whistled for a 3-second violation. As much as the Bulls kept trying to push the pace, the Knicks finally found some answers. Late in the first half, Calderon and Porzingis connected on consecutive 3-pointers before Lance Thomas earned a trip to the foul line for two free throws. The Bulls’ lead was down to 56-50 at the half. In the third quarter, the Knicks tied the game when Calderon converted a 3-point play, and then went ahead on a short hook shot by Porzingis. Then, suddenly and irrevocably, without much warning, the Knicks’ chemistry collapsed like a sand castle. The Bulls, hindered by poor shooting after their hot start, regained the momentum against the Knicks’ second unit at the start of the fourth, going ahead by 9 when Doug McDermott made a jump shot. Anthony and Porzingis checked back into the lineup, but the damage was done — especially when Nikola Mirotic drained a 3-pointer from 30 feet, pushing the lead back to 16. “I thought we got discouraged, and we let our energy get turned around the other way,” Fisher said. “It snowballed from there.” The Bulls’ lead kept expanding like helium filling a balloon. Sponsor giveaways added to the indignity. Fans won free chicken sandwiches for missed free throws by the Knicks, who were outscored by 43-14 after taking their brief lead midway through the third quarter. “We don’t want to be guys who play hard or do certain things only when it’s going well,” Fisher said. “We don’t want to be a team that when it rains a little bit, we give in.” Fisher has opted not to impose curfews on his players after separate late-night robberies involving Early and Derrick Williams in the last two weeks. Early, 24, was robbed and shot after leaving a strip club in Queens at around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday. On Thursday, he posted a photo of himself on his Instagram account in which he is reclining in his hospital bed and pointing skyward. The incident, he wrote, could have been “way worse.” Anthony dismissed the suggestion that the team had lacked focus because of the week’s events. “We just didn’t have it,” Anthony said. “Defensively, we didn’t have it. Offensively, we were out of sync.” The Knicks would love to eliminate some of their off-court problems. Matt Barnes, the Memphis Grizzlies forward, repositioned himself near the top of that list by unloading on Fisher in a screed that he posted online Thursday night, referring to a former teammate — clearly Fisher — as a “snitch” and a “snake” who ran to the league after their physical altercation in October. In any case, their fraught relationship promises to be a subplot ahead of the Knicks’ game against the Grizzlies on Jan. 16 — and another unwelcome, if relatively minor, distraction for a team that is trying to unearth some consistency. In that sense, their loss to the Bulls was more of the same: solid stretches of basketball undermined by even longer periods of lackluster play. “We have to answer those questions,” Fisher said, “in terms of everybody being ready every minute of every game.”

Knicks
Cleanthony Early
Derrick Williams
Basketball
Chicago Bulls


Oregon Gunman’s Father Dismayed by Lack of Gun Legislation

Abstract: ROSEBURG, Ore. — The father of the gunman who killed nine people at a community college here called on the nation to change its gun laws on Saturday, saying the massacre “would not have happened” if his son had not been able to buy so many handguns and rifles. “How was he able to compile that kind of arsenal?” the father, Ian Mercer, said in an interview with CNN at his home in Tarzana, Calif. He said he had no idea that his son owned more than a dozen firearms. His comments came as officials here confirmed that the gunman, Christopher Harper-Mercer, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after exchanging fire with police officers who responded to the shooting at Umpqua Community College on Thursday morning. As grieving families across this hilly corner of southwest Oregon made plans to bury their dead and tended to wounded relatives at area hospitals on Saturday, investigators offered a few new details of the rampage. A new timeline of the response to the shooting showed that officers arrived five minutes after the first 911 calls. Two minutes later, they had engaged Mr. Harper-Mercer. Two minutes after that, they reported, the shooter was down. They also said they had found another gun at Mr. Harper-Mercer’s apartment, the 14th they had confiscated. Mr. Harper-Mercer, a student at the community college, was armed with six guns, spare ammunition magazines and body armor when he walked into a writing class and opened fire around 10:30 a.m. Thursday. All of the weapons had been purchased legally by Mr. Harper-Mercer or a relative, law-enforcement officials have said. How They Got Their Guns A vast majority of guns used in 19 recent mass shootings were bought legally and with a federal background check. Despite Mr. Harper-Mercer’s online interest in high-profile shootings and neighbors’ memories of him as an enthusiastic gun collector who frequently went target shooting with his mother, the gunman’s father told CNN he did not know his son owned guns. Mr. Harper-Mercer’s parents divorced a decade ago, and he had lived with his mother. The father said he had not seen his son since he and his mother, Laurel Harper, moved to Oregon about two years ago, but said there was no “disharmony or any bitterness” between him and his son. Adding a raw, personal voice to the debate over gun control in the wake of this latest mass shooting, he said the United States needed to tighten gun laws. “It has to change,” he said. “How can it not? Even people that believe in the right to bear arms, what right do you have to take someone’s life?” He would not discuss his son’s mental health issues, deferring to the police investigation. “Obviously, someone who goes and kills nine people has to have some kind of issue,” he said. Standing on his lawn, Mr. Mercer said the shooting had devastated his family. “But we’re not alone in this,” he said. “My heart goes out to all the families that were affected by this.” His interview came on the same afternoon that relatives of one of the students wounded in his son’s rampage also stepped in front of the microphones, here outside the front doors of Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg. Image Christopher Harper-Mercer Credit Associated Press. Bonnie Schaan, the mother of Cheyeanne Fitzgerald, said that her daughter had been shot in the back during the massacre in her classroom. Tears welled up in her eyes as she explained that a bullet had clipped her daughter’s lung and lodged in one of her kidneys, which had to be removed. Cheyeanne, 16, a nursing student, remains in intensive care. Mr. Harper-Mercer asked the young woman about her religion, according to her aunt, Colleen Fitzgerald, but “she didn’t answer.” Instead, Cheyeanne played dead next to her friend, Anastasia Boylan, a student who was also shot. Ms. Schaan said that her daughter did not know Mr. Harper-Mercer. After hearing the news about the shooting on campus, Ms. Schaan said she texted her daughter and said, “I’m on my way to school.” Instead she went to the hospital. Cheyeanne has begun to talk with her father about the ordeal, Ms. Schaan said. Now, even a chair being moved unsettles her. Her mother added, “She’s mentioned all the blood.” Dr. Jason Gray, the chief medical officer at Mercy Medical Center, said only two victims were still in the hospital. One was in critical condition and the other in fair condition. They were expected to be released in two to five days. The hospital treated seven victims in total, Dr. Gray said. Two were released Thursday, four went into surgery and one died in the emergency department. Three other people were being treated for wounds at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend in the town of Springfield. On Friday, about 300 people showed up at Mercy Medical Center to donate blood, Dr. Gray said. The hospital set up a donation station nearby to handle the crowd.

Umpqua Community College,Oregon shooting


Philip Kives, Pitchman Who Perfected ‘As Seen on TV’ Infomercials, Dies at 87

Abstract: Act now! Be the first on your block to read this obituary of the marketing guru who — as seen on TV — sliced, diced and polkaed his way to fortune! Reared in penury, he bewitched and beguiled the public to become an international tycoon, only to lose everything and then, undaunted, make it back again! Just two dollars and five thin dimes at any New York City newsstand gets you the print edition of this obituary — along with dozens more articles at no extra charge — commemorated with the date and suitable for framing! Quantities are limited, so don’t delay! Philip Kives, a Canadian entrepreneur whose company, K-tel , saturated North American airwaves for decades with ads for a gaggle of gadgets (the Patty Stacker, the Miracle Brush and the emblematic Veg-O-Matic) and a cornucopia of compilation albums (“Hit Machine: 20 Original Hits, 20 Original Stars,” “ 25 Polka Greats ” and “A Musical Journey: Pan-Flute”), died on Wednesday in Winnipeg, Canada. He was 87. His family confirmed the death. An accomplished salesman from the age of 8, Mr. Kives (pronounced KEY-vis) was an early master of an influential midcentury art form — the televised product demonstration — in which mass communication and mass material culture conspicuously converged. Throughout the 1960s, ’70s and beyond, K-tel commercials were as omnipresent a part of the American experience as long sideburns, wide ties and leisure suits. In some markets, they were broadcast more than 120 times a week on television and radio combined. Image Among the gadgets advertised by Mr. Kives’s company, K-tel, was the Veg-O-Matic. Credit K-tel International “The commercials were blunt, grainy and loud, much louder than the old movies they interrupted,” The New York Times wrote in 1979. “In fact, they gave advertising the phrase ‘to K-tel’ a product.” Written and directed by Mr. Kives — typically with voice-overs by the Winnipeg disc jockey Bob Washington that were at once urgently histrionic and calmly reassuring — the ads were pilloried, parodied and seldom out of the collective consciousness. Who among us can fail to recall the Veg-O-Matic , which “chops a whole onion without shedding a tear”? (It was one of many products supplied to K-Tel by the American inventor Samuel J. Popeil , whose son, Ron, would found the direct-marketing company Ronco.) Then there was the Patty Stacker (“Your hands need never touch the meat!”), which let consumers construct a tower of hamburger patties of uniform size. And there was the Miracle Brush (“Removes lint! Dust! Dandruff!”), which has sold more than 28 million units. There was also the Bonsai Blade , the Bottle Cutter , the Go-Go Comb , the Comb Gray Away comb and much, much more. If K-tel’s rhetoric seemed sprung from the lips of an old-time midway barker, there was a reason: As a young man, Mr. Kives had plied that trade, hawking cookware and other goods at county fairs and on the boardwalk of Atlantic City. Image The lint-and-dust-removing Miracle Brush. Credit K-tel International By all accounts as skilled a salesman in person as he was en masse, he was one of the last living links between the “Step right up!” pitchman of the early 20th century and his expansive electronic-age heir. Philip Kives was all but born scrappy, in a Jewish agricultural colony near Oungre, Saskatchewan, on Feb. 12, 1929. His parents, Kiva and the former Lily Weiner, had met and married in Turkey, where they had been settled by the Jewish Colonization Association to avoid persecution in their native Eastern Europe. In 1926, the organization resettled the Kives family once more — to a farm on the Canadian prairie with neither electricity nor running water. Amid the Depression, they battled drought, crop failure and insect infestations that seemed to rival the biblical plagues, living for many years on welfare. Philip grew up milking cows, hauling drinking water and earning money by trapping weasels and selling their fur. In 1957, the young Mr. Kives left the farm for Winnipeg, where he worked as a cabby and a short-order cook. He began selling sewing machines and vacuum cleaners door to door, following the wires strung over newly electrified parts of town to find and court his customers. He soon became a Paganini of pitchmen, hawking products at fairs throughout Canada and the United States. In 1961 he made his way to Atlantic City to demonstrate pots and pans at a Woolworths on the boardwalk. “I thought I knew it all, but that’s when I really got an education,” Mr. Kives said in the 2006 documentary “ As Seen on TV: The K-tel Story .” “You’re selling to people out of New York, out of New Jersey, and they’re tough. If I didn’t produce, there were 10 people behind me ready to take my spots.” Image Mr. Kives also advertised compilation albums. Credit K-tel International But the hours he spent with a pan in his hand were golden: They helped him cultivate horse sense and a cool head and a keen eye . They also gave him an epiphany. While he could reach a few dozen customers at a time in person, he could reach thousands through the newly ubiquitous medium of television. Returning to Canada in 1962, he established what became K-tel and took to the airwaves. His first outing was a five-minute commercial for a nonstick skillet, broadcast live that year on Canadian TV. It was an early instance of what would now be called an infomercial. No operators were standing by: Consumers had to visit a store to buy the product. And buy they did, snapping up the skillet by the thousands. No matter that its nonstick surface was inclined to peel off (“In those days, there were a lot of fried eggs that were Teflon-coated,” Mr. Kives later said cheerfully), he had found his medium. Many of his early sales pitches were for Popeil products, among them the Pocket Fisherman . (“It’s the fishing invention of the century!”) But by the mid-1960s, Samuel Popeil, deeming Mr. Kives too big for comfort, declined to furnish him with more. He responded by branching into recorded music, assembling K-tel compilation albums that offered consumers a sliced-and-diced smorgasbord of multiple artists on a single disc: “20 Dynamic Hits,” “20 British Hits of the 60’s,” “20 Great Truck Drivin’ Songs.” The company also produced original recordings. Among its best-selling, begun in the early ’80s, was the Hooked on Classics series, in which the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London played the likes of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms to a disco backbeat. Image A pan flute compilation album. Credit K-tel International K-tel suffered reversals in the mid-1980s, after a series of ill-fated investments in oil, gas and real estate. In 1984, the company, whose main offices are now in Winnipeg and Plymouth, Minn., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States. Mr. Kives rebounded, starting a new concern, K-5 Leisure Products, that marketed sports and fitness gadgets including the Gut Trimmer and the Power Driver, a golf aid. After reorganization, K-tel emerged to renewed profitability. Today, the company’s primary business is the licensing of its music library to films and television and the sale of music downloads through platforms like iTunes. Mr. Kives resided in Winnipeg. His survivors include his wife, the former Ellie Corman, whom he married in 1971; two daughters, Samantha Kives and Kelly Kives; a son, Daniel; a brother, George; and three grandchildren. Throughout Mr. Kives’s career, what sustained him was the certain knowledge, gleaned on the midway, of a singular aspect of human nature. “People love a gimmick,” he told Forbes in 1993. “It was that way 20 years ago; it’ll be that way 20 years from now.” But wait: There’s more! This entire article — complete with never-before-seen-in-one-place audio and video enhancements — is only a click away online at nytimes.com/obituaries !

Philip Kives
Obituary
K-tel
advertising,marketing


M.T.A. Begins Hearings on Proposed Cuts, to Jeers From Public

Abstract: The proposed cuts to New York City’s bus and subway service, considered the most severe in a generation, are entering the court of public opinion this week with a set of hearings being held by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , which is staring at a budget shortfall of nearly $800 million. To any close observer of local government, the format is painfully familiar: one aggrieved resident after another hurls invective, resentment and — occasionally — well-reasoned arguments at a stoic board of bureaucrats. Politicians posture; commissioners stonewall. And more often than not, the policy goes ahead exactly as planned. “Are we going into this with a bit of cynicism? I know I am,” James Vacca, the chairman of the City Council’s transportation committee , said on Tuesday. But politicians and advocates who oppose the cuts — and particularly the planned elimination of discounted fares for students — refuse to accept them as a fait accompli. Albany legislators, borough officials and groups of schoolchildren have held rallies across the city, hoping to convince the public that in this case they can make a difference. “I understand why the public would be skeptical about the M.T.A. I really do,” said Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, who has been one of the more vocal opponents of the plan. “That said, in the past when New Yorkers have really come together and rallied, we have been successful in stopping the worst cuts.” Transit officials are adamant that they have no choice but to reduce service, barring a last-minute financial infusion from state legislators. But history may be on Ms. Quinn’s side. In 1991, when the transit agency proposed sharp service reductions, an outcry from riders persuaded the authority’s board to revise the plans. A fare increase was eventually passed in lieu of the cuts. Last year, when a similar slate of cuts was proposed, New Yorkers turned out in droves at hearings that lasted past midnight. Officials at New York City Transit, the authority’s bus and subway unit, later said the comments helped them recognize flaws in their approach. For instance, one Staten Island bus line that was to be eliminated last year has been spared, after workers at a hospital said they would have no transit option on weekends. “A lot of the changes that took place from last year to this year were driven almost entirely by the testimony,” said Allen P. Cappelli, a member of the authority’s board from Staten Island . “It’s an education on the needs of our customers.” Mr. Cappelli, however, was troubled by the authority’s decision to hold multiple hearings, all at 6 p.m., on single evenings: The Queens and Staten Island hearings happened Tuesday, and hearings in Brooklyn and the Bronx are on Wednesday . A raucous crowd of more than 200 turned out for the Queens hearing, in Flushing, jeering and chanting “Shame on you!” Peter F. Vallone Jr., a councilman from Queens, asked, “How dare you take our trains, take our buses, take our student MetroCards, while at the same time giving raises and giving friends and family free rides?” The board members listened silently, some fidgeting with pencils and others gazing pensively into the crowd. The unusual schedule of hearings has been criticized by observers who say it underscores a perceived callousness on the part of the authority. “The board can’t hear from a wide variety of people because it can’t be in two places at once,” said Andrew Albert, a riders’ advocate. Sometimes, the authority’s staff does not help its cause. “I’ve seen where a board member walks off and gets themselves a soda during the testimony, or walks off and talks to someone, and that’s not taken particularly well among the citizenry,” said William Henderson, executive director of the Permanent Citizens Advisory Committee to the authority . A spokesman for the authority, Aaron Donovan, said the goal was “to hear from folks throughout the region, not to allow the same people to testify nine different times.” Specificity may be the key for those seeking to make an impact. “If you can point out a change you might make in a service plan, there’s an opportunity to influence it,” Mr. Henderson said. The hearings Wednesday are at the Paradise Theater in the Bronx and the Brooklyn Museum. The Manhattan hearing will be Thursday at 6 p.m. at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Transit Systems


Preventing Suicides Among Veterans Is at Center of Bill Passed by Senate

Abstract: As a Marine serving in Iraq, Clay Hunt barely missed being killed by a sniper, yet he faced what proved to be more powerful foes after leaving the corps: depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Mr. Hunt killed himself four years ago, even as he worked to help other struggling veterans. His death helped galvanize an effort to provide better help for suicidal veterans or those otherwise suffering serious mental health issues. The Senate on Tuesday, by a vote of 99 to 0, passed legislation, named for Mr. Hunt, to improve suicide prevention and mental health treatment programs at the Department of Veterans Affairs . The bill, which also passed the House unanimously, now goes to the White House, where President Obama is expected to sign it. It signals an unusual level of bipartisan agreement on Capitol Hill, where the measure had died late last year because of a parliamentary maneuver. According to the latest government data, an estimated 22 veterans kill themselves every day. While many are older veterans, a survey by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America — which had made the Clay Hunt bill a centerpiece of its efforts to prevent veteran suicides — found that two out of five of its members knew a recent combat veteran who had committed suicide. Paul Rieckhoff, the organization’s founder and chief executive, said after the bill’s passage: “While we are thrilled about today’s vote, all of us must remember the sobering reality that necessitated this action: the invisible wounds of war and our nation’s initial failure to treat them.” Under the legislation, the V.A.’s suicide prevention and mental health treatment programs will be subjected to outside evaluations. One goal will be for independent evaluators to spotlight the best-performing approaches among the department’s 800 hospitals and clinics so those can be shared around the system. Another provision will create a peer-support pilot program in at least five of the agency’s 22 regional networks, with the intention of quickly matching returning veterans with colleagues they can talk to and confide in about mental health concerns. The measure also calls for the creation of an interactive website with all of the department’s mental health and suicide prevention resources so that veterans — and spouses and parents — can find help. It provides for medical school debt repayments for psychiatrists who join the agency, reflecting the department’s extreme difficulty recruiting mental health professionals. And it includes a provision extending by one year the period under which returning late-stage combat troops who served in Iraq and Afghanistan can obtain Veterans Affairs health care without first proving a service-related disability. That part applies to troops who left active duty from Jan. 1, 2009, to Jan. 1, 2011; normally veterans have only five years of access to the care for conditions not medically proven to have been attributable to their service. Government data shows that the suicide rate for male veterans who are enrolled in Veterans Affairs health care fell slightly from 2006 to 2010, while the rate for other veterans rose. Yet among male veterans ages 18 to 24, the suicide rate for even those enrolled jumped from 46.1 per 100,000 in 2009 to 79.1 per 100,000 two years later. Since its start in 2007, the department’s Veterans Crisis Line — 1-800-273-8255 — has taken nearly 1.4 million calls and helped make more than 42,000 rescues of veterans contemplating suicide. Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the Veterans Affairs Committee and one of the bill’s sponsors, said that the measure would lead to a significant improvement in treatment of suicide-prone veterans. But he added that more needed to be done, such as extending even further the time combat veterans have access to the agency’s health care without first proving a service-related injury. “We owe these wounded warriors more effective psychiatric services and counseling so they can win the war against the inner demons that come home with them from service,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “This bill will help save lives, but still it’s only a first step.” He said he hoped the department would become as sophisticated in treatment of suicide risk and other serious mental health problems as it has for prosthetics and injuries highly correlated with combat service.

Suicide
Veteran
Mental Health
Veteran Affairs