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As Americans continue to sort out the contents of the fiscal cliff legislative package passed by Congress Tuesday, they are finding elements they like and some they hate.

There's one exception. Everyone is glad Congress finally found a permanent fix for the alternative minimum tax.

That one portion of the U.S. tax code — always intended to affect only very wealthy people — had turned itself into a dreaded stalker. The AMT became a constant threat to millions of middle-class taxpayers who never understood it and never knew when it might strike them.

Each year, Congress would rush to the rescue to "fix" the AMT to keep it from walloping tens of millions of filers with hefty new taxes. But until this week, lawmakers would never approve a long-term solution. Why? Largely because having the AMT on the books helped future budget deficits look smaller by making it appear that new tax revenues soon would be rolling in.

"It was a useful fiction, but it was incredibly irresponsible," said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan research group.

Goldwein said that on paper, the AMT would generate tons of tax revenues in coming years, making the future deficits look less frightening. But no one on Capitol Hill ever believed those funds would actually show up because each year, lawmakers would apply a "patch" to keep the AMT from hauling in huge revenues.

The Tax Policy Center, another research group, estimates that in 2022, the AMT — with no patch — would generate nearly $400 billion in revenues to fund government. But if Congress were to apply the typical patch as it always does, the AMT would bring in only about $90 billion in revenues in 2022.

How did the situation get this weird? It's complicated. We'll explain:

In 1969, Congress decided it needed to ensure that everyone paid a minimum amount of taxes. But it also wanted to preserve tax breaks written into the code as economic and social incentives.

For example, Congress wanted to keep the home mortgage interest deduction to provide more incentive to buy real estate. Supporters of that deduction say homeownership has economic and social value.

But the tax code had so many various deductions that some wealthy people could take an array of them and end up paying extremely low taxes.

So Congress created a parallel tax system. The wealthy could prepare their taxes in the usual way, then recalculate their taxes under the AMT formula, and pay whichever amount was bigger.

Unfortunately, Congress failed to build in an inflation escalator. And over ensuing decades, it cut tax rates. The combined effect of higher inflation and lower rates undermined the intent of the AMT. Each year, it threatened to hit more and more middle-class families.

The result was that a tax intended to affect only the richest Americans needed to get updated again and again so that it would hit only the wealthiest 4 million taxpayers. If Congress had not patched it on Tuesday, it would have applied to nearly half of the people with incomes of $75,000 to $100,000. That would have pulled in an estimated 27 million more tax filers, who would have found themselves paying an average of $3,700 more in taxes for 2012.

It's All Politics

Cliff Deal: What We Learned; What Comes Next

As Americans continue to sort out the contents of the fiscal cliff legislative package passed by Congress Tuesday, they are finding elements they like and some they hate.

There's one exception. Everyone is glad Congress finally found a permanent fix for the alternative minimum tax.

That one portion of the U.S. tax code — always intended to affect only very wealthy people — had turned itself into a dreaded stalker. The AMT became a constant threat to millions of middle-class taxpayers who never understood it and never knew when it might strike them.

Each year, Congress would rush to the rescue to "fix" the AMT to keep it from walloping tens of millions of filers with hefty new taxes. But until this week, lawmakers would never approve a long-term solution. Why? Largely because having the AMT on the books helped future budget deficits look smaller by making it appear that new tax revenues soon would be rolling in.

"It was a useful fiction, but it was incredibly irresponsible," said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan research group.

Goldwein said that on paper, the AMT would generate tons of tax revenues in coming years, making the future deficits look less frightening. But no one on Capitol Hill ever believed those funds would actually show up because each year, lawmakers would apply a "patch" to keep the AMT from hauling in huge revenues.

The Tax Policy Center, another research group, estimates that in 2022, the AMT — with no patch — would generate nearly $400 billion in revenues to fund government. But if Congress were to apply the typical patch as it always does, the AMT would bring in only about $90 billion in revenues in 2022.

How did the situation get this weird? It's complicated. We'll explain:

In 1969, Congress decided it needed to ensure that everyone paid a minimum amount of taxes. But it also wanted to preserve tax breaks written into the code as economic and social incentives.

For example, Congress wanted to keep the home mortgage interest deduction to provide more incentive to buy real estate. Supporters of that deduction say homeownership has economic and social value.

But the tax code had so many various deductions that some wealthy people could take an array of them and end up paying extremely low taxes.

So Congress created a parallel tax system. The wealthy could prepare their taxes in the usual way, then recalculate their taxes under the AMT formula, and pay whichever amount was bigger.

Unfortunately, Congress failed to build in an inflation escalator. And over ensuing decades, it cut tax rates. The combined effect of higher inflation and lower rates undermined the intent of the AMT. Each year, it threatened to hit more and more middle-class families.

The result was that a tax intended to affect only the richest Americans needed to get updated again and again so that it would hit only the wealthiest 4 million taxpayers. If Congress had not patched it on Tuesday, it would have applied to nearly half of the people with incomes of $75,000 to $100,000. That would have pulled in an estimated 27 million more tax filers, who would have found themselves paying an average of $3,700 more in taxes for 2012.

It's All Politics

Cliff Deal: What We Learned; What Comes Next

As Americans continue to sort out the contents of the fiscal cliff legislative package passed by Congress Tuesday, they are finding elements they like and some they hate.

There's one exception. Everyone is glad Congress finally found a permanent fix for the alternative minimum tax.

That one portion of the U.S. tax code — always intended to affect only very wealthy people — had turned itself into a dreaded stalker. The AMT became a constant threat to millions of middle-class taxpayers who never understood it and never knew when it might strike them.

Each year, Congress would rush to the rescue to "fix" the AMT to keep it from walloping tens of millions of filers with hefty new taxes. But until this week, lawmakers would never approve a long-term solution. Why? Largely because having the AMT on the books helped future budget deficits look smaller by making it appear that new tax revenues soon would be rolling in.

"It was a useful fiction, but it was incredibly irresponsible," said Marc Goldwein, senior policy director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan research group.

Goldwein said that on paper, the AMT would generate tons of tax revenues in coming years, making the future deficits look less frightening. But no one on Capitol Hill ever believed those funds would actually show up because each year, lawmakers would apply a "patch" to keep the AMT from hauling in huge revenues.

The Tax Policy Center, another research group, estimates that in 2022, the AMT — with no patch — would generate nearly $400 billion in revenues to fund government. But if Congress were to apply the typical patch as it always does, the AMT would bring in only about $90 billion in revenues in 2022.

How did the situation get this weird? It's complicated. We'll explain:

In 1969, Congress decided it needed to ensure that everyone paid a minimum amount of taxes. But it also wanted to preserve tax breaks written into the code as economic and social incentives.

For example, Congress wanted to keep the home mortgage interest deduction to provide more incentive to buy real estate. Supporters of that deduction say homeownership has economic and social value.

But the tax code had so many various deductions that some wealthy people could take an array of them and end up paying extremely low taxes.

So Congress created a parallel tax system. The wealthy could prepare their taxes in the usual way, then recalculate their taxes under the AMT formula, and pay whichever amount was bigger.

Unfortunately, Congress failed to build in an inflation escalator. And over ensuing decades, it cut tax rates. The combined effect of higher inflation and lower rates undermined the intent of the AMT. Each year, it threatened to hit more and more middle-class families.

The result was that a tax intended to affect only the richest Americans needed to get updated again and again so that it would hit only the wealthiest 4 million taxpayers. If Congress had not patched it on Tuesday, it would have applied to nearly half of the people with incomes of $75,000 to $100,000. That would have pulled in an estimated 27 million more tax filers, who would have found themselves paying an average of $3,700 more in taxes for 2012.

It's All Politics

Cliff Deal: What We Learned; What Comes Next

Think about it and you'll start to realize how important the Jersey shore is to American culture. Sure there's the television show Jersey Shore, but there are more enduring signs. Consider the board game Monopoly; properties are named after Atlantic City locations. And during a television fundraiser for Superstorm Sandy victims in November, comedian Jimmy Fallon talked specifically about the Jersey Shore.

"As all you know, New Jersey was hit really hard. Some beaches were destroyed. Boardwalks were torn apart. But they will be rebuilt. It will come back," Fallon said as he and other musicians launched into the song "Under the Boardwalk."

The Jersey shore accounts for most of the estimated $39 billion tourists spent in the state in 2011. The shore is a part of the region's culture that inspires nostalgia. But there are questions about how to rebuild the places that are special to many and who should pay for it.

Around the Nation

Superstorm Sandy Brings One Family Closer WNYC

If you're searching for work in this new year, the Labor Department's final jobs report for 2012 suggests: The trend is your friend in 2013.

The jobs outlook is actually "pretty positive," said John Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an employment consulting firm.

Challenger said that, after 34 straight months of job growth, the positive trend is well established and likely to continue. The Labor Department said Friday that in December, employers added 155,000 jobs, in line with economists' forecasts. Though the pace is less than robust, its steadiness is reassuring, especially given recent events, he said.

As 2012 wound down, the economy had to absorb the impact of both Hurricane Sandy and the fiscal-cliff uncertainty in Washington. And yet economists don't see much evidence that either the winds from the Atlantic Ocean or the hot air from Capitol Hill were strong enough to blow out the recovery.

"When we look back over the last 12 months, we see it's not much different from 2011," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist with IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm. That steadiness represents "moderate improvement" in the U.S. economy, he said.

"It's disappointing compared with previous recoveries" when jobs snapped back more quickly, Gault noted. But the pace has been good enough to suggest that in 2013, many job seekers will land paychecks, he said.

Challenger agreed, and spotted another good sign: "Layoffs have been really light lately."

Planet Money

Five Years Of A Brutal Job Market, In Two Graphs

It gets harder every year to identify as a horror movie fan and still hold your head up in polite company. A big part of the problem is the persistence of rabid slasher films like Texas Chainsaw 3D, opening today in theaters nationwide. Now, I haven't seen Texas Chainsaw 3D, and it would be a disservice, naturally, to pre-judge the film.

And yet somehow I feel totally comfortable concluding that it's terrible.

The splatter porn genre is nothing if not predictable: There will be edged weapons and body trauma. There will be murder and cruelty played for kicks. And there will be bloodied women in sleeveless shirts. I don't know what the slasher film industry has against sleeves, but the tank top is apparently de rigeur.

The happy news is that you're free to ignore Texas Chainsaw 3D entirely. Good films are still being made in the genre we call the scary movie. Below are five recent quality horror films, all available now on DVD/Blu-ray or via digital download. Skip Chainsaw, rent one of these instead, save $40, and thank me later.

Reginald Mason was 11 when his father died, so his mother raised him in Harlem by herself.

"She made me and shaped me as a man," Mason, now 47, told StoryCorps, "which, to me, was very difficult for a woman to do without a father being around."

She did a good job, Mason said — despite her toughness.

"The first time my mother told me that she actually loved me, I was 32," he said.

Mason recalls watching his mother struggle financially.

"I remember many months with no lights, and, you know, being laughed at at school for wearing blue and black mismatched socks," Mason said.

But his mother bought lots of candles and always made sure he had something to eat.

"You know, when you start living off ketchup and hot water and black bean soup, and it's all you can afford, you start to think — I don't want to go back to this," Mason said.

Mason noticed that his mother's jobs were taking a toll on her, so he went out on the streets to make some "fast money."

"And I did," Mason said. "I was hustling. And I knew if she saw me, she'd pin me down, so I just avoided her. You know, I'd have people in the streets say, 'Your mom is coming,' [and I'd] run around the corner."

Years later, Mason worked for the city's Department of Sanitation and the post office. He later attended college, and today he is a consultant for nonprofits.

His mother moved into a nursing home, where Mason regularly visited until her death in 2009. He spent every Sunday reading her the paper, which she could no longer do because she was blind.

"I remember when I was telling my mother that I got promoted," Mason said. "She took her glasses off — like she could see — and she said one line: 'It all paid off.' And she was right."

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Jasmyn Belcher.

Among the more than 80 House freshmen who were sworn in this week, there were several who had been there before — including Florida Democrat Alan Grayson.

After starting his first term four years ago, Grayson quickly made a name for himself with biting comments targeting Republicans — like when he said during the health care debate: "If you get sick, America, the Republican health care plan is this: Die quickly."

His national stature didn't prevent him from being defeated in 2010. But now Grayson is back.

'The People United'

About 50 people — mostly members of the area's large Puerto Rican community — gathered in Orlando recently for a candlelight vigil to draw attention to the gun violence claiming lives in Puerto Rico, Florida and Newtown, Conn.

Grayson, who was among those speaking, said the first step toward stopping violence is overcoming community apathy.

"That, in the end, is the only and the only true solution to our problems," he said, then began a chant: "The people united can never be defeated."

It's a chant more often heard from labor organizers than from congressmen.

Although he was out of Congress for two years, Grayson never really went away. He continued fundraising and working for progressive causes and was a regular guest on MSNBC and other cable channels.

In November, he easily won in a newly drawn district that is 40 percent Hispanic. Grayson says his progressive views appeal to his Latino constituents.

"They have social needs that generally mean that they ally themselves with progressive forces and, in many cases, represent and embody those progressive forces," he says. "Many of the most liberal members of the incoming Congress right now, the new members of Congress, are Hispanics."

'I Just Say What Others Are Thinking'

Like many Floridians, Grayson is originally from up north — New York. He worked his way through Harvard, earning a law degree and a master's in public policy. Before entering politics, he made millions as the head of a telecommunications company and as an attorney who prosecuted contract fraud cases against defense contractors.

Grayson says he has developed a national following because he just says "what others are thinking."

Asked, for example, about the prospects for the House to pass gun-control legislation in the new session, he's skeptical.

"I think many Republican members of Congress are afraid that if they supported anything resembling reasonable gun control, they would lose the next primary," he says. "And the NRA would see to it they lost the next primary."

It's the kind of unvarnished comment that in his first term made Grayson a hero to many liberal Democrats and a villain to many conservative Republicans. In 2008, he won in a traditionally Republican district in the Democratic wave that elected Obama. Two years later, he lost his bid for re-election by a wide margin.

David Wasserman, an analyst with Cook Political Report, says in this year's successful election bid, Grayson's campaign seemed to tone down his activist image.

"Is there a chance that he's a more civil member over the next two years? I think only time will tell," Wasserman says. "But there are some indications that he's a wiser person for having won and lost before."

Becoming A Whip

But Grayson says don't count on him toning down his comments now that he's back in Washington.

For example, when asked if he thinks Republicans could successfully appeal to Hispanic voters, he says no. "Because for every Hispanic vote they pick up, they'll lose four or five racist votes," he says. "The Republican Party has been in many respects, with all due respect, the party of racism in this country, going back to the time of Nixon. I don't see that changing anytime soon."

Grayson says he sees things in black and white. On bipartisanship, he says Americans shouldn't be fooled into thinking it's a magic wand that can bridge the gap between the two parties.

This term, for the first time, Grayson joins the Democratic leadership in the House — winning the job of regional whip. Surely, that calls for him to change his style?

"Well, let me put it this way: I know how to handle the whip," he says.

But does that mean he'll need to be more moderate in his approach to people?

"Is that how you see people who wield whips, as moderates?" he says. "That's interesting. I never really thought of it that way. I'll have to give that some thought."

Grayson says the main way in which this term will be different from his first stint in Congress is that he's now in a safe district. He beat his opponent by 25 points — which means he's likely to be there for some time to come.

Two "ghost gum" trees that were revered by many in Australia after being made famous by Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira have been found toppled over and burned — victims of a suspected arsonist.

A 32-year-old Bay Area prosecutor will be sworn in to Congress on Thursday after ousting a 40-year incumbent.

California Democrat Eric Swalwell — who will be the second-youngest member of Congress — capitalized on his opponent's gaffes and used old-fashioned door-knocking and high-tech mobile phone outreach to win votes.

His first challenge in Washington might be getting people to pronounce his name correctly. Even senior members of California's congressional delegation have gotten it wrong, saying "Stallwell" instead of "Swalwell."

"It takes everyone time," he says.

Swalwell has lived in Washington, D.C., once before, as a summer intern. The job was unpaid, so he worked mornings at a gym and evenings at a Tex-Mex restaurant.

"Many times members of Congress would come in and, you know, I would give them their meals," Swalwell says. "And I tried to memorize their faces in the congressional facebook, which was a kind of printed directory that they used to hand out."

Shots - Health News

Pete Stark, Health Policy Warrior, Leaves A Long Legacy

Another deleted sequence expands a conversation in a diner between the old and young Joes, explaining a line that flew right by me originally.

"I don't want to talk about time travel," says Willis. "We're gonna be here all day talkin' about it, making diagrams with straws."

"Diagrams with straws," it turns out, was the set-up for a sequence you never see in the completed film: Bruce Willis takes the top off a salt shaker, and empties the salt on the table, with most of it ending up near one of two straws.

The actors spent an entire weekend rehearsing this bit, so it's nice to see it play out, with the director and another cast member explaining how a bit of semi-crucial info about time travel got lost in the process.

Not lost any more, of course. Great fun to close that loop, and a nice way to spend a little extra time with Looper, a seriously cool time-travel movie.

Makes 6 to 8 servings

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 pounds cubed wild boar leg or shoulder

Salt and pepper

1 large onion

2 carrots, finely chopped

2 stalks celery, finely chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, seeds and rib removed, finely diced

4 cloves garlic, crushed

1 cinnamon stick

1 dried bay leaf

2 cups red wine

1 cup canned crushed tomatoes

2 cups chicken or vegetable stock

Wide-noodle pasta, such as pappardelle

Grated hard cheese, such as Parmigiano-Reggiano

In a Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Season boar meat with salt and pepper, and brown. Remove meat from pan and add onion, carrot, celery and jalapeno. Cook until lightly browned, then add garlic, bay leaf and cinnamon stick. Cook 2 minutes, then add crushed tomatoes.

Once tomatoes have been incorporated, add red wine and stock. Return browned meat to the pot. Cook uncovered over low heat about 2 hours or until meat is extremely tender. The longer it cooks, the more tender the meat will become. You don't want it to be falling apart. Think of it like a pot roast. If the mixture becomes too dry, add some water to ensure it keeps the consistency of a hearty sauce. When ready to serve, remove bay leaf and cinnamon stick.

Serve on top of a wide pasta such as pappardelle with grated hard cheese.

Throughout most of its 86 years, Los Angeles' premier tennis tournament attracted the biggest names in the game. But over the years, stars stopped coming, and so did fans.

Now the Farmers Classic, which has been in L.A. since 1927, is headed to Bogota after it was bought by a Colombian sports marketing and entertainment company.

"There's a big hole in my heart. And believe me, this is something we didn't see coming, I'll be honest," says Bob Kramer, longtime tournament director of the Farmers Classic.

He admits that the event has been losing millions the past few years, but blames the recession and crowded summer tennis table. There were only a dozen Association of Tennis Professionals tournaments — the top men's event — played in the U.S. in 2012, which is about a third as many as there were in the '80s.

The biggest challenge, Kramer says, has been attracting the world's top players, who've been lured overseas by higher paydays.

"The markets globally have been stronger than the ones domestically, and the events have flowed to those stronger markets," Kramer says. "For example, we understand that Roger Federer is playing five or six events, and he's going to be paid $10 million in South America."

Federer was mobbed by fans when he started his recent South American tour in Brazil. Oftentimes the payout for those exhibition matches far exceeds the purse of tour events, which are also following the money abroad.

After 35 years, the Memphis men's and women's tournament is headed to Rio de Janeiro.

A couple of years ago, the Las Vegas men's event went to South Africa.

Sports Illustrated's Jon Wertheim remembers it wasn't long ago that the tour would thread its way coast to coast, winding through cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver and San Francisco.

"We don't have that anymore," Wertheim says. "And I think it's very hard to become a tennis fan now. You may be the biggest Roger Federer fan in the world, but he only comes to the U.S. three, maybe four times a year, whereas a generation ago a player like Bjorn Borg would play 15 to 20 tournaments in the U.S."

Decline Of American Players

An American man hasn't won a Grand Slam tournament since Andy Roddick was the U.S. Open champion a decade ago. There are only seven American men in the top 100, and 10 women — about a fifth as many as there were in 1985.

Those numbers are not coincidental, Wertheim says. The tournaments tend the follow the workforce.

"We can play the chicken and egg game, but the decline of American players at the top of the rankings is directly correlated, I think, to the decline of American events," Wertheim explains.

"I can't really draw that correlation, no I can't," says David Brewer in disagreement. He oversees pro tennis at the United States Tennis Association, which governs American tennis.

He says that despite so many tournaments leaving, the sport still remains popular in the U.S. Big events the stars play, like the U.S. Open, get bigger every year.

While Brewer hates every time a tournament decamps overseas, he says tennis fans should be happy their sport is growing worldwide.

"It's a good healthy thing for the sport as a whole that it's as popular as it is globally."

But that means, for the first time in decades, that a tennis tour that stops in Zagreb, Belgrade, Kuala Lumpur and Acapulco will skip Los Angeles, and most other major American cities.

Israel now has the world's third-largest Russian-speaking community (outside the former Soviet Union), after the United States and Germany.

Galili says that this flood of new immigrants was enthusiastically welcomed by what she calls Israel's "elite" for many reasons, including the impact they made on the demographic equation between Arabs and Jews.

But she says there was opposition in Israel, from a variety of fronts. This included the minority Israeli Arab population who feared becoming more marginalized. Questions were also raised over whether many of these former Soviet residents were actually Jewish.

Israel's Law of Return allowed the new arrivals to qualify for citizenship if they had one Jewish grandparent. Under rabbinical religious law, Jewishness passes through the maternal line. This defines more than 300,000 of Israel's Russian-speaking immigrants as non-Jews.

Galili says immigrants from the Soviet Union struggled with this: "They come here, and they have a non-Jewish mother and a Jewish father — and suddenly this motherland, who's expecting them to come, says, 'Oh ! I forgot to tell you — you are not Jewish here.' "

There are no civil marriages in Israel. Russian-speaking Israelis defined as non-Jews who wish to marry must go abroad, or convert. Galili says conversion is not a popular option.

"They find it offensive. They feel Jewish. They were raised Jewish. They have Jewish names. They once suffered for being Jewish in the Soviet Union. Now they suffer for being Russians in Israel," she says.

To get a sense of what it was like to transition from the Soviet Union to Israel, you only have to wander through Ashdod — with its beach cafes, boulevards and apricot-colored apartment blocks — and chat with some of the many thousands of Russian-speaking residents.

A Major Transition

"In the beginning, of course, the language was a serious problem," says Stanislav Fishbein, a Ukrainian who migrated to Israel 18 years ago, speaking in Hebrew. "In addition to that, we didn't know about the tradition. I didn't know about Judaism and about Hanukkah, for example. But now I do — and I like it."

Enlarge image i

Gangsters have been part of life in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, for decades. And nowhere is their rule more notorious than in the slums of Lyari, a dusty warren of low-slung tenement houses in the south central part of Karachi.

And in Pakistan, they are a little different from the American variety. They are part Tony Soprano — with the attendant extortion schemes and kickbacks and armed enforcers — but they are also, in a sense, politicians closely aligned to the various political parties. So when the leading such figure in Lyari speaks, it is with both the vocabulary and the sensibility of a politician.

"The people here in Lyari support us," says Uzair Baloch, 32. "It is the people outside who are trying to give me a bad reputation. They call me a gangster, but they have this wrong. I'm a politician. I'm a social worker."

He says all this with a smile, but he's only being slightly ironic. Every party in Pakistan has an armed wing, and gangster-politicians run them.

"When he says he's a social worker, to an extent he's right," says Zohra Yusuf, the head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. "These groups do provide for the community. If the electric supply is bothering them, or residents need help, they go to Uzair Baloch rather than anyone else. The government hasn't provided services for people in Lyari for years."

A Well-Guarded Home

Baloch is charismatic and quick to laugh. He lives off one of the dusty main drags in Lyari, and it is easy to know when one has arrived there: There are literally two-dozen guards with AK-47s outside his house. Some of them are so young they don't look like they have learned to shave yet. Others are 30-somethings who sit on couches in the front hall, armed to the teeth.

Once inside the house, the mood changes from noisy slum to moneyed tranquility. The doors open into an enormous game room with an indoor lap pool, and a six-foot flat-screen television and hand-painted murals of beach scenes on the walls. A fish tank is embedded in a step leading out to the garden. It is filled with Japanese koi.