TGIF Edition 20 Aug 2010

20 NZ August 2010 TONIGHT

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ISSN 1172-4153 | Volume 3 | Issue 67 |

| 20 August 2010

Study: ADHD linked to sprays on the WELLINGTON, AUG 20 – An American study has shown children whose mothers were exposed to organophosphate pesticides while pregnant are more likely to have attention problems as they grow up.

Researchers at the University of California Berkeley tested pregnant Mexican-American women living in the Salinas Valley of California for evidence that organophosphate pesticides had actually been absorbed by their bodies, and then followed their children as they grew.

Women with more chemical traces of the pesticides in their urine while pregnant had children more likely to have symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), at age five, with the trend stronger in boys, the researchers found.

Organophosphates are designed to attack the nervous systems of bugs by affecting message-carrying chemicals called neurotransmitters including acetylcholine, which is important to human brain development.

University of Canterbury toxicology expert Ian Shaw said he was not at all surprised with the study results as pesticides interfered with the development of the nervous system.

“Organophosphorus pesticides are designed to disrupt the nervous system – that’s how they kill insects.

“The question is, what dose does a pregnant woman need to receive to result in neurological damage to her child?”

The problem might only affect woman in agricultural communities where their exposure to organophosphates would be greater, especially if they worked on farms during their pregnancy, rather than being exposed to it through food.

The New Zealand Food Safety Authority (NZFSA) conducted a survey of chemical residues on food earlier this year, which found three samples of cucumbers with levels of methamidophos above

the maximum residue limit of 0.2 mg/kg (0.3038, 0.3219 and 0.3206).

Organophosphate residues were also found were found in nectarines, bananas, bok choi, oranges, broccoli and cucumber but below the maximum

limit where it is considered safe to consume daily.

NZFSA said it was is working with Horticulture New Zealand to remind growers of their responsibilities around chemical use and residues.

INSIDE

Continue reading

Find Lucas

Police kept bike, chippy find secret WELLINGTON, AUG 20 – The grandmother of missing Gisborne boy Lucas Ward found his bike on a pathway to a river jetty on Tuesday, the day he disappeared, police revealed today.

His grandmother also saw a chippy packet in the river that she believes she was the same one she had given Lucas before he went missing, police said at a press conference.

Continue reading

Come back Yankee Iraqis nervous as US leaves Page 9

Grave fright

Woman’s leg sucked into tomb Page 2

US Navy rescues Iranian sailors MANAMA, BAHRAIN – Eight Iranian sailors whose vessel caught fire were rescued by US Navy helicopters in the Arabian Sea, according to a US military statement late today. Two helicopters from the nuclear-powered carrier USS Harry Truman carried out the rescue operation on high seas, after an F/A-18 jet assigned to the carrier squadron spotted a vessel on fire,according to a statement issued by the Bahrain-based US 5th Fleet Command.

The vessel in distress was sighted late yesterday about 80 kilometres from the aircraft carrier.

Two SH-60 helicopters “were dispatched to render assistance”and reached the stricken vessel within about 45 minutes, the Navy said. A search and rescue swimmer dove into the waters near the burning boat and discovered eight people in a raft.

“The first helicopter recovered four mariners and transported them back to Truman.A short time later, the remaining four mariners were recovered by the second helicopter.The mariners told the aircrew that all of their personnel on the vessel were accounted for.”

According to the US Navy, basic humanitarian

and medical care were extended to the rescued sailors after they landed on the carrier.

“The assessment by Truman’s medical staff revealed that the eight were in excellent shape with no significant injuries.The medical department provided them with food, water and a fresh change of clothing,”the statement said.

“It is our duty as a professional navy and as professional sailors to help those in need of assistance. We have a longstanding tradition of helping mariners in distress – providing medical assistance,

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engineering assistance and search and rescue,”Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll, commander of Carrier Strike Group 10, said in the statement.

“There was no hesitation on the part of our aircrew and rescue swimmer to help out our fellow seafarers.”

According to the US Navy, the eight mariners will remain on the carrier, which is conducting missions in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, until arrangements can be made for their safe return home.

– DPA

NEW ZEALAND

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off BEAT

WOMAN’S LEG SINKS INTO GRAVE SKANE, SWEDEN, AUG. 20 (UPI) – Emergency responders were called to a Swedish graveyard when a woman’s leg sank into soil that had been softened by recent heavy rains.

Witnesses said the woman was leaving flowers at a family grave about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Bragarps church in Skane when her leg sank into the muddy terrain and became stuck, The Local reported Thursday.

Emergency responders were called to free the woman and she required no medical attention, witnesses said.

“I have been working here for 11 years and I have never seen anything like this,” the Rev. Jonas Kristiansson said.

Kristiansson said recent rains caused subsidence in several areas of the graveyard. He said workers plan to repair the grave.

MAN TICKETED AFTER ‘FAT AND UGLY’ BARB SAUKVILLE, WIS., AUG. 20 (UPI) – Police in a Wisconsin town said they issued a $429 ticket to a man who allegedly told a fellow grocery store customer she was ugly and fat.

Saukville police said the woman was shopping at the Piggly Wiggly and obtained permission from a clerk to use the express checkout lane, despite having more than 10 items, Milwaukee’s WTMJ-AM reported Thursday.

However, another customer expressed displeasure at the woman being allowed to skirt the item limit.

The female subject, the complainant, then turned back toward the man (and said) ‘I got permission here.

Is there a problem?’ That’s when the person said to her, ‘Yeah, the problem is that you’re ugly and fat,’ officer Barry Effinger said.

Effinger said the man allegedly continued to harass the woman until she called police.

The man, who Effinger said has a history of anger problems, was issued a citation for $429.

POLICE CALL ‘MA’ ON SUSPECT’S PHONE ATHENS, GA., AUG. 20 (UPI) – Police in Georgia said they used a cellphone left behind at the scene of a primary school burglary to call the suspect’s mother.

Athens-Clarke police said officers responding to an 11:25 p.m. burglar alarm at Howard B. Stroud Elementary School in Athens saw a man drop his cellphone while fleeing the building, the Athens Banner-Herald reported Thursday.

Investigators said they called a number in the phone labelled ma, and the suspect’s mother told them she had kicked her son out of her home because of his stealing habit.

Police said the woman told them the man stays with his grandfather in Colbert, Ga., and failed to show up for a Monday court appearance on a burglary charge.

POLICE ENCOUNTER MELLOW BEARS AT POT FARM VANCOUVER, AUG. 20 (UPI) – Canadian police investigating a British Columbia marijuana farm said they were greeted by 10 to 15 docile black bears.

Police Sgt. Fred Mansveld said officers investigating the marijuana growing operation, which included more than 1,000 plants, encountered 10 to 15 docile black bears on the property and found a domesticated raccoon and a pot-bellied pig in the two houses on the Christina Lake property, the Vancouver Sun reported Thursday.

Constable Dave Smith said someone had apparently been giving dog food to the bears to get them to remain on the property.

Common behavior of a bear is usually to avoid humans, Smith said. The ones that are used to people are quite wary of you, they don’t just sit there and watch you, and these bears were just sitting around, laying around just watching, wandering around.

Police said the man and woman living on the property will face charges of production and possession of marijuana.

20 August 2010

No change in ANZAC ties expected

By Peter Wilson of NZPA

WELLINGTON, AUG 20 – There will be a flurry of trans-Tasman shuttle diplomacy after tomorrow’s Australian election but the Government is anticipating there will be little, if any, change in the relationship.

Labor and Coalition policies in the areas where the two governments interact are almost identical and it is likely to be “business as usual” with the next administration, sources say.

Ministers will need to get to know each other. If Julia Gillard retains power her new cabinet might not bear much resemblance to the one put together by former prime minister John Howard.

And if the Coalition wins, Tony Abbott’s team will be entirely new.

A meeting at prime minister level isn’t imminent, because the next Australian leader will need time to put a cabinet together and work on core policies before going into bilateral talks with other governments.

The first opportunity for talks between Prime Minister John Key and tomorrow’s winner is expected to be in October at the Asian summit meeting, at which Mr Key is likely to attend.

New Zealand ministers will be looking for assurances that the work on single economic market issues will continue at least at the same pace as they have over the last few years.The would prefer them to move more quickly, but if there is a change of government across the Tasman a new set of ministers will have to get to grips with complex commercial negotiations as well as cross-border regulation and control.

New Zealand hasn’t really entered the election campaign, apart from a minor politician suggest-

ing there should be some control over right of entry which surfaced briefly during the immigration debate.

New Zealand government sources say if Labor or the Coalition were even thinking about changing the rules the signals would have reached Wellington, and they haven’t.

Successive Australian and New Zealand governments have maintained the special relationship that

binds the two countries together, and which has transcended any differences between them.

At the moment there is really only one – the ban on New Zealand apples, the World Trade Organisation ruling which said it breached international trade law, and Australia’s intention to appeal it.

That problem has been around for 90 years and it too is likely to go into the“business as usual”basket.

– NZPA

Midwife guilty, gets $85K bill WELLINGTON, AUG 20 – A Christchurch midwife has had her registration cancelled and been ordered to pay $85,000 costs after a professional misconduct hearing.

The midwife, who has name suppression, appeared before a Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal in Christchurch this week on six charges of professional misconduct related to her treatment of five patients between 2005 and 2008.

Witnesses told the tribunal the midwife brushed off their concerns, was cold and uncaring and treated patients like animals.

One told of repeatedly ringing the midwife while in labour but being told to take Panadol and wait.

She gave birth on the laundry floor.

The tribunal today found the midwife guilty of negligence, malpractice and bringing discredit to

the profession, Radio New Zealand reported.

The midwife has been censured and her registration cancelled. She was not fined, but ordered to pay costs of $85,000.

The tribunal lifted the woman’s name suppression but her lawyer indicated he would appeal that decision to the High Court.

– NZPA

NZ oil disaster worry WELLINGTON, AUG 20 – The Labour Party says safety and environmental issues must be considered when oil exploration permits are granted and the Greens want a moratorium on applications until processes are put in place.

The Government did not consider the environment when awarding a petroleum exploration permit for an area off the North Island’s East Cape, an official document shows.

The permit, New Zealand’s first over the Raukumara Basin, went to international Brazilian-based company Petrobras and covers an area of more than 12,000 square kilometres.

Its five-year permit will give the company time to do thorough explorations and assess whether there is potential to mine for oil or gas.

Documents obtained by Radio New Zealand under the Official Information Act show the decision to award the permit was made on technical and economic grounds and did not consider safety or environmental factors.

Petrobras was required to show it would use good oil field practices.

Energy and Resources Minister Gerry Brownlee said specific environmental requirements did not need to be considered until drilling began.

But Labour’s environment spokesman Charles Chauvel said there was a major issue right now.

“We have seen in recent months with the Gulf of Mexico disaster the damage that can be done when

things go wrong with offshore drilling,”he said.

“It is madness, when the Government is looking at expanding this activity, not to have stringent environmental checks in place before these applications can be considered.”

The Green’s energy spokesman, Kennedy Graham, said it was disingenuous for Mr Brownlee to say he would consider the environment later when he had already issued a permit for Petrobras to drill an exploratory well.

“An exploratory well poses all the same risks of a production well and Petrobras already has a permit to drill if it wishes,”Dr Graham said.

“If an exploratory well runs into trouble, has Minister Brownlee ensured that there is a relief well capability in place to respond, or do we have to wait six months for a foreign rig to arrive and a further four months for relief drilling while our fisheries and shorelines are destroyed?”

Environmental concerns were raised when the project was announced.

At the time Mr Brownlee said the Government and Petrobras were aware of environmental concerns – particularly soon after the Gulf of Mexico industrial accident and oil spill – but he was comfortable with the company’s “sensitive”approach to its work and legislation was being worked on in terms of environmental requirements needed to be put in place in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone.

Since then the Government had announced a new environmental protection agency (EPA).

Environment Minister Nick Smith said the EPA would help protect New Zealand’s ocean from catastrophes similar to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The Government is determined to ensure that New Zealand’s marine environment is properly protected as we expand the petroleum exploration and development in the exclusive economic zone,” he said.

– NZPA

NEW ZEALAND

20 August 2010

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Kiwi dollar stabilises WELLINGTON, AUG 20 – The New Zealand dollar drifted today after falling against the greenback on Thursday night as fear stalked world markets again.

By 5pm the NZ dollar was buying US70.45c, down from US70.74c at 8am, which was down from US71.13c at 5pm yesterday.

Dealers said the latest economic data from the United States raised new worries that the world’s largest economy is nearly stuck. New US claims for first-time jobless benefits scaled a nine-month high last week, while mid-Atlantic factory activity contracted, unexpectedly, in August for the first time in more than a year.

Imre Speizer, senior currency strategist at Westpac, said the currency had largely moved sideways today after falling overnight in reaction to weak sharemarkets.

Finance co fails, govt bailout looms WELLINGTON, AUG 20 NZPA – Allied Nationwide Finance (ANF), the finance company owned by Allied Farmers Ltd, has collapsed after missing payments on debenture maturities yesterday.

ANF is covered by the Crown retail deposit guarantee scheme. Treasury said 4500 depositors with $130 million of deposits are affected.

“The Crown stands fully behind its guarantee commitments, and we expect an orderly process of payment to eligible Allied Nationwide Finance depositors,”said Treasury deputy secretary Philip Combes.

The events unfolded during the day but ultimately ANF advised that its directors decided this afternoon to request that its trustee, New Zealand Guardian Trust (NZGT), appoint receivers.

NZGT appointed Kerryn Downey and Andrew Grenfell of McGrathNicol.

McGrathNicol has been acting as independent advisers to NZGT and prepared a report on ANF, which resulted in the alleged breach of its trust deed ratio earlier this month.

“The board and management of ANF will cooperate fully with the receiver in the interests of all stakeholders of the company, including deposit and bond investors, staff, customers and Allied Farmers as shareholder,” the company said in a statement to NZX. Allied Farmers shares last traded at just 2.6 cents each.

ANF said it expects an“acceptable outcome”from the receivership on the basis of its current net asset position and level of shareholder funds.

Allied Farmers said earlier today that ANF

missed a payment of debenture maturities due yesterday.

ANF said it expected to complete an initial transaction today that would result in the payment of debenture maturities now due.

Allied Farmers has suspended a planned capital raising and ANF has suspended its prospectus while it sorts out a disputed breach of its trust deed with NZGT, which gave ANF 14 days, until 5pm today, to remedy the position.

The board and management of ANF did not agree with NZGT’s view and believed that ANF was in compliance with the relevant ratio.

ANF said that up to yesterday, it had continued to meet all its financial obligations, including repayment of maturing debentures.

But as the capital and funding initiatives under consideration by the Allied group needed third party commitments and NZGT approvals, which had not been received by last night, it did not pay the debenture maturities due yesterday,ANF said.

Eligible depositors with Allied Nationwide Finance will be contacted by the Treasury and provided with information about how to claim under the terms of the Crown retail deposit guarantee.

Credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s has lowered its rating on ANF to D from CC, or to default from highly vulnerable,as a result of the company’s collapse.

“ANF’s slower-than-anticipated success in asset sales and new capital injection-along with some loan repayment delays-has material weakened its liquidity and cash position,” Standard & Poor’s credit analyst Peter Sikora said.

They did not reveal the bike and chippy packet earlier,“as we wanted to keep the options open as to where Lucas may have gone”rather than focusing solely on the river, Inspector Sam Aberahama told Radio NZ. He was still “open-minded”but after three days of searching an area of river more than 500m wide, police divers had not found Lucas and believed he was not in that area, he said.

“I’m confident that our police divers have done a very, very good job of the area that they have searched and I’m confident that they feel he is not in there and they are 99 percent sure ... I’m confident in them having done the job as well as they could,”he said.

The river was not that fast-moving, but “quite calm”particularly at the bottom.

Police were not discounting the possibility of foul play, but there was nothing to indicate that.

“We are treating this incident as a missing person investigation. That type of investigation encompasses any potential aspects of foul play or a criminal element. It’s an option we must consider.”

Three of five possible sightings had been eliminated, with inquiries now focusing on a “westerly direction” of Graham Road, the area Lucas went missing from. Fifty people, including police, family

members and volunteers, were out door-knocking in that area today.

Police could widen the search area as time progressed, Mr Aberahama said at the press conference.

The bike and chippy packet findings prompted the search of the river, he said.

“While there has been a focus on the Waimata River, we are keeping an open mind as to where Lucas might have wandered off to.

“There are numerous places he could be and the river is only one option we are looking at.

“We are asking residents again to check their properties inside and out for any likely hiding places which could attract a child.

“Lucas is a very inquisitive and curious child and he could have explored any number of places.”

Police also want to speak to two kayakers who were seen on the Waimata River in the Graham Rd area on Tuesday afternoon.

A resident of nearby Gardner Place has told police she saw the two male kayakers on the river about 3pm on Tuesday. Anyone with information about them should contact police.

The search for Lucas will continue over the weekend.

Graeme Peters, the chief executive of Agcarm, the body representing the crop protection industry, said the use of organophosphates in New Zealand was declining.

“They are old chemistry and they are gradually being phased out with new chemistry, but having said that they are still used.”

The industry acknowledged organophosphates were hazardous and there were strict warnings and rules around their use, he said.

Health was a top priority for the pesticide indus-

The focus is also turning to this weekend’s Australian federal election with polls indicating the race is neck and neck.

Mr Speizer said local currencies would rise if the Liberal party won, and be stable if Labor won.

“It is a negative if it is a hung parliament,”he said.

Against the Australian dollar, the NZ dollar was A79.18c from A79.23c at 8am and A71.13c at 5pm yesterday.

News that Fonterra is holding its forecast was not a market mover even though it is a big driver of the New Zealand economy.

The NZ dollar fell to 0.5502 euro at 5pm from 0.5560 at the same time yesterday,and to 60.06 yen from 61.04.

The trade weighted index was 65.95 at 5pm from 66.57 yesterday.

– NZPA

try and products were rigorously tested and heavily regulated, he said.

All the research showed that at extremely low levels the pesticides were not hazardous to people’s health.

“If the research did find that they were, people would stop using them, or they would be banned,” Mr Peters said.

“The pesticide industry takes health and safety incredibly seriously, we don’t just pay lip service to it.There’s a huge amount of investment in satisfying the regulators and themselves.”

The Environmental Risk Management Authority said it was actively reassessing the use of organophosphates.

It has already revoked the approvals for methyl parathion and azinphos methyl and is consulting on and assessing the future use of others.

– NZPA Back to the front page

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104022 Investigate Sept10 FP.indd 1

7/30/10 11:12:34 AM

EDITORIAL

20 August 2010

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Commentary

Guns of August?

By Arnaud de Borchgrave

WASHINGTON – For the first two weeks of August, the Internet buzzed with inside knowledge of an Israeli airstrike against Iran’s nuclear facilities before the end of the month. One of most quoted warnings came from Philip Giraldi, a polyglot former CIA operative who writes for the American Conservative and is no friend of Israel.

“We spend $100 billion on intelligence annually and then ignore the best judgments on what is taking place,” Giraldi wrote on his blog recently,“and might as well use an Ouija board. Not only would we save a lot of money but with an Ouija board there is always the chance you could arrive at the right decision.”

“Five years ago,” Giraldi wrote, “it is hardly a secret that the same people in and around the administration that brought you Iraq are preparing to do the same for Iran.”

“U.S.Vice President Dick Cheney,”he wrote,“had tasked the Strategic Command with drawing up a contingency plan in response to another Sept.11-type terrorist attack on the United States.The plan was for a large-scale air assault on Iran (never mind if Iran wasn’t involved) employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.”More than 450 major strategic targets were listed in the plan – evidently leaked to Giraldi by appalled senior U.S.Air Force officers.

Tehran’s propaganda machine has taken a leaf out of Bush 43’s lexicon – bring ‘em on. The Pasdaran, or Revolutionary Guards, trotted out their latest acquisition – the 51-foot Bladerunner, the world’s fastest warship, capable of 82 mph.

The Iran Times, published in Washington in both English and Farsi, reported only two such high-tech speedboats had been built and that Iran was now

planning to mass-produce them.The one acquired

by Iran was purchased in South Africa and loaded onto a container ship. The Financial Times said the United States was prepared to board it but the operation was called off without explanation.

One Bladerunner was used to set a record for circumnavigating the British Isles in 2005, when it averaged 61.5 mph over 27 hours.

For the past 20 years, Iran’s seagoing Republican Guards have been accumulating small, swift boats with a view to swarming U.S. warships going in and out of the Hormuz Strait, and to mining the narrow waterway used by supertankers that move 40 per-

quickly shoot up from $80 a barrel where it is today to $400 or $500.

In January 2008, five Iranian speedboats darted in and out of a line of three U.S. warships as they entered the Persian Gulf through the Strait, dropping white boxes ahead of the vessels, forcing them to take evasive action.

The USS Port Royal, a 9,600-ton cruiser, the 8,300-ton guided missile destroyer USS Hopper and the 4,100-ton frigate USS Ingraham were prepared to blast the Iranian boats out of the water with close-range, rapid-fire Phalanx Gatlings but word came from the Pentagon to hold their fire.

THE SUICIDE BOAT ATTACK AGAINST THE 8,600TON USS COLE, AT ANCHOR IN ADEN HARBOR IN OCTOBER 2000, WHICH KILLED 17 U.S. SAILORS AND IMMOBILIZED A $1 BILLION WARSHIP FOR TWO YEARS OF REPAIRS, DEMONSTRATED VULNERABILITY TO SMALL CRAFT LADEN WITH EXPLOSIVES cent of all seaborne traded oil (which is 20 percent of all oil traded worldwide). Moving through the mile-wide exit channel is also three-quarters of all of Japan’s oil needs.

Iran also has an endless supply of seagoing suicide volunteers. Hundreds were used to walk across minefields during the Iraq-Iran war (1980-88).

Hormuz is the world’s most important chokepoint and Iran’s principal naval base, Bandar Abbas, is smack in the middle. The Defense Intelligence Agency knows from a former Iranian naval intelligence officer that there are detailed plans to close the strait to supertankers that move some 17 million barrels a day to the rest of the world. Oil would then

The white boxes were designed to simulate mines.

There is little doubt one or two U.S. warships could have been damaged and the United States would have found itself involved in a third war in the region.

The suicide boat attack against the 8,600-ton USS Cole, at anchor in Aden Harbor in October 2000, which killed 17 U.S. sailors and immobilized a $1 billion warship for two years of repairs,demonstrated vulnerability to small craft laden with explosives.

To demonstrate that fresh international sanctions won’t weaken Iranian resolve,Tehran published a new law mandating the production of higher-enriched uranium and further limiting cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

At the same time, Iran and Russia announced they would begin loading before the end of August Russian-supplied fuel into Iran’s first nuclear power plant. A cacophony of tweets amplified Giraldi’s Guns of August scenario.

If Israel has decided to strike against what most Israelis see as an existential threat, it would presumably wait until the U.S. Congress’ return from vacation Sept. 10.A resolution (HR 1553) is winding its way through Congress that endorses an Israeli attack on Iran, which, writes Giraldi, would be going to war by proxy as the U.S. would almost immediately be drawn into conflict when Tehran retaliates.

Leading neo-conservatives pooh-pooh Iran’s asymmetrical retaliatory capabilities as overblown anti-Israeli rhetoric. Reuel Marc Gerecht, a neocon commentator, predicts Iran’s response would be minimal and recommends Israel attack Iran to rock the system to make the regime lose face and suffer a military defeat from which its recovery would be doubtful.

This reporter first began covering Iran in August 1953 when the shah fled a revolutionary upheaval (returning 10 days later after a military crackdown and covert CIA assistance).

There is little doubt that an Israeli attack on Iran would trigger mayhem up and down the Persian Gulf and trigger a third war that would be yet another force multiplier for the U.S.deficit:Federal spending is now at $3.6 trillion;the national debt,$13.4 trillion; cost per citizen $43,000; cost per taxpayer $120,000.

Check the debt clock online – in real time.

Gulf and other Arab rulers who wish secretly for aerial bombing action against Iran’s nuclear facilities will be the first to denounce Israel and its only ally when and if the first Iranian target is hit.

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News Backgrounder

US billionaire sued by kids

By Robert Faturechi Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES – Billionaire Donald L. Bren walked into a Los Angeles courtroom today wearing a suit and sneakers. His footwear may have been comfortable, but the occasion certainly wasn’t:A lawyer representing two of his children peppered the intensely private Irvine Co. chairman with questions about his wealth and personal life.

Bren’s own attorneys made the case that he’s been a somewhat absentee father in raising the two now-adult children: no parent teacher meetings, no school events, no sleepovers at his house, not even a hospital visit when they were born.

His children – Christie Bren, 22, and David Bren, 18 – are seeking retroactive child support in the amount of $400,000 a month each. They contend that out-of-court payments Bren made to their mother when they were youngsters were well below what would have been awarded in a family court.

But Bren’s attorneys say that he made four separate agreements with former girlfriend Jennifer McKay Gold and stuck to each, providing generously for the children.

Bren, 78, described his relationship with Gold as a loveless, infrequent romance – that was never meant to lead to marriage or children. He said he was shocked when he learned Gold became pregnant the first time, and was even more stunned the second time around.

“I felt betrayed in that she promised me that she was protected,”he said of Gold.“And obviously she wasn’t.”

Gold, who also testified, told another story. She said Bren knew she was not using contraception – and described in detail Bren’s preference not to either.

Despite the personal nature of much of Thurs-

day’s testimony, Bren rarely appeared fazed.

“Did you ever tell Jennifer you loved her,”asked attorney Hillel Chodos, who represents Gold and her adult children.

“No, sir,”Bren replied.

“Are you sure?”Chodos asked.

“I’m sure,”Bren said.

Bren has an estimated net worth of $12 billion and is 16th in Forbes magazine’s ranking of the 400 richest Americans. Still, he leads a private life, rarely granting interviews or giving public speeches.

His daughter and son looked on as the real estate magnate recounted how he met their mother in 1984.The two were introduced by a mutual friend, and several weeks later Gold sent him a note asking him to get a drink, Bren said.

They had been seeing each other infrequently for a few years when Gold told him she was pregnant with their first child, he said. Because of their “unconventional relationship” and the risk his wealth posed for kidnappings and extortion attempts, they agreed to have the baby discreetly, he said.

Gold left Los Angeles for Aspen, Colo., where she spent the final months of her first pregnancy and gave birth, Bren said.

Towards the end of their relationship, Bren said, meetings between the two became rare. Bren said visits to the children were also infrequent, though he did send them toys and pay for their educations.

Gold described their relationship differently, saying she and Bren saw each other multiple times a week for years, and socialized with other couples.

Trips together on chartered planes were common, she said, adding that Bren liked to regularly take weekend ski getaways.

She said the two lived together for a significant period in Los Angeles, regularly attending restaurants that were “the hippest, nicest – Spago, what-

ever was in.”Bren denied they ever cohabitated.

The payments that are being sought from Bren are deserved, attorneys for his children say, given the $3 million to $5 million a month they contend he was spending during the years he would have been paying formal child support. Bren’s attorneys disputed that amount.

Gold has said that Bren enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle, including a fleet of five jets with two full-time pilots, a 240-foot yacht with crew, a speedboat, lavish homes in Los Angeles and Orange County, a ranch in Idaho and a large staff of servants.

“It costs a lot of money to keep all of these things going,”Gold has recalled Bren saying in a conversation about his spending.

In testimony Thursday, Bren sought to downplay

some of those assets, saying they belonged to his businesses, not him personally.

Gold said Bren broke his agreement to maintain a fatherly relationship with the children, particularly after she told him she no longer wanted to be intimate after more than a decade together.

She acknowledged under questioning from Bren’s attorney that she received about $3 million in child support from Bren from 1988 to 2002. But she said she thought she and the kids deserved more considering Bren’s wealth. The money was virtually the only income the family had then, she said.

Gold’s time on the stand, which was contentious under cross-examination, seemed to take a toll on her.The former model could be seen in the hallway during breaks being comforted by her children.

ANALYSIS

6

20 August 2010

Walker’s World

The long housing slump

By Martin Walker

PARIS – House prices could decline by 30 percent to 50 percent in most developed countries over the next 40 years, a persuasive new study by the Bank of International Settlements says.

The reason is the economics of an aging society, in which a higher proportion of older people live longer and thus have more non-working years of retirement in which they must live on their assets, like housing.

But there will be more and more older people or their estates trying to sell their houses into a market of fewer younger people, so prices are likely to drop.

The BIS is the international central bank for 53 of the world’s biggest national and regional central banks. In its own mission statement it fosters international monetary and financial cooperation and serves as a bank for central banks. It carries great weight and its surveys are to be taken seriously.

Its survey of prospects for the global housing market, titled Aging and Asset Prices, written by Elod Takats, one of its in-house economists, represents the growing new field of studies into the ominous implications of the rise in human longevity.

The number of older people (age 65 and over) in the United States will double over the next 30 years, from 40 million to 80 million, and the percentage of

older people in the population is going to jump from 13 percent to 20 percent. There are already more people over the age of 60 than children under 15.

By the time the youngest baby boomers turn 65 in 2029, every fifth American will be 65 or older.The percentage of 85-year-olds will grow even faster.

2029 is not far away, the time when one of this year’s newborn babies will be going to college.

This isn’t simply an American problem. In fact, thanks to relatively high birth rates and immigration the United States is getting off lightly. Take Britain, for example, where in 1980 a 65-year-old Englishman had a 1-in-1,000 chance of living to be 100 years old. Just 30 years later, this figure has increased to 1-in-100. And China is going to have one-third of its population over the age of 60 by the 2030s.

At one level, all this is wonderful news. It means longer and even richer lives, more time to achieve things and to enjoy life. But there is a darker side.

How does a society finance this swollen population of the elderly when they need pensions and healthcare?

A 2004 Medicare survey spells this out in grim detail. The health costs of the average American ages 65 to 74 were $10,778 a year, of which half was paid by Medicare. The costs for those ages 75 to 84 were $16,228 a year, of which half was paid

by Medicare. For those over the age of 85, the costs were $25,291 a year, of which 60 percent was paid

by Medicare and Medicaid. For the rest, old people had to spend their assets.

Those cost figures have already risen by an average 45 percent in the last six years, and the Medicare share is set to increase by a further 60 percent because of the new subsidies for medicines. And the dramatic rise in the number of elderly suffering from dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, set to more than triple from 3 million today to 11 million in 2050, will increase the costs – already running at more than $120 billion a year.

Either all these new costs are paid by a shrinking number of younger people of working age, or by some wondrous breakthrough in productivity or the old folk pay for themselves through their savings and their assets.

The BIS survey found that the demographics of younger populations had helped boost house prices and asset prices in the last 10-20 years but that this tailwind was turning into a headwind for asset prices.

The young save for old age by buying assets, while the old sell assets to finance retirement.This asset transfer can happen directly or through institutions such as pension funds. In this setting, the change in the relative size of asset buyers (the young) and sellers (the old), have consequences for asset prices, the survey says.

In particular, the asset purchases of a large working-age generation, such as the baby boomers in the United States, drives asset prices up. Conversely, if the economy is aging, i.e., the subsequent young generation is relatively smaller, then asset prices decline. In the last 30 years, during the active years of the baby boomer generation, asset prices have increased massively, it goes on.

Asset prices propelled by the boomers’ savings will be under pressure when this large generation retires and starts to sell its assets to the relatively smaller subsequent generation.

The biggest problem, the BIS paper notes, may not be the impact of lower house prices but the much higher burden of spending on health and pensions on governments already overburdened with debt.

It may not be quite so bad.A detailed new study

by Risk Management Solutions suggests that the recent surge in longevity may be only temporary, based on medical advances and people stopping smoking and reducing their risk of heart disease.

We shall see. But even if the problem is less acute, it will still be chronic.

– UPI

London’s Arabian nightmare

By Anna Tomforde

LONDON – When night falls, the fashionable streets of Knightsbridge echo to the roar of luxury sports cars and the blare of Arabic music, making residents feel more like“being in Dubai”than in one of London’s most upmarket residential districts.

This summer, wealthy Middle Eastern visitors who fly in their Bugattis, Ferraris and Lamborghini’s in private jets for ear- splitting races along boutique-lined streets and leafy squares, have aroused the anger of residents and attracted the attention of the police.

“It’s like having the starting grid to Le Mans right outside your bedroom window,”said Bruce Beringer, co-founder of a residents’ campaign group to stop the noise from sleep-depriving supercars.

“Rolls Royces don’t make a noise, but supercars do,”Beringer said in an interview with the German Press Agency dpa.

“We are not racist.Visitors from the Gulf States are very welcome and London has always been a city that welcomes foreigners,”he said.

“But this area is fast becoming an unpleasant place to live,” he added. Weeks of noise and sleepless nights from revving car engines had driven residents to despair. Locally, the races have become known as“cruising parties.”

In early August,police arrested two Arab men after a supercar spun out of control, crashing into four parked vehicles in a usually quiet residential square.

The two men, from the United Arab Emirates, are due to appear in court in October, charged with dangerous driving and driving without insurance.

The problem faced by residents is made worse by rickshaws, which transport Middle Eastern visitors

past the shop windows of Gucci, Prada and Armani well into the early hours, with Arabic music blaring from loudspeakers.

The unlicensed rickshaws, at times riding three abreast, pose a problem for cars and London buses trying to squeeze by, and force pedestrians to“duck and dive,”according to the campaign group.

“One day there will be a fatality, there is an accident waiting to happen,” Karen Morgan Thomas, co-founder of the citizens’campaign group, told dpa.

“They are not drunk but they are bored,” says Morgan Thomas of the rickshaw passengers, who are often girls flirting with men in long Arabic robes strolling down Sloane Street, one of London’s most exclusive shopping streets.

“Walking down Sloane Street at night is like being in Dubai or Marrakesh,”she observed.

Top hotels in the district had changed their working hours for chambermaids to accommodate the visitors’ late sleeping habits, said Morgan Thomas.

Pickpockets and beggars had also flocked to the area. According to Morgan Thomas, some of the European beggars donned Arabic dress to attract sympathy. She had herself seen an“Arab kid”giving a beggar a 50-pound (100-dollar) note.

Support for the residents’ campaign has mushroomed.

Meanwhile, talks are under way with the local council and the police about the stricter enforcement of anti-noise environment legislation, speed limit-and parking fine rules. An increased police presence in the area is under discussion.

Hisham Alireza, a Saudi Arabian construction company owner who lives in the district, said he was “appalled and embarrassed”by the behaviour of the young men in their fast cars.

“We want to see it stopped.The problem is that they come from very close societies where the men and women are not allowed to mix. So when they come to London in the summer, they go wild. It is a sort of courting ritual,”Alireza told the Daily Telegraph.

The campaign group has also been in talks with representatives of the Qatari royal family, the new

owners of Harrods, the luxury department store nearby that attracts a large amount of Middle Eastern customers.

“They have been very helpful,”said Morgan Thomas.“Harrods’ wants to be a good neighbour. But they have no ability to impose rules outside their front door.”

– DPA

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WORLD

8

update

in 60 seconds

U.S.: IRAN AT LEAST A YEAR FROM NUKE BOMB WASHINGTON, AUG. 20 (UPI) – Iran is at least a year away from developing a working nuclear weapon, U.S. officials say.

They also believe U.N. inspectors would see indications that Iran is approaching the point of having enough enriched uranium for a bomb, The New York Times reported Friday. That would give the United States or Israel several weeks for a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Officials refer to the preparation of weapons-grade enriched uranium as breakout and the period for development of a bomb as dash time.

“We think that they have roughly a year dash time,” Gary Samore, an adviser to President Barack Obama on nuclear issues, said. “A year is a very long period of time.”

Israeli leaders have suggested they might launch a pre-emptive strike but the administration believes the recent assessment of Iranian capabilities has deterred them, the newspaper said.

The Iranian government says its nuclear program is a peaceful one aimed only at energy production. Gearing up for weapons production would require the country to force out international inspectors and declare its intentions openly, the Times said.

MID-EAST PEACE DEAL IN ONE YEAR? WASHINGTON, AUG. 20 (UPI) – Israel and the Palestinian Authority have agreed to resume direct talks, setting a one-year time limit, officials said Thursday.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is expected to announce the agreement Friday, The New York Times reported. The negotiations would be the first in 20 months.

Officials close to the discussions said President Barack Obama plans to invite Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to Washington next month.

While the Obama administration has not confirmed any agreement for talks, there were hints of movement today.

“We think we are very, very close to a decision by the parties to enter into direct negotiations,” Philip J. Crowley, the State Department spokesman, said at a press briefing. “We think we’re well positioned to get there.”

Whether negotiations will have any result is another question, the newspaper said. The Palestinians want a state based on Israel’s 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

BILL MILLIN, D-DAY PIPER, DIES AT 88 LONDON, AUG. 20 (UPI) – Bill Millin, who walked Sword Beach braving gunfire and playing the bagpipes for British troops on D-Day, has died. He was 88.

Millin died Tuesday, The Daily Telegraph reported. The cause of death was not reported.

During World War II, Millin served as piper to Simon Fraser, the commando officer Lord Lovat, chief of Clan Fraser, who believed the War Office ban on personal pipers did not apply to him, the newspaper said.

During the Normandy invasion, Millin began playing soon after his landing craft left the Solent. Cheers came from other vessels when his music was broadcast over a PA system.

Millin played traditional airs as soldiers fell. German prisoners later told him he was not shot because they thought he was crazy.

“I shall never forget hearing the skirl of Bill Millin’s pipes,” a soldier, Tom Duncan, told an interviewer. “It is hard to describe the impact it had.”

After the war, Millin toured for several years with a theatrical troupe and then trained as a nurse. A native of Glasgow, he moved to Devon in the 1960s.

In 1995, he played the pipes at Lovat’s funeral.

Millin was depicted in the movie The Longest Day. A statue is to be erected next year on Sword Beach.

20 August 2010

Abbott by a nose?

By Sid Astbury

SYDNEY (DPA) – The ruling Labor Party has lost its lead overTony Abbott’s conservatives with just hours to go before Australians vote in parliamentary elections.

With the rivals tied 50-50 in an opinion poll published Friday in The Australian newspaper, Prime Minister Julia Gillard is staring down the barrel of defeat just 58 days after supplanting Kevin Rudd in a sensational intra-party coup.

“I’ll be devastated if we wake up on Sunday and Mr Abbott is prime minister,”said Gillard, who toppled Rudd because opinion polling showed he could not win a second term for Labor.

The conservatives, who lost office to Rudd in 2007, need to win 17 seats from Labor to gain the 76 seats that would give them a majority in the 150-member House of Representatives.

“We’ve had a bit of momentum over the last few days,”Abbott said of the poll showing Labor’s 52 to 48 per cent had evaporated in the final week of campaigning.

Haydn Lane, chief executive of internet betting company Sportsbet, said Labor was still the favourite but“from a betting perspective, the momentum is clearly with the (conservative) coalition.”

Most political analysts have the first female prime minister hanging onto power, but with her authority diminished by a tiny majority in Parliament.

In ideology, there is little difference between the two parties, with near-identical policies on foreign affairs, climate change and the importance of returning the government budget to surplus.

In campaigning, the advantage that accrued to Labor from Australia being the only advanced country not to slip into recession during the global financial crisis has been counterbalanced by disquiet at the dumping of Rudd so close to an election.

– DPA

Bad jobs figures hit US PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA REFERRED TO THE LATEST INCREASE IN JOBLESS CLAIMS AS HE PRESSED LAWMAKERS TO PASS A JOBS BILL THAT WOULD GIVE SMALL BUSINESSES TAX RELIEF AND AID WITH LOANS

By Don Lee Tribune Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON – The U.S. job market, barely treading water this year, is showing worrisome signs of weakening.

The Labor Department said today that new applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose to 500,000 last week, the highest level in nine months. It marked the third consecutive week of rising new jobless claims and added to other recent reports suggesting that layoffs are ticking higher even as new hiring remains sluggish.

The data, along with a separate report showing a falloff in manufacturing activity in August, reinforced concerns over the staying power of the economic recovery, unsettling investors. Stocks closed sharply lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Aver-

age sliding 1.4 percent to close at 10,271.

President Barack Obama, facing increasing pressure on the economy, referred to the latest increase in jobless claims as he pressed lawmakers to pass a jobs bill that would give small businesses tax relief and aid with loans.

“They need help. And if we want this economy to create more jobs more quickly, we need to help them,”he said before departing for an extended family vacation at Martha’s Vineyard.

Analysts said the jump in first-time unemployment claims reflected, in part, increasing layoffs of workers on state and local government payrolls.Some pointed to special factors such as a larger-than-usual number of military service discharges and the dismissal of many temporary U.S. census workers.

No matter how the numbers are sliced,“it’s nothing to celebrate,” said Sophia Koropeckyj, a labor

economist at Moody’s Analytics, referring to today0’s jobless data.“One can safely say that today’s report suggests we’re going to see very weak August employment numbers.”

In July, the economy lost a net 131,000 jobs amid large layoffs of census employees and tepid hiring in the private sector.

Some economists said the August job numbers, to be reported on the Friday before Labor Day, will probably be even worse. More than 125,000 additional census workers have been let go since the July jobs data were tallied.

“I would say it’s a very slow trickle when it comes to a pickup in jobs,”said Deborah Russell, director of workforce issues at the AARP, which has held 32 job fairs in 19 states since March.

Kim Megonigal, chairman of Irvine, Calif.-based Kimco Staffing Services, said that after growing in the first half of the year his business has been flat the last two months.

“I think there’s just too much uncertainty out there. Nobody’s doing anything,”he said.

Megonigal’s experience reflects the general trend of the broader economy, which has shown decelerating growth since late spring.

WORLD

20 August 2010

9

Double-minded Iraqis want Yanks to stay

By Liz Sly Los Angeles Times

BAGHDAD – Iraqis danced in the streets when U.S. troops withdrew from their cities a little over a year ago.After the last American combat brigade trundled across the border into Kuwait early today, reversing a journey that began more than seven years ago, there was no rejoicing.

Instead, a mood of deep apprehension tinged with bitterness is taking hold as Iraqis digest the reality

that the American invaders whom they once feared would stay forever are in fact going home – at a time when their country is in the throes of a deep political crisis that many think could turn increasingly violent.

“I’m not happy at all. I’m worried.They’re leaving really early,”said Wissam Sabah, a carpet seller in one of Baghdad’s shopping districts.“We don’t have a government and we don’t know what is going to happen next. Maybe we will go back to civil war.

“The situation is getting worse every day. The

politicians are inflaming the situation, there is a battle between them, and I am 100 percent certain it will be reflected in the streets.”

U.S. combat operations in Iraq won’t officially end until Aug. 31, the deadline set by President Barack Obama for the reduction of the force to 50,000 troops involved in what the military calls “stability operations.”

But with the departure to Kuwait of the last combat brigade this week, the formal battle mission is now essentially over. In the coming days, 2,000 more troops from units scattered around the country will depart, bringing the number remaining down to the 50,000 promised by the president.

The U.S. military stresses that it is still a sizeable number of troops, and that they will be equipped with considerable firepower. Fighter jets and attack helicopters will remain, as will about 4,500 Special Forces members who will continue to carry out counterterrorism missions alongside Iraqi counterparts.

The soldiers staying behind have been rebranded from combat troops into six Advise and Assist Brigades, which will focus on advising and mentoring Iraqi security forces until the December 2011 deadline for the departure of all U.S. forces under the terms of a 2008 security agreement between Iraq and the U.S. But many Iraqis worry that the time is wrong for a drawdown whose date was a result of Obama’s campaign promise to bring troops home. Parliamentary elections in March that were supposed to

cement Iraq’s fledgling democracy have instead triggered a deeply destabilizing political standoff between ethnic-tinged factions who received roughly similar numbers of votes and now cannot agree on who should be in charge.

“Some people think it’s a run-out.An irresponsible withdrawal,”said Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman, echoing Obama’s pledge to bring about a “responsible withdrawal” of U.S. troops.“This is about what’s going on in America, not about what’s going on on the ground.”

On the ground, there has been no dramatic deterioration in security, at least not yet. But many Iraqis are concerned about the recent uptick in the number of shootings and assassinations across Baghdad and in the still troubled provinces.

A rash of targeted attacks against judges, traffic police, senior civil servants and members of the Iraqi security forces has stirred fears that insurgents are more ubiquitous than had been thought.A suicide bombing in Baghdad against army recruits on Tuesday, in which 63 people died, called into question the Iraqi security forces’ ability to take care of its own, let alone the safety of ordinary citizens.

“I’m surprised they’re going because the situation is really uncertain, really tense,” Mohammed Khalid, 22, whose toy shop is lined with blondhaired dolls dressed in pink and a fearsome array of plastic rifles, pistols and automatic weapons.

“The Americans should stay until the Iraqi army can control Iraq,”he said.

Babies die in SA health strike

By Robyn Dixon Los Angeles Times

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – Public health care patients went without treatment. Babies died.

Schools could not operate. Police fired rubber bullets and water cannons at demonstrators trying to block roads.

South Africa’s national civil service strike disrupted lives throughout the country for a second day today as 1 million workers including medical personnel, teachers and clerks refused to allow routine services while they demanded higher wages.

Although a union representative denied protesters kept patients out of health care facilities, some hospital workers described frightening experiences.

At one large public hospital in Johannesburg, a young student nurse said she had hidden behind a curtain as a crowd of protesters took over the facility. She was afraid to move so she tweeted, pouring out her fears to an audience of strangers that grew larger by the second.

“They broke down the main gate into the hospital,” she said later in an interview, referring to the demonstrators.“They got into the hospital and made their way through the wards. I thought if they realized I was a nurse, I’d be attacked.

“Staff were hiding in the bathrooms. I sat there and I froze. All I kept thinking was ‘I’ve got to get out of here,’“ said the student, who tweeted under the name AndyWandy and refused to give her name, fearing reprisals.

After several hours, the few remaining nurses told students it was no longer safe for them to stay at the hospital.

The student who tweeted said she put on a stethoscope, hoping to pass herself off as a doctor in case she was stopped, and left the hospital via a back entrance, avoiding the protesters.

“I am just shocked it came to such violence,”she said.“It was so unnecessary.”

Public sector unions are demanding an 8.6 percent rise and a $138 monthly housing allowance. But the government insists it won’t better its 7 percent

POLICE FIRED TEAR GAS AND RUBBER BULLETS AT PROTESTERS BLOCKING HOSPITAL ENTRANCES, AMID REPORTS THAT PATIENTS AND AMBULANCES HAD BEEN PREVENTED FROM ENTERING wage offer and $97 housing allowance, raising fears the strike may drag on for weeks.

A Gauteng government health official, Qedani Mahlangu, said two premature babies were found dead Wednesday night – part of a group of 23 in one neonatal ward being cared for only by security guards because nurses had walked off the job.

“The babies were cold and had not eaten for the whole day,”Mahlangu told The Star newspaper.The babies in the neonatal ward at Natalspruit Hospital

in Alrode, a suburb southeast of Johannesburg, were later moved to private hospitals.

Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters blocking hospital entrances, amid reports that patients and ambulances had been prevented from entering.

South Africa’s renegotiation of labor contracts usually begins with a public sector wage campaign and resulting wage increase, which feeds private sector wage demands and fuels inflation.The process can fray relations between the ruling African National Congress and its union allies.

Government spokesman Themba Maseko said after a Cabinet meeting Thursday that the government could not afford the union demand, which would cost nearly $700 million and was well above the 4.5 percent inflation rate.

Dumisani Dakile, a spokesman for the Council of South African Trade Unions, denied protesters had intimidated people or prevented anyone entering hospitals. He accused police of overreacting to peaceful picketing.

Lost boys found, Peter Pan link

By Andrew Blankstein and Kate Linthicum Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES – Who was Jean M. Barrie, the woman whose steamer trunk stored for decades in the basement of an L.A. apartment building contained the mummified remains of two babies?

That’s the question investigators were mulling this afternoon, two days after the babies – wrapped in newspapers from the 1930s – were discovered when the basement was being cleared out.As the coroner began an autopsy on the bodies,detectives were left to sift through a crime scene that is also a time capsule.

Inside the trunk police found a fox wrap, a flapper dress, a pearl-beaded purse and rolled-up stack of blank medical records.

The medical record,the detectives said,point them in the direction of woman named Jean M.Barrie,who lived in the area and may have worked as a nurse.She was born in San Francisco in 1916, and the trunk contained a postcard from her brother Thomas.

Los Angeles Police Department sources said the

biggest challenge is determining whether a crime was committed. Detectives with the juvenile division’s abused child section are hoping medical tests can determine whether the babies were stillborn, aborted or subjected to trauma.

But they are also considering other leads, including the possibility that the trunk may have belonged to a different woman – also named Jean M. Barrie – who was a well-known storyteller and performer at the time.

This Jean Barrie apparently lived in the Midwest and on the East Coast and was a relative James M. Barrie, the author of the children’s book Peter Pan. Several clues point in her direction.There was a copy of Peter Pan found inside the trunk Tuesday along with a membership certificate for the Peter Pan Woodland Club, a Big Bear resort.

But it’s unclear whether Barrie ever lived in Los Angeles.An ad in the 1918 edition of Lyceum Magazine shows a stern-faced Barrie in a decorative lace and velvet dress. The ad hails her as a “Reader of Plays and Miscellaneous Programs.”

According to Gloria Gomez, the manager at the Glen-Donald, the trunk had been sitting in storage, unclaimed, for decades.Tuesday night Gomez and building residentYeming Xing broke the lock with a screwdriver to see what was inside.

They found books, postcards, a beautiful crystal bowl and two leather doctor’s satchels. Inside each satchel was the body of a baby.

Each was swaddled in a blanket and wrapped in a faded L.A. Times newspaper.

Xing, who discovered the first body, said Wednesday that it appeared to be a fetus.

“It looked like a baby, but it didn’t have any shape to it,”she said.

A geneticist at the University of Southern California, Xing said she believes the baby had been miscarried or had possibly been aborted.

John Medford, the building manager, also thinks the bodies

may be linked to illegal abortions.

A team of coroner’s investigators, including a pathologist and an anthropologist, will use DNA, toxicology and other tests to determine how the babies died, while detectives try to piece together the life of the woman who kept their bodies tucked carefully among her possessions.

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SPORT

20 August 2010

11

Taranaki continue winning ways WELLINGTON, AUG 20 – Taranaki continued an impressive start to the national provincial rugby championship by beating Bay of Plenty 24-15 at New Plymouth tonight.

Bay of Plenty had a mountain of possession in their favour but Taranaki defended stoutly while their slick backline showed clinical finishing touches to make the most of their opportunities.

It marked Taranaki’s third successive win following a first round loss at home to Northland and meant they will remain near the top of the standings after the fourth round is completed this weekend.

Taranaki,who led 24-7 at halftime,worked overtime on defence to make up for the shortcomings in the possession stakes, particularly in the third quarter as they soaked up continuous pressure from the visitors.

Bay of Plenty lacked a game-breaker and for all their honest toil they rarely threatened to break down a determined Taranaki defensive screen until the 71st minute when Phil Burleigh cut through a gap in the midfield before drawing the last defender and leaving replacement wing Ben Smith with an unimpeded run to the line.

Bay of Plenty had plenty of ball and field posi-

tion in the first half only to find themselves heavily in arrears at the interval after Taranaki scored three tries, the first to flanker Scott Waldrom, who stretched full length in the tackle after charging on to a pass from Brett Goodin after the halfback skirted around a ruck near the 22.

They only had to wait nine more minutes for their second, with second five-eighth Jayden Hayward touching down in the 20th minute after Bay of Plenty wing Lelia Masaga dropped the ball in midfield and Taranaki wing David Smith toed ahead.

Bay of Plenty had the numbers in defence to extin-

guish any danger but the ball slipped from their grasp, leaving Hayward the simple chore of pouncing on it over the line as Taranaki stretched out to a 17-0 lead.

The visitors hit back 11min later when a rolling maul from a lineout saw skipper Colin Bourke emerge with a try before Taranaki again extended their advantage thanks to the classy intervention of fullback Kurt Baker.

Baker burst through a hole before chipping ahead, chasing, regathering and offloading in the tackle for Smith to pick up the spoils 6min before halftime.

– NZPA

Netball coach narrows wishlist

By Cathy Walshe of NZPA

NAPIER, AUG 20 – Better communication and a quicker assessment of options top New Zealand netball coach Ruth Aitken’s wishlist ahead of the second test against Jamaica here tomorrow night.

While happy to take the 23-goal first test win in Christchurch on Wednesday,Aitken is aware the scratchy, patchy nature of that win leaves plenty of room for improvement as the defence of their Commonwealth Games title in New Delhi looms ever closer.

Aitken has made it clear she wants players who think quickly and creatively on court, adjusting to changes in play and personnel, a quality conspicuous by its absence in the first test.

A heavy training load, as the Silver Ferns aim to peak for the Games in October, and first-up nerves didn’t make for an attractive game on Wednesday, although by the final quarter there were occasional glimpses of New Zealand’s A game.

But it is how her team respond under pressure that most interests Aitken, and she is looking for a distinct improvement in that area tomorrow.

“We tend not to play from a dot-to-dot sort of style,”she told NZPA today.

“It’s actually about players being aware and responding to others on court.

“What happens when you get put under pressure is you get quite insular and everything narrows down. So what you have to do is keep trying to look broader, look beyond, look at your second and third phase and not get hooked on the movement that’s right in front of you.

“It’s certainly a work in progress, but I hope it’ll be better this week. I don’t think we’ll miraculously fix it, it’s going to be ongoing.”

That response under pressure looked distinctly rusty in Christchurch, and the Silver Ferns struggled for fluency before edging out to a narrow 11-10 lead after 15 minutes, and a slightly healthier 29-21 halftime lead.

A changed second-half line-up saw them take the final 30 minutes 29-14, and Aitken is again looking to give both combinations a run tomorrow night, especially as she has goal shoot Daneka Wipiiti back on the bench after a quick recovery from the strained calf which saw her miss the first test.

“It’s good to get all the shooting and defensive combinations together,”she said.

“We want to try those two different line-ups we have, so we’ll keep rotating those.”

Aitken said her team seemed to struggle with the different physical nature and timing of the Jamaicans, and described the first test as both a reality check and a starting point.

“The performance we had then isn’t the one we’ll have tomorrow, and it’s not the one we’ll have by the time we get to the Commonwealth Games. It was a starting point.”

Jamaican coach Connie Francis’disappointment in her team’s performance was clear, after they lost all three tests against Australia this month then went missing in action after a promising opening 15 minutes in Christchurch.

She has put captain and midcourter Nadine Bryan on notice after a sub-par effort in Christchurch while lanky shooter Romelda Aiken has also drawn Francis’ ire as she has struggled to readjust to the Jamaican style after a trans-Tasman league season with Queensland Firebirds.

Francis makes no apology for her plain speaking “You can’t butter up anybody, why should you?” she said after training today at Napier’s Pettigrew Green Arena.

“This is not under-16 or under-21, this is the creme de la creme of netball.

“We select you to do a job, and you’re playing way below your standard. I’m a frank coach -- I’ll go out there and I’ll let you know if you’re not playing well.

“If you’re playing well, then I’ll pat you on the back and say well done.”

Video analysis and blackboard work had highlighted where Jamaica need to improve, Francis said.

“We’re seeing where we’ve let ourselves down badly, and we think we can compete better, especially in our attacking area.

“We need to be strong, be decisive and let the ball go ... our through-court play has been our major letdown so far.We’re just not carrying the ball through as we ought to.”

Francis has had to make do without two pivotal players in defender Althea Byfield and captain and goal attack Simone Forbes, and although there is something of a makeshift look about the Jamaican line-up, she has no intention of using that as an excuse.

– NZPA

Thomas among the PanPac medals

Sophie Edington (AUS) reacts after winning the women’s 50m backstroke in 27.83 in the 2010 Pan Pacific swimming championships at the William Woollett Jr. Aquatics Center. / IMAGE OF SPORT

WELLINGTON, AUG 20 – Emily Thomas broke a New Zealand medal drought stretching back for than a decade when she won a bronze medal in the 50m backstroke at the Pan Pacific swimming championships in California today.

It is New Zealand’s first medal at the champion-

ships since Trent Bray won a bronze at Fukuoka, Japan, in 1997.

The event, rated behind only the Olympics and world championships, features the swimming powerhouses of Australia and the United States as well as Japan and Canada among other nations.

Thomas, who turns 20 on Sunday, finished in a tie for third place with two others, with half a second covering the field in a race won by Australian triple Commonwealth Games champion Sophie Edington.

Thomas, of Gisborne, clocked a time of 28.44 seconds, a fingertip off her own national record.

“I was trying to go in to get a PB and hopefully medal but in the end I did not have to do a PB to get one,”Thomas said.

“The 50 is my favourite so I just wanted to go out and have fun.

“I was happy with my start but I would have liked to have kept my stroke rate up at the end but it dropped a little bit although it was pretty good.

“It is a really good confidence boost for the Commonwealth Games so I am excited for that now. I definitely believe I can be a real threat at New Delhi.”

New Zealand enjoyed a good finals session, with Southland’s Natalie Wiegersma fifth in the A final of the 400m individual medley while the women’s 4x200m freestyle team set a new national record when going under the eight minute mark for the first time to also finish fifth.

As well, Daniel Bell was third in the B final of the 50m backstroke in 25.52sec while Gareth Kean, a long distance specialist, was sixth in a personal best 25.94sec.

Hayley Palmer was eighth in the A final of the 100m freestyle in a solid 56.04sec while Glenn Snyders produced an excellent performance close to his best with a 1min 00.74sec effort to finish second in the B final of the 100m breaststroke.

Wiegersma, 19, challenged the leaders through her powerful butterfly and backstroke disciplines and turned in third place at the 200m mark. She fell

THOMAS, WHO TURNS 20 ON SUNDAY, FINISHED IN A TIE FOR THIRD PLACE WITH TWO OTHERS, WITH HALF A SECOND COVERING THE FIELD IN A RACE WON

BY AUSTRALIAN TRIPLE COMMONWEALTH GAMES CHAMPION SOPHIE EDINGTON back slightly on the breaststroke and held off any challenges for her fifth placing in 4min 41.93sec, close to her best.

American Elizabeth Beisel won in 4min 34.69sec ahead of Australia’s Samantha Hamill, with Wiegersma ranked second best of the Commonwealth swimmers at the meet, a boost for her upcoming chances in New Delhi.

The women’s 4x200m relay team took more than 2sec off the national record set by the team on the way to a bronze medal at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games.

Lauren Boyle, Tash Hind, Amaka Gessler and Melissa Ingram clocked 7min 59.80sec for fifth place behind the United States, Australia and Canada, which sets up an intriguing battle ahead at the Commonwealth Games.

– NZPA

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WEEKEND

20 August 2010

13

TV & Film

The Expendables

0Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren 0Director: Sylvester Stallone 0Length: 103 minutes 0Rating: R (for strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language)

HINTS OF THEIR OTHER LIVES SURFACE DURING JULIETTE’S SWING THROUGH CAIRO’S DIPLOMATIC SCENE, AND TAREQ’S CHANCE ENCOUNTER WITH AN OLD LOVE, WHICH SERVES TO GIVE A SENSE OF THE INDIVIDUALS THEY WERE AS WELL AS THE COUPLE THEY MIGHT BECOME Thankfully, Nadda lets much of the insight and understanding come from watching Clarkson and Siddig watch each other. Ultimately the film rises on the heat of Juliette and Tareq, made irresistible

by Clarkson and Siddig, and making Cairo Time well worth the trip.

Watch the trailer

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Cairo Time stars Patricia Clarkson in a lovely and languid flirtation with a foreign land,an exotic man and the possibility that,long after the future seems set in stone, it might not be quite so predictable after all.

Canadian writer-director Ruba Nadda’s new film feeds off the cool beauty of Clarkson and the dry heat of Alexander Siddig as strangers thrown together by circumstance. Also in play are the romantic notions that so often accompany travel, primarily those daydreams of chucking the life you have for the life you imagine you might have if only, if only, if only ... .

Clarkson is Juliette,a sophisticate headed to Cairo for a vacation with her husband, Mark (Tom McCamus), a top U.N. official who’s been unexpectedly dispatched to a Gaza hotspot. Tareq (Siddig) is the longtime Egyptian friend he’s enlisted to meet her flight and keep watch over her until he can break away.

The story opens with their awkward airport meeting, the polite but strained conversation of the newly and not so happily acquainted. But Nadda is in no rush, slowly warming her comely pair under the desert sun and the affection they both have for Mark.Though we’re left to mostly imagine the absent husband, there is an easiness and intimacy to Juliette’s phone conversations with him that suggest a happy marriage. And when Tareq offers to take her to see the pyramids, she demurs – those she and Mark have vowed to see together.

With Mark delayed again and again, Juliette is at loose ends. Her rising frustration is soon overtaken by the enticement of Cairo, and she sets out to explore it all – the city, her unexpected solitude and the handsome Tareq with his mysteries and substantial charms. Nadda is content to let us luxuriate in the unfolding complications and connections between them, giving veteran director of photography Luc Montpellier (who shot Nadda’s last cut at love, 2005’s Sabah) time to capture the beauty of the place and this mismatched set.

The attraction of opposites and the inherent difficulties that follow are favorite topics for the film-

maker,who has something of an obsession with affairs of the heart.Which might be a drawback except that she keeps improving with time. Juliette and Tareq discover each other in many of the ways typical of these types of fairy-tale romances – strolling through local bazaars,chess matches in the coffee house,long candlelit dinners – moments that carry the chance for hands to brush,looks to linger or an out-of-control cart to force them into each other’s arms. But more often than not the embrace doesn’t come; instead temptation is left to hang heavy in the air.

Hints of their other lives surface during Juliette’s swing through Cairo’s diplomatic scene, and Tareq’s chance encounter with an old love, which serves to give a sense of the individuals they were as well as the couple they might become. Friction, when it surfaces, becomes critical, since dangerous moments have a way of crystallizing feelings, and neither wants to contemplate the implications of the betrayal of a husband, of a friend.

The dialogue is spare, a good thing since it is here that nuance suddenly and regrettably occasionally slips away with moments that strain credibility and a few lines likely to make you cringe.

Chi

0Cast: Patricia Clarkson, Alexander Siddig, Elena Anaya, Tom McCamus 0Director: Ruba Nadda 0Length: 89 minutes 0Rating: PG (for mild thematic moments)

Loc al c ritic

Cairo Time

Despicable Me Eat Pray Love Expendables Inception The Other Guys Ramona and Beezus Salt Step Up 3D © 2010 MCT

A cartoonish symphony of muscles, bullets, tattoos and cigars, The Expendables is so determinedly old-school that its brisk action and bracing explosions take place not in the real world but on a mythical South American island named Vilena. If it does nothing else, it will make you nostalgic for a time when its more august actors, including Bruce Willis and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in tiny cameos, were at least age-appropriate for their roles.

With its roster of action stars listed on posters like a high-powered team of urologists – “Stallone, Statham, Li, Lundgren, Couture, Austin, Crews and Rourke – The Expendables is also a place where lines like “friends don’t let friends die alone” and “don’t talk to me, cockroach” can find a happy home.

The Expendables, in case you couldn’t guess, are not urologists but top-of-the-line mercenaries whose motto is “if the money’s right, we don’t care what the job is.” Barney Ross (Stallone) is first among equals, followed by Lee Christmas (Jason Statham), Yin Yang (Jet Li), Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren), Toll Road (mixed martial artist Randy Couture) and Hale Caesar (Terry Crews). Names, like the rest of the film, not to be taken seriously.

The gang is introduced by co-writers Stallone and David Callaham in a flashback involving the expeditious rescue of a group of hostages from Somali pirates. The Expendables turn out to have a penchant for bickering with one another, however, and Gunner Jensen has to be let go for attempting to murder a prisoner. There is such a thing as standards.

Back home, the gang finds themselves restive in civilian life. Lee Christmas, a whiz with a knife, is especially irked that his girlfriend Lacy (Charisma Carpenter), inexplicably peeved at his disappearing for months at a time with zero explanation, has taken up with someone who’s an even bigger lout than he is.

So no one is unhappy when, in a scene that for no clear reason involves Schwarzenegger as yet another mercenary named Trench Mauser, the team gets offered a new job by the shadowy Mr. Church (Willis).

The job means going down to that fictitious island and taking on not only the evil general who runs it (David Zayas) but also his nefarious American enabler (Eric Roberts) and his brutal right-hand man Paine (Steve Austin).

Ineptly diguised as members of the Global Wildlife Conservancy, Barney and Lee go down on a recon and find the island too hot for them to handle. The only bright spot is their local contact, the sultry Sandra (Giselle Itie), a woman with an agenda of her own. When Barney is forced to abandon Sandra in a tight spot, he vows to return.

For the Expendables would have you understand that they are not just behemoths with biceps as big as the Ritz, they have hearts and souls and, yes, tarnished ideals. Their attitude is expressed by Mickey Rourke as Tool, a tattoo artist and retired Expendable who smokes a long-stemmed pipe and bemoans a woman whose suicide he walked away from years ago in Bosnia. Friends may not let friends die alone, but bogus philosophizing is apparently business as usual.

Watch the trailer – By Kenneth Turan

REVIEWS

14

20 August 2010

Music

US musician Brian Wilson performs during a stop of his ‘Greatest Hits’ tourf in Munich, Germany. / Felix Hoerhager

Brian Wilson reimagines Gershwin cross-generational collaborations,“The Like in I Love You”and“Nothing But Love,”that bookend the album.

The project is an outgrowth of a two-album deal LOS ANGELES – As Brian Wilson remembers it, the head Beach Boy was still a beach toddler the Wilson entered into last year with Disney Pearl, a first time he heard George Gershwin’s“Rhapsody in Walt Disney Records imprint.The Gershwin project Blue,”a piece of music that would have a profound was Wilson’s idea – with some heavy encouragement from Disney bigwigs. The follow-up project effect on the rest of his life.

“I was 2 years old,”Wilson, 68, said recently while will feature his interpretations of children’s songs seated on the couch in the living room at his Beverly from the Disney canon.

“The notion of him doing his thing – he calls it Hills home, his voice carrying the enthusiasm of a discovery made last week.“My mother played it for ‘Brianizing’ – with Gershwin, seems like an amazme, and she said I turned my head like this (cocking ing opportunity,” David Agnew, president of Walt his head to the left) toward the speaker, and she Disney Records, said when the announcement was made last fall. knew I liked it.

Although the album is Wilson’s way of sharing “So every couple of weeks she would take me to my grandmother’s house, and my grandmother his affection for the Gershwins’ legacy, for pop afihad (a recording of) ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’” he said. cionados it offers up a meeting of distinct voices in “We would go there and my mom would play it for American music from strikingly different eras and me. I just couldn’t believe it – it’s such a beautiful locales: the Gershwins inextricably linked with the bustling NewYork metropolis of the 1920s and ‘30s, piece. I loved it.”

He still does. Those closest to the composer, Wilson with sunny Southern California in the ‘60s.

George Gershwin’s blending of the structural sophisarranger and vocal wizard behind the Beach Boys’ signature hits, including“Good Vibrations,”“Califor- tication and instrumental range of symphonic music nia Girls”and“Surfer Girl,”say that when he sits down with pop-song accessibility can be seen as a precursor at a piano before rehearsing or performing, the song toWilson’s expansion of‘60s pop music through the use he typically plays to warm up is“Rhapsody in Blue.” of orchestral and choral arrangements.

The culmination of those ideas were 1966’s “Pet That 1924 composition catapulted Gershwin, already one of Tin Pan Alley’s most successful Sounds”album and the long-shelved“Smile”album songwriters of the Jazz Age, to a peak of musical that Wilson belatedly completed in 2004.

“While they may have composed in different accomplishment for the way the nearly 18-minute work married vernacular music and a classically eras, I think it’s an absolutely natural marriage,” said Todd Gershwin, George and Ira’s great nephew informed level of compositional expansiveness.

It’s also the first music heard on “Brian Wilson and a trustee of their estate.The estate authorized Reimagines Gershwin,”an album arriving Tuesday. Wilson to pick from among 104 fragments that have He doesn’t simply sing a dozen of the iconic songs been sitting in limbo for more than 70 years. written by George and his lyricist brother, Ira, but “There were 30 to 45 seconds’ worth of chords,” also includes two new numbers created out of song Wilson said.“Just music – no lyrics.We listened to all fragments left unfinished by George when he died 104 of them and we finally concluded that we liked of a brain tumor at age 38 in 1937. these particular two. We wrote around the (existWilson and his present-day lyric writer,Scott Ben- ing) theme.We’d get a couple of chord changes and nett, turned those fragments into newly completed borrow from that.”

Los Angeles Times

For Brian Wilson Band member Bennett, who wrote lyrics for the new songs on Wilson’s previous album,“That Lucky Old Sun,”it was a surprise getting the call to work on the Gershwin project:“This was too big to expect little me to be given a shot.I thought they’d call Van Dyke (Parks,Wilson’s lyric writer for ‘Smile’) or Jimmy Webb to fill such big shoes.”

Along with the two new songs, Wilson and his band“Brianize”a dozen Gershwin standards, journeying from a relatively traditional Great American Songbook take on “Love Is Here to Stay”to a ‘50s R&B/doo-wop rendition of “I’ve Got a Crush on You”and a souped-up Beach Boys-style run through “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” The centerpiece is a four-song medley from“Porgy and Bess,”including an instrumental version of“I Got Plenty O’Nuttin’”full of banjos and harmonica floating over big-beat rock rhythms,and Wilson’s version

say he worked harder on this than I’ve ever seen him work on anything. He put in days that would be hard for someone half his age. He worked his tail off.”

Disney Records executives also are working theirs in hopes that the Gershwin-Wilson pairing will create enough public interest “that this will become one of those two or three albums that break through the clutter, like a Susan Boyle or a Josh Groban,”Disney vice president of marketing Rob Souriall said after a listening session recently in West Hollywood for about 100 journalists, radio, retail and other music-industry types plus a couple Gershwin grand-nieces.

The marketers’challenge:convincing listeners that “BrianWilson Reimagines Gershwin”offers something that hasn’t been heard before in the countless recordings of George and Ira’s music over nearly a century.

“The best compliment I’ve had so far,” Mertens

GEORGE GERSHWIN’S BLENDING OF THE STRUCTURAL SOPHISTICATION AND INSTRUMENTAL RANGE OF SYMPHONIC MUSIC WITH POP-SONG ACCESSIBILITY CAN BE SEEN AS A PRECURSOR TO WILSON’S EXPANSION OF ‘60S POP MUSIC THROUGH THE USE OF ORCHESTRAL AND CHORAL ARRANGEMENTS of Bess’showcase number,“I Loves You Porgy.”

The Wilson touch extends throughout the album with instrumental interludes he crafted with Brian Wilson Band conductor Paul Mertens, with each song segueing into the next as he had done on“Pet Sounds,”and even more extensively on“Smile.”

“We spent days recording vocals,” said Mertens, another member of the band that has backed Wilson for most of the last decade.“I would start fading around the sixth or seventh hour, and he was still working and saying,‘I want to do one more.’That’s not always been my experience with Brian. I would

said,“was from a friend who was listening to ‘They Can’t Take That Away From Me.’ He said ‘Wow, it sounds like Brian wrote it.’ I know some other contemporary artists have covered the American songbook in a very lazy way. I think this record is different in that regard....

“It seems to me like the care and the detail on the record are evident – it doesn’t sound like it was just tossed off,”Mertens said.“Music fans will appreciate that.The last thing we want is for people to go,‘Who wants to hear another Gershwin song?’”

Surfer Girl

REVIEWS

20 August 2010

NEW CD RELEASES

Books

Dr. John

0Tribal 0429 Records Last time we heard from Dr. John, on 2008’s “City That Care Forgot,”one of New Orleans’ foremost musical ambassadors was mighty angry about what had happened to his beloved hometown in the wake of Katrina.With “Tribal,” the Good Doctor seems intent on offering a healing tonic. He sets a different tone right from the start with “Feel Good Music,” declaring in his froggy hipster patois that he’s “gonna let the good times roll” and promising,“I’m gonna make you move.”

He certainly follows through. He and his terrific combo, augmented by horns and strings, deliver a sinuously funky set that’s downright irresistible, from the humorous lover’s lament of “When I’m Right (I’m Wrong)” to the old Night Tripper hoodoo of “Jinky Jinx.” In numbers such as “Big Gap” and “Only in Amerika,” he does slip in some pointed messages. And “What’s Wit Dat” is, of all things, a rant against processed foods (“If you’re eatin’ white bread, you’re walkin’ with the dead”).

As usual, though, the Doctor makes his medicine go down very easy.

15

Beyond the glitter My Hollywood

0Mona Simpson 0Knopf (384 pages. $26.95)

The Hollywood so devastatingly rendered in Mona Simpson’s new novel is a different universe from the world-famous wellspring of movie magic. Its dramas and comedies play out far behind the scenes, and the roles are filled almost exclusively by women and children. Men seem only to accept – Nick Cristiano walk-on parts, though their subtle influence is always present. There are important deals to be Wavves made, contracts to be honored.

0King of the Beach But if you are Simpson’s protagonists, you dream 0Fat Possum of testing these limits imposed by gender, age, family, race, money, culture and social status, elements that seek to shape us, whether we want them to or not.

Fun in the sun rarely has The author of four novels – the last,“Off Keck been as dramatically dire as Road,”was published 10 years ago – Simpson has it is in the hands of laptop- long probed the ties of family,particularly the bonds pop maven Nathan Williams, between mothers and daughters,starting with“Anythe squeaky wheel that where But Here,”her debut.In the alternately satiric makes Wavves churn in noisy and poignant My Hollywood,she continues her ruthpsychedelic fashion. Previous albums were rich in less examination as she dissects – and finds wanting downbeat melodies, lo-fi production, forlorn lyrics, – the dynamics of modern marriage and parenthood. and dreamy falsettos only a sad, sandbox-bound Simpson’s premise is that contemporary life places Brian Wilson would love. Now,Williams has color- an unfair burden on working mothers, and her Holfully brightened his sound and songcraft with major lywood could be almost any upper-middle-class subkeys and bigger beats.While “Mickey Mouse”radi- urb.Two women form the backbone of her story.The ates the grandeur of the girl-group ‘60s, the hum- anxious Claire, a composer and wife of busy sitcom worthy“Convertible Balloon”could have been used writer Paul, is utterly uncharmed by the daily grind to sell Cokes and smiles during that same period. of parenting her son William.To be fair,William – a Still it’s the harshened mellow of sped-up Beach puncher, a biter – is what my grandmother would Boys-buoyant anthems with torn-down lyrics that have called “a handful and then some.”But Claire makes Wavves a gray and gold treat.When Williams may have been chronically unhappy anyway. She yelps “misery won’t you comfort me in my time of longs only for time to write music in solitude and need” during “Post Acid,” it’s this generation’s ver- can’t understand how she missed the “great open sion of“Surf’s up.” secret – the bargain”that other women seem to know – A.D. Amorosi instinctively.“Together they would make a family.The women would raise children; the men would go out Tim Warfield into the world and provide money.Why did that con0A Sentimental Journey tract do so little for me?”

0Criss Cross The other half of My Hollywood belongs to Lola, Claire’s Filipina nanny, who takes over William’s care five days a week (on weekends, she works for a Tenor saxophonist Tim Warf- different family).“Lana Turner they discovered at ield keeps alive the old spirit the Schraft’s counter, me on a bench for the Wilshire while lacing it with new bus,” she tells us. While Claire toils over her music things to say. Here, on his sixth for love – the few performances of her work around recording as a leader on Criss the country pay little once child care and plane fare Cross, theYork, Pa., native, who are factored in – Lola believes she is more practical. teaches at Messiah College and Temple University, “Me, I work for money,”she says, explaining that she plays a big horn and leaves some earthy tracks. only left her husband and almost-grown children The songs are especially old school and come to make money to pay for her kids’college tuitions. flecked with wisdom. Billie Holiday’s “My Man” There’s a delightful, ironic upstairs/downstairs starts in fine funereal form before morphing into a tone to much of My Hollywood, with each side cluegentle swing, while the title track swerves in some less about the other.The wealthy mothers fret over bluesy ways. preschools and hide secret cameras in teddy bears Warfield assembles his regular group _ trumpeter to spy on the nannies. The nannies compare notes Terell Stafford, organist Pat Bianchi, and drummer (and paychecks) and gather intelligence on their Byron Landham, who helped on Warfield’s“One For employers through what Lola calls “The Book of Shirley,”a tribute to organist Shirley Scott. Judging Ruth,”a long record in which generations of nannies by this stand-up work, her lineage is in good hands. have written advice on“How to Work for the White.”

– Karl Stark (“Americans, they are very dirty. They used to be

clean. The grandparents are clean. And the habits they lost are what they crave from us.”)

There is plenty of humor to be found in such cultural misunderstandings, but Simpson also reveals the casual prejudices that define the tricky relationship between employers and employees.“You can have her as long as you want,” Paul tells a friend begging for Lola’s help and expertise, dismissing her as if she were indentured. Lola may be practical, but she is not immune to insult:“This permission pushes me down from the head.”

Children grow;alliances form and break.Marriages crumble.Claire wrestles with the ongoing problem of her unstable mother.Lola discovers she can’t bear to take a better-paying job because she’d have to leave William.“So Lola is romantic after all,”she muses wryly.“I am the one who gave up the big bucks for love.”Yes, love peeks out sometimes in My Hollywood in the most unexpected places. It’s what keeps our worlds – Claire’s, Lola’s, yours, mine – turning.

– By Connie Ogle

This Empire is built on shaky ground The Empire: America’s Last Best Hope 0Chalmers Johnson 0Metropolitan Books (214 pages, $25)

There’s an unexplored flip side to the Cassandra myth: As you’ll recall, she was the Trojan princess to whom the gods granted the gift of prophecy.

Then, because they were – in the fashion of deities – perverse, they guaranteed that no one ever would believe her visions, which drove her mad. So, one presumes, some of what she forecast from then on was true and some was a bit unhinged. Homer never gets to the question of how even those who were sympathetically inclined were supposed to tell the difference.

Chalmers Johnson, now 79 and professor emeritus at UC San Diego, was for many years one of our most distinguished scholars on China and Japan – head of UC Berkeley’s important Center for Chinese Studies and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute, where he still serves as president.

For some years, he was a consultant on China and Maoism to the Central Intelligence Agency. More recently, he has turned his focus as an eloquent public intellectual to his dismay over U.S. foreign policy during the post-Cold War period and, particularly, to the dangerous consequences of American interventions in the Islamic world.

Blowback, the first in a trilogy on the latter topic, appeared immediately before the terrorist attacks on 9/11, which gave his arguments a special urgency and a Cassandra-like credibility. His new book, Dismantling the Empire:America’s Last Best Hope, attempts to do the same, retracing a good bit of that trilogy’s familiar ground. It is itself part of the publisher’s ongoing “American Empire Project,”which takes it as a given that“in an era of unprecedented military strength, leaders of the United States, the global hyperpower, have increasingly embraced imperial ambitions.”One of the project’s purposes

is to“discuss alternatives to this dangerous trend.”

Johnson certainly does that in this latest volume, though, unfortunately, as is so often the case, he turns out to be a better diagnostician than a prescriber of remedy. Part of the problem has to do with the fact that we too often – and not just in this book – seem mired in antique categories. The United States’mistakes abroad since World War II have been legion, but it’s simply too pat to describe what’s occurred as“imperialism”in either the classic economic or Marxist senses of that word. It’s a much more complicated and mixed record of stunning successes (like facilitating the reconstruction of Europe, Japan and South Korea) as well as failures.

Johnson, for his part, is clear on the fact that he regarded the Soviet Union as a menace and its implosion as a wholly salutary event.One of the provocative – and convincing – pillars of his critique is that successive administrations in Washington have bungled what could have been a great, generally beneficial demobilization from the staggeringly wasteful war footing into which the long confrontation with Soviet Communism forced us. There’s a strong case to be made for that point, but it isn’t helped by using the imperialist fallacy that makes everything that happens in the world a reaction to something the United States has done or neglected to do.

It’s true that the CIA has a history of dismal intelligence and operational failures and has spent a mind-boggling amount of money. It’s also undeniable that nearly every president since the agency’s founding has been unable to resist the temptation to misuse it. Still, to jump from there to a flat declaration that the CIA ought to be abolished leaves unanswered the obvious question of how the U.S. could survive without some sort of intelligence capacity.

Johnson, for example, blames 9/11 on CIA failures; why wouldn’t a future without any intelligence capability turn into a series of 9/11s?

Dismantling the Empire repeatedly is undercut by similarly simplistic assertions.To argue, for example, that Osama bin Laden plotted his attacks on the U.S. to“get even”for American intervention in Iraq just doesn’t wash.The Wahhabi strain of Salafism to which Bin Laden and his allies adhere has been on a collision course with modernism – of which the United States is the leading exemplar – for decades.

It’s true that Bin Laden was horrified by the Saudi royal family’s decision to allow U.S. troops into the kingdom as part of the effort to dislodge Saddam Hussein from Kuwait, but that was a true war of necessity for the West. The alternative was to let most of the world’s petroleum slip under the control of a semi-delusional dictator of demonstrated homicidal impulse. It’s also historically crude to call Saudi Arabia the first nation“founded on Jihad.”The House of Saud has a long alliance with the Wahhabi clergy, going back to the movement’s founder, but as soon as Ibn Saud gained control of most of the Arabian Peninsula, he turned his guns on the Ikhwan, the most fanatic of his religious troops.

In fact, Bin Laden is part of a generation that grew up believing in the Sauds’ moral laxity and whose real antecedents are in the group of Salafists who seized Mecca’s Grand Mosque in 1979. Dealing with Saudi Arabia is hellishly complex because the House of Saud thinks it can both cultivate and control religious extremism as a way of maintaining power.The implications of that are far more difficult than those that flow from a regime“based”on jihad.

Several times in this book, Johnson asserts – apparently based mainly on a French newspaper interview – that President Jimmy Carter and his national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski set out to lure the Soviet Union into invading Afghanistan and succeeded as part of a plot to create Moscow’s Vietnam. To anyone who knows anything of those two and their record, that’s simply preposterous – though it’s equally easy to believe Brzezinski now would like to cultivate the impression it is true.

Dismantling the Empire is meant to be provocative, but it seems too often like a prophet straining to be heard.

– By Tim Rutten

HEALTH

16

20 August 2010

Beware stem cell ‘cures,’ doctors say

By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg McClatchy Newspapers

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. – Last September,Vanessa Alvarez had what she thought was a sinus headache she couldn’t shake.Then her vision went blurry in one eye.

Within days, the young Elk Grove, Calif., woman was nearly blind from a condition that put pressure on her optic nerve. She and her mother began a quest familiar to anyone who has ever heard the dark slam of the word“incurable.”

How to go from zero to expert? How to tell the difference between bold research and brazen scams?

Should they go to China? Could stem cells help?

Bogus cures are nearly as old as human disease, but they have found especially fertile ground in stem cell medicine – new, complex and perhaps dazzlingly promising in the long run.

At the University of California Davis Institute for Regenerative Cures,“we’re averaging two calls a day from desperate patients,” said Director Jan Nolte.

On their own behalf, she said, the callers are usually stoic.When they’re calling for a child or spouse, they sometimes cry.

“It breaks my heart,”Nolte said.

All too often, Nolte must tell those with cancer, those losing their sight, those struggling with disa-

bling arthritis that stem cells can do nothing for them right now. Not in America, and not anywhere else.

She warns anyone who asks,“If a clinic is asking you to pay a lot of money, just really think carefully about what are their motives.”

Those who do legitimate research have become increasingly worried about unregulated or even fraudulent clinics.

In July, a journal for kidney specialists described unusual masses that grew in the kidney of a woman given stem cell injections in Thailand.The injections did not lessen her disease, and her kidney had to be removed after it developed tangled growths of bone marrow stem cells and blood cells.

“The world is full of clinics and pseudo practitioners who would offer ‘treatments’for conditions that cannot be treated,”said Larry Goldstein, director of the UC San Diego Stem Cell Program and a board member of the International Society for Stem Cell Research.

“We are now starting to see reports of people coming back in worse shape than they went,”Goldstein said.

The international stem cell group created a website in June that offers tips on how to spot a dubious medical facility, and gives detailed advice on what questions people should ask.

Among the red flags, Goldstein said, are clinics

BOGUS CURES ARE NEARLY AS OLD AS HUMAN DISEASE, BUT THEY HAVE FOUND ESPECIALLY FERTILE GROUND IN STEM CELL MEDICINE – NEW, COMPLEX AND PERHAPS DAZZLINGLY PROMISING IN THE LONG RUN that demand payment for experimental treatments; clinics that don’t publish their results in scholarly journals; clinics that claim the same program can treat widely varied diseases; and clinics that claim things rarely or never go wrong.

The society’s website is also taking names of clinics around the world that the public would like it to evaluate, and later this year it will begin posting information on how well patient safety is regulated at each of them.

“Everybody loves to believe in the maverick in the wilderness,”said Goldstein, who is the author of

Study: Surgery in dire conditions can be safe

By Shari Roan Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES – Scores of people received treatment, even surgery, at hastily assembled field clinics after the massive earthquake in Haiti this year.

Health professionals had no choice but to offer the best care they could in terrible conditions, but a new study shows that surgery can be safely performed in areas with minimal resources and little or no sophisticated technology.

The humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres reported on almost 20,000 surgical procedures completed in resource-limited areas from 2001 to 2008.The death rate was only 0.2 percent, showing that surgery can be accomplished safely with a set of minimum standards and protocols to guide health professionals.

More effort is needed to provide government, nongovernment and missionary groups with qualityimprovement programs to assist in surgical care in remote areas around the world, said the authors of the study, from Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions

and Medecins Sans Frontieres, in Johannesburg, South Africa.

That’s not all that’s needed, added the authors of a commentary accompanying the study.Although about 230 million surgical procedures are performed worldwide each year, only about 4 percent of them take place in impoverished countries. Yet, those countries are the most likely to need surgical care.

The authors of the opinion, from the State University of NewYork Downstate Medical Center, pointed out that many individual doctors volunteer their time to perform surgery in poor countries.Yet, they say, surgical societies have done little to promote an organized and sustained system providing free surgical care to the poor.

“Even more deplorable is the lack of concern on the part of industry,”the authors said. For example, American companies that make surgical equipment have not contributed to Operation Giving Back, a volunteer program overseen by the American College of Surgeons, they said. The only corporate benefactor of the program is Pfizer, a pharmaceutical company.

“Stem Cells for Dummies.”“It’s a wonderful myth. It happens sometimes, but it’s just not that common.”

With stem cells right now, he said,“other than some diseases of the blood, some diseases of the skin and one or two others, there really is nothing else proven to work to a reasonable degree of certainty.”

(First-rate stem cell research is going on in parts of Europe, in Japan, and even in China, where those doing strong science end up tarred by shoddy operators in their own country, Loring said.

When Vanessa Alvarez’s sight dwindled to a thick gray fog, she and her mother, Jessica Figueroa, hadn’t heard about the International Society for Stem Cell Research, which has offered a patient handbook since 2008.

Instead, Figueroa, a telephone company project manager, gradually developed her own set of guidelines as she began researching possible treatments for her daughter.

“I remember hearing stem cells may be the endall, may be the answer,” Figueroa said. She found videos of people talking about how their children’s vision problems were being treated with stem cells in China, but she could never track down long-term results for those people.

Figueroa asked her daughter’s doctor about what she had seen, and she recalls him saying,“Please, please do not be fooled. ... Please don’t go there.

Please don’t spend $50,000.”The family was told that although there may be some limited improvement, there is currently no way to repair the nerve damage that Alvarez, now 27, has suffered.

WARNING SIGNS Here are the red flags of problem clinics: 1. A clinic relies on patient testimonials.

People often want to believe they have been helped, and sometimes the placebo effect is very strong. Rigorous research is more convincing than anecdotes.

2. The same cells treat many diseases. Each condition has its own distinct biology, and it is better to look for a specialist in your disease.

3. Claims of zero risk. “That doesn’t even happen with aspirin,” said UC San Diego’s Larry Goldstein.

4. High cost. Generally, people do not pay to participate in clinical trials, in which a treatment is still being evaluated for safety and effectiveness.

5. Lack of details. The source of the stem cells, the type of stem cells and the full description of care, called a treatment protocol, are not clearly explained.

6. Lack of oversight. Clinics in countries without strong regulatory supervision may not have anyone protecting patients’ rights.

Source: International Society for Stem Cell Research

Healthy Living

Ginger’s sister A shrub related to ginger, tumeric is best known for its use in curries and mustards; it also has many medicinal uses.

Healthy spice from the East • Tumeric has long been used in Ayurvedic (Indian) and Chinese medicine as an anti-inflammatory and to treat digestive and liver problems, skin diseases, wounds • Curcumin in tumeric stimulates the gallbladder to produce bile, which may aid digestion • Its ability to reduce inflammation may relieve arthritis pain • Available as a powder and in capsules, teas and liquid extracts; can be made into a paste for use on the skin © 2010 MCT

Source: University of Maryland Medical Center, National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine Graphic: Pat Carr

SCIENCE/TECH 17

20 August 2010

Free website offers array of photo-editing tools

By Craig Crossman McClatchy-Tribune News Service

There’s an abundance of applications you can buy to edit your photos.At the top of the heap is Adobe’s Photoshop, which weighs in as the $600 gorilla.

When it comes to photographs, you can pretty much do it all with Photoshop. Adobe even makes a scaled down version called Elements for around $99. It uses the same Photoshop “engine” but is more consumer-friendly in that you don’t have to be a photo-manipulative expert to productively use it. Adobe makes versions for both Macintosh and Windows.

But if you don’t have the time to learn or the money to spend on these or any of the other fine photo-manipulative products out there, check out a website that lets you do a variety of those photoenhancing manipulations.

Yes, it’s a website and not a product you buy or a service to which you have to subscribe. In fact, it’s completely free, so now is certainly a good time to check out picnik.com.

Picnik.com uses a web browser such as Firefox or Internet Explorer to do its thing.You just log onto the Picnik website and begin.When I surfed

on over, I began by clicking on the“Upload Photo” button.A dialog box appeared on my computer, and I selected one of the photos I had on my computer’s hard drive. Picnik.com uploaded the image to the Picnik website and I was presented with an editing screen that displayed my photo.

A series of tabs above the image let me select from a variety of features. The “Edit” tab offers actions such as rotate, crop, resize, exposure, colors, sharpen and red-eye.All of these abilities are fairly self-explanatory, but picnik.com let me easily experiment without the worry of corrupting my original photo, which remained safely stored on my computer.

Clicking on the “Exposure”button, for example, brought up two sliders: one for brightness and the other for contrast. As with everything on picnik. com, sliding either of them instantly reflects the changes to the image.An auto-fix feature lets picnik. com do the adjustments for you. In fact there’s an auto-fix for colors as well as a master auto-fix that does a really good job of making your original photo look its very best.

With every adjustment is an “Undo”and “Redo” button as well. In no way, shape or form are you burning any bridges. Besides, you still have your

original photo safely on your computer. Remember that everything you are doing on picnik.com is with a copy you uploaded to the website.

The “Creative Tools” tab offers additional special effects like converting the photo to black and white. Others are sepia, boost, soften, border, tint and many more. I found myself have quite a time playing around with all of them.

The last tab is “Save & Share.” This lets you take your adjusted photo, define its size and file type (jpeg, TIFF, etc.) and save it back onto your

computer’s hard drive. Other options let you save the photo to Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, email it or send it directly to your computer’s printer.

If you want even more features, Picnik Premium offers added effects such as“Beauty Tools,”which gets rid of facial blemishes; additional fonts; layers and more. Check the picnik.com website for further details and charges. And by the way, picnik.com truly epitomizes the concept of the Internet being platform-independent as all of this works on computers running Windows, Macintosh and, yes, even Linux.

In the meantime, if you have digital photos on your computer, picnik.com is a really cool way to enhance them without having to buy any more software. Or if you’re away from your computer and find yourself using one with no photo editing software, you’re ready to go as long as you have an Internet connection. www.picnik.com

Science Matters

What your saliva can tell

A new experimental system allows a dentist to swab a suspicious spot in the mouth and in 10 minutes determine whether it is cancerous.

1 Dentist takes small sample of cells, saliva from suspected cancerous tumor

2 Sample is placed in well

on disposable test card

Make a home Wi-Fi network hard to crack

By Steve Alexander Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

In a recent column, I suggested that a consumer worried about Internet banking over a home Wi-Fi network could use a wired Internet connection that would be safer. But several readers asked whether using wireless encryption (automatic coding) was a better solution.

“I totally agree that a wired connection is always more secure than a wireless one, but shouldn’t a home user be encouraged to go the extra step and enable (wireless) encryption?”asked Rick Erickson, PC and network administrator of Fidelity Bank in Edina, Minn.

Richard Milberg of Easton, Pa., agreed. But Phil Pollock of Chaska and Karyn Gaffaney of Roseville, Minn., wondered if the encryption they’re using is strong enough to protect their home networks.

The answer falls into a technological gray area.

Encryption is good protection, but it’s not perfect, said Rob Juncker, vice president of technology operations at security firm Shavlik Technologies in Roseville. Even some of the best encryption methods available to consumers have been cracked by experts.

But encryption protects not by making it impossible to breach your home network, but by making it so much work that hackers will look for easier targets, Juncker said. The question is how much

encryption is enough to give you an acceptable margin of safety.

Don’t use older Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) encryption, which has been broken into many times, Juncker said.You’re probably safe if you use Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) encryption.An improved encryption,WPA 2, is even safer.

But you’ve also got to be smart about how you use encryption. Experts recommend using passwords longer than a few letters or numbers, because the longer the password is, the more work it is for a hacker to break it. Don’t use passwords that are real words or hackers can run a“dictionary attack” that will eventually guess your password. (According to news reports, hackers using multiple computers can run a dictionary attack in 20 minutes or less.)

Consumers also should know that even the best encryption software won’t prevent them from being tricked, Juncker said. A consumer can still fall victim to a“man-in-the-middle attack,”in which a hacker with a PC impersonates your Wi-Fi hotspot and tries to convince your PC to connect with him instead of with your wireless router.

To avoid being tricked by a man-in-the-middle attack, pay attention to small details, Juncker said.

Does the website name in your browser really say it’s your bank’s website, even if the screen looks right?

Does the Web address say “https,”which denotes a secure website for financial transactions? If not, beware.

5 1

3 Card is inserted in desktop test machine 4 Machine tests for epidermal growth factor

4

receptor (EGFR), which is higher in cancer cells than in healthy mouth cells

3

5 In 10 minutes, machine reports EGFR level 2 Oral cancer cell

New ‘lab-on-a-chip’ Portable machines that test for chemical markers indicating HIV, heart attack and several different cancers Researchers working to make tests accurate, economical

Sample from patient

Card (chip) with tiny channels

Chemical reaction

Optical detector

Source: Martin Thornhill of University of Sheffield, John McDevitt from Rice University, Lab Now, MCT Photo Service Graphic: Helen Lee McComas © 2010 MCT

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TECHNOLOGY 19

20 August 2010

Steven Keng and Diane Keng, brother and sister as well as co-founders of Myweboo.com, work on their social aggregator site out of the garage at home in Cupertino, California. Their web-based service helps users organize their social networking accounts and shared files. /Jim Gensheimer/San Jose Mercury News/MCT)

New browsers aim to corral social-network explosion

By Mike Swift San Jose Mercury News

It just got to be too much – the 255 Facebook friends, the four e-mail accounts, the Flickr and Picasa photo albums, the LinkedIn updates, the daily tech blogs I follow and the Twitter feed that never stops disgorging rumors and tips.

So much information was pouring in about friends, relatives and sources that I was feeling swept downstream in a river of status updates.Trying to check in at all those online services – and remembering all those passwords – became overwhelming.For a while I just stopped visiting Facebook,Twitter and LinkedIn. So it was with the relief of a rescued castaway that, at a recent Internet trade show, I stumbled across the booth of 18-year-old Diane Keng, a recent graduate of Monta Vista High School in Cupertino, Calif., who is already on her third business startup.

Her website, MyWeboo.com has brought order to my online social life, along with a new Web browser service offered by a Menlo Park, Calif., company called Flock.

“The whole idea is that now you have control of your digital life,”said Keng,the marketing director of MyWeboo,which she co-founded this spring with her 26-year-old brother Steven,a former engineer at AOL who is the CEO.“We don’t just bring things together; we also push it back out to the social networks.”

You could think of either Flock or MyWeboo as the hub of a wheel whose spokes radiate out to your accounts on Facebook,Twitter,YouTube, MySpace, Blogger or Flickr. Both allow you to channel content from multiple services into a single coherent stream.

But even more useful, Flock and MyWeboo are easy ways to share your content back out to the world.

For example, you could upload the photos of the rattlesnake that almost bit you in the high Sierra to MyWeboo.com, and then parcel those pictures

out to Flickr, Facebook or Google’s Picasa. Flock’s new browser, meanwhile, offers a great one-click way to post Facebook or Twitter links back to content you’ve posted online – a useful service for journalists or other content creators.

One of the few Silicon Valley social startups with a name that actually makes sense, Flock calls itself “the originator of the Social Web Browser.”It has two browsers:one based on Mozilla’s Firefox and intended for more specialized users,and a new version,launched in June,that is based on Google’s Chrome browser and intended for a mass audience, said Shawn Hardin, Flock’s CEO. Both browsers are among the 20 most popular desktop apps available on Facebook.

Flock’s new browser has a clean, uncluttered interface with a minimum of buttons and tabs.

And because it is built on Chrome’s open-source software, it can run any software extension available for Chrome, including features that allow the browser to automatically translate a Web page into English from other languages, or preview Adobe PDF documents without having to download them.

“It’s hard sometimes to do less, in order to do more,”Hardin said of the simplified design for the new browser.“That was a big focus – to keep the power but still to keep it really simple.”

Flock pulls your Twitter, Facebook and RSS feeds into a single bar that scrolls down the right side of the page.When you see something interesting, you just click and the browser takes you right there.You can create your own custom groups to share content, or, by clicking on a bubble icon at the top of a page, instantly share a Web page with all your Twitter followers and Facebook friends. An upgrade will soon allow users to incorporate LinkedIn; a Mac version will soon be ready.

While Flock is a browser, MyWeboo is best thought of as a Windows file manager for the social Web. But instead of navigating between the C: drive

and the E: drive on your PC, you click between Facebook or MySpace in the Internet“cloud.”

Like Flock, MyWeboo has an interface that emphasizes simplicity, and there is a nice little bonus – one of the MyWeboo“drives”is 1 gigabyte of free storage, one way that MyWeboo has elements of a cloud service like Google Documents. Besides allowing you to share pictures or other content to a large circle of friends via Facebook or Twitter, you can also use e-mail services like Yahoo, Gmail or

WHILE FLOCK IS A BROWSER, MYWEBOO IS BEST THOUGHT OF AS A WINDOWS FILE MANAGER FOR THE SOCIAL WEB. BUT INSTEAD OF NAVIGATING BETWEEN THE C: DRIVE AND THE E: DRIVE ON YOUR PC, YOU CLICK BETWEEN FACEBOOK OR MYSPACE IN THE INTERNET “CLOUD” Hotmail to share with a selected group.

“We kept it simple,”Keng said of the design.“We took a lot of things out.”

MyWeboo, like Flock, is still a beta service that is constantly going through changes and refinements.

Keng, who will be a freshman studying computer engineering at Santa Clara University in the fall, says the service has about 16,000 users.While Flock has a revenue-sharing deal with Google that makes it the browser’s default search engine, MyWeboo

already includes some display advertising, and Keng is bubbling with other ideas to monetize the service.

She is also enlisting a corps of interns across the country to evangelize for MyWeboo on campuses such as San Jose State University.

At this point, the Keng siblings still live with their mother in Cupertino. Diane Keng takes the day shift, often working from a nearby Starbucks, while her brother, who prefers to write code at night, works the wee hours.

“We like what we do,”Diane Keng said,“because our parents don’t force us to do what we do.”

The serial entrepreneur considers herself a child of Silicon Valley. She turned down admission offers at the University of Southern California and New York University to protect the cohesiveness of the MyWeboo team as she starts college.

“Diane is a problem-solver,”said her high school business teacher, Carl Schmidt, who is thinking about using MyWeboo to distribute his course materials.“She loves to see the problem – hopefully before somebody else does. It’s a different way of looking at the world. She’ll not only see a problem; she’ll see an opportunity.”

TAMING YOUR SOCIAL NETWORKS Flock makes two“social web browsers,”one based on Mozilla’s Firefox and one based on Google’s Chrome browser, that are built to aggregate and share content among social networks like Facebook,Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. It can be downloaded at http:// www.flock.com or through Facebook.

MyWeboo, at www.myweboo.com, is a website that offers some of the features of a cloud applications suite like Google Documents, but it also allows users to import and share content among a wide range of online social networks. Users must open an account, and then enable a connection between MyWeboo and services like Facebook and Twitter.