Supreme Court Allows Use of Execution Drug

Abstract: WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled on Monday against three death row inmates who had sought to bar the use of an execution drug they said risked causing excruciating pain. In the process, two dissenting members of the court — Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg — came very close to announcing that they were ready to rule the death penalty unconstitutional. This gave rise to slashing debate with Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas about the reliability and effectiveness of the punishment, a dispute that overshadowed the core issue in the case. The 5-to-4 decision on the execution drug broke along familiar lines, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court’s more conservative members to allow its use. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said the inmates had failed to identify an available and preferable method of execution and failed to make the case that the challenged drug entailed a substantial risk of severe pain. The drug, the sedative midazolam, played a part in three long and apparently painful executions last year. It was used in an effort to render inmates unconscious before they were injected with other drugs that cause severe pain. Video Demonstrators opposed to the death penalty expressed their disappointment over the Supreme Court’s decision allowing the sedative midazolam to be used in executions. Credit Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who joined the other three members of the court’s liberal wing, said, “The court’s available-alternative requirement leads to patently absurd consequences.” “Petitioners contend that Oklahoma’s current protocol is a barbarous method of punishment — the chemical equivalent of being burned alive,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. “But under the court’s new rule, it would not matter whether the state intended to use midazolam, or instead to have petitioners drawn and quartered, slowly tortured to death or actually burned at the stake.” Justices Breyer, Ginsburg and Elena Kagan joined Justice Sotomayor’s dissent. In a second, more sweeping dissent, Justice Breyer, joined by Justice Ginsburg, said it was time to consider a larger issue. “Rather than try to patch up the death penalty’s legal wounds one at a time,” Justice Breyer wrote, “I would ask for full briefing on a more basic question: whether the death penalty violates the Constitution.” In a 46-page dissent that included charts and maps, he said that “it is highly likely that the death penalty violates the Eighth Amendment,” which bars cruel and unusual punishments. He said that there was evidence that innocent people have been executed, that death row exonerations were frequent, that death sentences were imposed arbitrarily and that the capital justice system was warped by racial discrimination and politics. Justice Breyer added that there was scant reason to think that the death penalty deterred crime and that long delays between death sentences and executions might themselves violate the Eighth Amendment. He noted that most of the country did not use the death penalty and that the United States was an international outlier in embracing it. Justice Scalia responded to what he called “Justice Breyer’s plea for judicial abolition of the death penalty” by calling it “gobbledygook.” The punishment is contemplated by the Constitution, Justice Scalia said, and disingenuously opposed on grounds created by its opponents. Criticizing the death penalty on the ground that it is not carried out fast enough, for instance, Justice Scalia said, “calls to mind the man sentenced to death for killing his parents, who pleads for mercy on the ground that he is an orphan.” “We federal judges,” Justice Scalia continued, “live in a world apart from the vast majority of Americans. After work, we retire to homes in placid suburbia or to high-rise co-ops with guards at the door. We are not confronted with the threat of violence that is ever present in many Americans’ everyday lives. The suggestion that the incremental deterrent effect of capital punishment does not seem ‘significant’ reflects, it seems to me, a let-them-eat-cake obliviousness to the needs of others. Let the people decide how much incremental deterrence is appropriate.” In a second concurrence, Justice Thomas described several cases in which the Supreme Court had spared the lives of killers. Image The Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, where the botched execution of Clayton D. Lockett took place in April. Credit Nick Oxford for The New York Times “Whatever one’s views on the permissibility or wisdom of the death penalty,” Justice Thomas wrote, “I doubt anyone would disagree that each of these crimes was egregious enough to merit the severest condemnation that society has to offer. The only constitutional problem with the fact that these criminals were spared that condemnation, while others were not, is that their amnesty came in the form of unfounded claims. Arbitrariness has nothing to do with it.” The challenge to the execution drug was brought by four condemned inmates in Oklahoma, who said it did not reliably render the person unconscious and so violated the Eighth Amendment. Lower courts disagreed. Oklahoma and several other states started to use midazolam in executions after manufacturers in Europe and the United States refused to sell them the barbiturates that were traditionally used to produce unconsciousness . Justice Alito suggested that condemned inmates should not benefit from the shortages, saying that “anti-death-penalty advocates pressured pharmaceutical companies to refuse to supply the drugs used to carry out death sentences.” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas joined the majority opinion. Key Questions in the Oklahoma Death Penalty Case What you need to know about the death penalty case that the Supreme Court is taking up. In dissent, Justice Sotomayor said the shortages had produced real risks. “The execution protocols states hurriedly devise as they scramble to locate new and untested drugs,” she wrote, “are all the more likely to be cruel and unusual — presumably, these drugs would have been the states’ first choice were they in fact more effective.” Lawyers for the Oklahoma inmates, with the support of experts in pharmacology and anesthetics, said midazolam, even if properly administered, was unreliable. They pointed to three executions last year that seemed to go awry. In April 2014, Clayton D. Lockett regained consciousness during the execution procedure, writhing and moaning after the intravenous line was improperly placed . In Ohio in January 2014 and in Arizona in July, prisoners appeared to gasp and choke for extended periods. The Supreme Court last considered lethal injections in 2008, in Baze v. Rees , when it held that what was then the standard three-drug combination, using the barbiturate sodium thiopental as the first agent, did not violate the Eighth Amendment. The new case, Glossip v. Gross, No. 14-7955, originally included a fourth inmate, Charles F. Warner. But he was executed on Jan. 15 after the Supreme Court denied his request for a stay by a 5-to-4 vote. A little more than a week later, the court agreed to hear the remaining inmates’ appeals, and a few days after that it stayed their executions . They are Richard E. Glossip, who was convicted of arranging the beating death of his employer; John M. Grant, who was convicted of stabbing a prison cafeteria worker to death; and Benjamin R. Cole Sr., who was convicted of breaking his 9-month-old daughter’s spine, killing her. “While most humans wish to die a painless death,” Justice Alito wrote for the majority, “many do not have that good fortune. Holding that the Eighth Amendment demands the elimination of essentially all risk of pain would effectively outlaw the death penalty altogether.”

Sedative
Capital punishment
Pharmaceuticals
Supreme Court,SCOTUS
8th Amendment
Benjamin Cole
Richard Glossip
John Grant
Clayton Darrell Lockett
Charles Frederick Warner


And Yet, Petra, We Will Keep Asking

Abstract: And Yet, Petra, We Will Keep On Asking MICHAEL DOUGLAS was in the green room at the Marriott Marquis, running his hands through his hair, touching his prodigious new beard, reading off a laptop the speech he was going to give later. We were backstage at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation Media Awards and Mr. Douglas was there to present the award for best movie of the year for "fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives." Movie. 2005. Gay. Issues that affect lives. The suspense was dreadful. "I have always supported GLAAD," Mr. Douglas said to us. "Done it before, from back when I did 'Basic Instinct.' " Mr. Douglas was distracted by the appearance of MARLO THOMAS, as our young correspondent was distracted by the appearance of PETRA NEMCOVA. She gave him three kisses, which she said was "a Hollandaise tradition." "There are never enough kisses," she said. Indeed. What's going on with BRUCE WILLIS? "We are not dating," Ms. Nemcova said, denying the rumors for the 3,403rd time. "We are good friends." They are so not dating, in fact, that she said even she hadn't gone to see his movie "16 Blocks." But, she said: "I admire him. He is caring. Very mature." Soon it would be time for the fair gay portrayal movie of the year. But hold onto your potatoes because we must first bring you a report from the premiere of "Basic Instinct 2," a movie which will surely be on next year's list of GLAAD nominations. Sharon Shimon Shimon Sharon SHARON STONE, wearing a shiny gold jacket over a sheer red dress and a Brinks truckload of jewels, spent much of the carpet outside the AMC on Broadway at 68th Street, talking about the movie ("my character uses sexuality as a weapon"), her outfit ("JOHN GALLIANO for Dior"), her recent world tour ("I spoke to a mix of Israeli and Palestinian women") and how she would respond if her initiative to combat malaria in Tanzania turned out to be successful ("I'll be 'Like, whoa! My little thing did that?' "). But amid all this questioning she passed us altogether. So we had to sweet-talk a publicist and wait through a photo shoot before finally reaching Ms. Stone's side as she stepped onto the escalator. As we rose together, we asked Ms. Stone -- who recently met SHIMON PERES and valiantly announced that she would kiss "just about anybody" for a solution to the Middle East conflict -- about the other Nobel laureates she has known. "I think DESMOND TUTU won it, didn't he? I'm sure I've met a lot at conventions. I've met a lot of Nobel nominees, like BOB GELDOF and BONO." What were your feelings about Mr. Peres? "I think he's just wonderful. He is so alert in his thinking, he is so sophisticated. It's very exciting to be with him when you sit with him and talk to him. He's on an agenda of world illumination." And for Best Portrayal Of Gays in a Movie "Crash." Oh Sweet Zeus No Kidding. As ANG LEE walked onstage to receive the award for "Brokeback Mountain," the crowd was borderline riotous. As soon as he went backstage afterward, an older woman who had been sitting in the crowd came bursting toward him. "It's the most beautiful story ever told!" she squealed. Mr. Lee seemed relieved. "Last award," he said. "I think someone in Taiwan was keeping track. I think it's 50 or something. I put more effort and try to give a different speech each time." What are you going to do with it? "Put it somewhere on my desk."

GAY AND LESBIAN ALLIANCE AGAINST DEFAMATION


Newegg and Best Buy Wrangle Over Ad Parody

Abstract: ONE incompetent young salesman in a short-sleeved blue shirt. That’s about all Newegg , an online retailer, needed to create a hilarious parody commercial . Best Buy , the consumer electronics giant, was not amused. In the parody, the salesman knows nothing at all about the computers on display in his department. A customer’s voice asks, “What’s the difference between these two?” The salesman leans down to read the information cards for two laptops, straightens up and looks bewildered: “O.K. — I don’t really...” is all the guidance he can offer. Then the scene changes to a shot of three laptops under spotlights on a stage. A voiceover says: “ Newegg.com — come for the expert reviews; buy for the excellent prices.” Newegg, of course, sells only online and offers those reviews in place of salespeople. The commercial ends with the company’s pitch: “Take it from a geek.” Last month, Best Buy’s lawyers sent a letter to Newegg, demanding that it stop showing that commercial and “any other advertising purporting to show Best Buy employees.” Best Buy, whose own salespeople also wear blue shirts, complained that the employee in the commercial was “depicted as being slovenly and uninformed about computer products.” The letter also demanded that Newegg drop its “Geek On” marketing theme because, it said, the theme encroaches upon Best Buy’s “Geek Squad” trademark. Newegg did not heed Best Buy’s demands. Instead, it placed Best Buy’s cease-and-desist letter on public display, on its Facebook fan page, and it continues to show the commercial on television. Helpfully, it also supplied a YouTube link to the parody. By last week, the commercial had been viewed on YouTube more than 556,000 times. Parodies that take aim at competitors are nothing new, and courts have upheld them as a legally protected form of free expression as long as there is no chance that viewers will fail to notice that they are indeed parodies and not mistake them for real commercials. In this case, could viewers possibly think that the appallingly ignorant person in the blue shirt bore a striking similarity to the sales rep they recently encountered in a Best Buy store? Could they somehow think that Best Buy had sponsored the commercial? Leslie J. Lott, a lawyer at Lott & Fischer, in Coral Gables, Fla., and a former director of the International Trademark Association, said: “Best Buy is in a dilemma. If the awful customer service that is portrayed in the Newegg commercial is accurate, there’s no parody. So it would be in a good legal position but in a horrible position from a public relations perspective. If, on the other hand, Best Buy’s position is that their customer service is actually excellent, then that strengthens Newegg’s parody defense.” A spokeswoman for Best Buy said in an e-mail that “when Newegg’s commercial presents a Blue Shirt in a disparaging way, it damages our goodwill.” So, Best Buy asserts, “Newegg’s commercial is not a parody” because it “ridicules.” A short-sleeved blue shirt isn’t a registered Best Buy trademark. As for vexation over being the target of ridicule, that comes along with a parody, doesn’t it? Newegg did back down a degree, however. Earlier this month it told Best Buy that it would add a disclaimer saying: “This advertisement photoplay is a work of fiction.” The disclaimer, shown only online, says the ad was “solely intended to parody and draw attention to any business establishments (but none in particular) that provide poor customer service.” As of last week, one could find two versions of the commercial on YouTube: one with the disclaimer and one without . I asked Newegg why it did not assert its right to run a parody without a disclaimer. Bernard Luthi, Newegg’s vice president for marketing, Web management and customer service, said in an e-mail that the company did stand behind its parody and would continue to run the commercial because “we do not believe that we portrayed any specific competitor in an offensive way.” Instead of deploying sales reps, Newegg offers customer ratings, using a five-“egg” scale instead of five stars, along with detailed descriptions of pros and cons. Often, these are written by technically sophisticated customers. In one review , for example, an Asus laptop is praised for its “cool design” — and this was meant literally: “cpu averages 35 and gpu averages around 42 degrees Celsius with general use.” In another review , a customer says of a $1,500 MSI laptop: “Pros: Seriously? Just read the specs on this beast.” The reviewer warned that the machine included bloatware, but that this was “nothing I couldn’t easily fix myself.” But there are people, like my mother, who could not easily fix a bloatware problem. Newegg’s tagline — “Geek on. Everyone is passionate about something.” — does not describe her relationship to her computer. And some shoppers don’t want to read and compare spec sheets. They are, in fact, very similar to the customer in the Newegg ad who asks for a simple comparison of two laptops on display. They may well be more comfortable shopping at a store like Best Buy. Newegg proudly displays the exact number of product reviews that are available on its site — last week, the number was more than two million — but that is little help to the shopper who just wants a knowledgeable sales rep to say, “I suggest this one right here.” The techie jargon that riddles customer reviews at the Newegg Web site seems a pretty ripe target. Perhaps Best Buy should unleash a team of mischievous advertising professionals on Newegg and let its humorless lawyers pursue some other project. One satirical picture should be worth a thousands words of legalese.

Newegg
Best Buy Company Incorporated
Advertising and Marketing
E-Commerce
Shopping and Retail
Computers and the Internet


Things to Do on Long Island, Dec. 26 Through Jan. 3, 2016

Abstract: A guide to cultural and recreational events on Long Island. Items for the calendar should be sent at least three weeks in advance to lical@nytimes.com. Comedy LEVITTOWN Joe DeVito. Dec. 26 at 7 and 9:30 p.m. $17 to $47. Chris Monty. Dec. 31 at 7:30 and 10:15 p.m. $35 to $80. Mike Burton. Jan. 2 at 7 and 9:30 p.m. $17 to $47. Steve White. Jan. 8 at 8 p.m. and Jan 9 at 7 and 9:30 p.m. $15 to $47. Governor's Comedy Club, 90 Division Avenue. govs.com; 516-731-3358. PLAINVIEW Young Israel of Plainview Comedy Night. Jan. 9 at 8:30 p.m. $25 to $50. Young Israel of Plainview, 132 Southern Parkway. 516-433-4811; yiplainview.com. PORT JEFFERSON “New Year’s Laughing Eve,” a stand-up comedy special with Paul Anthony, Bryan McKenna, Chris Roach and Rob Falcone. Dec. 31 at 6 and 8 p.m. $45 to $55. Theater Three, 412 Main Street. 631-928-9100; theaterthree.com. PORT WASHINGTON Upright Citizens Brigade, improv comedy show. Jan. 8 at 8 p.m. $22 to $27. Landmark on Main Street, 232 Main Street. 516-767-6444; landmarkonmainstreet.org. RIVERHEAD “New Year’s Laugh, Dine and Dance,” comedy show, with music following and champagne toast at midnight. Dec. 31 at 8 p.m. $45. The Suffolk Theater, 118 East Main Street. 631-727-4343; suffolktheater.com. Film HUNTINGTON “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” (1982). Dec. 26 at noon. “Diary of a Deadbeat: The Story of Jim Vanbebber!” (2015), directed by Victor Bonacore. Dec. 26 at 10 p.m. $7; members, $5. “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” (1971). Dec. 29 at noon. $12; seniors, $9; children 12 and under, free. “Grease” (1978). Dec. 30 at noon. “Home Alone” (1990). Dec. 28 at noon. New Year’s Eve at the Cinema: screening of “Youth” (2015). Dec. 31 at 8:40 p.m. $35. New Year’s Eve at the Cinema: screening of “Carol” (2015). Dec. 31 at 8:50 p.m. Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company: “The Winter’s Tale” (2015). Jan. 5 at 7 p.m. $25. “Tokyo Drifter” (1966), Japanese action film by Seijun Suzuki. Jan. 6 at 7:30 p.m. $12; seniors and students, $9; children 12 and under, $5. “The Big Lebowski” (1998). Jan. 9 at 10 p.m. $5; members, $4. Cinema Arts Center, 423 Park Avenue. 631-423-7611; cinemaartscentre.org. ROSLYN HARBOR “Parrish Blue: American Art History” (1967), documentary on the works of the painter Maxfield Parrish. Through Feb. 28. Free with museum admission, $4 to $10; children under 4 and members, free. Nassau County Museum of Art, 1 Museum Drive. 516-484-9337; nassaumuseum.org. WATER MILL “Heart of a Dog” (2015), documentary. Jan. 8 at 6 p.m. $10 (includes museum admission). Free for Members, Children, and Students. Parrish Art Museum, 279 Montauk Highway. 631-283-2118; parrishart.org. For Children COLD SPRING HARBOR “New Year’s Bash for Kids!” Dec. 31, 11 a.m. to noon. $8 for children; adults, regular admission. Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum, 301 Main Street. cshwhalingmuseum.org; 631-367-3418. EAST ISLIP EAST ISLIP “Mrs. Claus Saves the Day!” play. Dec. 27 at noon and Jan. 2 at 2 p.m.; $11. BayWay Arts Center, 265 East Main Street. 631-581-2700; broadhollow.org. ELMONT “Frosty the Snowman,” children’s theater. Dec. 28 through Jan. 16. $11. BroadHollow Theater, 700 Hempstead Turnpike. 516-775-4420; broadhollow.org. GARDEN CITY Celebrating Kwanzaa. Dec. 27, 3 to 4:30 p.m. $3 with museum admission. “Princess Frog: A Musical Fairy Tale.” Dec. 27 through 31 at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. $9 with museum admission ($7 LICM members), $12 theater only. “Countdown to 12,” a New Year's Eve party. Dec. 31 noon to 4 p.m. “Once Upon a Time … Exploring the World of Fairy Tales,” bilingual exhibition. Through Jan. 3. Free with museum admission. Long Island Children’s Museum, 11 Davis Avenue. licm.org; 516-224-5800. LINDENHURST “A Joyful Toyful Holiday,” children’s Christmas show. Dec. 26 through Jan. 2. $10. Studio Theater, 141 South Wellwood Avenue. 631-226-8400; studiotheatreli.com. MERRICK “Annie.” Saturdays at 2 p.m. Dec. 26. $10. Merrick Theater and Center for the Arts, 2222 Hewlett Avenue. merricktheatreandcenterforthearts.com; 516-868-6400. SAG HARBOR “Badger Meets the Farieies,” puppet show. Jan. 2 at 11 a.m. $15 to $25. Bay Street Theater, Main and Bay Streets. 631-725-9500; baystreet.org. Music and Dance AMAGANSETT Lilly-Anne Merat. Dec. 26 at 8 p.m. Little Head Thinks, rap and rock. Dec. 26 at 10 p.m. $10. The G. E. Smith Band, blues trio. Dec. 31 at 8 p.m. Nancy Atlas, singer-songwriter. Dec. 31 at 10 p.m. $30. Stephen Talkhouse, 161 Main Street. 631-267-3117; stephentalkhouse.com. BAY SHORE Devon Allman Band. Jan. 7 at 8 p.m. $35 to $40. “Puddles Pity Party,” musical clown band. Jan. 8 at 8 p.m. O-Town, pop boy band. Jan. 9 at 8 p.m. $30 to $35. Y.M.C.A. Boulton Center for the Performing Arts, 37 West Main Street. boultoncenter.org; 631-969-1101. BOHEMIA Jim Papa, classical ballads. Jan. 10 at 2 p.m. Free. Connetquot Public Library, 760 Ocean Avenue. connetquotlibrary.org; 631-567-5079. BROOKVILLE “My Fair Broadway,” New Year’s Eve performance by the Long Island Philharmonic. Dec. 31 at 7:30 p.m. $58 to $113. British Regiments, featuring the Band of the Royal Marines and the Pipes, Drums & Highland Dancers of the Scots Guards. Jan. 8 at 8 p.m. $25 to $80. Tilles Center for the Performing Arts, 720 Northern Boulevard. 516-299-3100; tillescenter.org. CENTERPORT Folk Music Society of Huntington presents Bob Westcott’s New Year Gala, with three local artists. Jan. 2 at 7:30 p.m. $15 to $20. Congregational Church of Huntington, 30 Washington Drive. 631-423-4004; fmsh.org. GREENLAWN “Around the World in 60 minutes on Violin and Piano,” a concert by Karkowska Sisters Duo. Jan. 10 at 2:30 p.m. Free. Harborfields Public Library, 31 Broadway. harborfieldslibrary.org; 631-757-4200. HUNTINGTON “The Roots,” hip-hop group. Dec. 26 at 8 p.m. $65 to $110. O.A.R., alternative rock. Dec. 27 at 8 p.m. $29.50 to $89.50. Jessie's Girls, pop and rock. Dec. 31 at 10 p.m. $25 to $55. “Celebrating the Music of Billy Joel,” a tribute show by Mike Delguidice & Big Shot. Jan. 2 at 8 p.m. $20 to $40. “A Jim Morrison Celebration Featuring: Wild Child.” Jan. 7 at 8 p.m. $15 to $25. “Friday Night Fever: A Night of '70s Disco & Soul.” Jan. 8 at 8 p.m. $10 to $40. The Paramount, 370 New York Avenue. 631-673-7300; paramountny.com. LONG BEACH Celebrating Carole King with Gail Storm. Dec. 27 at 2 p.m. Free. Long Beach Public Library, 111 West Park Avenue. 516-432-7201; nassaulibrary.org/longbeach. MANHASSET The Levins, harmony duo. Jan. 8 at 8:30 p.m. Free concert; dinner available before the show for $4. Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock, 48 Shelter Rock Road. 516-627-6560; uucsr.org. PATCHOGUE “Live in the Lobby Season 11,” rock bands Mediacrime and Chupacabra Cabaret perform. Jan. 9 at 7:30 p.m. Patchogue Theater for the Performing Arts, 71 East Main Street. patchoguetheatre.org; 631-207-1313. RIVERHEAD The Joe Roberts Trio, jazz. Dec. 27 at 1 p.m. Martha Clara Vineyards, 6025 Sound Avenue. marthaclaravineyards.com; 631-298-0075. ROCKVILLE CENTRE “Sinatra at the Sands,” concert by the Swingtime Big Band. Dec. 31 at 7 p.m. $50. Madison Theater at Molloy College, 1000 Hempstead Avenue. 516-323-4444; madisontheatreny.org. SAG HARBOR Nancy Atlas, singer-songwriter, with Randi Fishenfeld. Jan. 2 at 8 p.m. Nancy Atlas, singer-songwriter, with Simon Kirke. Jan. 9 at 8 p.m. $25. Bay Street Theater, Main and Bay Streets. baystreet.org; 631-725-9500. SOUTHAMPTON Anne Tedesco, pianist. Jan. 10 at 3 p.m. Free. Rogers Memorial Library, 91 Coopers Farm Road. 631-283-0774, ext. 523; myrml.org. Seasonal LINDENHURST “Resolutions,” New Year’s Eve Broadway musical revue. Dec. 31 at 6:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. $50. Studio Theater, 141 South Wellwood Avenue. studiotheatreli.com; 631-226-8400. NORTHPORT “Miracle on 34th Street: The Musical,” music by Meredith Willson. Through Jan. 3. $69 to $74. “Frosty.” Through Jan. 3. $15. John W. Engeman Theater at Northport, 250 Main Street. 631-261-2900; engemantheater.com. OAKDALE “My Christmas Elf,” the musical. Through Dec. 26. $12. “A Christmas Carol: The Musical.” Through Dec. 29. $20 to $29. CM Performing Arts Center, 931 Montauk Highway. 631-218-2810; cmpac.com. OYSTER BAY “’Twas the Night Before Christmas,” toy soldiers and dolls. Through Jan. 5. $5; seniors and students, $3. Raynham Hall Museum, 20 West Main Street. 516-922-6808; raynhamhallmuseum.org. PORT JEFFERSON “A Christmas Carol,” adapted by Jeffrey E. Sanzel. Through Dec. 27. $15 to $30. Theater Three, 412 Main Street. 631-928-9100; theaterthree.com. ROCKVILLE CENTRE “A Gospel According to Jazz Christmas,” with the vocalist Sheléa and others. Dec. 26 at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. $49 to $75. Madison Theater at Molloy College, 1000 Hempstead Avenue. 516-323-4444; madisontheatreny.org. WANTAGH Holiday Lights Spectacular, 2.5 miles of holiday lights and displays. Sundays through Thursdays, dusk to 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, dusk to 11 p.m. Through Jan. 3. Mondays through Thursdays, $20; Fridays through Sundays and holidays, $25. Nikon at Jones Beach Theater, 1000 Ocean Parkway. 516-221-1000; jonesbeach.com. Spoken Word COLD SPRING HARBOR “Visions of Utopia: Garden City and the Dawn of American Suburbia," examining the origins of the planned residential community. Jan. 10 at 3 p.m. $25 nonmembers; members, $20. Grace Auditorium at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, 1 Bungtown Road. 631-692-4664; cshl.edu. HUNTINGTON "Champion Women: Storytelling Open Mic," with Lesley Goshko and Michele Carlo. Jan. 8 at 7 p.m. $5; members, free. Heckscher Museum of Art, 2 Prime Avenue. 631-351-3250; heckscher.org. HUNTINGTON Photography lecture by the Huntington Camera Club. Jan. 5 at 7:30 p.m. Huntington Public Library, 338 Main Street. hpl.suffolk.lib.ny.us; 631-427-5165. PATCHOGUE "Library in the Lobby," with Long Island University political philosophy professor Michael Soupios, author of the book “The Ten Golden Rules of Leadership: Classical Wisdom for Modern Leaders.” Jan. 10 at 3 p.m. Free. Patchogue Theater for the Performing Arts, 71 East Main Street. 631-207-1313; patchoguetheatre.org. ROSLYN HARBOR “Brown Bag Lecture” with Museum Docent Riva Ettus presents a talk on painter/illustrator Maxfield Parrish whose works are on view at the museum. Jan. 7 at 1 p.m. Reservations not needed, free with museum admission, $4-$10, children 4 and under and members free. Nassau County Museum of Art, 1 Museum Drive. 516-484-9337; nassaumuseum.org. Theater COLD SPRING HARBOR “In the Heart of the Sea,” play. Dec. 27 at 7 p.m. $25; $45 for a couple. Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum, 301 Main Street. cshwhalingmuseum.org; 631-367-3418. COMMACK “Nuts,” drama. Jan. 9 and 10. $17 to $24. Star Playhouse, 74 Hauppauge Road. 631-462-9800; starplayhouse.com. EAST ISLIP “Dreamgirls,” musical. Jan. 2 through 17. $22; seniors, $20. BayWay Arts Center, 265 East Main Street. broadhollow.org; 631-581-2700. ELMONT “Assisted Living,” musical. Jan. 9 through 24. Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m. Sundays, 2:30 p.m. $23 to $25. BroadHollow Theater, 700 Hempstead Turnpike. broadhollow.org; 516-775-4420. LINDENHURST “Cooking With the Calamari Sisters,” musical comedy. Dec. 26 and Dec. 27. $25. Studio Theater, 141 South Wellwood Avenue. studiotheatreli.com; 631-226-8400. MERRICK “Daughters,” dramatic comedy. Jan. 9 through Feb. 7. Merrick Theater and Center for the Arts, 2222 Hewlett Avenue. 516-868-6400; merricktheatreandcenterforthearts.com. PATCHOGUE “A Rat Pack New Year,” musical. Dec. 31 through Jan. 3. $54 to $120. “Cinderella,” musical. Through Dec. 27. $27 to $89. Patchogue Theater for the Performing Arts, 71 East Main Street. 631-207-1313; patchoguetheatre.org. PORT JEFFERSON “Me and Jezebel,” a play by Elizabeth L. Fuller. Jan. 9 through Feb. 6. Friday evenings, $25; Saturday evenings, $30; Wednesday matinees, $17; all other performances, $23; children 5 to 12, $15; children under 5 not permitted. Theater Three, 412 Main Street. 631-928-9100; theaterthree.com. SAG HARBOR “Fairy Circus,” puppetry. Dec. 26 at 11 a.m. $15 to $25. Bay Street Theater, Main and Bay Streets. 631-725-9500; baystreet.org. Image Huntington O.A.R., the alternative rock band, will perform at The Paramount, 370 New York Avenue, on Dec. 27 at 8 p.m. Pictured, lead singer Marc Roberge. Tickets are $29.50 to $89.50. For further information: 631-673-7300; paramountny.com. Credit Chad Batka for The New York Times SMITHTOWN “The Little Mermaid,” music by Alan Menken. Through Jan. 24. $35; children under 12, $20. Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 3 p.m. Smithtown Center for the Performing Arts, 2 East Main Street. smithtownpac.org; 631-724-3700. Museums and Galleries BRIDGEHAMPTON Kimberly Goff, Daniel Schoenheimer and Sally Breen, a group show. Through Dec. 27. Wednesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; appointments available Monday and Tuesday. The White Room Gallery, 2415 Main Street. 631-237-1481; thewhiteroom.gallery. COLD SPRING HARBOR Marie Sheehy-Walker, pastel, oil and watercolor paintings. Jan. 4 through 29. Mondays through Thursdays 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Cold Spring Harbor Library, 95 Harbor Road. cshlibrary.org; 631-692-6820. CUTCHOGUE “Small Works,” regional photographers. Through Feb. 15. Free. Alex Ferrone Photography Gallery, 25425 Main Road. 631-734-8545; alexferronegallery.com. EAST HAMPTON “Dancing With Truffaut,” works by Stephanie Brody-Lederman. Through Jan. 3. “A Sense of Place: Selections From the Permanent Collection.” Through Jan. 3. Cornelia Foss, oil-on-canvas works. Through Jan. 3. Walter Weissman, photography. Through Feb. 21. Suggested donation: $7. Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Guild Hall, 158 Main Street. 631-324-4050; guildhall.org. EAST HAMPTON The Winter Salon, contemporary works, 18th- and 19th-century drawings and watercolors. Through Jan. 31. Free. Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Drawing Room, 66 Newtown Lane. 631-324-5016; drawingroom-gallery.com. EAST ISLIP “Compendium,” group show. Through Dec. 27. Suggested donation, $5. Thursdays and Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Islip Art Museum, 50 Irish Lane. ; 631-224-5402; islipartmuseum.org. GLEN COVE “Wrap It Up!” holiday benefit exhibition. Through Jan. 31. Free. Mondays to Fridays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Hersh Fine Art at the Long Island Academy of Fine Art. 516-590-4324; liafa.com. GLEN COVE “George Gach and the Art of the North Shore: History, Inspirations and Perspectives.” Through Feb. 20. $5; members, free. Wednesdays, 2 to 6 p.m.; Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. North Shore Historical Museum, 140 Glen Street. 516-801-1191; northshorehistoricalmuseum.org. GREENLAWN Frank Margiotta, photography. Through Dec. 29. Free. Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, 1 to 5 p.m. Harborfields Public Library, 31 Broadway. 631-757-4200; harb.suffolk.lib.ny.us. HEMPSTEAD “Enduring Images,” group show. Through Jan. 31. Free. Daily, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. David Filderman Gallery, Hofstra University Museum, Hofstra University. 516-463-5672; hofstra.edu/museum. HEWLETT “Fine Feathered Friends,” a photography exhibition focusing on birds found on Long Island. Through Jan. 5. Hewlett-Woodmere Public Library, 1125 Broadway. nassaulibrary.org/hewlett; 516-374-1967. HUNTINGTON 11th Annual National Competition, works by Gloria DeFilipps Brush and others. Through Jan. 2. Free. Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Fridays 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m.; or by appointment. Fotofoto Gallery, 14 West Carver Street. fotofotogallery.org; 631-549-0448. HUNTINGTON “Men at Work.” Through March 27. “You Go Girl!” celebrating female artists. Through April 3. “Street Life: Private Moments/Public Record,” works that feature New York City. Through March 27. $4 to $8; children under 10, free. Wednesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Heckscher Museum of Art, 2 Prime Avenue. heckscher.org; 631-351-3250. HUNTINGTON Works on canvas by Susan Bird. Through Dec. 27. Free. Huntington Public Library, 338 Main Street. myhpl.org; 631-427-5165. HUNTINGTON STATION “Subconscious Narrative,” paintings by Janice Sztabnik. Jan. 9 through Feb. 3. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Wednesday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. South Huntington Public Library, 145 Pidgeon Hill Road. 631-549-4411; shpl.info. NORTHPORT “Music Box,” artwork inspired by music lyrics, band names, song titles and more. Opening reception: Saturday, Jan. 9, from 6 to 8 p.m. Jan. 9 through Feb. 14. Haven Gallery, 155 Main Street, Suite 4, Carriage House Square. havenartgallery.com; 631-757-0500. RIVERHEAD “Winter Watercolor Scenes,” paintings by Jeanne Rogers. Opening Reception: Jan. 9 at 1 p.m. Jan. 9 through Feb. 28. Free. Suffolk County Historical Society, 300 West Main Street. suffolkcountyhistoricalsociety.org; 631-727-2881. ROSLYN HARBOR “Maxfield Parrish: Paintings and Prints From the National Museum of American Illustration,” artworks and vintage magazine covers. “Christopher Hart Chambers,” painted sculptures. Through February 28. $4 to $10, children 4 and under and members free. Tuesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Nassau County Museum of Art, 1 Museum Drive. nassaumuseum.org; 516-484-9337. SAG HARBOR Daniel Jones, photography. Dec. 26 through Jan. 30. Tulla Booth Gallery, 66 Main Street. tullaboothgallery.com; 631-725-3100. SAYVILLE “Heart of the Warrior,” photography honoring women who are fighting breast cancer, by Camile Grace. Jan. 9 through 31. Donation suggested. Saturdays and Sundays: 1 to 4 p.m., Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Bay Area Friends of the Fine Arts Gallery, 47 Gillette Avenue. 631-589-7343; baffa.org. SOUTHAMPTON Robert Mehling, paintings. Through Dec. 28. “Winter Light: East End Artists,” group exhibition. Dec. 29 through Feb. 2. Mondays through Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. or by appointment. Southampton Cultural Center, 25 Pond Lane. 631-287-4377; southamptonculturalcenter.org. ST. JAMES Member Artist Showcase, group show. Through Jan. 8. Mondays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. Smithtown Township Arts Council, 660 Route 25A. 631-862-6575; stacarts.org. STONY BROOK “Origami Heaven,” group show. Through Dec. 31. “Reality Override,” Ren Zi, mixed media. Through Dec. 31. “Explore History: Objects from Asia,” Asian and Asian-American material culture. Through Dec. 31. “Earth and Sky: Captured Movement,” works by Sook Jin Jo. Through Dec. 31. Free. Mondays through Fridays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; or by appointment. Charles B. Wang Center, Stony Brook University. 631-632-4400; thewangcenter.org. STONY BROOK “Beth Levine: The First Lady of Shoes,” footwear, photographs and paintings. Through Jan. 3. “Young Island: William Sidney Mount’s Scenes of Childhood.” Through Jan. 3. “Through Our Eyes,” highlighting National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month, Gillespie Meeting Room, Carriage Museum. Through Jan. 3. “One Square Foot,” members’ works. $3.50 to $9; members and children under 6, free. Thursdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Long Island Museum of American Art, History and Carriages, 1200 Route 25A. longislandmuseum.org; 631-751-0066. SYOSSET Photographs by Gino Domenico. Through Dec. 27. Free. Mondays through Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays, noon to 5 p.m. Syosset Public Library, 225 South Oyster Bay Road. syossetlibrary.org; 516-921-7161. WATER MILL “Jane Freilicher and Jane Wilson: Seen and Unseen,” paintings and works on paper. “East End Field Drawings,” works by Alexis Rockman. Through Jan. 18. “Connections and Context," group show. "Process of Discovery," works by James Brooks. Works by Jean-Luc Mylayne, French photographer. Through Oct. 30. $5 to 10; children under 18 free. Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Parrish Art Museum, 279 Montauk Highway. 631-283-2118; parrishart.org.


Colombia: Trafficking Suspect Is Said to Surrender to the U.S.

Abstract: A major Colombian drug trafficking suspect surrendered to United States drug agents in Aruba and was flown to New York, where he faces criminal charges, the Colombian authorities said Monday. The suspect, José Antonio Calle, 43, was indicted in New York’s Eastern District last year, accused of distributing 25 metric tons of cocaine, money laundering, racketeering and murder, according to the United States attorney’s office. The deputy Colombian police director, Gen. José Roberto Leon, said Mr. Calle turned himself in to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration agents on Friday in Aruba, off the Caribbean coast of Colombia . The United States attorney’s office in New York’s Eastern District would not confirm whether Mr. Calle was flown to New York. The D.E.A. declined to comment.

Colombia
United States
Aruba
Drug Enforcement Administration
Drug Abuse and Traffic
Calle Jose Antonio


Kentucky, No. 1 in Height, Too, Relishes the View From on High

Abstract: Kentucky Coach John Calipari has adopted a somewhat caustic attitude toward the Division I men’s basketball selection committee, which last season gave his team what he felt was an overly difficult road to the Final Four (it got there anyway). Asked last week which team he would prefer not to face in the N.C.A.A. tournament, he said sarcastically of the committee, “They called the Lakers, and they can’t pull out of the N.B.A. right now.” He went on: “I think if we had to see Oklahoma City or Cleveland, those would be tough. I’m not sure. And they tell me that Portland’s as big as we are, so those would be teams I wouldn’t want to see.” Though his point was taken, on this specific nuance he was wrong: The N.B.A.’s Trail Blazers are not as big as Kentucky. Nor are the Lakers, the Thunder or the Cavaliers. According to a calculation by The New York Times, counting players who played at least one quarter of a game’s minutes on average, the Minnesota Timberwolves, after some midseason trades, were the only N.B.A. team taller than Kentucky, whose oldest regular player is 21. As the Wildcats (34-0, 18-0 Southeastern Conference) enter the tournament, they are not only, by consensus, the best team in Division I men’s basketball (primarily thanks to their stellar defense), but they are also the tallest. Calipari would have it no other way. “My goal is to have a 6-9 point guard — I’ll take a 6-8 — and a team that’s 6-9 across the board,” he said recently. (One of three high school players who have already committed verbally to Kentucky is the 6-foot-11 center Skal Labissiere.) He added, “So when you ask me what’s the downside, well, we’re big, and it’s tough on the airplanes.” Not even the freshman guard Tyler Ulis, who is 5-9 and plays about 23 minutes a game, drags Kentucky’s height down to second place, which is occupied by Florida State. (Other tournament-bound teams that are very tall include Maryland, Wisconsin, Providence and Virginia.) “It helps me be able to play my game, get up on the ball,” Ulis said of being surrounded by comparative giants. “Sometimes if I make a mistake, there’s 7-footers in the lane — you can’t really shoot over them.” Though Kentucky is taller than average at all five positions, its advantage really shows up in the frontcourt, which at any given time is invariably occupied by two of five players — Marcus Lee, Trey Lyles, Karl-Anthony Towns, Dakari Johnson and Willie Cauley-Stein — who are 6-9, 6-10, 6-11, 7-0 and 7-0, although the assistant John Robic recently referred to Cauley-Stein as “7 and a half-inch.” All play substantial numbers of minutes, thanks to a modified platoon system that uses frequent substitutions. The statistics site KenPom.com attempts to quantify height further with a figure called “effective height,” which adjusts team height by position. Here, too, Kentucky is tops in the college game at +6.9. Its height advantage shows up most starkly at power forward, and then at center. Only three teams since 2007 have had higher effective heights. As early as last year’s N.C.A.A. tournament, some Internet commenters took to calling the Kentucky team Monstars, a reference to the gigantic alien dream team that takes on the ragtag bunch led by Michael Jordan in the 1996 film “Space Jam.” “They’ve tweeted pictures of it to us,” Lyles said this month. “It’s a funny thing that the fans do.” Cauley-Stein added with a grimace — a sign, perhaps, that he knew that the Monstars in the film ultimately lose — “It’s good stuff.” It might sound silly to say that having an abundance of tall players is a distinct advantage for a basketball team — sort of like asserting that an ability to project one’s voice is an advantage for a public speaker. Yet, if anything, height might be underrated, according to David Epstein, author of the book “The Sports Gene.” After crunching numbers, Epstein found that height and wingspan — a related measurement, of the arms from fingertip to fingertip — correlate strongly with total rebounds, offensive rebounds and blocks. “Even in the N.B.A., which is restricting your data to the best people in the world, it still has some predictive value,” Epstein said. In the case of Kentucky, height is crucial, but primarily as a starting point. According to analysts, opposing coaches and the players themselves, Kentucky’s achievement, particularly on defense, is also the result of general athleticism and disciplined play. “It’s not a complicated game if you’ve got really good talent, that size, they play together, and are well-coached,” the CBS analyst Clark Kellogg said. What Kentucky’s tremendous height does is provide a sort of safety net, so that defenders can take a chance on the big play. This shows up in the fact that Kentucky’s turnover percentage is among the country’s best on both offense and defense. Sometimes that means perimeter players going for a steal. Other times, it is defenders staying on their men and trusting a driving player’s defender to protect the rim — as Cauley-Stein has done several times this year in highlight-reel-worthy blocks. “It allows you to gamble more,” Cauley-Stein said this month. He added, “They end up driving on you, someone’s going to get it.” Of course, more often than not, the person who is going to get the ball is Cauley-Stein, the Southeastern Conference defensive player of the year. Georgia Coach Mark Fox is among those in awe. He said: “They have, I think, the distinct advantage in that their big players, like Cauley-Stein, they can play defense away from the basket, and they’re so mobile that they’re just as effective defenders as their perimeter players are away from the basket. That’s what makes them so hard to score on, because those guys can cover ground.” Fox mentioned this before the SEC tournament semifinals, in which Calipari put Cauley-Stein on Auburn’s best scorer, K. T. Harrell, even though Harrell is a 6-4 guard. Though he scored some points on free throws, Harrell ended the game 1 of 12 from the field. Still, as flexible as Kentucky is against teams that try to play small ball and draw Kentucky’s power forwards and centers away from the rim, Florida Coach Billy Donovan said that teams with more traditional big men might as well abandon hope upon entering the court. Sounding a note of pity, Donovan said, “I think the traditional post-up teams will have a really, really hard time, because even if you get a guy in foul trouble, they’re going to have 25 fouls across the front line, you know what I mean?” He paused, as if marveling, and added: “Even if you foul a guy out. The total depth.” It is difficult to say exactly where this year’s Wildcats team ranks compared with those of past years, given that this is a down season for offenses. But this team is historically good on that side of the court, holding opposing teams to the fewest points per possession and the lowest field-goal percentage since 1975. Adjusting for opponents, Kentucky is the second-most defensively efficient team since at least 2002, according to KenPom.com. The one team even better on defense was the 2008-9 Memphis Tigers. They, too, were tall. And they, too, were coached by Calipari. For the record, he said Sunday, he is around 6 feet.

Height
John Calipari
Basketball
Timberwolves
College basketball
University of Kentucky
NCAA Men's Basketball,March Madness


Baseball Reaches a Flipping Point

Abstract: Brace yourself, baseball fans, and behold the inexorable rise of the bat flip. Self-expression has long been a fraught issue in Major League Baseball, where impassivity — the ability to “act like you have been there before” — often feels as highly regarded as power hitting and foot speed. Yet times change, and signs today indicate that baseball stands poised to enter a golden age of celebratory antics. If so, bat flip buffs might one day look back upon this week’s playoff games as a symbolic starting point. It began Monday. Upon pulverizing a three-run homer into the upper deck at Citi Field, Yoenis Cespedes of the Mets cradled his bat for a moment before flinging it skyward in celebration, like a bride blissfully tossing a bouquet. The crowd went berserk. But that majestic flip was reduced to a quaint memory two nights later, when Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays performed what might have been the most ostentatious bat flip in M.L.B. history. The moment came after Bautista smashed a late tiebreaking home run at Rogers Centre. Bautista watched the ball’s flight, glared into the near distance like a professional wrestler and then, in a burst of pugnacious swagger, hurled his bat deep into foul territory. Anyone could have predicted how the Texas Rangers , who lost the game and the American League division series, would react. Image The Mets’ Yoenis Cespedes launched a homer and his bat in Game 3 of the National League division series. Credit Chang W. Lee/The New York Times “He’s a huge role model for the younger generation that is coming up playing this game, and he’s doing stuff kids do in whiffle ball games and backyard baseball,” said Rangers reliever Sam Dyson, who helped incite the benches to clear when he voiced his objections on the field. “It shouldn’t be done.” But Dyson’s response came in sharp contrast to those of fans on social media, who celebrated Bautista’s move with a torrent of Twitter posts, GIFs and Vine videos. The M.L.B. account on Twitter posted videos of Cespedes and Bautista side by side and asked, “Who flipped it better?” For bat flip aficionados, the speed, trajectory and distance of a toss are crucial details. Midair rotations add to the visual splendor. Dramatic posturing and histrionic facial expressions elevate things to the next level. Bautista’s flip had it all. Until now, the subject of bat flips has generally left little room for a middle ground. People love them or hate them — there is an unmistakable generational divide — and they feel compelled to air their stances either way. To some, the maneuver symbolizes a break from the gentlemanly principles that have supposedly steered the game across generations. “You play so many games and fail so many times, so the game has a way of humbling you,” said Kelly Johnson, 33, a Mets utility player, who guessed that players mostly objected when a young or unaccomplished player behaved arrogantly. “That’s the message veteran players sometimes try to pass on to rookies, that their actions should try to reflect that.” To others, the bat flip represents a breath of fresh air in a stuffy sport and reflects the game’s increasingly diverse clubhouses, which feature more players from Latin America and Asia, where such celebrations tend to be more common . Image The practice is popular in Asia, helped by players like Choi Jun-seok of the Lotte Giants in South Korea. Credit Jean Chung for The New York Times “In my opinion, after being in Asia and the United States and also seeing Latin American players for so many years, it seems like Americans need to lighten up,” said Ryan Sadowski, a former major leaguer who works as a scout for the Lotte Giants of South Korea. “The fans clearly enjoy it.” The debate will continue, but bat flips are unambiguously on the upswing. Some players are lightening up. Others are merely acquiescing. Inside the Yankees’ clubhouse before a late-summer regular-season game, catcher Brian McCann let out a small sigh when asked for his position on celebratory bat flips. McCann has developed a reputation as one of the vigilante enforcers of baseball’s traditional code. With the Atlanta Braves, he confronted players and caused fights on multiple occasions for what he perceived to be unseemly behavior after home runs. But, McCann said, sports evolve, and people change. “It’s where the game is going, where the game is at, really,” he said. “It’s what guys are doing.” McCann joked about hearing stories of days long past, when a batter might get a ball thrown at his head for simply swinging too hard. These days, he said, umpires are quick to issue warnings and ejections for even a vague hint of belligerence. That reduces the informal, internal policing among players — no one wants to be thrown out of a game — and opens the door for more flamboyant behavior. McCann said he still objected when batters made things personal or overly confrontational. “I’ll stick up for my pitcher every time,” he said. “I get fired up just like anybody else, if not more than most people, and do what comes natural.” To the delight of some fans, more batters are feeling comfortable doing what comes natural. Late Wednesday night, after the game, Bautista was told that Dyson had called the bat flip celebration childish. Bautista was asked if he had any response to such criticism. He shrugged. “No,” he said. And many others felt the same way.

Baseball
Playoffs
Jose Bautista
Blue Jays
Texas Rangers


Madison Keys to Face Venus Williams in Australian Open Quarterfinal

Abstract: MELBOURNE, Australia — Whatever the outcome, it will be a full-circle moment Wednesday when Venus Williams and Madison Keys meet in the quarterfinals of the Australian Open. The particulars have fluctuated through the years, but what is clear is that Keys was 4 years old when she spotted Williams on television at Wimbledon wearing — what else? — a white dress. She wanted one of her own, and she wanted to swing like Williams, too, and so she was soon taking cuts with a racquetball racket at her family’s home in Illinois. Fifteen years and plenty of sweat and family sacrifice later, Williams, 34, and Keys, 19, are about to meet for the first time in a Grand Slam tournament. “I think all of us touch lives in ways that we never dreamed of growing up as kids,” Williams, the No. 18 seed, said Monday night after beating sixth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska, 6-3, 2-6, 6-1, in the fourth round. “You just want to be No. 1 in the world. You want to win a major. You never think about the people you inspire from your efforts and your attitude.” Other athletes might have thought about it sooner, but Williams and her younger sister Serena were raised to be champions outside the existing system, raised to believe that their story, gifts and burdens were very much their own. But after a halting start, they have ultimately been a bridge to the next generation of American players, including several African-American ones. There were African-American women succeeding as pros directly before the Williamses, including Chanda Rubin, the Wimbledon finalist Zina Garrison, Lori McNeil and Katrina Adams, the new president of the United States Tennis Association , who was sitting in the front row of the president’s box in Rod Laver Arena on Monday night. Image Venus Williams in a fourth-round victory over Agnieszka Radwanska on Monday. Williams, 34, has not advanced this far in a major since Wimbledon in 2010. Credit Bernat Armangue/Associated Press But there are plenty more coming, including Sloane Stephens, Taylor Townsend and Keys, the biracial daughter of lawyers, who moved early to Florida to hone her game. Keys, who beat the unseeded American Madison Brengle, 6-2, 6-4, on Monday in the fourth round, had early exposure to greatness, getting advice and support from Chris Evert at Evert’s academy in Boca Raton, Fla. She now has Lindsay Davenport , a former No. 1 and once one of the Williamses’ great rivals, as her coach. But Venus has been an inspiration, too, and not just to the 4-year-old Keys. “I think Venus has helped the sport, especially the women’s side, with equal prize money,” said Keys, referring to the fight for equal pay at Wimbledon . “She was a huge part of that. Just watching her is inspirational. She’s had her health battles. She loves tennis. She’s still out here, and she’s doing it remarkably well. I think that’s inspirational. However long I play, I hope I can be someone similar to that.” What Keys did not say Monday is that her big game, like most big games in women’s tennis, also owes a major debt to Venus and Serena, who took the power and aggression to a new level, amplifying the attack-on-any-stroke approach adopted by Monica Seles before them. “The revolution was when the Williamses started to play,” said Sam Sumyk, Victoria Azarenka’s coach. “And since then — for 13 or 14 years — we’ve all been playing catch-up, simple as that.” The youngsters do appear to be gaining: See Serena’s intense three-set tussle on Monday with Garbiñe Muguruza, 21, of Spain, who beat her at the French Open last year and hit winners Monday off serves and shots that Serena used to believe were safe. See Keys, as well. “Madison’s taking those big cuts consistently, and now it’s just a matter of not taking them so often and finding the right time to go for the big one,” said Mary Joe Fernandez, the United States Fed Cup captain. “She’s such a great server, and her second serve might be her better serve. It kicks up high. I’ll be curious to see mentally how she and Venus approach this match and who will execute with their big weapons first.” It will be the inspiration against the inspired: the 34-year-old representing the past and present of American women’s tennis against the 19-year-old who represents the future and quite possibly the present, too. Keys, who lost their only previous meeting in straight sets on the Charleston, S.C., clay in 2013, did not sound as ready as others to buy into the back story. “It really just matters to you guys,” she said to reporters of the symbolism Monday. But it is clearly in the air. “You really feel like it’s the changing of the guard,” Fernandez said. “Is Madison ready for that? Is she ready to take that mantle and take her idol’s spot? It’s a very fitting matchup.” This will be Williams’s 34th Grand Slam singles quarterfinal, and Keys’s first. But circumstances will make it seem fresh for both of them. While Serena has racked up big titles and become a fixture at No. 1, Venus Williams has not reached this stage of a major tournament in singles since she made it to the semifinals of Wimbledon in 2010. She was found to have Sjogren’s syndrome , an autoimmune disorder, in 2011 and has spent much of the last four years trying to come to grips with how to manage the disease as an elite athlete. She has played matches she certainly should not have played, looking gaunt, weak and overmatched at times and taking beatings from players who were not in her class. A champion of lesser character might have quietly said farewell and focused all of her limited energy on her design company or other fields where the deck was not stacked in her disfavor. But Williams, who long ago developed an ability to work her way pleasantly through news conferences without leaving much of a trace, usually has been easy to read when retirement has been broached. She is not ready, thank you very much. Not ready to be pushed on the topic either. And in typical Williams fashion, following the beat of her own drum is looking like the right approach. After nearly a year of solid tennis achievement, she has rebuilt a sturdier platform for her attack-minded game. She is hitting her forehand more squarely, even running around her two-handed backhand again. She looks fitter, more muscular and healthier and has come up with dietary approaches and cross-training methods — including dance — that work best. Image Williams has won seven Grand Slam singles titles. Credit Paul Crock/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images “It’s clear she’s much more in shape than she was a year or two ago,” said Patrick Mouratoglou, Serena Williams’s coach. “I can see in her training that she has a lot more energy. In the past, there were many matches she was not in a condition to play because she was too tired. I don’t see that anymore, so she’s getting back progressively to her former level.” Having Serena as a benchmark is also helpful, although to Venus’s considerable credit, she has never shown resentment, at least not publicly, as her sister passed her on the Grand Slam singles honor roll and then accelerated. Asked Monday to explain her inspiration, Venus did not hesitate. “Definitely my sister Serena,” she said. “She’s just the ultimate champion.” Venus, with seven Grand Slam singles titles, will not be catching Serena, who has 18. Although it might seem overambitious, Venus still has every intent of adding to her total, which helps explain why her reaction to what was technically an upset victory Monday was not exactly the equal of Nick Kyrgios’s falling on his back with relief and disbelief when he beat Andreas Seppi in the fourth round Sunday night. “I feel like I’ve been here before, so it’s not like I’m jumping up and down for joy,” Williams said. She added: “Yes. I’ve done this. This is what I’m always going into each tournament thinking I want to do, even when I fall short.” Intriguingly, Keys, the one who truly never has done this before, is also projecting a certain cool and has repeatedly mentioned that this is her “last tournament as a teenager” as if to emphasize that she wants to bid that phase goodbye with something big. “I think it’s a huge opportunity for me,” Keys said. “I haven’t been in this situation before. I’m going to make the most of it, but at the same time, no matter what, I’m not really going to be satisfied with any win. I want to be at the end of the tournament holding the trophy up. That’s my goal in the long run.” It is a reasonable goal in light of her gifts and the work she has put into developing them. And it certainly does seem symbolic and a little bittersweet that the woman blocking her path in Melbourne is the same woman who opened her eyes to the sport.

Madison Keys
Venus Williams
Australian Open
Tennis
Serena Williams


In Louisiana, Twist in Fight Over Texaco Drilling Lease

Abstract: ERATH, La. — It began as a landlord-tenant dispute, Louisiana style. The tenant was Texaco; the landlord the Broussard family, heirs of a Cajun rancher, who claimed that Texaco’s operation of a gas plant on its property had left the land contaminated. The lawsuit, of a kind not all that rare in these industry-heavy parts, had dragged on so long that 13 of the heirs had died. But it took a sudden and bitter turn in recent months, when another company — a company that, like Texaco, is a subsidiary of Chevron — sued to condemn most of the disputed land and expropriate it, arguing that it was acting in the national interest. The boundaries of the national interest are hard to draw in any place, but particularly so here in south Louisiana, where pipelines run under the bayous and refinery flares light the sky. As old leases get examined and environmental concerns become more publicized, neighborly disputes between residents and those drilling on their land are bound to get more heated. And few are more complicated than the fight between Chevron and the Broussards. The Chevron subsidiary that sued to take the land, Sabine Pipe Line, had quietly operated a pipeline hub across the road for nearly 60 years. In June, Sabine sent a letter to the family, saying the 14-year legal fight with Texaco was threatening the continued operation of one of the most important natural gas pipeline hubs in the country. The family could agree to sell the land, the letter said, or be forced to do so. The Broussards say the timing of the letter and the scope of the demand are more than a little curious. They contend that Sabine’s actions are not to protect any pipeline, but are simply a pretext to shield Chevron from millions in environmental damages. “It was all collusion, no doubt in my mind,” said Warren A. Perrin, who is leading the Broussard family in its legal fight. “My cousin just said, ‘You don’t seem to be behaving like good neighbors if you’re taking away our property.’ ” The Broussards, like most Cajun families, are no foes of the oil and gas industry. Some of them worked at the Texaco plant. Mr. Perrin himself was born in a little house a few hundred yards from the plant, and his first law office was in the back of a Texaco station. But pugnacity comes naturally to Mr. Perrin, a compact man who will talk about his Cajun ancestors and the injustices visited upon them as long as a person will let him. In the 1990s, he went to battle with the queen of England, pressing her to apologize for the expulsion of the Acadians, the forebears of today’s Cajuns, from Canada in 1755. The queen issued a royal proclamation in 2003 acknowledging the “dark chapter” and calling for a day of commemoration. That proclamation hangs on the wall of Mr. Perrin’s office like a trophy. Mr. Perrin is one of the 75 or so heirs of Aristide Broussard, who bought 3,000 acres here in Vermilion Parish at the end of the 19th century. The land was perfect for growing sugar cane, raising cattle and trapping alligators. That it was also perfect for drilling the Broussards found out four decades later, when the Texas Company discovered a big deposit underneath. The company bought the mineral rights, but it had bigger plans, and in 1942 asked to lease an 80-acre plot in one of Mr. Broussard’s cow pastures. It was an easy decision after the lean days of the Depression: Mr. Broussard leased the land to the company for 75 years, at a rent of $1,600 annually (an amount later renegotiated to $110,000 a year). The company gave him a Cadillac and a lifetime supply of free gas, and it promised jobs for his grandsons. And it built an enormous gas recycling plant in his backyard. Even though some members of the family worked on the property — some still do — they have never entirely been aware of what went on there. They knew that there were some places in the pasture where grass did not grow, and that pipelines crossed their land so thickly that Texaco simply paid them not to graze cattle in certain areas. But it was not until a legal argument broke out between Texaco and another company working at the site that the family learned that one of the wells had blown out in 1997. As the fight intensified, the heirs of Aristide Broussard hired environmental experts, who found leaky saltwater pits on the property, countless aluminum pellets and radioactive material. In a lawsuit, the Broussards argued that the contamination was so bad that Texaco had breached the lease and that they would try to kick the company off the property unless it was cleaned to their standards. Less than a month later, the family received a surprise: Sabine, a company that seemed completely unrelated to the contamination suit, offered the Broussards a little under $1 million to buy most of the land in question. If the offer was not accepted, the letter said, Sabine would expropriate the land and pay the family the fair market value. That Sabine had been operating a pipeline across the street since 1964 the family knew. They knew that in 1990 Sabine began managing the so-called Henry Hub, an interchange of gas lines so crucial that it is where the prices are set for natural gas futures based on the traffic there. What the family did not know is that part of this hub had migrated onto their property. And they are still unsure of just how much of it is on their property. The Broussard family discussed the offer with Sabine, but they could not agree on a price. Assuring Sabine that they had no intention of disrupting its operation of the pipelines, the family members declined to sell. The day before Thanksgiving, Sabine sued to take over the property. “Sabine has tried, for the past several months, to secure the rights necessary to the operation of its facilities through good-faith negotiations,” said a spokesman for Chevron in a statement, adding that the company had offered a price “significantly” above fair market value. “Having been unable to reach a negotiated resolution of this matter,” the statement continued, “and in view of the Broussards’ ongoing efforts to terminate these leasehold rights, Sabine has exercised its rights under the Natural Gas Act to acquire the property it needs to continue its operations.” Disputes between pipeline operators and property owners over condemnation suits are not rare, and in most cases the pipeline owners are successful. But several eminent domain lawyers said they had never encountered a situation quite like this. “This,” said Gideon Kanner, a professor emeritus at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, “is what the lawyers call a sui generis case.”

Louisiana
Pipelines
Natural Gas
Eminent Domain
Oil (Petroleum) and Gasoline
Texaco Inc
Chevron Corporation
Land Use Policies
Suits and Litigation


Brotherhood Struggles to Exert Political Power in Egypt

Abstract: CAIRO — When President Mohamed Morsi and his allies in the Muslim Brotherhood pushed through a new constitution last month, liberals feared it would enable them to put an Islamist stamp on the Egyptian state, in part by purging nearly half the judges on the Supreme Constitutional Court. But those warnings are turning out to be premature, at the very least, as the court itself made clear last week at its opening session, its first meeting under the new charter. The president of the court sneered with disdain at a lawyer for the Muslim Brotherhood trying to address the reconfigured bench, stripped of 7 of its 18 members. “As if you left a court to be spoken of like this!” Judge Maher el-Beheiry snapped. He had already declared that the court, perceived as an enemy of the Islamists, “can never forget” the Brotherhood’s protests against it during the constitutional debate. In the two years since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, Mr. Morsi and the Islamists have trounced their political opposition again and again at the polls and have accumulated unrivaled political power. But Judge Beheiry’s rebuke was a vivid reminder that their political victories have not yet translated into real power over the Egyptian bureaucracy. Mr. Morsi still appears to exercise little day-to-day authority over the judiciary, the police, the military and the state-run news media. “If you think of the main pillars of the bureaucracy, the Brotherhood has not gotten control of them yet, and I don’t think they will completely,” said Hani Shukrallah, 62, the left-leaning editor of an English-language state news Web site who was recently was asked to retire by its new management. “There are so many people who are very difficult to bring to heel,” he said. “I think we are in for several years of turbulence where state power is diffused.” Although Mr. Morsi has the legitimacy of a democratic election, he has inherited the still-intact remnants of Mr. Mubarak’s authoritarian state, built on fear, loyalty and patronage, and much of it permeated by a deep distrust of the Islamists. Mr. Morsi and his allies are now only beginning to attempt to exert some control over the body of the state that would allow him to put in effect a social, economic and political program. And his ultimate success, or failure, will help decide some of the most pivotal questions concerning Egypt’s future, for better or worse. On the one hand, the bureaucracy’s resistance could prevent the Islamists from consolidating their power, imposing their ideology, or, as some liberals say they fear, building a new dictatorship. But the failure to exert control could also prolong vexing social problems, like the collapse of public security because of the withdrawal of the police. The analysts say that Mr. Morsi is clearly working to install networks of allies over key parts of the state. He has named Brotherhood members as governors in 7 out of 28 provinces. In a recent cabinet shake-up, he named another Brotherhood member as minister of local development, who under the new Constitution could have new powers over day-to-day local government. His Islamist allies in the legislature named at least 11 fellow Islamists, including at least 3 ultraconservatives, to the 27 seats on the newly empowered National Council for Human Rights. The Constitution and other new rules give it the authority to regulate election observers, investigate human rights violations and act as a public ombudsman. Image Items from an office of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party were burned in November. Credit Reuters But Mr. Morsi’s attempts to consolidate his power have often yielded equivocal results. He finally persuaded Egypt’s top generals to relinquish their authority over the civilian government last August. But in December, the Islamist-backed Constitution granted the generals broad immunity and autonomy from civilian control, in an apparent quid pro quo. Brotherhood leaders acknowledge they face deep resistance. When the president took office, the holdover staff was destroying his faxes and mail in small acts of sabotage, said one senior Brotherhood leader, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid further inflaming the tensions. In the Interior Ministry, which nominally reports to the president, rank-and-file officers remain all but openly antagonistic to Mr. Morsi and his party. During the contentious run-up to the constitutional vote late last year, the police failed to increase security outside Brotherhood offices as one after another were vandalized and often burned. And when protesters clashed with Islamists outside the presidential palace, the police effectively vanished from the scene. “It seemed like a clear mutiny,” said Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch. “It was as if the arm of the state was striking at its own head,” the senior Brotherhood leader complained. The police say the lesson they learned from the revolution against Mr. Mubarak was not to stand against protesters on behalf of an individual president. “It fills me with pride that a police officer was the one who opened the improvised metal gate for protesters during the march to the presidential palace to allow them to continue,” said Ahmed Mansour al-Helbawi, the head of a police union that claims to have 400,000 members. “The protesters carried him on their shoulders and chanted: ‘The people and the police are one hand.’ ” Mr. Helbawi said the officers were no longer willing to use force against demonstrators even outside the presidential palace. But he acknowledged that the police still show no such hesitation when protesters approach their own headquarters. As for the failure to protect the offices of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, “If I protect the F.J.P., then I must also protect the Wafd Party and the Constitution Party and every other party there is!” Mr. Helbawi said, adding that the police would never again “turn into the ministry of just one political party,” as it was under Mr. Mubarak. Mr. Morsi has tried to extend control over the police and removed the interior minister, who presided over last month’s debacle and was a Mubarak enforcer who had run the Cairo district during the brutal crackdown two years ago. But Mr. Morsi replaced him with another longtime Mubarak-era police official, Mohamed Ibrahim, in an apparent bid to avoid an even broader police insurrection. (Groups claiming to represent the police have still circulated anonymous calls for a police protest over the dismissal this week.) Mr. Morsi’s allies have not fared much better in trying to gain control of the official state news media, one of the most visible bellwethers of their hold on the bureaucracy. The Islamist-controlled upper house of Parliament replaced the top officials, but state television still provides evidence that many of the tens of thousands who work in the state news media oppose the Brotherhood. The host Hala Fahmy, for example, opened a show by accusing the new government of selling out the “martyrs” and theatrically holding up a shroud to show she was ready to join them. She is now off the air, pending an investigation of the outburst. “There are 40,000 people working in the building,” said Ehab El Mergawi, a state television news producer who is also a member of the leftist April 6 group. “And I think 35,000 out of those can’t stand the Muslim Brotherhood.” Emad Shahin, a political scientist at the American University in Cairo, said that so far the Brotherhood takeover sometimes appears to be working in reverse. “You feel that the institutions are taking over Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood,” he said, “not the other way around.”

Politics
Egypt
Mohamed Morsi
Muslim Brotherhood Egypt


City Sets Up Nonprofit Corporation to Oversee Technology Projects

Abstract: Scalded by scandal, cost overruns and embarrassments in some of its most ambitious computerization efforts, the Bloomberg administration has hit upon on a new remedy: outsourcing such projects to a new quasi-governmental entity that will operate free of the usual city procurement rules, salary limits and legislative oversight. The new entity, its proponents argue, will provide a bureaucratically powerful, highly skilled, centralized overseer for the kind of technology projects that have bedeviled this administration for years, and that have raised questions about one of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s perceived strengths as a billionaire who made his money through technological innovation. Deputy Mayor Caswell F. Holloway, who spearheaded a review of the city’s technology woes, said the new entity could save taxpayers millions of dollars by reducing the city’s reliance on highly paid outside contractors for project conception, development and execution. “There is no reason why every agency in the City of New York should be going out and getting that from consultants,” he said. “The city should have an ability to do this.” But veteran city technology managers and consultants expressed doubts, and veterans of city government pointed to a possible political motive. Harvey Robins, who was operations chief for Mayor David N. Dinkins and who reorganized several city agencies, said the immediate effect would be to distance Mayor Bloomberg from future technology problems. “It’s a headache,” Mr. Robins said, “and he doesn’t want the headache anymore.” The new entity’s main goal, according to a confidential document obtained by The New York Times as well as interviews with Mr. Holloway and other officials, is to solve one of the most vexing riddles of Mr. Bloomberg’s tenure: how to grant those responsible for tech projects enough authority so they can compel agency commissioners to cooperate, make timely decisions and accept compromises that might require them to change the way they do business. Interagency tension hurt the development of the new 911 emergency dispatching system, as police and fire officials warred with one another, preserving fiefs and incompatible systems. It was a problem with CityTime , the city’s new timekeeping system, which involved scores of agencies. And it was a constant headache in developing a new personnel system, Nycaps, as agencies sparred and consultants clamored for mayoral intervention. In each case, the results were confusion, years of delays, and hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns. Under the new plan, control is decided by a simple test: if a project will cost more than $25 million, or more than $5 million and involves more than one agency, then a new “NYC Technology Development Corporation” will control the project from start to finish. The corporation will oversee design, vendors, installation and training. The new entity, which was set up as a nonprofit in July, is modeled after the city’s Economic Development Corporation, which operates under contract with the city to make deals with businesses, landowners and vendors on the city’s behalf without being subject to the same level of contracting rules and City Council oversight that apply to city agencies. Because the new entity will be able to bypass competitive bidding at times, the city hopes it will choose vendors more quickly. But several city technology experts, including a senior agency technology officer and an outside consultant, pointed to possible problems, including a potential brain drain if the new entity offered higher salaries to tech managers from city agencies. Interviewed on the condition of anonymity to preserve their ties to the administration, these experts said that the new entity was the latest in a series of attempts by the Bloomberg administration to address technology design and contracting. Previous efforts by a Technology Steering Committee and a Technology Governance Board did not succeed. The new entity would not replace the Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications , but rather take on some of its portfolio. “In some ways, it’s introducing another party to the already complex governance structure,” one expert said. “Perhaps a more competent party — but that’s a best-case scenario.” This expert also expressed concern that entrusting oversight to a corporation one step removed from City Hall could increase the risk of a runaway project, noting that the CityTime project was hurt by corruption that took root in the absence of “much visibility into what was being spent.” Peter Thorne, a spokesman for the city comptroller’s office, said that it was “always open to exploring ways to save city taxpayers money,” but that it greeted the idea with “a tremendous amount of skepticism” given the administration’s track record on CityTime and the 911 system. He said that problems at the Economic Development Corporation, which has been faulted by city auditors for hoarding tens of millions of dollars in city money and for failing to oversee its own contractors adequately, “call into question the entire operating model of using independent entities to conduct crucial city functions.” Mr. Holloway said the new entity would be fully transparent, and would help prevent talented technology workers from leaving government. Rahul N. Merchant, the city’s new top technology officer, who conceived of the new entity with Mr. Holloway, said he hoped it would be able to deliver, with no more than 20 employees, 6 to 10 projects before Mr. Bloomberg leaves office on Jan. 1, 2014. But experts questioned whether so much could be achieved in a short time. “Creating a new agency is not easy to do, and all the effort for that time will be spent painting the walls,” one said.

Outsourcing
Bloomberg Michael R
Science and Technology
New York City


Mixed Data Show Tepid U.S. Economy, but Leading Indicators Rising

Abstract: Consumer sentiment worsened this month on renewed concerns about the outlook for the economy as gloom about job and income prospects persisted, data released Friday showed. But a separate report suggested that the rate of the recovery could soon pick up after stalling in the first half of the year. Taking the unexpected soft patch into account, the International Monetary Fund cut its forecast for economic growth in the United States, warning Washington and debt-ridden European countries that they were “playing with fire” unless they took immediate steps to reduce their budget deficits. While the I.M.F. thinks downside risks to growth have increased, it still expects the economy to gain speed next year. Consumer sentiment in the United States declined more than expected in June, the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan survey showed, as consumers remained pessimistic about stagnant incomes and job prospects. “Job growth is, at best, anemic and the unemployment rate is high. If you’ve been laid off, it’s probably been for a long period of time,” said Cary Leahey, economist and managing director at Decision Economics in New York. “That can’t help but affect these sentiment figures.” The preliminary reading showed the index at 71.8, down from 74.3 the month before. It was below the median forecast of 74.0 among economists polled by Reuters. Although the data contained little evidence that a new downturn was under way, the survey found that most consumers believed the recession had not yet ended. Consumers’ view of rising prices was also mixed as the survey’s one-year inflation expectation fell to its lowest since February, to 4.0 percent from 4.1 percent. But the five-to-10-year inflation outlook was at 3.0 percent, edging up from 2.9 percent. A separate report showed that a gauge of future economic activity rose more than expected in May, but high gasoline prices and a weak housing market are expected to keep growth moderate. The independent Conference Board said on Friday its Leading Economic Index increased 0.8 percent to a record high of 114.7, after a revised 0.4 percent fall in April. Economists had expected a rise of 0.2 percent. The rise in the economic indicators was an encouraging sign after recent sluggish data, and underscored releases on Thursday that showed a better-than-expected picture of the labor and housing markets, but a contraction in Mid-Atlantic factory activity in June. “This rebound in the leading indicators index is an encouraging sign that the recent slowdown in the economy may be short-lived,” Nicholas Tenev, an economist at Barclays Capital, wrote in a note. In its report Friday, the I.M.F. forecast that the gross domestic product in the United States would grow a tepid 2.5 percent this year and 2.7 percent in 2012. In its forecast just two months ago, it had expected 2.8 percent growth in 2011, rising to 2.9 percent in 2012.

International Monetary Fund
United States Economy
Economic Conditions and Trends


Big Executive of the Tiny Screen

Abstract: LOS ANGELES — When CBS Mobile introduced the Daily Delivery, a short video for cellphones highlighting fashionable shops in Los Angeles and cool gadgets, it was a disaster. CBS Mobile, a unit of the television network’s interactive division charged with developing content for the new third screen, noticed, though, that interest spiked when celebrities were featured. So they scrapped the original concept and came back with a twice-daily show focused on celebrity gossip and off-the-wall news. It is now one of their most frequently watched original programs on the hand-held screen. “We are constantly forced to kill our own babies,” said Cyriac Roeding, executive vice president of CBS Mobile. Those words might seem harsh if the following two facts about Mr. Roeding weren’t true. First, he was hired by CBS in 2005 to create a mobile entertainment division where researchers track within minutes whether a made-for-mobile show is a hit. Second, he is an unapologetic entrepreneur who has less in common with Hollywood big shots than with his peers in Silicon Valley, who are equally willing to dump a strategy that doesn’t work. That puts Mr. Roeding at the vortex of Hollywood’s new media revolution. Consumer attitudes toward viewing videos on the cellphone screen are changing. The debut of the Apple iPhone showed a wider, and older, audience that cellphones can be multimedia devices. And the software behind the Google phone is expected to enable more entertainment programming. As a result, companies including Walt Disney and NBC Universal are hungry to exploit new technology much the way they did when DVDs became popular in the 1990s. Swirling in that vortex of experimentation and deal-making is the question of how anyone makes money on the new platform. Studios and networks are under pressure to make money however they can. Actors, directors and writers want their cut, too. So much so that this week the Writers Guild of America is to go on strike against studios and networks demanding, in part, a stake in future earnings from online and mobile phone content. An additional factor that makes Mr. Roeding’s job particularly hard is that the 34-year-old German-born mobile advertising executive must forge partnerships with phone companies that are hard-pressed to give up their financial grip on users of their networks. “The difficulty with Cyriac’s job is getting successful but traditional companies to go down a path they wouldn’t otherwise go down,” said Ryan Hughes, vice president for digital media at Verizon Wireless. Mr. Roeding is responsible for the unit’s overall strategy, negotiating complicated deals with CBS Mobile’s two dozen partners like AT&T and Verizon Wireless, as well as overseeing mobile advertising and games. Take, for example, its broadcast version of “Big Brother.” In August, a made-for-mobile version of the CBS network program ran 24 hours a day on its own channel on Qualcomm’s MediaFLO network showing on Verizon Wireless phones. Mr. Hughes from Verizon said he first met Mr. Roeding in San Diego in the summer of 2006, when Verizon was discussing what CBS shows would be carried on MediaFLO. Mr. Roeding was expected to present CBS’s proposal, but when he walked into the meeting he explained he had not yet secured the necessary rights. “We knew it would be difficult,” said Mr. Hughes. Six months later, though, after months of silence, Mr. Hughes got a text message from a CBS executive saying Mr. Roeding had secured the rights in time for MediaFLO’s spring introduction. “It blew me away,” Mr. Hughes said. Mr. Roeding acknowledges that the task is tricky. But he is pragmatic, too, seeking to apply the lessons he learned as an entrepreneur to a Hollywood culture marred by political infighting, one-upmanship and corporate backstabbing. Senior CBS executives are now required to attend his “Wireless 101” presentation. He created a news division with mobile-specific alerts and news to appeal to young viewers. And Ashley Hartman, a 22-year-old Jessica Simpson look-alike who is the face of CBS Mobile entertainment, is gaining as much notice for her stint as CBS’s “Mobile VJ” as she did for her recurring role on the Fox hit “The O.C.” Even recruits who were first put off at the idea of working at what some consider to be a musty network were struck by Mr. Roeding’s approach. At the mention of CBS, “I thought of ‘Murder, She Wrote,’” said Randy Ahn, a director at CBS Sports Mobile, before meeting Mr. Roeding. “Cyriac, though, talked about new ideas.” Indeed, Mr. Roeding is unorthodox in his recruiting, choosing to look beyond traditional media or wireless carriers for talent. He has brought in other entrepreneurs, including Jeff Sellinger, a founder of GoldPocket, a mobile marketing and content firm, who now oversees daily operations. And he is wooing top CBS talent. He has monthly dinners with Anthony Zuiker, executive producer of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” to discuss mobile games, including the new “CSI: Miami” offering. (Mr. Zuiker, though, is a bit skeptical of the new medium, and so far views mobile games and other content as promotional. “It should drive people back to television,” he said. “I don’t consume television on a cellphone, but I wouldn’t want to stop anyone else either.”) Mr. Roeding, a former McKinsey consultant who bears a striking resemblance to Cary Elwes in “The Princess Bride,” is undeterred by the challenge, instead overwhelmed by the potential to reach consumers. “It doesn’t make sense to fight over a business that isn’t there yet,” he said. “First let’s create something that consumers want to see.” To emphasize his point, he showed a photo of a young girl at the airport in San Jose, Calif. She was wearing a T-shirt with the phrase “Me, my cell and I.” “The relationship people have with their mobile phones is very personal,” he said. “We can’t ignore that. If we do, generations will pass us by.” Or, as Quincy Smith, Mr. Roeding’s boss and president of CBS Interactive, put it: “We need to evolve from being a content company to an audience company.” Mr. Roeding was born in 1973 and raised in a small town outside Frankfurt, the younger of two children. He graduated from the University of Karlsruhe where he studied business and engineering. Mr. Roeding was a founder of 12snap Inc., a mobile marketing and entertainment firm started in 1999 whose clients include Coca-Cola and McDonald’s. The firm won awards for innovative marketing, including a campaign where children sent their parents mobile messages encouraging them to buy a PlayStation 2 for Christmas. In 2004, though, Mr. Roeding grew restless and wanted to move to either Silicon Valley or Shanghai, where the markets for mobile media were emerging. A McKinsey alumnus offered to introduce him to Nancy Tellem, who oversees entertainment at the CBS network and production studios. At their first meeting Mr. Roeding took out his cellphone and showed her his personalized wallpaper and videos Europeans were already watching. “Mobile wasn’t even on our radar,” said Ms. Tellem, whose office is near his at CBS’s Television City. “But there was a small group of us who thought something was there.” Mr. Roeding was hired in 2005 and went about creating an autonomous unit with the same start-up feel he thrived on at 12snap. Mr. Roeding declined to discuss the unit’s financials except to say it is profitable, making programs for a fraction of the cost their peers in TV do. “It’s the Ikea model of content production,” he said with a laugh. But industry executives say CBS Mobile, like ABC and NBC, gets a small percentage of its revenue from advertising; the rest is from deals and partnerships. That percentage is expected to shift, though, when advertising on phones becomes more accepted. Mr. Roeding’s focus is on making the mobile shows as personalized as possible. One of Mr. Roeding’s producers developed the animated series “Danny Bonaduce: Life Coach,” a twist on self-help talk shows that starts this month. His voice gravelly from too many Marlboros and hard-partying nights, Mr. Bonaduce said he agreed to the series because it seemed like fun. Mr. Roeding did not want viewers to have a passive experience. So, as part of the show, viewers will be able to text message Mr. Bonaduce, who will answer questions and give advice. “Are you going to help celebrities?” asked Mr. Roeding as Mr. Bonaduce settled into a chair before taping. The actor’s face and broad shoulders were the color of rare meat. “I have absolutely no interest in helping celebrities,” said Mr. Bonaduce, laughing. “I could go all day without helping celebrities.”

Television
iPhone
Roeding Cyriac
CBS Corp
Cellular Telephones


Rio de Janeiro Makes Its Pitch for the 2016 Olympics

Abstract: RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil made an original and emotional appeal over the weekend for this city to be the first in South America to host an Olympics Games. Officials from the International Olympic Committee ’s evaluation commission raced the mayor of Rio in a sprint, dribbled a soccer ball with Pelé and toured the spectacular beach areas and lakes that Rio says it will showcase to the world if it were to win the bid for the 2016 Games. Questions about crime and transportation had been considered the main concerns with Rio’s $14.4 billion bid. But Nawal el-Moutawakel, an I.O.C. member from Morocco who is the chairwoman of the evaluation commission, said Saturday that she saw no weakness in the bid. “Everything we have seen so far is positive,” she said. The inspectors left saying they were impressed by the commitment of political leaders at all levels to back the bid — including Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. They said that Rio’s hosting of the 2014 World Cup was a “good test event” and a potential advantage over three other cities vying for the 2016 Games: Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo. The seven-day visit was the third for the 13-member evaluation commission, which headed to Madrid on Sunday for the final inspection before the I.O.C. makes its decision, which is scheduled to be announced Oct. 2. As the I.O.C. determines which city will be the most suitable along technical lines, the Rio organizers are promoting the city’s youth, energy and diversity. They say their bid is the only one capable of taking the Olympic tradition in a new direction. Rio 2016 organizers seized on the idea of the city’s being the first on the continent to host the Games. South America is a rapidly growing continent of nearly 400 million people, and Brazil has been among the fastest-growing major economies in the world over the past half-decade. Da Silva compared an Olympics in Rio to the Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara’s tour of South America, depicted in the movie “The Motorcycle Diaries.” “Imagine how many Latin Americans would come here by bicycle, on foot, by riverboat, by bus, by plane, in ways you cannot imagine,” he later told reporters. In Chicago, area natives like Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama, and even Michael Jordan, showed the I.O.C. inspectors their support through videotaped messages. Brazilian officials showed up in Rio in force last week to make personal pledges to the evaluation commission members. Da Silva was joined by his chief of staff, the president of the central bank and a handful of ministers. Da Silva guaranteed that Brazil would provide financial guarantees for the bid, an important pledge considering that the country is starting to feel the effects of the global economic downturn through production slowdowns and unemployment. Still, organizers said they planned to keep average ticket prices for events at $36. Beyond the emotion, Rio’s chances are strong because it hosted the Pan-American Games just two years ago. Da Silva said that between the facilities built for the Pan-American Games and the planned investments for the World Cup, the city would be more than 75 percent prepared for the Olympics. Organizers see the Games as potentially transformative. “We are going to use the power of an Olympic and Paralympic Games to transform a city, a country and a continent,” said Carlos Osório, the secretary general of the Brazilian Olympic bid committee. Moutawakel said the I.O.C. members “were impressed by how the Games fit perfectly in Brazil’s long-term planning and support for the development of the country.” She added, “There is a vision between now and many years yet to come, and these Olympic Games come right in the middle of that global vision.” The inspectors said they were satisfied with the Rio 2016 organizers’ plans to improve traffic flow and to provide enough lodging space. Rio organizers promised at least 49,000 rooms in a combination of hotels, anchored cruise ships and new media housing center. Security remains a paramount concern. The I.O.C. team spent several hours Saturday discussing security with Brazilian officials. Because of time restrictions, they did not make planned visits to favelas, or shantytowns, that ring the city and where drug violence is widespread. Rio is plagued by one of the highest murder rates in the world. The police negotiated temporary cease-fires with drug traffickers to contain violence during the Pan-American Games. “We have been given reassurance that all that can be done will be done to make Rio a safe city to organize the Games,” Moutawakel said. Rio organizers plan to construct a one-million-square-meter park for extreme and adventure sports, and have committed to building an Olympic Training Center for 22 sports, regardless of whether Rio receives the 2016 bid. On Friday, the inspectors toured Rio’s aquatic center and soccer stadium, and rode on Rio’s metro. Moutawakel, who won a gold medal in the 400-meter hurdles at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, raced Mayor Eduardo Paes of Rio in a photo-finish sprint. She later put some soccer moves on Pelé at Rio’s famed Maracanã Stadium, the site of the 1950 World Cup final. “They were like kids in Maracanã,” Pelé later told reporters.

International Olympic Committee
Olympic Games (2016)
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)