Sears CEO D'Ambrosio to step down

Sears Holdings Corp. said Chief Executive Officer Louis J. D’Ambrosio will step down at the end of its fiscal year on Feb. 2, due to family health matters.  Chairman Edward S. Lampert will step into the role of CEO.

The surprise move adds new uncertainty for the Hoffman Estates-based company, which has struggled for years to re-establish itself as a department store in an ultra-competitive retailing industry dominated by the low-price giant Walmart and  big box and specialty stores.

 The decision by Lampert, a hedge fund operator who is the company’s biggest shareholder and driving force,  to reassert day-to-day control represents a reversal from his naming of D’Ambrosio as chief executive nearly two years ago after operating with an interim CEO previously.   

 "In light of Lou's decision to step down, the Board feels it is important that there is continuity of leadership during this important period of transformation and improvement at Sears Holdings,” Lampert said in a statement. “I have agreed to assume these additional responsibilities in order to continue the company's recovery and sustain the momentum we are experiencing, as well as further the development of the management team under the distributed leadership model, which provides our business unit leaders with greater control, authority and autonomy.”

Sears Holdings, which operates Sears and Kmart, also updated fourth quarter earnings outlook Monday night.  The company said it expects to report a net loss of between $280 million and $360 million, or $2.64 and $3.40 per diluted share, for the quarter ending Feb. 2. The loss includes a non-cash charge of roughly $450 million due to pension settlements and an additional $42 million in pension expenses.  

 Excluding pension expenses Sears said it expects to earn $132 million and $212 million, or between $1.25 and $2.00 per share. 

For the year, Sears said it expects to lose between $721 million and $801 million, or between $6.80 and $7.56 per diluted share, which also includes pension-related costs and other adjustments reported in regulatory filings late last year. Excluding those items, the company said it expects to lose between $123 million and $203 million or between $1.16 and $1.92 per share. 

D'Ambrosio became CEO after working for the company as a consultant.  The 16-year veteran of IBM Corp. had been CEO of a telecommunications company before joining Sears.

 “I have worked very closely with Eddie over the past two years. I can say this: there is simply no one in the world that cares more about Sears Holdings and has thought more deeply about our company than Eddie,” D’Ambrosio wrote in a memo to employees.

Crshropshire@tribune.com

Twitter: @corilyns 

Read More..

Kuwait sentences second man to jail for insulting emir: lawyer

DUBAI (Reuters) – A Kuwaiti court sentenced a man to two years in prison on Monday for insulting the country’s ruler on Twitter, his lawyer said, the second to be jailed for the offence in as many days.

The U.S.-allied Gulf Arab state has clamped down in recent months on political activists who have been using social media websites to criticize the government and the ruling family.

Kuwait has seen a series of protests, including one on Sunday night, organized by the opposition since the ruling emir, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, used emergency powers in October to change the voting system.

The court sentenced Ayyad al-Harbi, who has more than 13,000 followers on Twitter, to the prison term two months after his arrest and release on bail.

Harbi used his Twitter account to criticize the Kuwait government and the emir. He tweeted on Sunday: “Tomorrow morning is my trial’s verdict on charges of slander against the emir, spreading of false news.”

His lawyer, Mohammed al-Humidi, said Harbi would appeal against the verdict. “We’ve been taken by surprise because Kuwait has always been known internationally and in the Arab world as a democracy-loving country,” Humidi told Reuters by telephone. “People are used to democracy, but suddenly we see the constitution being undermined.”

On Sunday, Rashid Saleh al-Anzi was given two years in prison over a tweet that “stabbed the rights and powers of the emir”, according to the online newspaper Alaan. Anzi, who has 5,700 Twitter followers, was expected to appeal.

Kuwait, a U.S. ally and major oil producer, has been taking a firmer line on politically sensitive comments aired on the Internet.

In June 2012, a man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after he was convicted of endangering state security by insulting the Prophet Mohammad and the Sunni Muslim rulers of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain on social media.

Two months later, authorities detained Sheikh Meshaal al-Malik Al-Sabah, a member of the ruling family, over remarks on Twitter in which he accused authorities of corruption and called for political reform, a rights activist said.

Public demonstrations about local issues are common in a state that allows the most dissent in the Gulf, and Kuwait has avoided Arab Spring-style mass unrest that has ousted four veteran Arab dictators in the past two years.

But tensions have risen between Kuwait’s hand-picked government, in which ruling family members hold the top posts, and the elected parliament and opposition groups.

(Reporting by Mahmoud Habboush; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Kuwait sentences second man to jail for insulting emir: lawyer
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/kuwait-sentences-second-man-to-jail-for-insulting-emir-lawyer/
Link To Post : Kuwait sentences second man to jail for insulting emir: lawyer
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Hawks' Toews: 'Excited' to play but 'a lot of damage was done'

The NHL and NHLPA came to a tenative agreement to end the lockout early Sunday morning. The deal must still be ratified, but the regular season is expected to begin in Mid-January.

It happened while most of them were sleeping. Though for one, the news arrived right before he stepped onto the ice half a world away.

The email sent from the NHL Players' Association early Sunday morning that informed the Blackhawks and the rest of the NHL's players that a tentative agreement to end the 113-day lockout had been reached set off a whirlwind of activity — and emotions.

"I'm excited to play hockey again, although it's bittersweet because a lot of damage was done to our game," Hawks captain Jonathan Toews said via text. "As players we need to keep showing our fans we care. We might have a long road ahead of us there, but for now it's great to know we'll be back on the ice very soon."

Exactly how soon is still being determined, but barring any last-minute hiccups in the legalese included in a new collective bargaining agreement, the Hawks know they will embark on a new — albeit truncated — season within two weeks.

"For the players and the fans it's great news," center Dave Bolland said. "I got up in the morning and my phone was going crazy. It was great to see that and it will be great to get back on the ice.

"It showed it could have been done a long time ago … but you know how long these things take with lawyers and mediators. But everybody's happy right now."

Viktor Stalberg, who opted to play in Europe during the lockout, arrived at an arena in Russia and found out his regular job many times zones away was about reappear. The winger played in Atlant's 1-0 overtime loss to Minsk in the KHL before hustling to his apartment to start packing for a trip to Chicago.

"Some part of me kind of kept saying, 'It's going to get done somehow,' " said Stalberg, who plans to return Tuesday after a stop in his native Sweden. "We were not that far apart and it's not worth losing a season over it, and clearly both sides felt that too."

The next step in the process is for both the NHL's Board of Governors and union to vote for ratification of a new 10-year CBA. Once that happens, a shortened training camp will be followed by a 48- or 50-game season.

"We appreciate the fans' patience and we look forward to both the owners and players ratifying the handshake agreement," Hawks Chairman Rocky Wirtz told the Tribune in his first public statement about the lockout since it began Sept. 15.

While no snafus are expected to hold up the process, Hawks defenseman Steve Montador — a member of the NHLPA's negotiating committee — wasn't prepared to fully embrace the agreement until the ink is dry.

"(Not) until we have something that says this is what the deal is going to look like and it's in writing and signed off on both sides will I feel the lockout will have ended," Montador said. "We all want to make sure what is tentatively agreed upon is what's actually agreed upon. The process moved along pretty quickly in the last couple of days and it's gotten a lot of people excited and that's a good thing."

Added Toews: "I'm really happy this is over. A lot of credit goes to the players who were in the bargaining sessions and worked very hard to get a deal done."

If everything is signed, sealed and delivered without delay, the Hawks will have to prepare quickly for a season that likely will include a condensed schedule and an almost immediate postseason race.

"It will take one or two or three games to get the kinks out," Bolland said. "I think we'll pick it up pretty quick. Everybody's been staying fit and training and staying on the ice. The first one or two games will be a little ugly, but after that we'll get right back into it."

The next question is whether fans will fully support their teams following a prolonged lockout that without question damaged the sport in the eyes of paying customers.

"You never want these things to happen, but we have some great fans around the entire league," Bolland said. "I hope the fans don't take it the wrong way and are sticking beside us."

ckuc@tribune.com

Twitter @ChrisKuc

Read More..

Schwarzenegger is back, and Hollywood hopes he’s still a star

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – As he famously droned on-screen in his signature “Terminator” movies, Arnold Schwarzenegger is back.

A year after leaving the California governor’s office and becoming tabloid fodder for fathering a boy with his family’s housekeeper and splitting with his wife, Maria Shriver, the 65-year old former bodybuilder will star in no less than three Hollywood movies over the next 12 months.

None are likely to win Schwarzenegger an Oscar. Indeed, the movies, and Schwarzenegger‘s own fee, are low-budget compared with his global blockbusters of yore. But studio executives are betting that overseas fans especially will once again respond to a personality whose 24 films generated worldwide ticket sales of $ 3.9 billion, according to boxoffice.com.

“He is still a worldwide star who resonates with action audiences around the world,” said Rob Friedman, the co-chairman of the Lionsgate motion picture group, which is scheduled to release his next two films. “The Last Stand” will open on January 18, and “The Tomb” in September.

“Ten,” the third film, is scheduled for release in January 2014 by Open Road Films, a joint venture of the AMC and Regal Theater chains.

“When you have left the movie business for seven years, it’s kind of a scary thing to come back because you don’t know if you’re accepted or not,” Schwarzenegger said at a Saturday press event for “The Last Stand.”

“There could be a whole new generation of action stars that come up in the meantime.”

The actor said he was “very pleasantly surprised” by what he called a “great reaction” to his cameo in the 2010 action film “The Expendables,” which featured fellow action stars Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham. The film grossed $ 103.1 million in U.S. ticket sales and $ 274.5 million worldwide.

Since then, Schwarzenegger appeared in a second “Expendables” and says he will join a fifth installment of the “Terminator” if it is made.

Comcast’s Universal Pictures wants to “do a bunch” of new films based on the 30-year-old “Conan The Barbarian” movie, said Schwarzenegger, in which he would reprise his role as a barbarian.

He added that Universal, after 10 years of prodding by Schwarzenegger, also wants to do a sequel to the 1988 comedy “Twins,” in which he and Danny DeVito played mismatched twins, to be called “Triplets.”

Schwarzenegger no longer commands the $ 25 million paychecks he cashed in his heyday and will get between $ 8 and $ 10 million for each of his next three films, according to two people with knowledge of his salary but who were not authorized to speak publicly about it. He also gets a percentage of the profits, according to one of the people.

The new Schwarzenegger calculus banks on his films doing outsized business overseas while operating within budgets that are a fraction of the $ 200 million cost of his last action film, the 2003 “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.” The budget for “The Last Stand” is estimated at $ 50 million, according to movie resource site IMDB.com.

“He has significant value outside the United States and Canada, where he is still revered by people who have grown up with him throughout the years,” said Jere Hausfater, chief operating officer of film production company Aldamisa International, which hopes to do a film with Schwarzenegger in the future.

What audiences will see is a aging star who isn’t afraid of showing his drooping muscles and widening paunch, or of making fun of being past his prime. In the “The Last Stand,” a less than rock hard Schwarzenegger plays a retired Los Angeles policeman who becomes the sheriff of a small border town and is then called on to stop a violent drug lord from crossing.

In “Ten” he plays an aging drug agent, and in “The Tomb” an older prison inmate.

“We all go through the same dramas, we look at the mirror and say, what happened? You once had muscles and slowly they are deteriorating,” said Schwarzenegger at “The Last Stand” press event.

“The great thing in the movie is that they we’re not trying to play me as the 35-year-old action hero but the one who is about to retire, and all of a sudden there is this challenge where he really needs to get his act together.”

The one-time muscle man compares his career metamorphosis to that of his friend Clint Eastwood, who transitioned from his Dirty Harry days to a wiser person who’s not afraid to make fun of his slipping abilities in recent films like “Trouble with the Curve.”

“That’s called evolution,” said Sylvester Stallone, who stars with Schwarzenegger as aging inmates in “The Tomb.” “There are no more wooly mammoths. Things change, but the one thing you cannot replace is charisma. Certain people have it, and will have it until the day they die.”

Schwarzenegger‘s infamy in fathering a son outside of his high-profile marriage to Shriver initially seemed to hurt his popular appeal. Within weeks of the disclosure, “The Governator,” a comic book that would feature his likeness, was canceled.

Ultimately, though, moviegoers will be less interested in Schwarzenegger‘s political adventures and personal scandals than in what he puts on the screen, says Peter Sealey, founder of The Sausalito Group and a former Columbia Pictures president of marketing and distribution.

“The movie-going audience really don’t care about things like infidelity, DUIs,” added publicist Howard Bragman, vice-chairman of the firm called Reputation. “They overlook a lot. Ultimately, it remains, how are the movies? Is he credible? Is he going to be a joke?”

(Reporting by Ronald Grover and Zorianna Kit; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Cynthia Osterman)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Schwarzenegger is back, and Hollywood hopes he’s still a star
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/schwarzenegger-is-back-and-hollywood-hopes-hes-still-a-star/
Link To Post : Schwarzenegger is back, and Hollywood hopes he’s still a star
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Drug-Testing Company Tied to N.C.A.A. Draws Criticism

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A wall in one of the conference rooms at the National Center for Drug Free Sport displays magazine covers, each capturing a moment in the inglorious history of doping scandals in sports.

Steve Hebert for The New York Times

The National Center for Drug Free Sport, in Kansas City, Mo., tries to deter doping with programs for high school, college and professional leagues.

Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Don Catlin, formerly of U.C.L.A.’s Olympic Analytical Lab, has raised questions about drug testing at colleges.

The images show Ben Johnson, the sprinter who lost his 1988 Olympic gold medal after testing positive; and Barry Bonds, the tarnished home run king; and Lyle Alzado, one of the first pro football players to admit to steroid use.

“People always assume that it’s the athletes at the top of their sport or the top of their game that are using,” said Frank Uryasz, Drug Free Sport’s founder and president. “But I can assure you that’s not the case. There’s always that desire to be the best, to win. That permeates all level of sport — abuse where you just wouldn’t expect it.”

Over the past quarter-century, athletes like Johnson, Bonds and Alzado stirred widespread concern about doping in sports.

Professional leagues without drug-testing programs have put them in; leagues with drug-testing programs have strengthened them. Congress and medical experts have called on sports officials at all levels to treat doping like a scourge.

It was in this budding American culture of doping awareness that Uryasz found a niche business model. He has spent the past decade selling his company’s services to the country’s sports officials.

The company advises leagues and teams on what their testing protocols should look like — everything from what drugs to test for to how often athletes will be tested to what happens to the specimens after testing. It also handles the collection and testing of urine samples, often with the help of subcontractors.

Drug Free Sport provides drug-testing programs for high school, college and professional leagues.

A privately held company with fewer than 30 full-time employees, it counts among its clients Major League Baseball, the N.F.L., the N.B.A., the N.C.A.A. and about 300 individual college programs.

Many, if not all, of the players on the field Monday night for the Bowl Championship Series title game between Alabama and Notre Dame have participated in a drug-testing program engineered by Drug Free Sport.

Uryasz says his company’s programs provide substantial deterrents for athletes who might consider doping.

Critics, however, question how rigorous the company’s programs are. They say Drug Free Sport often fails to adhere to tenets of serious drug testing, like random, unannounced tests; collection of samples by trained, independent officials; and testing for a comprehensive list of recreational and performance-enhancing drugs.

The critics, pointing to a low rate of positive tests, question Drug Free Sport’s effectiveness at catching athletes who cheat. Since the company began running the N.C.A.A.’s drug-testing program in 1999, for example, the rate of positive tests has been no higher than 1 percent in any year — despite an N.C.A.A. survey of student-athletes that indicated at least 1 in 5 used marijuana, a banned substance. (The N.C.A.A. tests for marijuana at championship competitions but not in its year-round program.)

Uryasz said the rate of positive tests was not meaningful. “I don’t spend a lot of time on the percent positive as being an indicator of very much,” he said.

Independent doping experts contend that having a contract with Drug Free Sport allows sports officials to say they take testing seriously without enacting a truly stringent program.

Don Catlin, the former head of U.C.L.A.’s Olympic Analytical Lab, best known for breaking the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative doping ring, oversaw the testing of many of Drug Free Sport’s urine samples when he was at U.C.L.A. He said the work by Drug Free Sport and similar companies could be used to mislead fans.

“The problem with these schools is they all want to say they’re doing drug testing, but they’re not really doing anything I would call drug testing,” he said.

A Company’s Origins

Uryasz said he became interested in working with student-athletes while tutoring them as an undergraduate at Nebraska. After he graduated, he earned an M.B.A. from Nebraska and worked in health care administration in Omaha. He said he heard about an opening at the N.C.A.A. through a friend.

Driven in part by scandals in professional sports, the N.C.A.A. voted at its 1986 annual convention to start a drug-testing program.

Read More..

Chicago restaurateurs shrug off economic worries

Chicago may have lost a few of its Michelin-starred restaurants in 2012 and waved goodbye to the inimitable Charlie Trotter's, but the higher-end restaurant scene is powering up in ways not seen since prerecession days, according to industry players and observers.

Local operators with a hit or two are embarking on ambitious ventures, though keeping an eye on startup costs and menu prices. A handful of chefs with established followings, among them Curtis Duffy and Iliana Regan, are sticking out their necks with riskier fine-dining ventures. And some prominent out-of-towners are investing on a grand scale, with a Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse just opened in the former Esquire Theater on Oak Street, and an Italian food and wine marketplace, Eataly, planned for the former ESPN Zone site in River North.

The flurry of activity is seen by some as a signal the economy has stabilized, at least for now.

"People are out spending money again, and corporations are hosting expensive dinners again, and there was a period when that was not happening," said Neil Stern, senior partner at McMillanDoolittle, a retail consultancy. "It affects the high end significantly."

Still, the bubbling of enthusiasm for the upper end of the market is something of an anomaly. The rebound in Chicago restaurant startups across all price ranges is tenuous. The city issued 1,458 new retail food licenses in 2012, only 11 more than in 2010 and below the 1,589 issued in 2007, the year leading into the recession.

Just as there are new arrivals, there were some big losses last year in this notoriously volatile business. Notable exits include Charlie Trotter's, Crofton on Wells, Il Mulino, One Sixtyblue, Pane Caldo and Ria at the Waldorf Astoria, one of several luxury hotels to step away from fine dining.

Weak economic conditions played a role for some, and the forecast for 2013 remains uncertain.

"It's a precarious market, and one economic blip really can take demand out of the market very, very quickly," Stern said.

Still, upscale-restaurant operators are moving ahead, betting on Chicagoans' seemingly endless fascination with food trends, dining out and the city's robust roster of accomplished chefs.

"When I was a child, people would go to each other's homes for a dinner party every week and would rarely go to restaurants — now it is almost the opposite," said David Flom, who with his business partner Matthew Moore hit a grand slam with Chicago Cut Steakhouse in River North, which opened in 2010. Steaks range from $34 to $114; soup, salad, sauces, vegetables and potatoes all are extra.

In December, they opened The Local at the Hilton Suites in Streeterville, a more modestly priced venue where executive chef Travis Strickland, formerly of the Inn at Blackberry Farm, is serving locally sourced comfort food. Meatloaf made with prime dry-aged beef goes for $24, rotisserie chicken pot pie for $22.

"People can use The Local as an everyday restaurant," Flom said. "People can say, 'Let's just grab a burger at The Local.' It doesn't have to be $100 a person, it can be $25."

At Chicago Cut, the average check, per person, is $82, including drinks, versus $44 at The Local, he said.

Industry observer Ron Paul, president and CEO of Technomic Inc., said he is particularly intrigued by the growing strength of such emerging independents, who are nipping at the heels of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises Inc., even as that homegrown powerhouse continues to churn out winning concepts.

As restaurant real estate broker Randee Becker, president of Restaurants!, put it: "People who are doing north of $8 million to $10 million of sales are expanding in a big way."

After establishing a high-style, large-scale foothold in River North with the opening of Epic in 2009, proprietors Steve Tavoso and Jeff Krogh last fall embarked on a second act in the neighborhood. They engaged prominent chefs — Thomas Elliott Bowman and Ben Roche, who worked together at Moto — but kept their initial investment more modest this time.

Their latest entry, the eclectic Baume & Brix, opened last fall in the former Rumba space, which had most of the necessary mechanical, electrical, plumbing and kitchen elements in place. Startup costs were about $1.5 million, compared with more than $5 million spent to open Epic. "I took raw space (for Epic) — I would never do that again," Tavoso recalled.

Mercadito Hospitality, whose Chicago offerings include high-energy Latin American tapas spots Mercadito and Tavernita, also is watching its pennies on startups, its most recent being Little Market Brasserie in the Talbott Hotel. Led by chef/partner Ryan Poli, the restaurant has quietly opened with a Parisian decor and American small plates. Its grand opening is expected Jan. 18.

"We are aware of the fact the economy is not fully recovered, so we try to keep our expenses down without sacrificing quality," said managing partner Alfredo Sandoval.

The Chicago-based group intends to keep expanding. It just signed a lease at a River North spot with a 4 a.m. liquor license, with plans to open a drinks-focused venue there in 2013.

Read More..

10 Vintage Photographs of Snowflakes

Photo courtesy of Flickr, Smithsonian Institution.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: 5 YouTube Videos to Help Winterize Your Home]

If for some reason you didn’t believe no two snowflakes were alike, here’s your proof.

In 1885, Wilson A. Bentley successfully photographed over 5,000 snowflakes by attaching a camera to a microscope (and in turn honing the field of Photomicrography). His photographs supported his and others’ beliefs that all snowflakes were unique.

[More from Mashable: 20+ Online Resources for Planning a Winter Getaway]

Bentley become fascinated with snow as a child on a Vermont farm. He later spent time experimenting with ways to view individual snowflakes and their crystalline structure, which eventually came in handy when he had to be quick enough to capture a flake in a picture before it melted.

These photographs quickly became popular with dozens of scientists who studied Bentley’s work and published the images in several scientific magazines. In 1903, Bentley sent about 500 of his photographs to the Smithsonian, hoping they would be of interest to Secretary Samuel P. Langley.

The Smithsonian now has his vintage pics on display, undeniably proveing that snow is just so, so pretty.

Gallery photos courtesy of Flickr, Smithsonian Institution. Thumbnail photo courtesy of Flickr, AMagill.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: 10 Vintage Photographs of Snowflakes
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/10-vintage-photographs-of-snowflakes/
Link To Post : 10 Vintage Photographs of Snowflakes
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Analysis: Fiscal battles show divide in Republican Party

WASHINGTON — The budget battles rocking the capital have exposed a deepening fault line within an already fractured Republican Party: the divide between the GOP's solid Southern base and the rest of the country.

That regional split became evident when members of the House of Representatives cast votes last week on a budget deal designed to avoid massive tax hikes and spending cuts: Almost 90% of Southern Republicans voted against the "fiscal-cliff" compromise. At the same time, a majority of Republican representatives from outside the South supported the deal, which was approved in large part because of overwhelming Democratic support.

The GOP's geographic schisms burst anew after House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) canceled an expected vote on a $60-billion disaster relief package for victims of Superstorm Sandy.

Rep. Peter T. King (R- N.Y.) accused his party of "cavalier disregard" toward New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, a potential 2016 GOP presidential contender, lashed out at what he called the "toxic internal politics" of his party's House majority, noting that Republicans had speedily approved support for storm relief in "Louisiana, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Alabama …"

Boehner moved quickly to smooth things over, but the upheaval was a reminder that divisions within the party could play an influential role as the new Congress begins to tackle Washington's top agenda items, including an attempt in coming weeks to avoid a national debt default and President Obama's promised effort to overhaul the nation's immigration system.

The image projected by the battles in the House — the only part of the federal government controlled by Republicans — could influence public attitudes toward the GOP and its candidates heading into the 2014 midterm elections and the 2016 presidential contest.

In particular, the South's preeminence could pose challenges to national GOP efforts to broaden the party's appeal on social and cultural issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

"An increasing challenge for Northeastern Republicans, and West Coast Republicans, for that matter, is the growing perception among their constituents that the Republican Party is predominantly a Southern and rural party," said Dan Schnur, a former GOP campaign strategist who directs the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. "There's always been a political and cultural disconnect between the South and the rest of the country. But as the parties have sorted themselves out geographically over the last few decades, the size of that gap has increased."

To an unprecedented degree, today's Republican majority in the House is centered in the states of the old Confederacy. The GOP enjoys a 57-seat advantage across the 11-state region that stretches from Texas to Virginia.

Outside the South, however, it's a different story.

As a result of reapportionment and the 2012 election, the GOP no longer controls a majority of non-Southern congressional districts. In the last Congress, Republicans held a slim, two-district majority in non-Southern states; now Democrats have a 24-seat edge. Still, the Republicans have a comfortable 33-seat overall majority in the House — two seats are vacant — and only the most optimistic Democrats believe that Republicans will lose control of the chamber in 2014.

Merle Black, an Emory University political science professor who is an authority on the rise of the Republican Party in the South, said opposition to the fiscal cliff compromise appeared to be concentrated in congressional districts with the highest percentages of conservative voters.

"The Deep South is the most conservative area of the nation," Black noted.

Few would dispute that the battle over the fiscal cliff and internecine sniping over Superstorm Sandy aid left Republicans in Washington deeply divided at a time when the party is still trying to recover from a presidential election defeat that many did not see coming.

"Any time a party loses an election, it goes through a process of internal debate. What the fiscal cliff did was to force that into becoming a little more public than usually happens," said Republican strategist Ed Brookover.

Not everyone in the party agrees that its increasing concentration in the South poses a threat at the ballot box.

"No one in New Hampshire isn't going to vote Republican because our base is in the South," said Dave Carney, a campaign consultant based in New Hampshire whose clients have included Texas Gov. Rick Perry. "I don't think there's a disqualification because a majority of the party members come from below the Mason-Dixon line. What would be an issue is who the candidates will be at the national level and what their message will be."

Yet the South's dominance and internal politics have reinforced the tilt toward sharply conservative views.

In the House, most members of both parties represent districts that have lopsided partisan majorities. The threat of a primary challenge, often from a more extreme member of their own party, is a greater threat to many incumbents than opposition in the general election from the other party's candidate.

That tends to foster attitudes that can run counter to a party's national goals. The recent presidential campaign, in which Republican Mitt Romney was targeted by Democrats for adopting more conservative positions as he sought the nomination, demonstrated the limits of hewing to the Southern approach. The positions Romney and others have taken secured the support of white voters, but that is a declining share of a national electorate that is becoming increasingly diverse, with the emergence of a fast-growing Latino vote that has strongly favored Democratic candidates.

"Republicans across the country need to take a long, hard look at where this party is headed. Demographically, it cannot survive on the trajectory it's taken," said Dick Wadhams, a former chairman of the Colorado Republican Party. "The question for House Republicans is whether they are going to be an aid or an obstacle. I am hopeful the longer view is taken and that Republicans will understand the political predicament we would be in if responsible, substantive changes aren't made in the tone and substance of the party's relationship to Hispanics."

Brookover, a former political director of the House Republican campaign committee, contrasted opposition to the fiscal cliff compromise in the House with the high level of GOP support in the Senate, where officeholders often have to build a broader base of support to win statewide. Only five Republican senators voted no.

Most of the dissenters were first-termers who came into office with the support of the tea party in 2010, including potential combatants in the next round of Republican presidential primaries: Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Rand Paul of Kentucky.

paul.west@latimes.com

Read More..

HBO’s Liberace film aims to humanize through love story

PASADENA, California (Reuters) – Michael Douglas takes on larger-than-life entertainer Liberace as he plays the singer in an HBO film about a secret love affair in the 1970s that Douglas on Friday called “a great love story.”

Director Steven Soderbergh said he chose to tell Liberace’s story through the lens of his romance with Scott Thorson – a young man who walked into the singer’s Las Vegas dressing room in the summer of 1977 – in part to expand public perception beyond his outsized personality and lavish lifestyle.

“I was very anxious that we not make a caricature of either of their characters or the relationship,” Soderbergh told reporters at a meeting of the Television Critics Association.

“The discussions they’re having are discussions every couple has. We take the relationship very seriously,” he said.

The film called “Beyond the Candelabra” debuts this spring on Time Warner Inc-owned HBO. It is based on Thorson’s book of the same name about their relationship, which ended in a bitter breakup. Matt Damon plays Thorson.

The idea for the film was budding 12 years ago, when Soderbergh and the “Wall Street” actor were working on the 2000 movie “Traffic.” Soderbergh randomly asked Douglas if he had ever thought of playing Liberace.

Douglas said he thought “is this guy messing with me?,” but launched into an impersonation that stuck with Soderbergh years later when he began envisioning the Liberace film.

The movie depicts “a great love story,” Douglas said.

“This is a couple that felt for each other. There’s a lot of joyful moments; there is humor to it,” until their emotional split, he said.

Liberace tried to keep his relationship with Thorson from the public. When Thorson sued Liberace for palimony after their breakup, the entertainer denied that he was gay or that the two had been lovers.

“It’s unfortunate to see the movie through a contemporary lens and know they were not allowed to be as open back then as people are today,” Soderbergh said.

Liberace died in 1987 at age 67.

The filmmakers used locations and props directly from Liberace’s life. Scenes were filmed at the musician’s Los Angeles penthouse and on the stage at the Las Vegas Hilton where Liberace performed. The filmmakers also reunited his trademark, matching “Dueling Pianos.”

The movie’s costume designers worked to recreate his elaborate costumes. In one of the star’s dramatic entrances, the real-life Liberace wore a $ 300,000 white virgin fox coat, lined with $ 100,000 worth of Austrian crystals, that weighed 100 lbs (45 kg). In the film, Douglas wears a replica made of fake fur that weighs much less.

Damon also got to wear his share of flashy outfits. While he said he normally doesn’t pay too much attention to wardrobe fittings, he said he embraced the glamorous costumes in the Liberace film.

“I probably spent more time in wardrobe fittings in this thing than I have in the previous 15 projects,” he said. “I really enjoyed it.”

(Reporting by Lisa Richwine, editing by Jill Serjeant and Lisa Shumaker)

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: HBO’s Liberace film aims to humanize through love story
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/hbos-liberace-film-aims-to-humanize-through-love-story/
Link To Post : HBO’s Liberace film aims to humanize through love story
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

The New Old Age: Murray Span, 1922-2012

One consequence of our elders’ extended lifespans is that we half expect them to keep chugging along forever. My father, a busy yoga practitioner and blackjack player, celebrated his 90th birthday in September in reasonably good health.

So when I had the sad task of letting people know that Murray Span died on Dec. 8, after just a few days’ illness, the primary response was disbelief. “No! I just talked to him Tuesday! He was fine!”

And he was. We’d gone out for lunch on Saturday, our usual routine, and he demolished a whole stack of blueberry pancakes.

But on Wednesday, he called to say he had bad abdominal pain and had hardly slept. The nurses at his facility were on the case; his geriatrician prescribed a clear liquid diet.

Like many in his generation, my dad tended towards stoicism. When he said, the following morning, “the pain is terrible,” that meant agony. I drove over.

His doctor shared our preference for conservative treatment. For patients at advanced ages, hospitals and emergency rooms can become perilous places. My dad had come through a July heart attack in good shape, but he had also signed a do-not-resuscitate order. He saw evidence all around him that eventually the body fails and life can become a torturous series of health crises and hospitalizations from which one never truly rebounds.

So over the next two days we tried to relieve his pain at home. He had abdominal x-rays that showed some kind of obstruction. He tried laxatives and enemas and Tylenol, to no effect. He couldn’t sleep.

On Friday, we agreed to go to the emergency room for a CT scan. Maybe, I thought, there’s a simple fix, even for a 90-year-old with diabetes and heart disease. But I carried his advance directives in my bag, because you never know.

When it is someone else’s narrative, it’s easier to see where things go off the rails, where a loving family authorizes procedures whose risks outweigh their benefits.

But when it’s your father groaning on the gurney, the conveyor belt of contemporary medicine can sweep you along, one incremental decision at a time.

All I wanted was for him to stop hurting, so it seemed reasonable to permit an IV for hydration and pain relief and a thin oxygen tube tucked beneath his nose.

Then, after Dad drank the first of two big containers of contrast liquid needed for his scan, his breathing grew phlegmy and labored. His geriatrician arrived and urged the insertion of a nasogastric tube to suck out all the liquid Dad had just downed.

His blood oxygen levels dropped, so there were soon two doctors and two nurses suctioning his throat until he gagged and fastening an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth.

At one point, I looked at my poor father, still in pain despite all the apparatus, and thought, “This is what suffering looks like.” I despaired, convinced I had failed in my most basic responsibility.

“I’m just so tired,” Dad told me, more than once. “There are too many things going wrong.”

Let me abridge this long story. The scan showed evidence of a perforation of some sort, among other abnormalities. A chest X-ray indicated pneumonia in both lungs. I spoke with Dad’s doctor, with the E.R. doc, with a friend who is a prominent geriatrician.

These are always profound decisions, and I’m sure that, given the number of unknowns, other people might have made other choices. Fortunately, I didn’t have to decide; I could ask my still-lucid father.

I leaned close to his good ear, the one with the hearing aid, and told him about the pneumonia, about the second CT scan the radiologist wanted, about antibiotics. “Or, we can stop all this and go home and call hospice,” I said.

He had seen my daughter earlier that day (and asked her about the hockey strike), and my sister and her son were en route. The important hands had been clasped, or soon would be.

He knew what hospice meant; its nurses and aides helped us care for my mother as she died. “Call hospice,” he said. We tiffed a bit about whether to have hospice care in his apartment or mine. I told his doctors we wanted comfort care only.

As in a film run backwards, the tubes came out, the oxygen mask came off. Then we settled in for a night in a hospital room while I called hospices — and a handyman to move the furniture out of my dining room, so I could install his hospital bed there.

In between, I assured my father that I was there, that we were taking care of him, that he didn’t have to worry. For the first few hours after the morphine began, finally seeming to ease his pain, he could respond, “OK.” Then, he couldn’t.

The next morning, as I awaited the hospital case manager to arrange the hospice transfer, my father stopped breathing.

We held his funeral at the South Jersey synagogue where he’d had his belated bar mitzvah at age 88, and buried him next to my mother in a small Jewish cemetery in the countryside. I’d written a fair amount about him here, so I thought readers might want to know.

We weren’t ready, if anyone ever really is, but in our sorrow, my sister and I recite this mantra: 90 good years, four bad days. That’s a ratio any of us might choose.

---

Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”

Read More..