Several years ago I was riding in a van with two female friends in the front seats when one of them pointed out the window and yelled “Wait! Slow down…is that him?” We were passing the bar that employed her ex-boyfriend.

“I don’t know,” said her friend who was driving. “A guy in Brooklyn with a beard and a plaid shirt? Could be anyone.”

I looked down over my beard at my shirt and both girls looked at me and we all laughed.

I’ve had a beard most of my adult life and my wardrobe is comprised largely of cowboy cut, plaid shirts and Wrangler blue jeans. On cold days I wear a big Carhartt coat into the office. In my youth in Oklahoma I did cut down some trees and split firewood for use in a house I really did grow up in, but in those days I dressed like a poser gutter punk. I nurture an abiding love for outlaw country and bluegrass, though, again, during my actual lumberjacking days it was all Black Flag, Operation Ivy and an inadvisable amount of The Doors.

After a decade living in urban places likes Brooklyn and Washington, I still keep a fishing rod I haven’t used in years, woodworking tools I shouldn’t be trusted with, and when I drink my voice deepens into a sort of a growl the provenance of which I do not know. I like mason jars, and craft beer and vintage pickup trucks. An old friend visiting me a few years ago commented, as I propped a booted foot against the wall behind me and adjusted the shirt tucked into my blue jeans, that I looked more Oklahoma than I ever did in Oklahoma.

The lumbersexual has been the subject of much Internet musing in the last several weeks. The term is a new one on me but it is not a new phenomenon. In 2010 Urban Dictionary defined the lumbersexual as, “A metro-sexual who has the need to hold on to some outdoor based ruggedness, thus opting to keep a finely trimmed beard.” I was never a metrosexual and I’m actually most amused by Urban Dictionary’s earliest entry for lumbersexual, from February 2004: “A male who humps anyone who gives him wood.” But I do think defining the lumbersexual as a metrosexual grasping at masculinity gets at something.

It doesn’t take a lot of deep self-reflection to see that my lumbersexuality is, in part, a response to the easing of gender identities in society at large over the last few decades. Writing for The New Republic nearly 15 years ago, Andrew Sullivan observed “many areas of life that were once ‘gentlemanly’ have simply been opened to women and thus effectively demasculinized.” The flipside of this happy consequence of social progress is a generation of men left a bit rudderless. “Take their exclusive vocations away, remove their institutions, de-gender their clubs and schools and workplaces, and you leave men with more than a little cultural bewilderment,” writes Sullivan.

If not a breadwinner, not ogreishly aggressive, and not a senior member in good standing at a stuffy old real-life boy’s club, what is a man to be?

On the other hand, the upending of gender norms frees men in mainstream culture to do things verboten by a retrograde man-code once enforced by the most insecure and doltish among us. We carry purses now (and call them murses, or satchels, but don’t kid yourselves fellas). We do yoga. That the ancient core workout is so associated with femininity the pop culture has invented the term “broga” only goes to show what a sorry state masculinity is in. The lumbersexual is merely a healthier expression of the same identity crisis.

Which is, I think (?), why I dress like a lumberjack (and a lumberjack from like 100 years ago, mind you; real lumberjacks today, orange-clad in helmets and ear protection, do not dress like lumbersexuals). As a 21st-century man who does not identify with the pickup artist thing or the boobs/cars/abs triad of masculinity on display in most 21st-century men’s magazines (Maxim et al), is not particularly fastidious or a member of any clearly identifiable subculture and who is as attracted to notions of old-timey authenticity as anyone else in my 20s-30s hipster cohort (all of you are hipsters get over it), I guess this is just the fashion sense that felt most natural. I am actually fairly outdoorsy, in a redneck car-camping kind of way. Lumbersexuality just fit right, like an axe handle smoothed out by years of palm grease or an iPhone case weathered in all the right places to the shape of my hand.

There is a dark side to this lumbersexual moment however. It’s an impulse evident in Tim Allen’s new show Last Man Standing. Whereas in the 1990s, Tim the Tool-Man Taylor from Home Improvement was a confident and self-effacing parody on the Man Cave, complete with silly dude-grunting and fetishizing of tools, Mike Baxter, played by Tim Allen in Last Man Standing, is an entirely un-self-aware, willfully ignorant reactionary. The central theme of the show is Baxter in a household full of women struggling to retain his masculinity, which is presumed to be under assault because of all the estrogen around. He does this through all manner of posturing, complaining and at times being outright weird. In an early episode, Baxter waltzes into the back office at his job in a big box store modeled off Bass Pro Shops and relishes in the fact that it “smells like balls in here.” The joke is a crude attempt at celebrating maleness but it rings distressingly hollow to anyone who has spent any time in rooms redolent with the scent of actual balls. In later seasons the show softened but the central concern of a man whose masculinity is under assault because he is surrounded by women speaks to this moment in our popular culture.

If my beard is a trend-inspired attempt to reclaim a semblance of masculinity in a world gone mad then so be it. Beats scrotum jokes.

Summary: Why plaid yoga mats and beards are the future


More students in the 12th grade said they smoked pot every day, compared to those who smoke daily cigarettes, finds a new federal report. It’s the first time since the survey began in 1975 that daily marijuana use surpassed cigarettes.

The “Monitoring the Future” survey released on Wednesday shows that 6% of 12th graders used marijuana every day—about the same rate as last year—while 5.5% of seniors reported smoking cigarettes daily. (That’s a drop from 2014, when 6.7% of high school seniors smoked cigarettes every day.)

Their perceptions of pot also changed; fewer students think it’s dangerous. Almost 32% of seniors said they thought regular marijuana use could be harmful, compared to 36% who felt that way last year. “The sense that marijuana has medicinal purposes and that doctors are prescribing it creates a sense that this drug cannot be so harmful,” says Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health (the group that funded the research).

Volkow says she is surprised that marijuana rates didn’t rise from 2014, after the past year’s attitude and policy changes surrounding the legalization of marijuana. “All of those factors have led many to predict that there would be an increase in the pattern of use of marijuana among teenagers, and we are not seeing it,” she says. Still, it was one of the only substances in the report that did not decline in usage.

MORE: The Butter Flavor Chemical Used in Microwave Popcorn Is Also in E-Cigs

In addition to high school seniors, the survey also looked at attitudes and substance use among American students in grades 8 and 10. In each of the grades, it noted declining usage rates for cigarettes, alcohol, prescription opioid pain relievers, synthetic marijuana and heroin (which hit a record low at 0.3% for 8th graders and 0.5% for 10th and 12th graders.) “These two findings were very surprising,” says Volkow. Experts were worried that since prescription opioids and heroin use have gotten more popular nationally, they might see the same trends in teens.

MORE: Smokeless Tobacco More Toxic Than Cigarettes, Study Says

Over the last five years, daily cigarette smoking among 10th graders has dropped 55%. But the newer nicotine carriers like e-cigarettes are as popular as they were the year before. Yet students aren’t always sure what’s in them, the findings suggest. The majority of teenagers who reported using e-cigarettes said they were only inhaling flavors instead of nicotine, and many said they weren’t sure what they were inhaling. Only 20% said that the last time they used a e-cigarette, they were inhaling nicotine.

Researchers continue to debate the effects of e-cigarettes on the body, and Volkow says there’s skepticism over whether inhaling flavoring on its own is safe. “There’s been evidence that some of these e-cigarette devices release chemicals that are toxic to the body,” she says. “Since there is no control over manufacturing products, the quality of these products vary. I think this is an area that requires investigation to actually assess the potential harmful effects.”

Summary: Fewer students than last year think that pot is harmful


Well, Abby's (Darby Stanchfield) gone very quickly from White House press secretary to, well, facilitator.

Because folks, Fitz (Tony Goldwyn) is getting busy.

Cyrus (Jeff Perry), similarly, is getting busy, but a different kind of busy. He's courting Francisco Vargas (Ricardo Chavira). More on that later.

'SCANDAL' RECAP 5X12: FITZ IS DATING, CYRUS IS SCHEMING, OLIVIA IS SPYING

Right now, we're focused on the Secret Service, who got a little too busy at a party and ... killed a girl. Don't worry; I didn't see that coming either.

Two girls, Megan and Fantasia — it's Erin, actually, but I prefer Fantasia — were partying too hard when one wound up with her head in a glass table.

Quinn (Katie Lowes) and Huck (Guillermo Diaz) are more than ready to get dirty to clean up the suite so the FBI finds a dead hooker and no Secret Service DNA, but Marcus (Cornelius Smith Jr.) isn't happy about cleaning up for the White House.

Someone in OPA has morals? Tell me more.

'SCANDAL' 5X11 RECAP: MELLIE AND SUSAN GEAR UP FOR A WHITE HOUSE RUN; FITZ FINDS A NEW FRIEND

Susan Ross (Artemis Pebdani), too, has some morals: she wants nowhere near an endorsement from the newly minted cad in the Oval Office.

Vargas takes Sally Langston (Kate Burton) up on her offer to appear on “Lovers of Liberty,” but the war hero still doesn't seem to want to run for president, despite Cyrus and his, we'll call it encouragement. It's “Scandal,” so this will likely turn into blackmail or coercion. Probably both.

Mellie (Bellamy Young) stumbles across Fitz and his latest lady friend and runs out of there faster than Olivia (Kerry Washington) runs out of a bloody crime scene, but POTUS' most recent fling, the gladiator in a white hat herself, can't even be bothered with jealousy.

Or, at least, not jealous of Fitz. She's still spying on Jake (Scott Foley), but of course she is.

Tom (Brian Letscher), meanwhile, has figured out why Vargas doesn't want to run for president: his daughter has cancer.

A rousing speech from Cyrus is all Vargas needs to set him on the desired path, like any good ... chief of staff? Is that still Cyrus' title? I don't know that, but I do know that I would thoroughly enjoy Cyrus spending a day following me around motivating me.

Olivia, back in the Oval Office once again, has a speech for Fitz: you're screwing up the country.

“The fish rots from the head,” she says. “Selfish, reckless, negligent.”

After a heart-to-heart with Susan — and probably, more likely, the fact that he always does what Olivia tells him to do — Fitz takes over Abby's briefing room and announces that the Secret Service agents who killed Megan will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Another “Scandal” character with morals. I barely know how to contain myself.

Something I expected more than Fitz actually doing the right thing? Vargas asking Cyrus to run his campaign.

Jake and Vanessa getting engaged is strange. Announcing it in Papa Pope's (Joe Morton) house is great.

• When was the last time we saw Sally outside of her TV set?

• “Sally Langston is a harbinger of cosmic doom.”

• David Rosen (Joshua Malina) and Liz (Portia de Rossi): still weird. This has been your weekly update.

• “She used to run the country. Now she's stepping over dead hookers.”

• Cyrus remembered both his husband AND his daughter (kind of). Mellie remembered Teddy. This has to be a record.

• “I will literally murder you.” And she will, too.

• Jake and Olivia did dirty things that I can't talk about here and it was very hot and very dirty.

• Abby's face when Susan gets out of the sex elevator was fantastic.


There are few people alive today who have gotten a better deal from Hollywood than Erin Brockovich. Steven Soderbergh's 2000 film, an anthem to Brockovich's legal crusade against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company for toxic dumping in Hinkley, Calif., turned her name into a brand for flinty righteousness. Julia Roberts, who won an Oscar for playing her, needed a water-padded bra to get her dimensions right. All this has left Brockovich with an undeniably powerful, albeit peculiar, kind of fame. She has the Pentecostal tan of celebrity, and she has that name, but for the time being people don't automatically connect the two. She gets confused with Heather Locklear and Suzanne Somers. One guy approached her at a restaurant to tell her he loved her ThighMaster.

The confusion can't last too much longer. Two years after the release of Soderbergh's cinematic folk tale, the 41-year-old Brockovich has arrived on shelves, stage and the small screen. Over the course of last year, she became the most popular public-speaking client in the William Morris stable. Her recently published self-help volume, ''Take It From Me: Life's a Struggle but You Can Win,'' will get that best-seller stamp when it hits paperback. She is developing two television pilots, a talk show for NBC and a true-life program for Lifetime about women ''overcoming any kind of obstacles.'' Finally, there is the work that made her famous, her investigations into corporate polluting. She is finishing up the research for her first big case to go to trial since the historic $333 million Hinkley settlement in 1996, another class-action suit against P.G.&E., this time in Kettleman City, Calif., for contaminating ground water with chromium 6. The trial date is to be set next month.

On one of her ''wildly busy'' mornings, with half an hour to spare, Brockovich has suggested we meet at her favorite boutique, Nicole, on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. It's the kind of place that sells thongs with the word ''spoiled'' in sequins on the front. The saleswomen know her style (''provocative,'' they call it) and even fetch her the occasional cranberry-and-vodka from a restaurant next door.

When she glides in, nearly an hour late, she heads immediately to the dressing room. She throws on a pair of blatantly age-inappropriate, low-slung denim pants and models them in the mirror. For most, this would be a private moment, but not for Brockovich. She pulls up her shirt and suspiciously eyes her miraculous waistline. She wants to know if the jeans reveal too much skin. ''I don't like my bellybutton showing,'' she says. ''I really don't.'' She looks magnificent in everything here, which makes choosing hard. ''When I have the vodkas-and-cranberries, I come home with all kinds of stuff,'' she says, twisting her hair into curlers that have been warmed for her. ''I tell my husband, 'Don't let me shop when I've been drinking.'''

Just when I'm about to give in to the vacuity of the spree, I ask her -- through the slats on the dressing-room door -- What do you think of Michael Fumento?'' and everything changes. Fumento is a lawyer who works at the conservative Hudson Institute. Since the film, Fumento has been trying to spread the word that ingested chromium 6 does not cause cancer and that Brockovich's science is shoddy.

She bolts out of the dressing room, cursing, and confronts me. ''C6 causes liver failure, kidney failure and can kill you,'' she tells me. ''There are reams of data on that. Fumento is just taking a dig because he protects the big company. I don't like him.'' It's an abrupt switch of subject matter, from $150 denims to legal wrangling, and I almost feel guilty for bringing it up and shattering the playful mood. But she clearly knows how to handle the dissonance.

We're used to our crusaders rejecting style and sexuality for high seriousness, as if they were mutually exclusive. But Brockovich demands to be taken seriously with her Armani suits and her breast implants (and in some cases, yes, her bellybutton showing). In the post- Enron mood of increasing suspicion of corporate goodwill, Brockovich is a real David in boot-cut Levi's. A rambunctious, loudmouthed sister to Sherron Watkins and Jane Fonda, Brockovich is a vocal enemy of bad companies at a moment when bad companies are very, very bad. ''Ralph Nader with cleavage,' they called me,'' she says. ''I don't want to picture that.''

On the lecture circuit, her audiences gasp when she first walks onstage. At one event, she sauntered on dressed in skin-tight leather pants, leather jacket, leather boots and swooping leather bustier -- in so much leather that she was practically a glove -- and the woman behind me in the audience muttered, ''Oh, my God.'' Brockovich lives for that shock response but dares you to leave it at that. When she advises in her book to ''dress for the part,'' she's talking about a role that she invented: the all-star, foxy suburban mom. Brockovich is proof of the second act in American life. The question is, What does it take to keep the curtain from falling?

Summary: With two TV shows in development, a new book and a steady gig on the luncheon circuit, how does the real-life Erin Brockovich find time to fight those polluters?


David Perry is Global Director of Education for Trend Micro, where he represents the company's Internet security awareness endeavors as a leading authority on computer virus prevention. For ongoing updates on the latest threats, check out the Trend Micro microsite.

The social web is not just a model of our world, but an indelible and growing part of it. People correspond, they do business, and just like in the real world, they have addresses, and mailboxes. And in today’s pervasive and immersive online environment, it's almost impossible to be completely anonymous.

The web gathers vast amounts of personal information that we willfully share online — our location, interests, purchases, friends, current activities, etc. Anyone tracking this information not only knows what we say, but in what location we say it, and to whom. This adds up to a large dossier of information on nearly every Internet user.

One issue that persists in a web-based world is online stalking (also referred to by some organizations as "cyber stalking"). An online stalker can easily hide behind Internet anonymity, or worse, behind someone else’s identity. Below is a quick guide to understanding online stalking and how to best prevent it from happening to you.

The real key to the prevention of online stalking is remembering that every post you put on a social network could potentially be public. Sophisticated search engines and malicious data-stealing Trojans can find and share any information about you, even on the most trusted and secure social networks. Compromised data could potentially be used by criminals to harass you, harm you personally, or steal your identity.

The best thing to do is to stay informed about the latest threats and which popular sites may have been recently hacked. Some important resources with quality information include:

Whether you want to protect information on your Facebook profile or in your Gmail account, there is security software that can help you do it. For example, you can install software that will warn you if any sensitive words or numbers (like phone numbers, addresses, dates of birth, passwords, etc.) are entered onto a web page. You should also be sure your private and financial data is only entered into websites that have proof of their security from companies like TRUSTe or VeriSign.

Because so much of our day-to-day communication is done on social networks (sharing on Facebook, job hunting on Craigslist), it may not always be clear when we encounter the issue of online stalking. You may think you’re overreacting, but if you’re feeling intimidated or insecure about a situation and you're not sure what to do, here are some sources that may help you determine if you’re being stalked.

QuitStalkingMe.com WiredSafety.org State Cyberstalking Laws ConnectSafely.org

Anyone who is being stalked or harassed online should not respond to the instigator. They should instead either report it to the online community where it’s happening (by flagging on social networks, reporting abusive links, etc.), or to other sites such as Cyber911 Emergency from Wired Safety, and Cyberstalking from The National Center for Victims of Crime.

Keep a record of the communications, and contact authorities if it becomes threatening in any way. People who are under the age of 18 should also alert their parents or an adult they trust to help them properly track the communications and contact authorities as appropriate.

Like bullying and harassment, stalking cannot be stopped by any technology. However, there are several ways to keep track of communications through IM, Twitter, Facebook, etc. The silver lining is that online stalking is probably easier to prosecute than physical stalking because the communications are usually traceable in some way.

- 3 Tips for Managing Your Online Reputation- 5 Ways Facebook Changed Dating (For the Worse)- 4 Steps for Managing Social Media Attention- The Tao of Tweeting- 4 Tips for Reducing Social Media Stress

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, parema

Summary: David Perry is Global Director of Education for Trend Micro, where he represents the company's Internet security awareness endeavors as a leading authority on computer virus pre...


WASHINGTON, June 25— As state political parties prepare to assume a much larger role in campaign fund-raising, a new report shows them to be very skilled already at soliciting the sort of unlimited donations from corporations, unions and others that will soon be off-limits to national parties.

State parties pulled in $307 million on their own in the 2000 elections, according to the report today by three campaign-finance watchdog groups. Spotty disclosure laws made much of that money difficult to track and revealed some sizable reporting errors, suggesting it may be hard to monitor the flow of money expected to be collected by state parties after the nation's new campaign-finance law takes effect in November.

An influential business group released its own findings today suggesting that corporations may be better off shifting away from the large donations that the new law was designed to curtail and concentrating instead on telling their employees which candidates were best for business.

Political parties, lawmakers and lobbyists are working to figure out how to adapt to the new law, which bars national parties from raising or spending large soft money donations from companies, unions and wealthy individuals -- but allows state parties to continue such activity. The landscape was further complicated last week after the Federal Election Commission issued rulings that would allow federal candidates to retain a large role raising soft money for states.

Also, the four Congressional sponsors of the law are expected to announce on Wednesday they will ask Congress to overturn the commission's rules. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee, as part of its lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the statute, has subpoenaed unions and other groups, seeking information about their fund-raising and campaign activities.

A Republican official emphasized today that the subpoenas were going to a ''broad spectrum'' of interest groups, not just those that tend to support Democrats.

What is clear from the watchdog report today by the Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in State Politics is that state parties have proven to be talented at raising the sort of money that the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance law was designed to eliminate at the national level.

In addition to the $307 million raised on their own, state parties also received $263 million in transfers from national parties. Much of that, the report found, was spent on advertising including issue advertisements that attacked federal candidates, a phenomenon that the new law tried to eliminate. Such transfers, totaling $4.9 million, played a significant role two years ago in the United States Senate race in Delaware, the report said, financing a media blitz and other activities that helped Thomas R. Carper, a Democrat, defeat the incumbent Republican, William V. Roth Jr.

Many of the largest state-level donors are strong Democratic backers, including the top three, the report found: The National Education Association, at $3.6 million; the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, at $2.5 million; and the Service Employees International Union, at $2.4 million. Over all, however, state-level donations appeared roughly evenly split between the parties, said Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity.

Lawyers donated $20.8 million, mostly to Democratic committees. Various unions donated about $23 million, also mostly to Democratic committees. Top Republican-leaning industries included real estate, with $11 million in total donations; securities and investment firms, at $8.5 million; and health professionals, at $6.4 million.

''The states have been the backdoor to American politics for years,'' Mr. Lewis said, and the problematic disclosure practices in the states ''will only get worse, we fear.''

At the same time, some business groups are trying to push corporations to spend time and money educating employees about candidates, having found that big soft money donations have not provided the sort of bang for the buck as more grassroots-oriented activities.

One proponent of such strategies, the Business-Industry Political Action Committee, has found in a new poll that three in five employees ''strongly want'' or ''somewhat want'' political information from their employer -- but officials say that only about 40 companies in the Fortune 500 provide any sort of substantial education about candidates.

In addition, despite the explosion in soft money contributions in recent years, no more than half of the Fortune 500 have their own political action committees, through which employers can raise funds from workers and contribute to campaigns.

Greg Casey, the president of the business-industry group, adds that the McCain-Feingold law ''has legitimized PAC's,'' as such committees now have the ''most clearly defined guidelines about'' how donations can be solicited from employees and spent on political candidates.

Chart: ''DOLLARS AND CENTS -- Soft Money in the States'' How 225 state party committees in all 50 states raised and spent soft money in the 2000 election cycle, according to a new study: HOW IT WAS RAISED $570.1 million total* National parties: 46% Businesses, unions and organizations: 21% Individual donors: 15% Candidates or state and local parties: 13% Unknown or unitemized: 5% HOW IT WAS USED $551.8 million total Transfers to other accounts or committees: 42% Consultants, get-out-the-vote efforts, polling, direct mail, etc.: 23% Advertising: 14% Administrative costs: 11% Direct political contributions: 8% Fund-raising events: 2% *Does not include money transferred from one committee to another. (Source: Data compiled and analyzed by the Center for Public Integrity, the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in State Politics)


Despite sporadic acts of violence and vandalism in theaters around the country showing “The Warriors,” a film about teen‐age gang violence in New York City, Paramount Pictures yesterday resumed print advertising for the high‐grossing film after a six‐day hiatus.

Gordon Weaver, a Paramount vice president, said there had been only minor instances of disorderly conduct in theatres since Friday, when it was decided to cease promotion. In California last week two youths were slain in fights at two theaters showing the film and in Boston a teen‐ager was stabbed to death by an acquaintance who had just seen the movie.

In the New York area there have been reports of fights in the theaters but according to Lieut. Edward Conroy, the Police Department's youth aid division gang coordinator, “There has been no increase in gang activity that we know of because of the movie.”

Last weekend a volunteer group of youths who patrol the subways staged brief protest against the movie's violence outside the Loew's State I on Broadway at 45th Street. The protest followed widely reported incident in which a dozen youths allegedly harassed subway passengers at the IND stop at 42d Street and Eighth Avenue after seeing the film. The transit policemen involved, however, said the youths were arrested only for theft of services in jumping the turnstiles, a trick they said they saw in the film.

In telegrams and phone calls to the 670 theaters showing the film, Paramount offered to pay for any additional guards the exhibitors might hire. The company said it would release the exhibitors from their contractual obligation to show the film they thought that would pose a risk to persons or property. Paramount says only dozen theatres, including the two in California, canceled the film, but many have taken advantage of the offer to increase security.

The movie, made last summer primarily in Manhattan, chronicles the nocturnal subway journey of a multiracial gang, “The Warriors,” returning from the Bronx to their turf in Coney Island. They have been accused of the murder of a top gang leader and along the way are attacked by a series of oddly uniformed gangs frequently caught by Walter Hill, the director in artful studied poses The violence builds to a head‐cracking brawl in a subway bathroom with weapons ranging from knives and chains to baseball bats.

Initial newspaper and television advertising for the film had pictured a mob of young thugs stretching to the horizon. The copy underneath read: “These are the Armies of the Night. They are 100,000 strong. They outnumber the cops five to one. They could run New York City.- Tonight they're all out to get the Warriors.” Mr. Weaver said the revised advertising would just give the times and places of the shows without artwork.

The film, which opened Feb. 9, grossed $3.478,000 in its first three days and as of Wednesday had grossed $9,372,928 with 641 theatres reporting. According to Mr. Weaver, “The Warriors” cost about $4 million to produce

Many exhibitors who reported fights in their theaters did not link the outbreaks directly to “ The Warriors,” but they did say the film drew unruly crowds. In one California incident Marvin Kenneth Eller, 19 years old, was shot in the head Feb. 12 by an unidentified assailant during a scuffle at a Palm Springs drive‐in theater, and died four days later. Sgt. Bob Cooper of the Palm Springs Police said he did not believe there was any conne:tion between the film and Mr. Eller's death. “It was just a big coincidence,” he said.

Thomas Gitchell, an 18-year-old construction worker, died of stab wounds Feb. 12 after he and three companions were attacked by 20 people during the film's intermission at the Esplanade Theater in Oxnard, 50 miles north of Los Angeles.

William Glazer, a spokesman for the Sacks Theaters Corporation, said the death by stabbing in Boston of 16-year-old Martin J. Yakubowicz would not affect the film's Boston engagement. “An unfortunate fellow was stabbed by someone who happened to have seen the movie and everybody's blaming the movie,” he said.

The Translux Theater in Stamford, Conn., is among local theaters that have hired extra security guards. “We've had quite a problem,” said Frank Melatti, director of operations at the movie house. He hired an off‐duty policeman to stand watch after a fight at the theater on Feb. 14.

A scene from the film “Warriors.” Paramount has begun advertising for the movie again.

We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports, and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

A version of this archives appears in print on February 23, 1979, on page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Ads Resumed for a Gang Movie After Sporadic Violence at Theaters. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: Paramount Pictures, despite sporadic acts of violence and vandalism in theaters around US, resumes ad for film The Warriors after 6-day hiatus; Paramount has offered to pay for additional guards any exhibitors might hire; illus (M)


DeRay McKesson (center) and police officers

Protests continued in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on Sunday following the Saturday arrest of prominent Black Lives Matter activist DeRay McKesson.

McKesson, 31, was arrested Saturday protesting last week's fatal police shooting of 37-year-old

. He was charged with simple obstruction of a highway of commerce, according to booking documents obtained by PEOPLE.

"During the protest, the defendant entered the roadway and was provided another verbal order to exit the lanes of travel," police documents state. "Moments later, the defendant entered the roadway again and was taken into custody by officers on scene without incident."

McKesson was taken to East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office jail and released on Sunday, according to the documents.

His arrest prompted celebrities to post Twitter messages in support of the activist.

I wish people would protect the First Amendment with the same fervor as they have the Second Amendment. #FreeDeray

#FreeDeRay & free all who were unlawfully arrested last night NOW!!! https://t.co/322gxHOXCB

"#FreeDeRay & free all who were unlawfully arrested last night NOW!!!" actress

: "I wish people would protect the First Amendment with the same fervor as they have the Second Amendment. #FreeDeray."

Black Lives Matter supporters set up a

called the "Baton Rouge Bail Fund" to aid those arrested in the protests. Police made nearly 200 arrests in Baton Rouge over the weekend, according to the

The fundraiser has reached more than $200,000.

We need our leaders #FreeDeray

Last week, two black men were fatally shot by police: Sterling was

outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge early Tuesday morning. On Wednesday evening,

, a 32-year-old Minnesota man, was shot by an officer during a traffic stop.

to Twitter in the wake of the activist's arrest, writing, "We need our leaders #FreeDeray."

McKesson described his time in jail in a series of tweets.

"At times, all 50 of us were in one cell, unable to all sit, sleeping on the floor or under the benches," he

. "But our spirits remained strong."

"In the Parrish prison cells, we continued to talk about the work of social justice & to build community," he wrote in another

. "We all continue to grow."

At times, all 50 of us were in one cell, unable to all sit, sleeping on the floor or under the benches. But our spirits remained strong.

In the Parrish prison cells, we continued to talk about the work of social justice & to build community. We all continue to grow.

McKesson also live-tweeted the events of the protest, posting photos and videos of both the protesters and the police.

"Remember, airline highway was not blocked by protesters," he

. "But the police have been aggressors anyway #BatonRouge."

, "Again, the protesters have been peaceful tonight. The police have been violent. #Baton Rouge."

Remember, airline highway was not blocked by protestors. But the police have been aggressors anyway. #BatonRouge

Again, the protestors have been peaceful tonight. The police have been violent. #BatonRouge

McKesson works for the Baltimore public schools as interim chief of human capital, according to the

A former teacher with a large social media following, McKesson has emerged as one of the most recognizable faces of the Black Lives Matter movement.

He put in a last-minute bid to become mayor of Baltimore. He finished a distant sixth among a large field of Democrats in the April primary, according to the AP.

Summary: DeRay McKesson was arrested and charged with obstruction of a highway during the weekend's protests in Louisiana


Wilma Porter Soss, one of the country's best known and most colorful corporate gadflies, died of a heart attack Friday in her Manhattan apartment. She was 86 years old. At one time she worked in public relations, representing department stores, motion picture studios and the silk industry.

But in 1947, at a United States Steel stockholders' meeting in Hoboken, N.J., she broke with the world of business and became its self-appointed foil. She called on large corporations to simplify their shareholders' statements, institute regional meetings that would permit wider attendance by stockholders and include women on their boards of directors.

Her mission, she once told The New Yorker magazine, was to point out to corporate executives that they were not working for themselves or the company, but rather the shareholders, many of whom were women.

''The truth is we shareholders own the corporations,'' she said. Founded Shareholder Group

She formed a friendship and working partnership with two other corporate gadflies, Lewis D. and John J. Gilbert, brothers.

She also founded the Federation of Women Shareholders in American Business. Armed with votes from her own holdings and the proxies of her fellow federation members, she spent almost 40 years going from one corporate meeting to another, prodding the management of major manufacturing and communications companies, of utilities and railroads.

She was persistent, direct and unflinching - qualities that made her unpopular in corporate board rooms.

Yet she earned the respect of many of the executives she challenged. For example, the last corporate meeting she attended was a special shareholders meeting of The New York Times Company on Sept. 18. As usual, she had a list of questions and pressed the chairman of the board and the newspaper's publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, for answers. 'Dignity, Pride and Courtesy'

Yesterday, reacting to Mrs. Soss's death, Mr. Sulzberger said she ''represented the small shareholders with dignity, pride and courtesy.''

He added: ''Sometimes we may have grown a mite impatient with her long lists of questions, but she never provoked dismay or anger. I think her voice will be missed, and we will miss her personally.''

Mrs. Soss was born March 13, 1900, in San Francisco. For most of her childhood, she lived with her grandmother in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. She married Joseph Soss, who ran a small advertising agency. He died several years ago, John Gilbert said.

Among her holdings was one share of United States Steel, and in 1946 she attended her first stockholders' meeting. She started her crusade the next year, but the legend of Wilma Soss really began at the United States Steel meeting in 1949. It was there in Hoboken that she stepped foward to read a resolution, attired in a late Victorian costume - a two-piece gray suit, a lace blouse and a large purple hat.

''The costume represents management's thinking on stockholder relations,'' she told reporters. An Eye for Theatrics

In 1960, she dressed up as a cleaning woman and, carrying mop and pail, went to a stockholders' meeting of the Columbia Broadcasting System. Making reference to quiz show scandals, she said she had come dressed to ''clean up everything.''

''Her training as a publicist stood her well as a gadfly,'' said John Gilbert. ''I don't think anyone ever had a better way of bringing things out.''

The theatrics aside, her aim, she once said, was to educate women and eliminate what she called financial illiteracy.

''I didn't choose to be head of the women's economic sufferage movement,'' she said. ''The women's economic sufferage movement chose me.''

Mrs. Soss has no immediate survivors. Mr. Gilbert said that her body would be cremated and that her friends and associates were planning a memorial service.


In the future, self-driving cars approaching busy distracted pedestrians crossing the street will stop, flash lights, and show digital messages on their windshields that tell that it’s safe to walk in front of it.

At least, that’s what Nissan envisions for the future of autonomous vehicles as it tries to design a new generation of cars to safely interact with humans on the streets and in their vehicles.

Maarten Sierhuis, the director of Nissan’s Silicon Valley research center explained on Tuesday that some driving situations are challenging for researchers developing self-driving cars including intersections with heavy traffic. Sierhuis made his remarks at the annual Automated Vehicle Symposium in San Francisco.

For example, when a self-driving car decides to make a right-hand turn on a red light, the car needs to be aware of all of the traffic coming from the opposite direction so that it can turn safely.

Self-driving cars must “follow socially acceptable traffic practices,” Sierhuis said. However, what’s socially acceptable in one country may be different from another, he said.

“We need to create vehicles that can drive in San Francisco and Tehran,” Sierhuis said.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

In the U.S., pedestrians have the right of way, and cars generally yield to people when they walk across roads. In Iran, on the other hand, the “first one to occupy space, inhabits it,” he said, which leads to both cars and people yielding to each other depending on who was deemed first.

In Amsterdam, bicyclists generally have the right of way, and so self-driving cars must be designed to drive safely while hordes of cyclists pass by in every direction, Sierhuis said.

One way Nissan is trying to address the traffic complexity is by outfitting its self-driving prototypes with lighting built into the car that would flash certain colors to indicate to pedestrians and other drivers what it intends to do. It’s similar to how people recognize and react to traffic signal lights.

Sierhuis said that Nissan, which hopes to make a fully autonomous car publicly available by 2020, is also experimenting with displaying messages on cars to directly tell pedestrians and drivers what the car will do next. In a video demonstration involving two pedestrians near a crosswalk, the car stopped and its front windshield digitally displayed the words “after you,” which indicated that they could walk in front of the vehicle without being run over.

However, Sierhuis said it’s been difficult for Nissan to test it lighting and display systems in the U.S. because current laws make it difficult for automakers to customize lighting on a car’s outside body.

“We are simply not allowed not do it on the real roads,” he said.

Colm Boran, Ford’s f manager of its autonomous car program, explained how Ford is trying to build self-driving cars that are as reliable as its traditional cars. In a conventional car, the brake and steering wheels are connected to the car’s actuators, so if the car happens to lose electrical power, the driver can still brake and steer the car without losing control.

With self-driving car technology, however, in which the brakes and steering wheels are tethered to a centralized computer, an electrical outage could spell disaster. In this case Ford is bundling multiple components into its test cars so that if something goes haywire, another component could pick up the slack.

For more about self-driving cars, watch:

By embedding these vehicles with this so-called redundancy, a driver “would still have the capability to operate the brakes and steering” during an electrical failure, Boran said.

Summary: Car makers have to take in account different cultural driving practices and electrical failures.


We are in a golden age for money movies. One of the lingering effects of the financial crisis and the Great Recession has been huge interest on the part of Hollywood to explore just what the heck happened. There have been enlightening documentaries (Inside Job), fictionalized accounts of what might have gone down on the eve of economic disaster (Margin Call), and dramatized versions of the events and characters that, shockingly, were all too real (The Big Short, The Wolf of Wall Street).

It makes sense that Hollywood is hot on Wall Street stories right now. The recent flurry of finance movies is not unlike what happened after the Vietnam War: The best movies dealing with the subject, like Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter, were made a few years later, when events could be viewed with perspective and filmmakers had a prayer of making sense of the chaos that transpired.

Clearly, Hollywood’s fascination with money and finance remains high—the latest example being the May 13 opening of Money Monster, starring George Clooney as a bombastic, stock-picking TV host obviously based on Jim Cramer, who is confronted by an irate average Joe who lost everything thanks to awful investing advice.

The release of Money Monster, along with the rash of films about money and finance in general, got us thinking: What’s the greatest money movie ever? To begin answering that question, we had to first ask: Just what is a money movie?

Read Next: Where George Clooney’s ‘Money Monster’ Hits (and Misses) the Mark

To be considered as one of our Best Money Movies, we decided that the film must feature a finance industry worker as a central character, or money must be absolutely central to the plot, and it must offer important lessons on money, including all the good and bad it can bring. We gave extra points for being realistic to the worlds of finance, banking, and sales, and more points for educating the layman about how Wall Street and corporate America truly operate.

Also, it must simply be a smart, entertaining, provocative, all-in-all good movie. Anything with a rating below 75% at Rotten Tomatoes was eliminated, meaning that potential nominees like American Psycho, Boiler Room, The Pursuit of Happyness, The Hudsucker Proxy, and Indecent Proposal are out. (Not like we were really considering the latter, but you get the idea.) Meanwhile, to keep our list manageable, we weeded out films that seemed to belong in a slightly different category. For example, 9 to 5, Office Space, and The Devil Wears Prada seemed to fit more squarely under the rubric of Career Movies, not Money Movies. We felt documentaries were part of a different discussion as well, so you won’t find them below either.

And hey, at the end of the day it’s our list and we get to make up the rules!

What we need you to do, though, is help us name the best of the best. Please vote for what you consider the Best Money Movie ever, and by all means tell us what’s so great about your top pick. Yes, you can tell us where we got it wrong, too, and make your case for an overlooked gem in the comments on our poll page, on Facebook, or Twitter using #BestMoneyMovies.

On one level, we at MONEY are huge fans of The Big Short simply because it had the guts to dip into the weeds and explain the housing collapse and financial crisis in a way that everyday Americans can understand, without dumbing things down too much. Perhaps more importantly, because the film—directed by absurdist comedy veteran Adam McKay of Anchorman and Talladega Nights fame—is so genuinely funny and entertaining people actually bought tickets and had the opportunity to absorb the wonky lessons.

Vote for Your Favorite Money Movie

OK, so Citizen Kane, regularly named the best film in history, isn’t really about money—not entirely anyway. And the title character makes his fortune not in banking or finance but as a media tycoon. But the film is so masterfully handled by star, writer, and director Orson Welles, and the lessons about the failure of money and power to bring true happiness are so poignant and powerful, that it deserves to be in the Best Money Movies conversation.

Vote for Your Favorite Money Movie

You might assume that a movie named after an insurance term would be torturously boring. But Woody Allen called this riveting, twisted 1944 classic about adultery, murder, and greed “one of my all-time favorite films,” and the “best movie” ever made by the brilliant Billy Wilder. It also got five stars from Roger Ebert and was named by TIME as one of the top 100 movies of all time.

Vote for Your Favorite Money Movie

Anyone with a long career in sales can probably quote parts of the iconic speech given by Alec Baldwin’s hard-ass character to motivate a group of real estate salesmen in this David Mamet-penned film featuring an all-time A-list ensemble cast that includes Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, and Kevin Spacey. In the profane, insulting monologue, we learn that “coffee’s for closers only,” and that salesmen must “ABC: Always Be Closing.” In the movie as a whole, we learn a lot more—about ethics, human nature, and the frightening lengths people will go to during desperate times.

Vote for Your Favorite Money Movie

Technically, George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) isn’t really the “richest man in town” like his brother says in the crowning feel-good moment of the ultimate feel-good Christmas movie. That title of course belongs to Mr. Potter, the greedy old banking counterpart to George, the civic-minded head of the local mom-and-pop Bailey Building and Loan. But by sacrificing for one’s family, putting people over profits, and always doing the right thing, George becomes the most invaluable citizen in Bedford Falls. And he’s easily the most beloved banker in movie history.

Vote for Your Favorite Money Movie

At some point, every workaday employee dreams of ditching the rat race and all the pressures of keeping up with the Joneses. In the hilarious hands of director, star, and co-writer Albert Brooks, we see how this fantasy plays out for a high-paid advertising executive and his wife. They trade in their cushy Los Angeles yuppie existence for wanderings in a Winnebago, and let’s just say that the road gets pretty bumpy.

Vote for Your Favorite Money Movie

Described by New Yorker critic David Denby as “easily the best Wall Street movie ever made,” Margin Call takes place on the brink of the 2008 financial crisis, telling the story of an unnamed investment firm that may or may not have been inspired by Lehman Brothers. What’s most memorable, beyond the top-notch cast featuring Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany, Demi Moore, and Zachary Quinto, is how quickly so many of the characters hop on board with the idea of selling worthless investments—”the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of capitalism,” as noted in the movie—to their unsuspecting clients.

Vote for Your Favorite Money Movie

In this 2011 film, based on the Michael Lewis book, the underdog Oakland Athletics take Major League Baseball by storm thanks to the revolutionary data analytics strategies of Billy Beane (Brad Pitt). The approach, which downplays “going with your gut” in favor of data that’s boring but yields key results (hitters with high on-base percentages get your team more runs), offers great lessons on value investing, improving workplace efficiencies, and simply getting the most bang for the buck with your purchases.

Vote for Your Favorite Money Movie

It’s hard to imagine a nostalgic dramedy about a pair of rival aluminum siding salesmen in 1960s Baltimore getting the green light from a Hollywood studio nowadays. But we’re glad that Barry Levinson was able to create one of the most honest and accurate portrayals of working in sales back in 1987. And we’re even happier that the delightful Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito were cast in the two leading roles.

Vote for Your Favorite Money Movie

A streetwise con man (Eddie Murphy) and a mistreated upper-crust commodities trader (Dan Aykroyd) team up to make millions and take revenge on the greedy brokerage firm owners who toyed with their lives. The stars are so likable and funny, and the rich executives getting their comeuppance are so cartoonishly stingy and loathsome, that no one really minds that the heroes engage in fraud and insider trading.

Vote for Your Favorite Money Movie

Depending on your point of view (and, probably, where you personally earn a paycheck), this film either condemned or celebrated the height of 1980s Wall Street greed—which is famously classified as “good” by Michael Douglas’s iconic, highly quotable Gordon Gekko character. Either way, Oliver Stone’s Wall Street epitomized the era, and it has been more influential than any other film in shaping the world’s view of the financial industry.

Vote for Your Favorite Money Movie

This is certainly the crudest of our nominees, featuring dwarf tossing, public masturbation, and an astounding amount of cocaine, Quaaludes, nudity, and cursing—with the f bomb dropped at a record-setting pace of nearly three times per minute. It’s also arguable that by glorifying the debauchery of a bunch of amoral jerks, The Wolf of Wall Street star Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese were themselves conned by Jordan Belfort, the film’s titular scam artist eventually convicted of stock fraud. Still, the movie is mesmerizing in car crash can’t-look-away fashion. And if nothing else, it sure makes you think twice about who is handling your investments.

Vote for Your Favorite Money Movie

Summary: And the nominees are …


Dimitrios Tsivrikos, consumer and business psychologist at University College London, said children are beginning to learn about money from an earlier age, and not just through discussions overheard at home.

Dr Tsivrikos suggested many children are making purchases online and through apps. They are using their parents' money but they are the ones making decisions.

The ease in which children can purchase everyday services and online subscriptions may be a contributing factor to their financial anxiety, Dr Tsivrikos added.

He said: “It’s no longer the case that the early transactions of children are occasional trips to the sweet shop.

“Now, kids are getting used to buying services online which they use everyday.

"If parents can no longer fund these purchases, children end up agonising about what they see as a 'loss of a resource'.”

Arguably, making such transactions when young is practical way of learning about money.

But Dr Tsvirikos added: “With financial maturity comes stress and anxiety. This could be damaging to children unless they have a full understanding of how money works.”

The study suggested children are keen to improve their knowledge of household finance. Almost two thirds (63pc) said they wanted to know more about bank accounts and over a quarter (26pc) wanted to have a better understanding of credit cards.

Michael Mercieca, chief executive of Young Enterprise, a financial education charity, said teach money management at a young age is more crucial today than it has been in the past.

He said: "Young people today bear more financial risk in adulthood due to increased life expectancy, increased sophistication in financial services marketing, and uncertain economic and job prospects.

“A third of young adults find themselves in debt, so unfortunately it is not surprising that one in three 8 to 15 year olds are already harbouring concerns about their financial situation."

Mr Mercieca supports the idea of pocket money as a way to teach children about earning, budgeting and saving for things they really want.

Are your children concerned about your family's finances? Email amelia.murray@telegraph.co.uk

Have a question for our experts? Email moneyexpert@telegraph.co.uk. The best of the answers are included in our weekly newsletter

Summary: One in three children aged 8 to 15 worry about money "


SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Behind the batting cage at Benedetti Diamond, Scott Cousins is at ease.

Wearing a beard, and wearing sunglasses and a green University of San Francisco baseball hoodie, he blends in easily with the college students around him.

Within the green fences of the baseball complex at the university, Cousins has found the home he never had growing up, with a coach he cherishes as a second father. It is a perfect place for Cousins to rehabilitate lower back and hip injuries in relative anonymity.

It is also only a couple of miles from AT&T Park. That is where Cousins, a rookie outfielder for the Florida Marlins, gained notoriety five months ago for a frightening collision at home plate that ended the season of Giants catcher Buster Posey, the reigning National League rookie of the year.

“That’s why I’m growing out the beard,” Cousins said, joking. “As a disguise.”

He offers hitting tips while waiting to get his work done. He is taking no swings yet as he returns to health from his injuries, which are unrelated to the collision; his back has bothered him for two and a half years.

“This is his safe haven,” said the longtime Dons Coach Nino Giarratano. “This is his family. He’s a wonderful kid. ”

Cousins was instantly vilified, but those close to him tell a different story. They talk of the time in Arizona two weeks after the collision when he approached an 18-year-old woman in a wheelchair, her mother and their friend and offered them field passes for a Marlins-Diamondbacks game.

He is the man who proposed to his girlfriend of five years, Mandy Short, last Saturday — and flew in a couple of her close friends to help celebrate.

“The sport he loves so much and the town he loves so much turned on him,” Short’s mother, Laura, said. “They crucified him.”

Some still say Cousins is the reason the Giants are out of the running for a repeat World Series championship.

Cousins spent parts of his youth homeless in Reno, Nev., where his father, a carpenter, searched for steady work.

The family often lived in motels, — “never a stable home,” Cousins said. His mother was in and out of their lives.

They had baseball. Once his father was done working for the day, they practiced. From age 9, he played baseball year round.

Though he did not have the money to join a traveling team, his talent attracted scouts and college coaches. Cousins was the first in his family to attend college and is a semester shy of a business degree.

“He’s gone down a long, hard path,” said his father, Steve. “To go through your whole life and not drop the ball once, maybe some people have heard of that, but not me.”

Cousins, 26, said he ponders everything that happened during that May 25 game, with his family and friends among 40,000 people in the stands as he got his chance to pinch-hit with the score tied.

On the play, as he ran for home, Cousins figured on a routine slide, but when he saw Posey in position to tag him out, Cousins made a split-second decision to try to knock the ball loose because he thought Posey had caught it — though the catcher never controlled it. Cousins scored the winning run in a 7-6, 12-inning victory.

“The perfect storm,” Cousins calls it.

Cousins grew up a Giants fan, and in college he hoped that San Francisco would draft him.

In the aftermath of Posey’s devastating injury, Giants General Manager Brian Sabean called out Cousins on the radio.

“If I never hear from Cousins again, or he doesn’t play another day in the big leagues, I think we’ll all be happy,” Sabean said at the time. “He chose to be a hero, in my mind. If that’s his flash of fame, that’s as good as it’s going to get, pal.”

Sabean expressed privately and later publicly that his anger was misplaced toward the person rather than the play. He reached out to Cousins to apologize.

“That hurt a lot, especially coming from the guy I wanted to play for forever,” Cousins said.

After the collision, there were a half-dozen death threats and a bout of depression to go with the nagging injuries.

For months, Cousins hoped to speak to Posey. When that did not happen, he decided that Posey must be under way in his healing (the catcher is recovering from a broken bone in his lower left leg and three torn ligaments in his ankle). Now, Cousins needed to heal, too.

Cousins has returned to the university to work out every winter since the Marlins drafted him in 2006. Yet this off-season is markedly different because of “the incident,” as he refers to it.

“I was basically run out of town by a lynch mob,” Cousins said. “I’m not going to be afraid of my own shadow. I’m not going to walk around with an apology letter on my back. That’s not the way life is lived. I’ve apologized till I’m blue in the face.”

Cousins could not watch the replays of the collision. He did not sleep well for days. Pete Rose, who ran over catcher Ray Fosse in the 1970 All-Star Game, later came to his defense.

“At the end of the day, it’s a baseball play,” Cousins said. “It’s a play that we get paid to make and that fans pay to watch. It’s an unfortunate part of the game.”

Cousins did not play for the Marlins again after June 12, spending the rest of the season on the disabled list. He will begin hitting off a tee Nov. 1.

“My plan this year is to get in the best shape I’ve ever been in and come back with something to prove,” Cousins said. “I feel it’s my time to do something really great in this game.”

Summary: The Marlins’ Scott Cousins continues to deal with the aftermath of his home-plate collision with Giants’ catcher Buster Posey.


Allan Chernoff, CEO of Chernoff Communications, is a speechwriter and presentation coach. He is a former senior correspondent for CNBC and CNN.

As the Republican National Convention closed this week, Donald Trump’s conquest of the Republican presidential nomination reaffirms one of the most important principles of persuasive public communications: it’s not so much what you say, it’s how you say it. Indeed, one could easily argue that Trump has become the Republican presidential nominee in spite of what he’s said. Who could have imagined anyone emerging victorious from the primaries by uttering one offensive remark after another: accusing Mexican immigrants of being rapists; proclaiming his intent to ban Muslims from entering the United States; and falsely claiming “thousands and thousands of people were cheering as that building [the twin towers] was coming down.”

But, as Trump has invented stories, offended Americans and made arguments that reveal his ignorance of the separation of powers (saying he would “loosen” libel laws to challenge news outlets; attacking the federal judge overseeing class action lawsuits against Trump University), he has done so in a style that remained convincing to millions of voters.

Trump’s presentation style is engaging. He draws attention not only through his outrageous remarks, but also with his assertive, energetic and highly confident delivery. Trump may be telling lies, may be making it up as he goes, but the vocal and visual qualities of his presentation tell an audience he firmly believes every word coming out of his mouth, and so should they.

Trump’s vocal tone is firm. He speaks in confident, booming cadences that say, “Listen to me! I know.” The inflection of his voice is always declarative. He emphasizes his core messages, by slowing down to stress key phrases, pausing to allow those points to sink in, then repeating himself, which is an effective presentation tactic because it helps to cement a message in the audience’s mind. Trump utilizes hand gestures for extra drama, pointing his index finger for emphasis; repeatedly connecting his index finger and thumb to give the OK signal; extending both hands forward to connect with the audience. His direct eye contact is piercing.

To reinforce his image as a business titan, Trump always wears a power suit and tie. Rather than trying to be a relatable shirtsleeves politician, as is typical for a presidential candidate, Trump’s choreography is intended to keep him above the crowd. He needs to maintain the aura of wealth and power, upon which his entire image and appeal is built, so his posture remains upright, his chest always out to match his bravado.

Never mind that Trump’s word choice pales in comparison to great orators like Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. It’s the complete package that matters to his audience. The vocal and visual aspects of Trump’s presentation give him credibility in the eyes of his voters, in large part because they are focused on his presence, as much, if not more than his words.

Contrast, for a moment, Trump’s style with that of Jeb Bush and it is easy to see how the front runner just one year ago never had a chance. Bush may have smarts, may be brighter than his brother George W., but he lacks presence. Bush looked uncomfortable in his own skin during the debates, as if there was any place he’d rather have been: his smiles were forced, his slumping body leaned on the podium for support, his head bounced back and forth like a bobble head character. Bush’s non-verbal communication appeared to say, “I’m trapped in this body and need to get out.”

The takeaway for leaders is that the vocal and visual aspects of presentation speak loudly, often with more volume than words themselves. Non-verbal aspects of presentation influence how we hear words, can overwhelm details and create an overriding impression. That’s working in Trump’s favor, enabling intelligent members of his audiences to ignore his false claims and insulting rhetoric. They’re buying what they’re seeing and how it sounds.

Executives should heed this lesson from Trump’s political success. Leadership is not about being the smartest in the room, nor the most insightful. As helpful as those qualities are, the ability to galvanize audiences by attracting attention, holding it, and delivering essential messages in compelling, memorable phrases is more important. In practical terms, it’s better to rehearse delivery of an important speech with your presentation coach than forgo practice in favor of obsessing over precise language until minutes before the presentation. One week after a speech, audience members typically will remember little of the content, but they will recall the impression the speaker left. As Trump is proving, style often has more staying power than substance.

Summary: Leadership is not just about smarts.


Last August, Lance Freed walked out of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame carrying a brushed brass urn with his father’s ashes. For 12 years, the rectangular receptacle had been on exhibit in a display case at the Cleveland museum as a tribute to Alan Freed, the disc jockey known as Moondog who is credited with coining the term “rock ’n’ roll” in the early 1950s. But last year, the institution decided that displaying human remains wasn’t appropriate for an evolving museum and research center.

The eviction was a final blow to...

Summary: Payola led to the downfall of Alan Freed, the man who coined the term ‘rock ’n’ roll.’


Warning: This post contains spoilers for the sixth season of Game of Thrones.

Following a well-calculated wildfire explosion and the subsequent suicide of King Tommen in the season six finale of Game of Thrones, Cersei Lannister did something that would have seemed nearly impossible when the series began — ascended the Iron Throne uncontested.

But while the former Queen Mother has finally gained (tentative) control of the realm, she will soon be facing a threat to her power. With Daenerys Targaryen, three dragons and a massive army headed straight for King’s Landing, Cersei will need more than a crown if she hopes to defend herself. Could this mean wedding bells are in the air?

Reddit user Sam_Stark posits that Euron Greyjoy — who we last saw ordering the Ironborn to build him a fleet of 1000 ships — will show up to offer his hand in marriage to the eldest Lannister sibling. “I think it would make sense if Cersei allies herself with Euron Greyjoy through marriage,” the Redditor writes. “Euron has already made it abundantly clear that he wants to marry into the crown, and Dany has made it clear that she’s going to back Yara’s claim to the Iron Islands. Cersei needs more troops if she is ever going to have a hope of defeating Dany, and Euron is the only source left in Westeros with enough troops to make a difference…Although Euron did set out to build those 1000 ships for Dany, I could see him pivoting fairly easy to team Cersei now that she’s queen and he has no other figure to back. This would mean that Cersei not only has the biggest Navy in Westeros to defend the Blackwater from Dany, but she would also have the backing of the Lannister Army and the White Cloaks.”

However, considering Cersei’s lifelong love for her brother Jaime and her extreme aversion to political marriages, if this theory does come true, we have a feeling it won’t end up working out in Euron’s favor.

Summary: What a terrifying couple


Two Republican Senators seen as contenders for Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick withdrew themselves from consideration Wednesday.

Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst said separately on Wednesday that they are want to remain focused on their work in the Senate. Corker told the Washington Post he told Trump he did not want to be vice president during the GOP nominee’s Tuesday campaign stop in North Carolina, adding, “I’m far more suited for other types of things.” Ernst said she told Trump she is “focused on Iowa” in an interview with Politico.

Ernst announcement comes after it was revealed she will have a key speaking slot at the Republican convention in Cleveland later this month. She drew national attention to her 2014 Senate campaign with bold advertising and her upstart campaign that beat an establishment Republican and coordinated Democratic effort.

Corker chairs the Senate Foreign Relations committee and has criticized the Obama administration for its handling of ISIS and the Syrian civil war. The Tennessean emerged as a key power broker in last year’s Iran nuclear deal.

Trump is said to be vetting several vice presidential contenders, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Summary: Both are Republican senators.


ConAgra Foods Inc., Cargill Inc. and CHS Inc. said they will combine their North American flour-milling businesses into a multibillion-dollar joint venture, marking the milling industry's biggest merger in years.

The new company, called Ardent Mills, will combine ConAgra Mills and Horizon Milling, a joint venture formed in 2002 between Cargill and CHS. Ardent Mills will be the industry's biggest player, selling flour products to...

Summary: ConAgra agreed to combine its North American flour-milling business with an existing joint venture between Cargill and CHS to form a new company.


European citizens living in Britain are making contingency plans before the referendum on EU membership, with some applying for UK citizenship and others considering returning home, according to those who responded to a Guardian reader call-out.

Citing a lack of clarity in Britain’s post-referendum plans, many Europeans who have lived in Britain for years are nervously anticipating the 23 June vote, fearing the result could upend their lives.

“Eventually we will leave,” said Marie Lemaire, who is French and lives and works in London. “How soon will depend on the result of the referendum. The debate about Brexit had made us realise that we were not at home here.”

I feel rejected, like a bad transplant

Respondents also reported an increase in anti-migrant feeling, and criticised the remain campaign for not being vocal enough in promoting the cultural and democratic upsides of European membership alongside the economic argument.

While some EU citizens already living and working in Britain may secure indefinite leave to remain, the lack of a clear picture of what a post-Brexit Britain would look like is causing concern for Europeans resident across the UK.

One of the Brexit camp’s most potent arguments is that leaving the EU would enable Britain to secure a firmer grip on immigration. For European immigrants, particularly those who have been here only a short whilte, this raises all kinds of worries about a future dominated by visas, work permits and bureaucracy.

Among those applying for permanent residency is Patrizia Piccardo, a teacher in Northamptonshire. Originally from Italy, she has “finally started the process” towards citizenship after 24 years in the UK. “People’s attitudes towards me have changed,” she said. “It makes me paranoid and scared.”

Born in France, Julie Lamoureux works in IT in Belfast. “I feel rejected, like a bad transplant,” she said. Lamoureux is worried that EU citizens will gradually be “encouraged” to leave should the UK vote to leave, and is applying for British citizenship.

“My friends like Nigel Farage. My friends like me. Do my friends know that they want to see in power someone who wants me out, away, back where I came from?”

The question of what exactly will happen after a leave vote is occupying the mind of thousands of Europeans in the UK: students wondering if it’s worth applying for a master’s degree; property and business owners considering their long-term plans; people with British partners and children.

“Nobody seems to actually know what the consequences would be,” said Marie Van Der Velde, in London. Originally from Belgium, she is married to a British citizen. “Will all EU citizens be required to leave? Will we be assessed on level of income, on desirability of God-knows-what?

“What if we are married to a UK citizen? Will they now need a certain income level to keep us in, like for non-EU spouses? Do we need to apply for citizenship and give up our European passport in the process? My children think they are English.”

Lou Del Bello, a freelance journalist from Italy, said: “I would rather settle somewhere else than undergo the humiliating process of applying for a visa.”

Others are less worried about their immediate future in the UK, expecting a bureaucratic process of visas and fees, but otherwise an expectation that they would be able to remain.

However, Gizem Ozkaynak, a postgraduate student in York, echoed many in questioning whether a post-EU Britain would be a country worth staying in. “I could apply to gain British citizenship but the question is, do I really want to be in the UK when the UK does not want to be part of the EU?”

Frenchman Etienne Dunant, 37, an administrator in Sheffield, said: “I do not honestly think that I am not going to be deported or anything of the sort should the UK leave the EU. But with my life and son here, I cannot risk to have my right to remain in this country become problematic. This is why I have now hastened my application.

“I also said, not quite tongue in cheek, if Scotland has another independence referendum and then applies to the EU, I would move over the border.

“The thing is, the empire days are gone. I say this as a person who really loves the UK and its specificities, but sees a country that is lying to itself in a way.”

Summary: European citizens living and working in the UK are uncertain what a vote to leave would mean for their future


Yes, the Beer Mile is a thing. The Wall Street Journal even did a story on it—specifically, the historic, controversial quest to break the five-minute “Beer Mile”—a couple years ago.

The Beer Mile should probably really be called the Four-Beer Mile. As BeerMile.com explains, traditional versions of the race require the competitor to chug a 12-ounce beer, run one quarter of a mile, and then repeat both three more times until four beers are drunk and one full mile is run. (Competitors who vomit at any point are penalized by the requirement of an extra quarter-mile lap on the track.) The site traces the origins of the Beer Mile back to college campuses in the late 1980s, and its database includes more than 7,000 different Beer Mile races around the globe.

And now, the Beer Mile wants some respect, in the form of inclusion in the Olympics—or rather, in “the games.” The pub chain World of Beer is running a new promotion “Get the Beer Mile into the Games,” asking fans to sign an online petition in support of the movement. (As with the Super Bowl, only official sponsors are supposed to use the term “Olympics” in promotional material, and World of Beer is not an Olympics sponsor. Hence the use of the phrase “the games” rather than “Olympics.”)

“If trampoline, ballroom dancing and equestrian dressage can be in, so can beer mile,” the plea to sign the petition states.

Read Next: The Smithsonian Will Pay Someone $64,000 a Year to Drink (and Research) Beer

What “games” is World of Beer referring to, if not the Olympics? It doesn’t really matter. The promotion is basically just a goofy way for World of Beer to get your email address.

But there’s a reason you might not mind typing it in to the company’s database: Once you give your info and virtually sign the petition, you’ll be sent a voucher via email for a free draught beer at a World of Beer location. In states where it’s illegal to give away free drinks, you’ll receive a voucher for $5 worth of food instead.

In other words, unlike at the Olympics, pretty much everyone can win.

Summary: The Beer Mile wants inclusion in "the games."


The American general election traditionally begins in earnest on Labor Day, which falls this year on Sept. 5, but some political operatives predict the dynamics will be established in August.

Other operatives say that with a polarized electorate, many of the parameters of the volatile contest are already baked into the cake, so little will change over the next five weeks.

Both predictions can’t be true, yet political operatives in both parties acknowledge that they are not sure which is more likely in this bizarre year.

With 100 days to go, there are stronger-than-usual crosscurrents:

• The Democrats emerged from their convention last week in better shape than the Republicans did a week earlier. The Democrats crafted a more appealing message and the leading figures in the party support the nominee, Hillary Clinton. By contrast, scores of Republican officeholders say they are horrified at the prospect of Donald J. Trump’s winning the presidency.

• The electorate in 2016 is more favorable to Democrats than it was in 2012: There are more Hispanic, black and younger voters. For example, if the turnout were the same this time — a big if — the Democrats would win Florida by about four points, instead of one. The party also would carry rather than lose North Carolina. Older and middle-aged white men without a college education, Mr. Trump’s base, are a shrinking slice of the electorate.

• Over the next month, look for more Republicans, prominent former national security officials, business leaders and officeholders, to endorse Mrs. Clinton.

At the same time, Neil Newhouse, a top Republican pollster who isn’t involved with the Trump campaign, saw compelling counterpoints:

• It’s “an upside-down” election, he noted, in which everything that is supposed to bring down a candidate such as Mr. Trump only seems to make him stronger.

• There is a huge clamor for change and Mr. Trump offers that. At their Philadelphia convention, Democrats made a strong case that Mr. Trump’s brand of change was risky, but Mrs. Clinton failed to grab the change mantle for herself.

• Mrs. Clinton’s huge money advantage and the big media buys by her campaign and “super PAC” to attack Mr. Trump do not seem to have resonated.

“Whatever changes we see” in the next month, Mr. Newhouse said, “will likely be as a result of unforced errors or external events rather than media marketing campaigning.” Both sides, and much of the news media, will zealously follow the polls.

Some cautionary notes are offered by Doug Usher of Purple Strategies, a bipartisan company that conducts surveys for Bloomberg Politics.

Don’t pay much attention to the polls in the next few days that aim to assess whether Mrs. Clinton got a bump from the convention. The best benchmark will be in about 10 days, when voters have had a chance to absorb the past couple of weeks.

“In the last three election cycles, the eventual winner had the lead in polls in the weeks after the convention and never relinquished it,” Mr. Usher said.

Survey watchers should distinguish between methodologies. Some of the polls focus on automated calls and responses: Rasmussen Reports, SurveyUSA and Public Policy Polling, among others.

Many pollsters say robocalls may give an accurate picture of Republican primaries, which have a disproportionate number of white and older voters, but their validity is questionable in a general election.

“I don’t tend to put much stock in them,” said Ken Goldstein, a polling expert and Bloomberg Politics consultant.

For now, Mr. Usher suggests focusing on national polls more than state surveys, many of which, he notes, have “higher margins of error and a wide range of polling quality.” Finally, he advises poll enthusiasts to treat the surveys more like a stock portfolio: “Daily attention does not yield insight. Take the long view.” In this election, with Mrs. Clinton starting as a clear favorite, 100 days is a long time.

Summary: Some political operatives believe the race’s dynamics will be set in August, while others say little will change over the next five weeks.


London mayoral hopeful Ken Livingstone has accused the government of declaring "a war on equality" as he published a report showing that women in London are paying twice as much as men for the government's cuts in public spending.

Livingstone, who is hoping to be selected as the Labour candidate for the 2012 mayoral election in a two-horse race with Oona King, has drawn together evidence that shows women are more heavily affected by cuts in housing benefit and pension changes.

Even if cuts in child benefits and family-related tax credits are discounted, women are paying for 66% of the cuts in London, the report claimed.

The document, A Mayor for Equality, suggest women are more heavily affected by cuts in housing benefit and the switch to the Consumer Price Index for calculating the additional state pension and public sector pensions.

Livingstone also cited planned cuts in public sector jobs, where women represent 65% of the workforce, often in lower paid jobs.

The reality of women's lives would mean they would end up filling more of the gap left if public services are cut, he warned, such as caring roles for children and other family members, he added.

Livingstone has made protecting Londoners from government cuts a key feature of his campaign, as he seeks to tie planned government cuts with Boris Johnson's Conservative mayoralty.

As ballot papers for the mayoral selection begin to arrive at the home of Labour's 35,000 party members and 392,000 London party affiliates, the former London mayor, who was ousted by Boris Johnson after eight years in office, honed his message to women voters in a bid to secure a place at the 2012 mayoral election.

Promising to place equality at the heart of his mayoral programme, Livingstone outlined measures to improve the quality of life for the 3.8 million women living in London, including improving skills and training support through the London Skills Board, giving priority to tackling the growth of the sex industry and trafficking, and supporting a new London Carers Alliance to support London's 600,000 carers.

"Women in London are just over 50% of Londoners but the evidence now shows they will bear the majority of the cuts and higher fares of David Cameron and Boris Johnson," said Livingstone,

"The most cautious estimate shows women are paying for more than two thirds of the housing and pensions cuts. It is clear [the chancellor] George Osborne has not given any regard to the impact on women of his savage budget cuts."

Livingstone gave his backing the Fawcett Society, which filed papers with the high court last month seeking a judicial review of the government's recent emergency budget.

Under equality laws, the government should have assessed whether its budget proposals would increase or reduce inequality between women and men. Despite repeated requests, the Treasury has not provided any evidence that any such an assessment took place.

It emerged last month that Theresa May, the home secretary and equalities minister, had warned the chancellor that cuts in the budget could widen inequality in Britain and ran a "real risk" of breaking the law.

The letter was sent to Osborne on 9 June, less than a fortnight before his emergency budget, and was copied to the prime minister.

Last month Mark Hoban, the Treasury minister, stonewalled questions on BBC Radio 4's Today programme about whether the government had carried out a statutory assessment of the impact of the budget on women, ethnic minorities, disabled people and the elderly.

Livingstone claimed Boris Johnson, who succeeded him as mayor in 2008, has made his own attacks on equality, citing as one example a reduction in the number of women in senior positions at the Greater London authority.

A spokesman for the mayor hit back. "London is now greener, cleaner and safer than when Boris took up the tenure as mayor and he is tirelessly fighting to protect London's financial settlement and crucial transport infrastructure during the worst recession since World War II.

"We now have the lowest murder rate in the capital since 1978 and this year's Annual London Survey tells us that people feel happier and safer with 83% of Londoners satisfied with their city as a place to live which is the highest level recorded under any mayor."

Livingstone's rival in Labour's mayoral selection, Oona King, will unveil her policy on women's equality at an event in Westminster tomorrow evening.

This will include appointing an equalities adviser to work across the GLA, a kite mark for businesses that carry out equal pay audits and a drive to reduce prostitution and sex trafficking in the runup to the Olympics.

King, a former MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, said: "There's a mountain of evidence to show that men and women don't have the same life chances. This problem is worse in London than anywhere in the country, and will worsen further as the Tory cuts start to bite.

"I'm the best candidate to be mayor because I have a track record of delivering for women – my first legislation helped low-paid women, and increased workplace equalities.

"We have to make London's streets and transport safer for women, help pull women and their children out of poverty, improve jobs training, and get more women into jobs as representatives. Boris isn't interested in this."

The results of the mayoral selection will be announced just ahead of the Labour party conference later this month.

Summary: Former London mayor publishes report showing women are much more heavily affected by the cuts than men


Greatly influenced by cinema, particularly Stanley Kubrick's 1968 science fiction movie "2001: A Space Odyssey," Papaioannou used the medium in the opening ceremony to accentuate images.

Among them was a giant Cycladic statue representing an ancient form from Greece's Cyclades islands. The form broke apart to reveal other figures from Greek history.

He touched on key moments in history from antiquity, the Byzantine Empire through the 21st century and his loving tribute to the opera diva Maria Callas.

Papaioannou can barely contain his enthusiasm about art, like a teenager going on and on about his favorite rock star.

"I went to Paris for seven hours," he said sipping espresso over ice and smoking a cigarette. "I spent the seven hours in the Louvre, but I didn't see Paris."

He is the oldest of four children from a working-class family, and a box of color markers on his ninth birthday triggered his imagination.

"It's the only thing I played with," he said. "I drew on walls, tables, on the floor. Because I was alone a lot, I used to play at creating people."

At 17, he drew a cartoon for his younger brother. It was of a centaur, the mythological figure that played prominently in the opening ceremony. In the story for his brother, the half-man-half-horse visited the boy nightly, traveling with him through time and space.

In his 20's, Papaioannou made a name for himself as a cartoon artist, taking top prize at the Marseilles Biennale's competition in 1991.

At the Athens School of Fine Arts, he received instruction from one of Greece's top artists, Giannis Tsarouchis. He later studied dance and trained with La Mamma Experimental Theater Company in New York and the choreographer Erick Hawkins. He also explored the Japanese modern dance discipline Butoh, which combines dance, theater and improvisation.

Before his work with the Olympics, Papaioannou was best known for his Omada Edafous Dance Theater troupe, which made an international splash with its award-winning, sultry performance of "Medea," a wordless telling of the ancient tragedy.

Papaioannou says he and his 7,000 volunteers must take advantage of the stage they have been given now, and make the country proud.

"Within this framework, the opportunity is given to each country with the opening ceremony being the world's largest advertising spot saying: 'This is who I am now - and welcome humanity.' "

Summary: ATHENS, Aug. 28 (AP) - The man behind the opening ceremony for the Athens Games is reluctant to call his work a success, despite worldwide acclaim for his evocative tableau of 3,000 years of Greek history and culture.


Man in hospital with minor injuries after ploughing through Brisbane home. (9NEWS)

Three Brisbane residents have narrowly avoided serious injury after a car rammed through their home in the middle of the night.

The out-of-control car ploughed into the Runcorn property at 1.30am while the three people slept inside.

The vehicle crashed into the home, driving through the lounge room, crashing through the side wall before coming to a stop in the back garden.

Residents in the area said the corner is notorious for accidents and the house in question has been hit before.

Three people sleeping in the home avoided injury. (9NEWS)

One neighbour said he believed it was “only a matter of time” before the dangerous corner caused a fatality.

The home, which has suffered severe structural damage, will be assessed by engineers today.

The driver of the vehicle was taken to hospital suffering minor injuries. Police interviewed him and took a blood alcohol test.

© Nine Digital Pty Ltd 2016


Before you go, we thought you'd like these...

This season's beauty awards is your guide to the best products on the market. Whether it is a lotion, a potion or so much more, it is time to flush out all of our skincare products. With so many different skin types, we wanted to make sure we had plenty of options. Check out what this year's beauty awards has to offer. You can check out the full list of skin nominees here:

We love these products so much that we're giving our loyal readers the chance to win selections from this year's nominees! It's easy to enter -- all you have to do is follow @AOLLifestyle and retweet 1 of 5 promotional tweets for a chance to win! Official rules: • Open to legal residents of 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older. • To enter, retweet (true retweet, quoted retweets will not be counted) 1 of our 10 tweets stating "Retweet for a chance to win selections from this year's Beauty Awards Skin category nominees! #BeautyAwardsGiveaway" • Contest begins on June 8th, 2016 at 12:01 AM EST and ends on June 8th, 2016 at 11:59 PM EST. • You may enter up to 5 times. • 1 winner will be selected in a random drawing at the end of the contest. • 1 randomly selected winner will win Clarisonic Mia Fit Cleansing System ($189) bliss Fabulous Drench and Quench Cream ($38) Lumene Bright Now Vitamin C Sleeping Cream ($18.99) ChapStick Total Hydration Lip Balm ($2.49) Sun Bum Face, Stick SPF 30 ($9.99) Supergoop! Defense Refresh Setting Mist SPF 50 ($28.00) Josie Maran Argan Daily Moisturizer SPF 47 ($54) Trufora Titanium Day Cream SPF 30 ($45) 100% Pure SPF 15 Sweet Mint Lip Balm ($9) Vita Liberata Self Tanning Anti Age Serum ($45.00) Jurlique Sun Specialist Sunless Tanner($36) Bondi Sands Liquid Gold ($24.00) Shaveworks The Cool Fix ($25) First Aid Beauty Ultra Repair Hydrating Serum ($36) with a total approximate retail value of: $560.47

By entering, I confirm that I have read and agree to the Official Rules.

Summary: You can enter for a chance to win select products from this year's Beauty Awards Skin nominees. All you have to do is retweet!


“I think it is very significant that he was the first post-boomer candidate for president,” Mr. Andreessen said. “Other politicians I have met with are always impressed by the Web and surprised by what it could do, but their interest sort of ended in how much money you could raise. He was the first politician I dealt with who understood that the technology was a given and that it could be used in new ways.”

The juxtaposition of a networked, open-source campaign and a historically imperial office will have profound implications and raise significant questions. Special-interest groups and lobbyists will now contend with an environment of transparency and a president who owes them nothing. The news media will now contend with an administration that can take its case directly to its base without even booking time on the networks.

More profoundly, while many people think that President-elect Obama is a gift to the Democratic Party, he could actually hasten its demise. Political parties supply brand, ground troops, money and relationships, all things that Mr. Obama already owns.

And his relationships are not the just traditional ties of Democrats — teachers’ unions, party faithful and Hollywood moneybags — but a network of supporters who used a distributed model of phone banking to organize and get out the vote, helped raise a record-breaking $600 million, and created all manner of media clips that were viewed millions of times. It was an online movement that begot offline behavior, including producing youth voter turnout that may have supplied the margin of victory.

“Thomas Jefferson used newspapers to win the presidency, F.D.R. used radio to change the way he governed, J.F.K. was the first president to understand television, and Howard Dean saw the value of the Web for raising money,” said Ranjit Mathoda, a lawyer and money manager who blogs at Mathoda.com. “But Senator Barack Obama understood that you could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand, create a sense of connection and engagement, and dispense with the command and control method of governing to allow people to self-organize to do the work.”

All of the Obama supporters who traded their personal information for a ticket to a rally or an e-mail alert about the vice presidential choice, or opted in on Facebook or MyBarackObama can now be mass e-mailed at a cost of close to zero. And instead of the constant polling that has been a motor of presidential governance, an Obama White House can use the Web to measure voter attitudes.

“When you think about it, a campaign is a start-up business,” Mr. Mathoda said. “Other than his speech in 2004 at the convention and his two books, Mr. Obama had very little in terms of brand to begin with, and he was up against Senator Clinton, who had all the traditional sources of power, and then Senator McCain. But he had the right people and the right idea to take them on. When you think about it, it was like he was going up against Google and Yahoo. And he won.”

There is tremendous power in opening citizen access to government — think of how much good will and support Mayor Michael Bloomberg garnered by coming up with 311, a one-stop phone number for New Yorkers who had a problem.

But now Senator Obama’s 20-month conversation with the electorate enters a new phase. There is sense of ownership, a kind of possessive entitlement, on the part of the people who worked to elect him. The shorthand for his organizing Web site, “MyBO,” says it all.

“People will continue to expect a conversation, a two-way relationship that is a give and take,” said Thomas Gensemer, managing partner of Blue State Digital, which helped conceive and put into effect Obama’s digital outreach. “People who were part of the campaign will opt in to political or governing tracks and those relationships will continue in some form.”

The founders of America wanted a government that reflected its citizens, but would be at remove from the baser impulses of the mob. The mob, flush with victory, is at hand, but instead of pitchforks and lanterns, they have broadband and YouTube. Like every other presidency, the Obama administration will have its battles with the media, but that may seem like patty-cake if it runs afoul of the self-publishing, self-organizing democracy it helped create — say, by delaying health care legislation or breaking a promise on taxes.

That’s the thing about pipes today: they run both ways.

“It’s clear there has been a dramatic shift,” said Andrew Rasiej, the founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, an annual conference about the intersection of politics and technology. “Any politician who fails to recognize that we are in a post-party era with a new political ecology in which connecting like minds and forming a movement is so much easier will not be around long.

“Yes, we have met Big Brother, the one who is always watching. And Big Brother is us.”

Summary: There’s every reason to believe that President-elect Barack Obama will use his network of supporters not just to campaign, but to govern.


Researchers in Iceland found a new way of tackling climate change by pumping carbon dioxide underground and turning it into stone.

Other carbon capture and storage (CCS) methods store CO2 as a gas, but problems include a high cost and concern about leakage. This new method of burying CO2 and turning it into stone is cheaper and more secure, the Guardian reports.

To turn C02 to stone, researchers with the Carbfix project pumped the gas into volcanic rock and sped up the natural process in which basalts react with gas and form carbonate minerals. The gas turned into solid in just two years—much faster than the hundreds or thousands of years researchers had predicted.

The research took place at Iceland’s Hellisheidi power plant, the largest geothermal facility in the world. Already, the project in Iceland has been increased in scale to bury 10,000 tons of CO2 each year.

One potential difficulty is that for each ton of CO2 buried, the technique requires 25 tons of water. However, Juerg Matter of the University of Southampton in the U.K., who led the research, said seawater could be used.

Summary: It's cheaper, but it's going to require tons of water