In G.M. Turnaround Story, Washington Played a Big Part

Abstract: DETROIT — When executives from General Motors begin pitching its public stock offering to investors this week, they will extol the company’s financial turnaround, its snazzy new car lineup led by the plug-in Chevrolet Volt , and its growing operations in China and other international markets. Absent from the pitch? The extraordinary role that the federal government has played in fixing the nation’s biggest automaker. While the government’s $50 billion bailout last year saved G.M. from liquidation, the Obama administration has taken great pains to distance itself from any appearance of running the company. Even a hint of government meddling, administration officials say, could have a negative effect on the value of the American taxpayers’ stake in a publicly traded company. Yet interviews with G.M. and federal officials show decisions by the government have played a pivotal role in shaping the automaker’s leadership, its business strategies, and now its initial stock offering, which will raise an estimated $10.6 billion at the same time that it reduces the taxpayers’ stake in the company from 61 percent to below 40 percent. People familiar with the contact between G.M. and the Treasury Department say Ron Bloom , a senior adviser to the Treasury secretary Timothy F. Geithner , is told about actions that G.M. management and the board are contemplating before they occur. In April, for example, Edward E. Whitacre Jr. , the chairman of the G.M. board who also served until recently as its chief executive, discussed a number of possible moves at a meeting in Washington with Mr. Geithner and Mr. Bloom, including G.M.’s plan to buy a finance company. Similarly, Mr. Bloom was informed beforehand of Mr. Whitacre’s decision to resign as chief executive and the board’s decision to name Daniel F. Akerson — who was one of the government’s hand-picked directors — to succeed him. Large private investors, like Kirk Kerkorian or Warren E. Buffett, rarely involve themselves in the day-to-day running of companies they hold major stakes in. Instead, they tend to recommend broad strategic parameters and appoint directors to oversee the execution. The Obama administration has taken a similar tack with G.M., the interviews show. To ensure a fresh start for the company, the government chose a new chairman and several new directors for its board, which in turn picked two of its members to serve as successive chiefs of the company. The government also set parameters for G.M.’s strategic direction — fewer brands and models, a leaner organization, and a sweeping overhaul of its plodding corporate culture. And now the government is playing an integral role in the stock sale by deciding how many of its 304 million shares it will sell off and at what price. “The government has not abdicated control, they have exercised it through the board of directors,” said M. P. Narayanan, a finance professor at the University of Michigan. “If you own 60 percent of the company, you set the direction and let your board carry it out.” Publicly, the Treasury Department has taken a hands-off approach to current management at G.M. and says it is eager to sell off its shares as soon as possible. It has been a delicate balancing act; while the government avoids direct involvement in decisions at G.M., it still requires management to keep it informed of any major move. “Demonstrating our discipline on two fronts is integral to protecting the American taxpayer,” said Brian Deese, a member of the president’s auto task force that shepherded G.M. through bankruptcy. “One is letting G.M. make its own decisions and run the business. The other is making good on our commitment to exit as quickly as practicable.” The point man for the Obama administration has been Mr. Bloom, a central member of the auto task force. Since G.M.’s emergence from bankruptcy in July 2009, Mr. Bloom has kept in regular contact with Mr. Whitacre and Mr. Akerson, who succeeded Mr. Whitacre as chief executive in September. Otherwise, the revamped board has carried out much of the agenda that the administration’s task force laid out for G.M. after bankruptcy. With Mr. Whitacre taking the lead role, the board hired a new chief financial officer and replaced a number of longtime G.M. executives with younger people and outside hires. “The government wanted to see new faces in senior management, and the board took care of that,” said David Cole, a founder of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich. Mr. Cole, whose father was once the president of G.M., said the government had “behaved prudently” in allowing the new management team sufficient latitude to make day-to-day business decisions. “It’s certainly easier for the administration to take that point of view given how G.M. has performed,” he said. “They can afford to stay out of the details because the company is making money again and is positioned well in the marketplace.” G.M. was profitable in the first six months of this year, and is expected to report a third-quarter profit as well. The company is also investing in new products, adding jobs, and making moves to cut its debt and fund pension obligations in advance of the stock offering. The Treasury Department has taken a more direct role in influencing the stock sale at G.M. Regarding the size of the offering, Washington has been somewhat at odds with G.M. and the Wall Street underwriters. Whereas G.M. and its bankers wanted the largest offering possible, the Treasury was more interested in getting the best price for the taxpayers’ shares. The government ultimately agreed to sell about one-third of its holdings for a price ranging from $26 to $29 a share after a three-for-one stock split, which it hoped would give the stock room to appreciate in value and bring bigger returns on future divesting. Mr. Whitacre said in August that he hoped the government would sell all of its shares in the offering and remove the “government motors” label for good. But that notion ran counter to the Treasury’s goals, and G.M. abruptly stopped commenting on what the government might do with its shares. Even with a sale of a third of its stock, the government will still be the largest shareholder in G.M. for some time to come, perhaps years.

General Motors
Treasury Department
Initial Public Offerings
Executives and Management
Automobiles
Bloom Ron
Geithner Timothy F
Whitacre Edward E Jr
Akerson Daniel F
Obama Barack


Belgian Liberal Basks in Viral Fame for Scolding Greek Prime Minister

Abstract: While the Greek debt crisis remains unresolved, and the country’s prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, finds himself derided by even members of his own party , at least one European politician clearly seems to be enjoying himself. Guy Verhofstadt, a former prime minister of Belgium who now leads the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, a free-market group in the European Parliament, achieved a measure of viral fame this week, as video of him scolding Mr. Tsipras during a discussion of the crisis on Wednesday was viewed over seven million times on Facebook and YouTube. Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian member of the European Parliament, addressing the Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, on Wednesday. Credit Credit ALDEGroup, via YouTube As the political press in Brussels took notice , Mr. Verhofstadt seemed to suggest that his angry, sarcastic lecture on the floor of the European Parliament had played some role in Greece’s decision to submit a proposal very like the one voters roundly rejected at the start of the week. Although Mr. Tsipras was even-keeled in his response , and the exchange was not quite as testy as those seen in, say, the British House of Commons most weeks, the intensity of the Belgian’s disgust for his Greek colleague revealed a partisan aspect to the debate over fiscal policy that is often overlooked. While it might be no surprise that a supporter of free-market ideologies like Mr. Verhofstadt — who endorsed a centrist party before the last election in Greece — had such a clash with Mr. Tsipras, who leads a “coalition of the radical left,” the Greek leader has found scant support from any of Europe’s larger center-left parties. As the Slovene philosopher Slavoj Zizek argued in The New Statesman this week, while Mr. Tsipras and his Syriza Party are often described in ideological terms as far left, the political orientation of the parties representing Greece’s creditors matters, too, but is less frequently mentioned. Mr. Zizek suggested that this could be seen most clearly in the tension between Greek negotiators and Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the Dutch finance minister, who speaks in the language of an impartial expert but also represents one of Greece’s major creditors : The Greek prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, recently remarked that if he were to meet alone with Angela Merkel for dinner, they would find a formula in two hours. His point was that he and Merkel, the two politicians, would treat the disagreement as a political one, in contrast to technocratic administrators such as the Eurogroup president, Jeroen Dijsselbloem. If there is an emblematic bad guy in this whole story, it is Dijsselbloem, whose motto is: “If I get into the ideological side of things, I won’t achieve anything.” This brings us to the crux of the matter: Tsipras and the former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who resigned on 6 July, talk as if they are part of an open political process where decisions are ultimately “ideological” (based on normative preferences), while the EU technocrats talk as if it is all a matter of detailed regulatory measures. When the Greeks reject this approach and raise more fundamental political issues, they are accused of lying, of avoiding concrete solutions, and so on. It is clear that the truth here is on the Greek side: the denial of “the ideological side” advocated by Dijsselbloem is ideology at its purest. It masks (falsely presents) as purely expert regulatory measures that are effectively grounded in politico-ideological decisions. Mr. Dijsselbloem has become such a hate figure in Greece that his shocked face was featured on the front page of a Greek newspaper as if reacting to the results of the referendum rejecting the deal he reportedly described as “ a take it or leave it offer .” In purely personal terms, it might be unsurprising that the Dutch finance minister showed so little sympathy for Greece at the 11th hour, given that his Greek counterpart, Yanis Varoufakis, publicly undermined his authority after their first meeting five months ago. (Video of that awkward encounter inspired meme after meme on YouTube.) But Pepijn Brandon, a Dutch historian at the University of Pittsburgh, suggested in February on the website Jacobin that social democrats who have embraced centrist fiscal policies, like Mr. Dijsselbloem, were deeply threatened by Mr. Tsipras and his party. “The promise of the Syriza government represents everything that postwar social democracy no longer is, and cannot return to,” Mr. Brandon wrote. “Underlying Dijsselbloem’s career is the perspective that at best, contemporary progressive politics can only be a variant of conservative politics with slightly more scruples.” For that reason, the historian suggested, Mr. Dijsselbloem had an interest in curbing the ambitions of the new Greek government. “It is a precondition for restoring the stability of the EU that he, his party, and economic elites so desire,” Mr. Brandon argued. “But it is as necessary for the continuation of the dreamless, managerial, suit-and-tie progressivism from which he has never strayed.”

Alexis Tsipras
Guy Verhofstadt
Belgium
Greece
Slavoj Zizek
Jeroen Dijsselbloem
Yanis Varoufakis
Euro Crisis
Netherlands


Union Delegates Are Focus of Ticket-Fixing Inquiry

Abstract: When a police officer has a complaint or a question, the first person to hear about it is often a police union delegate. Part fixer and part representative, the delegate is always on call to take complaints about a commander not paying overtime, or from an officer unhappy about a transfer to a midnight tour. And should a relative of a police officer receive a speeding ticket, it was apparently not uncommon for the delegate to get a phone call. “That’s what they told us in the department — you can call your delegate if you need a ticket fixed for your family member,” Officer Julissa Goris, who worked in the Bronx testified in court this month, according to people present in the courtroom. As both a grand jury and the New York Police Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau investigate what appears to be a widespread practice of fixing tickets , the actions of delegates and higher-ups at the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and the Sergeants Benevolent Association are front and center. At the heart of the inquiry is whether the unions sometimes served as a citywide pipeline for ticket-fixing requests. At times, the union hierarchy worked laterally, across precincts and commands. Officer Goris turned to a delegate for help to fix a speeding ticket issued in Queens to her boyfriend’s cousin, according to a wiretap as well as testimony. As many as four union officials might be enlisted in trying to fix a single ticket, as one delegate called others elsewhere in search of a delegate or even a boroughwide trustee who could locate someone who could make the ticket disappear in the command where it was written, union officials and a transcript of a wiretap suggest. Two union officials conceded that ticket fixing has long been a practice in the department. They said, however, that officers were just as likely to turn to former partners or friends in other precincts without involving union officials. And union officials who were asked to fix a ticket may not have done so. “When I was there years ago, I found out that police officers would call us for everything,” said James Savage, a former president of the patrolmen’s association. “They would call us for anything — whether you can do anything for them or not.” Even as the investigation draws attention to an unflattering, and possibly criminal practice, it is also shining a light on the lower ranks of the police unions, and the role those delegates and trustees play within the department. Each precinct has at least one delegate from the patrolmen’s and sergeants’ unions, as well as from the Detectives Endowment Association, and some precincts might have two or three times that many delegates. Slightly higher in the hierarchy are officials known as trustees and financial secretaries in the patrolmen’s union, and directors in the sergeants’ association. There are several hundred lower- and midlevel officials within the police unions. Among their most important roles are representing police officers at departmental hearings, and after shootings. Still much of it is thankless work, especially when there is a contract dispute, and some regret ever running for election. For others, this type of work is in their blood. Ed Mullins, now the head of the sergeants’ association, recalled the various grievances that led him to first run as a delegate with the patrolmen’s association while in his early 20s. Among them was a commander who would leave officers out on patrol an extra 20 minutes each day without paying overtime, he recalled. “They are guys who want to be involved, help out, and stand up when things are wrong,” Mr. Mullins said of the delegates. About half of the two dozen targets of the criminal inquiry into ticket fixing are officials with the police unions, a law enforcement official has said. Mr. Mullins said he knows of one phone paid for by the sergeants’ association that was wiretapped as part of the investigation into ticket fixing. Mr. Mullins said he wondered how much union business the wiretap picked up. “If they’re up on a wiretap, at what point do they not have the right to listen to union activity?” he asked of prosecutors and investigators.

Police
Organized Labor
Patrolmen's Benevolent Assn
Sergeants Benevolent Assn
Detectives Endowment Assn
Police Brutality and Misconduct
Traffic Violations
New York City


Giving a Cellphone, No Strings Attached

Abstract: CHOOSING the right cellphone to give can be difficult, but once that choice is made, there’s another big issue to consider: How to get the discounted price for a phone without committing the gift-getter to a long-term contract. It isn’t easy. Because carriers save their hottest phones for those who agree to a one- or two-year service plan, getting a reasonable price usually means settling for a bare-bones handset with a relatively expensive pay-as-you-go calling plan. The industry just doesn’t seem interested in unencumbered gift purchases. “This is a big reason why we don’t see big spikes in cellphone sales in the fourth quarter like we do in other categories of consumer electronics,” said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at the NPD Group. “Wireless companies are just so focused on the contract.” There are exceptions, though some of them involve patience and a willingness to haggle. Although most prepaid calling plans come with dull entry-level phones that do little more than place and receive calls, some carriers have kicked them up a notch. T-Mobile recently began offering a prepaid starter plan that works with the Sidekick, whose slide-out keyboard, built-in camera, stereo audio, Web browser, instant-messaging and interchangeable color shells are popular with the text-messaging generation. It sells for $250. Similarly, Virgin Mobile has a prepaid package for its Shuttle phone, with a slide-out keypad, video-streaming, location services, a camera and 3G network downloading speed. It also has a prepaid option for its Wild Card, with features similar to the popular LG enV including a clamshell design with a keyboard inside, two color screens, Bluetooth stereo audio and a camera. The Shuttle is $100. The Wild Card is $90. There are also inexpensive options for the friend or family member who needs a device only for text-messaging and sending and receiving e-mail messages. Target, for example, offers the Peek, a thin device with a full keyboard, like a BlackBerry, but no phone. It sells for $100 plus $20 a month for the service, which has no contract and runs over the T-Mobile network. “These are second devices, yes, but they’re good, particularly if you have someone who may not be an advanced consumer,” Mr. Rubin said. “They’re easy to use.” If you are a longtime subscriber to a particular service, you may be able to negotiate a better price for a gift phone than the one the carrier advertises. Verizon Wireless, for example, will sometimes agree to sell a phone at the discounted price and allow a delay before it is activated, said Brenda Raney, a spokeswoman for the company. But there is a catch: If the device is not activated in the allotted time, the full retail price is charged to the purchaser’s credit card, Ms. Raney said. With many other carriers the process is less formal. Mr. Rubin advises gift-givers to ask their carriers directly. “Call the customer-service line, and if the first person you talk to isn’t providing the answer you want, elevate it to the supervisor,” he said. Sometimes you will have even better luck if you make the request in person, at a carrier’s store, he added. Ms. Raney and Mr. Rubin both pointed out that independent dealers, online and on Main Street, may be the best sellers to negotiate with, because they offer phones and plans from multiple carriers and may have more flexibility on the price of the phone. Finally, there’s always the gift card, which can be applied to a new phone and service contract, a prepaid plan or even a phone upgrade if the gift recipient is in the middle of a contract period. “We see a lot of uptick in gift cards,” Ms. Raney said. “They are probably the easiest way to give someone wireless. It allows them to pick the service and phone of their choice.” Of course, if price is not an issue there are plenty of high-end phones on the market that you can buy directly from a retail store or a phone manufacturer. These so-called unlocked phones can be used on different carriers’ networks, both in North America and overseas. The downside is that they can cost upward of $500, and they work only on networks that use a specific technology like GSM. The good news is that this may be one of the last holiday seasons with such limited options for giving cellphones as gifts. Some providers — compelled to support a diverse range of devices on their networks, like the Kindle device from Amazon for electronic books — are getting ready to open their networks to gadgets they do not sell. In fact, Mr. Rubin said, by 2012 the two biggest carriers, Verizon and AT&T, will be running similar high-speed networks that can support the same devices. Perhaps then cellphone gift-giving will be a less harrowing affair.

Gifts
Cellular Telephones
Prices (Fares Fees and Rates)


Rush to Buy New Air Jordan Sneakers Leads to Arrests

Abstract: Oh, the joys of holiday shopping: the eve of Christmas Eve, Air Jordans and the sting of pepper spray in the eye. When retailers around the country put the new retro Nike Air Jordan basketball shoe on sale Friday, they were hoping for a modest last-minute boost two days before Christmas. What they got instead was a surge of shoppers so intent on buying a pair of the $180 shoes that in at least a dozen cities the police had to be summoned, and in a few cases, arrests were made. In Charlotte, N.C., shoppers smashed glass doors to get to the sneakers. In suburban Atlanta, the police made four arrests when a crowd broke down a door to get into a store before it opened. In Richmond, Calif., a man fired a single gunshot in the air just after a mall opened. In Louisville, officers had to stop fights that popped up among a crowd of waiting shoppers. And in a suburb of Seattle, the police used pepper spray. It wasn’t just any sneaker they were after, but the Air Jordan 11 Retro Concord, a version of the shoe Michael Jordan first wore in 1995 and was promptly fined by the National Basketball Association for failing to conform to the league’s dress-code rules. Once the model was made available to the public, it became a big seller, its black-and-white tuxedo design sometimes substituted for dress shoes. Early Friday morning, however, police departments unaware of the shoe’s provenance were caught flat footed. In Tukwila, Wash., south of Seattle, sneaker aficionados started showing up at the Westfield Southcenter Mall before midnight to wait for the shoes to go on sale at 4 a.m. Mall officials had told the authorities that they expected a crowd of no more than 400 and would need only two police officers to help with security. But within a couple of hours, 2,000 people were waiting, rather impatiently, said Mike Murphy, a spokesman for the Tukwila Police Department. Some, he said, were smoking marijuana and drinking. “It was not a nice, orderly group of shoppers,” he said. The city of 19,000 had only nine other officers available, Mr. Murphy said. All were called to the mall. “Clearly that wasn’t enough to control the crowds,” Mr. Murphy said. “Fights started breaking out, so some pepper spray was used to disrupt the fighting. That stopped the fighting, but of course it agitated the crowd.” Twenty-five extra officers from around the area were brought in, and before long things quieted down without serious injury, Mr. Murphy said. The police said people had broken two doors to get inside the mall and that an 18-year-old was arrested for punching a police officer. Another man was told to leave after he displayed what the authorities said were gang signs. Mr. Murphy said that by 6 a.m., the four stores in the mall that had the shoes were sold out — a total of about 1,500 pairs.

Sneakers
Christmas
Police
NIKE Inc
Demonstrations Protests and Riots
Shopping and Retail


Couple Given Home Confinement for Morgan Stanley Insider Trading

Abstract: A former lawyer for Morgan Stanley and her lawyer husband who participated in an insider trading ring on Wall Street were each sentenced yesterday to six months of home confinement. Judge Victor Marrero of United States District Court in Manhattan handed down more lenient sentences than recommended for the couple — Randi Collotta and Christopher K. Collotta, who has a private practice — in view of the husband’s poor health. Mr. Collotta, 34, survived cancer and suffers from several heart problems, the judge said. He also said that this was a case where the defendants were at the “bottom of the food chain,” had not conceived the scheme and profited only to a modest extent. The couple, who live in Bayport, N.Y., pleaded guilty to making $9,000 through an illegal trading scheme. They were among 13 people charged criminally in March with participating in the scheme, which amassed more than $15 million in illegal profits over all, prosecutors said. Randi Collotta, 30, was sentenced to four years of probation, including the six months of home confinement. Her husband was sentenced to three years of probation, including the home confinement.

Morgan Stanley
Insider Trading
Decisions and Verdicts


Stan M. Jay, Seller of Strings to the Stars, Dies at 71

Abstract: Stan M. Jay, owner of the Mandolin Brothers musical instrument store on Staten Island, which has been a pilgrimage destination for recording stars, collectors and other connoisseurs of the guitar, mandolin, banjo and ukulele for more than 40 years, died on Wednesday in Staten Island. He was 71. The cause was Mantle cell lymphoma, his wife, Bea, said. Mr. Jay played a virtuoso behind-the-scenes role in the musical lives of performers such as Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Jimmy Buffett and Paul Simon — not as a performer, but as one of the country’s premier dealers and restorers of new and vintage fretted instruments. The walls of his office at Mandolin Brothers, located in a tiny commercial strip, were papered with snapshots of him with those musicians and others, a collage of a Woodstock that might have been: Bruce Springsteen, Judy Collins, Lenny Kravitz, Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow and Crosby, Stills and Nash, as well as celebrity guitar connoisseurs like Conan O’Brien and the filmmaker Christopher Guest. Joni Mitchell bought an antique mandolin from Mr. Jay in 1976, and composed a tune, “Song for Sharon” , that documented the purchase as provably as any sales slip: “I went to Staten Island, Sharon/To buy myself a mandolin ...” Paul McCartney did not come personally but sent an assistant to have his Hofner 500/1 violin bass repaired. It was one of two Hofners he had played since the Beatles’ early days. The other had been stolen in 1968, so his assistant was apparently under orders to be vigilant. During the two days of repairs, the assistant watched over the work by day, took the guitar back to his hotel overnight and returned with it the next morning. “Never took his eyes off it,” Mrs. Jay recalled. “High-strung fellow.” Mr. McCartney’s testimonial appeared in Bass Player magazine some years later. “My bass never played in tune,” he was quoted as saying, “but I brought it to Mandolin Brothers and they set it straight.” His fellow Beatle, George Harrison, walked into the store unannounced one afternoon in 1990 and went on a 40-minute shopping spree, buying a very expensive ukulele and a bundle of other things, as Mr. Jay remembered it. As his wife recalled, “I was just about to take the kids to see ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,’ ” the movie, “when Stan calls — ‘ George Harrison just walked in, get over here,’ ” she said in an interview on Friday. Someone had to watch the store. “Oh, the kids were so disappointed,” she said. Mr. Jay kept about 900 instruments in his store, which was laid out like a rambling house or a private museum, with room after room hung with instruments and furnished with comfortable couches and chairs for customers to sit in while testing the merchandise. They were high-end pieces by any measure, including vintage guitars by Martin, Guild, Taylor, Fender, Rickenbacker and Gretsch. (“Mandolin Brothers is not here to sell you your first guitar,” Mr. Jay told The Staten Island Advance in 2006. “We’re here to sell you your third guitar.”) He defined a vintage instrument as one produced roughly between 1830 and 1969, using materials currently not available or no longer considered cost-effective, he said in a 2005 interview with Forbes magazine. One example was a Martin acoustic guitar made before 1969, when the company stopped using the Brazilian rosewood that gave it its characteristic clear tone. Another was any mandolin made in the early 20th century by Lloyd Loar , the Stradivari of the mandolin. Mandolin Brothers sold many instruments for sums in the six figures. Stanley Michael Jay was born in Newark on July 29, 1943, to Irving and Clara Jay. His mother was a homemaker. His father, a salesman, discouraged him from becoming a musician, and on his father’s advice he majored in English at Pennsylvania State University. After graduating in 1965, he pursued postgraduate studies in education and English at Wagner College on Staten Island and at Teachers College, Columbia University. While teaching English and giving guitar lessons at the College of Staten Island, he and a friend, Harold Kuffner, started Mandolin Brothers in 1971. Mr. Jay bought his partner’s share in 1983 and ran the company with his wife and two children until illness forced him to stop work several months ago. Mrs. Jay said no decision had been made about the future of the store. Besides his wife he is survived by his children, Eric and Alison Reilly; a sister, Andrea Jay; and two grandchildren. Mr. Jay’s famous customers inevitably featured prominently in the many articles and media profiles produced about him and his store. But famous people were only a tiny fraction of his clientele, he always stressed, and most of the instruments he sold were not collector’s items. Selling an instrument, he once said, was more like arranging an adoption than making a cash transaction. At its best, he said, one’s purchase of an instrument (“the right one,” he liked to say) marked the beginning of a transformational long-term relationship. “If you play music, life somehow takes on a new meaning and a new color,” he told the public radio station WNYC in 2012. “You become expressive in ways you never knew you could be. That is why we’re here.”

Stan M. Jay
Music
Staten Island
Obituary


In a Sour Economy, What Happens to the American Dream?

Abstract: Given the battered economy, increasing joblessness and collapse of the housing market, what is the state of the American dream? Pollsters for The New York Times and CBS News set out last month to try to answer that question. And the results seemed somewhat contradictory. Although the nation has plunged into its deepest recession since the Great Depression , 72 percent of Americans in this nationwide survey said they believed it is possible to start out poor in the United States , work hard and become rich — a classic definition of the American dream. And yet only 44 percent said they had actually achieved the American dream, although 31 percent said they expect to attain it within their lifetime. Only 20 percent have given up on ever reaching it. Those 44 percent might not sound like much, but it is an increase over the 32 percent who said they had achieved the American dream four years ago, when the economy was in much better shape. Compared with four years ago, fewer people now say they are better off than their parents were at their age or that their children will be better off than they are. So even though their economic outlook is worse, more people are saying they have either achieved the dream or expect to do so. What gives? We asked Barry Glassner, who is a professor of sociology at the University of Southern California and studies contemporary culture and beliefs. “You want to hold on to your dream even more when times are hard,” he said. “And if you want to hold on to it, then you better define it differently.” In other words, people are shifting their definition of the American dream. And the poll — conducted on April 1 to 5 with 998 adults, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points— indicated just that. The Times and CBS News asked this same open-ended question four years ago and again last month: “What does the phrase ‘The American dream’ mean to you?” Four years ago, 19 percent of those surveyed supplied answers that related to financial security and a steady job, and 20 percent gave answers that related to freedom and opportunity. Now, fewer people are pegging their dream to material success and more are pegging it to abstract values. Those citing financial security dropped to 11 percent, and those citing freedom and opportunity expanded to 27 percent. Here’s some respondents’ answers that were put in the category of freedom and opportunity: “Freedom to live our own life.” “Created equal.” “Someone could start from nothing.” “That everybody has a fair chance to succeed.” “To become whatever I want to be.” “To be healthy and have nice family and friends.” “More like Huck Finn; escape to the unknown; follow your dreams.” Those who responded in material terms were hardly lavish. Here’s a sampling: “Basically, have a roof over your head and put food on the table.” “Working at a secure job, being able to have a home and live as happily as you can not spending too much money.” “Just financial stability.” “Owning own home, having civil liberties.” Mr. Glassner said, “For the vast majority of Americans at every point in history, the prospect of achieving the American dream has been slim but the promise has been huge.” “At its core, this notion that anyone can be president or anyone can be a billionaire is absurd,” he said. “A lot of Americans work hard, but they don’t become president and they don’t become billionaires.” Still, he said, Americans have always believed in possibilities. And they have consistently said over time that they can start poor in this country and become rich, regardless of the economy or their circumstances. The 72 percent who feel that way today is down from the 81 percent who felt that way in 2007, but 72 percent is still a very high percentage, especially given the downward economy. “It would be hard to find another country where it’s as high,” Mr. Glassner said. The percentage of people who say the American dream does not exist or is only an illusion has remained low — 3 percent today and 2 percent four years ago. As one such person put it to our pollsters last month: “A bunch of hooey.” By the way, the phrase “the American dream” is generally agreed to have been coined first in 1931, in the midst of the Depression. In his book, “The Epic of America,” the historian James Truslow Adams wrote, “It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain the fullest stature of which they are innately capable.”

Polls
US Economy
Recession and Depression
Social Trends


Mali: French Embassy Is Attacked

Abstract: A man hurled a homemade bomb and fired several times at the French Embassy in Mali late Wednesday in an attack that wounded two Malian citizens. The blast caused only minor damage to an outer gate. A French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman in Paris said the motive behind the explosion in Bamako, the capital, was not clear. A police officer said that the explosive was a small gas cylinder and that the attacker had been detained..

Diplomatic Service Embassies and Consulates


In Democratic Stronghold, a Republican Fights Back

Abstract: EL PASO — A San Antonio native and former C.I.A. agent is trying to break through in the only region in this Republican state where congressional Democrats hold a steady grip: Texas’ border with Mexico. But predicting whether Will Hurd, who lost a Republican primary bid for the same seat four years ago, will prevail against United States Representative Pete Gallego, Democrat of Alpine, is as tasking as guessing where someone in this sprawling tossup district resides. The 23rd Congressional District includes almost 25 percent of the Lone Star State’s land, all or a part of 29 counties, two time zones, about 800 miles of border and two major population centers: El Paso and Bexar Counties. It is also a seat that has changed hands twice in two general election contests, and it is one of only nine congressional districts in which voters favored Mitt Romney over President Obama in 2012 but elected a Democrat to Congress. “I learned long ago you run unopposed or you run scared,” said Mr. Gallego, 52, who is in his first term in Congress after serving 11 terms in the Texas House. He added, “By the nature of the district, it is a competitive race.” A campaign spokesman for Mr. Hurd, 36, said that the candidate was not available for an interview. Mr. Hurd has said that the district is tired of career politicians and that the House could benefit from his credentials. “There is nobody in the 435 members with my experience in intelligence and national security,” Mr. Hurd told The Big Bend Sentinel in May. Mr. Hurd lost the 2010 primary election to Francisco “Quico” Canseco, who then defeated United States Representative Ciro Rodriguez, a Democrat, by about five percentage points. Mr. Canseco lost to Mr. Gallego in the 2012 general election by a similar margin. In a rematch, Mr. Hurd upended Mr. Canseco in the May runoff. Colin Strother, a Democratic strategist who worked for United States Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Laredo, in the district before its boundaries were redrawn, said that Mr. Hurd’s positions align with Tea Party values. Though that could be a benefit for Republicans in most of the state, it would work against Mr. Hurd in his congressional bid, Mr. Strother said. He cited Mr. Gallego’s membership in the Blue Dog Coalition, which bills itself as representing the center of the United States House. Image Pete Gallego is the Democratic congressman from Texas’ 23rd District. Credit Jennifer Whitney for The Texas Tribune “Pete has been very supportive of pro-economic policies, the oil and gas industry in particular, which provides a lot of jobs in that district,” he said. “The current political environment with the current anti-Hispanic, anti-immigrant — be they legal or undocumented — rhetoric from the Republican Party, combined with who the Tea Party chose to face him, is really advantageous for Pete.” Mr. Hurd, according to his campaign website, does not stray far on similar issues, however. He also supports “decreasing the regulatory burdens facing those creating and expanding businesses” and “protecting our economic future by balancing our budget and simplifying our tax code.” Matt Mackowiak, a Republican strategist who worked as a press secretary for Kay Bailey Hutchison, a former United States senator, said what Mr. Hurd had in his corner was the lack of faith voters have in their elected officials in Washington. “Gallego is an incumbent, and being an incumbent at this time when congressional approval ratings are so low in a district like this, it’s a dangerous place to be in,” he said. Mr. Strother said the state Republican Party’s newly adopted platform could hurt Mr. Hurd in the border district, though Mr. Strother added it might not be easy for Democrats to directly tie Mr. Hurd to it. That platform favors eliminating in-state tuition rates for undocumented immigrants and banning so-called sanctuary cities, local governments that prevent local law enforcement from enforcing federal immigration laws. It also eliminated a call for a national guest worker program. Mr. Mackowiak said labeling every Republican as an extremist is an easy plot for Democrats seeking to persuade Hispanics to vote for a Democrat. Mr. Hurd “probably had no role in how the platform was developed. It was developed by activists,” Mr. Mackowiak said. “I think there is a little bit of an oversimplification in that Republicans are going back to Tea Party and hard-line.” Although the platform is nonbinding, Mr. Gallego said that he believed district voters may expect Mr. Hurd to distance himself from his Republican colleagues who supported the immigration plank. Image Will Hurd, a Republican, hopes to defeat Mr. Gallego in November. Credit Bob Daemmrich for The Texas Tribune “That platform is a statement of principles that its candidates are expected to abide by,” he said. “I think it becomes incumbent upon a candidate to essentially disavow some of the things that are in that party platform. Otherwise I think the assumption is that you are a true believer.” On his site, Mr. Hurd talks about “making border security, countering drug traffickers and fighting cyber criminals a national intelligence priority.” Mr. Mackowiak said a party platform could be “a headache” but added that it has never decided a race. Instead, Mr. Hurd’s success could hinge on how successful he is in reaching out to potential voters. “The question is going to be: Are the Republicans going to come in for Hurd?” Mr. Mackowiak said. “He’s less well-known and wasn’t expected to win his primary. It’s going to take some time to reintroduce himself.” But he starts with a clean slate, Mr. Mackowiak added, instead of having to change minds, as Mr. Canseco would have had to after losing the last election. Another issue is that Mr. Gallego can use his Hispanic heritage in the border district as an advantage. Republicans have made a concerted effort to attract Hispanics, who have traditionally voted for Democrats, and convince them that the Republican Party’s positions on abortion and taxes are in step with their own beliefs. The district is about 69 percent Hispanic, according to the Texas Legislative Council’s 2012 data . “I am sure he’s going to do a number of ‘wink, wink, he’s not Hispanic’ efforts, but we’ll see how that plays out,” Mr. Mackowiak said, adding that Mr. Hurd can win those independent voters over with some effort. “If you get to meet Will, you see he’s an impressive young guy, he’s got good experience, he’s very genuine, he wants to listen.” Mr. Gallego said he does not know how that will play into his strategy, if at all. But he joked that there was nothing he could do about his ethnicity. “The fact that I am Latino is not a secret. There’s not much I can do about that,” he said. “It is what it is. I think people know that my last name ends in a vowel. What can I tell you?”

San Antonio
Texas
Will Hurd
Pete Gallego
US Politics


British Agency Is Cleared of Illegal Data Gathering

Abstract: LONDON — A parliamentary committee on Wednesday cleared Britain’s electronic intelligence-gathering agency of working with its American counterparts to bypass laws governing the collection of data about its citizens, but said new legislation might be needed to police electronic surveillance. The report concluded that allegations that the agency, the Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ, “acted illegally by accessing communications content” from the enormous American surveillance program known as Prism were “unfounded.” The accusations followed the release of classified information by the American Edward J. Snowden, a former intelligence contractor. But the report also called for further scrutiny of the laws under which Britain’s intelligence services operate because “in some areas the legislation is expressed in general terms.” That means that the British agency’s work is guided by its own internal procedures when it comes to trying to comply with the country’s human rights law. “The purpose of our inquiry has been: Did they break the law or attempt to break the law, is there any evidence that they did?” Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee and a former foreign and defense secretary in previous Conservative governments, told reporters. “For the reasons we specify here our answer is: Unreservedly, unanimously, no, they did not.” The committee found that each Government Communications Headquarters request for information from Prism, which collects data from Internet companies, was accompanied by the requisite warrant for interception signed by a minister. But privacy advocates complained that the committee looked at only one agency and did not investigate whether data was transferred from the United States without specific requests from other agencies. “Any other questions, including, ‘What about when you don’t ask for it but somebody volunteers it’ — that is a wider issue that is not relating to the accusations that were put against GCHQ,” Mr. Rifkind said, adding, “We will come to a view what wider issues deserve to be looked at in regard to the legal framework under which the intelligence agencies operate.” Reports about the scale of electronic surveillance have caused widespread dismay in Europe, particularly in Germany, where privacy issues are acutely sensitive. The European Parliament has announced plans for an inquiry into programs run by the National Security Agency and by European governments, though the GCHQ is unlikely to cooperate with it to the extent that it did with the parliamentary committee. Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, a civil liberties advocacy group, criticized the committee’s findings and its decision not to investigate allegations made about a British program, Tempora, under which the GCHQ taps fiber-optic cables carrying Internet traffic in and out of Britain and containing details of millions of e-mails and Web searches. “The painfully careful words of the I.S.C’s report clean absolutely nothing up,” Ms. Chakrabarti said in a statement. “There’s nothing to allay fears that industrial amounts of personal data are being shared under the Intelligence Services Act, and concerns that all U.K. citizens are subject to blanket surveillance under GCHQ’s Tempora program aren’t even mentioned. This spin-cycle is marked “whitewash.’ ” Foreign Secretary William Hague also issued a statement, this one welcoming the committee’s findings. “I see daily evidence of the integrity and high standards of the men and women of GCHQ,” he said. “The I.S.C.’s findings are further testament to their professionalism and values.”

Great Britain
Government Surveillance
NSA


Australia Seeks Doctor’s Arrest for Operations

Abstract: JAKARTA, Indonesia, Nov. 22 — A court in Australia issued warrants on Wednesday for the arrest of an American surgeon, charging him with three counts of manslaughter and five counts of inflicting grievous bodily harm, the chief prosecutor in the case announced. The warrants are the first to establish a criminal case against the doctor, Jayant Patel, whose case attracted international attention during an investigation by a high-level commission last year. The commission found him guilty of widespread negligence — including performing unnecessary operations or those for which he was not qualified — and of removing healthy organs, while working at a hospital in Bundaberg, Queensland, from 2003 to 2005. The warrants also raise the issue of whether Australia can secure Dr. Patel’s return. When the accusations became public in April 2005, Dr. Patel, who was born in India but is an American citizen, fled to his home in Oregon, where he had practiced medicine before moving to Australia. He had also worked as an assistant professor of surgery at the State University of New York at Buffalo. “Extradition can be a long and complicated process,” the chief Queensland prosecutor, Leanne Clare, said in a statement late Wednesday. Dr. Patel could not be reached for comment. The Oregonian reported that no one answered at his house when a reporter knocked on the door on Tuesday. His previous lawyer, Stephen Houze, has said that he no longer represents Dr. Patel; it is not known whether he has a new lawyer. An anesthesiologist who worked with Dr. Patel in Australia was so appalled by what he observed that he started describing him as “Dr. Death,” an appellation that has appeared regularly in news accounts and given the case notoriety beyond Queensland and Australia. Dr. Patel has also been charged with several counts of fraud, the nation’s largest newspaper, The Australian, reported. When Dr. Patel applied for the job at Bundaberg, he did not mention that he had been disciplined by medical authorities in New York and Oregon. These disciplinary actions were discovered in Australia only after a reporter ran a Google search under the name “Jayant Patel” in 2005.

Australia
Doctors
Suits and Litigation
Medicine and Health


Two Plays at Plate Doom Mets’ Rally Against Marlins

Abstract: MIAMI — The Mets had the tying run on third with one out in the top of the ninth when Chris Young lifted a high fly ball to left field. Marcell Ozuna drifted back, about 10 yards behind where he thought the ball would land, as if he were winding himself up, and then ran forward, building momentum. The inning before, Ozuna had gunned down David Wright at home plate. This time, in one smooth motion, Ozuna caught the ball and fired a high-arcing throw toward home. Kirk Nieuwenhuis had broken into a sprint, and as he slid toward the plate, Miami catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia caught the ball and swiped his glove across Nieuwenhuis’s body. The Marlins poured onto the field to celebrate. The Mets had lost, 3-2 , and they left the field angry and confused over baseball’s new home-plate collision rule. Sandy Alderson, the Mets’ general manager and the chairman of Major League Baseball’s rules committee, could be heard raising his voice in the clubhouse. Within a few minutes, Alderson had composed himself enough to speak with reporters. He pointed out that Major League Baseball and the players union — not the rules committee — had negotiated the home-plate collision rule as it was currently written. He said he would contact the league “just to make sure that we all understand what the rule is and how it’s going to be applied.” “Beyond that,” he said, “I can’t really comment on the plays tonight because it would compromise my leaguewide position as chairman of the playing rules committee. “I do have a couple of thoughts, as general manager of the Mets, that I can’t really share,” he said with a laugh. Nieuwenhuis stood at his locker, shaking his head. By rule, the catcher cannot block the plate if he does not have the ball. Saltalamacchia had given him “just this much of the corner,” he said, holding his thumb and index finger an inch apart. “It’s really hard with this new rule,” Nieuwenhuis said. “There’s just so much gray area. We’re getting used to it, and other players are getting used to it. It’s tough. It really makes it confusing.” Wright seemed equally confused. In the eighth, with the Mets trailing by 3-1 with one out and the bases loaded, Eric Campbell singled to left field. One run scored easily, and Wright, who started the play on second, was sent home by the team’s third-base coach, Tim Teufel. Ozuna fielded the ball cleanly, and his throw reached Saltalamacchia several feet ahead of Wright. It appeared that, no matter what the rule was, Wright would have been out. Still, that play, like the one involving Nieuwenhuis, was reviewed; both were upheld. Mets Manager Terry Collins said he was upset that the rule could be interpreted differently depending on the umpire and that he did not receive a proper explanation. “The umpires are as confused as anybody,” he said. Of the Mets’ 41 losses, this one seemed particularly heartbreaking. They had fought their way back, after chasing Henderson Alvarez, who pitched six and a third scoreless innings. They had rallied against the Marlins’ bullpen and had survived one Ozuna throw to create a chance to tie the score in the ninth. “He made two perfect throws,” Wright said.

Mets
David Wright
Kirk Nieuwenhuis
Jarrod Saltalamacchia
Baseball
Miami Marlins


Computer With Personal Data Is Stolen From V.A.

Abstract: A computer with sensitive information, including the Social Security numbers and the names of 1600 military veterans in the New York area, was stolen from a Department of Veterans Affairs facility in Manhattan, a department spokeswoman said yesterday. The theft, which was first noticed by the hospital staff on Sept. 6, came to light in late October after a letter was sent to veterans whose information was stolen. The spokeswoman, Lisette Mondello, said the stolen computer was used to record results from a particular pulmonary testing device, and did not contain medical records. The computer was stored in a locked room on the New York campus of the Veterans Affairs New York Harbor Healthcare System on 23rd Street. The Veterans Affairs police, the F.B.I. and the inspector general’s office are investigating the theft. Additional cameras were installed at the facility after the theft, according to the letter. The Veterans Affairs office is offering free credit monitoring service to those who have been affected. This is the second case this year involving a stolen Veterans Affairs department computer. In May, a laptop computer with the records of 17.5 million active and retired military personnel was stolen from an agency employee’s home in suburban Maryland. The computer was recovered in June, apparently with its data untouched. Representative Carolyn Maloney, who represents some of the veterans whose data was stolen in the latest case, criticized the agency. “When is the V.A. finally going to get serious about protecting veterans’ personal data?” she said in a statement.

Veterans
Veterans Affairs Department
Computers and the Internet


A Quick Point Guard’s Unconventional Path to UConn

Abstract: Lorenza Jefferson was listening to a Christian radio station in the late 1990s when the hosts began talking about home schooling. He had never heard of the concept, but it intrigued him. He and his wife, Robin, were raising toddlers at the time and were concerned about the elementary school near their house in Texas. After doing some research, they decided to home-school their four children. Robin taught them and Lorenza worked at Federal Express. The Jeffersons said the arrangement worked out well, particularly for their youngest daughter, Moriah, the starting point guard on Connecticut’s women’s basketball team. “I’m so glad I was home-schooled,” Moriah Jefferson said. “I loved it. It gave me a good competitive edge.” At 5-foot-7, the skinny and well-mannered Jefferson does not look like a typical star athlete. Still, she is one of the nation’s quickest players and one of the most valuable members on a team filled with former high school all-Americans. A junior, she averages 12.3 points a game, leads UConn with 4.9 assists and 2.5 steals a game and shoots 59.5 percent from the floor and 50.5 percent on 3-pointers. She was named a second-team Associated Press all-American this week. Image Jefferson averages 12.3 points a game and shoots 59.5 percent from the floor. Credit Mike Groll/Associated Press On Sunday, Jefferson will compete in her third Final Four when the top-ranked Huskies (36-1) face Maryland (34-2). The winner will play Notre Dame (35-2) or South Carolina (34-2) in Tuesday night’s final. With two more victories, UConn will have three consecutive N.C.A.A. tournament titles and 10 over all. The success is nothing new for Jefferson. In high school, she won four national home-school championships while playing on the Texas Home Educators’ Sports Association Riders , a team featuring girls who were home-schooled and lived near Dallas. Her mother was an assistant on Coach Alan Burt’s staff. The Riders played about 50 games a year, twice as many as high school teams, and they competed against many of the top public and private teams in the area. Thousands of fans watched them in the national home-school tournament in Missouri. Numerous home-school students have received Division I scholarships, including the former Tennessee guard Taber Spani and the North Carolina guard Justin Jackson. “We were approached all the time about putting Moriah in school,” Lorenza Jefferson said. “But we thought it was best that we continue doing what we were doing. I honestly think that it worked out best for her because it allowed her to do a lot of things that she would not have been able to do if she had been in school.” Robin Jefferson usually taught her daughter subjects two years ahead of her grade level. Moriah also took courses at Cedar Valley College, a community college in Lancaster, Tex., and she took educational trips with her mother and her three siblings, Danielle, Joshua and Jeremiah. Jeremiah is a freshman guard at Weber State in Ogden, Utah. The Jeffersons were active in sports leagues, and they hung around with their neighbors and a group of home-schooled children from the Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, a nondenominational Christian church. “I was always around a lot of people,” Moriah Jefferson said. “I was never secluded in my house. I was going to different events with different kids.” The flexibility of a home-school schedule allowed Jefferson to work on her basketball skills. She trained for a few hours most days and even dribbled while watching television, making sure to keep her eyes on the screen instead of on the ball. Lorenza Jefferson recorded all of his daughter’s games, and he and Moriah watched the videos to understand how teams defended her and how she could get her teammates more involved. Image Jefferson and Coach Geno Auriemma will go for their third consecutive N.C.A.A. championship. Credit Mike Groll/Associated Press “It’s one thing to tell a kid you’re shooting the ball this way or you’re doing this,” Lorenza Jefferson said. “It’s another when they see it because you can’t deny it.” He added: “It’s not about what you can do. You’re trying to make the team better. A good point guard makes her whole team better because you learn their strengths and weaknesses and you play to their strengths.” Jefferson used the film sessions to become smart and unselfish on the court, attributes that helped her as she played with other stars. Her church team in elementary school included the current college players Jordan Jones (Texas A&M), Empress Davenport (Texas) and Diamond Lockhart (Wichita State). When they got older, they joined the D.F.W. Elite squad that won the prestigious Nike national tournament in 2011 and featured players who are now at Texas A&M, Baylor, Notre Dame and other major programs. “It was Mo’s team,” Daryl Horton, the D.F.W. Elite coach, said. “Even though I had a lot of great players on that team, she was definitely the leader.” Jefferson, who was the first player from Texas signed by Coach Geno Auriemma in his 30 years at UConn, has developed into a leader with the Huskies, as well. As a freshman she came off the bench and struggled adjusting to the college game. The past two years she has started every game, been more assertive and confident, and has emerged as a reliable outside shooter and defensive stopper. Jefferson traveled to Connecticut for the first time in September 2010 when she watched the United States women’s national basketball team play Australia in an exhibition game in Hartford. That weekend she toured the campus and met the former UConn stars Diana Taurasi and Maya Moore. Now, Jefferson and her teammates in the Huskies’ junior class could become the most successful group in the sport’s history. They have two national titles and will be favored to win this year’s and next year’s N.C.A.A. tournament. No women’s college basketball team has won four consecutive championships. For Jefferson, moving 1,700 miles from home could not have worked out better. “I never thought I was going to leave Texas,” she said. “It wasn’t one of my top schools for the longest time until I actually came up here and visited. After I took that first visit, I always knew this was the place.”

Moriah Jefferson
College basketball
Homeschooling
University of Connecticut
NCAA Women's Basketball


A Live Action Comic Book Brings Zygon to Life

Abstract: AUSTIN — The touring show “The Intergalactic Nemesis” is an adventure story featuring robots, aliens, time travel and magical powers. But its special effects take place exclusively in the audience’s mind, created through an alchemy of old media and imagination. “Twin Infinity,” the third book in the trilogy, premiered Friday night at Austin’s Long Center for the Performing Arts. The first book, “Target Earth,” will play in Houston on Sept. 30. An homage to the pulp fiction of the 1930s and ’40s, “Intergalactic” follows a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, her wide-eyed assistant and her time-traveling love interest in their quest to save the Earth from sludge monsters from the planet Zygon. Originally a serialized radio play performed in an Austin coffee shop, the show now tours as a “live action graphic novel.” In the last four years, the first two books in the “Intergalactic” trilogy have been staged before more than 70,000 people at more than 100 venues worldwide, including the Kennedy Center in Washington and the New Victory Theater Off Broadway. The producer and director, Jason Neulander, 44, describes the show as a radio play that replaces the narration with visual images, or a comic book that replaces the dialogue balloons with live actors. Three actors voice all the characters, each performing up to 15 roles in a single show. Next to them, on stage, a sound effects artist creates live effects with props, and a pianist plays an original score by Graham Reynolds of Austin, who composed the soundtracks for Richard Linklater’s “Before Midnight” and “Bernie.” Behind them, comic book panels projected onto a giant screen set the scene. “I think we like the fact that all of the individual elements are a little archaic,” said Buzz Moran, 44, the show’s sound effects designer since 1996. “All of these simple elements together turn into something complex and different.” The first iteration was a 1996 collaboration between Mr. Neulander and his friend Ray Colgan, who wanted to stage a science fiction radio play at the now closed Little City Espresso Bar & Cafe, where he worked. The two outlined a story and assigned writers to flesh out specific episodes. Over five breakneck weeks that summer, 10 episodes were staged. Each was written, cast and rehearsed over a few days and included Mr. Moran’s sound effects, created using household objects from a friend’s kitchen. That story “didn’t necessarily flow since you were trying to stump the next writer with a crazy, weird cliffhanger,” Mr. Colgan said. “We weren’t setting out to do a really well thought-out, well-written radio play. It was more about this experimental process using all these familiar character types and plots.” Mr. Neulander and Mr. Moran condensed the sprawling script into a single night’s performance in 2000. They mounted several iterations of this live radio play before Mr. Neulander thought to add comic book artwork. Immediately, he and Mr. Moran said, audiences responded because they could follow the plot more easily. “Part of me is a little sad that people can’t just close their eyes” and imagine the story without the slides, Mr. Colgan said. “But we’re a visual culture, and I can’t deny that it’s way more popular.” Adding the slides meant revising the script, since the images set the scene and eliminated the need for a narrator. The pictures also enhanced the sound effects, said Chad Nichols, who collaborated with Mr. Neulander and Mr. Colgan on the original “Twin Infinity” script and worked with Mr. Neulander on later revisions. In the radio drama version, he said, “You would have to announce that you were going into a tunnel, because you didn’t have a picture of a tunnel.” The sound effects artist would change the timbre of the characters’ footsteps, but such a cue was lost on the audience unless accompanied by dialogue that described the setting. “It was really freeing to be able to do the graphic novel version,” Mr. Nichols said, because the characters could talk about their actions and emotions instead. Mr. Moran still uses household objects and children’s toys to create many of the sound effects, which are as much a part of the show as the dialogue and images. A perennial audience favorite is the sound of a chugging train, created by blowing on a toy train whistle and rhythmically shaking a box of macaroni and cheese turned on its side. Mr. Neulander, who produced earlier versions of “Intergalactic” at the Salvage Vanguard Theater, the Austin company he helped to start and ran for 14 years, has devoted himself to the “Intergalactic” world full time since 2008 (even his personalized license plate and email address reference the planet Zygon). He is now expanding the story into new media with a podcast, digital comic books and a web series developed in partnership with the Austin PBS affiliate KLRU. The web series, which assembles footage of the actors, the pianist, the sound effects artist and the comic panels into a single screen, comes closest to replicating the cinematic experience of a live show. Chris Gibson, an actor who has performed in “Intergalactic” since 2007, said that after shows children often compliment the actors on their “movie.” “Clearly something is happening in audiences’ brains to pull it all together and to create something more than the individual parts,” Mr. Gibson said.

Austin
Graphic novel
Theater
Comic strip
Texas Monthly


Buddha Provides Tap Shoes

Abstract: Dear Diary: When they were younger, my Upper West Side granddaughters bugged their parents for tap shoes, although the subject of lessons was never mentioned. On frequent visits to Manhattan, I take the opportunity to do tai chi each morning in Riverside Park. On the walk back to their apartment I always pass the little Japanese Buddhist temple on Riverside Drive between West 105th and 106th, which has a giant bronze statue of a Buddhist saint out front. One morning as I passed it, I noticed an open shipping carton on the sidewalk, sitting by the recyclables waiting to be picked up. It was the pink color peeking out that caught my eye. Digging through the packing paper I came upon two shoe boxes containing brand new pairs of women’s tap shoes in sizes 4 and 6. Standing up, I looked around but there was no one within a block except for the bronze saint. He said nothing so I tucked the boxes under my arm and headed to the apartment building. As I dramatically told the girls the story of my discovery, I removed the shoes from their boxes. With delight, and perhaps to their parents’ horror, they put the shoes on and tapped around on the apartment’s wood floors. I can report that there were still no tap lessons mentioned.

Shoes
Recycling
Riverside Park Manhattan
Buddhism


Brewers Top Pirates to Trim Gap in Race

Abstract: Elian Herrera sprinted home on Logan Schafer’s sacrifice fly in the ninth inning as the Milwaukee Brewers edged the visiting Pittsburgh Pirates, 1-0, on Saturday night to gain ground in the race for the second National League wild-card spot. The Brewers, who have been pushed closer to elimination after leading the N.L. Central for most of the season, overcame the ejection of starter Matt Garza and moved three and a half games behind the Pirates. TIGERS 3, ROYALS 2 Joe Nathan escaped a ninth-inning jam to hold off host Kansas City and widen Detroit’s lead in the American League Central to two and a half games over the Royals. Kansas City still leads Seattle, which lost to Houston, by half a game for the A.L.’s second wild-card spot. PADRES 3, GIANTS 2 Andrew Cashner pitched into the ninth inning, and San Diego beat visiting San Francisco to keep the Giants from gaining ground on the N.L. West-leading Dodgers, who also lost Saturday. The Dodgers remain ahead by three and a half games. CARDINALS 8, REDS 4 Tony Cruz hit a three-run homer as host St. Louis topped Cincinnati and moved closer to its fourth straight playoff berth. The Cardinals cut their magic number to one for clinching a postseason spot. INDIANS 7, TWINS 3 Yan Gomes homered and drove in four runs to help Cleveland advance in the A.L. wild-card race by beating host Minnesota. The Indians are three and a half games out of the second wild-card spot. ASTROS 10, MARINERS 1 Chris Carter and Alex Presley each hit a two-run homer as host Houston routed Seattle. The Mariners stayed one game behind the A.L. wild-card leader, Oakland. ORIOLES 7, RED SOX 2 Adam Jones hit two two-run homers in Baltimore’s victory over visiting Boston. NATIONALS 3, MARLINS 2 Ryan Zimmerman had two hits, including a run-scoring triple, in his return to the lineup from injury, and Washington beat host Miami. CUBS 8, DODGERS 7 Chris Coghlan hit two home runs, including a go-ahead two-run drive in the eighth inning, and Chicago rallied to edge visiting Los Angeles. The Dodgers clinched a playoff spot Friday. PHILLIES 3, ATHLETICS 0 Jerome Williams beat the Athletics for the third time this season, each win coming with a different team, and Oakland missed a chance to extend its lead in the A.L. wild-card race with a home loss to Philadelphia. The A’s remained a half-game ahead of Kansas City for the top wild-card spot. RAYS 3, WHITE SOX 1 Nick Franklin hit his first home run with Tampa Bay, and the Rays defeated visiting Chicago. ROCKIES 5, DIAMONDBACKS 1 Eddie Butler pitched six solid innings for his first major league win as host Colorado defeated Arizona.

Brewers
Pittsburgh Pirates
American League
Baseball
Kansas City Royals
Detroit Tigers


A Deal Spares a Brooklyn Library, for Now

Abstract: The 109-year-old Beaux-Arts library near the Barclays Center has been given a reprieve. The Brooklyn Public Library had been planning to sell its Pacific branch on Fourth Avenue at Pacific Street to a private developer in order to raise money toward the $300 million needed for repairs and long-delayed maintenance of its branches, now numbering 60. But officials said late on Monday that the Pacific branch would be spared from sale and demolition, at least for the near future, as part of a deal to win City Council approval for a 32-story residential and cultural tower opposite the Brooklyn Academy of Music that will contain a new library. “It has become clear that the neighborhood highly values that branch and its historic building,” Jeremy Soffin, a spokesman for the Brooklyn Public Library, said in a statement. “B.P.L. is committed to working with elected officials and community stakeholders to develop an appropriate plan for the Pacific Street building through an open community process. The plan will acknowledge the needs of the library and the community. This plan could include maintaining some or all of the Pacific Street building and continuing to provide library service and programming for children in the community.” The branch is leaky, overcrowded, poorly air-conditioned and honeycombed with small office spaces librarians no longer use, officials say. In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Soffin said that the library system could not rule out selling the branch one day and allowing a builder to tear it down. But the understanding with the Council assures greater input from the community and the possibility that the facade, if not the entire building, could be retained in any future project. The building could be used as a library or other communal use, but its mission will depend on discussions with the affected neighborhoods. Critics like Howard Kolins, president of the Boerum Hill Association, objected to the plan to close the branch because it would require many families to walk farther and cross Flatbush Avenue, which has heavy traffic. There is also deep affection for the quaint building, which was the first library in Brooklyn financed by Andrew Carnegie, who eventually built 1,689 across the United States. Image The life of the Pacific branch of the Brooklyn Public Library has been extended. Credit Uli Seit for The New York Times Peter L. Bray, a trustee of the Park Slope Civic Council, which has advocated for the survival of the Pacific branch, said “celebration is premature” because there were still concerns that the library planned in the residential tower would not be a genuine neighborhood branch, but rather a regional library to be used for functions like storing the Brooklyn Academy of Music archives “We really need to know more about the deal that was reached and how firm the commitment was regarding keeping the library functioning for a long period of time,” Mr. Bray said. “The devil is always in the details.” Unlike for the Pacific branch’s supporters, there was no encouraging news for residents of Brooklyn Heights who have been fighting to retain a 52-year-old limestone branch on Cadman Plaza. The Brooklyn system wants to sell the building to a private developer who would be required to include a library in any residential tower that is erected there. Mr. Soffin said the library system still intended to pursue those plans. Michael D. D. White, a co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries , which had fought to save both branches, said he feared that the Brooklyn library system was rushing to complete a contract for the sale of the branch in the months remaining in the Bloomberg administration. “We think these things should be postponed until we have a new administration thinking differently,” he said. Government-financed agencies like the library system and the city’s Education Department have been looking at aging buildings in highly desirable neighborhoods and considering selling them to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in a weak economy. The reprieve for the Pacific library came as the Council voted to approve zoning and other changes needed to build a 32-story tower in Fort Greene a few blocks from the branch. Councilwoman Letitia James, whose district includes the tower site, insisted on maintaining the branch as part of any deal for the tower. Ms. James said the agreement provided that the Council would have to approve any disposition of the building, including a sale. The new building would include a 16,500-square-foot library, movie theaters, retailing and restaurant space and a public plaza. Sixty of the 300 apartments would have to be affordable to families making roughly $40,000 to $80,000, Ms. James said.

Library
Brooklyn Public Library
Fort Greene Brooklyn
Urban Planning
Historic preservation
NYC


Back in Pakistan, Sharif Condemns Musharraf

Abstract: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan , Nov. 26 — As prime minister in the 1990s, Nawaz Sharif was a religiously conservative, nationalist leader who allowed the Taliban to flourish in Afghanistan and detonated a nuclear weapon despite an American plea not to. Now Mr. Sharif is back in Pakistan after an eight-year absence, promoted by Saudi Arabia but seen by the Bush administration as a wild card who could complicate its support for the president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf . Pakistan’s top officials said Monday that General Musharraf would be sworn in as a civilian president in Islamabad on Thursday, which would be a belated, though significant, concession to both his political opposition here and supporters in the Bush administration who have demanded it as an important step toward restoring civilian rule. But Mr. Sharif’s remarks at a news conference on Monday made clear that it may not be enough to appease the general’s opponents. Mr. Sharif, a former prime minister who was tossed out of power by General Musharraf in a 1999 coup, condemned his old nemesis for imposing emergency rule on Nov. 3. He said he would not serve as prime minister under a Musharraf presidency, demanded an end to the state of emergency and called for the reinstatement of fired Supreme Court justices. Such a forceful stand contrasts in many respects to Mr. Sharif’s own time as prime minister. He is best remembered here and in Washington as the leader who brought the world a nuclear Pakistan, flirted with war with India and forged strong ties with religious conservatives. His tenure was marred by charges of rampant corruption and by confrontations with the courts and the media as well. Mr. Sharif’s return to Pakistan now is likely to stir deep unease in the Bush administration, which has stood with General Musharraf as its best bet in the fight against terrorism, said Daniel Markey, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who until recently dealt with Pakistan issues at the State Department. Nonetheless, Washington appears to have taken a back seat, or at least a stance of resignation at the inevitable, as the Saudis, perhaps Pakistan’s most revered ally, engineered the return of Mr. Sharif, Mr. Markey said. Not least, Mr. Sharif’s return complicates the Bush administration’s support for Benazir Bhutto, another former prime minister and opposition leader, whom Washington has favored as a more secular politician, and a more certain partner against Islamic extremists. Officials in Washington and London promoted her return from exile in October as a way to put a friendlier face on General Musharraf’s increasingly unpopular military regime. While Ms. Bhutto and Mr. Sharif are known to detest the general, they detest each other as well. Whether they can form a cohesive opposition against General Musharraf before parliamentary elections set for Jan. 8 is far from clear. While Mr. Sharif said he would not take part in the elections unless the emergency rule was lifted, he went ahead to meet the Monday deadline for filing nominating papers for the election. Mr. Sharif is the son of a wealthy industrialist and a protégé of the military dictator Gen. Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, a leader who also favored a conservative strain of Islam. As prime minister twice — from 1990 to 1993 and from 1997 to 1999 — he is remembered by Pakistanis as the leader who decided to test Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in response to India’s nuclear tests in 1998. It was an immensely popular decision among Pakistanis, and ever since Mr. Sharif has been remembered as the leader who stood up to the world and showed off Pakistan’s nuclear prowess. But that step won him little favor in Washington. President Clinton tried to persuade Mr. Sharif to hold back, appealing to his vanity with an offer of a state dinner at the White House and to his country’s pocket with billions of dollars in aid, according to Bruce Riedel, the member of the National Security Council who dealt with Pakistan at the time. For some secular Pakistanis, Mr. Sharif’s return forebodes a strengthening of the religious right, which already has more seats in Parliament than when he was prime minister. “For me this is a fight between Wahhabism and secular values,” said Fasih Ahmed, 30, a businessman from Mr. Sharif’s political base in Lahore, in a reference to the conservative strain of Islam favored by Saudi Arabia. “Nawaz is extremely close to the religious right.” Mr. Sharif displayed his religious leanings during his second term when he tried to introduce Shariah, Islamic law, with a bill that gave the prime minister, and not the courts, the power to enforce religious edicts. The legislation passed the lower house. But the bill ultimately failed in the Senate despite unusual visits by religious leaders, organized by Mr. Sharif’s political party, to the Senate chamber to press members for its passage. As much as Mr. Sharif railed against General Musharraf on Monday for meddling with the Supreme Court, as prime minister, Mr. Sharif did so as well. In his second term, Mr. Sharif opposed some of the appointees to the court made by the chief justice at the time, Sajjad Ali Shah. At one point a mob organized by his party, and including cabinet ministers, broke into the Supreme Court building in the capital, Islamabad. They upended furniture and chased Mr. Shah out of the courtroom before being treated to afternoon tea by Mr. Sharif’s brother, Shahbaz Sharif, who was the chief minister of Punjab, Pakistan’s most populous province. “It still haunted us that our government stormed the Supreme Court, it was definitely a stigma,” said Khawaja Mohammed Asif, a member of Mr. Sharif’s cabinet at the time. The Sharif government was not known as a friend of the news media, either. In an effort to squelch a newspaper that was critical of Mr. Sharif, Najam Sethi, editor in chief of The Daily Times, was arrested in the middle of the night from his home in 1999 by government agents, gagged, held for almost a month, and threatened with charges of tax evasion and sedition. At the time, Mr. Sethi had written about Mr. Sharif’s “obsession with total power.” For Washington, the pivotal encounter with Mr. Sharif came with the tense meeting between Mr. Sharif and President Clinton on July 4, 1999. The episode involved the possibility of nuclear war over the escalation of the conflict between Pakistan and India in May 1999 in the contested area of Kashmir. Pakistani-backed Kashmir militants and regular army units had advanced into an area known as Kargil, a remote part of the Himalayas. The forces had gained significant tactical control and were threatening India’s traditional positions. There was “disturbing information about Pakistan preparing its nuclear arsenal for possible use,” wrote Mr. Riedel, the National Security Council official who was with Mr. Clinton at the talks, and wrote a published account afterward. Mr. Sharif had appealed to Mr. Clinton for help and rushed to Washington on short notice, according to Mr. Riedel, because he was unsure of his standing with the army, which was led by General Musharraf, the man Mr. Sharif had picked for the job. The prime minister himself was afraid that the army’s actions in Kashmir would start a war with India, said Mr. Riedel, who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington. In Washington, Mr. Sharif was actually greeted at Dulles airport by the Saudi ambassador at the time, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who was asked by President Clinton to weigh in with the prime minister, who appeared worried for his life, Mr. Riedel wrote. But as the talks got under way, Mr. Sharif was initially unforthcoming with Mr. Clinton about how to solve the situation. Mr. Clinton became angry, complaining that Pakistan had promised but failed to bring Osama bin Laden to justice from Afghanistan, Mr. Riedel recounted. Mr. Sharif had allowed Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, to work with the Taliban to foment terrorism, Mr. Clinton told him. The president got specific about the nuclear threat: “Did Sharif order the Pakistani nuclear missile force to prepare for action? Did he realize how crazy that was?” Mr. Clinton effectively asked, according to Mr. Riedel. “You’ve put me in the middle today, set the U.S. up to fail and I won’t let it happen. Pakistan is messing with nuclear war.” Mr. Sharif denied that he had ordered the preparation of the nuclear weapons, Mr. Riedel said. By the end of the discussions, Mr. Sharif agreed to order his army to pull back its men and its allies and “to do the right thing for Pakistan and the world,” Mr. Riedel said. But, “he was not sure his army would see it that way.” Three months later, it was clear the army did not agree, and Mr. Sharif was out of his job. In October, Mr. Sharif tried to move against General Musharraf by denying the general’s plane permission to land in Pakistan on its return from a trip to Sri Lanka. The military rebelled and opened the airport in Karachi, and General Musharraf had Mr. Sharif arrested and put in jail. In a footnote to the saga, Mr. Riedel recounts that Mr. Clinton urged General Musharraf not to execute Mr. Sharif as General Zia had executed Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, father of Benazir Bhutto, in 1979. “With our encouragement, the Saudis pressed hard for Sharif’s freedom,” Mr. Riedel said, and finally in December 2000 he was sent into exile to the kingdom, from where he has now returned.

Pakistan
Sharif Nawaz
Politics and Government
Musharraf Pervez


Goldman Chief Promises a Review of Company’s Practices

Abstract: The head of Goldman Sachs , at his first meeting with shareholders since the government accused the bank of defrauding some clients, vowed on Friday to conduct an internal review of the company’s business practices to make sure it was serving its customers and the public interest. “We understand that there is a disconnect between how we as a firm view ourselves and how the broader public perceives our role and activities in the market,” the bank’s chief, Lloyd C. Blankfein , said at the company’s annual meeting in downtown Manhattan. “To address this, we need a rigorous self-examination.” It was a much friendlier audience than the one Mr. Blankfein faced 10 days earlier at a Senate committee hearing, where he was questioned about the bank’s trading activities and a fraud suit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Few shareholders at the meeting questioned Mr. Blankfein or the bank’s board about investigations of its past mortgage trading or lawsuits filed by clients in recent weeks, after the S.E.C. filed suit. And most of them voted exactly as the bank’s board advised them to. That included a rejection of a motion that would have disallowed the bank’s chief to also serve as chairman of the board. Mr. Blankfein, who holds both titles, led most of the meeting, striking a firm but conciliatory tone. He said multiple times that he had no plans to resign. Still, he also unveiled a plan to appoint a committee to review the bank’s business dealings. A Goldman spokesman, Lucas van Praag, said a board member would be named to oversee the committee. That person will devise a process for appointing members to the committee and will determine how much of the committee’s work should be made public. The goal is for at least some of the findings to be public, Mr. van Praag said. The support for Mr. Blankfein, of course, came from investors who had chosen to hold onto their Goldman shares even after the S.E.C. filed a securities fraud case against the bank last month and after the Justice Department started an investigation of possible criminal activity. Goldman’s stock has fallen about 20 percent since then, indicating that many shareholders expressed their views by simply selling their stock. As a group, Goldman employees are the bank’s largest shareholder. Partners at the bank own about 7 percent of its stock, and other employees own more. The meeting had its light moments. After several investors criticized the recent board nomination of H. Lee Scott, the former chief executive of Wal-Mart, Mr. Blankfein rested his hand on his chest and said, “Actually, I like shopping at Wal-Mart.” When one critical shareholder told Mr. Blankfein that he was not as smart as he looked, the chief quipped, “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was there representing his social change group, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, spoke several times to express concern that Wall Street — and Goldman — had recovered while the rest of the economy was still struggling. He encouraged Goldman to think broadly about how it could better serve the public and the economy. Mr. Blankfein responded that the current pressure on Goldman had had a “silver lining.” “It certainly affords us an opportunity to be introspective,” he said. All of Goldman’s board members, including Mr. Blankfein, were re-elected. The firm’s auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, was also approved. A bank-driven motion to allow shareholders to approve the bank’s compensation principles also passed. The meeting lasted about three hours, with Mr. Blankfein pledging at the end that Goldman would continue to increase its outreach to the general public. “We have very little contact with the consuming public,” he said. “We recognize that we need to reach out.”

Appointments and Executive Changes
Goldman Sachs Group
Securities and Commodities Violations
Blankfein Lloyd C
Frauds and Swindling


Engineers Take Aim at Efficiency Barrier in LED Technology

Abstract: FREMONT, Calif. — In a brand-new factory here, Eric Kim, chief executive of Soraa Inc., cradles a palm-size light that he refers to as “LED 2.0.” The light has a circular snowflakelike cooling frame surrounding a lens that emits a bright white light. But it also radiates a mystery — and a continuing controversy. Over the past few years, energy-saving LED lights have popped up nearly every place where low power is required. They provide the backlighting for cellphones, smartphones and laptops as well as for headlamps for hikers, for instance. But in the United States in particular, LED lights have not yet caught on for home lighting, still a bastion of the incandescent light bulb — which to this day is not much more efficient than when it was invented by Thomas Edison in 1879. The problem is what’s called efficiency droop. LEDs function most efficiently at low currents. Turn the current up to levels needed for room lighting, and the efficiency falls off markedly. The lights don’t dim, but as you turn up the amount of electricity, you don’t get more light, so the efficiency goes down, a problem that has made it impossible for LED bulbs to be as cost-effective as incandescent or fluorescent home lighting. “The efficiency droop is one of the most severe and most interesting problems and controversies in science and engineering,” said E. Fred Schubert, a professor of electrical engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. “Considering that LEDs are the winning future in lighting,” he added, it’s important “for industry and society that the efficiency droop be understood and solved.” Modern LEDs — or light-emitting diodes — are semiconductor chips that produce light when electrified. LEDs typically use less than 20 percent of the energy required by comparable incandescent lights and only a little more than half the energy required by compact fluorescents . The diodes allow current to flow easily in one direction. Charge-carriers — electrons — pass through a junction within the chip, and when an electron meets a hole, it drops to a lower energy level, in the process emitting energy in the form of a photon — light. Most of the time, that is. But not always. And explaining why a photon is emitted in some cases, but not in others, is a persistent theoretical debate among physicists and electrical engineers. The question is: What causes the photon not to be released and causes the droop? That is exactly what physicists don’t agree on. Announcements this month by Cree, one of the major makers of LEDs in the United States and by Soraa, a start-up here making next-generation LEDs, indicate that significant progress continues to be made in efficiency — and in avoiding droop. The high brightness blue LED, the kind used today but too expensive for extensive use, was invented in 1993 by Shuji Nakamura, a Japanese physicist who is one of the founders of Soraa. This month, the firm claimed a breakthrough in circumventing LED droop. However, it is keeping the details of its new technology proprietary. Despite Soraa’s secrecy, last April a group of researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where Dr. Nakamura took a faculty position after leaving Japan in 1999 and where two of his co-founders, Steve DenBaars and Jim Speck, also teach, published a research report indicating that they had found evidence that LED droop could be explained by a process known as Auger recombination. The Auger effect was first discovered in 1922 by two European physicists, and it describes a subatomic process in which an electron displaces another electron but does not emit light. Still, the debate has not been put to rest. Late last year, two other groups put forward competing theories that suggest that Auger recombination plays little or no part in efficiency droop. Other theories suggest a process called carrier leakage, in which at high currents the carriers start to spill away from areas of high performance, or another process, called carrier delocalization, where electrons simply fail to find a paired hole at high electric currents because they are pulled away from the active region where electrons and holes are supposed to recombine and emit light. Soraa’s chief technology officer is Mike Krames, an electrical engineer, who while at a previous company, Lumileds, was one of the pioneers of the Auger recombination theory. “For me the only model that is consistent with all of the experimental data is Auger recombination,” he said. One scientist who is familiar with the company’s technology said that Soraa’s advantage comes from changing the orientation of the quantum well where the interactions that generate luminescence take place. Strong electrical fields that form along the plane of the crystal structure interfere with the process that typically generates photons. By tilting the structure out of that plane, it is possible to minimize the droop effect, he said. From Dr. Krames’s perspective, the battle between the theorists may not be over, but the war has been won. “The debate goes on in other people’s heads, but it doesn’t go on in mine,” he said. “It doesn’t change the fact that all the evidence points in this direction, which leads to a strategy which we’ve adopted, which leads to better devices.”

Lighting
Light-Emitting Diodes
Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs
Energy Efficiency


Erik Jones Takes Lead on Restart to Win at Bristol

Abstract: Erik Jones flew past Kyle Larson soon after the final restart and held off Kyle Busch in the final laps to win the Nascar Xfinity Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee. Larson led a race-high 94 of 200 laps.

Erik Jones
NASCAR
Bristol Motor Speedway
Car Racing


Arnold Schwarzenegger Gears Up for Act 2 as an Action Hero

Abstract: SAN DIEGO — Arnold Schwarzenegger was blunt in his description of his new movie role: Take a knife, cut a head off, kill a guy. And he was playful in his follow-up. “You wish you could do some of those things when you’re in politics, but you can’t,” he said as he returned to the mayhem business — movie-style — at the Comic-Con International convention here on Thursday. Tanned and glowing in an open-collared white shirt and sport coat, Mr. Schwarzenegger introduced 6,000 roaring fans to his new action film, “ The Expendables 2 ” — and talked death counts with the movie’s co-writer and star, Sylvester Stallone. Mr. Schwarzenegger acknowledged being competitive about these things. If Mr. Stallone killed 288 people in an action-career clip reel assembled for the convention, Mr. Schwarzenegger said his reel racked up 289. And, of course, he growled: “I’m back.” He returns in a cloud of carbon emissions, never mind the signature global warming legislation he enacted when he was California’s governor. In the movie’s trailer, his character, Trench, tears the door off a Smart Car, smokes bad guys with his machine gun and wags a fat cigar. His role in the movie, set for release on Aug. 17, is more than a cameo, though not quite a lead. Mr. Schwarzenegger was flanked on the stage at the San Diego Convention Center’s by several co-stars, including Terry Crews, Randy Couture and Dolph Lundgren. They are joined in the movie by Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Liam Hemsworth and Chuck Norris. The crowd was clapping, stomping and champing at the bit by the time Mr. Stallone, first among his crew, took the stage. But the fans ate it up, down to his growly “Yo!” But it was lost on no one that Mr. Schwarzenegger’s appearance marks his return to a film career that will find him taking more substantial action roles, even though he will qualify for Medicare upon turning 65 this month. He will appear in “The Last Stand,” a story about border violence set for release by Lionsgate in January, and “The Tomb,” expected to be released in the fall of 2013 by Lionsgate’s Summit Entertainment unit. “The Expendables 2,” produced by Millennium Films, is also being distributed by Lionsgate, the mini-major studio that scored a huge, youth-oriented hit with “The Hunger Games” this year. Clearly, Lionsgate is feeling confident that Mr. Schwarzenegger still has some of the drawing power he had before he left the film business to run for governor in 2003. He served in that role for eight years, leaving in 2011 during the bruising breakup of his marriage to Maria Shriver, after he acknowledged that he had fathered a child by their housekeeper. But before becoming governor, Mr. Schwarzenegger left Hollywood as a winner; “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines,” released by Warner Brothers in July 2003, became Mr. Schwarzenegger’s second-biggest career hit , behind “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” with more than $433 million in worldwide ticket sales. The film was buoyed by a large international audience, which Mr. Schwarzenegger’s backers are again banking on heavily: His current projects are all built with an eye toward foreign action fans, who presumably will help pay the bills even if his American viewers don’t return. Asked through a spokesman about career plans last week, Mr. Schwarzenegger did not respond. A Lionsgate spokesman declined to discuss the company’s investment in his renewed film career. But Mr. Schwarzenegger’s idea, according to people who were briefed on his thinking — and who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect relations with the actor — is to reboot himself as a kind of younger, rowdier version of Clint Eastwood, who had a hit in 2009 with “Gran Torino” at the age of 78. That is, he means to find age-appropriate roles while joining what he sees as a revival of the action genre, led by “The Expendables 2.” Politicians being a rarity here, Mr. Schwarzenegger’s appearance lent genuine novelty to a fantasy convention where the outlandish is routine. Nostalgia was a favorite motif among the thousands of fans on Thursday. In a steam-punk riff, some women were dressed as Gibson girls, wearing wide-brimmed hats and feathered gowns, and carrying camouflage bags and automatic weaponry. Men seemed to lean toward the Mario Brothers, with big mustaches and little caps. Founded in 1970 as the Golden State Comic Book Convention, Comic-Con arrived this year with a smaller Hollywood presence than has been usual. Paramount Pictures, 20th Century Fox, and Universal Pictures — which introduced films like “The Adventures of Tintin,” “Avatar” and “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” here in past years — did not bring major presentations, though all continue to have science fiction, action and fantasy movies on their schedules. Walt Disney Studios returned to Comic-Con on Thursday afternoon after a one-year hiatus and had one big question to answer: After a brutal year that saw Disney’s studio chairman replaced and a big-budget science-fiction film, “John Carter,” prompt a $200 million write-down, is the studio finally getting back on track? The answer, at least judging by the crowd’s response to Disney’s movie footage, is yes. Three snippets from “ Frankenweenie ,” an animated movie from Tim Burton that is set for October release, had fans laughing; a peek at an intense train sequence from next year’s risky “ Lone Ranger ” film — starring Johnny Depp as Tonto — won prolonged cheers.

Movies
Schwarzenegger Arnold
Comic-Con (Convention)
The Expendables 2 (Movie)
Careers and Professions
Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation
Expendables 2 The (Movie)