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April 18, 2006
April 13, 2006
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A Tree-Hugger Ahead of His Time
Victoria and Albert Museum
The tension between ancient and modern is captured in Samuel Palmer's "In a Shoreham Garden."
Art Review | Samuel Palmer
A Tree-Hugger Ahead of His Time
THE eccentric English artist Samuel Palmer may be something of a one-hit wonder. In 1825, at age 20, he made a series of small, dark landscapes of brown ink, sepia and gum arabic on paper, enumerating the natural world with such fervent meticulousness that the images transcend reality and stop just short of freaky.
They were made the year after Palmer, a precocious artist who began exhibiting and selling his work at 14, met the visionary William Blake. He was taken to visit Blake, then in the final destitute years of his life, by John Linnell, an artist who was first Palmer's mentor (encouraging him to study Drer, for example) and later his father-in-law. Despite his situation, Blake's faith in the power of the individual imagination was undaunted. The encounter affirmed Palmer's desire to make his love of nature and literature the center of his art, and also encouraged him to see beauty as dependent on what he liked to call strangeness.
Palmer called these small landscapes his " blacks," but they are more generally known as the Oxford sepias, partly because the six in this exhibition are owned by the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University. However you identify them, they form the heart of "Samuel Palmer (1805-1881): Vision and Landscape," a revelatory retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The first big Palmer show in nearly 80 years, it is a collaboration between the British Museum and the Met, and has been organized by a team led by William Vaughan, a longtime scholar of Romanticism. That nothing in this show is quite as great as the sepias can be counted as a failing or taken as a vivid lesson in the power of one-hit wonders, and the sometime modesty of greatness. All you need to do is make history turn on a dime once, however quietly.
Palmer's sepias take us deep into the mysterious harmony of the natural world. Animals and humans are often present note the hyperalert rabbit and half-hidden villagers in the resplendent "Early Morning" and houses and barns crop up in the distance. But the main character is nature, in its wholeness and divineness, measured out in slightly stiff renderings of effulgently leafy bushes, glimmering birches, massive oaks and gnarly rocks, and in occasional moments of breathtaking ambiguity. In "Late Twilight," a crescent moon overlooks a dark farm while floating on a horizon of glowing white that probably denotes clouds, but also reads as a vast beneficent sea separating heaven and earth.
Palmer is the least known, and most idiosyncratic, of the great Romantic landscape painters who flourished in Britain in the first half of the 19th century. Turner and Constable, for example, hold steady in our field of art historical vision partly because of the scale of their work, the freedom of their paint handling and their sustained, ever-strengthening consistency.
But Palmer avoided all of the above, and has often been characterized as an illustrator. He favored paper over canvas, rarely made work that exceeded the size of an open book and used oil paint infrequently. (You have to get close to his surfaces to realize how profligate and inventive he was with materials. Like Blake, he concocted strange alchemical mixtures. Only 9 of the 100 Palmers in this show use oil paint; only 2 use it without adding tempera, chalk or ink.)
In addition, financial necessity reinforced by Linnell, who became quite domineering after Palmer married his eldest daughter, Hannah, in 1837 dictated a long, quiet, rather academic patch in the middle of Palmer's career. His capably realistic renderings of waterfalls, golden views of Rome and Technicolor idols inspired by Virgil and Milton made him a typical Victorian painter. (In contrast, Palmer's early realism can be mesmerizing. Works like "Oak Trees, Lullingstone Park" (1828) and "A Barn With a Mossy Roof" (1828-9) more or less obviate the work of Andrew Wyeth.)
Palmer was embraced by artists who fell outside the accepted boundaries of the epic and linear course of modernism. The Pre-Raphaelites claimed him as a precursor in the 1870's. In the late-1920's, the English neo-Romantics, led by Graham Sutherland, discovered the impressive etchings he made late in life and developed a dark illustration print style in homage. There was renewed attention in the late 1940's: Palmer is frequently cited as a precedent for the English eccentrics like Stanley Spencer and the young Lucian Freud. Another span of neglect began in the 1970's, when art historians frequently dismissed English landscape paintings for ignoring the evils brought on by the Industrial Revolution and its agrarian side effects for example the mechanization of harvesting.
Palmer was a High Tory appalled by the blight of industrialization. But his cure was to look to what he saw as the good old days and, in his art, return to a time when man and nature were one. He even formed a short-lived artist's group, the Ancients, dedicated to this task, partly through the study of Gothic art. (Its outstanding members included George Richmond and Edward Calvert, both represented in this exhibition.)
Tension between the ancient and the modern is often palpable in Palmer's work. With "In a Shoreham Garden" (about 1829), Palmer translates his vision of darkness into vivid color through a large, beautifully spongy tree. It might almost be made of cotton balls and is startlingly ahead of its time, evoking the visionary art of Charles Burchfield, working in the United States a century later. But framed in the distance beyond the tree is a woman in a long red gown and a headdress who could be a Renaissance princess.
The same divide exists in his radiant mixed-media paintings, which even at their best seem slightly archaic. In "The Bright Cloud," with its towering cumulus formation and golden fields, contented peasants move about with a dignity that hints at the pageantry of Renaissance frescoes. The landscape also suggests a Bruegel in miniature.
Palmer recaptured some of the force of the sepias only toward the end of his life, when financial security enabled the visionary side of his sensibility to reassert itself. He took up etching, and in works like "The Bellman" (1879) and "Opening the Fold" (or "Early Morning") (1880), he summoned a softer, matte version of the gleaming darkness of the Oxford sepias.
But only the sepias provide an exciting artistic promontory from which you can catch past and future seemingly flowing together. Look back and you see the light-drenched landscapes of Lorrain and the more architectonic neo-Classical terrains of Poussin, although Palmer's originality may rest on the way he seems to have assimilated the pictorial crafts of Gothic art cloisonn and stained glass. Look forward and Palmer's sepias seem like the beginning of a line of exaggerated visionary landscape painting that forms the non-Cubist, more representational side of modernism. It includes van Gogh, Gauguin, Munch and the Fauves, as well as Albert Pinkham Ryder, Louis Eilshemius, Marsden Hartley and Burchfield.
The sepias' insistent textures and radiant demarcations of light and dark have a textlike vividness. Like manuscript illuminations that have absorbed their narratives, they illustrate something profound, even if we don't know the story. Every mark on the paper seems to convey meaning like the individual letters and words on a printed page and each one cooperates to form a larger message: ecstasy. Today, Palmer would probably qualify as a tree-hugger, but openness to his greatest work might also make the nonhuggers among us see the essential bond between human destiny and nature's well-being.
Before You Hit Send, Pause, Reflect
GOING PUBLIC John Green of ABC News was suspended after e-mail messages commenting on President Bush's debate performance and former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright were released.
April 9, 2006
Ideas & Trends
Before You Hit Send, Pause, Reflect
By LORNE MANLY
MODERN-DAY, corporate newsrooms may be far more sanitary than their ribald, cigarette-smoke-clouded counterparts of the "His Girl Friday" era. Yet their freewheeling nature has not been completely extinguished, with the banter and off-color humor about the day's events and personalities ricocheting among today's cubicle dwellers, at times through news organizations' e-mail systems.
But as John Green, executive producer of the weekend edition of ABC's "Good Morning America," recently discovered, that more indelible form of communication can wreak havoc on one's journalism career. ABC has suspended him for a month for leaked e-mail messages that were critical of President Bush and Madeleine K. Albright, the former secretary of state.
The punishment has sparked a discussion within media circles about the proper limits of newsroom repartee and the meaning of objectivity in a polarized and electronically connected environment. Although Mr. Green's private riffs were bipartisan in nature and do not appear to have leeched into news coverage, they come at a time when the mainstream media whipsawed by a smattering of high-profile misdeeds and an aggressive gotcha police among bloggers and advocacy groups are striving mightily to appear impartial above all.
Authenticated e-mail messages, as in Mr. Green's case, muddy that image of journalistic probity in ways that similarly casual spoken conversations do not. As a result, some news executives and media observers reluctantly agree with ABC's action, arguing that journalists must avoid any appearances of being emotionally or ideologically involved with the subjects of their reporting.
Others wonder what exactly Mr. Green did wrong, other than embarrass some executives. The punishment, they worry, is disproportionate to the offense. News organizations, more than any other segment in society, they argue, should be wary about inhibiting the speech of their employees. The resulting second guessing, the screening of one's jokes, jibes and commentary, could have a chilling effect, they say.
"Journalists should be able to speak openly in the vernacular, casually and jokingly, and without evil consequences," said David Korzenik, a media lawyer in New York who is an adjunct professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Mr. Green's troubles began last month, when the Drudge Report Web site published an 18-month-old message that expressed frustration with Mr. Bush's tactics in his first debate with Senator John F. Kerry. "Are you watching this?" he wrote one colleague. "Bush makes me sick. If he uses the 'mixed messages' line one more time, I'm going to puke."
Days later, a second e-mail message surfaced, this time in The New York Post. In that e-mail message, from April 2005, Mr. Green wrote that Ms. Albright who only acknowledged that she was Jewish after being shown information by a reporter in 1997 had "Jew shame." He then added that Ms. Albright hated "Good Morning America" because she believed she did not get the promised allotment of time on a previous appearance. "I do not like her," he wrote.
The next day, on March 31, ABC suspended him for a month. Jeffrey Schneider, vice president of ABC News, said that the network would not discuss details of the punishment because it was a personnel matter. "It isn't simply an issue of expressing one's opinion," he said. "It's also the vituperative nature of those comments."
No one advocating for more journalistic self-control is particularly happy about the need for it. "I know it's not much fun, but I think it's the proper mode of conduct," said Bill Marimow, vice president of news at National Public Radio.
"Any beat reporter who in private ridicules, demeans or assails their character, intellect or ability raises questions in the minds of a lot of people that they can be impartial," he added.
E-mail messages complicate the issue, offering definitive proof of a journalist's thinking. "When you have the premeditation of putting it in writing, it makes it different than a comment in a production meeting," said John Stack, vice president of news gathering at the Fox News Channel.
That logic, however, bewilders some other journalists. "What did this guy do wrong?" asked Michael Kinsley, a columnist for Slate and The Washington Post who in a recent column argued that the concept of objectivity is so muddled as to be useless. "Was it having these views, or merely expressing them? Expecting journalists not to develop opinions, strong opinions even, goes against human nature and the particular nature of journalists."
"I guess there are limits if a guy's e-mail showed him to be a Nazi, you might not want him as a network TV producer," he added. "But unless the views themselves are beyond the pale and millions of Americans hold views like those this guy expressed expressing those views shouldn't be beyond the pale either."
William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, said he was troubled by the blurring of the public and the private. "For me, I think people should be held accountable for what they put on the air or in print," he said. And there is no proof this expression of private views affected news coverage, he said.
Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said that while he found Mr. Green's quip about Ms. Albright to be offensive, he worries that curbs on newsroom banter is just asking people to be hypocrites.
"Just because they are journalists doesn't mean they give up their rights to say things that are smart or stupid," he said.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Vegas Grannies
Read more: Las Vegas, metropolis
Vegas Grannies
Next to slot machines, the most common object in Las Vegas is the grannie. In every hotel, casino, restaurant, and show, you are likely to find several and possibly a great many Vegas grannies. Its not surprising really, as Vegas and environs remain popular as retirement locales, and of course every travel agency loves to bring in planeloads of the aged (the AARP even partners with Travelocity in this lucrative niche market). Dont get me wrong, I have nothing against my elders. But its strange to me how these grannies really are everywhere. Theyre the first to appear on casino mornings, taking over from bleary-eyed late-night gamblers around 7 a.m. There was a whole clutch of them this morning in Hooters of all places, happily slapping buttons on Star Wars slot machines. But even odder is how the grannies end up in the audience at virtually every show Ive ever attended in Vegas, no matter how raunchy. The only exception and even this is only occasionally are the late-night shows starting after 10 p.m. But Ive seen grannies at ultra-profane comedy acts and the most idiotic and tawdry topless shows. Going to a show in Vegas is such an automatic reflex for some people that theyll see anything, even if (and perhaps especially if) its something theyd never dream of seeing at home. And no matter how pornographic the show or how loud the hip-hop, the grannies just shrug and move on to the next one. Sin City seems to put some life in them old bones; last night as I walked past a pair of grannies energetically working a pair fairyland-themed video poker machines at the Riviera, one pointed at a dancing sprite on the screen and chirped, OOOH, I love it when the elves come up. Her friend agreed, cooing, Theyre soooo sexy!
Let it Ride in Las Vegas [Travelocity/AARp]
[Photo: Getty Images]
Previously: $3 Blackjack at the Sahara, Forbess Best of Vegas, Afternoon Bar Dance, Splash at the Riviera, The Wynn Buffet
Be Merry, Not Ancient
Illustration by Ji Lee and photography by Daniel Root
April 9, 2006
Critic's Notebook
Be Merry, Not Ancient
By FRANK BRUNI
BECAUSE we all needed yet another set of rules to follow, because we had not yet been sufficiently bombarded with dictates about the colors of the fruits and vegetables we should eat and the ideal intake of alcohol and the optimal frequency of low-impact exercise, the Journal of the American Medical Association came along last week to tell us that serious calorie restriction might best serve the quest for a long, disease-free life.
The number of calories in the daily diets of some participants in this latest study was gulp 890. Which, by my nonscientific research, is less than the average teenage or adult American who lives within a half mile of a Burger King and has not had gastric bypass surgery consumes for dinner. That might be considered a helpful target, except that it's so ludicrously unattainable, in professions other than modeling and zip codes other than 90210, that there isn't anything helpful about it.
It's also hard to see the point of it. If living to 99 means forever cutting the porterhouse into eighths, swearing off the baked potato and putting the martini shaker into storage, then 85 sounds a whole lot better, and I'd ratchet that down to 79 to hold onto the Hagen-Dazs, along with a few shreds of spontaneity. It's a matter of priorities.
Do we really want as many years as we can get, no matter how we get them? At what point does the pursuit of an extended life a pursuit that pivots on the debatable assumption that habit can outwit heredity, not to mention chance become the entire business of a life? Is longevity all it's cracked up to be?
Scientists and medical doctors are certainly obsessed with it, charting a tedious path of pleasures assiduously portioned and rituals steadfastly maintained. Cut back on caffeine. Stop after a glass and a half of red wine. Make an enemy of red meat. Make friends with flossing which, it turns out, may have benefits that go beyond admirable dental hygiene to the prevention of heart disease and diabetes.
Month after month brings study after study, and the only thing more addling than keeping track of all the information is resolving the contradictions it seems to contain.
Take the matter of weight. If memory serves me (it may not, given my failure to toe the line on wine) and a Nexis search isn't failing me, we received a different set of instructions just a year ago.
Last April, a study also published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, more commonly known as the Journal of Utterly Mixed Signals, demonstrated a correlation between being very thin and an increased risk of death. The study indicated that people who are overweight but not obese might be better off, at least in terms of attaining the coveted status and Pensacola retirement home of the nonagenarian.
I'm no expert on metabolism, but I bet that the 890-calorie-a-day diet followed by some participants in the new study would lead, over time, to a condition that looks an awful lot like extreme thinness. So what should I have for breakfast? A cup of low-fat yogurt or a salt bagel with a schmear?
Yes, I'm painting with a broad brush; the studies in question are more nuanced and less definitive than I'm making them out to be. The cap of 890 calories a day was a short-term fix, not a long-term prison. There might be allowances, down the road, for a Whopper with cheese. Followed, of course, by some vigorous flossing and a brisk 40-minute walk.
But the larger point remains. We are awash in behavioral strictures, many of them conflicting.
After years of being schooled in the transcendent virtues of low-fat diets, we were informed two months ago in, you guessed it, the Journal of the American Medical Association that this education might be flawed. An eight-year, $415 million federal study of nearly 49,000 women found that those who maintained low-fat diets had the same rates of breast cancer, colon cancer and heart attacks as those who ate what they wanted.
So, I'll have that bagel with a schmear, but not simply because one study among many gave me a green light, at least for the moment. I'll have it because it makes me happy, which has to count for something.
And even if the new study is wrong and the old studies were right and the schmear robs me of some time on the tail end of my days, I may not have enough money in my 401(k) to go the full distance, and I'm definitely not counting on Social Security to pick up the slack.
Which raises additional concerns. What happens to all of us, as a society, if 100 becomes the new 80? Plastic surgeons may get even richer and the populations of Florida and Arizona may swell, but will pension funds still be there for us? Will prescription drug benefits?
Each of us can individually hunker down for the long haul, squirreling away our money instead of spending it on hedonistic vacations, exercising faithfully so that our limbs stay as limber as our nipped-and-tucked faces are taut. But doesn't the quality of our days matter as much as the quantity of them?
Pondering this question, I riffled through some obituaries.
Richard Burton died at 58 no doubt fewer years than he or anyone else would want but wasn't his a swashbuckling, gallivanting life that was in many ways worth envying, Liz or no Liz?
Strom Thurmond died at 100. "In those last years," according to the obituary by Adam Clymer in The New York Times, "he had to be helped onto the Senate floor by aides, who also told him, in voices audible in the Senate gallery, how to vote."
Of course neither man planned it that way, and that may be the most important lesson of all.
We can't really predict tomorrow. We can't guarantee its arrival with a specified number of calories or a given allotment of sleep, with milligrams of dark chocolate or ounces of fiber. But we can often determine the measure of joy we wring out of today.
I also riffled through a book of quotations and immediately found this proverb: "He lives long who lives well." I don't think those last two words are really about blueberries, broccoli and green tea. And I'm not sure the first three are about anything as literal and prosaic as a tally of years.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Michael Jackson Bailout Said to Be Close
Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press
The entrance to pop star Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch home, Dec. 17, 2004, in Santa Ynez, Calif.
Michael Jackson Bailout Said to Be Close
Michael Jackson, the onetime pop-music king who has endured a lengthy slide toward insolvency, is close to a deal that would keep him from bankruptcy by refinancing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans, people briefed on the plan said last night.
As part of the transaction, he will also agree at some point in the future to give up a part of a prized asset a song catalog that includes Beatles' hits to the Sony Corporation, people briefed on the plan said.
Mr. Jackson, who spent years racking up debt to underwrite his lifestyle even as his music career faded, has appeared to teeter on the brink of ruin several times in recent years. Last month, he all but closed his sprawling California ranch called Neverland, a move that came after the California authorities threatened to sue over unpaid wages to ranch employees.
Mr. Jackson used his stake in the song catalog as part of the collateral for about $270 million in loans from Bank of America. The bank sold the loans last year to Fortress Investment Group, a New York-based investment company that buys distressed debt. The entire catalog, of which Mr. Jackson owns 50 percent, has been valued around $1 billion, the people briefed said.
As part of the new agreement, Fortress has agreed to provide a new $300 million loan and reduce the interest payments Mr. Jackson must make.
Under the deal he has been negotiating, Mr. Jackson would agree to provide Sony which is co-owner of the Sony/ATV Music catalog with him with an option to buy half his stake, or about 25 percent of the catalog, at a set price, according to the people briefed on the deal.
Should Sony execute its option on the music catalog, it would ensure that Mr. Jackson was able to pay his debts, these people said.
Executives involved in the deal cautioned last night that some details had yet to completed and that the agreement could still collapse.
Representatives for Sony and Fortress declined to comment last night. A representative for Mr. Jackson did not return a call.
But executives involved in the deal said it came after months of talks that spanned the globe, with meetings from Los Angeles to New York to London to Bahrain, where Mr. Jackson has been living at the hospitality of Sheik Abdullah, the ruler's son.
The deal also comes after years of efforts by an eclectic parade of financial advisers including the California billionaire Ronald W. Burkle and the Florida entrepreneur Alvin Malnik to offer Mr. Jackson guidance for extricating himself from his woes. Mr. Jackson's financial managers had been pressing him to shed a part of his stake in the Sony/ATV venture since before he stood trial last year on charges of child molestation. He was acquitted last summer.
Many people close to Mr. Jackson have maintained that he could raise money to repay his loans or at least stay afloat by touring internationally or working out a series of television and book deals. But the consensus among his advisers was that he would face bankruptcy if he did not refinance.
Sony has a longstanding interest in keeping Mr. Jackson solvent. If Fortress had moved to foreclose on Mr. Jackson, he might have been forced into bankruptcy protection, where his stake in the publishing company could be put up for auction.
In negotiating the deal, Sony seeks to avoid the prospect that another bidder could gain ownership of the stake, which the company has long hoped to control.
Sony has been trying to organize financial partners that could prop up Mr. Jackson's wobbly finances. In the fall, a Sony representative flew to Dubai to meet with Mr. Jackson and an adviser, Gaynell Lenoir, daughter of the late Gerald Lenoir, a lawyer who was a mentor to the lawyer Johnnie Cochran.
Originally, they had tried to hammer out a deal in which Citigroup would acquire the loans, and offer Mr. Jackson a more favorable interest rate, around 6 percent, these executives said. Mr. Jackson had been paying more than 20 percent in monthly interest payments.
Rather than sell the loans to Citigroup, Fortress agreed to match the bank's terms, the executives said.
The various parties had agreed to the deal in principle a few weeks ago, the executives said, but the final pact was held up while the companies involved tried to address questions about potential exposure linked to Mr. Jackson's remaining legal problems.
Prescient Capital, a New Jersey company that said it helped Mr. Jackson secure the original financing from Fortress, has sued him for breach of contract, accusing him of failing to pay millions of dollars in fees for providing financial advice.
As a result, Mr. Jackson has finally been forced to loosen his grip on one of the richest of song catalogs.
He paid $47.5 million in 1985 to acquire the ATV catalog, which had roughly 4,000 songs among them more than 200 tunes written by members of the Beatles. After 10 months of negotiations with ATV's owner, the Australian tycoon Robert Holmes Court, Mr. Jackson bested other suitors including the music executives Charles Koppelman and Martin Bandier, the London-based Virgin Records and the real estate entrepreneur Samuel J. Lefrak.
In 1995, as he confronted early financial woes, Mr. Jackson struck a deal to merge ATV with Sony's publishing arm. The arrangement also provided Mr. Jackson with a stake in new songs acquired by the venture, like "No Such Thing" by John Mayer.
Aside from the Beatles songs, the venture has a vast archive including "Blowin' in the Wind" by Bob Dylan, "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond and "E-Pro" by Beck
The catalog also includes the works of songwriters including Stevie Nicks, Sarah McLachlan, Destiny's Child, Garth Brooks and Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi. The venture is also a big force in country music, having acquired the catalog of Roy Acuff and Fred Rose for $157 million in 2002. An archive of songs from the likes of Hank Williams and Roy Orbison is also included.
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Final Struggles on 9/11 Plane Fill Courtroom
Federal District Court, via Associated Press
The cockpit voice recorder of Flight 93, recovered from the wreckage.
April 13, 2006
Final Struggles on 9/11 Plane Fill Courtroom
By NEIL A. LEWIS
ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 12 The recorded sounds of struggle and panic on United Airlines Flight 93 filled a federal courtroom here today as jurors in the sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui listened raptly to the Sept. 11 hijackers seizing control of the cockpit and passengers trying to retake control, believing it was their only chance to avoid death.
Long silences in the 31-minute recording were punctuated by the cries of the hijackers at the controls, the passengers who were trying desperately to break down the cockpit door and the crashing of objects around the cabin.
There are also the sounds of what may have been the killing of a flight attendant as the hijackers took control: a woman in the cockpit moaning, "Please, please, don't hurt me." Her voice soon appears again for the last time as she is heard to say, "I don't want to die, I don't want to die" followed by one of the hijackers saying in Arabic: "Everything is fine. I finished."
The recording ends with a three-minute crescendo of noise as a passenger apparently just outside the door shouts: "In the cockpit! If we don't, we'll die!"
On the other side of the door, two hijackers are heard deliberating before deciding to end the flight to avoid being overcome.
"Is that it? I mean, shall we pull it down?" one asks in Arabic and the reply is, "Yes, put it in it and pull it down." They then both scream repeatedly "Allah is the greatest" in Arabic as the planes goes down at 10:03 a.m. into a field in Shanksville, Pa., at more than 500 miles an hour. Aboard were 33 passengers, 5 flight attendants, 2 pilots and the 4 hijackers.
It was the first time the recording, made by cockpit instruments and recovered from the wreckage, had been played in public. And it may be the last, under the trial judge's order allowing it to be heard by jurors deciding whether to order that Mr. Moussaoui be put to death.
Mr. Moussaoui, who was in jail in Minnesota at the time of the attacks, smiled broadly at times during the playing of the recording, once when a hijacker in the cockpit said in Arabic: "In the name of Allah. I bear witness that there is no other God but Allah." Mr. Moussaoui has mostly evinced an air of indifference during the trial. A 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan heritage, he is the only person to stand trial in the United States in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. The jury has already unanimously ruled that he is eligible for the death penalty, finding him responsible for at least some of the deaths that day because he had lied to interrogators at the time of his arrest about his knowledge of plans by Al Qaeda to fly planes into buildings.
Judge Leonie M. Brinkema ruled that the digital recording should not be publicly released, saying that otherwise it would be broadcast repeatedly, something family members of those killed have objected to. Judge Brinkema allowed the release of a nine-page transcript, the first complete account of the recording's contents.
The recording has been heard by some family members as well as by the national commission that issued a report on the attacks and concluded that the hijackers had intended to crash the plane into the Capitol or the White House but were "defeated by the alerted, unarmed passengers of United 93."
Although the general story of Flight 93 based on such official investigations has been known for some time, listening to the audio seemed nonetheless a harrowing experience for the jurors. In this second phase of their sentencing deliberations, they are supposed to weigh the heinousness of the crime against any mitigating factors and then decide whether Mr. Moussaoui should be executed or spend the remainder of his life in prison.
After the recording, the prosecution presented two final witnesses before resting its case. One was Lorne Lyles, the husband of CeeCee Lyles, a flight attendant on Flight 93. Mr. Lyles testified about their last conversation, in which she used an airphone to proclaim her love and ask him to look after their children.
The court-appointed defense lawyers, with whom Mr. Moussaoui does not speak, are supposed to begin their effort to save him on Thursday. They are expected to offer two principal arguments: that although he was a Qaeda member, even the leaders of the organization regarded him as unreliable and had not planned on using him as part of the Sept. 11 plot; and that he has exaggerated his role in a bid for martyrdom.
Mr. Moussaoui is expected to take the stand again as he did in the first phase, in which he seemed eager to bolster the prosecution's case.
As the jurors heard the audio, they could watch on television monitors a synchronized depiction on a map that showed the location of the plane at every moment, its air speed, altitude and attitude. The jurors could see on that video how the hijacker pilot, Ziad Jarrah, tried to foil the counterattack by suddenly rolling the airplane sharply, apparently to throw the passengers off balance.
The release of the transcript comes as Universal Studios is about to release a film about the event called "United 93," the trailer of which some moviegoers found too disturbing. The transcript may provide another template against which to measure the film's accuracy.
The recording shows that Mr. Jarrah tried to calm the passengers by pretending he was conducting a more customary hijacking in which the plane would land somewhere.
"Here's the captain," he says at 9:39:11. "I would like to tell you all to remain seated. We have a bomb aboard, and we are going back to the airport, and we have our demands. So, please remain quiet."
But passengers learned from several cellphone conversations that other planes had already crashed into the World Trade Center. It is on one of those conversations that Todd Beamer, who tells a telephone operator of the plans to overpower the hijackers, is overheard saying to fellow passengers, "Let's roll."
In addition, violence in the cabin had told the passengers that something was different than an ordinary hijacking. In evidence presented Tuesday, jurors heard the phone call of Marion Britton, a passenger, to a friend on the ground. "Don't worry," the friend consoled. "They'll probably take you to another country."
Ms. Britton replied, "Two passengers have had their throats cut."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company -
New Stadium for New York Mets
The New York Mets
On Thursday,April 6, Gov. George Pataki, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Mets owner Fred Wilpon announced plans for a new Mets home.
The new ballpark, to be built in the parking lot of the existing Queens ballpark, Shea Stadium, will have a capacity of 45,000, down from the current 57,333
The New York Mets
In the current design, fans will enter the ballpark through an Ebbets-like rotunda with 65-foot ceilings
The New York Mets
The plan lacks a retractable roof that was jettisoned for its cost of $150 million to $200 million.
The New York Mets
The estimated cost of the projec is $780 million $600 million from the team to build the stadium and $180 million for infrastructure and capital costs from the city and state
The New York Mets
The City Council is expected to review the Mets' stadium financing plan on Monday, April 9, 2006.
The New York Mets
Although the planned stadium still requires regulatory approval, Mets officials hope to put their team on a new field by 2009.
April 7, 2006
Wilpon Is Walking Again Through Ebbets Rotunda
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
Eight years after they displayed a model of a stadium that echoed the look of Ebbets Field, the Mets showed off a 21st-century version of the design yesterday amid hopes that they can start building in June and take the field in the corporate-named ballpark at the start of the 2009 season.
The new version of the 45,000-seat stadium has fewer seats and luxury suites (58, down from 78) than the first plan and lacks a retractable roof that was jettisoned because of the $150 million to $200 million price tag.
But the alterations have done nothing to reduce the vivid emotional attachment of Fred Wilpon, the Mets' principal owner and a Brooklyn native, to the now-sainted Ebbets, the Brooklyn Dodgers' long-dead home. In the current design, fans will enter the ballpark through an Ebbets-like rotunda with 65-foot-high ceilings.
"When I look at the designs, as I often do," Wilpon said during a news conference at 42-year-old Shea Stadium, which, when it is demolished, is not likely to evoke architectural reveries, "I almost feel like I'm walking through the rotunda, 8 or 9 years old, holding my dad's hand."
Here, his voice broke, before he was able to speak again.
The estimated $765 million project up to $600 million from the team for the stadium and $165 million from the city and state for infrastructure, site preparation and other costs has prompted little of the community opposition that the Yankees have encountered.
The Mets have avoided major resistance because they are building their new stadium east of Shea, in their parking lot, not displacing parkland, as the Yankees are by building on 22 acres in Macomb's Dam and Mullaly Parks.
The City Council approved construction of the Yankees' new stadium on Wednesday, a product of the team's agreement with Bronx officials to contribute $50 million over 20 years to local community groups. The Council was expected to review the Mets' stadium financing plan on Monday along with the financing plan for the Yankees' new stadium.
But Councilman Hiram Monserrate, whose district includes Shea, persuaded Council members to delay the review of the Mets' plan until the team agrees to provide benefits to the local community.
"If the residents of the Bronx benefited from an agreement with the New York Yankees, why shouldn't the residents of Queens benefit from an agreement with the New York Mets?" Monserrate said.
The prospect of community groups demanding a Yankee-like benefits deal from the Mets angered Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. "Every development project in this city is not just going to be a horn of plenty for everybody that wants to grab something," he said at the news conference. New development, he said, should not be a rush to "line up to get some ransom."
The deal was put together last June after plans to construct an Olympic stadium on Manhattan's West Side were killed. Bloomberg made a commitment to help the Mets build a ballpark that would have been the centerpiece for the 2012 Games in an 11th-hour plan to salvage the city's bid.
In planning a smaller stadium than the one they are leaving, the Mets are following a baseball trend. The 45,000 seats is 12,000 fewer than capacity at Shea, which only occasionally sells out. The baseball-only design (Shea was built for the Mets and the Jets) and seating angled toward the infield are intended to increase the intimacy of attending a game.
The design reflects Ebbets's grip on Wilpon and the ballparks built since the 1990's like Oriole Park at Camden Yards, PNC Park in Pittsburgh and Keyspan Park, where the Brooklyn Cyclones, the Mets' Class A team, play.
It will have a brick and limestone exterior, accented with archways and exposed steel; a section of the right-field seats will hang over the field (at Ebbets Field, the outfield seats were in left and center); and its wide concourses will let fans circle the stadium without obstacles to watching the game. Like Shea, it will have pitcher-friendly dimensions.
"I happen to like Pittsburgh a lot," said Jeff Wilpon, the Mets' chief operating officer, whose love of bridges, like Hell Gate Bridge over the East River, is seen in the design. "I've seen things in San Diego that are very nice. Then you take something at Cleveland and Camden."
The architect, HOK Sport, has designed many of the new stadiums in baseball, including the new Yankee ballpark. "Fred's passion is the rotunda and the experience," said Mike Sabatini, the HOK designer of the Mets' park. "Jeff is more in tune with what's going on in other ballparks."
There was a time when the Mets and the Yankees believed public money should pay for most or all of their stadiums. In 2001, former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani made a nonbinding agreement with the teams to finance half the cost of two $800 million ballparks, a deal that Bloomberg scotched as unaffordable soon after he took office early the next year.
Now, both teams are paying to build their stadiums, with the city and state helping with associated costs.
The Mets will pay no rent at the new stadium and will have their rent reduced by $15 million until they leave Shea, as part of their state deal. The Yankees also have a rent-free deal. The teams now pay rent, but the city absorbs the costs of maintaining their stadiums.
The Mets and Yankees will also be able to reduce the revenues they share with other major league teams by the amount of debt payments they are making.
The stadiums are expected to generate substantially more revenues from tickets, luxury suites, club seats and naming rights like the $6 million that Minute Maid pays each year to be attached to the Houston Astro's ballpark.
Winnie Hu contributed reporting forthis article.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Casino Can Change the Slot Machine in Seconds
John Gurzinski for The New York Times
Kevin and Tracy Newman, on vacation from Minnesota, tried the remotely controlled slot machines at the Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas.
John Gurzinski for The New York Times
Justin Beltram, director of slot operations at the Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas, can reprogram machines with a few mouse clicks.
April 12, 2006
From the Back Office, a Casino Can Change the Slot Machine in Seconds
By MATT RICHTEL
LAS VEGAS, April 6 From his small back office in the Treasure Island casino, Justin Beltram may soon be able to change the wheels of fortune instantly.
Mr. Beltram, a casino executive, is the point man in a high-technology experiment that could alter the face of slot machines, and their insides, too.
With a few clicks of his computer mouse, Mr. Beltram can reprogram the 1,790 slot machines on the casino floor, adjusting the denominations required to play, payback percentages, even game themes.
Las Vegas is constantly tinkering with its slot machines, which generate more than $7 billion annually in Nevada, roughly double that taken in by table games. Despite their growing popularity and an increase in overall gambling proceeds in recent years, casino operators want to win back more of the money their customers are now spending elsewhere on food, lodging and other entertainment, or at Indian casinos or for online gambling.
In the past, changing out a slot machine was a complicated operation and entailed opening it, replacing the computer chip inside, then changing the glass display that markets the game's theme. The alteration usually took a day and could cost thousands of dollars, from ordering parts to modifying the machine.
"Now, I just come to my office, and select the program," said Mr. Beltram, the 28-year-old executive director for slots at Treasure Island, which is owned by the MGM Mirage. "With the technology, it takes 20 seconds."
The concept is being tested for the next few months under the gaze of state gambling regulators. If regulators approve, casino operators will be able to centrally adjust the slots to cater to different crowds older players and regulars during the day and younger tourists and people with bigger budgets at night.
That could mean testing consumer confidence as well. Some critics wonder whether centrally controlled slots are not a few steps away from the distant, but instant and unchecked control enjoyed by Internet casino operators.
Mr. Beltram insists he does not plan to capriciously change the odds, which he said would be bad for repeat business and could run afoul of regulators.
The development of networked slots underscores the growing convergence of gambling and technology. Slot machines, once highly mechanized, are now highly computerized; only about half the machines have actual spinning cylinders. The rest are computer-generated facsimiles that allow gamblers to play numerous animated reels at once, and induce them with the promise of bonus rounds. Gamblers now insert debit slips that track how much money they have, making the coins people once collected in buckets a distant memory.
Coming soon are high-definition screens that will enhance the animation to keep gamblers engaged and draw bigger crowds, and even better speakers to project crisp sound right at players.
More generally, casino operators have sought in recent years to use technology to offer new games and make a science of their business. They are experimenting with stocking blackjack tables with money chips embedded with digital tags that can automatically measure how much a gambler has wagered and on what kinds of hands.
Casinos also are testing wireless devices that would allow people to play games like Keno and eventually blackjack while sitting in public areas, like the swimming pool.
But these advances are raising some eyebrows. In the case of the new slot machines, regulators want to make sure the systems cannot be invaded by outsiders, while consumers want to know casino operators cannot too easily manipulate the odds, said David G. Schwartz, director for the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.
"Let's say you're playing at 2 and you're doing great and you come back at 6 and the pay tables have changed," Mr. Schwartz said, adding that he wondered how much latitude casino operators would have to change their returns.
He also worries that some players could receive preferential odds if, for instance, they are high rollers, thus creating an uneven gambling field.
By law, Nevada casinos must on average return at least 75 percent of slot machine wagers. The reality is they return more than 90 percent, casino operators say, though they do not publicize the figures. Also under the law, they cannot modify the payback percentages while someone is playing.
State law allows them to change the odds after a machine has been idle for four minutes, and then they must not allow anyone to play the machine for four more minutes. During that time, the screen must indicate a change is being made to the game's configuration, said Travis Foley, laboratory manager for the technology division of the Nevada State Gaming Control Board, who is overseeing the Treasure Island test.
Typically, those changes now are made in the middle of the night when there are fewer players in the casino.
Mr. Foley said the technology "does expedite the change" to a new theme, wager denomination or payback percentage. "But it's not a new capability."
For his part, Mr. Beltram said fierce competition for slot machine players would keep him from playing fast and loose with his odds. The bigger goal, he said, is to cater inexpensively to consumer demand. He cites as evidence a recent visit by a high roller from Rhode Island.
Mr. Beltram said the gambler, who liked to play slots in the high-stakes slots room where individual wagers can go from $2 into the hundreds of dollars, requested a $25 Double Diamond slot machine. Mr. Beltram ordered the computer chip and glass plate from International Game Technology, which makes the machine, and had them in place 24 hours later.
The lost day potentially cut into profits. If the customer had been able to play earlier, "Who knows what he would have spent?" Mr. Beltram said. As it turned out, the high roller returned a day later, played the new game and wound up winning money.
But a lot of money is left on the table with low rollers as well. It's just a matter of giving them what they want when they want it, Mr. Beltram said. "Throughout the day, there are more locals, so during the day we might have more video poker. At night, we might have more slots," he said. "Customers get stuck on themes they like," he said, and those themes can be programmed in.
Mr. Beltram said he expected the system to be in place by the end of this year or the beginning of next year.
Ed Rogich, spokesman for International Gaming Technology, said a similar test was taking place at a casino operated by the Barona Indian tribe, just outside of San Diego.
Most casinos already link their slot machines and can view their performance from a central server. The difference is that the latest advance is the first time casinos can push information out to all their machines, creating the potential for "dumb terminals," as they are known outside gambling, on which the software can be modified centrally, easily and instantly.
The concept of networked slot machines is undergoing a different kind of test down the street from Treasure Island at a casino called the Barbary Coast. There, near the front door, sits an enormous circular wheel of fortune slot machine with seats around it for nine players. In front of each player is a monitor on which they play an individualized version of the game. The twist is that a monitor in the center of the game, viewable by all, indicates which players have hit the bonus round.
At various points, those players who have hit the bonus round meaning they are eligible to increase their winnings by a certain multiple can cause the wheel of fortune in the center to spin; whatever number lands in front of each eligible player indicates the bonus amount.
The individual players are not affecting each other's outcomes, but the game creates a feeling of community, almost like craps players cheering for each other at the table.
Regular slot players say they have mixed feelings about the potential for the centrally controlled games.
Rexie Lestrange, who lives in Lodi, Calif., and was recently visiting Las Vegas on business, said she welcomed the next generation of slot machines.
"I liked all kinds of pictures and noises and things happening," she said as she sat in Treasure Island playing Lawman's Loot, a penny slot machine with a reel of video images of cowboys, trains, settlers and bags of loot. "The old slots I don't like because they're boring."
But she said she did not have an opinion about the casinos using servers to change their slot machines.
"I just wish they would pay out more, obviously," she said.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company -
In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal
Kenneth Garrett/National Geographic Society
An early Christian document portrays Judas as Jesus' closest ally.
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Kenneth Garrett/National Geographic Society
The Gospel of Judas, found near these caves, may provide much material for Christian theologians to debate in the years ahead about the time before Jesus' death.
In Ancient Document, Judas, Minus the Betrayal
Correction Appended
An early Christian manuscript, including the only known text of the Gospel of Judas, has surfaced after 1,700 years, and it portrays Judas Iscariot not as a betrayer of Jesus but as his favored disciple and willing collaborator.
In this text, scholars reported yesterday, the account of events leading to the Crucifixion differs sharply from the four gospels in the New Testament. Here Jesus is said to entrust Judas with special knowledge and ask him to betray him to the Roman authorities. By doing so, he tells Judas, "you will exceed" the other disciples.
"You will be cursed by the other generations, and you will come to rule over them," Jesus confides to Judas in the document, which was made public at a news conference at the National Geographic Society in Washington.
Though some theologians have hypothesized the "good Judas" before, scholars who have translated and studied the text said this was the first time an ancient document lent specific support to a revised image of the man whose name in history has been synonymous with treachery.
Scholars say the release of the document will set off years of study and debate. The debate is not over whether the manuscript is genuine on this the scholars agree. Instead, the controversy is over its relevance.
Already, some scholars are saying that this Gospel sheds new light on the historical relationship between Jesus and Judas. They find strands of secret Jewish mysticism running through the beliefs expressed by some branches of early Christianity.
But others say the text is merely one more scripture produced by a marginalized Christian cult of Gnostics, who lived so many years after Jesus' day that they could not possibly produce anything accurate about his life. For these reasons, the discoveries are expected to intrigue theologians and historians of religion and perhaps be deeply troubling to some church leaders and lay believers.
"We will be talking about this gospel for generations to come," said Marvin Meyer, a professor of religion at Chapman University in Orange, Calif.
The discovery in the desert of Egypt of the leather-bound papyrus manuscript, its wanderings through Europe and Long Island, and now its translation, were announced by scholars assembled by the National Geographic Society. The 26-page Judas text is believed to be a copy in the Coptic language, made around A.D. 300, of the original Gospel of Judas, written in Greek the century before.
Terry Garcia, an executive vice president of the society, said the manuscript, or codex, was considered by scholars to be the most significant ancient, nonbiblical text found in the past 60 years. Previous major discoveries include the Dead Sea Scrolls, which began coming to light in the late 1940's, and the Nag Hammadi monastery collection of Gnostic writings found in 1945 in Egypt.
The latter, including gospels of Thomas and Mary Magdalene, have inspired recent Gnostic scholarship and shaken up traditional biblical scholarship by revealing the diversity of beliefs among early followers of Jesus. Gnostics believed in a secret knowledge of how people could escape the prisons of their material bodies and return to the spiritual realm from which they came.
"These discoveries are exploding the myth of a monolithic religion and demonstrating how diverse and fascinating the early Christian movement really was," said Elaine Pagels, a professor of religion at Princeton who specializes in studies of the Gnostics.
Mr. Garcia said, "The codex has been authenticated as a genuine work of ancient Christian apocryphal literature," citing extensive tests of radiocarbon dating, ink analysis and multispectral imaging and studies of the script and linguistic style. The ink, for example, was consistent with ink of that era, and there was no evidence of multiple rewriting.
"This is absolutely typical of ancient Coptic manuscripts," said Stephen Emmel, professor of Coptic studies at the University of Mnster in Germany. "I am completely convinced."
Experts said the handwriting appeared to be that of a single professional scribe. He is anonymous, as is the original author in Greek.
The word "gospel" means "good news," and generally refers to accounts of Jesus' life. Though someone is named in each, the titles are not necessarily those of the true authors. The consensus of scholars is that the four canonical gospels Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were probably not written by any of the original disciples or first-person witnesses to the life of Jesus, although they were probably written within the first century.
Scholars have long been on the lookout for the Gospel of Judas because of a reference to what was probably an early version in a treatise written by Irenaeus, the bishop of Lyons, in 180. He was a hunter of heretics, and no friend of the Gnostics, whose writings proliferated in the second through fourth centuries.
"They produce a fictitious history of this kind, which they style the Gospel of Judas," Irenaeus wrote.
Unlike the four standard gospels, the Judas document portrays Judas Iscariot as alone among the 12 disciples to understand Jesus' teachings.
Karen L. King, a professor of the history of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, who is not involved in the Judas project, said this gospel might well reflect the debates that arose in the early centuries.
"You can see how early Christians could say, if Jesus' death was all part of God's plan, then Judas's betrayal was part of God's plan," said Dr. King. The standard gospels either give no motivation for Judas's betrayal or attribute it to the pieces of silver or the influence of Satan.
At least one scholar, James M. Robinson, said the new manuscript did not contain anything likely to change traditional understanding of the Bible. Dr. Robinson, a retired professor of Coptic studies at Claremont Graduate University in California, was thegeneral editor of the English edition of the Nag Hammadi collection. "Correctly understood, there's nothing undermining about the Gospel of Judas," he said.
Dr. Robinson noted that the gospels of John and Mark both had passages that suggest that Jesus not only picked Judas to betray him, but actually encouraged Judas to hand him over to those he knew would crucify him.
In a key passage in the new-found gospel, Jesus had talks with Judas "three days before he celebrated Passover." That is when Jesus is supposed to have referred to the other disciples and said to Judas: "But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me."
By that, scholars said, Jesus seems to have meant that in helping him get rid of his physical flesh, Judas will act to liberate the true spiritual self or divine being within Jesus.
Rodolphe Kasser, a Swiss scholar of Coptic studies, directed the team that reconstructed and translated the script, which was written on 13 sheets of papyrus, both front and back. The manuscript was a mess of more than 1,000 brittle fragments.
The effort, organized by the National Geographic Society, was supported by Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art, in Basel, Switzerland, and the Waitt Institute for Historical Discovery, an American foundation.
The 66-page codex also contains a text titled James, a letter by Peter and pages provisionally called Book of Allogenes, or Book of Strangers.
Discovered in the 1970's in a cavern near El Minya, Egypt, the document circulated for years among antiquities dealers in Egypt, then Europe and finally in the United States. Dr. Robinson, of Claremont, said that an Egyptian antiquities dealer offered to sell him the codex in 1983 for $3 million, but that he was unable to raise the money.
The manuscript moldered in a safe-deposit box at a bank in Hicksville, N.Y., for 16 years before being bought in 2000 by a Zurich dealer, Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos. The manuscript was then given the name Codex Tchacos.
When efforts to resell the codex failed, Ms. Nussberger-Tchacos turned it over to the Maecenas Foundation for conservation and translation. Ted Waitt, founder and former chief executive of Gateway, said the Waitt Institute gave the geographic society a grant of more than $1 million for the restoration.
Officials of the project announced that the codex would ultimately be returned to Egypt and housed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo. For now, the Gospel of Judas will be the center of attention in a television show, magazine article, two books and an exhibition by National Geographic.
Correction: April 8, 2006
An article yesterday about the implications of the discovery an early Christian manuscript that portrays Judas Iscariot in an unconventional light misidentified the material of which the manuscript was made. It is papyrus, not parchment.
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Nascar Fans Trade the R.V. for a Condo
Chris Rank for The New York Times
Richard Scott watches the sun set over the Atlanta Motor Speedway from a penthouse condominium owned by Jim and Muriel
April 13, 2006
Nascar Fans Trade the R.V. for a Condo
By MICHELLE HIGGINS
HAMPTON, Ga. The sound of automobile traffic was deafening. Inside Jim and Muriel Dollar's two-bedroom penthouse condominium here, a party was going on, and the guests leaned in close in their theater-style leather chairs to make themselves heard, their drinks set in cup holders that occasionally vibrated ever so slightly.
But no one seemed to mind the noise or the tremors. In fact, some had binoculars in their hands to get a close-up view of what was going on nine stories below. That was because the apartment's floor-to-ceiling windows looked directly onto the racetrack of the Atlanta Motor Speedway, where cars were roaring by at speeds up to 190 miles per hour.
"It's the best seat in the house," said Mr. Dollar, 65, the president of a concrete construction company in Norcross, Ga., gazing out at the jet-black oval on a recent Saturday. Anyone who doubts that the traditionally blue-collar sport of Nascar has gone upscale need look no further.
The Dollars are among the dedicated fans who have forsaken the track infield the home of tricked-out R.V.'s, makeshift barbecue pits and parking spaces passed down from generation to generation to root for Jimmie Johnson or Dale Earnhardt Jr. from the plush confines of apartments that, in some cases, cost $1 million or more.
The Dollars said they paid $500,000 for their condo when they bought it about eight years ago.
There have been condos at Nascar tracks for several years, but it is only recently that the market for those second homes has become almost as active as that of a hot New York City neighborhood.
The building pace is accelerating, prices for some condos have more than tripled, and now with Las Vegas getting into the act the number of Nascar condos around the country is expected to almost double in the next few years.
In March, Speedway Motorsports Inc. announced plans to build 120 units at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway at prices ranging from $600,000 for a one-bedroom condo to $4.5 million for a three-bedroom penthouse. At three other tracks it owns the Lowe's Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., the Atlanta Motor Speedway and the Texas Motor Speedway near Fort Worth the company has built a total of 174 condo units in the past couple of decades.
Some 15 percent to 20 percent are owned by corporations, and the rest by individuals.
The Trophy Towers, as the Las Vegas condominium building is called, will have a swimming pool, a workout room and a spa. Each of the 120 units will feature stainless steel appliances, oversize bathtubs and panoramic views of both the track and the Las Vegas Strip. One feature may be heavy-duty soundproofing. Apparently, the roar of the action is an acquired taste.
The International Speedway Corporation, which owns or operates 11 racetracks around the country, is conducting a feasibility study on a possible mixed-use development across the street from the Daytona International Speedway, which could include offices, restaurants and up to 100 loftlike apartments.
No one seems to doubt that Nascar fans can afford the prices of the condos the race-car world's equivalent of golf manors on the 18th hole.
Nascar research shows that the sport's following has grown 19 percent since 1995, to 75 million, 22 percent of whom are estimated to have household incomes topping $70,000.
The ever more elaborate condos are part of a trend that has seen tracks add amenities like high-end spas where fans can get $75 facials in between races.
Trackside condos, built adjacent to the course and often located near a turn to give a good view of the action below, are a step up from the luxury boxes that are now a standard feature at most sports stadiums.
But although the condos come with all the trappings of a second home, most owners occupy them for no more than a few weekends a year, typically bringing family, friends and business clients for big racing weekends.
At the Dollars' 1,600-square-foot penthouse, the chef arrived around 11 a.m. for the Nextel Cup Series race. He tied a black apron around his waist and began preparing a spread on a speckled brown and white stone countertop that had been shipped from Brazil and hoisted into the home by a crane.
Before the starting flag fell, chicken and goat cheese tamales with chipotle salsa and cilantro sour cream, baked Vidalia onion dip with crostini, jumbo lump crab cakes, carved beef tenderloin and Gruyre in a puff pastry were ready to be dished out.
A group of burly guests clients of Mr. Dollar's construction company strolled up the spiral staircase to a rooftop terrace to take in the panoramic view of the track and thick wafts of fuel.
"Look at all those high-end trailers out there," said Bill Jaynes, 62, an electrical contractor from Fayetteville, Ga., motioning out the condo's windows toward the track's infield, where hundreds of trucks, mobile homes and R.V.'s including one with Oriental rugs were the scene of a giant tailgate party. "It's millions of dollars out there."
Sinking into the brown leather couch beneath the large flat-screen TV, Mr. Jaynes said, "If this is a redneck sport, I want to be a part of it."
Ken Barbee, 65, the retired owner of a plastic injection molding company, liked Nascar so much he decided to live full time at the racetrack.
After separating from his wife in 1994, Mr. Barbee moved into a two-bedroom condo at Lowe's Motor Speedway in North Carolina and has called it home ever since.
"For me, being single, living alone, it's the greatest place in the world," he said.
The condo was also a good investment. Mr. Barbee bought the unit in 1990 for $140,000 and estimated its current value at $450,000. "I should have bought two or three," he said.
When the Tara Place Condominiums at the Atlanta Motor Speedway went on the market in the 1990's, a basic two-bedroom condo on the sixth floor was listed at $250,000, said Beverly Currie of McDonough, Ga., who helped sell the first units and now handles many of the resales. The penthouses ranged from $455,000 to $495,000.
Now, Ms. Currie has a handful of listings ranging from $350,000 for a basic two-bedroom unit to about $1.5 million for a penthouse. Each comes with at least five tickets, which are required for entrance to the apartment building on race days, and V.I.P. parking passes. Some owners who bought their condos early get as many as 33 tickets.
Trackside condos took a while to catch on. "People thought it was so crazy," said H. A. Wheeler, president of Speedway Motor Sports and head of the Lowe's Motor Speedway, where the first condominiums went up in 1984. "They were just laughing at it."
Some apparently still are. Bill Young, 64, a business owner from Wichita, Kan., said he could have snatched up one of the condos when they were first built. Instead, he said, he is happier in the infield, where he pays about $2,000 each for a handful of parking spots and entertains guests from his $400,000 motor home.
"You feel the race down in the infield," he said. "You're kind of isolated in the condos."
But Jim Dollar seems to prefer it that way. "It's not like sitting in the stands," he said of his penthouse view. "You have a lot of your friends up, and it's just a big party."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Does the Quick-Fix Oxygen Facial Really Work?
G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times
Michelle Peck, who has performed hyperbaric oxygen facials on Madonna, demonstrates on Evie Evangelou, a spa publicist. The treatment is supposed to make skin look dewier and smoother.
April 6, 2006
Skin Deep
Does the Quick-Fix Oxygen Facial Really Work?
By NATASHA SINGER
EVIE EVANGELOU, a spa publicist and consultant in New York City, has scoured the world for new and unusual beauty regimens to lure clients to Now, a spa that is scheduled to open on Madison Avenue in May. Last week Ms. Evangelou discovered a treatment courtesy of Madonna that she says could be the next big thing: the hyperbaric oxygen facial. Madonna has recommended it on her Web site and in an interview with Harper's Bazaar.
The facial involves a machine that sprays atomized moisturizers onto the skin using a stream of pressurized oxygen. The treatment is supposed to hydrate skin immediately, making the face appear smoother and plumper.
"So many celebrities are doing the treatment because it temporarily diminishes all the tiny imperfections that would otherwise be visible on high-definition TV," said Michelle Peck, a masseuse from Los Angeles. Ms. Peck is referred to as Madonna's personal oxygen treatment facialist on the Web site madonna.com. She came to Manhattan last week to demonstrate the facial on Ms. Evangelou and other spa managers, a trip sponsored by the maker of the oxygen compressor used in the facials.
As trendy as the oxygen facial may be, there is no hard evidence of its effectiveness, and academic experts are skeptical. Dr. Christopher B. Zachary, a professor and the dermatology department chairman at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine, bluntly labeled it "snake oil."
"The concept that high-pressure oxygen would do anything to help the skin is such nonsense as to be laughable," said Dr. Zachary, who has not examined the oxygen-compression machine himself.
He suggested that the plumping or swelling effect might be mild inflammation caused by the blasts of compressed oxygen. "If you wanted puffy eyes, you could also go out for a hard night's drinking," he said.
The status of oxygen facials embraced by some doctors, spas and beauty mavens with little or no scientific evidence is typical of many cosmetic treatments that do not claim to alter the skin. Manufacturers are not required to conduct studies or submit such devices for approval to the Food and Drug Administration. Consumers are on their own in deciding whether to embrace the treatments, or rather, they are influenced by marketing, magazines, celebrity tastes and in some cases early-adopter doctors.
The lack of clinical evidence on oxygen facials has not prevented prominent dermatologists from offering them for up to $500. Six weekly treatments, followed by monthly "maintenance" treatments, are recommended to keep the face looking dewy and juiced up, Ms. Peck said.
Dr. Bradford R. Katchen, a dermatologist in New York City who just bought an oxygen compressor for his office, said the treatment is most appropriate for film or television actresses or for people who plan to attend a special event.
"It's the ultimate hydration therapy that makes your skin look better instantly and stay that way for a few days," said Dr. Katchen. The facials may provide a moisture boost that makes skin smoother so that it is easier to apply makeup, he said.
Since the 1930's doctors have used hyperbaric meaning high-pressure oxygen inhalation chambers to force pure oxygen into the blood stream and tissue of oxygen-deprived deep-sea divers. The spas and dermatologists promoting these facials describe them as a way to force oxygen and moisturizers temporarily into aging skin.
"We hope that the oxygen is creating a pressure bubble that drives vitamins and nutrients into the skin," said Dr. Fredric Brandt, a dermatologist in Miami and New York City. "But we have no data to support that." After he learned about the treatment from one of Madonna's personal assistants, Dr. Brandt ordered the machine for his Miami office, where aestheticians began offering oxygen facials last month, he said.
Americans have had about 20,000 oxygen facials in the last year, said Anthony McMahon, the chief executive of Intraceuticals, the Australian company behind the oxygen compressor and its treatment products.
The theory of the facial is that pressurized oxygen speeds the skin's absorption of moisturizing agents like hyaluronic acid (a carbohydrate that attracts water), Mr. McMahon said. But Intraceuticals, which has sold the $10,000 oxygen compressors to about 100 spas and dermatologists in the United States, has not run any clinical tests to see how the treatment works on the skin's top and underlying layers, he noted.
"We haven't run any medical-style clinical trials because we are not making any biological claims," Mr. McMahon said. "The instant results speak for themselves."
Last week in a hotel room in Manhattan, Ms. Peck demonstrated the facial on the right side of Ms. Evangelou's face. First she poured a protein solution into the nozzle of the compressor and carefully sprayed it around Ms. Evangelou's right eye and along the creases that run from her nostrils to the outer corners of her lip. As the treatment progressed, these areas seemed to swell slightly.
Then Ms. Peck poured a hyaluronic acid solution into the compressor and sprayed the mist in short parallel strokes all over the right side of Ms. Evangelou's face and along her jaw line. After Ms. Peck was finished, she led Ms. Evangelou into the bathroom so that they could both examine her face in the mirror.
"Look how smooth and more awake you look on that side," Ms. Peck said. "Do you see how one of your eyes looks a lot more open than the other, and the apple of your cheek is plumped up?"
Cecilia Brown, the manager of the Now spa, who works with Ms. Evangelou, agreed that she could see a marked change. "You look lopsided," Ms. Brown said as she pointed to the right side of Ms. Evangelou's face. "This side looks swollen."
Ms. Evangelou seemed please with her plumped-up look. "We are buying this machine for the spa right away," she said.
Others are taking a more skeptical approach to high-pressure oxygen facials. Dr. Katchen said he sees it as a new technology that in the absence of scientific data from Intraceuticals he plans to test on himself.
"It's a spa device with limited benefits," said Dr. Katchen. "It has no more and no less validity than a facial."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
"Casino Jack" Abramoff
Illustration by Edward Sorel
The secret history of the most corrupt man in Washington So this is it, finally. By the time this magazine hits the newsstands, Jack Abramoff -- right-wing megalobbyist and great feckless shitwad of our new American century -- will be but a tick of the geological clock away from The End. There will be no rack, no stoning, no scorpion-filled sand pit, no bucket of fire ants. Just a sanitary plea agreement and a single blow of the gavel, and "Casino Jack" Abramoff will disappear for a few years of weightlifting and Talmudic study.
En route to his day of reckoning, Abramoff really did travel each and every right-wing highway, from Jo-burg in the old days to the Bush White House. But he's being sentenced for only the last few miles of that trip. It's almost an insult to a criminal of Abramoff's caliber that the charge he'll go to jail for is a low-rent wire-fraud scheme committed in a pickpocket capital like Miami Beach. In that one, Jack and his cronies claimed to have $23 million in assets when he didn't have a dime, and he persuaded financial backers to purchase a $147.5 million cruise-ship casino empire. A nice score for a Gotti child, maybe, but a bit gauche for the wizard of the Republican fast lane.
The other charges are a little more respectable. He took tens of millions from Indian tribes that sought relief from Washington on gaming-industry questions, illegally pocketed millions in lobbying fees and evaded taxes on his ill-gotten gains. He also used their money to provide, in exchange for favors, a "stream of things of value" to elected officials, including golf junkets to Scotland, free meals and other swag.
It's that last bit that made Abramoff a national celebrity, the poster boy for the way the Bush administration does business and the most feared name around in a Washington political society that is still waiting with bated lizard breath for the other shoe to drop. To most Americans, Jack Abramoff is the bloodsucking bogeyman with a wad of bills in his teeth who came through the window in the middle of the night and stole their voice in government. But he was much more than that. Abramoff was as much of a symbol of his generation's Republican Party as Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater was of his.
He was an amazingly ubiquitous figure, a sort of Zelig of the political right -- you could find him somewhere, in the foreground or the background, in almost every Republican political scandal of the past twenty-five years. He carried water for the racist government of Pretoria during the apartheid days and whispered in the ear of those Republican congressmen who infamously voted against anti-apartheid resolutions. He organized rallies in support of the Grenada invasion, showed up in Ollie North's offices during Iran-Contra, palled around with Mobutu Sese Seko, Jonas Savimbi and the Afghan mujahedin.
All along, Abramoff was buying journalists, creating tax-exempt organizations to fund campaign activities and using charities to fund foreign conflicts. He spent the past twenty years doing business with everyone from James Dobson to the Gambino family, from Ralph Reed to Grover Norquist to Karl Rove to White House procurements chief David Safavian. He is even lurking in the background of the 2004 Ohio voting-irregularities scandal, having worked with the Diebold voting-machine company to defeat requirements for a paper trail in elections.
He is a living museum of corruption, and in a way it is altogether too bad that he is about to disappear from public scrutiny. In a hilariously tardy attempt to attend to his moral self-image, lately he has been repackaging himself as a fallen prophet, a humbled super-Jew who was guilty only of going too far to serve God. He was the "softest touch in town," he has said, a sucker for causes who "incorrectly didn't follow the mitzvah of giving away at most twenty percent." Then he shows up a few weeks before sentencing with his cock wedged in the mouth of an adoring Vanity Fair reporter, claiming with a straight face that his problems came from trying to "save the world."
There is no evidence yet that anyone is going to call him on any of this bullshit, and we can see where all of this is going. He'll go away now for his Martha Stewart fitness tour, and a few years from now he'll slide straight into his own prime-time family show for cable's inevitable Orthodox Channel and a $14 million deal from HarperCollins for his 290-page illustrated manual of marriage and intimacy for devout Jewish couples.
No other outcome is really possible, given the logic of the American celebrity world. What is unknown, as yet, is whether America will learn any lessons from the here-and-now of the Jack Abramoff story. For that to happen, we would all have to take a good, hard look at the remarkable life story he is now temporarily leaving us to consider.
Abramoff is a man defined by his connections. As an individual -- as a lone dot on a schematic diagram, an intersection of crossed strands in a web -- Jack Abramoff is a nobody, just another pompous Washington greedhead distinguished only by the world's silliest Boris Badenov fedora ("That was between me and God," Abramoff now says of the infamous hat). But let him loose in society, and magic happens. Jack Abramoff's instinctive political talent was for first locating and then inveigling himself into the disreputable backroom deal of the hour. He was a walking cut corner, a thumb on the scale of American history.
* * * *
The story about Jack Abramoff and the elementary school election, the one first reported by The Los Angeles Times, is true. It only seems like apocryphal bullshit. Born in Atlantic City to Frank Abramoff, an affluent Diner's Club executive who would go on to represent golfer Arnold Palmer, Jack moved with his family to Beverly Hills as a boy and grew up attending one of the more prestigious elementary schools in the country, the Hawthorne School. And it was here, at this same fancy-pants school that would one day be home to a chubby girl named Monica Lewinsky, that Jack got his start in politics by being disqualified from a race for student-body president for cheating.
"Jack was a very, very, very smart boy with a straight-A average," recalls Milton Rowen, the then-principal of the school. "We had certain rules about the amount of money that could be spent, and there was no electioneering outside of the school . . . He had his mother come up with hot dogs in her car and give them out to the kids.
"He was a very nice boy," the eighty-seven-year-old now says, laughing. "But he hot-dogged it."
Still, even with that setback, Abramoff was already off and running on a course that would lead him straight to the political underworld. Like Watergate vets Donald Segretti, Dwight Chapin, Gordon Strachan and Ron Ziegler before him, Abramoff throughout his youth would be drawn to student politics, running (and losing) again for student-body president at Beverly Hills High before becoming head of the Massachusetts College Republicans while at Brandeis University in the Boston suburb of Waltham.
Abramoff was part of the first wave of young people who came back to the Republican Party en masse during the so-called Reagan Revolution. The year 1980 was a time of resurgence for a party that just four years before had been in a post-Watergate death spiral; the Moral Majority had just been founded, and new-right prophets like Howard Phillips, Paul Weyrich and Richard Viguerie were attracting a fresh generation of young people to the brash, piss-in-your-face, fuck-the-poor ideas emanating from places like the Heritage Foundation and Bill Buckley's Young Americans for Freedom. Among their other converts at this time were Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, a pair of ambitious students from Harvard and Emory University, respectively.
After Reagan's 1980 landslide win, those two, along with Abramoff, would work together at the College Republicans National Committee, and when Abramoff succeeded Norquist as CRNC chief he would win a national reputation as a hard-liner with his Lenin-esque pronouncement that it wasn't the job of young Republicans to "seek peaceful co-existence with the left." The take-no-prisoners stance of the twentysomething student leader: "Our job is to remove them from power permanently."
All accounts point to Abramoff as the prototypically humorless Animal House campus villain. A thick-necked champion weight lifter (he still holds the Beverly Hills High bench-press record) with a square jaw and exquisite hygiene, the man-child Abramoff also had the kind of sadistic jock temperament that impresses coaches and corporate recruiters alike. "The football coach was always afraid that Jack was going to kill somebody if he hit him head-on," Rowen says. By the time he went away to Brandeis, he'd already undergone a conversion to Orthodox Judaism, having found religion at the Sinai Temple in Los Angeles (after seeing Fiddler on the Roof as a youngster, Abramoff says), and so he arrived in 1970s Massachusetts the rarest of East Coast campus creatures: a moralizing weight lifter with short hair and a passion for Republican politics.
The Abramoff story, in fact, confirms in the most dramatic way every vicious popular stereotype about campus conservatives. Kids who get involved with lefty politics on campus almost always graduate straight into some degrading state of semi-employment -- the defining characteristic of lefty student movements is how few doors they open for you. Another defining characteristic of the student left is its persistent, unquenchable and irrational suspicion that the campus Republicans hold their meetings in the offices of someplace like the Rand Corporation, where they have their buttocks branded with Sumerian symbols in secret ceremonies that upon graduation will gain all of them entrance to the upper ranks of corporate and governmental privilege.
That was Jack Abramoff. Like those famed USC student "ratfuckers" who went on to hold the ultimate panty raid in the Watergate Hotel, Abramoff and his close friends Norquist and Ralph Reed (the one-time head of the Georgia College Republicans used to sleep on Abramoff's couch) never really abandoned the laughable training-wheel secrecy and capture-the-flag gamesmanship of student politics. His buttocks freshly branded, Abramoff in 1983 traveled to Johannesburg on behalf of the CRNC and immediately parlayed his student experience into a real job as a sort of frontman for South African intelligence services. He was the young progressive's paranoid nightmare come shockingly true: absurd campus Republican proto-geek effortlessly transformed at graduation into flesh-and-blood neo-Nazi spook.
It is not easy to find anyone who actually encountered Abramoff during his South Africa experiences, although one source who was involved with South African right-wing student politics recalled "Casino Jack" as a "blue-eyed boy" who rubbed people the wrong way with his arrogant demeanor. On his first trip to Johannesburg in 1983, Abramoff met with leaders from the archconservative, pro-apartheid National Students Federation, which itself is alleged to have been created by South Africa's notorious Bureau of Security Services. Together with NSF member Russel Crystal -- today a prominent South African politician in the Democratic Alliance, an anti-African National Congress party -- Abramoff subsequently, in 1986, chaired the head of a conservative think tank called the International Freedom Foundation.
The creation of the IFF officially marked the beginning of the silly phase of Abramoff's career. According to testimony before Democratic South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1995, the IFF was not a conservative think tank but actually a front for the South African army. Testimony in sealed TRC hearings reportedly reveal that the IFF was known by the nickname "Pacman" in the South African army and that its activities were part of a larger plan called "Operation Babushka," designed to use propaganda to discredit the ANC and Nelson Mandela at home and abroad. Among other things, Abramoff managed during this time to funnel funds and support from the IFF to a variety of stalwart congressmen and senators, including Rep. Dan Burton and Sen. Jesse Helms, all of whom consistently opposed congressional resolutions against apartheid. These members of Congress would deny knowing that the IFF's money came from the South African government, because that, of course, would have been illegal; Abramoff himself denied it too, although he has been largely quiet on the subject since the TRC testimony in 1995.
In a hilarious convergence of ordinary workaday incompetence and pointlessly secretive cloak-and-dagger horseshit, Operation Babushka's grand opus would ultimately turn out to be the production of the 1989 Dolph Lundgren vehicle Red Scorpion, in which American moviegoers were invited to care about an anti-communist revolutionary targeted for execution by a sweat-drenched jungle version of Lundgren's overacting Ivan Drago persona. The film, which Abramoff wrote and produced, was instantly derided by critics around the world as one of the stupidest movies ever made.
Veteran character actor Carmen Argenziano, who played the heavy, Col. Zayas, in Red Scorpion, recalls the "Cimino-esque" film shoot in Namibia as one of the most surreal experiences of his career. "It was pretty weird," he says. "What was going on was fishy, and then in the middle of production the word spread that there was some kind of weird South African/CIA connection. And that bummed everyone out."
Argenziano, whom history will likely absolve for being, with Lundgren, one half of the film's only memorable scene, which also perhaps represents the apex of Jack Abramoff's literary career (Argenziano: "Are you out of your mind?" Lundgren: "No. Just out of bullets"), laughs almost nonstop as he recalls his Namibia experiences.
"We were all staying in this hotel called the Kalahari Sands in Windhoek, the capital," he says. "There was this huge new escalator in the hotel. I guess it was the only one in the country, because little African kids kept coming in to stare at it. But the South Africans we had on the shoot [Abramoff was reportedly provided free labor by the South African army] kept shooing them away, literally pushing kids off the escalator, shouting these racist words at them. Wasn't exactly good for morale."
The Eighties show Abramoff involved in a series of almost comic backroom escapades, the most famous being the organization of a sort of trade convention for anti-communist rebel leaders in Jamba, Angola. There are not many facts on the record about this incident, but what is known smacks of an articulate young Darth Vader putting out scones and lemonade at a sand-planet meeting of the leading bounty-hunter scum in the universe. Under the auspices of the Citizens for America, a group founded by Rite Aid drugstore magnate and one-time New York gubernatorial candidate Lewis Lehrman at the request of Ronald Reagan, Abramoff helped organize a meeting of anti-communist rebels that included Angolan UNITA fighters, Afghan mujahedin, Laotian guerrillas and Nicaraguan Contras.
Some reports speculate that the meeting was convened so that one of the Americans -- perhaps Abramoff or Lehrman -- could pass along a message of support from the White House. But it's more likely that this will be just another Abramoff episode to remain shrouded in mystery. Twenty-one years later, Lehrman won't say what it was all about, noting that "I do not recall if there was a White House message discussion" and adding only that "there were very many anti-communist individuals present in Jamba."
Abramoff's CFA experience was extensive enough, however, to make him a character in the Iran-Contra scandal. His ostensible role was to raise support for the Contras through the CFA. "Abramoff was a bit player in Iran-Contra," says Jack Blum, a Washington lawyer who served as a special counsel to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the Iran-Contra investigation. "That's where he learned that the money wasn't in the ideological skulduggery world. It was in the go-buy-the-government world." But, Blum adds, Abramoff's experiences with various conservative foundations and nonprofits during this period proved valuable later on. "This is when he made all his connections," he says. "It was through them that he learned that it was much more lucrative to work in the commercial end of politics."
Abramoff, Norquist and Reed were all in their mid-to-late twenties, and all were experiencing paradigmatic life changes. While Abramoff was joining such groups as the Council for National Policy, the CFA and the United States of America Foundation, Norquist was founding Americans for Tax Reform, the organization he would later ride to prominence as a fat, hygienically deficient tax-policy oracle. Reed, meanwhile, was recovering from the trauma of an April 1983 incident in which he was reportedly caught plagiarizing for his student newspaper a Commentary article denouncing Mohandas Gandhi. A few months after that setback, however, Reed found Jesus in a phone booth outside the Bullfeathers pub in Washington -- and by 1985 he, too, had found his calling, terrorizing abortion clinics with the Students for America, a sort of pale precursor to the Christian Coalition.
There is a common thread running through almost all of Abramoff's activities during this tadpole period of his in the Eighties. Suggested in his every action is an utter contempt for legal governmental processes; he behaves as if ordinary regulations are for suckers and the uncommitted. If the government won't step up to the plate and sign off on support for the Contras, you go through channels and do it yourself. If you really want to win an election, you find ways around finance laws and spending limits. And if you want to oppose a national anti-apartheid movement on the country's campuses, don't waste time building from the ground up; go straight to Pretoria and bring home a few million dollars in a bag.
One of the ugliest developments in American culture since Abramoff's obscure Cold Warrior days in the Eighties has been the raging but highly temporary success of various "smart guys" who upon closer examination aren't all that smart. There was BALCO steroid scum Victor Conte ("The smartest son of a bitch I ever met in my life," said one Olympian client), Enron's "smartest guys in the room" Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay, and, finally, "ingenious dealmaker" Jack Abramoff. Somewhere along the line, in the years since the Cold War, Americans as a whole became such craven, bum-licking, self-absorbed fat cats that they were willing to listen to these fifth-rate prophets who pretended that the idea that rules could be broken was some kind of earth-shattering revelation -- as though they had fucking invented fraud and cheating. But to a man, they all turned out to be dumb, incompetent fuckups, destined to bring us all down with them -- not even good at being criminals.
* * * *
All of Abramoff's late-career capers -- the inner-city youth charity that actually bought sniper scopes for Israeli settlers, the academic think tank that turned out to be a lifeguard in a shack on Rehoboth Beach, the "check's in the mail" fleecing of his own tailor out of a bill for suits -- they all exude the same infuriating "Check out the brains on us!" vibe.
Take the infamous Naftasib scheme of 1997-98. The short version of this story is that Abramoff and Tom DeLay met with a bunch of shady Russian oil executives in 1997; the Russians then sent $1 million to a British law firm called James and Sarch; James and Sarch then sent a million to the pompously named nonprofit "U.S. Family Network," which in turn sent money to numerous destinations. It went to a lobbyist agency called the Alexander Strategy Group that was run by DeLay's ex-chief of staff, Edwin Buckham; the agency would subsequently hire DeLay's wife at a salary of $3,200 a month. It went toward the purchase of a luxury D.C. town house that DeLay would use to raise money. And it went toward the purchase of a luxury box at FedExField, which Abramoff used to watch the Redskins. If you follow the loop all the way around, the quid pro quo probably involved DeLay's 1998 decision to support an IMF loan to Russia, whose economy collapsed that year and would rely on an IMF bailout to survive. A Maryland pastor named Christopher Geeslin, who briefly served as the U.S. Family Network's president, would later say that Buckham told him that the $1 million from the Russians was intended to influence DeLay's decision regarding funding for the IMF. DeLay ended up voting to replenish IMF funds in September of that year, right at the time of the bailout.
Is this smart? Sure, if you're fucking ten years old. If your idea of smart is turning an IMF loan into Redskins tickets, then, yeah, this is smart. But another way to look at it is that these assholes got themselves Redskins tickets by giving $18 billion to one of the most corrupt governments on Earth. I'd call that buying at a premium.
That's the most striking characteristic of Abramoff and his crew of ex-student leaders; nearly thirty years out of college, no longer young at all, the whole bunch of them are still Dean Wormer's sneaky little shits, high-fiving one another for executing the brilliant theft and pre-dawn public hanging of the rival college's stuffed-bear mascot. That whole adolescent vibe permeates the confiscated Abramoff e-mails, the best example of which being this exchange between Jack and his "evil elf" aide Michael Scanlon regarding their lobbying fees for the Coushatta Indian tribe:
Scanlon: Coushatta is an absolute cake walk. Your cut on the project as proposed is at least 800k.
Abramoff: How can I say this strongly enough: YOU IZ DA MAN
Again, these assholes affirm every stereotype about campus conservatives. They don't spend enough time being kids when they're supposed to, so they do it when they're balding, middle-aged men with handles and back hair -- using Washington and Congress as their own personal sandbox.
They figured out how to beat everything. Everything about the Abramoff story suggests that at some point, he and his buddies Norquist, Reed and DeLay took a long, hard look at the American system, war-gamed it and came up with a master plan to strike hard at its weakest points. In the end, almost all of the Abramoff scams revolved around the vulnerability of the national legislature to outside manipulation. Once Abramoff and his cabal figured out how to beat Congress, everything else fell into place.
Case in point: Abramoff's remarkable success in defeating H.R. 521, a 2001 House bill that would place the Guam Superior Court under the control of a federally controlled Supreme Court. Led by Judge Alberto Lamorena, Guam Superior Court justices hired the lobbyist to defeat the bill, which would have unseated them as the chief judicial authorities of the island. It says something for Abramoff's ability to bring out the worst in people that he managed to get a group of sitting judges to pay him $324,000 in public funds in $9,000 installments so as to avoid detection.
Despite the $324,000 fee, Abramoff could not prevent the House Resources committee from unanimously recommending H.R. 521 for passage. Would the superlobbyist finally fail? No, of course not. Given what we know about Abramoff's tactics, we'd be naive not to conclude that he could lean on DeLay and then-Whip Roy Blunt to stall the bill in the congressional machinery. On May 27th, 2002, just five days after the Resources committee made its recommendation, an Abramoff-linked PAC wrote two checks for $5,000 -- one to Blunt, one to DeLay. H.R. 521 never reached the floor.
The Guam incident certainly shows how easily the whole Congress was controlled by a small gang. The DeLay Republicans, along with Abramoff, were apparently the first to recognize the opportunities for corruption presented by the House leadership's dictatorial control over key committees, in particular the Rules committee. Now, a single call to a lone Tom DeLay could decide the fate of any piece of legislation, pushing it through to a vote or gumming it up in the works as needed. The other 430-odd congressmen were window dressing.
I asked Rep. Louise Slaughter if the Guam case, which showed that just two men could quash a bill, proved that Congress was especially vulnerable to manipulation by the likes of Abramoff.
"Absolutely," she said. "And the thing is, we have no idea how many incidents like that there were. What else didn't get to the floor? We have no idea. No way of knowing."
Even more ominously, Abramoff would eventually come under fire in Guam following the mysterious removal of Guam Attorney General Frederick Black, who had seen the fate of H.R. 521 and decided to investigate Abramoff's role in it.
"The thing that really worries me about Guam is the prosecutor who was plucked off the case," says Slaughter, a New York Democrat who has spearheaded her party's lobby-reform drive. "It makes you wonder what really went on there."
At the very least, Abramoff's relationship with White House procurements officer David Safavian shows that he made at least some inroads into the world of White House patronage. Abramoff took Safavian on one of his famous Scotland golfing junkets and reportedly was receiving help from Safavian in leasing government property. Safavian was working on the distribution of millions in federal aid to Katrina-affected regions when he was arrested, which raises all kinds of questions about what else might have been going on.
"There were so many contracts, from Katrina to Iraq -- God knows what really went on in there," says Slaughter.
Once Congress was conquered, Abramoff, Norquist, et al., apparently discovered a means for turning it into a pure engine for profit. The game they may have discovered worked like this: One lobbyist (Abramoff, say) represents one group of interests -- for example, the Malaysian government. Then, a lobbyist friend of Abramoff's (say, Norquist) represents an antagonist to Abramoff's client, in this case, let's say dissident leader Anwar Ibrahim. Ibrahim asks Norquist to press his case against the Malaysian state in Washington; Norquist complies and uses his contacts to raise a stink on the Hill. Abramoff's client, unnerved, turns to Abramoff to make the problem go away. Abramoff dutifully goes to the same friends Norquist applied to in the first place, and the problem does indeed go away. In the end, everyone is happy and both lobbyists have performed and gotten paid. Abramoff apparently pulled this kind of double-dealing scheme more than once, as he and Ralph Reed appear to have run a similar con on the Coushatta and Tigua Indian tribes, who were on opposite sides of a gaming dispute.
An idiot might call a scheme like this clever. But that's only true if you don't consider what really happened here: Dozens of people conspiring to reduce the U.S. Congress to the level of a Belarussian rubber stamp for the sake of . . . what? A few million dollars in lobbying fees? And not even a few million dollars apiece but a few million dollars split several ways. Shit, even Paris Hilton can make a million dollars in this country without blowing up 200 years of democracy. How smart can these guys be?
Everyone sold themselves on the cheap. They apparently got Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), and many others in the House, to lie back and open their legs all the way for a few thousand dollars in campaign contributions. In the Third World, corrupt politicians at least get something for selling out the people -- boats, mansions, villas in the south of France. If you offered the lowest, most drunken ex-mobster in the Russian Duma $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 in soft money for his vote, he would laugh in your face; he might even be insulted enough to shoot you. But Jack Abramoff apparently got any number of congressmen to play ball for the same kind of money.
They paid journalists to change their opinions; as it turns out, the right to free speech is worth about $2,000 a column to America's journalists like Doug Bandow of Copley News Service. And now it comes out that Diebold, the notorious voting-machine company, paid some $275,000 to Abramoff's firm, Greenberg Traurig, with the apparent aim of keeping legislation requiring paper trails in the voting process from getting into the Help America Vote Act. Conveniently, Abramoff pal Bob Ney, one of the HAVA architects, blocked every attempt to put paper trails into law, even after the controversial electoral debacles of 2000 and 2004.
They targeted Congress, the courts, the integrity of elections, and the free press, and in every corner they found willing partners who could be had for a few bucks and a package of golf tees. That doesn't mean Jack Abramoff was so very smart. No, what that says is that America is no longer trying very hard. And when Jack Abramoff hears his sentence, ours will certainly be made plain soon after. Jack Abramoff was the Patient Zero of Washington corruption. He's the girl at school that everyone got a piece of, including two janitors in their forties. It strains all credulity to think that he's been talking to the Department of Justice for months and yet prosecutors still have to "encircle" a lone congressman, Bob Ney, as has been reported. If Ney is the big target the government made a deal with Abramoff for, we'll know we've been had again.
"If you're venal and cunning enough, like him, you can do it," says Slaughter, when asked if the American system has become easy to beat. "But he had a lot of help."
MATT TAIBBI
Rolling Stone Magazine
Posted Mar 24, 2006 11:42 AM -
Preventable Disease Blinds Poor in Third World
Mariella Furrer/Think, for The New York Times
After undergoing surgery for trachiasis on both her eyes, Mare Aleghan, 42yrs old, sits in a house in Forgera, Ethiopia, where she and her daughter were accommodated for free by a stranger.
March 31, 2006
On the Brink | Trachoma
Preventable Disease Blinds Poor in Third World
By CELIA W. DUGGER
ALEMBER, Ethiopia Mare Alehegn lay back nervously on the metal operating table, her heart visibly pounding beneath her sackcloth dress, and clenched her fists as the paramedic sliced into her eyelid. Repeated infections had scarred the undersides of her eyelids, causing them to contract and forcing her lashes in on her eyes. For years, each blink felt like thorns raking her eyeballs. She had plucked the hairs with crude tweezers, but the stubble grew back sharper still.
The scratching, for Mrs. Alehegn, 42, and millions worldwide, gradually clouds the eyeball, dimming vision and, if left untreated, eventually leads to a life shrouded in darkness. This is late-stage trachoma, a neglected disease of neglected people, and a preventable one, but for a lack of the modest resources that could defeat it.
This operation, which promised to lift the lashes off Mrs. Alehegn's lacerated eyes, is a 15-minute procedure so simple that a health worker with a few weeks of training can do it. The materials cost about $10.
The operation, performed last year, would not only deliver Mrs. Alehegn from disabling pain and stop the damage to her corneas, but it also would hold out hope of a new life for her daughter, Enatnesh, who waited vigilantly outside the operating room door at the free surgery camp here.
Mrs. Alehegn's husband left her years ago when the disease rendered her unable to do a wife's work. At 6, Enatnesh was forced to choose between a father who could support her, or a lifetime of hard labor to help a mother who had no one else to turn to.
"I chose my mother," said the frail, pigtailed slip of a girl, so ill fed that she looked closer to 10 than her current age, 16. "If I hadn't gone with her, she would have died. No one was there to even give her a glass of water."
Their tale is common among trachoma sufferers. Trachoma's blinding damage builds over decades of repeated infections that begin in babies. The infections are spread from person to person, or by hungry flies that feed from seeping eyes.
In large part because women look after the children, and children are the most heavily infected, women are three times more likely to get the blinding, late stage of the disease.
For many women, the pain and eventual blindness ensure a life of deepening destitution and dependency. They become a burden on daughters and granddaughters, making trachoma a generational scourge among women and girls who are often already the most vulnerable of the poor.
Trachoma disappeared from the United States and Europe as living standards improved, but remains endemic in much of Africa and parts of Latin America and Asia, its last, stubborn redoubts. The World Health Organization estimates that 70 million people are infected with it. Five million suffer from its late stages. And two million are blind because of it.
A million people like Mrs. Alehegn need the eyelid surgery in Ethiopia alone. Yet last year only 60,000 got it, all paid for by nonprofit groups like the Carter Center, Orbis and Christian Blind Mission International.
As prevalent as trachoma remains, the W.H.O. has made the blinding late stage of the disease a target for eradication within a generation because, in theory at least, everything needed to vanquish it is available. Controlling trachoma depends on relatively simple advances in hygiene, antibiotics and the inexpensive operation that was performed on Mrs. Alehegn.
But the extent of the disease far exceeds the money and medical workers available. In poor countries like this one, faced with epidemics of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, a disease like trachoma, which disables and blinds, has difficulty competing with those big killers.
Dr. Abebe Eshetu, a health official here in Ethiopia's Amhara region, described the resources available for trachoma as "a cup of water in the ocean."
Nowhere is the need greater than across this harsh rural landscape.
As dawn broke one day last year, hundreds of people desperate for relief streamed into an eyelid surgery camp run by the government and paid for by the Carter Center. Some of the oldest had walked days on feet twisted by arthritis to get here.
The throng spread across the scrubby land around a small health clinic. They wrapped shawls around their heads to shield themselves from sun and dust, made all the more agonizing by their affliction. Their cheeks were etched with the salty tracks of tears.
'Hair in the Eye'
Typical of those was Mrs. Alehegn, led stumbling and barefoot through stony fields by Enatnesh, who worriedly shielded her mother under a faded black umbrella.
As they waited their turn, Mrs. Alehegn explained that her troubles began more than 15 years ago when she developed "hair in the eye," as trachoma is known here. The pain made it impossible for her to cook over smoky dung fires, hike to distant wells for water or work in dusty fields, the essential duties of a wife.
Gradually the affliction soured her relationship with her husband, Asmare Demissie, who divorced her a decade ago, so he could marry a healthy woman.
"When I stopped getting up in the morning to do the housecleaning, when I stopped helping with the farm work, we started fighting," Mrs. Alehegn said.
The operation she had come for is still exceedingly rare in Ethiopia. Only 76 ophthalmologists practice in this vast nation of 70 million people. Most work in the capital, Addis Ababa, not in the rural areas where trachoma reigns.
Because of the extreme doctor shortage, nonprofit groups have paid for the training of ordinary government health workers over two to four weeks to do the eyelid surgery. The Carter Center, which favors a month of training, estimates the cost at $600 per worker, plus $800 for two surgical instrument kits for each of them.
Those trained make an incision that runs the length of the eyelid's underside, through the cartilagelike plate, then lift the side of the lid fringed with the eyelashes outward. Then they stitch the two sides back together. The patient is given a local anesthetic.
The operation cannot undo the damage already done to corneas, which makes the abraded eyes vulnerable to infections. But it can stop further injury. And because the disease often takes decades to render its victims blind, the operation can save a woman's sight and halt disabling pain.
For Mrs. Alehegn, the surgery was her second. Her plight is typical, for trachoma is both a disease of poverty and a disease that causes poverty.
After separating from her husband, she, Enatnesh and another daughter, Adelogne, then just 4, moved to a small, poor piece of land belonging to Mrs. Alehegn's family. About a year later, Mrs. Alehegn scraped together enough money for her first eyelid surgery. But as she aged, the underside of her eyelids scarred by past trachoma infections continued to shrink, turning her lashes inward again.
In recent years, her poverty was so dire she could not afford to have the surgery again. Her only income was the dollar or so a week that Enatnesh collected when she went to market to sell the cotton fabric her mother wove. They were so poor they could not afford even 15 cents for soap.
"If I get my health back, it means everything," Mrs. Alehegn said. "I'll be able to work and support my family."
The others who journeyed to the camp told many such stories of hardship. In a land where early death is commonplace, some of those with the disease see their wounded eyes, ceaselessly leaking tears, as a kind of stigmata of sorrow.
Banchiayehu Gonete, an elderly widow, said three of her eight children had died young. The bitterest loss was of her eldest daughter, carried off by malaria at 40 with a baby still inside her. It was this daughter who had plucked her in-turned lashes, cooked for her and kept her company.
"God killed my children," said Mrs. Gonete, old and wrinkled, but unsure of her age. "I feel this pain as part of my mourning."
Nearby, Tsehainesh Beryihun, 10, sat with her grandmother, Yamrot Mekonen. Trachoma ended the girl's childhood years ago.
When her parents divorced, her mother gave Tsehainesh, then just a baby, to her paternal grandmother. As the old woman's sight failed, Tsehainesh became her servant. Since she was 7, she has fetched water, cooked, cleaned, collected dung and wood for the fire and swept the dirt floors, her grandmother said.
The girl sees her half brothers and sisters, the children of her father's second marriage, happily dashing to school, while she lives apart, her days filled with the grinding work of tending to a sickly, demanding old woman.
Her grandmother explained that the girl owes her. "I've supported her this far," Mrs. Mekonen said impassively, "so now it's her turn to support me."
Tsehainesh wept bitterly as her grandmother spoke, refusing to utter a word.
Ending Disability and Dependency
To break this cycle of debilitation and dependency, the goal is not eradication of the eye infections themselves, which most agree is neither practical nor necessary, but rather to reduce their frequency and intensity, a more achievable goal. This would avoid development of the devastating late stage of trachoma, called trichiasis, that makes surgery the sufferers' only salvation.
Toward that end, the World Health Organization has approved a strategy known as SAFE, an acronym that stands for surgery, antibiotics, face washing and environmental change, notably improved access to latrines and water.
Already, some researchers say, the growing use of antibiotics around the world to treat infections, even those unrelated to trachoma, has probably contributed to trachoma's decline. That is true even in very poor countries where there is no organized effort to tackle the disease, like Nepal and Malawi, they say.
The use of Zithromax, an antibiotic manufactured by Pfizer, has proved a breakthrough. The most common alternative is a cheap, messy antibiotic ointment that has to be applied twice daily to the eyes for six weeks. Zithromax, in contrast, can be taken in a single dose making compliance easier and distribution to millions simpler.
By 2008, Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, will have donated 145 million doses for trachoma control. Its contribution is administered by the International Trachoma Initiative, a nonprofit group. The drug has been provided in 11 of the 55 countries where trachoma remains a problem.
But globally, the World Health Organization estimates that at least 350 million people need the antibiotics once a year for three years to bring infection rates under control.
That equals more than a billion doses of azithromycin, the generic name for Zithromax. Trachoma is so rampant here in Ethiopia that an estimated 60 million people, or 86 percent of the country's population, need the drug.
Pfizer has not officially announced any additional donations, but Dr. Joseph M. Feczko, a Pfizer vice president, says the company will provide whatever is needed. "There's no cap or limit on this," he said. "We're in it for the long haul."
But even free drugs cost money to distribute. No global estimates are available for carrying out the SAFE strategy for trachoma control, but the Ethiopian government, beset by competing social problems, would have to come up with $30 million to reach even half the people who need the antibiotic, and $20 million more for public education on basic hygiene.
For now, the aim here is a more modest effort at localized control, but even that will not be easy.
An Ancient Scourge
Chlamydia trachomatis, the microorganism that causes trachoma, has been a source of misery for millennia, thriving in poor, crowded and unsanitary conditions. In ancient Egypt, in-turned eyelashes were plucked, then treated with a mixture of frankincense, lizard dung and donkey blood. In Victorian England, infected children were isolated in separate schools.
At the turn of the century, doctors at Ellis Island used a buttonhook to examine the undersides of immigrants' eyelids. Those with signs of trachoma were often shipped back to their home countries.
Swarming Musca sorbens flies play an ignominious role in spreading the disease. They crave eye discharge and pick up chlamydia as they burrow greedily, maddeningly into infected eyes.
"They cluster shoulder to shoulder around an infected eye," said Paul Emerson, the entomologist who did pioneering work on the role of the flies in spreading trachoma and who now runs the Carter Center's trachoma control program.
So inescapable, so persistent are they here in the Amhara region that children learn not to bother shooing them away. Even at the surgery camp, flies buzzed through the chicken wire that covered the windows of cramped operating rooms, harassing trachoma victims at the moment they sought relief.
Once the eggs of a female fly are ripe, she lays them in her preferred breeding medium, human feces, plentiful because most people here go to the bathroom outdoors.
But the flies cannot breed in simple, inexpensive pit latrines, Mr. Emerson said. He said he does not yet know why, but he thinks that a competing species that does thrive in latrines may eat the Musca sorbens maggots.
Ethiopia is now making a national effort to get people to build latrines, training thousands of village health workers to spread the word. It is also teaching children the importance of face washing in school.
But soap and water are scarce, too. Women often walk hours a day to wells to carry home precious pots of water balanced on their heads. And soap is a luxury for the poorest of the poor.
For those like Mrs. Alehegn, with late stage trachoma, surgery will continue to be necessary.
When her operation was complete, the health worker who performed it, Mola Dessie, pressed white cotton pads on Mrs. Alehegn's eyes to soak up the blood and applied antibiotic ointment to prevent infection. Then he covered her eyes with bandages.
Enatnesh wrapped her mother's head in a dingy cloth and slipped her stick-thin arm around her mother's waist to lead her away.
Mrs. Alehegn, who is illiterate, says she hopes that once she heals she will be able to weave more cloth, earn more money and do the domestic chores, leaving Enatnesh freer to pursue an education. "I don't want her to live my life," she said.
Despite her dependence on her daughter, Mrs. Alehegn has allowed the girl to go to school. Enatnesh, though having fallen behind, is a diligent fifth grader at age 16, who proudly said she is ranked 5th out of 74 students in her class. She dreams of being a doctor.
Two days after her mother's surgery, Enatnesh led the way to her father's sturdily built hut a couple of hours walk away. There, as his second wife swept the compound and Enatnesh's 9-year-old half-brother sat in the shade, Mr. Demissie, 58, offered a regretful explanation for his decision to divorce his first wife.
He, too, had developed "hair in the eye," he said. And like his wife, he, too, had been forced to stop working. If they had not separated, he reckoned, they would both have died. Finally, Mr. Demissie decided to save himself.
His sick wife would never find anyone else to marry, he realized. But for him, a new, hardworking wife would provide a second chance. And after his marriage, he got the surgery to prevent his own blindness.
"If we had not been sick," he said sadly, "we would have raised our children together."
As he spoke, Enatnesh listened sorrowfully, her hand cupped over her mouth, her head bent low.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Questions for George Saunders
Hal Silverman for The New York Times
April 9, 2006
Questions for George Saunders
The Stuff of Fiction
Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
Q: Your new collection of short stories, "In Persuasion Nation," presents America as a commerce-saturated but happy place where children go to live with market-research firms and giant Twinkies run through fields of flowers. Is it fair to call you an ecstatic appreciator of trash culture?
Excuse me. Can we require readers to read my books before they continue with this interview?
No, I am afraid not. What are you hoping they might gain?
When you read a short story, you come out a little more aware and a little more in love with the world around you. What I want is to have the reader come out just 6 percent more awake to the world.
But more awake to what, exactly? To talking Dorito chips, which play a part in the title story in your new collection?
Everything in the world is holy and unholy at the same time. If we didn't have that part of us that craved Doritos, then they wouldn't exist. I'm actually working on a story now that is all product names. There's not even a verb.
But some product names double as verbs. Like Bounce. Or Shout, the stain remover.
Or Pampers. What about Swiffers? That sounds like a verb.
What are Swiffers?
You get this handle and there's this box of citrus-scented wet towels that you put on there. How is that for an articulate description? It's this thing that you put on the end of a thing!
Although you're often described as a dark satirist of American culture, your work is essentially a nostalgia fest. Like Pop Art, it drips with sentiment about things it pretends to ridicule.
When I was a kid, I took "The Brady Bunch" and "The Partridge Family" very seriously. It was a world to me in the same way that the Greek myths would have been had I read them. You know, Marcia is Athena and Mr. Brady is Zeus.
It's true that "The Brady Bunch" creates its own imaginative universe, somewhat like fiction or any art form. You cannot say that about today's reality shows.
I agree, "The Brady Bunch" can seem utopian compared to "American Idol" or "The Bachelor" or "Swapping Grandma" or "America's Bravest Hottie Midgets."
What is the connection between television and the arc of our lives?
I don't think it is a coincidence that we got into Iraq in the wake of Monica Lewinsky and O. J. and the round-the-clock television coverage of them. There has got to be a causal connection between the kind of small-bite thinking that we started to accept around the time of Monica and our incredible gullibility vis--vis Iraq.
Can you tell us about your background as a former engineer from Chicago?
When I was younger, I had this idea that I would write the big novel and get the big score. Instead, I went to this college called the Colorado School of Mines, and the best thing that ever happened to me is that nothing happened in writing. I ended up working for engineering companies, and that's where I found my material, in the everyday struggle between capitalism and grace. Being broke and tired, you don't come home your best self.
These days you're teaching at Syracuse University and you've published two other short-story collections, "Pastoralia" and "CivilWarLand in Bad Decline." Might you try writing a novel in the future?
I just did. It's very innovative. It is only 25 pages long.
Ha, ha. I see you've also published a children's book, "The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip," which will be rereleased this month.
I wrote it for my two daughters when they were little. That for me was the big turning point in my artistic life, when my wife and I had our kids. The world got infused with morality again. Every person in the world should theoretically be loved as much as I love my daughters. It's that Martin Buber "I and Thou" thing. Even this lowly wino was once somebody's beloved son. Or should have been.
How much do you think we owe that wino?
Chekhov put it best. He said every happy man should have an unhappy man in his closet, with a hammer, to remind him that not everyone is happy.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Today's Papers
Three Feet Higher
By Joshua Kucera
Posted Thursday, April 13, 2006, at 5:32 AM ET
The Washington Post leads with the release of the long-awaited federal government guidelines for rebuilding New Orleans and a $2.5 billion plan for levee reconstruction. Under the plans, 98 percent of the population in the New Orleans area would be able to return to their homes. The top nonlocal New York Times story is the Zacarias Moussaoui trial and the first public playing of the cockpit recording of United Flight 93. That story also led the Wall Street Journal's world-wide newsbox and was fronted by USA Today. The Los Angeles Times leads, at least online, with a follow-up to its amazing stories of flash memory drives with highly sensitive U.S. military data being sold in bazaars in Afghanistan.
USA Today leads with the FBI's caseload of white-collar and drug crimes dropping dramatically. Since 2001, when the bureau started focusing more on terrorism, the overall number of FBI-led prosecutions has declined 25 percent. At the same time the number of terrorism-related cases and convictionsstill a small portion of the FBI's total workloadhas risen rapidly. But the paper notes that the average prison sentence for the terrorism cases is half that for drug convictions. One analyst suggests the bureau may be padding its numbers by labeling immigration violations as terrorism.
The post-Katrina New Orleans plan would require most homeowners to raise the levels of their houses to 3 feet above the grounda curious figure, given that the water was so much higher than that in so much of the city. One expert calls the 3-foot requirement "wacky." Less wacky is the cost of raising a house that muchabout $60,000, according to USA Today. The NYT emphasizes the relative lenience of the rebuilding guidelines, given many residents' worries that parts of the city would be abandoned. The WP focuses instead on the possibility that Louisiana may have to pay as much as $900 million of the levee-reconstruction costs.
The tape of Flight 93which was played as the culmination of the prosecution's case that Moussaoui should get the death penaltydepicted an "animalistic" struggle in the cockpit as passengers tried to break in to thwart the hijacking plot. The descriptions of the tape are riveting, so those of us not in the courtroom can only imagine how it was to actually hear it. Still, none of the papers really address what relevance the tape had to the Moussaoui case. As the Post puts it, "The trial seemed an afterthought yesterday amid the drama of the recording."
In the latest episode in the flash drive series, the Times reporter buys a drive for $40 containing detailed information about Afghan spies employed by the United States. Intelligence seems to be one of the few things the military doesn't overpay forone Afghan spying on al-Qaida gets $15 for every successful mission. Among other helpful information on the drive: the layout and defense plans of a (formerly) "low-visibility" special operations base in southern Afghanistan. The top U.S. commander in the country has ordered a review of how soldiers keep track of computer hardware.
The LAT also fronts a poll showing that a large majority of Americans supports an immigration plan that would both tighten enforcement of the border and create a guest-worker program, rather than an enforcement-only approach. Any plan containing amnesty seems not to have been polled. The same survey showed 49 percent of Americans planned to vote for a Democrat in the Congressional elections this fall, and 35 percent for Republicans. It also showed that 40 percent of Americans don't support military action against Iran even if Tehran continues to get closer to having nuclear weapons, as opposed to 48 percent who would support an attack.* If the U.S. attacks, a fearless 25 percent favor sending in ground troops.
The Post fronts, and LAT stuffs, another general piling on the criticism of Donald Rumsfeld. This time it's a former division commander in Iraq.
The conflict in Darfur could be spreading: Early-morning wire reports say there has been heavy fighting inside Chad's capitol. Chadian rebels based in Darfur are clashing with government forces and appear to be intent on taking the capital. France is bolstering the contingent of 1,200 troops it maintains in Chad.
Michael Jackson is close to a deal that would involve him selling one of his prized assetshis share in a catalog of 4,000 songs including most of the Beatles' hits, the NYT reports. Jackson bought the publishing rights to the songs for $47.5 million in 1984 but is in "a lengthy slide toward insolvency," as the Times puts it, and is trying to stave off bankruptcy by refinancing hundreds of millions in loans. The catalog also includes songs by Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond, and Garth Brooks.
Correction, April 13, 2006: This article originally and incorrectly stated that a Los Angeles Times poll found that 48 percent of respondents would not support military action against Iran if the country continued to develop nuclear weapons materials, while 40 percent of respondents would support military action. In fact, 48 percent of respondents stated that they would support military action, while 40 percent would not. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
Joshua Kucera is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
U.N. Atomic Agency Investigates Iran's Claims
Islamic Republic News Agency, via Reuters
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, who said on Wednesday that Iranian scientists had enriched uranium to a high level.
U.N. Atomic Agency Investigates Iran's Claims
The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency said during a visit to Tehran today that inspectors took samples to confirm that Iran had enriched uranium to 3.5 percent, a low level used to fuel nuclear power stations.
The collection of samples is part of a routine verification process in nuclear inspection.
Hoping to help Iran avoid a confrontation with the West, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the agency, held talks with Iranian officials today at the start of visit intended to persuade Iran to take measures to reassure the international community, including the suspension of uranium enrichment until "outstanding issues are clarified."
But the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, set the stage for the visit by declaring earlier today that Iran would refuse to talk with Dr. ElBaradei about its right to perform enrichment, and he lashed out again at Western critics.
"Our answer to those who are angry about Iran obtaining the full nuclear cycle is one phrase we say: Be angry and die of this anger," he said in comments to the IRNA news agency in Iran.
With nationalistic fanfare, Mr. Ahmadinejad announced Tuesday that Iran had joined the group of nuclear nations after successfully enriching uranium to 3.5 percent at the laboratory level and said Tehran was determined to develop its nuclear program on an industrial scale.
"I cannot confirm that," Dr. ElBaradei said, when asked about the enrichment.
"Our inspectors have taken samples," he said in remarks that were reported by news agencies after he held talks with Iranian officials. "They will report to the board."
Iran tried to use the announcement to political advantage and position itself as having accomplished a step in its nuclear program that was unstoppable, despite Western pressure to suspend it.
Dr. ElBaradei held talks today with Ali Larijani, the chief nuclear negotiator. An I.A.E.A, spokeswoman, Melissa Fleming, told CNN in an interview broadcast from Tehran that no commitments to suspend enrichment were made by Iran "at this point."
Iran's announcement brought criticism from several Western nations and to a lesser degree from Russia and China. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has called for "strong steps" against Iran and for the United Nations Security Council to take action when it convenes again on the issue.
The White House has asserted that Iran is secretly trying to develop fuel for nuclear weapons and said after Mr. Ahmadinejad's remarks on Tuesday that Iran was "moving in the wrong direction."
Iran argues that it has the right to pursue a nuclear program that it says is for industrial purposes.
The deputy head of Iran's atomic energy organization, Muhammad Saeedi, said Wednesday that Iran would defy international pressure and rapidly expand its ability to enrich uranium for fuel by said pushing to put 54,000 centrifuges on line a vast increase from the 164 the Iranians said Tuesday that they had used to enrich uranium to 3.5 percent.
Western nuclear analysts said Tehran lacked the skills, materials and equipment to make good on its immediate nuclear ambitions. They said nothing had changed to alter current estimates of when Iran might be able to make a single nuclear weapon, assuming that is its ultimate goal. The United States government has estimated that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon in 5 to 10 years, and some analysts have said it could come as late as 2020.
The head of Russia's nuclear agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, flatly declared today that Mr. Saeedi's plans for a quick increase in production was not realistic.
"Industrial uranium enrichment is out of the question," given the state of Iran's program, he told Russia's state news agency.
China announced today that it would send a high-level envoy to Tehran and Moscow for talks on the issue, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. "China is concerned about the statement by the Iranian side and is worried about the way in which things are developing," said Liu Jianchao, a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
Dr. ElBaradei is required to report back to Security Council members by April 28 on whether Iran has agreed to the demand late last month that it shut down its nuclear facilities within 30 days.
Today, the American ambassador to the United Nations, John R. Bolton, said Washington was waiting for the outcome of the talks between Dr. ElBaradei and the Iranian government. "When we get information on that we will consider what to do next," he said.
March 26, 2006
-
Here's an Idea: Let Everyone Have Ideas
James Yang
Under New Management
Here's an Idea: Let Everyone Have Ideas
LIKE many top executives, James R. Lavoie and Joseph M. Marino keep a close eye on the stock market. But the two men, co-founders of Rite-Solutions, a software company that builds advanced — and highly classified — command-and-control systems for the Navy, don't worry much about Nasdaq or the New York Stock Exchange.
Instead, they focus on an internal market where any employee can propose that the company acquire a new technology, enter a new business or make an efficiency improvement. These proposals become stocks, complete with ticker symbols, discussion lists and e-mail alerts. Employees buy or sell the stocks, and prices change to reflect the sentiments of the company's engineers, computer scientists and project managers — as well as its marketers, accountants and even the receptionist.
"We're the founders, but we're far from the smartest people here," Mr. Lavoie, the chief executive, said during an interview at Rite-Solutions' headquarters outside Newport, R.I. "At most companies, especially technology companies, the most brilliant insights tend to come from people other than senior management. So we created a marketplace to harvest collective genius."
That's a refreshing dose of humility from a successful C.E.O. with decades of experience in his field. (Mr. Lavoie, 59, is a Vietnam War veteran and an accomplished engineer who has devoted his career to military-oriented technologies.)
Most companies operate under the assumption that big ideas come from a few big brains: the inspired founder, the eccentric inventor, the visionary boss. But there's a fine line between individual genius and know-it-all arrogance. What happens when rivals become so numerous, when technologies move so quickly, that no corporate honcho can think of everything? Then it's time to invent a less top-down approach to innovation, to make it everybody's business to come up with great ideas.
That's a key lesson behind the rise of open source technology, most notably Linux. A ragtag army of programmers organized into groups, wrote computer code, made the code available for anyone to revise and, by competing and cooperating in a global community, reshaped the market for software. The brilliance of Linux as a model of innovation is that it is powered by the grass-roots brilliance of the thousands of programmers who created it.
According to Tim O'Reilly, the founder and chief executive of O'Reilly Media, the computer book publisher, and an evangelist for open source technologies, creativity is no longer about which companies have the most visionary executives, but who has the most compelling "architecture of participation." That is, which companies make it easy, interesting and rewarding for a wide range of contributors to offer ideas, solve problems and improve products?
At Rite-Solutions, the architecture of participation is both businesslike and playful. Fifty-five stocks are listed on the company's internal market, which is called Mutual Fun. Each stock comes with a detailed description — called an expect-us, as opposed to a prospectus — and begins trading at a price of $10. Every employee gets $10,000 in "opinion money" to allocate among the offerings, and employees signal their enthusiasm by investing in a stock and, better yet, volunteering to work on the project. Volunteers share in the proceeds, in the form of real money, if the stock becomes a product or delivers savings.
Mr. Marino, 57, president of Rite-Solutions, says the market, which began in January 2005, has already paid big dividends. One of the earliest stocks (ticker symbol: VIEW) was a proposal to apply three-dimensional visualization technology, akin to video games, to help sailors and domestic-security personnel practice making decisions in emergency situations. Initially, Mr. Marino was unenthusiastic about the idea — "I'm not a joystick jockey" — but support among employees was overwhelming. Today, that product line, called Rite-View, accounts for 30 percent of total sales.
"Would this have happened if it were just up to the guys at the top?" Mr. Marino asked. "Absolutely not. But we could not ignore the fact that so many people were rallying around the idea. This system removes the terrible burden of us always having to be right."
Another virtue of the stock market, Mr. Lavoie added, is that it finds good ideas from unlikely sources. Among Rite-Solutions' core technologies are pattern-recognition algorithms used in military applications, as well as for electronic gambling systems at casinos, a big market for the company. A member of the administrative staff, with no technical expertise, thought that this technology might also be used in educational settings, to create an entertaining way for students to learn history or math.
She started a stock called Win/Play/Learn (symbol: WPL), which attracted a rush of investment from engineers eager to turn her idea into a product. Their enthusiasm led to meetings with Hasbro, up the road in Pawtucket, and Rite-Solutions won a contract to help it build its VuGo multimedia system, introduced last Christmas.
Mr. Lavoie called this innovation an example of the "quiet genius" that goes untapped inside most organizations. "We would have never connected those dots," he said. "But one employee floated an idea, lots of employees got passionate about it and that led to a new line of business."
The next frontier is to tap the quiet genius that exists outside organizations — to attract innovations from people who are prepared to work with a company, even if they don't work for it. An intriguing case in point is InnoCentive, a virtual research and development lab through which major corporations invite scientists and engineers worldwide to contribute ideas and solve problems they haven't been able to crack themselves.
InnoCentive, based in Andover, Mass., is literally a marketplace of ideas. It has signed up more than 30 blue-chip companies, including Procter & Gamble, Boeing and DuPont, whose research labs are groaning under the weight of unsolved problems and unfinished projects. It has also signed up more than 90,000 biologists, chemists and other professionals from more than 175 countries. These "solvers" compete to meet thorny technical challenges posted by "seeker" companies. Each challenge has a detailed scientific description, a deadline and an award, which can run as high as $100,000.
"We are talking about the democratization of science," said Alpheus Bingham, who spent 28 years as a scientist and senior research executive at Eli Lilly & Company before becoming the president and chief executive of InnoCentive. "What happens when you open your company to thousands and thousands of minds, each of them with a totally different set of life experiences?"
InnoCentive, founded as an independent start-up by Lilly in 2001, has an impressive record. It can point to a long list of valuable scientific ideas that have arrived, with surprising speed, from faraway places. In addition to the United States, the top countries for solvers are China, India and Russia.
Last month, InnoCentive attracted a $9 million infusion of venture capital to accelerate its growth. "There is a 'collective mind' out there," Dr. Bingham said. "The question for companies is, what fraction of it can you access?"
That remains an unanswered question at many companies, whose leaders continue to rely on their own brainpower as the key source of ideas. But there's evidence that more and more top executives are recognizing the limits of their individual genius.
Back at Rite-Solutions, for example, one of the most valuable stocks on Mutual Fun is the stock market itself (symbol: STK). So many executives from other companies have asked to study the system that a team championed the idea of licensing it as a product — another unexpected opportunity.
"There's nothing wrong with experience," said Mr. Marino, the company's president. "The problem is when experience gets in the way of innovation. As founders, the one thing we know is that we don't know all the answers."
American obstetricians are inducing labor more and more often
Eve Arnold/Magnum Photos
March 26, 2006
Phenomenon
Birth, Controlled
By TINA CASSIDY
Earlier this year, a pregnant Pittsburgh Steelers fan told local reporters that she had asked her doctor to induce labor early so she could watch the Super Bowl. Once her obstetrician determined that the procedure would be safe, and that the Steelers were in fact headed to the big game, he consented. (Ultimately, the woman went into spontaneous labor and gave birth naturally.)
While her request may be unusual for its frivolity, American obstetricians are inducing labor more and more often, sometimes for no other reason than that the mother wants it. As of last count, in 2003, one out of every five American births was induced — double the figure for 1990. It is a surprisingly high rate given induction's increased risk of fetal distress or a ruptured uterus. Inductions also make more likely a Caesarean birth — major abdominal surgery, with a long recovery period.
Of course, many induced labors are entirely appropriate. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' guidelines recommend induced labor if, for example, there is maternal high blood pressure, a placenta problem or early rupture of the amniotic sac that protects the fetus. Another legitimate reason is if a mother's pregnancy has lasted beyond her 40-week "due date." Due dates are notoriously fungible; the official medical term for them is an E.D.D., or estimated due date. Still, being "postdate" — regardless of whether that date is accurate — is far and away the most common reason for induction in the United States. "Elective" inductions, at the mother's request, appear to be the second most common.
It is difficult to criticize a woman who walks into her doctor's office and ask to be induced early. Her last few weeks of pregnancy are often the worst: her toes are like sausages, her stomach and squished bladder may fail to be operational and sleep is elusive.
Yet for thousands of years, pregnant women faced the final weeks before birth with little more than patience. Induction — by ingesting a fungus called ergot or other substances — was usually to save the life of the mother or child. But the practice became more common after World War II, when doctors first learned to drip a synthetic version of the hormone oxytocin, known as Pitocin, through an intravenous line to stimulate the uterus. The drug's use skyrocketed as obstetricians tried to avoid working the overnight shift. Now many women as well wish to schedule their deliveries. "Elective" inductions represent 30 percent or more of all inductions at certain hospitals, doctors estimate. We like to exercise control over every aspect of our lives; why not a child's birthday?
And yet resistance may be developing. Doctors and mothers may find induced births handy, but hospitals do not. An induced labor, which requires regular monitoring of the patient in bed, can take anywhere from 24 to 36 hours, using up a hospital's precious staff time and money. Meanwhile, the national Caesarean rate has also hit a record: 29 percent in 2004. Though only 3 percent of those Caesareans were elective, that portion is rising quickly. The National Institutes of Health is sponsoring a conference this week to discuss the issue. The N.I.H. may well follow Britain's lead and conclude that if a mother wants the operation, she should have it. The planned Caesarean is usually a smooth, 30-minute procedure.
But trouble is nonetheless brewing on maternity floors. Women recovering from a Caesarean typically spend four days in the hospital. Add to the mix women undergoing inductions, and it is clear that hospitals are using more resources on fewer patients. New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center has begun tracking inductions — they accounted for 34.4 percent of all births in 2005 — in order to find a way to reduce them. Massachusetts General Hospital is already cracking down on elective inductions, claims Dr. Laura Riley, the director of labor and delivery.
"It is fair to say that many hospitals are evaluating how best to control elective inductions, and some are requiring that specific guidelines be met before starting elective inductions," says Dr. Sarah Kilpatrick, head of the OB/GYN department at the University of Illinois and vice chairwoman of the OB practice committee at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Kilpatrick says that the college is not, at this moment, trying to limit elective induction. The organization may not need to. In today's medical world, it is increasingly accountants, not doctors, who call the shots. And the accountants, it seems, are not pleased.
Tina Cassidy is the author of "Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born," to be published by Atlantic Monthly Press in the fall.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
George Mason.
Doug Mills/The New York Times
Lamar Butler, who scored 19, after George Mason completed its improbable run to the Final Four.
March 26, 2006
N.C.A.A. Men's Tournament
Magical Ride Continues for George Mason
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) -- George Mason's players stood on the press table, waving their jerseys to the crowd. Coach Jim Larranaga walked around with the nylon net around his neck.
It won't be the same old schools from the same old conferences at this year's Final Four -- certainly not top-seeded Connecticut.
Buoyed by a partisan crowd and playing some 20 miles from their campus, 11th-seeded George Mason overcame huge disadvantages in size, athleticism and history Sunday to stun the Huskies 86-84 in overtime, ending a stranglehold that big-time programs have enjoyed for 27 years in college basketball's biggest showcase.
Improbable as it may seem, the powers-that-be are going to have to make room for a suburban commuter school from Fairfax, Va., that was a dicey choice to make the NCAA tournament as an at-large team.
"I was kidding with one of my assistants," Larranaga said, "We're not just an at-large team, we're an at-extra-large. And if we win today, we're going to be an at-extra-double-large. I can't tell you how much fun I'm having."
The Patriots overcame their deficiencies with heart and tenacity. They were never rattled, even when they trailed by 12 late in the first half and nine early in the second. They hit six straight 3-pointers in the second half, shot 5-for-6 in overtime and outrebounded UConn 37-34 even though the Huskies have three starters taller than any of the Patriots' frontcourt players.
There was also motivation from Larranaga, who fired up his team during timeouts by telling them that UConn's players didn't even know which conference George Mason is in.
"That's a little bit of disrespect," guard Tony Skinn said. "Coach told us the CAA stands for 'Connecticut Assassin Association."'
Of course, as more people are learning, CAA stands for Colonial Athletic Association, a league that has never had a team get this far before. The Patriots (27-7) are only the second double-digit seed to make the Final Four, matching LSU's run, also as an 11th seed, in 1986. They are the first true outsider to crash the quartet since Penn and Indiana State both got there in 1979.
George Mason next plays No. 3 seed Florida in Saturday's semifinals in Indianapolis. This marks the first time since the field was expanded to 64 teams in 1985 that no top-seeded team advanced to the Final Four, and the second time in tournament history.
The Patriots' at-large selection was roundly criticized by many, including CBS commentator Billy Packer. George Mason's fans chanted Packer's name in the postgame celebration.
"I think it's been working for us, calling us Cinderella," Skinn said. "We were not supposed to get into the tournament, we got into it. We were not supposed to beat Michigan State and we beat them. Weren't supposed to beat North Carolina and we beat them. We definitely weren't supposed to be UConn. I think we'll stick to the script going into whoever we play. We don't mind being the Cinderella."
All five Mason starters finished in double figures. Jai Lewis had 20, and Lamar Butler and Will Thomas each scored 19. Larranaga's team kept the same five players in the game from the 10:37 mark of regulation to the very end of overtime. Butler was chosen as the most outstanding player of the regional, and he and his father were in tears as they hugged at length on the court after the game.
"I feel so good, through my own sadness, for Jim Larranaga," UConn coach Jim Calhoun said. "Playing at that level is not easy. I can only imagine the feeling they must have on that campus, in that locker room. ... It's something they probably never imagined. We've imagined it, and we've done it. They could never have imagined it."
George Mason, having by far the best season in school history, had never won an NCAA tournament game until it beat half of last year's Final Four -- Michigan State and No. 3 seed North Carolina -- back-to-back in the first two rounds. Now it can say it has beaten the last two national champions -- Connecticut and North Carolina.
Rudy Gay scored 20, and Jeff Adrien had a career-high 17 points for Connecticut (30-4), which never could put together a complete game in the tournament. The Huskies had to rally from double-digit second-half deficits to beat Albany and Washington and barely held off Kentucky.
"They played tough and have a lot of heart," Gay said. "That's all that really matters when you play a game like this."
Folarin Campbell's tough baseline fadeaway gave the Patriots an 84-80 lead in overtime, and UConn suddenly looked like a rattled underdog from a mid-major. Rashad Anderson tossed up an airball 3-point attempt that could have cut the lead to one, and Adrien missed one of two free throws in the final 30 seconds.
But Mason gave UConn a chance to win with poor free-throw shooting. Lewis missed three attempts in the final 15 seconds -- the last two with 6.1 seconds to go -- giving the Huskies a final possession to tie or win. Denham Brown, who made the reverse layup at the regulation buzzer to send the game to overtime, was off the mark from the left wing with a potential game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer.
Throughout the game, chants of "G-M-U" and "Let's Go Mason!" reverberated off the ceiling of the Verizon Center. Green and gold, as expected, were the dominant colors, and the building reached a new-level din of enthusiasm when Skinn made a 3-pointer to tie the game at 21 in the first half.
UConn started 7-for-10 from the field yet couldn't pull away from the tenacious Patriots, who somehow managed to pull down and chase rebounds despite their height disadvantage. When the Huskies went cold, missing seven straight field goals, George Mason pulled even. The second of back-to-back steals by Skinn led to two free throws by Thomas that put the Patriots ahead 29-28, their only lead of the first half.
But the Huskies responded with a 15-2 run. Their lead was 12 when George Mason got a boost just before halftime -- Campbell's three-point play with less than one second remaining cut the deficit to single digits, 43-34, at the break.
The Patriots pulled within one early in the second half with an 8-0 run. Campbell hit a 3-pointer after a gritty offensive rebound by Thomas, and Skinn made a driving layup despite losing control of the ball and changing hands in mid-air. Then, with 12:31 to play, Campbell hit another 3-pointer that tied the game at 49. The next milestone came with 11:09 remaining, when Butler sank another 3 to give Mason a 52-51 lead.
For the next six minutes, the teams punched and counterpunched, with neither leading by more than two until Skinn's 3-pointer with five minutes to go put Mason ahead 67-63. Marcus Williams' steal and three-point play cut Mason's lead to 71-70 with 47 seconds remaining, and the Patriots went 2-of-5 from the foul line in the final minute to give UConn the chance to send the game to overtime on Brown's buzzer-beating layup.
But Mason didn't wilt in the overtime, making Butler's Final Four prediction come true, a prediction he brashly made when he was recruited to George Mason.
"I think I was joking when I said that," Butler said. "I started dreaming when I got to college. It shows you anything can happen."
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
Villanova Coach
Blog: Hard Not to Like Villanova Coach
Filed at 9:54 p.m. ET
Now that March Madness is in full swing, AP sportswriters will be filing periodic, behind-the-scenes reports from the NCAA
tournament:
SUNDAY, March 26:
MINNEAPOLIS -- It's hard not to be a fan of Villanova coach Jay Wright.
All weekend long, as his Wildcats made a run at their first Final Four in 21 years, Wright conducted himself with class and patience.
He welcomed former players and coaches from the 1985 team that shocked Georgetown for the national title, embracing the tradition rather than treating it as a burden that these new kids had to live up to.
Everywhere he went, people talked about 1985. And with Rollie Massimino in the stands and Ed Pinckney on the bench as an assistant coach, the newest edition of the cardiac Cats easily could have been overlooked.
But Wright made sure that didn't happen. While welcoming chatter about the past, he also used the platform to introduce the rest of the country to his seniors -- particularly Randy Foye and Allan Ray.
After the Wildcats lost to Florida on Sunday, Wright was blunt in his feelings.
''This hurts,'' he said. ''It's supposed to hurt.''
But he also went out of his way to say how proud he was of his team's breakthrough season -- a school record 30 wins and their first No. 1 seed.
And he answered every question, from those about the disappointment to what happens next when Foye, Ray and Co. leave school.
''It's not even about not going to the Final Four,'' Wright said. ''We just wanted to advance and keep playing together, keep being together.''
A lot of coaches say things like that, but Wright says it with a purpose and a genuineness that some of his colleagues lack.
''I want them to feel great about themselves, great about Villanova,'' Wright said.
After spending four years with a coach like him, how could they not?
--AP Sports Writer Jon Krawczynski.
Ukraine Vote
Reform Leader Suffers Setback in Ukraine Vote
KIEV, Ukraine, Monday, March 27 — President Viktor A. Yushchenko, who led a wave of popular protest to office promising a freer Ukraine aligned with Europe and the United States, suffered a stunning political defeat in parliamentary elections on Sunday, leaving him weakened and his reformist policies in doubt.
Mr. Yushchenko called the vote for a new and newly empowered Parliament "the first fair, democratic elections in Ukraine," and his party appeared to have been routed.
Nearly a year and a half after the protests and international pressure swept Mr. Yushchenko to the presidency, his party fell far behind not only the party of the man he beat for the top job, Viktor F. Yanukovich, but also the party of his former prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko, according to an independent survey of voters leaving the polls, announced by the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, after voting ended at 10 p.m. on Sunday.
Mr. Yanukovich's Party of Regions, which the survey showed with 33 percent of the vote, was poised to win the largest bloc of seats in the 450-seat Parliament, but not enough to win control outright. Ms. Tymoshenko's bloc received 22 percent, while Mr. Yushchenko's party, Our Ukraine, trailed in a distant third place, with only 13 percent, according to the survey.
Mr. Yanukovich, the former prime minister whose supporters were accused of having rigged the presidential race against Mr. Yushchenko in November 2004, declared "a decisive victory," using the sort of language that rallied those against him and his patron, the former president, Leonid D. Kuchma. "Ukraine made its choice," he said. "Its choice is freedom, democracy, stability and confidence in the future."
Mr. Yanukovich's strength is less a reflection of his political successes than it is of the failings of Mr. Yushchenko, whose reputation at home has suffered from one problem after another despite his image abroad as a reform-minded democrat.
His inability to help improve the weak economy and lessen the country's reliance on Russian gas, which caused painful shortages this winter in a price dispute, deeply hurt him.
The election results set the stage for a period of political jockeying that could last for days or even weeks before a new government is formed. Much will depend on the success of an array of smaller parties that needed to win at least 3 percent of the vote to secure seats.
The voting was the first electoral test of the sweeping changes Mr. Yushchenko promised during the huge street protests that came to be known as the "Orange Revolution."
If the results of the voter survey hold, the election will underscore the disastrous turnaround in Mr. Yushchenko's political fate, leaving him forced to compromise.
At stake are Mr. Yushchenko's stated policy goals, including integrating Ukraine into the European Union and NATO. Mr. Yanukovich's party has promised to restore economic stability and forge closer ties with Russia.
The election has added significance for Ukraine, a country of 47 million on the edge of a newly expanded European Union, because of a political compromise that cleared the way for Mr. Yushchenko's presidency. Under constitutional changes adopted then, the new Parliament will have the power to choose the prime minister and most of the cabinet, though Mr. Yushchenko will retain control over foreign affairs and security ministries.
Mr. Yushchenko's party now faces a choice of whether to repair the fractured coalition with Ms. Tymoshenko, who served as his first prime minister until a falling out amid infighting over policy and accusations of corruption, or possibly to face a hostile government. Together, their parties still drew more votes than Mr. Yanukovich's, according to the voter survey, but her showing increased her leverage in the talks.
Without Ms. Tymoshenko's support, Mr. Yushchenko's only other choice would be an improbable alliance with Mr. Yanukovich. The president remained noncommittal on Sunday, saying in televised remarks that he was considering "all kinds of various combinations."
Later, though, as the gravity of his party's poor showing became clear, Mr. Yushchenko's aides said they were prepared to revive the "orange" coalition. The mood at the party's headquarters was funereal, despite rock bands that performed on the central square of Kiev, the capital, and videos that evoked the 2004 protests there.
A scheduled appearance by the current prime minister and leader of the party, Yury I. Yekhanurov, was abruptly canceled without explanation early Monday morning.
Ms. Tymoshenko, by contrast, clearly relished a result that provided a measure of vengeance after her dismissal last September. She said those who supported the Orange Revolution were still a majority — now led by her, her remarks suggested, though she stopped short of declaring her insistence on becoming prime minister again.
"I would not like us to let the people down again," she said.
Although Mr. Yanukovich's party complained of widespread irregularities ahead of Sunday's vote, including names missing from voter lists or Russian ones mistranslated into Ukrainian, there were few immediate reports of fraud or significant disruptions. But long lines formed as voters slogged through a ballot with 45 parties, and a homemade firebomb damaged one polling place in the Kiev region.
For many of those who voted, the significance was not in the results, but in the process. They described a Ukraine that was freer and more democratic, if also unruly and still divided along the same ethnic, social and political lines of 2004.
"It is already a big victory," Mr. Yushchenko said, putting the best face on his party's performance.
The survey of voters was carried out for the Democratic Initiatives Foundation by the Razumkov Center and the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, which is part of the Kiev-Mohyla Academy. Final results are not expected at least until late Monday, and perhaps later.
Critics of Mr. Yushchenko's performance as president welcomed the freedom of choice.
Maria I. Kompaneyets, 63, said that she voted for Mr. Yanukovich in 2004, but that she had hopes that Mr. Yushchenko would use his popular mandate to improve life in Ukraine, especially the economy and pensions, recurrent complaints among those less well off.
"Nothing changed, at least nothing changed for better, neither in the country nor in our own life," she said, as she voted with her husband, Pyotr. "Of course we had hopes. So much had been said in those days. Who could expect that it would turn out so bad?"
Art Buchwald
Douglas Kirkland/Corbis
Art Buchwald in Paris in the 1980's.
Nancy Ellison/Polaris
Mr. Buchwald at his home on Martha's Vineyard in 2001
Washington's Hottest Salon Is a Deathbed
THE other day when I called Art Buchwald, he couldn't come to the phone. John Glenn, the former senator, was at his bedside in the Washington hospice where, for 10 weeks now, Mr. Buchwald has been waiting to die.
Art — I can't easily call him Mr. Buchwald because we are acquaintances — has lived a storied life, cutting a swath through postwar Paris, where he wined with Taylor (Elizabeth) and dined with Bergman (Ingrid), then returned to the United States to write a column that won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1982. He's also written some 30 books.
So he's not complaining now, despite losing a leg to amputation this winter and an apparently imminent death sentence. He has decided he would prefer to die rather than undergo hours of dialysis to cleanse his kidneys every few days.
But he also hasn't died yet, despite predictions that he would only last three or four weeks without the dialysis. That may be because he's having too much fun. His hospice room, where he intends to stay until the end, has become an informal salon, filled with various members of the Kennedy clan, Marine brass, Senator Glenn, Benjamin C. Bradlee, Representative Nancy Pelosi. On Tuesday the French ambassador showed up to make him a commander of the Order of Arts and Letters and give him a medal.
And he's been writing words of wisdom about the end of life.
"People constantly ask me if there is an afterlife," he wrote in The Washington Post on March 14. "It's a good chance for me to philosophize. I tell them, 'If I knew I would tell you.' " Last week he wrote a more sober column, about choosing someone to make life-and-death decisions for you.
"A good surrogate is hard to find," he wrote.
I can't pretend to be nonpartisan when it comes to Art Buchwald.
I met him too late in life — his life. It was a balmy evening last summer. He was sitting between Carly Simon and a technology zillionaire who was the host of a charity event for human rights on his back lawn on Martha's Vineyard. A small tented affair for about 200 that didn't make a dent on the vast green expanse overlooking the harbor.
Art's eyes twinkled, his lip sagged, he knew my byline. We hit it off right away.
"Are you married?" he asked, first thing. Then he asked for the latest gossip from the newsroom of The New York Times, Hollywood and Washington. I fetched him a plate of food from the buffet, since friends and fans were keeping him occupied. And I drove him home that night, grasping a scrap of paper on which he'd scrawled, ever so slowly and in trembling script, his address in Vineyard Haven with the words "yellow mailbox."
To me Art Buchwald was a monument. I'd read his syndicated column since I was a kid and felt the echoes of his footsteps in Paris, where he had lived and written for about 14 years, and where, much more recently, I had lived and written for 6. I had gone on to work for The Washington Post, where his column was based. And every year The International Herald Tribune would run his Thanksgiving column, an absurd bit of whimsy about the nonexistent "Jour de Merci Donnant." I laughed every time.
So it was pretty surprising to find that in the summer of 2005, Art — "Arty," as all his friends called him — was still around, still writing his column, still sharp as a stick. A stroke had slowed his speech, so the punch lines sometimes came at a snail's pace. But it was always worth paying attention.
"Did I ever tell you about the time that Leonard Downie tried to cut my salary?" he asked about the executive editor of The Washington Post as we sat out on his back porch at dusk, with a view of his blooming hydrangeas.
Then he launched into a story of a certain Hollywood star who had a torrid extramarital affair one summer and — hmm, perhaps those details were not meant to be shared. Anyway, it ended in a joke involving bicoastal ashes.
One evening Mike Wallace came gliding through the screen door, shirtless and in a pair of shorts. His teeth gleamed white against a deep tan.
"Nice column," he offered, referring to Art's latest piece in print, which had merited a mention on a popular journalism Web site. Then he asked some penetrating questions about my career, and in about two strokes I felt like a midget in the land of giants.
The feeling persisted. Once I glanced down at a wrinkled and stained list of typed phone numbers next to Art's phone: Ethel Kennedy. William Styron. Carly Simon's number was written at the top in Art's painstaking hand. Perhaps she'd moved.
Art, Mike Wallace and William Styron are a legendary trio on the Vineyard. All of them have suffered from depression, and they have toured together to promote the merits of medication and other treatment. Their friends refer to them as the Blues Brothers. When the subject of depression came up, Art launched into a diatribe against Tom Cruise, the antipsychiatry movie star, about whom I'd recently written. He didn't miss much.
The summer ended. In the fall the French Embassy in Washington gave a gala 80th birthday party for Art, with his famous and powerful pals as hosts. It was an event attended by le tout Washington. I was stuck on the West Coast and couldn't make it.
We exchanged a few e-mail messages, I cursed him for being so old, and got busy with life.
Then a couple of weeks ago I heard that he was dying, and I called.
It had been nine weeks since his kidneys had started to fail and he was still alive. "No one can figure it out," he told me. In the meantime, he said, "I'm having the time of my life." Prominent visitors stop by, his kids bring him McDonald's for dinner, the grandkids come. He called up Mr. Styron to boast about the French medal. "I've got that one also," Mr. Styron grumbled back.
Enough about him. Art wanted to know the latest from Hollywood, about the private investigator Anthony Pellicano and how the federal investigation against him was going. That reminded him of the case he'd brought against Paramount Pictures years ago, claiming the company stole his idea for a screenplay.
It was a landmark case. After eight years, amazingly, he won. And it led to one of his enduring legacies, the "Buchwald clause" in Hollywood contracts, protecting studios from having to compensate a writer for an original idea. It also led to revelations about Hollywood accounting.
What else was new? Mike Wallace had just announced that he was going to retire this spring, when he will turn 88.
"Retiring," Art mused. "Isn't that terrible?" And he told me to call him next week.
Dark 2BR Loft? That's Code for a Club
Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Times
In Brooklyn a group of roommates opened the doors of their loft to create High Five, an underground club
March 26, 2006
Dark 2BR Loft? That's Code for a Club
By MELENA RYZIK
AT midnight one recent Friday, dozens of people lined up in one of Brooklyn's bleakest warehouse districts, waiting to enter a rock show. Tickets had been sold at a Greenpoint record store, but the show's address was only revealed to buyers at the last minute by e-mail.
A ticket taker stamped the hands of nearly 500 fans who eventually jammed into a room to drink beer and hear the Black Dice, local favorites. The band's dressing room was a bit odd: there was a bed in it. The bathroom for the audience had somebody's used toothbrush and a package of Q-tips. A big mural in the hall read, "Home Sweet Home."
This was no rock club. This was someone's home.
The loft, shared by several art school graduates in a desolate part of Bushwick, is transformed every other month into an underground club, the High Five.
"I've always been pretty obsessed with underground music," said Peter Buxton, 24, one of the roommates. "In the back of my head I was thinking it would be cool to do shows. And as soon we spotted this loft, we thought it would be a crime not to do something."
Mr. Buxton and his roommates, who make enough money from their bimonthly shows to cover the $2,800 rent for their loft, have plenty of company around the city.
From former industrial lofts in Brooklyn and Queens to stylish pads in Manhattan's meatpacking district, living quarters are being used as cash-producing spaces for under-the-radar parties.
Given the high costs and stringent laws governing licensed night spots from no-smoking ordinances to laws regulating closing hours, alcohol sales and dancing underground parties, where guests can smoke, boogie and drink as long as they like, seem to have an increasing appeal, in no small part because they are illicit.
"It feels super-sneaky," said Solana Larson, 26, a Brooklynite who went to a party in an apartment in the meatpacking district. "I brought some friends, and they were like, 'Wow, this is so underground.' You can't help but feel like it's kind of a select crowd."
Organizers employ various tactics to avoid attracting police attention, including checking guests' identification to make sure they are 21 and asking them to sign a release form. Shadi Shahrokhi, a host of parties in his loft in the meatpacking district, puts his neighbors in the expensive Maritime hotel for the night to avoid having them file noise complaints with authorities.
Nonetheless most of the parties are in violation of the law, the police say. "With those parties comes noise, comes crowding," said Detective Brian Sessa, a New York Police Department spokesman. "It's a building code violation. If you charge overhead or charge for drinks, you need a liquor license. Basically they are illegal on multiple levels."
To avoid leaving a paper trail, almost none of the loft-party organizers print fliers. Some declined to speak in detail for this article for fear of exposure. Secrecy, they said, is both their best defense and their biggest draw.
Advertised through online Listservs, Web sites like MySpace.com and word of mouth, the house parties are open to anyone who unearths the secret address and is willing to pay the $5 to $15 cover charges.
They include rock shows, performance art and D.J.-fueled discos.
Even though part of their appeal is the do-it-yourself vibe kitchens that serve as bars, bedrooms that double as V.I.P. areas some are increasingly mimicking professional spaces.
Organizers book acts that also play legitimate clubs like Avalon, and they hire promoters, bouncers, bartenders and coat-check girls. But they still say they're in it as much for the fun and socializing as for the money.
"It's really just a labor of love, plus pocket change," said Arvin Ajamian, an audio producer who, with the help of some partners, turned his unassuming four-bedroom Williamsburg house into a club called Brooklyn Tuning, complete with disco ball, lights and professional sound system. Mr. Ajamian, 27, charges a $10 cover and offers an open bar. Though as many as 300 people have come for his monthly parties, he says he only makes enough to recoup expenses and maybe pay for dinner and a few drinks.
Mr. Shahrokhi, 38, an architect, agrees. He regularly spends about $2,500 on Buyrum, a party that he and a few D.J.'s play host to every few months in his loft in the meatpacking district. "We do it as a cultural event," he said. "It's not about me making 200 bucks, because obviously doing architecture is a lot less work and a lot more profit."
Gadi Mizrahi and Zev Eisenberg, a D.J. team that goes by the name Wolf & Lamb, spent over $20,000 to turn a two-bedroom apartment in a former machine shop in Brooklyn near the Williamsburg Bridge into a party space. Their events have already outgrown their 2,000-square-foot loft, but they say they've not made their money back. And they don't seem to care.
Instead they want to build an audience for their brand of minimal techno and recently started a record label. "It's all supporting each other now," Mr. Eisenberg, 24, said.
Still, someone makes money off these events. At the High Five in Bushwick the headlining band can make as much as $1,000 a performance. At other parties D.J.'s are flown in and paid several hundred dollars for a gig. Bartenders also rake in the money; they get bigger tips because the drinks are cheaper than at real clubs.
"This is a much more relaxed atmosphere," said Dave, a patron at the Black Dice show in Bushwick. He declined to give his full name because, he said, he works for the government. He described his age as "grown-up," which in that crowd meant older than 35. "Clubs are so restrictive," he said. "If you've been to the Bowery Ballroom, all the bouncers are scowling. Here it's like being in someone's living room, because you are."
That sense of being outside the club establishment is what seems to attract patrons like Emily Spurr, 23, who works in advertising. "Everyone likes to feel like a rebel in a little way," she said at the High Five.
Many organizers said their landlords turn a blind eye as long as the rent is paid on time and there is no trouble with authorities. "The building manager was on my case, but I think he just wanted me to invite him," said Karen Williams, 46, a theater artist who recently started giving parties in her Chinatown loft. (She did not invite him, she said.)
"The club scene can be a drag," said Ms. Williams, a veteran of the 80's-era East Village. Conventional clubs are "expensive, and there can be an attitude," she said. "I just wanted to have fun."
Despite efforts to keep the parties secret and under the radar of authorities, it can be hard to disguise that hundreds of people are crowded into a living space, swilling beer and dancing to loud music.
At the last Buyrum party, the kitchen-cum-bar was doing a brisk business in Coronas and rum and Cokes. The dance floor was packed, videos played on a screen, and a dozen people were smoking on benches in the front of the apartment.
A sign on the bathroom door read: "When crowded this bathroom for women only. Guys use the roof." The D.J.'s tunes were accompanied by a guy playing bongos in the corner. The next act, a Brazilian band, had just finished setting up when, at 1:30 a.m., the police arrived in response to a neighbor's complaint.
The lights went on and the crowd let out a collective groan. Mr. Shahrokhi, the host, looked livid, but people were forced to file out as the officers waited in the hallway. Mr. Shahrokhi wound up with hundreds of dollars worth of tickets and a court date.
The threat of legal action isn't the only obstacle for party organizers. There are also the logistical and personal difficulties of regularly playing host to hundreds of strangers, especially when stragglers linger into the next morning. "A lot of the normal life stuff starts to bend around the will of the parties," Mr. Ajamian said. Furniture is pushed out. The stress level is high.
"There's 200 people in your place, neighbors calling the police, the toilets ready to leak, 20 people hanging on the roof," Mr. Shahrokhi said. "All I'm doing is going back and forth: go to the roof, come back downstairs, go to the bar. It's a production."
Still, these residential nightlife impresarios say it's worth it.
For Mr. Buxton, the High Five party host, "nothing is more thrilling than standing in my bedroom, looking down, and watching my favorite band play in my living room."
Mr. Shahrokhi, the host of Buyrum, said: "Our job is to challenge certain conventions. The key is having some element of what New York was all about continue."
Which means, after the police left his party, the Brazilian band played on.
Michael Nagle for The New York Times
Dancing, without a permit, at a party in the meatpacking district.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
IndyCar's Dana, 30, Dies After Crash
J. Pat Carter/Associated Press
Paul Dana's car being towed into a garage after Sunday's crash.
March 26, 2006
IndyCar's Dana, 30, Dies After Crash
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOMESTEAD, Fla. (AP) -- Driver Paul Dana died after a two-car crash Sunday during the warmup for the season-opening I.R.L. IndyCar Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The other driver, Ed Carpenter, was awake and alert at a Miami hospital, I.R.L. officials said.
Dana, 30, a former motorsports journalist with a degree from Northwestern, was a rookie who competed in three I.R.L. races for Ethanol Hemelgarn Racing last year with a best finish of 10th in the race at Homestead.
The Toyota Indy 300 race was expected to be run as scheduled. Bobby Rahal, co-owner of Rahal Letterman Racing for which Dana was to race this season, said the team's other two cars -- driven by Danica Patrick and Buddy Rice -- will be pulled out of the race.
Dana's wife, Tonya, was in Indianapolis, where the couple lived, and was notified of her husband's death while attending a church service.
"Obviously, this is a very black day for us," Rahal said. "This is a great tragedy."
Carpenter spun and hit the wall moments after the practice began at 10 a.m. EST. As Carpenter's battered car slid to a stop, Dana slammed into it at almost full speed -- about 200 mph.
Dana's car nearly split in half. The chassis flew about 6 feet off the ground and pieces were strewn down the track. It nearly turned over, but landed on its wheels before sliding to a halt.
Buddy Lazier said Dana passed him and Scott Sharp after both slowed because of the accident.
"He carried way too much speed in and wasn't aware of what was going on around him," Lazier said.
There was no immediate explanation for Dana's failure to slow down several seconds after the yellow lights came on around the track because of Carpenter's crash.
"That's just the first time of the weekend that we got all 20 cars on the track at the same time," said I.R.L. president Brian Barnhart. "Ed had his problem in turn two initially. The yellow lights were called immediately and all systems functioned properly. It's just a busy time out there, with a lot of cars and a lot of traffic."
Rahal said the team knew of no problem with communications.
"The spotter made clear the incident," Rahal said. "From what I could see, there was a car on the outside. Paul was just passing or had just passed, but I think it would be conjecture and probably very irresponsible for me to try to dissect as to why what happened, happened. But there was no problem with communication."
It took track safety workers about 15 minutes to get both drivers out of their cars. The practice session did not resume.
Rahal, who co-owns the team with television talk show host David Letterman, said the plan was to field cars for Patrick and Rice at next Sunday's race in St. Petersburg, Fla. He said any future plans for the No. 17 entry, the car driven by Dana, "are unclear at this time."
Dana and Carpenter, the stepson of I.R.L. founder Tony George, both were airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. I.R.L. officials said Dana died shortly before noon.
Vision Racing team general manager Larry Curry said he was told Carpenter "would be fine."
Dana is the first I.R.L. driver killed since Tony Renna died in a crash during testing at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in October 2003. The last Nascar driver killed was Dale Earnhardt in February 2001, and the last driver to die in Formula One was Ayrton Senna in May 1994.
It is the third racing death at the Homestead track -- John Nemechek was killed in a Nascar truck race in February 1997 and Jeff Clinton died in a Grand Am sports car event at the track in March 2002.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company -
And I'd Like to Thank My Coach
J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times
David Brownstein, standing, Scott Zakarin, right, and Rich Tackenberg.
March 26, 2006
And I'd Like to Thank My Coach
By MIREYA NAVARRO
LOS ANGELES
WHENEVER Bryce Dallas Howard teased her dad, the actor and director Ron Howard, about how much actors are paid, he'd say, "It's so that they can afford their therapist."
But decades after her father made it in Hollywood, Ms. Howard, 25, is making her own way in acting, and she's therapist-free. She sees a life coach instead. Ms. Howard, who is on location filming "Spider-Man 3," said her coach helps her navigate the demands of show business on her own terms, including making time for writing and protecting a degree of privacy during press interviews without losing her cool.
"It's not about rehashing the past," said Ms. Howard, who said she's "really into self-improvement." She called Sherri Ziff Lester, her coach, after a manager friend passed on her name last year.
"With Sherri," she said, "it's, 'Let's talk about this week.' She asks me a series of questions so that I see my priorities and decide what I need to do."
Life coaching has become a staple on television, with coaches helping sort out the lives of single men, ugly ducklings, sexually unsatisfied wives and other women in shows like "Nip/Tuck," "The Swan," "Starting Over" and "Modern Men." Life coaches, with their vague self-helpish title, have also come in for considerable skepticism and ribbing. "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" just this week devoted a sketch to poking fun at the coaching and "coachees" who become coaches themselves.
But behind the scenes life coaches are also finding plenty of work in the entertainment business. As their ranks swell nationwide — the International Coach Federation says its membership has doubled to 9,500 personal and business coaches since 2001, 56 percent of them in the United States — a growing roster is specializing in celebrities and Hollywood.
Although the federation does not keep track of coach specialties, coaches who devote themselves to the entertainment business — many of them former actors, television network executives, film producers or scriptwriters who sell their services as insiders — say they have seen more acceptance and a doubling and even tripling of demand for their services in the last three or four years.
Life coaches, who are unregulated and vary widely in their training and credentials, say they help clients define and pursue career and personal goals. The action- and results-oriented approach, they add, is appealing in a business where so much seems left to chance and few are prepared for success when it happens.
In a profession with a propensity for coaching — the acting coach, the voice coach, the writing coach — there appears to be room for one more coach, the one in charge of happiness, not to be confused with the old-school therapist.
"The difference between life coaching and therapy is that psychotherapy is about helping people heal their wounds," said Phil Towle, a psychotherapist and life coach, "and coaching is about helping people achieve the highest level of their fulfillment or happiness or success, whether they're wounded or not." Mr. Towle's work (at the rate of $40,000 a month) with quarreling members of the band Metallica was chronicled in the 2004 documentary "Metallica: Some Kind of Monster."
Performers, directors, writers and others can now find workshops and programs with names like Center Your Celebrity and War and Peace in the Writers' Room, and they can find certificates for free coaching sessions in gift bags at events like the Oscars and the Video Music Awards.
Coaches say personnel officials at studios and production companies are also increasingly calling on them not just to groom executives in management skills (the traditional use of executive coaching in major corporations), but also to troubleshoot in situations like helping a young producer handle personality and power clashes on a production.
Scott Zakarin, 42, a film and television producer who most recently produced the reality series "Kill Reality" on E! and "The Scorned," the movie spawned by the show, credits his coach with saving his company. He said he turned to a life coach, David Brownstein, a few years ago because of confrontations and finger pointing in his production company and now has Mr. Brownstein on call as he strives to run his business without subsuming what he calls the visionary nature of his work.
Mr. Zakarin, who said he knew Mr. Brownstein when the coach was a film producer himself, said friends who have formed their own production companies have their own life coaches to deal with similar problems.
"Once they have their offices feng shui'd, coaching seems to be the next thing," he said.
Penelope Brackett, a career and life coach in New Jersey, said she was virtually alone when she started coaching performers in theater, television and film in New York in the early 1990's. In the last two years, she said, even drama schools have embraced the concept of "getting a life and not just building a career or devoting yourself to craft excellence."
A former actor, director and producer who last year published "Seven Keys to Success Without Struggle," a life-coaching book for performers, written with Lester Thomas Shane, Ms. Brackett said she is regularly asked to give seminars at universities like Brandeis and Rutgers.
Life coaches, who work in person or by phone and whose rates usually start at over $100 a session, partly credit the increased demand for their services to decentralized and scattered families: the life coach, some say, takes the place of the mother, father or some other elder, who gave counsel through life's decisions and conflicts. That many people have more than one career and are searching for pursuits with more meaning also plays a role, they say.
In Hollywood coaches deal with short-term goals like easing writer's block so that a script gets finished as well as more encompasing challenges like hardening up-and-comers to take rejection or keeping those who make it from losing their heads in celebrity.
"Being famous is not what it looks like on E!" said Ms. Ziff Lester, a former writer on television shows like "Beverly Hills 90210" and "Baywatch." "It hits you like a tidal wave, and unless you can navigate that ocean, you will drown."
Carmit Maile, 31, the redheaded member of the Pussycat Dolls sextet, who recently changed her name from Carmit Bachar, said she started telephone sessions with Ms. Ziff Lester last July to keep her focused on what she wants to accomplish. The Dolls debut album, "PCD," went platinum, and just last week they embarked on a national tour, opening for the Black Eyed Peas.
Ms. Maile, who said she found a certificate for Ms. Ziff Lester's services in a gift bag given to performers at a concert last year, added that she does not want success to keep her from working with children with cleft lip and palate.
Ms. Maile, who had surgery for cleft palate, said she endured rejection in show business and wants to be a role model for girls like her who are not picture perfect. "My worry is to get lost in the shuffle of superstardom and not make an impact as a human being," she said, calling her coach a facilitator to help her stay the course. "There's so much that goes on that it's easy to lose your grounding."
Success can bring just as much soul searching behind the camera. Jeff Davis, 30, the creator and an executive producer of "Criminal Minds," a drama on CBS, went to a coach as he was trying to cope, he said, with "the struggles of political fights and wrangling of egos" that he found when his show went on television.
"I found myself going from writing scripts in a coffee shop one day to producing a television show in the blink of an eye," he said.
He described the difference as "working with 100 people, finding myself swamped with questions and having to become a leader when you've hardly been doing it on your own." Mr. Davis, who said he was referred to his coach, Mr. Brownstein, by his studio, added, "I never had so many meetings in my life."
Through coaching sessions twice a month, Mr. Davis got in touch, he said, with "my inner killer" and learned when to summon it and when to be nice.
He said he also realized he wanted to create another show, for which he said he is about to write the pilot.
The results, he said, have won him over to life coaching, despite his initial skepticism.
"The entertainment industry can certainly use some help, considering the number of lunatics who work in it," Mr. Davis added. "It's literally like having a personal trainer. A life coach's job is to push you."
But critics see life coaches as the ultimate overindulgence.
"This is for people with too much money," said Jon Winokur, a Los Angeles writer who included the term life coach in his Encyclopedia Neurotica, a 2005 volume of "tics, twitches and safety-valve nuttiness," which also includes entries like "retail therapy."
"You can find a market or a constituency for all kinds of insanity here," Mr. Winokur said.
The American Psychotherapy Association does not have an official position on coaches, but Kelly Snider, speaking for the association, said "coaches need to be responsible for recognizing if there's a problem that must be dealt with by someone in the field of psychology."
The International Coach Federation acknowledges that only a fraction of its members have gone through its certification process, which requires specific training and exams, because coaching has become more formalized only in the last decade or so. It urges consumers to shop around for those specifically trained in coaching skills.
Those who pay for life coaches, sometimes at a financial sacrifice, say they need the supportive kick in the pants.
"Life coaching has organized me and helped me do stuff more strategically," said Ari Shine, 30, a singer and songwriter who sees T. C. Conroy, a Hollywood coach who draws on her experience in the music business, including work with bands as a production coordinator. She is the former wife of Dave Gahan of the British band Depeche Mode.
Ms. Conroy's session with Mr. Shine on a recent Thursday took the form of brainstorming over the best booking agent for him. During another session, with Nancy Noever, a production manager for television commercials in her 40's who is trying to sell her first television script, the coaching blurred the professional with the personal.
"Weight is never where I want it to be, financial is never where I want it to be, time management is never what I want it to be," Ms. Noever said, as she sat on a sofa sipping from a water bottle across from Ms. Conroy, who took notes on a clipboard. "I have to figure out why can't I put myself first."
"Why you haven't put yourself first," Ms. Conroy corrected, noting she could do it.
Ms. Noever plotted ways to pay attention to her priorities — finishing the last 15 pages of her script, starting to lose 25 pounds, getting rid of her debt — with the expectation of not doing it perfectly the first time, as long as she set things in motion.
"I'm much more important than a McDonald's commercial," she said, her confidence renewed.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
Memory Trick
How to Remember Lists of Words With the Memory Trick
The memory trick, which is similar to the method of loci, is a 2500 year-old way to memorize lists of words that are as long as 10, 25, even 100 items long. It can be done simply by spending about 30 minutes memorizing certain pictures. After that, you will be able to remember at least 25 words forward, backward, or out of order.
Steps
- Think of twenty-five picture-words. Here's an idea for the first five. Keep in mind, they can be anything.
- Number one - visualize a solitary, lonely lighthouse, one that stands way off by itself. It even looks like a "1."
- Number two - eyeglasses. Think of it as "two, two eyes, two glasses for reading."
- Number three - stool. A stool usually has three legs. That's why it's a symbol for three.
- Number four - window. Four, because it is a rectangle with four sides and four corners. It may even have four panes.
- Number five - hand. A hand has five fingers.
- Number one - visualize a solitary, lonely lighthouse, one that stands way off by itself. It even looks like a "1."
- Spend about half an hour memorizing their parts in the list. Repeat them in your head. Start by saying "one" and picturing the lighthouse in your head. Then "two" and picturing eyeglasses in your head, etc.
- Test yourself by making a list of random words (25 of them) and trying to remember them by putting each word with the corresponding picture. If number one on your list is a lion, try picturing a lion roaming around your lighthouse. If number five is a car, try picturing a giant hand waving out the back of the car.
- After putting the words with pictures, say the list to yourself a few times. Ask someone to call out the numbers one through 25 forward, backward, and out of order, so you can say the list to them.
Tips
- The picture-words can be anything that makes you think of the number. Anything that looks like a one, or sounds like one or even is part of a song with one, can be used for one.
- The crazier your words with pictures are, the more you will be able to remember them. A cat (corresponding with the number 9, for 9 lives) shampooing itself will definitely make an impression. You are more likely to remember something strange.
- Alternatively, instead of associating pictures with numbers (i.e. Lighthouse = 1, glasses = 2, etc as suggested here), it can help if you memorize letters of the alphabet. Since we all grew up saying "A for Apple, B for Bell" etc, the association of objects with letters is considerably easier to make than objects with numbers. Drawback of course is that this is limited to a list of 26 or fewer items.
- Instead of imagining these colorful images, consider whispering them to yourself.
- Another easily rememberable technique is to use a common set of word-number pairs, such as: 1=bun, 2=shoe, 3=tree, 4=door, 5=hive, 6=sticks, 7=heaven, 8=gate, 9=vine, 10=pen
- Linking pictures to something humourous or phyically painful helps with remembering your list.
Warnings
- Although this method will help you memorize items, it is always a better idea to read material to understand it better
Kiddie Corps Carries L.S.U. to Final Four
Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Glen Davis, who had 26 points, shooting over LaMarcus Aldridge.
March 26, 2006
Atlanta Regional
Kiddie Corps Carries L.S.U. to Final Four
By RAY GLIER
ATLANTA, March 25 — The turning point in Louisiana State's season came Jan. 7, when it lost by a point to Connecticut, then ranked No. 2, in Hartford. It was the Tigers' fifth loss in 13 games, but at least they could feel good about coming close against a powerhouse on the road.
Suddenly, the Tigers did not feel like an 8-5 team. They felt much better about themselves than their record should have allowed.
"It was an eye-opening experience for us and our capabilities as a team," said Darrel Mitchell, L.S.U.'s only senior. "For us to go up there and do that showed us a lot."
The Tigers then reeled off seven straight victories, and they have ridden that momentum into the Final Four by beating Texas, 70-60, in overtime Saturday in an N.C.A.A. tournament regional championship game in the Georgia Dome. It was the Tigers' 11th victory in their last 12 games.
L.S.U. (27-8), seeded fourth, scored the first 7 points in overtime and went on to finish off the second-seeded Longhorns (30-7). The Tigers were led by their fearless inside players, the sophomore center Glen Davis, who scored 26 points, and the redshirt freshman forward Tyrus Thomas, who had 21 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocked shots.
Davis and Thomas, who were born in 1986, the last year L.S.U. appeared in the Final Four, bounded around the court and yelled to fans after the final buzzer. They have been the benchmark players for a team that has relied on stifling defense and inside scoring in winning four games in the tournament.
L.S.U. will next play U.C.L.A., which defeated Memphis, 50-45, to reach the national semifinals Saturday in Indianapolis.
The Tigers lost five games by a total of 11 points before they started Southeastern Conference play in January. They were picked to win the conference's Western Division, but with only one senior, it looked for a while like they might have trouble finishing out games.
"It's just a will and determination to get back up again after you get slugged by a tough team," Davis said. "You got to be willing to take some shots."
The Tigers allowed some shots Saturday, particularly by Texas center LaMarcus Aldridge, but he made just 2 of 14 field-goal attempts and finished with 4 points. Aldridge averaged 18 points and shot 54 percent from the field in the first three games of the tournament.
"West Virginia is nonphysical around the goal and allowed him to shoot freely," L.S.U. Coach John Brady said of the Longhorns' opponent in the regional semifinals. "Glen got a body on him, without fouling, and pushed him outside."
The 6-foot-10 Aldridge said that he had simply missed shots and that Davis and Thomas had not done anything in particular defensively. Aldridge, who, if he declares this year, is considered to be a top N.B.A. draft pick, would not discuss whether he would return for his junior season.
Texas forward P. J. Tucker, the Longhorns' leading scorer, also had an off night, making just 4 of 11 shots from the field and finishing with 10 points. Texas was able to stay in the game because it made 10 of 29 3-point attempts, while L.S.U. made 3 of 18.
The Longhorns trailed, 52-49, in regulation when Daniel Gibson hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 32 seconds left to tie the score. Davis rushed a shot from the left wing that would have won it in regulation for the Tigers.
But L.S.U., which lost close games to Houston, Ohio State, Northern Iowa and Cincinnati in December, knew what to do under the pressure of overtime.
Tasmin Mitchell scored immediately to make it 54-52. After a steal, L.S.U. guard Garrett Temple watched Davis get double-teamed on the foul line, then sneaked under the basket and took a pass from Mitchell for an easy field goal to give the Tigers a 56-52 lead.
After another Texas turnover, Davis hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key and L.S.U. led by 59-52 two minutes into overtime. It was just Davis's sixth 3-pointer of the season.
"It's called thinking without thinking," he said. "Most of the time when I'm shooting or when I'm shooting 3's, I'm thinking about it too much. So I was just in rhythm, and I felt it was a great shot and I made it."
Texas closed within 59-54 with 2 minutes 26 seconds to play, but the Longhorns could not get any offense inside from Aldridge or Tucker and had to launch desperation jump shots that would not fall.
"There's no ifs and buts about it, I mean, they played great D," Texas forward Brad Buckman said.
The Tigers also got an impressive offensive effort from Thomas, who was the game's dominant player in the first half. He dunked three times after lob passes and had 8 points on 4-of-6 shooting at halftime.
Thomas then carried L.S.U. the first 10 minutes of the second half. He made 10 of 14 field-goal attempts over all, many on short baseline jumpers, and was just as valuable on defense by discouraging shots inside with his shot-blocking ability.
"We're still humble and hungry," Thomas said after the game.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home
Florida Not Experiencing Any Sophomore Jinx
Jeff Mitchell/Reuters
Florida has four sophomores in its starting lineup, including, from left, forward Joakim Noah, guard Taurean Green and forward Al Horford.
March 26, 2006
Minneapolis Regional
Florida Not Experiencing Any Sophomore Jinx
By LEE JENKINS
MINNEAPOLIS, March 25 — The starting lineup for the Florida Gators was assembled mainly by the university's department of housing and residence education.
The day Joakim Noah walked onto campus, carrying all of his possessions in three duffel bags, he went looking for his new roommates. Meeting the roommates can be an agonizing exercise for any college freshman. But Noah found them in a most predictable place — in the gym, on the basketball court.
That was the first sign they would get along. Noah became known as Sticks, because of his lanky frame. Taurean Green was nicknamed Beanie Baby. Al Horford was The Horf. Corey Brewer was C.B. To outsiders, they were Florida's decorated recruiting class of 2004. To one another, they became the 04's, the nickname they bestowed upon themselves.
They have led Florida, seeded third in the Minneapolis Regional, to a 30-6 record. The Gators play top-seeded Villanova (28-4) on Sunday in the regional final.
Now that the 04's are one game from the Final Four, they are measuring their progress in terms of campus accommodations. As freshmen, they lived in a dorm in the Springs Residential Complex, two to a room, one bathroom for the four of them. As sophomores, they were upgraded to a suite in the Keys Residential Complex, where everyone has his own bedroom.
"Next year, we're thinking about moving into a house," Horford said. "But houses are hard to find."
Florida fans will undoubtedly rejoice at the news that the four roommates are house hunting, an indication that they may actually return for their junior seasons. All four are starters and three — Noah, Horford and Brewer — are projected first-round picks in the N.B.A. draft.
But if they leave, there will be no more lotion wars, no more water fights and no more science classes that require them to dress like insects. For all the hotbeds of basketball talent in the South, none has been more impressive than the four-bedroom suite in Gainesville, Fla.
Without the residents of that one apartment, Florida fans would be concentrating on spring football. With them, the Gators' basketball team has won 30 games in a season for the first time. Green runs the offense, Noah runs the break, Brewer drives the lane and Horford anchors the post. Their rapport, uncanny for a batch of sophomores, developed before coaches even put them on the court together.
When the 04's were not watching movies, playing video games or eating pizza last year, they would head to the basketball court. They took any pickup game they could get, as long as they were on the same team. Green needed to learn where Noah wanted the ball. Horford needed to know when Brewer was going to shoot. They were, in a sense, practicing away from practice.
"We would play every day," Horford said. "It's going to be us four against you, wherever you want. That's how it started."
The pickup games provided relief from the frustration of the college games. Because of Florida's accomplished upperclassmen, Green was forced to play shooting guard. Brewer was labeled a defensive stopper. Horford was pigeonholed as a rebounder. Noah spent most of his time on the bench.
If one of them had achieved stardom without the others, the dorm-room dynamic might have become touchy. But their struggle kept them together.
The expectations of each as recruits were equally high, mainly because of their famous bloodlines. Noah's father, Yannick, was a tennis star. Green's father, Sidney, and Horford's father, Tito, played in the N.B.A. Brewer, the lone McDonald's all-American among them, was also the only one whose parents were not professional athletes.
"We clicked immediately," Brewer said. "I think it was because we are so different."
Noah is from New York, by way of Paris, and is the most likely to engage in a political debate or watch a foreign film. Horford is from Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic, and likes to show off his Spanish accent. Brewer is from Portland, Tenn., and is as unassuming as his hometown. Green is from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and grew up with N.B.A. stars stopping by for dinner.
The players can tell one another's stories, having spent an estimated 18 hours a day together for the past two years. "We don't get tired of each other," Green said. "We say we do, but we're just joking around. It's to a point where we know when to give each other space."
That was more difficult in their freshman year, with the cramped quarters and lone bathroom. This year is peaceful by comparison. Of course, by next year, the 04's could have as much space as they want.
Or they could find that a cozy four-bedroom in Gainesville has all the square footage they need.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company Home Privacy Policy Search Corrections XML Help Contact Us Work for Us Site Map Back to Top - Think of twenty-five picture-words. Here's an idea for the first five. Keep in mind, they can be anything.
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U.C.L.A in Final Four
Mike Blake/Reuters
U.C.L.A.'s Ryan Hollins putting the squeeze on Cedric Bozeman after the Bruins advanced to their first Final Four since 1995
Oakland Regional
It Wasn't Pretty, but U.C.L.A. Prevails in a Battle of Attrition
OAKLAND, Calif., March 25 Thankfully for second-seeded U.C.L.A., basketball milestones are not graded on style points.
If aesthetics mattered, this U.C.L.A. team would have long been dispatched from the N.C.A.A. tournament. But it's the final score that counts. By slugging out a 50-45 victory over top-seeded Memphis to win the Oakland Regional on Saturday, the Bruins added to their program's storied history by clinching their 16th berth in the Final Four.
The way it looked the game was the lowest-scoring regional final in the shot-clock era by a staggering 15 points certainly did not change the way it felt.
"I can't even explain how incredible it feels," U.C.L.A. guard Jordan Farmar said. "Besides the guys in the locker room, no one really believed in us."
By surviving a battle of attrition, the Bruins tied North Carolina for the most Final Four appearances. In Indianapolis, they will play fourth-seeded Louisiana State, an overtime winner over second-seeded Texas in the Atlanta Regional, for a chance at adding to their Division I-record 11 national titles.
They advanced despite missing 16 of their first 21 free throws, making just 14 field goals and not converting from the field in the game's final 3 minutes 13 seconds. The senior guard Cedric Bozeman, the last Bruin to cut down the net in the postgame celebration, admitted that if he were watching at home on television, he would have probably turned the game off.
But instead, he and his fellow senior Ryan Hollins will be leading U.C.L.A. to its first Final Four appearance since 1995, when it won the championship.
Hollins emerged as the most fitting of stars; he had 14 points and 9 rebounds to win most valuable player honors for the region. But Hollins will best be remembered in this game for his ineptitude at the free-throw line. He shot just 2 for 11, the biggest culprit on a day the Bruins shot 20 for 39 from the stripe.
He recalled telling himself on the bench: "I'll never forgive myself for the rest of my life if we lose this game and I missed nine free throws. It's like, we're going to win this game, we're getting it up. I'm not going to go out like that."
And Hollins made sure U.C.L.A. won by stealing an Antonio Anderson pass with just under a minute remaining to seal the game. His steal set up two Bozeman free throws that put U.C.L.A. ahead, 46-39, with 52 seconds to go.
Memphis missed 11 of its first 12 shots from the field and its first 14 3-pointers, but its ineptitude down the stretch provided a convenient snapshot of their struggles.
Darius Washington Jr., the only Tigers player to score in double digits, with 13 points, dove in the lane for an acrobatic layup with 2:59 remaining, making the score 44-39. But the Tigers' next three possessions consisted of a travel by Joey Dorsey, a missed 3-pointer by Rodney Carney and Hollins's steal.
For the second consecutive game, U.C.L.A. left the opposition's best player collapsed in a heap of disappointment on the court at the buzzer. On Thursday, the Gonzaga star Adam Morrison crumpled to the floor after U.C.L.A. scored the game's final 11 points in an improbable victory.
On Saturday it was Carney, whom Arron Afflalo held to just 5 points and 2-for-12 shooting. Carney played only 26 minutes because of foul trouble and never looked in rhythm.
"We just couldn't make a basket," Memphis Coach John Calipari said. "Please make a basket. Make a free throw. Anything. Kick one in."
Memphis's foul trouble and offensive ineptitude played right into U.C.L.A.'s game plan, which was to slow the pace and limit the Tigers' transition opportunities. U.C.L.A. was so disruptive that Memphis's guards finished with just one assist. The Tigers' 21 first-half points were their lowest output all season, and they finished with nearly half of the 88 points that they scored when they defeated the Bruins at Madison Square Garden in November.
"That defense caused us to do what we did," Calipari said. "The bump and grind of it, the physical play of it. When they needed to shut somebody down, they did."
The concern about the Tigers heading into the Round of Eight was how they would react to being tested. None of their first three opponents, No. 16-seeded Oral Roberts, No. 9-seeded Bucknell and No. 13-seeded Bradley, hailed from a major conference.
Memphis had shot just under 54 percent in those three blowout victories, but the Tigers shot 31 percent Saturday.
"I don't think I could even dream about that," Farmar said of holding Memphis to 45 points.
Coach Ben Howland has the Bruins back in the Final Four in his third season in Westwood. Howland came in preaching the defensive style that took Pittsburgh from the doldrums of the Big East to a perennial contender in the conference. And while his style defies West Coast basketball convention, the results can't be argued with.
Everyone in the U.C.L.A. locker room agreed that while the trip to Indianapolis is nice, the result that everyone in Westwood wants has not arrived yet.
"At U.C.L.A., no other banner but national championships go up," Farmar said.
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