IN THE EPICUREAN treatise “On the Nature of Things,” the poet Lucretius says that the key to happiness is the satisfaction of modest wants. The Buddha observes that the source of people’s misery is not loss but attachment. Camus advises that we “imagine Sisyphus happy.”

And a man at a bar told me you can only sleep in one bed at night and walk in one pair of boots. That man’s name might have been Lynyrd Skynyrd.

In any event, as we round the New Year, the wisdom of the Ancients is clear: Happy the person who follows a moderate path, neither deprived nor depriving, free of conceit or the lust for material things. That’s where our test car comes in.

This is the 2017 VW Golf Alltrack TSI S 4Motion ($28,615, as tested), a five-seat, all-wheel-drive wagon, a variant of the Golf SportWagen with an additional 1.4 inches of ground clearance and a bit of soft-road exterior trim (roof rails, metal-like bumper treatments, nothing too flashy). It’s aimed so squarely at the Subaru Outback they could have called it “Das Hinterland.”

It’s important to affirm, given the tone of skepticism that follows, that I really like this car. Powered by a 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine regulated to produce 170 hp—or so they say!—and rolling by way of a six-speed dual-clutch automatic and AWD axles borrowed from the Golf R, the Alltrack presents as a family-friendly European touring wagon that can be had for under $30,000, with AWD. If you wait a few weeks you can order one with a six-speed manual transmission, with a clutch and everything.

We auto journalists love these sorts of cars, because they make the point that crossovers are pointless. You can have five-passenger seating, flexible cargo space and snow-rut ground clearance without sitting a half-foot higher in the air, deranging the vehicle dynamics and wasting fuel on aero drag. Pound for pound, inch for inch, there is nothing your crossover can do that Herr Professor here cannot, better.

The explosion of crossover sales attests to my guild’s influence.

The Alltrack’s product planners have kicked in a tempting mix of standard features dear to early nesters, including: smartphone connectivity (Apple CarPlay and Android Auto); heated front seats; upgraded leatherette upholstery; and power door locks. The optional Driver Assistance package ($845) provisioned our Alltrack with the parking-assist features and adaptive cruise control with emergency braking. Never used them.

However, for once, our test car was not the top of the line. Actually, its driver interface was downright vintage: an insert-key ignition lock on the column; three rotary dials for climate control; two knobs flanking the audio display (tune and volume); two clocklike dials for speedo and tach with pivoting red needles; and a conventional pull-up hand brake in the center console.

These characters return in the third act, so be ready.

Speaking of New Year’s resolutions, I imagine VW AG has a lot of them. Last week the Wolfsburg, Germany-based multinational agreed to fix or buy back 80,000 more VW, Audi and Porsche vehicles, bringing the costs of VW’s Dieselgate fiasco to $17.5 billion and more than half a million aggrieved U.S. customers.

These events have given the word-of-mouth serious halitosis. VW brand’s U.S. year-to-date sales were down 10.3% in November, which management probably considered good news, on balance. VW brand’s other challenges include a shattered U.S. dealer force and a reputation for reliability that rivals country-music great George Jones.

Given its back story, our little lifted wagon might as well have pulled up to the house accompanied by menacing theme music. But, God help me, I really like this car. I like the pugnacious stance and useful increase in ground clearance. I like the seating position, easy ingress at four doors, and outward visibility. If you fold down the rear seat-backs, a Costco -worthy cargo space appears (66.5 cubic feet).

On the outside, I’m really liking the strict, drafting-table lines and conservative modeling. Dare I call it honest?

No, not fast. With the engine’s 199 pound-feet tasked to move a 3,500-pound mass, the Alltrack is what you might call entertainingly underpowered. It’s pretty snorey around town, the result of its various fuel-saving protocols. The turbo-four uses an iron engine block, as opposed to aluminum, which helps knock down engine noise and thrash.

On an inviting road, you can downshift the dual-clutch automatic (by shifter or column-mounted buttons), punch up the Sport driving mode, and summon the turbo’ed bee swarm. The Alltrack’s cornering reflexes are sound, with an eager turn-in and assured body control. But it’s the dual-clutch gearbox, more than the revvy four and pointy steering, that gives the Alltrack its kinkiness. The AWD system is what will help it play in the Snowbelt.

Taut, economical sport wagons are historically VW’s domain. This is the sort of car I’ve come to expect from Wolfsburg, and I especially approve if the alternative is another crossover. At least it’s not some bloated, three-row SUV. What? Oh, sorry. Look for the VW Atlas, coming soon!

And one thing more: simplicity.

The following is anecdotal and must be weighted as such. But I’ve had dozens of correspondents over the years complain about digital cabin electronics like touch screens controlling basic functions of climate, audio and vehicle systems. The people at J.D. Power will tell you that user frustration with in-cabin technology is the biggest source of new-car initial quality complaints. Judging from my reader mail, tens of thousands must be avoiding high-tech interfaces in favor of the analogue controls, perhaps by buying lower-trim models.

I wonder if this mood represents a market opportunity for VW? Maybe, on the car side, the road to redemption includes reinventing smart and basic, cheap but cheerful designs, with beauty and minimalism united by clarity of function.

You might even call it the people’s car.

Summary: Could the Volkswagen Golf Alltrack, an accessible little wagon, point the way to VW’s redemption?


Adele's record-crushing streak continues. In addition to dethroning 'NSYNC after their 15-year run by selling over 3 million albums in one week, topping iTunes charts in over 100 countries, and selling out a North American tour almost instantly, Adele is killing music video game as well: her moody, melancholy, sepia-toned video for the album's hit single "Hello" has now reached 1 billion views on Vevo in record-breaking time.SEE ALSO: The Most Critically-Acclaimed Snubs Of The 2016 Grammys

Even before this milestone, Adele's "Hello" had brought YouTube to its knees with a record-breaking 27.7 million views in its first 24 hours back an October, hitting 100 million views within just five days. Since then, the hype for "Hello" has leveled out and remained fairly steady, gaining just under 10 million views per day throughout most of December and January.

As of Monday, Jan. 18, Adele has officially outpaced South Korean pop sensation Psy, who came out of the woodwork in 2012 with the (in)famous hit "Gangnam Style", for the fastest music video to reach one billion views. The two have been neck and neck when in the battle to win YouTube, as his follow-up music video, "Gentleman," is the only one to have reached 100 million views faster than "Hello."SEE ALSO: Sad Adele Fans Tweet Sad Adele Lyrics To Ticketmaster

But while Psy's second major video proved him capable of become quick-peaking viral fad (having still not reached the billion-view mark), Adele's slower-burning streak has blown the previous titleholder and founding member of the one billion club out of the water. Not only has Adele met Psy's original record, she also did so almost twice as quickly.

In the time before Adele's upset, only 14 artists had reached the same level of views, taking between 6 months months and 5 years to do so. Even Tyler Swift, the only-two time billion-view titleholder, took more than twice as long to reach the finish line with her best effort. InAdele's "Hello" has broken the billion-view threshold more than seven times as fast as the average YouTube sensation.

The post Adele Takes Over YouTube, Shattering Yet Another Record appeared first on Vocativ.

Summary: As of Monday, Jan. 18, Adele officially outpaced South Korean pop sensation Psy for the fastest music video to reach one billion views.


American universities, which for half a century have attracted the world's best and brightest students with little effort, are suddenly facing intense competition as higher education undergoes rapid globalization.

The European Union, moving methodically to compete with American universities, is streamlining the continent's higher education system and offering American-style degree programs taught in English. Britain, Australia and New Zealand are aggressively recruiting foreign students, as are Asian centers like Taiwan and Hong Kong. And China, which has declared that transforming 100 universities into world-class research institutions is a national priority, is persuading top Chinese scholars to return home from American universities.

"What we're starting to see in terms of international students now having options outside the U.S. for high-quality education is just the tip of the iceberg," said David G. Payne, an executive director of the Educational Testing Service, which administers several tests taken by foreign students to gain admission to American universities. "Other countries are just starting to expand their capacity for offering graduate education. In the future, foreign students will have far greater opportunities."

Foreign students contribute $13 billion to the American economy annually. But this year brought clear signs that the United States' overwhelming dominance of international higher education may be ending. In July, Mr. Payne briefed the National Academy of Sciences on a sharp plunge in the number of students from India and China who had taken the most recent administration of the Graduate Record Exam, a requirement for applying to most graduate schools; it had dropped by half.

Foreign applications to American graduate schools declined 28 percent this year. Actual foreign graduate student enrollments dropped 6 percent. Enrollments of all foreign students, in undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral programs, fell for the first time in three decades in an annual census released this fall. Meanwhile, university enrollments have been surging in England, Germany and other countries.

Some of the American decline, experts agree, is due to post-Sept. 11 delays in processing student visas, which have discouraged thousands of students, not only from the Middle East but also from dozens of other nations, from enrolling in the United States. American educators and even some foreign ones say the visa difficulties are helping foreign schools increase their share of the market.

"International education is big business for all of the Anglophone countries, and the U.S. traditionally has dominated the market without having to try very hard," said Tim O'Brien, international development director at Nottingham Trent University in England. "Now Australia, the U.K., Ireland, New Zealand and Canada are competing for that dollar, and our lives have been made easier because of the difficulties that students are having getting into the U.S.

"International students say it's not worth queuing up for two days outside the U.S. consulate in whatever country they are in to get a visa when they can go to the U.K. so much more easily."

American educators have been concerned since the fall of 2002, when large numbers of foreign students experienced delays in visa processing. But few noticed the rapid emergence of higher education as a global industry until quite recently.

"Many U.S. campuses have not yet geared up for the competition," said Peggy Blumenthal, a vice president at the Institute for International Education.

Still, Ms. Blumenthal said, it remains unclear whether the sudden decline in foreign enrollments is a one-time drop or the beginning of a long slide.

Not all educators are expressing concern.

Steven B. Sample, president of the University of Southern California - which last year had 6,647 foreign students, the most of any American university - said colleagues who lead other universities had expressed anxiety at professional meetings.

Summary: American universities find themselves facing intense competition as other countries aggressively recruit foreign students.


By JAMI BERNARD Daily News Movie Critic

Friday, March 12th 1999, 2:10AM

THE RAGE: CARRIE 2. With Emily Bergl, Jason London, Amy Irving. Directed by Katt Shea. Running time: 104 minutes. At area theaters. Rated R: Language, sex, graphic violence. 2 STARS

What's more frightening than a hand reaching out from the grave, as it did at the end of Brian De Palma's seminal horror movie "Carrie?" Even more frightening is that 22 years later, long after the teen-slasher genre has been picked dry, along comes a needless sequel that tarnishes the memory of the original.

"Carrie 2: The Rage" arrives with a title that already freights it with too much expectation.

Newcomer Emily Bergl plays Rachel, a high-schooler who is practically bursting with anger, resentment and post-adolescent hormones.

She has plenty to be ticked off about. Her mother is locked up in a sanitarium. She lives with foster parents who are interested in her only for the stipend they receive from the state. Her best friend just jumped to her death from the school's roof.

Compounding Rachel's emotional turmoil is a relationship with a football jock (Jason London, who can't act his way out of an athletic supporter). A wallflower Rachel is not. When her emotions get to boiling and that's pretty often strange telekinetic powers kick in. Wherever Rachel goes, gym lockers slam and snow domes burst.

One such snow dome shatters on the desk of school shrink Sue Snell, played by an embalmed-looking Amy Irving, the movie's token "Carrie" alumna. Miss Snell recognizes that Rachel has super destructo-powers, just like Sissy Spacek's character did at that incendiary, long-ago high school prom.

When asked why she's badgering Rachel all the time, Miss Snell whines that she "just wants to help." With her experience in the last "Carrie" movie, you'd think Miss Snell would have more sense than to get within telekinetic range of this bottled-up girl.

Both "Carrie" movies are essentially about that adolescent struggle to keep emotions in check, particularly in the face of the numerous humiliations high school imposes. But "Carrie 2" brings nothing new to the party. "Sometimes I wish I could be one of the shiny happy people," sighs Rachel before making a predictably bloody mess of the post-homecoming game party.

Summary: THE RAGE: CARRIE 2. With Emily Bergl, Jason London, Amy Irving. Directed by Katt Shea. Running time: 104 minutes. At area theaters. Rated R: Language, sex, graphic violence. 2 STARS What's more frightening than a hand reaching out from the grave, as it did at the end of Brian De Palma's seminal horror movie "Carrie?"Even more frightening is that 22 years later, long after the teen-slasher genre has been picked dry, along comes a


Sunday, June 24th 2001, 2:22AM

THE BUCKLEY family knew it as "jury duty," important public work undertaken because, after all, somebody had to do it. Dedicated since youth to what he enjoyed calling "the reeducation of the governing class," conservative polemicist-at-large William F. Buckley Jr. had in 1965 challenged the suspiciously liberal Republican Rep. John Lindsay in the city's mayoral race; three years later his brother James had taken on the equally unacceptably left-leaning Republican Sen. Jacob Javits; both had lost, to be sure, but with vote counts sufficiently impressive to establish the credibility of the energetic young Conservative Party, suddenly the strongest minor party in modern state history.

And by 1970, the target was Sen. Charles Goodell, a Republican whose level of liberalism approached the indecent. Indeed, Goodell, the former congressman named by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller to serve out the late Sen. Robert Kennedy's term, was one of President Richard Nixon's two or three least favorite senators, having not only become as obstructionistly anti-Vietnam as the noisiest of Democrats but having also worked hard against two key Nixon Supreme Court nominees - a non-team player, James Buckley decided, who had "made a career of embarrassing the administration." Appalled that the state GOP still stood behind Goodell - Staten Island Sen. John Marchi had been forced to abandon a primary challenge for lack of party support - Buckley now concluded he had an obligation to discharge.

Neither Goodell nor the Democratic candidate, Rep. Richard Ottinger, initially paid much attention to Buckley. But a powerful national force, heretofore uncoalesced and unidentified, had lately been given a resonant and unifying name - "the silent majority," those many millions of quietly unprotesting, hardworking, taxpaying Americans who believed not in tearing down their revolt-racked country but in standing strong against those who would overthrow her - and, in the state of New York, Buckley was immediately their man. "We're tired of hearing people try to cut down our institutions!" he told cheering, flag-waving throngs at every whistle stop. "We're going to start a counter-revolution!" By early summer, reelection-seeking Gov. Rockefeller was careful not to be too often seen with running mate Goodell, his own appointee. By September, Ottinger had recognized wild-card Buckley and not Goodell as his chief worry.

Accordingly, New York's 1970 Senate race became a closely watched laboratory experiment. "Never before," proclaimed such a Democratic stalwart as near-mayor Mario Procaccino, who now jumped party lines to endorse Rockefeller and Buckley both, "has New York had such a great opportunity to lead the nation in rejecting the extreme left and set the national mood for moderate government."

AS BUCKLEY'S poll numbers climbed, signals issued from the White House - subtle at first, increasingly less so as the weeks passed - that a Goodell defeat in November would not be viewed as tragic. From Washington to New York came Spiro Agnew, the administration's attack-dog vice president, to personally blast Goodell as a "radical liberal," a man who "has left his party" and "strayed beyond the point of no return." Goodell grasped it: The Nixon administration was unmistakably cutting him adrift. Republican leaders were openly destroying one of their own. "What is at stake is the very right of a senator to disagree," he complained. "What is involved is the right of people to differ with official policies."

But he might as well have been a bomb-flinging, flag-burning guerrilla. So strong, so violent, so personal were Agnew's anti-Goodell diatribes that political professionals of all stripes at first were inclined to feel that the vice president was quite foolishly overdoing it, that such intemperance would only spark a pro-Goodell backfire. And this was the case. However, it fast became clear, the fresh support drained votes not from Buckley but from Ottinger. Dumb-like-a-fox Agnew had just very successfully split the liberal vote down the middle.

Ottinger, for one, saw it happening, and he pleaded with Goodell to withdraw lest Buckley surely edge them both out. And, for a few days late in October, even as Rockefeller made a pragmatic point of refusing to publicly repudiate Buckley, it seemed that Goodell might indeed step aside. Then the embattled senator gathered his resolve. "To quit now," he announced, "would be obeisant to the forces of the right." He would not, he said, bow to "the hard-hatted militants in the White House"; he would not fall before "the flaming sword of retribution." He would stay in the race. "I will not hand my head to the vice president."

On election eve, the White House made things about as plain as they could be made. "Since early 1969," scowled press secretary Ronald Ziegler, "Sen. Goodell has sought flamboyantly and ceaselessly to openly divorce himself from our President. I say this: When anyone constantly disavows, incessantly upbraids and wages war on his own President in every major-issue area, he consciously alienates himself from his party and thereby forfeits a right to his administration's support."

ON TUESDAY the 3rd of November, the Silent Majority elected James Buckley to the United States Senate with 39% of the vote, enough to just squeak him past Ottinger. Goodell came in a distant third, purged. "I am the voice of the new politics," triumphantly cried the Senate's sole third-party member. "We have built a force that will truly have historic significance."

Well, it wasn't necessarily quite that cut-and-dried: It was to be borne in mind that Buckley's liberal opposition had won nearly two-thirds of the vote. Still, fluke or mandate, "this sensational episode adds several cubits to the Conservative Party's stature," noted the Daily News. Agreed William F. Buckley Jr.: "I think the idea of the Conservative Party as pariah is simply terminated. With the election of Jim Buckley, people will no longer think, as they have been trained to think, of Conservatives as a batch of Birchers and a congeries of crackpots."

From Buckley headquarters lustily rose the refrains of a little victory ditty composed for the occasion:

Three cheers for fear and hatred,

When Jim goes to Washington,

These will be a must!

Six years of pure repression!

Six years for our dear Jim

That was a joke, of course. Conservative Humor.

Summary: By JAY MAEDER THE BUCKLEY family knew it as "jury duty,"important public work undertaken because, after all, somebody had to do it. Dedicated since youth to what he enjoyed calling "the reeducation of the governing class,"conservative polemicist-at-large William F. Buckley Jr. had in 1965 challenged the suspiciously liberal Republican Rep. John Lindsay in the city's mayoral race; three years later his brother James had taken on the equally unacceptably left-leaning Republican Sen. Jacob


Jennifer Aniston Mortified By Chelsea Handler's Dig At Her Romance With John Mayer | Chelsea Handler Reveals 'Fat' Past, Mark Wahlberg Excited to be Tom Brady’s Neighbor | Shannon Elizabeth Defends 'Terrorist' Misconception | Pop Tarts Scene & Herd

Jennifer Aniston Mortified By Chelsea Handler's Dig At Her Romance With John Mayer

It was Jennifer Aniston’s night to shine as she received Women in Film’s prestigious Crystal Award for expanding the role of women in the entertainment industry on Friday evening.

For a change the stunning actress, who looked particularly pleasing in a form-forming Prada strapless dress, was in the spotlight for her professional life rather than her personal life.

But how does Aniston feel about being the most talked about starlet in Tinseltown?

"I'm really not bothered by it. They aren't talking to me," she told Tarts before the sit-down dinner, adding that she takes time "everyday" to be thankful for her life and career.

But even despite her success (at least when it comes to her "reel" life), it's comforting to know that even the Jennifer Aniston struggles to see herself on the silver screen.

"I have to be self-critical," she added."I think it’s good to sort of go, ‘Well yeah don’t do that next time’ or ‘not a great choice.’ You’ve always got to keep trying things but sometimes not everything’s going to work."

Speaking of criticism, Aniston got quite the surprise during the show when host Chelsea Handler decided to raise the issue of her ruptured romance in front of the star-studded audience.

"You also stopped expanding the visibility of John Mayer, and we all thank you for that," Handler joked, motivating Aniston to bury her head in her hands followed by a look of embarrassed disbelief.

But all in good humor, the 40-year-old took aim at her own lousy love life while accepting the honor.

"I'm trying to be more careful than I have been in the past about the titles of movies that I choose to be in. It's funny -- I kind of noticed something a couple years ago that there seemed to be this strange parallel to the movies I was doing and my life off screen," Aniston explained. "It started with 'The Good Girl,'" she explained. "Then that evolved into 'Rumor Has It,' followed by 'Derailed,' and then there was 'The Break-Up.' And then on the lighter side was 'Friends with Money,' which I felt was a bit on the nose. So if any of you have a project titled 'Everlasting Love with an Adult, Stable Male …'"

Chelsea Handler Reveals 'Fat' Past, Mark Wahlberg Excited to be Tom Brady’s Neighbor

Chelsea Handler certainly has one of the most toned and defined bodies in the biz, but the E! comedian insisted she wasn’t always so svelte.

"I was ugly," Handler told Tarts at last weekend’s Chrysalis Butterfly Ball in Los Angeles. "I used to be fat and chunky and all those things."

Handler also scored herself some unintentional press recently as Tori Spelling brought up the fact that the TV personality continues to call her "ugly and stupid" while accepting a Bravo Award. However, Handler vowed to tone her nastiness down.

"I’m going to stop making fun of her, it’s not her fault that she looks like that," Handler quipped.

And even though the buzz about town has all been about Zac Efron’s cameo in the HBO hit "Entourage," the show’s producer Mark Wahlberg was more pumped about having his hometown hero on the set.

"I shot an episode this season with Tom Brady, who is not only a friend but I’m a huge fan of his," Wahlberg said. "He actually is building a house right up the street -- I almost bought a house right next door just so he could throw passes to my son! But I’ll still come over and visit him."

Shannon Elizabeth Defends 'Terrorist' Misconception

Texan-born Shannon Elizabeth comes from Arabic ancestry and she wants to set one pretty predominant misconception straight.

"When a lot of Americans think Arabic, they think Saddam Hussein and automatically they think terrorist," Elizabeth told Tarts at the recent Palm Pre Launch party in Hollywood. "But it’s not the case, especially American born. I'm very proud of my heritage and my family and I think there are a lot of different denominations of Arabic. My dad wasn't raised Muslim and I know some people that were that are amazing."

But on an even more important note, the DWTS alum plans to strip for "Playboy" again at some point in the future when the "time is right" and she feels "in the right shape" and thinks Americans need to loosen up when it comes to embrace their sexuality.

"I think there are a lot of things here that we're strict about that they're not as strict about in other countries, and I prefer to live and let live! You don't have to be so strict about everything," Elizabeth added.

Pop Tarts Scene & Herd

Larry David, Evan Rachel Wood, Patricia Clarkson, Ed Begley Jr., John Lithgow and Peter Fonda at West Hollywood's Pacific Design Center for the premiere of their new Woody Allen flick "Whatever Works" on Monday night. David was however very upset by the many males who failed to show their respect and wear a tux to the star-studded event.

Kanye West singing "I've got a feeling" on the red carpet as he walked in with Fergie at the Target and Black Eyed Peas launch of their Exclusive Deluxe Version of The E.N.D at the Griffin in New York City on Tuesday night. West was later spotted livin' it up with Rihanna.

Eva Longoria Parker making a surprise appearance at Wendy's at Selma, Texas on Thursday to kick-off their annual "Father's Day Frosty Weekend" which benefits the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. The starlet was overheard talking about she and Tony plan to adopt oneday and being a former Wendy's employee, Longoria went behind the counter and took orders from all the customers -- even remembering how to work the cash-register.

Bob Dylan and Jack Nicholson making a surprise appearance (after the Lakers game ofcourse) at AFI's dinner to present Michael Douglas with a lifetime achievement award in Los Angeles on Thursday evening. Douglas was flanked by wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, father Kirk, Hugh Hefner (and his three leading ladies) as well as Melanie Griffith, Jesse McCartney, Matthew McConaughey, Annette Bening and Warren Beatty.

Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Sheryl Crowe and Mary Fanaro hosting the OmniPeace T-shirt launch at STK in Los Angeles on Thursday night in an effort to "Stamp out Violence" in the Congo. Jen arrived first, alone, and stuck to Court and her hubby David Arquette most of the night before later chatting to Demi Moore and Nicole Ritchie. All the celebs grabbed postcards off the table that were already addressed to President Obama and were working on filling them out to push for Obama to aid relief for the Congo.

Paula Abdul dining on a mixed baby greens salad with Scott Zeiger of BASE Entertainment at Planet Hollywood's Strip House in Las Vegas on Thursday night. The "Idol" judge was later spotted backstage at the Venetian with Wayne Brady after watching his show "Making It Up."

Julianne Moore showing her support for Gigi Levangie Grazer at a party to celebrate the release of her fourth novel, "Queen Takes King" at Mr. Chow Tribeca on Thursday night. Moore joked "I could have been Gracie Pollock!" (the role Debra Messing played in "The Starter Wife" television show based on the character, Gracie Pollock, in the book.)

Jeremy Piven downing an omelet with an attractive blonde at East Village's The Smith restaurant on Thursday morning, prior to making a court appearance to deal with arbitration over his defection from the Broadway play, "Speed The Plow."

Christian Ronaldo staying in a Palms Place Penthouse in Sin City over the weekend, sans new hookup Paris Hilton. The soccer sensation hit up the Playboy Club and Nove Italiano on Saturday and hung out by the Palms Place pool (shirtless) with his male posse on Sunday.

Rock band Third Eye Blind playing for a crowd of more than 3,500 at the Friday Night Live concert series at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino pool.

Selena Gomez joining her Hollywood elders such as Heather Locklear (who looked amazing!), Jennifer Aniston, Holly Hunter, Jodie Foster, Blythe Danner, Jenny McCarthy, Amber Valletta and Dania Ramirez at Women in Film's 2009 Crystal + Lucy Awards in Los Angeles on Friday evening. While the ladies all enjoyed a night of fine Jacobs Creek wine, Gomez (for once) acted her age and refrained.

Gisele Bundchen shopping with a gal pal in New York's West Village on Saturday afternoon, even downing a burger at Five Guys where she was reportedly super friendly to the excited servers.

John Mayer drinking Corzo (straight from the bottle) at Hollywood hotspot MyHouse on Saturday night before getting up to sing his classic "Your Body is a Wonderland" at the DJ booth, followed by his rendition of Rihanna's "Live Your Life." Also at the club enjoying Mayer's impromptu performance was Chris Evans -- celebrating his 28th birthday with friends including Lauren Conrad, Kyle Howard, Oliver Martinez, Joanna Garcia and Jesse Bradford.

Jaime Foxx and an entourage of friends at a corner table inside the hut at West Hollywood's SkyBar on Saturday night. The DJ threw on "Blame it on the Alcohol" and the crowd went crazy, prompting Foxx to get up on the couch and sing along to his hit (while ironically only drinking water). The notorious party boy kept the party going until the lights came on.

Summary: Actress receives honor for her film work, but jokes about her unlucky love life


Her book may have spurred criticism in some quarters, but the message Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg delivered in Boston Thursday was embraced by an enthusiastic audience of professional women during a luncheon at the Seaport Hotel.

The company’s chief operating officer urged the hundreds of women in attendance to believe in themselves, be ambitious, and take the lead. That is, in her own words, to “lean in.” The event was one in a series Sandberg is scheduled to hold in the area as part of a national campaign to promote her newly released best-selling book, “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.”

“The best way to reform an institution is to run it,’’ she said. “No one listens to the person on the side of the room.”

“The best way to reform an institution is to run it,’’ Sandberg said.

Her message was heard by like-minded people — the talk was organized by The Commonwealth Institute, a Boston nonprofit aimed at helping grow businesses led by women. The room was filled with business and political leaders, including state Senator Karen Spilka and former lieutenant governor Evelyn Murphy.

Sandberg’s book, published March 11, is atop the New York Times best seller list and has sold about 275,000 copies. Her 2010 talk at a TED conference, which prompted the book, has more than 2 million online views. In her talk and book, Sandberg makes the case for her “lean-in” campaign, urging women to fight societal pressures to stand back, be nice, and count themselves out of key positions or opportunities.

Sheryl Sandberg’s book, published March 11, is atop the New York Times best-seller list and has already sold about 275,000 copies.

“Lean In” is prompting debate about women’s lackluster presence in government, business, and nonprofit leadership positions. While some have hailed it as a call to arms, others have said Sandberg’s approach is unrealistic and unfairly blames women for a society that makes it hard to become leaders while also being involved in their families at home. Her critics say a multimillionaire with two degrees from Harvard University cannot really understand the challenges people of lesser means and accomplishments face.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, for instance, called Sandberg a “PowerPoint Pied Piper in Prada ankle boots.” Dowd said Sandberg claims to want to launch a social revolution, but is really promoting herself.

But at the Seaport Thursday, Sandberg was given a enthusiastic reception, earning a standing ovation. Commonwealth Institute chair Pamela Reevee, who moderated the discussion, said Sandberg addresses many problems that are not new, but are still relevant. For example, Sandberg noted women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men, and only hold about 14 percent of executive officer positions in the United States.

“There are a lot of things that haven’t changed, said Reeve, a former chief executive of the Burlington technology company Lightbridge Inc.

Murphy, founder of the Brookline-based nonprofit Wage Project, which focuses on fighting wage discrimination, said Sandberg has provided an important platform on her website, leanin.org, for women to share stories and educate themselves through lectures created in conjunction with Stanford University.

“She is kickstarting a social movement with social media, and she is the expert with that,” Murphy said. “This is a call to action.”

Some of those who came to hear Sandberg’s story at the Seaport also shared their own “Lean In” moments. Spilka said she pushed herself when she ran for the male-dominated Massachusetts Senate in 2004. Today, she is one of 11 women serving in the chamber. “A woman has to work harder, smarter, and better” to compete with men, Spilka said.

Susan Windham-Bannister, chief executive of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, said Sandberg’s book has given her a boost, and new lingo, to help her face daily challenges. “It’s nice to have somebody put this into words,” she said.

Sandberg said writing the book was an example of her own “leaning in,” a decision to be ambitious and speak for women despite the risk of criticism. Women still face many systemic barriers, she said, and the best way to remove them is by putting more women in top corporate positions.

“We need a heated debate,’ she said. “Things that are stagnant don’t move unless someone gets upset.”

Summary: Her book may have spurred criticism in some quarters, but the message delivered by Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Thursday in Boston was embraced unabashedly by an enthusiastic audience at the Seaport Hotel. The company’s chief operating officer urged women to believe in themselves, be ambitious and lead. That is, in her own words, to “lean in.” Sandberg spoke to hundreds of professional women at a luncheon, one of a series of events she is scheduled to hold in the area as part of a national campaign to promote her newly released best-selling book, “Lean In, Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.” “The best way to reform an institution is to run it,’’ Sandberg said. “No one listens to the person on the side of the room.”


St Thérèse of Lisieux. Photograph: Web grab

For inmates at London's Wormwood Scrubs prison praying for redemption, help may soon be at hand from "the greatest saint of modern times".

Relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux, a French Carmelite nun, are to be displayed in the jail's Victorian chapel as part of the relics' first tour of England and Wales. The tour, from 16 September to 16 October, also takes in York Minster as well as cathedrals in Liverpool, Salford, Leeds and Birmingham.

An elaborate casket containing the bones of the Roman Catholic saint will be transported to the prison, home to 1,300 category B male prisoners, 300 of whom are Catholic.

The venue had been chosen because of the saint's special affinity with sinners and "those on the edge", said Canon John Udris, a member of the tour's planning committee.

The relics will be placed in the Church of England chapel, a Grade II listed building, and more spacious than the Catholic chapel. For more than three hours, prisoners will be able to file past the reliquary, the container of the relics, and kiss it as they pray.

St Thérèse, who died in 1897 from tuberculosis at the age of 24, is known as the Little Flower of Jesus. The Basilica of St Thérèse, in her home town of Lisieux, attracts two million visitors a year, making it the second most popular pilgrimage site in France after Lourdes.

In her autobiography, she recounted that when she was a teenager, she prayed for the conversion of Henri Pranzini, a triple murderer who refused to confess, and asked God for a sign he had repented.

The next day, she read in a newspaper that, just as the guillotine was about to drop, he snatched a crucifix from a priest and kissed the five wounds of Christ three times. "I had been given my sign and it was typical of the graces Jesus had given me to make me eager to pray for sinners," she wrote.

Some biographies have claimed Edith Piaf, the French singer, was cured of blindness as a seven-year-old after visiting the saint's grave.

However, a visit of the relics to Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to avert war failed to have the desired effect.They have toured 40 countries – bringing New York's Fifth Avenue to a standstill in 1999 and attracting more people in Ireland in 2001 than turned out to see Pope John Paul II in 1979.

As the patron saint of aviators, some of her relics are to be taken into space in 2011 by the US astronaut Ronald Garan. She is also patron saint of florists, illness, missions and Russia, although Russia does not recognise her status.

"One of her characteristics was to break down walls," said Canon Udris, the dean of Northampton Cathedral. Staff at Wormwood Scrubs will be anxious to avoid a too literal an interpretation of that trait. A spokesperson for HMP

Wormwood Scrubs said: "We can confirm that the relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux will visit HMP Wormwood Scrubs on 12 October. We are very much looking forward this special occasion." The jail has previously hosted a visit by Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Summary: Relics of St Thérèse of Liseux, a French Carmelite nun, to be displayed in jail's Victorian chapel


Pitching and yawing in swells from the tail end of a typhoon, the oceanographic research vessel RV Falkor looked like it was dead in the water.

It was September, and scientists from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole were waiting for the Pacific Ocean to become calm enough to deploy a deep-sea robotic diver from the Falkor. The mission was to collect samples of microbes and viruses in the seabed at an underwater volcano named the Axial Seamount, off the coast of Oregon, but they were running out of time.

Then a clearing in the weather provided a small window. Cramming 10 days of work into three, the Falkor crew scrambled, and, during one sleepless 24-hour period, got off four deep-sea dives with its submersible and collected a trove of data from one of the most extreme environments on earth.

The Falkor crew “seem willing to try anything, which was sort of surprising,” said Julie Huber of the Marine Biological Laboratory. “It was very challenging weather, a challenging situation, and they were willing to push the limits as much as possible.”

Not bad for a newcomer.

The Falkor is not one of the battle-tested ships in Woods Hole’s fleet of famed oceanographic research vessels. The Pacific expedition was one of the first since the boat was retrofitted and relaunched as an oceanographic research vessel. Moreover, the Falkor is the work of relative amateurs, at least by ocean science standards.

But the Falkor’s backers have other credentials that have made them an immediate power in oceanography.

They are Wendy Schmidt and her husband, Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of the Internet giant Google Inc. Schmidt knows more than a little about mapping the world, and the couple are not only very wealthy, but committed to using their money to protecting and exploring the environment.

The Schmidts were struck by how little is known about the oceans, particularly super-deep environments that are simultaneously exotic and hostile. They were also dismayed to learn how little government support oceanographic research receives. Federal funding for oceangoing research cruises has declined steeply, and the fleet of research vessels is down to just 19 ships, from 26 in 1995.

Though based in California, the Schmidts own a home on Nantucket, where Wendy Schmidt has become a force in island life and commerce. She credits her summers on Nantucket, where she learned to sail and dive, with sparking her interest in the oceans.

“When you’re on an island and you’re surrounded by water, you recognize both your isolation and your connection at the same time,” she said. “You can understand your environmental impact. . . . It’s a little like being on a ship at sea.”

The Schmidts purchased the boat, previously used for fisheries protection in Germany, for $2 million and spent another $60 million to refit the 272-foot steel-hulled ship.

Wendy Schmidt renamed the ship, formerly the Seefalke, after the dragonlike character in a German fantasy novel, “The Neverending Story.’’ Though water is lethal to dragons, the story goes, Falkor discovers a magic amulet that allows him to take the plunge.

The pair also started Schmidt Ocean Institute in Palo Alto in 2009 to run the vessel and administer grants to offset the expense of using oceanography ships, which can cost $30,000 or more per day.

“Building a state-of-the art research vessel was a great way to solve that problem for scientists,” Eric Schmidt said. “It’s a natural way to connect Wendy’s passion for the oceans and my interests in communications and technology.”

The Schmidts join a number of private philanthropists interested in ocean sciences. The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation — run by Gordon Moore, the former Intel Corp. chief executive — offers research grants on an invitation basis. Film director James Cameron recently gave the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution the manned submersible he designed for his 2012 record-breaking 35,787-foot dive into the Mariana Trench — or 6.8 miles.

Last year was the first full year of operation for the Falkor. Previous missions included sailing to the deepest part of the Caribbean, the mid-Cayman Rise, to explore hydrothermal vents 23,000 feet below the surface, and before that analyzing the ecosystem in the oil spill area around the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

Next year, the Schmidt Institute has even bigger plans for the Falkor. It will collaborate with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which will build a state-of-the-art submersible especially for the Falkor. The submersible will be one of just two remotely operated vehicles worldwide, in addition to one owned by WHOI, and will be capable of reaching the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific, the deepest point in any ocean.

The Falkor can also launch submersibles owned by others, such as the Canadian-owned ROPOS, used in the Axial Seamount voyage. But operating the ROPOS proved difficult on the small ship; the crew had to work around its bulky, heavy gear.

The new submersible for the Falkor will be easier to work with and enhance the young institute’s reputation within the scientific community, said Chris German, chief scientist for Deep Submergence at the WHOI, who sailed on the Falkor in June.

“They’re going to get more and more into being a slick operation,” German said. “Scientists who go out with them are going to know what they’re going to get. It’s not just going to be the risk-taking scientists who are going to put a week or a month on the line.”

The Schmidt Institute has pronounced ambitions for the Falkor. While federal agencies tend to focus on low-risk projects because of limited funds, German said, the Schmidt Institute has said it is committed to higher-risk explorations.

In June, for instance, the Falkor gave oceanographers their first chance to subject the WHOI-owned submersible Nereus to a particularly significant deep-water scientific expedition: the dive to the Mid-Cayman Rise, a chain of submerged volcanoes in the Caribbean that formed where two tectonic plates are spreading apart.

Hot fluids circulating through rocks at such ridges create black smokers: hydrothermal vents that gush out superheated fluid and nutrients, supporting a plethora of weird and little-studied life forms.

The scientists collected not only photos and videos — available on the institute’s website — but rocks, mineral deposits from vent chimneys, and microbial samples.

Unlike the ROPOS, which is supported by a strong steel cable, the Nereus could be dunked deep only with a slender tether. “That was the first time we demonstrated that you could do multidisciplinary science with a lightly tethered vehicle,” German said. The Falkor’s new submersible will aim for similar goals.

The Schmidt Institute also intends to make as much of the data as possible immediately available, said Victor Zykov, its director of research. This includes donating geographic data to Google, which makes the information freely available via Google Earth.

Wendy Schmidt tells a story about meeting the renowned oceanographer Sylvia Earle on Nantucket, only to have Earle rebuke Google Earth for purporting to show the geography of the entire world.

“Why don’t you just call it Google Dearth?” she recalled Earle’s saying, noting that the program largely ignored the ocean floor. “You’re missing half the globe!”

Now though, thanks to the Falkor, Google Earth displays 20,000 square kilometers of mapping data from the Campeche Escarpment, an enormous underwater cliff along a crater in the Gulf of Mexico.

Already deeply enmeshed with Woods Hole scientists, Schmidt Institute officials promise their relationship with the renowned Cape Cod facility will only grow.

Which is good news to Julie Huber, whose lab work at Woods Hole is funded half by private funds.

“What I love about it is these foundations are really willing to take risks, where our government is not. That I think is really fun, it’s really exciting,” said Huber. “Often the great discoveries in science are unplanned.”

Summary: The RV Falkor, an 83-meter, steel-hulled ship, is a newcomer to the world of oceanographic research. But the Falkor’s backers have helped make the vessel an immediate power in oceanography. They are Wendy Schmidt and her husband, Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Internet giant Google. Schmidt knows more than a little about mapping the world, and the couple are not only very wealthy, but committed to using their money to protect and explore the environment.


From the moment you step through Pearl Lam's front door you are a supporting actor in a theatre of her own creation. First you must make your grand entrance down polished wooden stairs - no handrail - on to the main stage: a glittering, mirrored set of glass, rich silks, glamorous daybeds and heart-jolting modern art. Other bit players are already on stage, including Robert, the butler, and Venus, the maid. You are served tea, croissants ('Buttered, almond, chocolate?') and shown international glossy magazines with 'Miss Lam' on the cover. The atmosphere is taut. But where is the leading lady? Taking her time, of course. Eventually all eyes flit towards the silver-and-black op art hall as Pearl's dazzling five-inch wedges come tip-tapping down the leather stairs. The star has arrived.

And she does not disappoint. Pearl Lam, founder of the Contrasts chain of art galleries in China, is a whirlwind of energy - passionate, energetic, generous and uncompromising, but also capable of the most devilish moods if she does not get her own way, and quickly. In the flesh she is tiny - about 5ft tall - with the waistline of a six-year-old and bobbed hair tinted with purple. She must be in her forties but looks 20 years younger, with huge eyes and a face so expressive it has certainly never encountered Botox. But it is her voice that mesmerises - one minute low, sexy, growling, and the next (if something has not happened quickly enough) shrill, fast and domineering. She also seems to engender a healthy blend of fear and respect in those who work for her. As she admits: 'Working for me is very difficult because I do not allow people to be creative. Everything is determined by me. It is a case of "Just do it!"'

Born into a wealthy Chinese family in Hong Kong which made its fortune through hotels and banking, Pearl was sent away from home at the age of 11 to be educated in the US and then the UK. Not many students own a flat in Cadogan Place, but that is where Pearl lived while taking a postgraduate course in fashion design. 'I was too messy to cut patterns accurately. I love fashion, but realised I just liked shopping for myself.' It was such a disaster she only stuck it for three months. At that point she was ordered back to Hong Kong by her family. 'I tried to persuade my father to let me do an MA here, but he saw through it. When I was here in London I could be myself. But I knew when I went back everyone's eyes would be upon me.'

In the end, Pearl said she would return only if she were allowed to open an art gallery. Her parents agreed but were quick to renege on the deal. 'China does not have a tradition of art galleries, so my mother's attitude was: "Why come back to be a shopkeeper?" They felt that art should be about culture and self-cultivation, but not about business. In their view the only way to show my intelligence was to use it to make more money for the family's company.' Not that Pearl was going to go quietly down that road. In fact, she staged her first exhibition in 1993, an idiosyncratic selection of old and new, east and west, fine art, decorative art and design. 'I could not conceptualise then what I was doing, but I wanted to show Hong Kong society that just because you have money you didn't have to live with Louis XV reproduction furniture. I was questioning why in China we always had to adapt and adopt a western lifestyle when our culture is so different. With so much globalisation, the only way to create something really different is to go back to your roots.'

After five years she was already making a name for herself, but then the Asian economic crisis hit and she was ordered back into the family firm, this time with no prospect of a way out. Then in 2003, Sars changed the course of Pearl's life. 'I was abroad when it happened, so I could not go back to Hong Kong for four months. I flitted between Paris, London and New York, just loving what I saw. At the end of that time I went back to Hong Kong and told my parents I needed my life back again and I intended to open a gallery. I said I knew it could be a disaster, but if it made me happy that was all that mattered.' She opened the first Contrasts gallery in Shanghai with an exhibition showing the influence of France on that city, from Shanghai Art Deco to fashion and art. Today Pearl has seven galleries based in Shanghai, Beijing and Hong Kong. She also has a personal collection of contemporary art and design worth many millions of pounds.

Her London apartment is in fact two Bond Street penthouses knocked into one. The lilac living room leads through double-height, deep-mirrored doors into a jewel box of a dining room - a glittering, glamorous fairy tale with walls and ceiling clad in mirror. The centrepiece is a huge feathered Coco Cabana chandelier (by XYZ Design for Contrasts), while black cockerel feathers have been hand-sewn on to the embroidered chair covers and a cloth of woven peacock feathers is laid on the table. 'I like feathers because I love frivolous, superficial and camp things,' Pearl says. 'I like surprises.'

She also loves to entertain. The dining room here seats 12 with ease (her Shanghai residence has a dining table that seats 66) and although Pearl's address book is bursting with A-list celebrities, many of whom are clients, she is forthright on who she has to dinner: 'I don't like echoes. If you have people all of the same background, they will always agree. I don't want snobs to dinner - I want people who have something to say.'

As the apartment was originally two flats, there are two staircases. The op art one, painted by trompe-l'oeil artist Bruno Romette, leads up to Pearl's dressing room, bathroom and bedroom - an extraordinary red-and-white space that appeared on the cover of a German architectural magazine, only to be recreated later in the film Factory Girl. At the other end of the apartment is the 'Staircase of the 21 Vaginas' - with walls painted and distressed by Romette to give a Pompeii finish, against which the conceptual piece '21 Vaginas' by Cathy de Monchaux is displayed. It certainly makes for a good conversation point during her legendary dinners.

With homes in Hong Kong, London and Shanghai, and a string of international art fairs to attend throughout the year, Pearl has a frenetic schedule. With growing international interest in Chinese contemporary art, she is at the top of her game, and she knows it.

'At Contrasts we don't follow the western model of an art gallery,' she says. 'We are cross-discipline and cross-cultural, showing work both from Chinese artists and also artists in residence from other countries, who stay for a few months and produce work that speaks of China. For me, good art is far more powerful than reading a newspaper.'

She thinks her London apartment is a microcosm of what Contrasts stands for: 'It has such a mix of things, antique with contemporary, design with art, Chinese with European... I can't live otherwise.'

Summary: Her fusion of east-meets-west glamour and modern art has put Pearl Lam in the front row of China's gallerists. Helen Chislett visits her high-camp Bond Street home


Some of the most magnificent drawings ever executed – physical manifestations of Michelangelo's love and infatuation for a handsome and intelligent teenage boy – will on Thursday go on display as a group for the first time.

The groundbreaking show at the Courtauld gallery in London, with loans from the Vatican and the Queen, is essentially a joyously gay love story.

The drawings were done by Michelangelo when he was about 57. In the winter of 1532 the artist met Tommaso de' Cavalieri, a Roman nobleman celebrated for his dreamboat good looks, his superior intellect and his gracious manners, and fell head over heels in love with him.

Stephanie Buck, the show's curator, said it was, at heart, an extraordinary romance. "These drawings were meant to be looked at and studied, people looked at them with magnifying glasses and mirrors for hours and hours. With these drawings you can't reach higher."

The exhibition is built around The Dream of Human Life (Il Sogno, or The Dream) which was bequeathed to the Courtauld in 1978 by one of the century's most important collectors, Count Antoine Seilern. It is considered one of the finest of all Renaissance drawings. In it Michelangelo focuses on the beauty of the body, depicting a nude young man being roused from sleep, and human vices, by a winged spirit.

Buck is in no doubt The Dream is one of Michelangelo's "presentation drawings" made for Cavalieri in 1533. Others on display include The Punishment of Tityus, The Fall of Phaeton, The Bacchanal of Children, and The Rape of Ganymede. They would have been seen by the pope and the Medicis and on one level were teaching Cavalieri how to draw, and perhaps offering moral guidance. But they were also expressions of the artist's consuming love for the boy.

Michelangelo as an artist was at the height of his powers and fame, and almost deified. The quality is indisputable. In 1568 his biographer, Giorgio Vasari, called the works "drawings the like of which have never been seen".

Buck said it was unclear how old Cavalieri was when Michelangelo fell for him. The Courtauld research put him at between 16 and 17, she said.

The exhibition also shows that it was more than just physical infatuation. Michelangelo clearly held Cavalieri's intellect in high regard. Alongside The Fall of Phaeton is an earlier and different version on which the artist writes, saying that if the sketch does not please Cavalieri he should say so.

"The point is," said Buck, "that Cavalieri, although he was so young, must have played quite a role in the making of it because he was able to criticise it and send it back."

The Vatican has also lent for the exhibition Michelangelo's original poems, which he composed in the early stages of the friendship. Again there is little doubt as to how he felt. One reads:

"You know that I know, my lord, that you know that

I come here to enjoy you nearer at hand, and you

know that I know that you know who I really am: why

then this hesitation to greet each other, even now?

If the hope that you give me is true, if the great desire

that has been granted me is true, let the wall raised

up between these two be broken down …"

The Courtauld show is already attracting considerable academic interest, and it represents the first time that The Dream has been exhibited alongside the other presentation drawings. The last time they were together (without The Dream) was in 1988 for exhibitions in Paris and Washington.

The debate about Michelangelo and his sexuality continues. He never made any secret of his love of male beauty – just look at David – but he always maintained it was a celibate love, a platonic love. That goes, too, with Cavalieri.

Buck said: "The whole idea, which he repeats in his letters and poems, is that he doesn't want to chase Cavalieri off. He speaks of his physical desire but it is a chaste love and he is not approaching him in a manner that would make it difficult for Cavalieri."

Having said that, Buck believes Michelangelo was certainly gay and that he would have slept with men. But Cavalieri was from such a high-ranking family in papal Rome that the two of them going to bed was never going to happen. Yet Cavalieri, who later married and had children, was clearly honoured to be held so highly in the affections of Michelangelo; they stayed close friends. He was with Michelangelo at his deathbed and was later instrumental in ensuring unfinished projects were completed.

Of course the one question that wants to be answered is what did the boy look like, how handsome was he? "We know there was a portrait of Cavalieri but it is lost," said Buck. "Unfortunately."

Summary: London gallery displays finest of Renaissance artist's drawings for his friends, with loans from the Vatican and the Queen


07/17/2014 at 03:15 PM EDT

thought her graduation photos were tucked away in the family photo album for good, the Internet has rediscovered her big day – thanks to the interest that comes with being

An undated law school graduation photo of the 36-year-old London-based attorney surfaced on the cover of

, a Beirut-based magazine. Alamuddin is dressed in traditional British barrister fashion, wearing a black robe and wig, and of course, still stunningly beautiful.

Alamuddin, who's fluent in French and Arabic, specializes in human rights, international law, extradition and criminal law for the

Not only is she very successful in her career (advising the U.N. and representing Wikileaks founder Julian Assange), she also topped the list of London's hottest female barristers on a

, when the notoriously unattainable bachelor proposed.

The couple recently attended her

in Italy, where Alamuddin officiated.

Summary: The London-based attorney wears a traditional British robe in the photo


For those interested in the tensions between art, commerce, and creative fulfillment, there’s plenty to be read into Jack Antonoff, having finally hit the pop jackpot as guitarist for fun. after years plugging away in under-the-radar bands, releasing a deliberately modest solo album. “Strange Desire” recalls the orchestral new wave that crested toward the mid-’80s; Antonoff’s voice has been multitracked enough to sound like a small football squad (or Andrew W.K.). What carries over from fun. is an utter lack of cynicism: “Like a River Runs” unabashedly celebrates “the rhythm of your wild heart,” and “You’re Still a Mystery” expands from a motorik beat into a joyous song of wonder. But even the infectious energy of “Rollercoaster” can’t quite overcome a demo-like lack of polish that keeps the songs earthbound even as they reach higher. (Out Tuesday)

Bleachers perform at the Boston Calling Music Festival Sept. 6.

Summary: Having hit the big time at last with fun., Jack Antonoff reverts to a sincerely indie vein with Bleachers, his new solo project.


FORTUNE — The posters start showing up in April.

They cover the subway walls, filled with names like Larry Levan, D’Angelo, Hudson Mohawk, Gunplay, David Byrne. Names of cutting edge, underground and often mind-bending artists, who create sounds across the spectrum, all performing at the Red Bull Music Academy that takes over New York City in May. Each year the New York iteration of the Red Bull Music Academy (RBMA) brings avant garde musicians and creators together for a month of unlikely collaborations, once-in-a-lifetime performances, parties, art exhibits and lectures. For the creative class, it’s summer camp and Sunday school all rolled into one. And it’s all brought to you by Red Bull.

Profits from the company that makes the energy drink of choice of blue-collar workers in need of an afternoon pick-me-up, sorority sisters headed to class with a hangover, businessmen on a bender and anyone who wants to dance all night, fund the month-long festival.

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It’s an incongruous relationship between cutting-edge art and the stereotype of a staid corporation that works for Red Bull, though.

“This brand is built around the idea of giving wings to people — inspiring them — and allowing them to express themselves,” said Many Ameri, one of the Red Bull Music Academy’s co-founders.

While many companies aspire to fully integrate their company’s branded mission statement into their everyday operations, Red Bull seems to have accomplished it. Under the auspices of the company’s slogan “Red Bull gives you wings,” the company has seen fit to attach its brand name (and considerable financial resources) to such ventures as extreme sports and aviation, combining the two last year to fund Felix Baumgartner’s record-breaking free-fall parachute jump from high above the Earth. The company’s U.S. website reads like a culture page with articles such as “15 Must-See Bands At Hangout Festival,” “ 5 Surfers We’d Like To See In Brazil” and “Las Vegas Supercross Finale: What You Need To Know” and links leading visitors to further adventures in skateboarding, eSports and music.

Nowhere on the page does it mention the company’s product.

It’s just another sign that in many ways, Red Bull is a sports and entertainment company that also happens to sell a drink. It is really good at doing both.

This adventurous spirit (and its reflection of Red Bull’s freewheeling corporate culture) has contributed not only to the company’s performance record, but to its willingness to take risks with its profits and its brand. To wit, the Red Bull Music Academy, the avant garde music conclave and festival that the company built from the ground up and has run around the globe for the last 16 years.

“Red Bull have a long history of doing substantial things when it comes to sport,” said Ameri. “They wanted to do the same thing in music, but didn’t know how to do it.”

Red Bull approached Ameri and his co-founders Christopher Romberg and Torsten Schmidt in 1997 to help it break into the musical sphere. “We were approached by Red Bull about an initiative that would be a long-term commitment to music,” said Ameri. “We came up with the concept of the Academy. What we are doing today is very close to what we started in 1998.“

The idea was to create a series of global workshops that connect local musicians with like-minded creators, visionaries and genre-specific pioneers. The hope was that once everyone — student and mentor alike — was in a room together a cultural cross-pollination would take place letting artists expand each other’s horizon.

It’s an idea that has expanded across the globe. “There are a thousand workshops happening globally,” said Ameri. “And when I say ‘a thousand’ I mean that literally.” Musicians from around the world gathering together to inspire each other. And working with local Red Bull teams around the world to help bring the ideas to life.

Ideas like last year’s soundscape installation by Brian Eno called “77 Million Paintings,” Bounce Ballroom dance party with the sounds of DJ Slink and Todd Terry, a musical tribute to William Onyeabor, a conversation with reclusive R & B singer D’Angelo, and the event that Ameri is most excited to watch at this year’s festival, the round robin improvisational duets that last year paired Vijay Iyer with Robert Glasper, Andrew WK with Bernie Worell, and ?uestlove with Dutch DJ Jameszoo.

MORE: Yes, we’re in a tech bubble. Here’s how I know it.

If you haven’t heard of many of those artists, you’re not alone. RBMA seems to pride itself on highlighting obscure creators who typically work under the radar and far from the spotlight.

There is an inherent irony in the idea that a music festival created by a corporation and branded as such, so thoroughly eschews mainstream or commercial appeal (“The programming can be very challenging and very out there,” noted Ameri), but it works for Red Bull. How it works for Red Bull is a bit of a mystery, though, as this is the same company whose representative once told Mashable, “The marketing strategy that has worked best for us is not to publish our strategies.”

“The idea of allowing people to express themselves to make the music they are into and to help them expand their musical vocabulary and create a space where they can be inspired by others. For us, it was really at the heart of this brand,” said Ameri.

If you compare the Red Bull Music Academy festival in New York to, say, Budweiser’s Made In America Festival — another festival created and mounted by a single brand — you will see few similarities. Jay Z doesn’t headline or curate RBMA, there are no merch tables or Red Bull drinking gardens and artists like Brian Eno are not drinking Red Bull on stage at events. In fact, aside from the festival’s name, the brand’s product is largely absent from events. (Both events do have movies about them, though. Ron Howard directed Made in America, while RMBA has What Difference Does It Make?)

When pressed about Red Bull footing the bill for the massive undertaking, Ameri pointed out, “What’s more interesting than who is paying for the Academy, is who is actually doing the work supporting it. We are operating in 90 countries with this project, and it’s run through the Red Bull organization. It’s not like there’s an event here and you slap your logo on it. It starts with an idea. We then have a local infrastructure of Red Bull people who work in the company that help create the event. It’s not about who foots the bill, but its about who creates these events — It’s not an agency, it’s Red Bull.”

This hands-on, on-the-ground approach has let Red Bull build up currency with the commercial-shy artists they work with at RBMA. “Brian Eno doesn’t do anything with brands,” said Ameri. “The only way these things work out is if you have a track record of actually being sincere about stepping into a dialogue with these artist about what they want to be doing.”

Ameri considers the trust that the company has built within the artistic communities, to be the festival’s greatest asset — and one that makes everything else they do possible.

“This is not just aligning yourself with an artist,” said Ameri. “That’s not the approach here. It’s getting yourself into a situation where you can speak eye to eye with each other and create projects together and be part of the creative process, but always with the intention to enhance what the artist wants to do. “

“A lot of the things that we do, they come out of conversations with the artists,” Ameri added. “When people approach us with ideas, and they trust that we will not exploit their ideas or turn them into something that they are not, but we are interested in understanding their vision. That for us is success.”

Summary: The monthlong Red Bull Music Academy shows the energy drink company's marketing muscle -- minus mention of the actual product.


By Will Budiaman The Daily Meal

Let us consider the burger. It is the food that Americans crave when traveling abroad -- "Oh, I would kill to have a burger right now." It is the backbone of just about every backyard grilling party -- OK, maybe hot dogs are important, too. And it is an obsession and almost art form for those who seek to perfect it. So who to turn to for advice?

We tapped Govind Armstrong, executive chef and owner of 8 oz. Burger Bar and also executive chef at the critically acclaimed Los Angeles restaurant Post & Beam, for some helpful insight. Armstrong makes a mean burger -- his proprietary house blend results in a beef patty that's juicy, flavorful, and rich without going over the top. And the elements of each of his burgers -- the seasonings, the cheese, and the toppings -- work in perfect harmony. So we thought he was the perfect person to turn to for some tips and tricks.

Armstrong gave us the beef on just about everything you'd possibly want to consider when making a burger -- from fat ratios and blends to buns and cooking techniques. He also points out where most home cooks go wrong. Whatever kind of burger you decide to make, though, it all comes back to one principle -- namely, that everything has to work in harmony.

Thinking about which cuts of meat to buy, which spices to use, and which toppings to add is not an exercise that should happen in a vacuum. Instead, you've got to make everything work together. And that's how the perfect burger is made.

The Beef on ... Fat Ratios

It used to be that buying ground beef for a burger was pretty simple — all you had to do was decide on the percentage of fat. And that's still an important factor to consider. Govind Armstrong, executive chef and owner of the 8 oz. Burger Bar, says that a ratio of 85:15 of meat to fat is ideal for most burgers, although if you're looking for a richer, juicier burger, you may want to go with a ratio of 80:20.

The Beef on ... Blends

Nowadays, it's possible to ask for custom blends made from whole cuts of beef at the meat counter in the grocery store. But where do you begin the conversation with the person standing behind the glass case? If you've never talked to him or her before and are accustomed to simply grabbing the shrink-wrapped stuff just off to the side, it can be intimidating the first time. (Don't worry — they'll be delighted to be talking to someone for a change.) Armstrong offers a few conversation-starters here.

Chuck is a good place to begin. "Most blends will have 50 to 75 percent chuck," says Armstrong. It has great flavor and marbling for the price, and so it's the ideal candidate for a base. And then you can get creative from there. Looking for more marbling and a deeper flavor than chuck? Add some short rib or brisket to the blend. Looking for a patty with a good bite and flavor that's on the leaner side? Add some sirloin to the mix. But for his everyday burgers, Armstrong is perfectly happy with freshly ground 100 percent chuck because it lets him get creative with the seasonings.

The Beef on ... Seasonings

Here, it's important to consider what cuts went into the blend for the patties. If you've spent a good amount of money on a blend of short rib and chuck, for instance, you're probably just going to want to use good old salt and pepper, and maybe a little Worcestershire sauce or red wine, to really let the flavor of the meat shine. If you're just using basic chuck, on the other hand, seasoning meat with a blend of herbs, spices, or condiments may make a lot of sense. Armstrong, for instance, uses a blend of kosher salt, black and white pepper, ground coriander, dried oregano, thyme, and paprika. Whatever you do, it should be about enhancing the flavor of the meat, not drowning it out.

The Beef on ... Cheese

Whether you want cheese or not on your burger is certainly a matter of preference, but if, like us, you say "Yes please to cheese," then you may be wondering if there are some combinations that work better than others. Armstrong says, "It kind of depends where you're going with the burger." Blue cheese, for example, is great with richer blends like short rib with brisket because of its bold flavor and aroma — but whether you go with a spicy blue cheese like Roquefort or a sweeter blue cheese like Gorgonzola depends on the toppings you plan on using. On the other hand, leaner blends like chuck with sirloin tend to go well with mellower cheeses; one of Armstrong's favorites, for example, is Bel Paese, a semi-soft cow's milk cheese that melts beautifully on a patty.

The Beef on ... Buns

Armstrong's advice here is to match the burger to the bun. Making a rich, juicy short rib burger with bacon, dressing, and some serious toppings? Find something sturdy that will hold up to all those ingredients and soak up the juices without turning soggy — like focaccia, which has a flavor that won't clash with the meat and toppings. Or maybe your patty is made with lean sirloin, in which case it might be a good idea to dial up the richness factor with a brioche bun. And if you're making a homemade Big Mac, a sesame seed bun is a must.

The Beef on ... Toppings and Condiments

This is one area where people tend to overdo it, says Armstrong. "Three to four ingredients, generally one, maybe two sauces are more than enough. If you have too much going on in one burger, you sort of tend to miss out on the nuances that the meat possesses."

The Beef on ... Portioning

Armstrong says that he generally doesn't like making patties that weigh anything less than about 7- to 8-ounces, but this certainly depends on what you're making. A traditional patty melt, for instance, usually consists of a thinner patty and will require less meat. A thicker patty, on the other hand, will stay nice and juicy even with extended cooking and have enough space to hide a bit of butter or Brie in the middle, but there's a trade-off -- you'll need to find a bun that will stand up to the added heft.

The Beef on ... Shaping

When it comes to forming burger patties, less really is more. "You don't really want to make a patty and manipulate it too much," says Armstrong. Overworking the meat will cause it to turn dense and tough when cooked. It's best to shape it loosely, just until it holds together.

The Beef on ... Cooking Techniques

There are many ways to cook a burger, and deciding which way is best -- in a cast-iron skillet, on the grill, under a broiler, or even steaming it -- is sure to elicit raucous debate. Instead, we offer advice on what is arguably the most discussed technique -- grilling. Here, Armstrong likes to use gas for convenience, and mesquite or charcoal for additional flavor when he has a bit more time. He says the two most common mistakes he says home cooks make when grilling burgers are not letting the meat sit at room temperature for at least 15 minutes -- which results in the outer edges cooking before the interior -- and overcooking them. To guard against this fatal error, he suggests getting a meat thermometer to help cut out all the guesswork. Also, in his humble opinion, "Going past medium with anything besides ground chuck is wasteful." There it is from the man himself.

More From The Daily Meal: -- Tips For Grilling Up The Best Burger -- The 101 Best Burgers in America -- 8 Burger Recipes For Your Cookout -- How To Make A Turkey Burger That Actually Tastes Good

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'72 Chevy Nova Reborn As Grill


I'm at the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition for what they call the 'Varnishing Day Reception'. I've managed to miss the grand morning procession but out in the courtyard, where casual visitors are busy mistaking Sir Anthony Caro's arresting sculpture Promenade (1996) for an arrangement of picnic seating, an authentic Caribbean steel band is playing Boney M's 'Rivers of Babylon' (1978). It's all very summery. But it's inside, in the main galleries, that the real party is going on. Varnishing Day used to be the day when you might have spotted, say, Turner, putting the final touches to his latest picture of fog ahead of the big show; now it's the occasion for exhibitors to get out of their garrets or day jobs and mingle with their spiritual fellows - a treat in particular for the unsung artists who have been picked out from the hordes of hopefuls up and down the country to have their work hung alongside academicians and other big names. Champagne, art, sausages on sticks - what better way to spend a weekday lunchtime!

But what am I doing here? Well, I happened to have had a couple of rather impressive, or at least colourful, 'naïve style' paintings that I made in Italy last year and that were now burning a hole in the carpet under the sofa in my study - and what was the 240th Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, I figured, if not a sort of Britain's Got Talent for people who can't juggle or play the trombone? It seemed churlish not to join in. They don't make it easy, though. It's not exactly tuppence to apply (£50 'handling fee' for the two pictures) and you have to read the Byzantine detail of the entry form eight times to make sure your work isn't too big and doesn't contain hazardous waste or electrical parts, and that you've attached the cross-referencing adhesive labels and peel-off barcodes and tie-on tags and bits of corner-padding properly, not forgetting to remove any projecting hooks and eyes and piano wire and decide on a sale price (would £50,000 be too unreasonable?) that takes into account the extortionate cost of framing plus the RA's 30 per cent commission, train fare, packed lunch, labour and materials, before finally putting your name and address, age, medium, method, phone number, hat size and a title for your work that doesn't sound too wanky (it took me half the day to come up with Italian House and Italian Hill and to be candid even they went straight to my sphincter). So it's all quite labour-intensive, and that's before dragging your handiwork down to London on the appointed day in an Ikea bag along with millions of other people. And were there queues round Burlington House and down Piccadilly? Actually, no. I was in and out in five minutes.

But now the real waiting starts because it's weeks before they let you know if you're in or not. Last year they got something like 13,000 public submissions and showed only about 1,200 exhibits in all - and, even of those, 40 per cent were done by RA members. Add in all the other well-known artists who are invited to submit works and the chances for most of the unknowns isn't great. Which is understandable. I mean, you can't just have any old rubbish, can you?

The architect Will Alsop, one of the RAs on the selection committee, says it's important to have the counterweight that the established artists bring to the show. 'I think it strengthens it as a whole. There's always a huge pressure for space. And the show is also becoming more diverse in its content, which is a good thing - photography, for example, is now squeezing out some of the space, and quite rightly.' Of the selection process he says: 'There's no room for debate, but you don't need it - you just know. After a while you just spot it.'

But given the volume of entries and speed of the process, isn't there a danger of a hidden masterpiece not getting in? 'Well something interesting might slip through the net, but that's the process, I'm afraid.' Sure enough, a week later, I tore open my letter from the Royal Academy in great excitement to read: 'I am sorry to inform you that your works were not selected'!

So, yes, I'm afraid that my status, on Varnishing Day, is purely that of an observer. Obviously I'm disappointed. But there's always next year. And I can still enjoy the show. I wander round, shadowed by a nice young woman from the press office making sure I don't set fire to myself in the central hall. Maybe I should have focused more on content, and less on producing something that went with the curtains. I pause to admire a fine pair of vignettes by Paula Rego depicting domestic misery - the first a stupefied mother slumped drunk in a chair; the second (Retch) showing her (I assume it's the same woman) being sick in the toilet. Maybe I need to be a bit edgier. But then not everything is edgy. There's a very good tiger woodblock by Eileen Cooper RA, and a plate of Jammie Dodgers (Happy Biscuits by Robin-Lee Hall), rather imaginatively priced at £2,500, with Chelsea Bun (by Toby Wiggins) next to it for £1,500. It's a nice touch of confectionerial twinning, and broadly chimes with the optional theme of this year's show, 'Man Made', which judging by the parrots and skyscapes and severed heads and moths has not been taken up with widespread enthusiasm.

I like this little gallery, the Small Weston Room, where the paintings go right up to the ceiling. I'm guessing this is where a lot of the public submissions are hung, judging by the number of people taking photographs of their own pictures. I chat to some of them. Here's Martina, a beautiful fashion designer who has come all the way from Prague to see her painting of a train (The Train Posazavsky Pacifik); then there's Ursula (My Red Sofa) from Brighton who only entered for the show because her son was entering. 'Did he get in too?' I ask. 'No,' she says, with just the right amount of regret. Outside in the next room I meet Andy, a freelance illustrator, who got a personal call from the RA president Sir Nicholas Grimshaw telling him that his print of trees (Ashdown Forest) was in the show. 'I was on a clifftop in the Isle of Wight when he rang,' Andy says. 'I couldn't believe it. I was on my own in the middle of nowhere punching the air.'

What a great story. And I have to admit, strolling around, that most of the pictures do at least look as though they've had a bit of time spent on them, unlike mine, which were both done on the same day and finished by teatime. The young woman from the press office introduces me to Sir Nicholas, who is wearing his gold medallion of office. With so many public entries, I tell him, I expected a few more paintings of turned-up fishing boats and dogs and cats. 'Oh no,' he says, 'there's been a real push for getting more contemporary stuff in over the last two or three years - though we wouldn't turn our backs on a dog or a cat if it's really well done,' he beams. 'It's quality that counts.'

I show him my rejection letter, which has his photocopied signature at the bottom of it. He tells me about the arcane selection process, which involves a human chain who pass the thousands of works between them, holding each up for scrutiny by the judges. As president, he has two wooden sticks - one with an X on the end and one with a D. An X means you're rejected and D means you get 'shipped up to the gallery' - for further consideration. I ask what the D stands for. Hmm. He doesn't know. 'Deferment?' he wonders. 'No, no,' says his colleague. 'Doubtful.' Ah yes, says Sir Nicholas, explaining that the 'doubtfuls' are then whittled down by the hangers. So some doubtfuls are less doubtful than others? Yes, in fact most doubtfuls turn into successes, though a substantial minority do not.

Hmm. I pop down to the special gallery curated by Tracey Emin to see the notorious zebra shagging the Victorian lady, and the video I read about featuring a naked woman gyrating a barbed-wire hula hoop. There's also an ingenious sculpture composed of entwined rubber fingers and penises ('Pink Narcissus') whose shadow, cast on the wall, depicts a two-faced man. I wish I'd thought of that.

But I'm feeling quite chipper now. What if my paintings got to the D stage, and only had to be rejected by the hangers because, for example, they had too many Tuscan hillsides already?

It could have happened. I leave the building and skip round to the tradesmen's entrance to pick up my failed art. There's a bit of a sheepish queue and two or three cheerful staff earning their 'handling fee' and a sign regretting that the RA is 'not able to provide bubble wrap' or other materials. I haul my pictures out into the rain and wave down a taxi. I'm halfway to Liverpool Street before I notice the white crosses chalked on the backs of my pictures. No doubts there.

· The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition opens tomorrow, until 17 August; royalacademy.org.uk

Summary: Every year the Royal Academy is inundated with submissions from the public to its Summer Exhibition, only a tenth of which ever make it on to those hallowed walls. So how did Observer writer Phil Hogan fare with his 'naive' Italian landscapes?


In an automotive marketplace redolent with boasts of fuel efficiency, sustainability and eco-friendliness, Dodge’s new fullsize Charger sedan arrives with a much different and politically incorrect promise: Unapologetic power.

The Fiat Chrysler Automobiles FCA brand refuses to relinquish its U.S. audience of muscle-car admirers. Quite the opposite. FCA is promoting Charger with a few highly-powered versions powered by V8 engines, notably the 707-horsepower Hellcat. Built in limited numbers, the fire breathers are mainly meant to stoke demand for a mainstream Charger equipped with a V6 engine.

Strengthening the fullsize sedan is a key element in the makeover of the Dodge brand since 2009, following Chrysler’s bankruptcy and its subsequent merger with Italian automaker Fiat to create a global automaker incorporated in the Netherlands. Ram pickup trucks, once sold as Dodge Ram, has been turned into a separate franchise; while the automaker’s minivan, sold as a Dodge Caravan and a Chrysler Town and Country, soon will be sold exclusively as a Chrysler.

Tim Kuniskis, head of FCA’s Dodge brand, noted that many of today’s sedans “get lost in a parking lot,” since they look the same. Charger’s styling is meant to convey the aggressiveness of speed and power. The vehicle is likely to appeal to fans of NASCAR stock car racing, even though Dodge withdrew from the competition three years ago.

“We wanted to offer something different in a fullsize sedan, some that wasn’t boring,” he said. In addition to the supercharged Hellcat—of which only a few thousand units will be built, at a price of $69,000—Charger also can be purchased with a 485-horsepower V8.

But the Charger that will sell in mass volume is equipped with a 300-horsepower V6. It starts in price at about $28,000 and competes against Chevrolet Impala, Ford Taurus, Toyota Avalon and Nissan Maxima. With a V8, it has become a favorite of police departments and highway patrols.

Increasingly, Chrysler Dodge Jeep and Ram brands are clustered under a single dealership roof. While branding remains separate in advertisements, shoppers might find a Jeep Cherokee, Ram pickup truck and Dodge Charger under the same roof. If that sounds like a dog’s breakfast of brands, it’s also one that seems to be attracting new customers, especially for Charger.

“Our research shows that 40% of Charger buyers have never been in one of our dealerships,” Kuniskis said. “And 60% of those purchases lead to another” among the brands represented by FCA multi-brand dealers.

With energy prices falling, an especially favorable sales environment might be gathering for the new Charger, the third generation of the full-size sedan introduced in 2005. A new Chrysler 300, built on the same architecture as Charger, will be shown in the next few months, adding heft to FCA’s U.S. lineup.

True to its heritage as the automaker that popularized the minivan when others thought it wouldn’t fly, Chrysler has always marched to its own drummer – and not always so successfully. With the new Charger, FCA is sounding a contrapuntal note to the energy saving, diminutive sizing and resource conservation that characterize automaking; it’s a note that could redound to its benefit.

Summary: Fiat Chrysler is offering the powerful sedan at a variety of price points.


FORTUNE — What if I told you that there was a group of hard-driving workaholics who tend to have advanced degrees and bring a level of talent and skill to their jobs that attracts premium pay in the global economy? Scholars have found that this group is more likely than much of the population to raise their children in two-parent homes.

You might think this was a group people would admire, even emulate, right? Not so. For this is the much-maligned 1%, whose media infamy via the Occupy Wall Street protests, followed by President Obama’s populist reelection message, is now firmly embedded in the American psyche.

The 1% club stands accused, accurately, of more than doubling its share of the nation’s income since 1980. By 2007 it controlled nearly 24% of total income, the second highest in history, after 1929. (In 2009 its share dropped to 17%, suggesting that recessions aren’t necessarily kind to the rich.)

Railing about the 1% club has become shorthand for expressing outrage not only over growing income disparity but also about the state of the nation’s working class. Wages of men without college diplomas, for example, have dropped by a whopping third over the past three decades.

That’s deeply troubling. Socially and politically, there are plenty of reasons to worry about the growing income gap. But rage against the 1% is misplaced. Income is not a zero-sum game: The rich aren’t getting wealthier at the expense of the poor. Harvard’s Lawrence Katz has calculated that even if all the gains of the top 1% were redistributed to the 99%, household incomes would go up by less than half of what they would if everyone had a college degree. In other words, the financial rewards of higher education are a big contributor to the income gap.

More: Five tax breaks Washington has given the rich

Indeed, researchers say the reasons for the rich getter richer are complex and nuanced. One-percenters are a large and varied lot, consisting of 1.38 million households, with total household incomes starting at $344,000 in 2009. (Nearly all scholars rely on income figures because of the difficulty in obtaining reliable net-worth data.) Yes, finance is well-represented in the 1% club, but there is also an especially high portion of the self-employed, along with a variety of other professions. And while CEO incomes rose astronomically through the 1990s, their incomes have actually declined over the past decade, according to University of Chicago’s Steven N. Kaplan.

So what is behind the income gains of the 1%? Let’s start with the global and technological changes that pump up the salaries of superstars in a range of professions: Call it the Yo-Yo Ma effect. In 1600 a famous cellist would have reached his career peak by playing for the king. Now Ma can stage concerts all over the world, with commensurate earnings. Apply that same concept to the in-demand skills of star lawyers or bankers or doctors in the 1% club, or of hungry entrepreneurs plying new markets.

Women in high-paying professions are another factor. Researchers from Indiana University and the Treasury Department studied the top 1% of households and found that by 2005 the number of taxpayers (largely men) with working spouses rose to almost 40%, up from 25% in 1979. That spouse tends to be a wealthy professional as well.

Scholars are also taking note of social issues underlying America’s income divide. In his new book, Coming Apart, conservative social scientist Charles Murray documents far higher divorce rates and more children living with one parent in working-class communities. That’s a trend that has also caught the attention of liberals like Harvard’s Robert Putnam, who describes “gaps that didn’t exist decades ago but are widening at an alarming rate today” and are reinforced as wealthy parents spend far more time with their children.

It’s entertaining to wail about fat cats and the greedy rich. But if we’re serious about addressing widening inequality, we should figure out what the 1% is doing right — and apply some of those ideas to closing the gap.

Nina Easton is currently a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center.

This story is from the April 30, 2012 issue of Fortune.

Summary: It's time to end the myth that the nation's wealthy are getting rich off the backs of the poor. Instead let's figure out what they're doing right.


Virgin America made a successful takeoff in its public trading debut Friday.

The shares opened at $27, $4 higher than the price the airline set, and ended the day up 30 percent at $30.

The timing of the IPO by the Richard Branson-backed airline could hardly be better.

Airline stocks have soared as the carriers reap huge profits thanks to full planes, rising revenue, and falling fuel prices.

After years of losing money, Virgin America is now profitable.

The airline priced the shares at $23, near the middle of its announced range of $21 to $24 each, and raised more than $300 million before expenses. The ticker symbol is ‘‘VA.’’

Virgin America Inc. started flying in 2007 with the goal of being low cost but high flair.

Its Airbus jets feature mood lighting, leather seats, and seatback touch screens for watching TV, ordering drinks, or chatting with passengers in other rows.

The airline, based in Burlingame, Calif., scores well in traveler surveys but lost money for six years until earning $10 million in 2013.

It is hobbled by limited destinations and a thin schedule.

Virgin carried about 6 million passengers last year — less than 6 percent of the crowd that flew on Southwest Airlines.

And Virgin’s key transcontinental service faces stiff competition from American, Delta, United, and JetBlue, which are chasing the same lucrative business travelers with amenities such as lie-flat seats.

In an interview Friday, chief executive David Cush said he is confident his airline would compete on those key routes and said that having a lie-flat bed on a 5-hour cross-country flight was overrated.

Branson’s Virgin Group remains a minority stockholder. The billionaire’s empire suffered a setback last month when a test-flight accident destroyed Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, designed to carry tourists into space for $250,000 each.

A test pilot was killed. Cush said the accident would not affect the airline.

‘‘We’re obviously sad to lose someone from the family, but we also understand that they’ve got a bit of a high-wire act they’re trying to do there,’’ Cush said.

He said that the accident would not cause Branson to shrink from his role as the public face of the airline.

Airlines and their shareholders have been flying high the past two years. Mergers have reduced competition and fares have increased.

Since the start of 2013, shares of many major US airlines have more than doubled; Delta Air Lines Inc. and Southwest have jumped about four-fold.

Airline stocks sagged briefly in early fall, but they’ve been rising again since early October on falling prices for jet fuel — just in time to boost Virgin’s public stock offering.

‘‘Everything just worked out,’’ Cush said.

Summary: Virgin America made a successful takeoff in its public trading debut Friday. The shares opened at $27, $4 higher than the price that the airline set, and ended the day up 30 percent at $30. The timing of the IPO by the Richard Branson-backed airline could hardly be better. Airline stocks have soared as the carriers reap huge profits thanks to full planes, rising revenue, and falling fuel prices. After years of losing money, Virgin America is now profitable.