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Philadelphia Inquirer Co-Owner Katz Dies At 72
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Lewis Katz, a self-made man who built his fortune in New York parking lots, billboards and cable TV, and went on to buy the NBA's New Jersey Nets, NHL's New Jersey Devils and The Philadelphia Inquirer, died in a weekend plane crash. He was 72.
Katz died Saturday night in a Massachusetts crash that claimed six other lives. His death was confirmed Sunday by his son, Drew, and his business partner Harold H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest.
Katz grew up in working-class Camden, N.J., and worked as a lawyer before earning hundreds of millions of dollars investing in the Kinney Parking empire and the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network in New York. He went on to become a major philanthropist in the Philadelphia region.
"You've got to make money in the world that we live in, in order to accomplish what your ultimate goal is. But along with making money, equally important is preserving, for the community, a community trust," Katz testified at an April hearing on the Inquirer's sale. "That's what this paper represents."
Tributes poured in from prominent figures in sports, media, politics, business and education, reflecting the wide range of his interests and charitable endeavors. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called him "a visionary"; the Yankees held a moment of silence before Sunday's game. Temple University recalled his recent advice to graduates to "have as much fun as you can conjure up."
"He was a visionary businessman who touched the lives of so many with his tireless pursuit of innovation and enterprise, as well as his deep commitment to his family, friends and community," Silver said in a statement.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman in a statement called Katz a man of "tremendous influence" and sent condolences to Katz's family and "the many organizations that benefited from his philanthropy."
Katz, in his April testimony, said he had lost money on both the Nets and Devils, but made it big through the 2012 sale of the sports cable network.
"We lost our shirt in the Devils and the Nets," he testified. "But for the YES network, I'd be back in my law office in Cherry Hill, waiting for the clients to come in again."
He hoped to be a hands-off owner of the Inquirer, where his longtime companion, Nancy Phillips, was the city editor.
"I'm spending, hopefully, a lot more time with my grandchildren and I've opened a school in Camden for approximately 300 children," he testified. "I'm not active in business, anymore."
Katz had agreed to invest $16 million for a 26 percent stake in the Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News in 2012 at the behest of former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who wanted to return the newspapers to local ownership after a bankruptcy that left them in the hands of New York hedge funds.
But a feud with rival investor George Norcross, an equally powerful business leader, over the direction of the news business forced him to be more a more active owner.
Katz filed suit last year to stop Norcross from firing Pulitzer Prize-winning editor Bill Marimow. He succeeded, then joined Lenfest in bidding $88 million to buy out Norcross and his allies at an auction Tuesday.
"He was very creative, as a person and as a business partner," Lenfest said. "He thought beyond the edge. He had wonderful, creative ideas."
The sale had been set to close June 12, but will now be delayed for 30 days to give Katz's family time to get the estate in order, Lenfest said.
"We'll lose his expertise, but the paper will continue because we both intended to put a new CEO in charge of the day-to-day operations," Lenfest said.
Drew Katz will take his father's seat on the board of directors, Lenfest said.
"My father was my best friend. He taught me everything," Drew Katz, who was often seen at his father's side at business events, said in a statement on behalf of him and his sister. "He never forgot where and how he grew up, and he worked tirelessly to support his community in countless ways that were seen and unseen."
Katz had recently given $25 million to Temple University for its medical school, and had previously given $15 million to another alma mater, Dickinson Law School, where he had graduated first in his class.
He also supported the Boys & Girls Clubs in Camden, along with many Jewish charities. Katz recently helped fund a charter school in impoverished Camden.
"There are so many organizations that he endowed, many anonymously," Marimow said Sunday.
Marimow described Katz as a brilliant man and generous philanthropist who developed a love for journalism from a college stint working for the syndicated columnist Drew Pearson.
"That really inspired an appreciation and a love for journalism that lasted his whole life," Marimow said.
His wife, Marjorie, died in December. His survivors include his son, daughter Melissa, and several grandchildren.
Katz, a classmate of Bill Cosby in Temple's 1963 graduating class, had spoken at the school's commencement last month, and received an honorary doctorate.
"Life in my view is meant to be enjoyed," he told the graduates. "It's meant to have as much fun as you can conjure up"
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By Paul Cook
Our nation has a moral responsibility to care for veterans who bear the scars of war in defending our freedoms.
As a combat veteran and United States representative, my primary duty to veterans is to ensure that they receive medical care befitting a person who risked life and limb on the battlefield. However, we must have faith in the leadership of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to carry out this duty.
In light of recent developments, I welcome the resignation of VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.
A recent report by the VA Inspector General indicates that problems discovered at the Phoenix VA Hospital, where as many as 40 people died while waiting for treatment, are not isolated but systemic. If these allegations prove to be accurate, it signifies a shameful chapter in our nation's treatment of veterans.
This failure demonstrates a culture of disregard and disrespect throughout the VA system and in many VA hospitals nationwide. The falsification of veteran medical records, such as at the Phoenix VA Hospital, is not only disgraceful, it's a betrayal of our veterans. I'll do everything in my power to see that a criminal investigation is conducted and VA officials are held accountable.
Shinseki's failure to eliminate this culture of callousness from taking root at the VA and his unwillingness to take decisive action to remedy this disaster left me with no confidence in his ability to lead the VA. His resignation clears the way for new leadership that can clean house and reform this broken institution. I look forward to working with the new leadership and my fellow members of Congress to implement real reform.
As a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, I've taken part in hearings to get to the bottom of this disaster. Again and again, VA officials claim they are under instructions from lawyers not to answer any questions. This is unacceptable. These government officials work for America's veterans, not for lawyers, and our veterans deserve answers.
The first step to fixing the VA is to end this legal charade and require VA officials to provide a full report of what happened in Phoenix and the steps they are taking to hold people accountable.
To be sure, I don't mean to implicate every VA hospital, and I believe the overwhelming majority of VA employees want what is best for our veterans. The bureaucratic mismanagement, either in Washington, D.C., or locally, is preventing them from doing their jobs, and it must end. Politicians and political appointees must face their failures with selflessness and honor, just as our veterans faced the enemy on the battlefield.
No veteran should escape the perils of war just to suffer at the hands of our government. It's un-American, and it's unacceptable. We can do better, and we must do better. There is no excuse for these failures.
Paul Cook represents the 8th Congressional District.

subset: commoncrawl


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In the years before 2pac died, Norcal soothsayer E-40 occasionally spoke on the importance of timing, while rapping on open mics about industry hype. Fifteen years later everything and nothing has changed as we regard a landscape strewn about with the corpses of hard- and soft-goods brands loved and not, as well as passing specters that sometimes resemble self-respect, long ago put in shallow graves by the almighty dollar. The refugees of this once-noble subculture have naturally sought to subsist by eating our own collective tail, giving rise to a new/old breed of 80s ramp revivalists who represent a more innocent time via tattoos, stripey socks and macrobrew-scented breath.
When Creature rose from the dead a few years ago it had all the trappings of classic period Romero zombieism, an organic and fairly gnarly reflection of the times versus some cheesy wink-and-nudge job like that rewrite of "Pride and Prejudice" or the relaunch of Vision Street Wear*. Here you had some guys with a legit claim to the ramp dog way of life, driving around in a hearse, throwing vert jams, putting out graphics with a lot of monsters and urinating in public versus some of the later, more hamfisted attempts to capture the Anti-Hero wave, like shoehorning bowl kids onto your picnic table/handrail squad.
Recent developments however suggest that longtime Creature mastermind Darren Navarette may have cooked too long in the sun of San Diego, a region of Southern California sometimes blamed for poisoning the autumn years of the 1990s with bulky rave footwear and tasteless technical tricks. Among the glowing product reviews posted at Skatedaily.net is a recent item highlighting Creature's "Black Box cooler", a toteable refrigeration unit the size of a sixpack that also offers speakers and a hookup for an Ipod or other digital music device. Fans of "the Storm" will immediately be transposed backward in time toward an era when the Federalz enlivened several sessions via the notorious Osiris G-Bag, which you may or may not know has evolved through the years recently into a unit known as the "Megatron" that earned its own review, and from a Canadian.
The pic on the Skatedaily review features a Van Halen album presumably blasting, but the use of an Ipod gives the game away. Can one credibly cool a sub-$5 sixer within this advanced electronic product? Will Peter Smolik, flush with Blitz cash flow and emboldened by Rob Dyrdek's recent dealmaking, attempt to merge Sk8Mafia with Creature? Will the Federalz speak on the controversy on an upcoming mixtape? Would Hell Rell endorse this thing? Does this speaker-cooler-box represent a risk of serious eye injury because beers or soda could be shaken up to dangerous levels by heavy bass vibrations from the tunes?
*BTW, when is somebody going to float the idea of bringing back Prime?


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Here is a tip from the Flexible Solutions GP Reports newsletter:
Often when creating a Crystal report for something that needs a new page for each group (like Invoices or Purchase Orders) we use the New Page After option for the Group Footer in Crystal's Section Expert. This works great, however it prints a blank page at the very end of the report.
To remove this blank page, you can add a formula for the New Page After option instead of simply checking it. Click on the formula button and add the following:
Not OnLastRecord
Save and Close and you're done. Now everything except the very last group will get a new page after it.
To get future tips like this as well as GP Reports news and promotions, you can subscribe to the Flexible Solutions GP Reports newsletter.


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DENVER — Inside the industrial-scale marijuana grow farms that dot Denver's low-rise warehouse districts, it is perpetual summer — 78 degrees, moderate humidity and fields of shoulder-high plants with fat buds swaying in the breeze.
These unmarked THC factories are easy to miss from the street, except for the casino-style security cameras perched on each corner. But inside the world's only fully regulated, for-profit marijuana market, there are few secrets.
Colorado has approved 739 of these indoor grow farms over the past two-plus years after vetting their owners' finances and requiring the buds be tracked on high-definition video and bar-coded every moment from seed to sale. Local building inspectors have signed off, and cops — city, state and federal — can drop in at any time.
This out-in-the-open marijuana is the best glimpse of the strange reality coming to Washington State.
If Washington, as expected, follows Colorado's experiment, its state regulators will be investigating entrepreneurs' finances for links to organized crime and keeping steady watch over leakage to the black market — even as they allow warehouses of weed.
The challenges are immense. Washington's new marijuana law, approved by voters in November, creates a market for social use — vastly bigger than the medical marijuana market regulated in Colorado. There is nothing like it anywhere.
In Colorado, regulators had to broker a shotgun marriage between law enforcement and marijuana dealers. Anxious state regulators wrote more rules than they could enforce. The state is now thinning its thick rulebook, even as drug cops say Colorado-regulated marijuana has popped up across the Midwest.
Capitalism unleashed, medical marijuana suddenly became a $200 million industry, with retail prices — averaging about $7.50 a gram — among the cheapest in the country.
The federal government — despite its ban on marijuana — has been hands-off. Not a single big grow operation has been raided. It's not clear how the Justice Department will react to the massive, voter-approved expansion of social-use markets in Washington and Colorado.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, the grandson of a bootlegger, said regulations need to address teen use while acknowledging consumers' "huge appetite" for an increasingly potent drug.
Colorado's one-of-a-kind system arose through necessity.
In 2000, it joined Washington in allowing medical marijuana, but it wasn't until 2009 that Denver, like Seattle, began seeing wildcat marijuana dispensaries pop up.
Then-state Sen. Chris Romer, son of a former governor, in 2010 pushed through medical marijuana regulations envisioned to be "as strict, if not twice as strict, as alcohol."
Five-figure licensing and application fees — plus security and requirements that dispensaries grow most of their own product — added up to $500,000 or more. That was intentional, Romer said.
"If you raise the bar high enough, they won't risk their $500,000 or million-dollar investment to sell to youngsters," Romer said.
With a new law in place, a retired liquor regulator and onetime drug cop, Matt Cook, was brought in to broker a five-month negotiation that "had drug dealers on one side, law enforcement on the other, and my staff in the middle," he said.
Cook had one primary goal: no "diversion" of marijuana spilling from regulated grows onto street corners.
The result was a blizzard of rules: 24-7 video surveillance in grow farms and dispensaries accessible to enforcement officers via the Internet; bar codes on each plant; criminal background checks; and hard-copy manifests faxed to Cook's staff each time a pound of pot was moved.
"The process works," said Cook, who retired and is now a consultant to the medical marijuana industry. "It sort of set the example for the rest of the nation. This commodity won't go away. And it can be regulated."
Washington lawmakers tried to replicate the system in 2011, but Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed the bill, citing the remote risk that state employees could be charged with violating federal law.
Colorado skipped right over that.
Colorado's 2.9 percent state sales tax last year generated $5.3 million from medical marijuana sales. Cities, which can impose licensing fees and sales taxes, have reaped far more. Dispensary owners say they pay federal income tax, often at high rates because their businesses do not qualify for many deductions.
With all the marijuana and money out in the open, theories abound about why federal authorities haven't intervened. Most cite Colorado's role as a swing state in presidential elections and the fact its own regulators — not federal drug cops — are called to handle problem dispensaries.
"All of the arguments used, to do a half-assed regulatory system, are based on the fear of the feds," said Romer. "I understand that. But the greater risk here is a use by younger users because (of) a lack of controls."
Denver Relief's grow site, in a nondescript warehouse in northeast Denver, is a midsized operation by local standards, but would be the Taj Mahal by Seattle standards: 2,000 plants, 13,000 square feet, 62,000 watts of power and 2,000 gallons of filtered water a day. Build-out costs were $500,000, including the site's own transformer.
Up close, flowering marijuana plants look like Frankenflowers, genetically filtered into strains such as Romulan or Red Headed Stranger to produce plum-sized buds dangling from spindly stalks. The dispensary was one of the first amid the Colorado medical marijuana land rush of 2010. More than 1,800 budding entrepreneurs, some pushing shopping carts full of documents, lined up at Cook's office, dreaming of getting a state license to grow or sell pot.
To get one, applicants had to waive their Fourth Amendment right to limitations on search and seizure: regardless of state law, the business is illegal under federal law. They also had to disclose years of bank statements.
"I think a lot of the info they required weeded out a lot of people who would have been bad for the industry," said Kayvan Khalatbari, co-owner of Denver Relief.
It is a tightly competitive market, with more than 520 dispensaries and 150 processors of cannabis-infused food statewide. The industry leases an estimated 1 million square feet in the Denver area, with some grow sites having as many as 10,000 plants.
Still, all this would be dwarfed by Washington's new marijuana market.
The state predicts 363,000 consumers will go through 187,000 pounds of dry marijuana a year in Washington. But that estimate may be way low — it fails to include production needs for marijuana-infused food and drinks; in Colorado, about half of the marijuana produced goes toward so-called "medibles."
By Khalatbari's calculations, Washington would need about 1,000 grow sites the size of Denver Relief. "Wow, that's a lot of marijuana," he said.


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Amazon Web Services, fresh off an outage that brought down big-name sites such as Reddit and Imgur, today announced an 18 percent price reduction for its virtual machines, the 21st time the leading infrastructure as a service (IaaS) vendor has dropped prices since launching its cloud in 2006.
In addition to the price drop, AWS released a new series of Elastic Cloud Compute instances with high input/output qualities. They're optimized, AWS says, for media encoding, batch processing, caching and Web serving. The extra-large instance (m3.xlarge) comes with 15GB of memory and 13 ECU -- which are Amazon compute units -- across four virtual cores. A double extra-large instance has 30GB of memory with 26 ECUs on eight virtual cores. The service debuted in the Northern Virginia US-East region, but AWS plans to roll it out to other regions early next year.
[ Stay on top of the current state of the cloud with InfoWorld's special report, "Cloud computing in 2012." Download it today! | Also check out our "Private Cloud Deep Dive," our "Cloud Security Deep Dive," our "Cloud Storage Deep Dive," and our "Cloud Services Deep Dive." ]
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Small instances went from $0.08/hour to $0.065/hour, medium instances went from $0.16/hour to $0.13/hour, large instances went from $0.32/hour to $0.26/hour, and extra-large instances went from $0.64/hour to $0.52/hour
Dan Feld, who manages sales and business development at AWS consultancy Newvem and is a former AWS exec with the same role for Amazon in Europe, says the price drop for the small instances is a significant move for a lot of customers. According to a sample of 40,000 instances that Newvem monitors for customers, m1.small is the most popular type, making up more than 25 percent of instances. All of those customers will have a drop in prices. Along with the price drop, AWS is filling out its product portfolio with higher-end instance types as well, he says.
"Amazon sure doesn't want to make it easy for competitors," says cloud analyst Paul Burns of Neovise about the company's 21st price drop in six years. As processing performance continues to improve, Burns says AWS has taken the approach that it will pass those savings on to customers whenever it can, as opposed to waiting for some major breakthrough in performance or cost.
It's the same idea on the new instances. The high-end instance types follow a trend by AWS in recent years. AWS has rolled out high-performance compute options, cluster compute instance types, and now these new large and extra-large high-memory offerings.
AWS is also playing defense here, though. Burns says as the cloud market continues to evolve, more and more vendors will come out with offerings aimed at biting into AWS's market share. While he doesn't see any connection with this announcement and the recent outage, he does see more customers looking outside of the AWS ecosystem to providers who may serve a niche need, or perhaps to another cloud provider as a backup. "Amazon's still in great shape," Burns says, but other competitors seem to be champing at the bit.
Today's news comes almost two weeks after Amazon experienced its third major outage in two years. On Oct. 22, a memory bug caused by new hardware that had been installed in a Northern Virginia data center caused a cascading effect that eventually brought down a large portion of one of AWS's availability zones.
Network World staff writer Brandon Butler covers cloud computing and social collaboration. He can be reached at email@example.com and found on Twitter at @BButlerNWW.
This story, "Amazon drops cloud prices, again" was originally published by Network World.


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Every time I create a new version of one of my themes, there's a lot of steps I'm going through. I have to update version numbers, minifying CSS/JS files, commit the changes, tag the release, create a zip file (and make sure no hidden files are left in there). These are all mostly manual steps which can be quite time-consuming to go though, and more importantly: remember.
In my latest theme, Cycnus, I decided to automate my theme release workflow using Grunt, which is want to tell you about in this post.


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Keck's Exclusives: Modern Family Going Down Under?
Modern Family executive producer Chris Lloyd clued me in over a month ago that the ABC sitcom was mulling an offer to shoot the series on location, possibly outside the United States.
Now, Australian blogs are reporting that the Australian Tourism Board, which famously lured Oprah Winfrey and her audience down under for a special week of episodes, is offering to pick up the tab to fly the whole Modern Family production team over for a special episode. While ABC has yet to confirm, speculation is that the family may fly to Sydney for either a Christmas celebration or for Cam and Mitch's honeymoon.
The series previously sent the family to a Hawaiian resort, a Wyoming dude ranch and Disneyland.
While a source says the producers only wanted to make the trip if they were able to come up with a logical storyline for the families to fly across the globe, it's now sounding like a real possibility. I can already picture Luke and Manny in khakis hunting for crocodiles and Gloria tossing shrimp on the barbie.
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View original Keck's Exclusives: Modern Family Going Down Under? at TVGuide.com


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Transferrin: A plasma protein that transports iron through the blood to the liver, spleen and bone marrow.
The blood transferrin level is tested for diverse reasons: to determine the cause of anemia, to examine iron metabolism (for example, in iron deficiency anemia) and to determine the iron-carrying capacity of the blood.
Low transferrin can impair hemoglobin production (since to make hemoglobin, you have to have iron) and so lead to anemia. Low transferrin can be due to poor production of transferrin by the liver (where it's made) or excessive loss of transferrin through the kidneys into the urine. Many conditions including infection and malignancy can depress transferrin levels. The transferrin is abnormally high in iron deficiency anemia.
The gene for transferrin is in chromosome band 3q21.
Hereditary absence of transferrin is called atransferrinemia. It is characterized by anemia and hemosiderosis (iron deposition) in the heart and liver. The iron damage to the heart can lead to heart failure. The anemia is typically microcytic and hypochromic (the red blood cells are abnormally small and pale). The disease is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait. It is due to mutation of both of a person's transferrin genes. Atransferrinemia can be effectively treated by plasma infusions of transferrin.


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By Michael Katz
Los Angeles, CA. Looking back over the year's worth of live performances I covered, mostly in jazz, is a bittersweet experience. There are surely enough terrific moments to fill a column, but in a city with L.A.'s diversity of talent, you can't help wishing for more. Our club scene is struggling, with only Catalina Bar & Grill consistently booking major touring acts for extended stays. In the Valley, Vitello's has done a nice job of showcasing the best of our local talent and the occasional national stars, and downtown the Blue Whale has presented an intriguing mix of fresh talent and local mainstays. As for the Westside, the best news was that the light rail Metro Line finally made it to Culver City.
Now, if I could only get to Culver City.
On the concert side, the Hollywood Bowl brought lots of talent to its band shell on summer Wednesday evenings, mostly in combinations for retro theme nights, but its directors don't seem to trust anyone on the current scene to headline a show. UCLA Live (newly renamed the Center For The Art of Performance) presented an eclectic program that included the Mingus Dynasty septet, Bill Frisell and Hugh Masekela.
How anybody finds out about this music is another problem. (Unless, of course, you visit iRoM). Our local newspaper covers only a scant sampling of the jazz spectrum, while our jazz radio station has narrowed its daily programming range to the Old, the Dead and the Smooth.
But enough grumbling. Here's a few of the superb performances that still resonated in my mind, months after the last note had died out.
I never saw a full set of Dee Dee Bridgewater, but when she stepped onto the stage of the Hollywood Bowl during the Ray Charles tribute last summer, she simply took over. She began with "Hallelujah I Love Him So," backed up by the great Houston Person and finished with "I Got News For You," her ringing, soulful vocals augmented by Terence Blanchard and George Duke. A few months later I caught her in the closing set of the Monterey Jazz Festival with an all-star group that featured Christian McBride, Benny Green, Ambrose Akinmusire, Lewis Nash and Chris Potter . She opened the set in a nimble duet with McBride on "Do What You Want To Do" and brought the crowd to pin drop silence with "Don't Explain." This group will be at the Valley Performing Art Center on January 23, so don't miss them.
I saw a number of outstanding big bands this year, but the most memorable was led by Arturo Sandoval, in support of Dear Diz, his Grammy nominated CD and my favorite disc of the year. I caught them at The Federal, which hopefully will expand its presentation of jazz in 2013. Sandoval is clearly one of the world's elite trumpet players, his tones piercing and his leadership swinging and joyful. His collection of mostly Dizzy Gillespie tunes featured sharp new arrangements, including a wonderful take on "Bee Bop" by Gordon Goodwin and a rollicking "Night In Tunisia."
LA is the home of some of the world's great guitarists, and I was lucky enough to catch a few of them live. At the top of the list is John Pisano's Guitar Night. He keeps moving it farther away from my digs on the Westside, but I did manage to catch one of his last shows at Vitello's with Anthony Wilson. Watching the two of them riff through two sets, testing their imaginations and dancing around familiar standards reminded me that Guitar Night remains one of LA's great treats. I hereby resolve to make it out to Lucy's 51 in Toluca Lake to see Pisano and friends in 2013.
Meanwhile, there were other great guitarists, including Dori Caymmi presenting a night of Brazilian music at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, in what we hope is a prequel to the new Jazz Bakery, still in the planning stages next door. For jazz deprived Westsiders, it cannot come soon enough. Pat Metheny played two sets at the Monterey Jazz Festival, my favorite being a trio performance with bassist McBride and percussionist Jack DeJohnette. And then there was Mimi Fox, who we don't hear nearly enough of, doing a lovely Saturday matinee duet at MJF with flutist Ali Ryerson.
As usual there were some unheralded performers that caught my attention. Here's to a couple of fiddlers: Sara Watkins and Mads Tolling. Watkins, late of Nickel Creek, shone during an LA performance of Prairie Home Companion, dueting with host Garrison Keillor on "Let It Be Me" as they strolled through the crowd, and later burning it up in a fiddle showdown with Richard Kriehn. Tolling, a veteran of the Turtle Island Quartet, fronted his own group on Sunday afternoon at the Garden Stage at MJF. Whether plucking in tandem with his guitarist or racing through a tribute to Jean Luc Ponty, Tolling was a revelation. His live CD, A Celebration of Jean Luc Ponty, was another of my favorite discs.
Monterey, as usual, had lots of highlights for me, including some wonderful trio work by pianist Mulgrew Miller, a rousing vocal performance by Gregory Porter and a Cal Tjader tribute led by pianist Michael Wolff, featuring Warren Wolf on vibes.
And finally, there was Luciana Souza, opening the season at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, singing warm renditions from her two CDs that would later be nominated for Grammys, Duos 3 and The Book of Chet.
So what are my resolutions for 2013? For one, I resolve to catch Gustavo Dudamel leading the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl. For another, I resolve to brave the traffic (and the absence of chairs) at the Blue Whale and see what is happening downtown. And finally, it is long past time for me to get to New York and check out the great jazz scene there. Perhaps if we can avoid the fiscal cliff, I can get some federal funding for a trip East. Sort of a reverse Lewis and Clark Expedition culminating in a week or so in the Big Apple. I plan to get it tacked on to an appropriations bill. I'm sure no one will notice.
Happy New Year to all.
To read more iRoM reviews and posts by Michael Katz click HERE.
Click HERE to visit Michael Katz's personal blog, Katz of the Day.
Arturo Sandoval and John Pisano photos by Bob Barry.


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Corinth Pest Control
Residential Pest Control Company in Corinth, MS
901 Pest Control offers comprehensive pest control services to homeowners who need professional termite, pest, rat, and mosquito control when experiencing these unwanted guests around their homes. No one wants to share living space with pests! Call our team today at first sight of a pest infestation. We will evaluate your problem, propose a customized solution, and provide you with a free estimate guaranteed to solve the pest issue bothering you. After you agree with our proposed solution, we will dispatch a trained service technician to your home to address those pests and ensure you and your family are the only ones inhabiting your house! Learn more about how 901 Pest Control works to keep these household pests from invading your home, or call now for a free inspection.
The Residential Pest Control Services We Offer
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Termite Control Services
Also known as the silent destroyers, termites must be professionally treated and controlled to safeguard the structural integrity of your home. We offer the latest termite control products and solutions available – from Advanced Termite Baiting with Trelona and active ingredient Novaluron to Liquid Termite Treatments featuring Termidor HE and Termidor HP with the active ingredient Fipronil. 901 Pest Control has successfully treated and controlled termites in hundreds of homes like yours in West Tennessee and North Mississippi – so we are confident in our ability to protect your home against termites!
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Spiders are known to leave painful bites and will make any homeowners' skin crawl. We specialize in the control of both Brown Recluse and Black Widow spiders for your family's peace of mind.
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Kick these unwanted houseguests to the curb once and for all with our effective ant control service. Your home and kitchen can be "ant-free" with 901 Pest Control and our basic pest service plan!
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Don't let mosquitoes prevent you from enjoying your backyard or pool. Call 901 Pest Control today and ask about our mosquito barrier program. Our trained service technicians will apply a mosquito barrier to your backyard each month to help control both adult mosquitoes as well as their larva. This service allows you to resume your outdoor activities around your home!
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Cockroaches have survived millions of years because of their ability to adapt and evolve to their surroundings. This has helped them become incredibly talented at thriving in and around our homes in the midsouth. Call on our professional team to track down and help eliminate roaches and the diseases they carry!
Rodent (Rat/Mice) Control Service
From little mice to their big brothers Norway and roof rats, these rodents can significantly destroy and contaminate any home (attic, garage, storage shed). Rats and mice do not have bladders, which means they secrete a trail of urine wherever they crawl. Needless to say this provides an unsanitary environment for your home or business! 901 Pest Control service technicians are trained to identify all types of rodent infestations and which service solution is most effective to control your problem before further contamination and damage can occur.
Keeping Homes Pest-Free for Over 50 Years
Our team is here to ensure you and your family don't have to live with destructive termites, filthy roaches, poisonous spiders, or any other creatures that have no place in a home. We look forward to helping keep your home in Corinth, MS free of pests so you can live without worry.


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"Just once in my life I'd like to grow a penis!"
-Yoshitake Rika
Yes, it's that kind of Genshiken chapter.
Yajima's birthday has just passed, and noticing that Yajima has never engaged in a truly candid discussion with fellow girls, Yoshitake tries to get the straight-laced Yajima to open up moe. When the two discover a strange object in the club room, Yoshitake immediately assumes it to be an enema plug, and as the two let their imaginations run wild, the two narrow down the most likely owner of the plug to be Hato. As Hato and Yoshitake give their belated presents to Yajima, it becomes increasingly difficult to ask him about the enema. However, it turns out that Hato knows nothing about it, that it's actually Ohno's, and that it's simply a small accessory from one of her cosplay outfits.
That Yoshitake and Yajima believed the owner of the "enema" had to be a guy is very telling of the ways in which yaoi has influenced their imaginations. Rather than simply limiting it to fujoshi psychology, though, I feel like the characters this chapter are showing more delusions run rampant, as if BL was more a key to a forbidden kingdom of the mind. It's interesting how this contrasts with the predominantly male Genshiken of old in that awkward expression of sexuality has been a part of Genshiken since the very first chapter, and was something of a constant throughout the series, but it usually took the form of professing doujinshi or character preferences. It was certainly never to the level that the guys would wonder aloud about genitalia, and in hindsight it lent a good deal of realism to the series, both in the fact that they all had their own quirks and kinks, and that they were embarrassed about it and kept things understated.
When I think about it, the female characters have always been the ones to discuss sex and relationships more directly. Whether that's Kasukabe describing her "friend's" doggy-style with her boyfriend, Kasukabe asking Ohno if she and Tanaka had done it in cosplay, or even Ohno and Ogiue's tough heart-to-heart discussions, the girls have done a lot less tiptoeing around the subject of sex. It's even clear from this chapter that Yajima is pretty open with Mimasaka as well, relatively speaking, even telling her all about seeing Hato naked.
Yoshitake, however, takes that prospect to an all-new extreme, and I don't know if that's because she's a social fujoshi of a younger generation, or if it's just because she's weird. Either way, the manga portrays Yoshitake as a character who at least wants to be unafraid of taboos, and the fact that she almost manages to ask Hato directly about the "enema plug" shows her as a person who can overwhelm whatever fear of awkwardness might still linger within her. Also, as this chapter and previous ones have shown, get a little alcohol in her and all bets are off. The quote at the beginning of this review is followed by Yoshitake declaring that anyone interested in BL has to wonder about having a penis, a line which certainly blows Ohno's famous "There's no such thing as a girl who hates homos!" straight out of the water.
One thing I like about Genshiken is the way in which details are not forgotten and can come up again in later parts of the story. One example is Yoshitake's hair, which had more of a wavy look in the earlier chapters and then became much straighter down the line, which was explained previously as Yoshitake perming her hair to look good at the start of the school year but being unable to keep up with it. In this chapter, the detail which caught my eye was Hato's present to Yajima, a basket of skincare products. Back when the first years originally all hung out in Yajima's apartment, the manga showed how Yajima had a complex about her poor skin condition when compared to Hato's meticulously kept complexion. It's unclear whether Hato's realization of this came from some implied off-panel moment or if she picked up on it way back, but the gesture is clear that she wants to help Yajima look better and feel better. Speaking of, in the image above of Mimasaka you can really see how she is perhaps held back by her own lack of fashion sense, similar to Ogiue in the old days.
The previous chapters with their heavy focus on Madarame and Kasukabe casted a fairly large shadow on the newer characters, but I think this chapter shows how well the new characters can hold up on their own side of things. They're different from the old crew in many ways but there's still a sense of relatability to them, and they're interesting characters in their own right. Next chapter though looks to be focused on Ohno, who actually has never gotten a whole ton of coverage in the manga. I wonder if it'll have anything to do with her tendency to put off getting a job and entering the "real world."


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Village of Ossining
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Scholarships awarded for Ocean Leadership PracticumUniversity of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Research Professor, Pacific Biosciences Research Center
Four graduate students with ties to UH Mānoa's Pacific Biosciences Research Center (PBRC) were awarded scholarships to attend the Ocean Leadership Practicum held in January 2013 at the Center for Ocean Solutions in Monterey, California. The four students are all Pacific Islanders, including a Native Hawaiian (Narrissa Spies), a Chamorro student from Guam (Austin Shelton), a Chamorro student from Saipan (Sean MacDuff) and a Palauan (Jack Idechong).
The practicum was focused on strengthening the leadership skills of the brightest up-and-comers in the area of marine conservation, and included training in communicating science to diverse audiences, working through potential conflicts to achieve measurable goals and outcomes, and providing leadership through innovation and collaboration.
Spies, Shelton and MacDuff are PhD students performing their doctoral dissertation research at PBRC's Kewalo Marine Laboratory; Idechong, presently a graduate student at the University of Guam Marine Laboratory, served as an undergraduate research assistant at the Kewalo Marine Laboratory as well. In fact, three of the four students started their careers as researchers in PBRC's undergraduate programs, which foster critical thinking, problem solving and leadership.
"These four students are actively engaged in marine conservation research and its application to sustainability in Hawai'i and the Pacific Islands," said Dr. Robert Richmond, research professor at PBRC. "They will undoubtedly serve as excellent ambassadors and role models of the expertise and passion that exists in Hawai'i and Micronesia for protecting our oceans as a legacy for future generations."
PBRC has a long history of successfully engaging and mentoring under-represented minority students, particularly Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) disciplines. The advancement of these four graduate students is an example of positive outcomes in instilling a passion for learning and the application of science to locally relevant, real-world problems.
About PBRC (www.pbrc.hawaii.edu)
The Pacific Biosciences Research Center is an Organized Research Unit of the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa that focuses research, training and service activities on issues of particular relevance to Hawai'i and the Pacific Islands. Research topics include a range of subjects from land-sea connections (the Ahupua'a approach to integrated land-use practices and coastal coral reef protection) and invasive species, to the behavior of local plant pollinating bees, chemicals from marine organisms of potential value to medicine, the linkages between environmental and human health, and island sustainability.
About the Center for Ocean Solutions (www.centerforoceansolutions.org)
The Center for Ocean Solutions is a collaboration among Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment and Hopkins Marine Station, the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. Across these institutions, COS draws from about 80 scholars, researchers and educators who work on coastal and ocean ecosystems in the natural, physical and social sciences. COS also works with experienced conservation practitioners and policy experts. Located at Stanford and in Monterey, California, COS is uniquely positioned to leverage expertise and develop practical solutions to the most urgent and important ocean conservation problems.
For additional information, contact Dr. Robert Richmond, Kewalo Marine Laboratory, (808) 539-7331 or email@example.com.
Photo captions:
Aquarium (left to right): The four graduate students who participated in the Ocean Leadership Practicum are Sean MacDuff, Narissa Spies, Austin Shelton and Jacques Idechong. Here they are pictured at the Monterey Aquarium.
Center for Ocean Solutions (left to right): Dr. Larry Crowder, Adina Abeles, Jacques Idechong, Sean MacDuff, Meg Caldwell, Austin Shelton, Narissa Spies and Margaret Krebs


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Apples are ripening in many Illinois backyards and commercial pick-your-own orchards this month and most types soon will be ready for picking, preserving and eating out-of-hand.
When selecting the cream of this year's crop, keep in mind the particular attributes of various varieties and how they suit your intended uses.
Remember, some apples are best for eating fresh while others are best for cooking. Some varieties can do double duty.
Red Delicious apples are easy to identify by the five distinct bumps on the blossom end of each fruit. This sweet, crisp, juicy, low-acid apple is tasty when eaten raw but is not a good choice for cooking.
Golden Delicious apples are full and round and have firm, crisp flesh that is sweet and juicy. This all-purpose apple is good for eating, cooking and baking.
Jonathan apples are generally small to medium in size and dark to bright red. Their flesh is yellowish-white, occasionally with red veins and they are crisp, tender, juicy, aromatic and moderately tart. Jonathan apples are another all-purpose apple for cooking, baking or fresh eating.
The Winesap apple is solid and has a deep red color. It tastes winey and tart and is good for cooking and eating but not especially satisfactory for baking.
Rome Beauty apples have a mild flavor that is best savored after cooking or baking.
Timing is everything in attaining optimum quality apples.
When normal, unblemished fruits start to drop, the time is just about right plus the "under color" or "ground color" is a clue to maturity or ripeness.
The "under color," that is the same color as the peel in yellow or gold varieties and can be seen around the core or stem cavities in red varieties, changes from green to yellow or greenish-yellow as apples mature. Watch for that color change to make sure you're picking apples that are ready to use.
Ripe apples should be easy to pick with stems attached.
You should be able to roll or twist the apple so it's stem separates from the tree not from the fruit and remains on the tree. Handle fruits carefully after picking to avoid bruising.
Once you've made a decision on which variety you need and have picked them, you're entitled to enjoy at least a few as low-calorie snacks or desserts before getting to work with those you plan to preserve and enjoy later.
Going to an apple orchard can be a pleasant and educational experience for you and your family. The following tips will help to make that experience a great one!
Take advantage of the accessibility and availability of fresh apples before the growing season ends!


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Financial Security Advisor, Mutual Funds Representative
Investors Group Financial Services Inc.
Financial Services Firm
At IG Wealth Management, financial planning is a team effort. As your IG Consultant, I will meet with you to discuss your immediate goals and long-term objectives. With the support of our team of financial planning experts, who specialize in investment, retirement, tax and life planning and more, we will help make sure you have the financial plan that will help meet all your life's goals.
Our experts also help clients stay on top of government legislation changes, global market movements and new financial ideas, so they have the most up-to-date knowledge of the things that matter most to your plan.
Using all of that expertise, we will conduct a detailed assessment of your finances and then analyze that information to create an IG Living Plan™ – a financial plan that's synchronized to all aspects of your life. We'll regularly review your IG Living Plan to ensure it adapts to your evolving needs.
My IG advisor does all my financial planning
IG Wealth Management – they do all our financial planning. An IG advisor will show you a real financial plan that includes all of investments, retirement, estate planning, life insurance, tax strategies and more.
Retirement for today's changing world: Exposing the top 5 myths of retirement planningWATCH NOW
Selling a professional service business takes time – start planning for a sale at least five years out.Learn More
If you've maxed out your RRSPs and your TFSA and still have money to invest, then considerLearn more
As interest rates rise, you may be wondering if you should turn your variable rate mortgage intoLearn more
A family vacation home is more than an asset. It's years of shared memoriesLearn more
Running an incorporated business can also be tax advantageous as any money left inside of a corporation, up to $500,000 of active business income, is taxed at a low small business tax rate.Learn more
You may not need insurance for income replacement anymore. But you might buy life insurance to boost your estateLearn more


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Greg Spira had an interesting article, "The Boys of Late Summer," last week in Slate. The article examines the situational significance of birthdates on who makes it to the Bigs. (We're grateful to Situationist friend Andrew Perlman for calling our attention to this article.)
* * *
In 2000, John Holway argued in a book called The Baseball Astrologer that the sign under which an individual was born played a significant role in whether he made it in pro ball. Holway identified a real phenomenon, but the explanation does not lie in the stars. Since 1950, a baby born in the United States in August has had a 50 percent to 60 percent better chance of making the big leagues than a baby born in July. The lesson: If you want your child to be a professional baseball player, you should start planning early. Very early. As in before conception.
The table below lays out the full month-to-month data. As of the 2005 season, 503 Americans born in August had made it to the major leagues compared with 313 American born in July. . . .
The pattern is unmistakable. From August through the following July, there is a steady decline in the likelihood that a child born in the United States will become a major leaguer. Meanwhile, among players born outside the 50 states, there are some hints of a pattern but nothing significant enough to reach any conclusions. An analysis of the birth dates of players in baseball's minor leagues between 1984 and 2000 finds similar patterns, with American-born players far more likely to have been born in August than July. The birth-month pattern among Latin American minor leaguers is very different—if anything, they're more likely to be born toward the end of the year, in October, November, and December.
The magical date of Aug. 1 gives a strong hint as to the explanation for this phenomenon. For more than 55 years, July 31 has been the age-cutoff date used by virtually all nonschool-affiliated baseball leagues in the United States. Youth baseball organizations including Little League, Cal Ripken/Babe Ruth, PONY, Dixie Youth, Hap Dumont, Dizzy Dean, American Legion, and more have long used that date to determine which players are eligible for which levels of play. (There is no such commonly used cutoff date in Latin America.) The result: In almost every American youth league, the oldest players are the ones born in August, and the youngest are those with July birthdays. For example, someone born on July 31, 1990, would almost certainly have been the youngest player on his youth team in 2001, his first year playing in the 11-and-12-year-olds league, and of average age in 2002, his second year in the same league. Someone born on Aug. 1, 1989, by contrast, would have been of average age in 2001, his first year playing in the 11-and-12-year-olds division, and would almost certainly be the oldest player in the league in 2002.
Twelve full months of development makes a huge difference for an 11- or 12-year-old. The player who is 12 months older will, on average, be bigger, stronger, and more coordinated than his younger counterpart, not to mention more experienced. And those bigger, better players are the ones given opportunities for further advancement. Other players, who are just as skilled for their age, are less likely to be given those same opportunities simply because of when they were born. . . .
This phenomenon will not come as news to social scientists, who have observed the same patterns in a number of different sports. The first major study of what has become known as the "relative age effect" . . . determined that NHL players of the early 1980s were more than four times as likely to be born in the first three months of the calendar year as the last three months. In 2005, a larger study on the relative age effect in European youth soccer . . . . found a large relative age effect in almost every European country, though it seems to shrink in adult leagues and is less significant in women's soccer. . . .
Interestingly enough, the relative age effect doesn't appear in the two other major American sports leagues. . . .
* * *
To read more about the relative age effects, including possible explanations for the exceptions and the effects of the new April 30 cutoff date, link to the entire story here.


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Our lives are planned out
by a God who has His own plans.
He doesn't always tell us,
but He has us in His hands.
What we will accomplish
or what we will not,
whether it's for ourselves
or what we desire for God,
is not always the same
as what He desires.
But trusting and obeying
are what He admires.
And what we pass on
or desire for our children
may not be the same
as how God will build them.
Yet they, too, have a plan
that God has personally designed
to love God
with all of their heart, soul, and mind.
Dear God in heaven,
as You plan my day
please make sure it includes You
in every way.
written by Gail Brookshire
He Has Things All Planned Out
Our lives are planned out


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Sundried Tomato & Basil Bread Dipper
Many in stock
Bread Dippers
Wildly Delicious
Traditionally spiced with basil and sundried tomatoes, this product is a combination of sunflower oil, olive oil and red wine vinegar. To enjoy Canada's original and most respected bread dipper, simply shake vigorously, drizzle onto our specially designed ceramic serving plate and serve with freshly torn chunks of crusty bread. Other inspirational ideas include using our dippers as a marinade or vinaigrette.
Unit Size: 150 mL, 5.0 US fl oz
INGREDIENTS: Sunflower oil, red wine vinegar (contains sulphites), water, extra virgin olive oil, sundried tomatoes, basil, basil essence.
• Free of sodium
• Refrigerate after opening. Shake well before serving
• Contains: Sulphites. May contain mustard, sesame, wheat, tree nuts, soy, milk, eggs, fish.
• Made in Canada from domestic and imported ingredients
Returns Policy
Because of our BRC certifications we are unable to take products back into our facility. This is to ensure there is no cross contamination from untraceable or audit able sources. For recall purposes we track the source of all our supplied products coming to us. Once it leaves our facility and it's in transit we lose this capability and control. We hope you understand our reasons for enforcing a NO RETURNS POLICY.
We can ship to virtually any address in the world. Note that there are restrictions on some products, and some products cannot be shipped to international destinations.
When you place an order, we will estimate shipping and delivery dates for you based on the availability of your items and the shipping options you choose. Depending on the shipping provider you choose, shipping date estimates may appear on the shipping quotes page.
Please also note that the shipping rates for many items we sell are weight-based. The weight of any such item can be found on its detail page. To reflect the policies of the shipping companies we use, all weights will be rounded up to the next full pound.


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Become a Skinny Chef
Let's face it: All those diet plans and low-calorie recipes mean squat if your kitchen cupboards are lacking the tools that make cooking healthy meals no-excuses easy.
Luckily, you don't have to be Julia Child in order to whip up something that's low-calorie, but still satisfying. And to prove it, we gave staple kitchen items a second look to see if they can't work beyond their intended purpose to help you trim calories and fat. The results? They totally can.
But wait! We haven't even told you the best part yet. Now that you know you can use most of what's already in your kitchen drawers, you'll easily be able to eat four 400-calorie meals a day, which, as you know by now, is the key to lasting weight loss. Plus, you'll fuel energy, rev metabolism, and feel fuller longer.
Ready to get cookin'? Click through to see all 17 double-duty kitchen gadgets now!
8 minutes in the morning to a flat belly.
Pick up your copy today!
1. Measuring Spoon Set
If you thought these were only good for measuring liquids, think again. You can use them to sprinkle on just the right amount of sugar (8 calories per 1/2 tsp), nuts (15 to 20 calories per teaspoon), or mini chocolate chips (20 calories per teaspoon).
2. Digital Kitchen Scale
Double-check the weights of whole fruits and vegetables and visually compare different portion sizes to avoid calorie creep. For example, a small (6 oz) potato has 130 calories and a medium (7 1/2 oz) potato has 160 calories. A 1-ounce of Italian bread has 70 calories and a 2-ounce slice has 140 calories.
3. Vegetable Peeler
Sorry veggies, but you're no longer this appliance's one and only. Use it to slice cheese or chocolate into ultrathin 10-calorie curls, or make zucchini or eggplant ribbons to cook and serve like spaghetti or linguine, but with less than half the calories!
4. Cheese Grater
Use the extra-fine grate for a 20-calorie, 1-tablespoon dusting of cheese on steamed vegetables, or shave medium ribbons of chocolate (25 calories per tablespoon) to liven up a bowl of berries.
More from Prevention: 400-Calorie Cheese Fixes
5. Storage Containers, Serving Spoons and Utensils
Once you determine which container can hold your 400-calorie serving of pasta, you'll never have to measure it out again. Same for a soup ladle. At 1/2 cup per ladle, dishing out an 80-calorie serving of tomato sauce is a breeze. Or serve yourself 1 cup, or 2 ladles, of split pea soup for an easy 180-calorie appetizer.
More from Prevention: 20 Satisfying Soups and Stews
6. 12-Cup Nonstick Muffin Pan
Ah, so that's why the muffin man is so popular! In addition to your favorite breakfast, you can also use these pans to bake quiche, cake, quick bread, and hors d'oeuvres in right-size portions.
More from Prevention: 10 Low-Calorie Breakfasts
7. Coffee Grinder
Not that you need another reason to love the tool that brings you your morning java—caffeine! antioxidants!—but here's one anyway: You can use it to chop 1 tablespoon of nuts for a quick 50-calorie garnish.
More from Prevention: 7 Double-Duty Beauty Foods
8. Nested, Heavy-Gauge, Stainless Steel Measuring Cups
These are a lifesaver when you can't seem to eyeball ingredients the way your mom does. But, if you use them directly on the stove, you can also hear or reduce small amounts of liquid for sauces and salad dressings.
9. 2-Cup Glass Liquid Measuring Cup
For melting and warming: Measure soft butter or margarine, chocolate chips, milk, and so on directly in the cup then microwave. For salad dressing: Layer oil, vinegar, and other ingredients using the measurement markings, and combine with a small whisk or immersion blender.
10. Metal Tea Ball
Normally used to brew tea, which you can drink to lower blood pressure, this appliance also promises calorie-free flavor. Just fill it with herbs or spices and add to the pot when cooking soups and desserts.
11. Collapsible Metal Vegetable Steamer
You can steam much more than broccoli! Cook Asian dumplings without adding calories or prepare cubs of delicate silken tofu that still hold their shape. Might we suggest our Indian Vegetables with Baked Tempeh recipe?
12. Coffee Drip Cone
Line with a paper or gold filter, fill with plain yogurt, and place over a bowl in the fridge; as the whey drains off, you get Greek-style yogurt. Because it's thicker than regular yogurt, some people find it more of an indulgence.
13. Parchment Paper
Typically used to line your cookie sheets, you can now use it to wrap fish or chicken fillets, or thinly sliced meat, along with vegetables in a parchment packet and bake for a flavorful, low-calorie meal.
14. Mini Food Processor
The food processor is already pretty handy, but we're taking it a step further. Make bread and cracker crumbs for a quick, 10-calorie-per-tablespoon crunchy topping. The crumbs can be for entrees, or even dessert!
15. Rice Cooker
Move over, rice: This cooker can also steam vegetables perfectly al dente. Bonus: Steamed veggies retain more of their vitamins than when they are boiled.
More from Prevention: Fruits and Veggies You Should Always Buy Organic
16. Slow Cooker
Soak dry beans for a couple hours and then cook overnight; they hold their shape and are cooked just right. Then, you can toss them into our Slow Cooker Black Bean Chili for a heart-healthy meal that's full of fiber.
More from Prevention: Low-Cost Slow Cooker Recipes
17. Small Plates and Bowls
Point blank: big plates equal bigger portions. With smaller dishes, your meals will look larger, and you'll feel like you're eating a larger portion. Here are some 400-Calorie staples:
- 8" salad plates
- 8- to 12-ounce soup/salad bowls
- Tall, skinny drinking glasses
- Small serving bowls and spoons
- 8- to 10-ounce mugs for lattes, hot cocoa
As for color, see how white plates can trick you into eating less.
Stephanie is an SEO manager for Hearst Magazines, where she works closely with editors to help inform a unique content strategy for search. Previously, she was an editor for Time Inc's news group, including Time, Fortune, and Money Magazine.


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Today's News: Our Take - VIDEO: Watch Ricky Gervais Reprise His Office Role as David Brent
TV Guide
It's been almost 10 years, but David Brent is back! Ricky Gervais reprised his Office role for a 10-minute video, The Office Revisted. The clip aired on BBC 1 Friday to benefit Comic Relief, a charity organization dedicated to fighting poverty.
Photos: Shows we want to reunite
So where is David Brent now? Still selling, but he traded paper for cleaning products, and he's acting as a "local Simon Cowell," managing the career of Dom Johnson. Get the whole story on Brent's past decade below, followed by Brent and Johnson's music video, "Equality Street."
View original VIDEO: Watch Ricky Gervais Reprise His Office Role as David Brent at TVGuide.com
Other Links From TVGuide.com


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Though I'd heard of this film – and loved one of its songs (As-salaam-aaleikum babu) – I'd not been too keen on watching it. Firstly, Ashok Kumar is not really my idea of a dashing leading man. Secondly, I'm not a great one for the Travancore Sisters. At the risk of being labelled an iconoclast, I'm going to admit that dance is not generally a big thing for me – I'm awful at any sort of dancing myself, and I don't have much of an eye for watching it, either. Plus, there's the fact that both Padmini and Ragini have horrid Hindi accents, which means that when they're playing Hindi-speaking characters, they are not exactly very believable.
Then Richard reviewed Kalpana, and I got to know a bit more about the film. And then, to add to it all, Tom Daniel praised it too. So, I ended up watching Kalpana. It turned out to be – surprise, surprise – much more engrossing than I'd expected it to be.
The story starts in Kashmir, where Amar (Ashok Kumar), a painter, has gone with his servant D'Souza (Sunder, in quintessential 'benign Christian' mode).
Amar spends his days painting the beautiful vistas around – and one day, thanks to D'Souza, notices a graceful addition to the landscape.
This turns out to be a girl (Padmini), who lives with her mother Kishoribai (Achla Sachdev) and seems to spend much of her time dancing in gardens, singing about how beqaraar (restless) she is. Amar encounters his elusive muse one day, and when he tells her – no doubt trying to be poetic and complimentary – that he recognises her and that she is his kalpana (literally, imagination), she seems distinctly worried, and even close to panicky.
…which is nothing to what transpires when she goes home to her mother and tells her about Amar. Kishoribai is thoroughly distressed (and what a mistress of distress Achla Sachdev was!) There is some very anxious discussion of what will happen if the mother and daughter are discovered, and we learn that the daughter's name is Kalpana. Ah. So that is why she lost her wits when Amar claimed her as his kalpana.
He now sets out to do precisely this. They go on long walks together and gaze dreamily into each other's eyes, and it becomes increasingly clear that love is not just in the air, it's crystallised.
One day, though, just before Amar is to come and visit them, Kalpana arrives home to find mummy in a state of acute anxiety. A telegram has arrived, that Thakur Sahib will be coming. Oh no! So the two of them pack up and leave, and Amar arrives to find a mysteriously locked home.
He is left nursing:
(a) a broken heart (well, actually probably not; he doesn't seem especially perturbed about his girlfriend's disappearance), and
(b) a half-finished canvas on which he'd painted a portrait of Kalpana's.
[It looks rather creepy, doesn't it, just that head with its closed eyes? As if it was a painting of someone who'd been guillotined. Ugh.]
Amar too packs up and goes home to Bombay, where he's the principal of an arts centre called the Bharti Kala Kendra. On the train journey back, a sleeping Amar wakes up one night to find that the (previously empty) berth above his has been hijacked by a girl named Asha (Ragini). Asha, we learn, is a dancer, and very cocksure.
By the time morning dawns and Amar wakes, Asha's gone. He, however, meets her again very soon after – she turns up at the Bharti Kala Kendra to apply for a job as a dance teacher. Thanks to Amar's goodwill (which is very generous of him, since she'd been rather cocky and even downright rude on the train), she manages to get the job. Amar seems fond of her in an avuncular sort of way…
… and even takes her home to meet his mother (? Who is this actress? She gives the impression of being much younger than she's pretending to be) and his little daughter Munni (Baby Farida). Munni's mother – Amar's wife – had died when Munni was only three days old, and ever since, Munni has been asking Amar where her mother is.
Asha is an instant hit with both Munni and Amar's mother.
Over the following days, through a convoluted series of events involving that guillotined-head painting, D'Souza, Amar's mother and Munni all convince themselves that Asha is the girl Amar had met in Kashmir and fallen in love with. Amar's mother is especially delighted, because now Amar will get married again and Munni will have a loving mother and all will be well.
And being the interfering sort so many screen mothers in Hindi films are, she even meets Asha – in Amar's absence – and tells her outright how happy she is about Amar and Asha's relationship. Asha, who's already pretty deeply in love with Amar, is all blushing joy when she gets what she thinks are her future mother-in-law's blessings.
Amar, of course, knows nothing of what's being cooked up behind his back. In the meantime, one day he receives an invitation to a dance performance at a theatre and goes there to find that the dancer is none other than his true love, Kalpana!
They meet after the performance, and though she's as loving and glad as ever to see him, Kalpana still doesn't tell Amar why she had to leave Kashmir in such a hurry. Amar, oddly enough, also doesn't seem too curious.
They continue from where they'd left off. Kalpana's mother is finally introduced to Amar. At Kalpana's home, just as they're settling down to tea, a phone call – from someone called Jauhar – sends Kishoribai into a tizzy, and she insists on Amar and Kalpana getting out of the house. Jauhar, apparently, is not the sort of person she'd want Amar to meet.
Unlike Amar, though, we have already met Jauhar (? IMDB credits him as Iftekhar, but this is no more Iftekhar than I am). Jauhar is the man who'd one day come to Kalpana's green room after a dance performance and had been pestering her for money. Although neither of them says it outright, it's obvious that Jauhar is blackmailing Kalpana.
But why? What is the deep dark secret that Kalpana and her mother harbour? Who is the mysterious Thakur Sahib, the very name of whom drives the two women away from Kashmir to the other end of the country? And what will happen to this rather convoluted love triangle?
What I liked about this film:
I never thought I'd end up saying this about any film, but here goes: Padmini. She is lovely, her dancing is par excellence, and her acting is very good. And the accent that I'm always cribbing about? It's barely there – not enough for it to interfere with her characterisation of Kalpana, at any rate. I wonder if the director, Rakhan, had much to do with that – did he (or rather someone delegated by him for the dubbing) spend hours coaching Padmini and Ragini (who also has only the mildest of accents)?
The music, by O P Nayyar. I've already mentioned As-salaam-aaleikum babu as among my favourites from this film; others include the famous classic duet by Manna Dey and Mohammad Rafi, Tu hai mera prem devta, and the typically O P Nayyar solos, Oh ji saawan mein hoon beqaraar, Phir bhi hai dil beqaraar, and Aana aana atariya pe aana.
And, the dancing. Both Padmini and Ragini are fantastic. Even someone with two left feet (yours truly), ended up muttering to herself: "What grace! What flexibility!" and "How on earth did she do that?!"
What I didn't like:
The story and scripting of this film aren't among the best I've ever seen. Initially – while the secret behind Kalpana and Kishoribai's occasional bouts of panic remained a secret – it looks like it'll turn out to be a suspense film. That, of course, considering I'm such a devotee of the genre, had me sit up, all agog. Then, slowly, the truth began to dawn: this isn't a suspense film, not by a long stretch. It becomes obvious, fairly early on, what that deep dark secret is (it's a different matter that I kept telling myself that it couldn't be that; there had to be more to it).
What's more, the film suffers from the (alas, far too common) fault of starting off all bubbly and joyful, and then degenerating into the most insufferably depressing and morbid melodrama ever. En route, there are odd little details that are left hanging in mid-air, weird questions that are left unanswered: what, for instance, is really the point of the striking resemblance between Kalpana and Asha? (A fact, by the way, that is mentioned more than once in the film). I expected them at least to be long-lost sisters.
And why does the Thakur actually spend so much time and energy trying to track Kishoribai and Kalpana across the country? Even though the explanation is explicitly stated, it sounds thin to me – a man this rich, this arrogant, getting so desperate about this girl? I'd have expected a man of the Thakur's ilk to give up and go away in a huff after a while.
No, not a great piece of writing or film-making. But yes, the dance and the music are awesome.


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-> Elder
Definition of Elder in the Bible
Elder: a name frequently used in the Old Testament as denoting a person clothed with authority, and entitled to respect and reverence (Gen. 50:7). It also denoted a political office (Num. 22:7). The "elders of Israel" held a rank among the people indicative of authority. Moses opened his commission to them (Ex. 3:16). They attended Moses on all important occasions. Seventy of them attended on him at the giving of the law (Ex. 24:1). Seventy also were selected from the whole number to bear with Moses the burden of the people (Num. 11:16, 17). The "elder" is the keystone of the social and political fabric wherever the patriarchal system exists. At the present day this is the case among the Arabs, where the sheik (i.e., "the old man") is the highest authority in the tribe. The body of the "elders" of Israel were the representatives of the people from the very first, and were recognized as such by Moses. All down through the history of the Jews we find mention made of the elders as exercising authority among the people. They appear as governors (Deut. 31:28), as local magistrates (16:18), administering justice (19:12). They were men of extensive influence (1 Sam. 30:26-31). In New Testament times they also appear taking an active part in public affairs (Matt. 16:21; 21:23; 26:59).
The Jewish eldership was transferred from the old dispensation to the new. "The creation of the office of elder is nowhere recorded in the New Testament, as in the case of deacons and apostles, because the latter offices were created to meet new and special emergencies, while the former was transmitted from the earlies times. In other words, the office of elder was the only permanent essential office of the church under either dispensation."
The "elders" of the New Testament church were the "pastors" (Eph. 4:11), "bishops or overseers" (Acts 20:28), "leaders" and "rulers" (Heb. 13:7; 1 Thess. 5:12) of the flock. Everywhere in the New Testament bishop and presbyter are titles given to one and the same officer of the Christian church. He who is called presbyter or elder on account of his age or gravity is also called bishop or overseer with reference to the duty that lay upon him (Titus 1:5-7; Acts 20:17-28; Phil. 1:1).


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This article is more than 1 year old
Paintballs proposed as defense against ASTEROID ATTACK
Just in time to to deflect Apophis, destroyer of worlds
An MIT graduate student has devised a plan to save the world from destruction by an inbound asteroid using a novel weapon: interplanetary paintballs.
Sung Wook Paek of the Cambridge, Massachsetts, brainiac academy's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics – affectionately known as AeroAstro – entered his asteroid-deflecting proposal in the Move An Asteroid 2012 Competition sponsored by the United Nations Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC). He won.
Paek's plan eschews the asteroid-killing nuclear explosives of Armageddon, Deep Impact, The Day the Sky Exploded, and Meteor, or even the frickin' lasers of Asteroid, and relies instead on a more prosaic means to nudge an asteroid off course: paint.
The boffin-in-training envisions maneuvering a spacecraft close to the incoming earth destroyer, then firing off two volleys of paint pellets, the first to cover one half of the asteroid in a light-colored paint powder, and the second to do the same to the other side after it rotated into view.
With the asteroid thus brightened – or, more properly, thus having its albedo increased – the sun's solar radiation would more forcefully push upon it, knocking it off course using esentially the same principle that won the University of Queensland's Mary D'Souza the 2008 SGAC prize: turning the asteroid into a solar sail.
As anyone who has stood in the sun wearing a black T-shirt knows, dark surfaces absorb the sun's rays, while said rays bounce off light surfaces. And as Reg readers certainly remember from their study of Newtonian physics, when something bounces off something, the first something gives the second something a push. The asteroid would be slowly but steadily nudged away, saving our beloved planet.
Speaking of Newton's Third Law of Motion, the paint pellets themselves would also have a kinetic effect on the asteroid's course when fired upon it, adding to the trajectory-altering effect. Bonus!
Being a thorough young student, Paek tested his hypothosis by mathematically modelling what would be required to deflect the asteroid Apophis, which is scheduled to swing by our neighborhood in 2029 and again in 2036.
For those of you who haven't been following that brute's perigrinations for the past decade or so, Apophis has a diameter of about 1,480 feet (450 meters) and is calculated to have a mass of about 27 gigatons – that's US tons, by the way, not metric tons. Should Apophis drop in for a visit, the results wouldn't be pretty.
According to Paek's slide rule (or more likely his copy of Maple), a mere five tons of paint would be needed to coat Apophis with a five-micrometer layer of paint powder. It would then take up to 20 years for the force of solar radiation to push Apophis sufficiently off course, saving our earthly hineys.
Quick. Look at the calendar. Ah, relax – we still have time before the 2036 visit. The 2029 one? Worry not – that pass will merely be close enough to deflect Apophis enough to give it a better shot at us in 2036 – although the odds of it actually doing so are quite poor.
That latter year, however, will be a presidential election year in the US – and if political advertising has increased to a Minority Report level of sophistication by that time, we may be begging Apophis to put us out of our misery. ®


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Rich detailed vector area map of Miami, Florida, U.S.A.. Print template for home decor.
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If you need an even higher level of detail or a different map section of Florida or an adjacent community, visit our Custom Vector Map Service. Here you can customize and order your own Miami map in in various styles in ultra-high resolution.


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OTTAWA—The federal government is looking at creating a new benefit to help low-income Canadians who struggle to pay the rent each month, but is being warned that the measure isn't a solution to the country's housing crunch.
Multiple sources with knowledge of talks say the government has quietly been exploring how to establish a new housing supplement program that would link benefits to individuals, rather than housing units — a departure from how such supplements have typically worked.
Generally, housing benefits are provided to renters who need help paying the bills, but are usually tied to an apartment through rent-geared-to-income plans or rent supplements.
Should a renter move to a new unit, the benefit or supplement doesn't follow.
That creates problems — for women and children fleeing domestic violence who need housing quickly, for instance, or homeless people on waiting lists who need help addressing issues like mental illness or addiction.
One federal source said discussions have revolved around how such a supplement could be delivered, be it through existing provincial or municipal programs, or through the tax system. The National Housing Collaborative, an umbrella group of housing and homelessness organizations, recommended the government use the tax system to remove the need for a lengthy application process.
Although the Liberals appear receptive to the idea, the sources — speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to disclose details — say no decision has been made on whether to include the measure in the budget.
A spokeswoman for Finance Minister Bill Morneau said she wouldn't speculate on what will be in the budget this year.
The Liberals first budget set aside $2.3 billion over two years to build new affordable housing units, as well as refurbish existing ones.
Cities and advocates welcomed the spending, but said it would take time for the help to reach some 1.6 million households in "core housing need" — those who spend more than one-third of their before-tax income on housing that may be substandard or doesn't meet their needs. Research from the University of Calgary has found that the country's lowest income earners can spend up to 80 per cent of their income on housing.
In its pre-budget submission this year, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities called for a "portable" rent supplement to help those households and serve as a bridge until new affordable housing units can come online.
The benefit, if adopted, could also help the approximately 300,000 households who are expected to lose federal housing subsidies as funding agreements with social housing providers expire over the next decade.
FCM president Clark Somerville said the supplement should be seen as one tool to combat homelessness. He said the Liberals still need to put money into building housing and protecting existing units to prevent rents from rising in response to a new federal benefit.
"It might seem tempting to offer rent supplements as an across-the-board solution, but in many areas that would just push rents up," he said. "There's no shortcut. We've got to fix the affordable housing supply shortage first."
If rents do rise — and the research on the issue isn't clear if that would happen — it would likely be in the short-term, but then be offset by expected increases in the supply of low-cost units, "which is really what we're after here," said Ron Kneebone, an economist from the University of Calgary who studies homelessness.
"The government realizes it's not a solution to simply build what generally end up turning into ghettos of huge numbers of government-provided housing," Kneebone said.
"What they're really recognizing here is that a better solution is to provide poor people with the housing benefit that allows them to go shopping for housing."
He said any new benefit tied to a person would also encourage a renter to avoid risky behaviour like drug use that could lead them to lose their housing and the benefit as well.
The federal government is in the midst of finalizing a national housing strategy and the minister responsible says he expects it to be completed by early 2017, although an exact timeline hasn't been set. A separate housing strategy for indigenous Canadians could take an additional year.
A key goal of the strategy is to provide every Canadian with affordable housing that meets their requirements.


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Naomi Campbell Robbed in Paris, Valentino Hosts Rowdy NYE Bash, Lily Cole Dating Twitter Founder?
Naomi Campbell is said to have been left with a torn ligament in her leg after being violently robbed in Paris. [NY Post]
British model turned actress Lily Cole rumored to be dating Twitter founder; has been spotted spending time with the multi-millionaire aboard a luxury yacht in the Caribbean. [Fashion Telegraph]
Macy's to close a half-dozen stores this spring. [WWD]
Valentino Garavani allegedly annoyed neighbors by hosting a noisy New Year's Eve bash at his Gstaad, Switzerland chalet. [NY Post]
Tory Burch is now a billionaire thanks to her recent legal settlement with her former husband, Chris Burch. [Vogue U.K.]
Meghan Collison goes under the sea for Mulberry's spring 2013 campaign. [WWD]
A new Tumblr page called Pokémon X Fashion blends the Japanese phenomenon's most famous characters with world-class fashion editorials. [Daily Beast]
Ying Chu Named Executive Beauty Director of Glamour mag. [Glamour]


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A U.S. congressman has reintroduced legislation that would ban sex-selection or race-based abortions. Congressman Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican who is a member of the House Judiciary Committee, has brought back the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act.
The measure would prohibit knowingly performing or financing sex-selection or race-based abortions. Franks has said the bill is needed because abortions on black babies are done at much higher rates than abortions on babies of other races.
"[T]he Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act, or "PRENDA," … restricts sex-selection abortion and race-selection abortion, and the coercion of a woman to obtain either. The woman seeking an abortion is exempted from prosecution, while abortion providers are held to account," wrote Franks in a letter to colleagues on Monday.
"Sex-selection abortion is happening in the United States. A study published in the April 2008 Journal of the National Academy of Sciences shows through U.S. Census data that certain segments of the U.S. population – particularly those coming from countries that practice sex-selection abortion – have unnaturally skewed sex-ratios at birth caused by sex-selection 'most likely at the prenatal stages,'" Franks added.
Franks also noted that abortion centers are disproportionately placed in African-American communities and he pointed out that Planned Parenthood has come under fire for accepting donations from people claiming to want the abortion business to target blacks.
"Following the unearthing of the nation-wide race-targeted abortion donations, civil rights activists and African-American pastors from across the country protested government acquiescence in race-targeted abortion and the government funding of clinics that they believe are purposefully placed in the inner city and targeted to minority women," he said.
A few years ago, a national study showed the possibility that the practice of sex-selection abortions has made its way from Asia to the United States. Researchers Douglas Almond and Lena Edlund of the National Academy of Sciences say their analysis of the 2000 Census shows the odds prematurely increasing for Asian-American families from China, Korea and India to have a boy if they already have a girl child.
The data "suggest that in a sub-population with a traditional son preference, the technologies are being used to generate male births when preceding births are female," they wrote in the paper.
Meanwhile, a 2006 poll showed a majority of Americans would likely support the bill. A 2006 Zogby International poll shows that 86% of the American public desires a law to ban sex selection abortion. The poll surveyed a whopping 30,117 respondents in 48 states.
Father Shenan J. Boquet, president of Human Life International, said today he supports the bill.
"While we should strive to end abortion in all circumstances, this legislation is an important and welcome step," he said. "Every human life is sacred, but to specifically target the unborn based on race or gender for destruction magnifies the inherit evil of abortion, and fosters an even greater prejudice toward life itself."
The Alliance Defense Fund, a pro-life law firm, worked with Franks' staff on a previous version of the measure.
"No one should be allowed to decide that an innocent life is worthless, least of all because a child isn't of the preferred sex or race," ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven Aden told LifeNews.com. "There is nothing constitutionally protected or medically necessary about an abortion that takes place because a child is not the preferred sex or race. And there is nothing in the law or the Constitution that prohibits America from joining other civilized nations in prohibiting such barbaric procedures," he said.
"ADF commends Rep. Franks for his leadership in affirming the rule of law's protection for every American, regardless of race or gender, beginning in the womb," said Aden in 2009 when it was previously introduced.
The bill will be formally introduced today and Franks's letter to congressional colleagues lists 18 current cosponsors of the bill, including Representatives Aderholt (R-Ala.), Akin (R-Mo.), Bartlett (R-Md.), Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Burton (R-Ind.), Crawford (R-Ark.), Duncan (R-Tenn.), Forbes (R-Va.), Fortenberry (R-Neb.), Garrett (R-N.J.), Harris (R-Md.), Jones (R-N.C.), King (R-Iowa), Kinzinger (R-Ill.), Lipinski (D-Ill.), Pearce (R-N.M.), Pence (R-Ind.), Schmidt (R-Ohio), Smith (R-Texas) and Westmoreland (R-Ga.).
"A `sex-selection abortion' is an abortion undertaken for purposes of eliminating an unborn child of an undesired sex. Sex-selection abortion is barbaric, and described by scholars and civil rights advocates as an act of sex-based or gender-based violence, predicated on sex discrimination," according to the 2009 version of the bill. "By definition, sex-selection abortions do not implicate the health of the mother of the unborn, but instead are elective procedures motivated by sex or gender bias."
Similarly, "A `race-selection abortion' is an abortion performed for purposes of eliminating an unborn child because the child or a parent of the child is of an undesired race. Race-selection abortion is barbaric, and described by civil rights advocates as an act of race-based violence, predicated on race discrimination."


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There's much to get excited about with Samsung's 52" LN52A850S1F LCD HDTV, commonly known as the 'A850'. For starters this LCD HDTV ups the ante with the ability to play movies/music/pictures directly from a USB
mass storage device or over a home network connection and it's screen is
less than 2" thick, making it one of the thinnest large screen
TV's out there.
For those of you obsessed with specs and numbers,
Samsung's A850-series stacks up like this: the 52" diagonal LCD screen
boats a contrast ratio of 70,000:1 (dynamic), a brightness value of 500nits,
industry standard viewing angles of 178/178 (horizontal/vertical), and a 4ms
pixel refresh rate. The LN52A850S1F has a native resolution of 1920 x 1080
pixels and can maintain both 60Hz and 120Hz refresh rates. It's ATSC digital TV
tuner picks up over the air signals without any additional hardware, and the
screen boasts no fewer than four
HDMI inputs.
overall design of the Samsung LN52A850S1F can be described in two words -
"sleek" and "thin". In fact the display itself is just a shade under two inches
wide, so when mounted on a wall it will only protrude as much as an equivalently
sized painting. It looks spectacular in the office, taking it home and having it
sit flush on a living room wall would look even better.
The Samsung Wiselink
content playback system has been significantly upgraded from the Samsung
A650-series to a more versatile package dubbed Wiselink Pro. This upgraded
system has the ability to access content off a USB thumb drive and use the
HDTV's bulit-in hardware decoder to play compressed music, photos and movie
files in a number of formats. Wiselink Pro can also connect via Ethernet to a
media server (any PC with Samsung's PC Share Manager software) to stream content
effortlessly. Samsung call this basic media streaming the Digital Living Network
Alliance (DLNA).
Screen size: 52"
Brightness: 500 cd/m2 Contrast Ratio:
1000:1(Dynamic Contrast Ratio:
70,000:1) Viewing Angle:
178°/178°Interface: (4) HDMI,
(2) Component, (2)Composite, S-Video, D-Sub, RF-coaxial,
1920x1080Response Time: 4ms
(G-to-G)Power Draw: 390WDimensions:
49.7 x 32.8 x 12.3" Weight: 31.2
kgVESA Mount: 4 00x400mm
VIDEO/MEDIA: Aspect Ratio:
16:9HDCP: YesLCD
120Hz: YesUSB2.0 Ports:
Includes: Remotes, batteries, manual, AC power cord,
microfiber cleaning cloth, HDMI-cable.
In other words, Wiselink Pro allows you to
easily send movies, music and photos from a USB drive or PC directly to the HDTV over a standard home ethernet
network. PCSTATS tested both Wiselink Pro configurations and this technology has some incredible potential
for changing how you watch and access digital content.
Like the Samsung A650-series before it, the Samsung
LN52A850S1F supports Auto Motion Plus, a technology that enhances fast-moving
video by interpolating extra frames, up-converting native 60Hz
video to an effective 120Hz refresh rate. Essentially this corrects motion jittering in high-speed action sequences and panning shots. The Samsung LN52A850S1F has a new
revision of the Auto Motion Plus interpolation processing system, so PCSTATS will be taking a
closer look at it later on in this review.
The remote
comes with a scroll wheel that doubles as a directional pad. The iPod strikes again.
New to the Samsung A850-series of LCD HDTV displays is
the Content Library, a wholly useless feature to most
people. Infolink
is back for those who would rather view real-time updates on stock information, news headlines (just from
USA today) and local weather on their TV than start up the
computer in the morning.
Media inputs are one of the critical areas where HDTV's falter,
too few and you're left without an easy way to connect your many media devices. Samsung's
LN52A850S1F HDTV has a substantial set, including no less than four HDMI inputs. Like
all modern TV's, the screen includes a built in HD Digital TV tuner for
ATSC signals. The nice
thing about broadcast HD television is that depending on your location, you can probably
start watching HD TV without even paying for it.
Side and rear I/O
panels for a variety of media inputs
and easily accessible inputs for portable devices like a game system, camera or USB
With its stand attached, the Samsung LN52A850S1F
measures 49.7" wide, 30.7" tall and the screen 1.9" thick. The base swivels
30 degrees L/R and isn't too bad at 12.4" deep. Not including the bezel,
the screen measures 45.5" inches across, 25.7 inches high (52" diagonal). The
entire unit weighs a hefty 31kg or 68lbs. Expect the screen to draw upwards of
390W while on, less than 5W in standby.
The LN52A850S1F is
the largest in Samsung's 850-series, commanding a price of around
which is about average
for an HDTV of this size and feature set. Next let's see just how many
peripherals we can plug into this 52" display at the same time, but first let's go in for a closer look at
this home theatre centerpiece.


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The June, 2010 issue of Civil War Times magazine ushers in the first installment of a new department I'll be writing called In Harm's Way. These columns will feature homes on or in the vicinity of battlefields. While the structures or the grounds they occupy will typically have played some role in a battle, the focus will be on the occupants and their stories before, during, and after the action. This is an idea I pitched to editor Dana Shoaf, who saw something in it and gave me the go-ahead for the first article on Gettysburg's Lydia Leister house, site of Union General George G. Meade's headquarters on July 2 & 3, 1863.
I made arrangements with Ranger Scott Hartwig at the park and at the end of January spent a couple of days there, first in the library where Ranger John Heiser gave me access to the park files on the house, and the next day at the house where Ranger Troy Harman unlocked the door and allowed me to photograph practically every square inch of the tiny log cabin. Not many interior photos made the article, so let me share a few here (click the thumbs for a larger image):
I'm looking forward to this new project, which is scheduled for 6 issues. It presents some interesting creative challenges, and will also require me to make new contacts since I won't be able to travel to all the sites. The subject of the next article has been chosen, inquiries have been sent, materials have been received, and writing has commenced. Let me know what you think of the articles, and if you really like them, let the magazine know!


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