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Environmentalists have a hope.

If they can block the Keystone XL pipeline, they can keep Canada from developing more of its dirty tar sands oil. It takes a lot of energy to get it out of the ground and turn it into gasoline, so it has a bigger greenhouse gas footprint than conventional oil.

But the State Department report, which was released Friday, says Keystone won't have much of an impact on the development of that oil from Alberta, Canada.

Industry analyst Kevin Book of ClearView Energy Partners says that finding will make it easier for the Obama administration to say the project wouldn't affect climate change.

"The State Department said, 'We agree with industry.' They're saying this oil would have gone to market anyway," Book says. "The facts are the oil in the ground in Canada isn't going to stay there if there's a buyer. And there is a buyer. The buyer's here in the U.S., right now, and the oil is coming here by train, by truck and in some cases by barge."

It's also already flowing to the U.S. through existing pipelines.

Industry experts do say in the short-term, Keystone could get oil flowing faster.

Canadian investment researcher Chris Damas says the industry wants to increase production dramatically. And it's hard to see how trains could keep up, especially since there's already a big backlog for new tanker cars.

"Unless you can find a pipeline that can cross the border without presidential approval, I think that the Canadians ... and I'm a proud Canadian, we have a problem," Damas says. "We have landlocked oil, so there's no easy fix to this problem."

Already, transportation constraints have driven down the price of Canadian oil.

Damas says, if that continues, producing this oil just won't be profitable any more.

"If the price goes too low, these projects will slow down," he says.

Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, fears the State Department's analysis will push the Obama administration to OK the project.

"This makes the president's job to follow through on his commitment to be tough on climate change, it makes that job much more difficult," Brune says.

Of course, the impact on climate isn't the only thing the Obama administration will consider. While the pipeline is being built, it will support 42,000 jobs bringing $2 billion in wages.

But Brune says it's not over yet.

"We are going to fight," Brune says. "We will use all of the resources that the Sierra Club has to offer. Our law department, our organizers, our lobbyists, the 2.1 million members and supporters across the country, 170 groups who joined together at the climate rally in Washington, D.C., to make sure that the pipeline is rejected and that we go all-in on clean energy instead."

University of California, Davis, energy expert Amy Myers Jaffe says the only way to keep the oil from Canada under the ground is to change the way we live.

"Really, truly, it's a lifestyle issue. We use 18 to 19 million barrels a day of oil in this country," Jaffe says.

That's more than 20 percent of oil consumed in the whole world.

"We're only 5 percent of the population," Jaffe says. "And we need to look in the mirror."

Jaffe says once we reduce our consumption, we can have the luxury of rejecting Canada's oil.

Environmentalists have a hope.

If they can block the Keystone XL pipeline, they can keep Canada from developing more of its dirty tar sands oil. It takes a lot of energy to get it out of the ground and turn it into gasoline, so it has a bigger greenhouse gas footprint than conventional oil.

But the State Department report, which was released Friday, says Keystone won't have much of an impact on the development of that oil from Alberta, Canada.

Industry analyst Kevin Book of ClearView Energy Partners says that finding will make it easier for the Obama administration to say the project wouldn't affect climate change.

"The State Department said, 'We agree with industry.' They're saying this oil would have gone to market anyway," Book says. "The facts are the oil in the ground in Canada isn't going to stay there if there's a buyer. And there is a buyer. The buyer's here in the U.S., right now, and the oil is coming here by train, by truck and in some cases by barge."

It's also already flowing to the U.S. through existing pipelines.

Industry experts do say in the short-term, Keystone could get oil flowing faster.

Canadian investment researcher Chris Damas says the industry wants to increase production dramatically. And it's hard to see how trains could keep up, especially since there's already a big backlog for new tanker cars.

"Unless you can find a pipeline that can cross the border without presidential approval, I think that the Canadians ... and I'm a proud Canadian, we have a problem," Damas says. "We have landlocked oil, so there's no easy fix to this problem."

Already, transportation constraints have driven down the price of Canadian oil.

Damas says, if that continues, producing this oil just won't be profitable any more.

"If the price goes too low, these projects will slow down," he says.

Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, fears the State Department's analysis will push the Obama administration to OK the project.

"This makes the president's job to follow through on his commitment to be tough on climate change, it makes that job much more difficult," Brune says.

Of course, the impact on climate isn't the only thing the Obama administration will consider. While the pipeline is being built, it will support 42,000 jobs bringing $2 billion in wages.

But Brune says it's not over yet.

"We are going to fight," Brune says. "We will use all of the resources that the Sierra Club has to offer. Our law department, our organizers, our lobbyists, the 2.1 million members and supporters across the country, 170 groups who joined together at the climate rally in Washington, D.C., to make sure that the pipeline is rejected and that we go all-in on clean energy instead."

University of California, Davis, energy expert Amy Myers Jaffe says the only way to keep the oil from Canada under the ground is to change the way we live.

"Really, truly, it's a lifestyle issue. We use 18 to 19 million barrels a day of oil in this country," Jaffe says.

That's more than 20 percent of oil consumed in the whole world.

"We're only 5 percent of the population," Jaffe says. "And we need to look in the mirror."

Jaffe says once we reduce our consumption, we can have the luxury of rejecting Canada's oil.

President Hugo Chavez has been receiving chemotherapy since recovering from a severe respiratory infection in mid-January and "continues his battle for life," his vice president said late Friday.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro suggested the chemotherapy was continuing in the government's first mention of it as among treatments that Venezuela's cancer-stricken president has received since his Dec. 11 cancer surgery in Cuba.

Maduro made the disclosure after a Mass for Chavez in a new chapel outside the military hospital where authorities say the socialist leader has been since being flown back to Caracas on Feb. 18.

The vice president quoted Chavez as saying he decided to return to Venezuela because he was entering "a new phase" of "more intense and tough" treatments and wanted to be in Caracas for them.

Maduro's offering of the most detailed rundown to date of Chavez's post-operative struggle came hours after an accusation by opposition leader Henrique Capriles that the government has repeatedly lied about Chavez's condition.

"We'll see how they explain to the country in the (coming) days all the lies they've been telling about the president's situation," Capriles, whom Chavez defeated in Oct. 7 elections, said in a tweet.

Chavez has not been seen nor heard from since going to Cuba for his fourth cancer surgery, except for a set of "proof of life" photos released Feb. 15 while he was still in Havana.

Chavez first revealed an unspecified cancer in the pelvic region in June 2011, and reported undergoing radiation treatment and chemotherapy after earlier operations.

The government has sent mixed signals on Chavez's condition, although Maduro has said several times that Chavez was battling for his life. He repeated that Friday, and also accused opponents of spreading rumors about Chavez's health to destabilize the nation.

Maduro, Chavez's chosen successor, said his boss' condition was extremely delicate over New Year's as he battled a respiratory infection that required a tracheal tube.

"In mid-January he was improving, the infection could be controlled, but he continued with problems of respiratory insufficiency. Afterward, there was a general improvement, and the doctors along with President Chavez decided to initiate complementary treatments," Maduro said.

"You know what the complementary treatments are, right? They are chemotherapy that is applied to patients after operations."

Cancer specialists couldn't be reached immediately for comment on Maduro's announcement. But oncologists have said that chemotherapy is sometimes given to slow a cancer's progression, ease symptoms and extend a patient's life.

The opposition says Chavez should either be sworn in for the new term he won in the election or declare himself incapable and call a new election. The constitution says he should have been sworn in on Jan. 10, but Venezuela's Supreme Court said it was OK to wait.

Earlier Friday, Maduro accused the Spanish newspaper ABC and Colombia's Caracol network of spreading lies about Chavez's condition.

ABC said without specifying its source that Chavez's cancer had spread to a lung. It said he had been moved to an island compound in the Caribbean.

Chavez's son-in-law, Science Minister Jorge Arreaza, said on state TV that Chavez continues "to fight hard and is in the military hospital, as peaceful as he could be, with his doctors, with his family."

It's your right to send complaints to your government officials. The trick is, after you send those letters, someone has to read them. That's where political analyst, blogger, and author Keli Goff got her start. Now, she serves as a political correspondent for The Root, and makes frequent appearances on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR. Goff has also written a few books, including the critically acclaimed Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence.

More From This Episode

Special Pundits Unit

On researching the history of Jews in 18th century Paris

"I did go to Paris and went to the museums and walked the streets. But before that, I found a wonderful researcher named Max McGuinness. Together we really had to try to crack the case of Jews in Paris in the 18th century, because there were so few. There were about 500 of them. Most of the evidence for their lives is the police reports, because there was a particular policeman who was the inspector in charge of Jewish affairs at the time whose job it was to really record the comings and goings and, in fact, the character and occupation of every single male Jew in Paris. And sometimes, if they had families, who they lived with in their apartment, whose apartment they lived in, what they sold, if they had been arrested for being in Paris without a passport. They were very strictly monitored. And so those police reports really were like a gold mine for me. And in fact, I used a lot of the actual names of the Jews; I used the name of Inspector Buhot, which was in fact his name. So I grounded my writing in reality."

On imagining Jacob's Folly as a film

"It's tempting. It's very visual and it could be funny, but I think I need distance. In the past I always had the technique that I would not let the scab form. I would write the book, and then immediately, if I was going to write the screenplay, write the screenplay. I always had this feeling that you can never go back. You're not the same person five years [later]. You might not even understand it anymore, what you wrote. But with this one, I have a feeling that if I ever do it, it would be better if I have a little distance."

On how much her artistic background (as a painter, actor and film director) and artistic lineage come through in her writing

"I think certainly I'm a very visual writer. I tend to try to communicate emotion and ideas through visual means so that you see it in your eye of your mind. And I think I have an ear for dialogue, which, I remember listening to my father read his plays out loud all the time, and I think I might have inherited certainly a fascination with dialogue and character. But it's always difficult to know where everything comes from."

Read an excerpt of Jacob's Folly

As Pope Benedict XVI left the Vatican and his papacy, he slipped out of his trademark red shoes and put on a pair of Mexican leather loafers. The shoes, actually three pairs, two burgundy and one brown, were a gift to the Pope during his trip last year to Mexico.

Armando Martin Dueas is the Catholic cobbler who made the pope's new favorite footwear. Martin Dueas hails from the Mexican city of Leon, which has a 400-year history of shoe making. His great grandfather started the family tradition. But they've never received so much attention as they have this week. Tuesday the Vatican's spokesman said the pope would forgo wearing red papal shoes and spend his golden years in Mexican shoes.

The red shoes, by the way, is a tradition that dates back to 1566, when St. Pope Pius V, a White Dominican, decided to change the papal vestment from red to white. The pope's cap, cape and shoes are the only bits of red left from the pre-1566 days.

Enlarge image i

Hear Laura Sydell's report for Morning Edition by clicking the audio link.

Groupon co-founder Andrew Mason has been fired as the daily-deal company's CEO, one day after Groupon posted financial results that showed it lost $67.4 million during 2012. Board chairmen Eric Lefkofsky and Ted Leonsis will jointly fill the CEO post on an interim basis.

Shares in Groupon sank by nearly 25 percent to $4.53 at the end of trading hours Thursday, as investors digested the news of another losing quarter and a financial outlook that predicted first-quarter 2013 revenue would fall short of analysts' estimates by tens of millions of dollars.

In a message to Groupon employees, Mason started off on a light note, but he soon acknowledged the troubles the company has endured, as it recorded consecutive quarters of multimillion-dollar losses:

"After four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I've decided that I'd like to spend more time with my family. Just kidding - I was fired today. If you're wondering why... you haven't been paying attention."

Mason, well-known for his open and joking personality, later compared his tenure at the company to a charmed session of playing the video game Battletoads. And he asked for suggestions for "a good fat camp to lose my Groupon 40" — a request he later said had met with sufficient responses, via his Twitter feed.

The daily coupon business, seen just years ago as a sector of expansion and fast-growing profits, has struggled recently, due to international volatility and a slide in popularity for daily discounts.

Last month, LivingSocial, a smaller rival to Groupon, announced that it lost $650 million in 2012. LivingSocial received a cash infusion of $110 million last week.

Groupon has also come under pressure from Google, which famously attempted to purchase the company for nearly $6 billion back in 2010.

Announcing the change, Lefkofsky said, "I want to thank Andrew for his leadership, his creativity and his deep loyalty to Groupon. As a founder, Andrew helped invent the daily deals space, leading Groupon to become one of the fastest growing companies in history."

Groupon's board says it will conduct a search for a new CEO.

He can't do "a Jedi mind meld" with Republicans and get them to see his way about taxes and spending, President Obama said Friday.

About which CBS News' Mark Knoller immediately tweeted:

"Pres Obama Mixed Metaphor of the Day: The 'mind meld' is not a Jedi tool from Star Wars, but a Vulcan ability from Star Trek."

The fight over reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act is now behind us. But like much of what happens in Washington, the process wasn't pretty.

In the debate leading up to Thursday's House vote, you had Democrats accusing Republicans of continuing a "war on women," and Republicans accusing Democrats of crass political pandering.

Some background: The Democratic-led Senate passed a bipartisan reauthorization in the last Congress, which the GOP-controlled House failed to act on. After the current Congress began in January, the Senate once again passed a reauthorization bill.

The Senate reauthorization contained elements some Republicans opposed. For instance, it allowed non-Native Americans accused of committing violent acts against women on tribal lands to be tried in tribal courts. Some Republicans said that was unconstitutional.

It also brought LGBT victims and illegal immigrants under the law's ambit, two other aspects many Republicans criticized. House Republicans offered as an amendment an alternative that lacked the Senate bill's features. That alternative failed to pass in the House before the Senate bill was approved Thursday

So with that, what are some takeaways from the 286-to-138 House vote that sent the measure to President Obama for his signature?

1. As much as the two sides of the aisle in the House often can't seem to stand each other, they remain lashed together when it comes to issues like VAWA that divide House Republicans but unite Democrats.

And, boy, were Democrats ever united; 199 of the 200 House Democrats voted for VAWA. One didn't vote. Meanwhile, only 87 of 232 Republicans voted for the bill in the House.

As in the votes for Hurricane Sandy emergency aid and for the "fiscal cliff" agreement before that, House Republican leaders had to rely on Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats to put the legislation over the top.

2. Despite being on the wrong end of the gender gap in recent elections, many House Republicans remain willing to risk a stance that lets Democrats frame them as hostile to women's concerns.

Why? The main worry for some House Republicans remains a primary challenge from their political right, not from a moderate Democrat in the general election.

The failed GOP VAWA alternative was about giving House Republicans the ability to say they voted for a better, conservative alternative. And by allowing a vote on the Senate bill, Republican leaders ensured that House Republicans couldn't be accused of defeating VAWA during the 2014 midterm elections.

3. Whether or not you accept House Republican arguments that the Senate bill was flawed, it wasn't just GOP lawmakers who questioned whether the legislation was operating as intended.

As Time recently reported, critics of the law far removed from the corridors of Congress criticized the legislation for various reasons, including the possibility that requiring the arrest of accused abusers has caused some victims not to report violence against them.

It's your right to send complaints to your government officials. The trick is, after you send those letters, someone has to read them. That's where political analyst, blogger, and author Keli Goff got her start. Now, she serves as a political correspondent for The Root, and makes frequent appearances on MSNBC, CNN, and NPR. Goff has also written a few books, including the critically acclaimed Party Crashing: How the Hip-Hop Generation Declared Political Independence.

More From This Episode

Special Pundits Unit

There are few things in life more joyful than discovering a giant oil or natural gas field in Texas. You're suddenly rich beyond your wildest dreams. When the scope and size of the natural gas reservoir in the Barnett Shale in North Texas first became apparent, there were predictions that the find would last 100 years.

Well, that was over the top. But University of Texas geology professor Scott Tinker, who designed and authored a new study of the Barnett Shale, says there's still a lot of gas down there, even after a decade of drilling.

"Turns out, what we learned is that there's a lot of good rock left to drill," Tinker says. "And there's quite a bit of natural gas to be produced in the better areas of the reservoir."

Tinker and his team, who examined more than 15,000 gas wells drilled over the past 10 years, found the Barnett Shale is currently producing an astonishing 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas every year. Tinker doesn't believe this rate will increase, but he believes the reservoir will last another 25 years.

"It probably is reaching its plateau of production, which is about 10 percent of U.S. demand," Tinker says. "So in that total production, where you've produced around 13 trillion cubic feet so far ... we still see another 25 or 30 more trillion cubic feet of gas throughout the life of that field."

Some Wells Still Coming Up Dry

With the amazing leaps in imaging technology these days, you wouldn't think thousands of wells drilled in the Barnett come up dry — like the oil wildcatters in the 1930s, '40s and '50s in East and West Texas.

But Tinker says you would be wrong.

Business

U.S. Has A Natural Gas Problem: Too Much Of It

The fight over reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act is now behind us. But like much of what happens in Washington, the process wasn't pretty.

In the debate leading up to Thursday's House vote, you had Democrats accusing Republicans of continuing a "war on women" and Republicans accusing Democrats of crass political pandering.

Some background: The Democratic-led Senate passed a bipartisan reauthorization in the last Congress, which the GOP-controlled House failed to act on. After the current Congress began in January, the Senate once again passed a reauthorization bill.

The Senate reauthorization contained elements some Republicans opposed. For instance, it allowed non-Native Americans accused of committing violent acts against women on tribal lands to be tried in tribal courts. Some Republicans said that was unconstitutional.

It also brought LGBT victims and illegal immigrants under the law's ambit, two other aspects many Republicans criticized. House Republicans offered as an amendment an alternative that lacked the Senate bill's features. That alternative failed to pass in the House before the Senate bill was approved Thursday

So with that, what are some takeaways from the 286 to 138 House vote that sent the measure to President Obama for his signature?

1. As much as the two sides of the aisle in the House often can't seem to stand each other, they remain lashed together when it comes to issues like VAWA that divide House Republicans but unite Democrats.

And, boy, were Democrats ever united; 199 of the 200 House Democrats voted for VAWA. One didn't vote. Meanwhile, only 87 of 232 Republicans voted for the bill in the House.

As in the votes for Hurricane Sandy emergency aid and for the fiscal cliff agreement before that, House Republican leaders had to rely on Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi and her Democrats to put the legislation over the top.

2. Despite being on the wrong end of the gender gap in recent elections, many House Republicans remain willing to risk a stance that lets Democrats frame them as hostile to women's concerns.

Why? The main worry for some House Republicans remains a primary challenge from their political right, not from a moderate Democrat in the general election.

The failed GOP VAWA alternative was about giving House Republicans the ability to say they voted for a better, conservative alternative. And by allowing a vote on the Senate bill, Republican leaders assured that House Republicans couldn't be accused of defeating VAWA during the 2014 midterm elections.

3. Whether or not you accept House Republican arguments that the Senate bill was flawed, it wasn't just GOP lawmakers who questioned whether the legislation was operating as intended.

As Time recently reported, critics of the law far removed from the corridors of Congress criticized the legislation for various reasons, including the possibility that requiring the arrest of accused abusers has caused some victims not to report violence against them.

Six former heads of the Shin Bet — Israel's security agency — speak to director Dror Moreh in his Oscar-nominated documentary The Gatekeepers. They are men who have signed off on brutal interrogations and targeted killings. They have given their lives to the cause of Israeli security.

What is striking is that all articulate their shared conviction that the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories will not lead to peace or a political solution for the future of the state of Israel.

"It was a long journey," Moreh tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies of his efforts to get the Shin Bet chiefs to talk. "I think it is timing, and the timing for them to speak was right. ... [Y]ou don't force people like that to speak. They came because they wanted — they understood — what I wanted to say, what I wanted to tell, and I think that the main reason for them to come is the fact that they felt that the state of Israel is walking in a path or in a route where it will only lead to a dire and bitter consequences for the existences for the state of Israel."

Moreh, once an Israeli soldier himself, says one of the reasons he made the film is because his own son is now about to join the Israeli military.

"My son is going to the army in two weeks from now," he says, "and for me to create that movie was the fear that he will have to be that young soldier running in those alleys, arresting people, going into their homes in the middle of the night. And what effect it will have on his soul? What effect it will have on his personality, a young boy that now just finished high school?"

If you've ever shot the breeze, had a heart-to-heart, or bent somebody's ear — in fact, if you've ever talked at all — odds are you've used an idiom. These sometimes bizarre phrases are a staple of conversation, and more than 10,000 of them are collected in the latest edition of The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, which came out this week.

The new volume contains hundreds of new entries. Author Christine Ammer tells NPR's Renee Montagne that idioms are added to the book based on how commonly they're used. "I usually go by the frequency with which I hear them used and where I see them used in print," she says. "There are some that simply jump out at you because they're used so often, even though they may be of very early provenance."

More Idiom Backstories

Birthday suit

In 18th-century England, this term referred to the clothes one wore on the king's birthday. Later the phrase was jocularly used to refer to the clothing a baby wore on the day of its own birth — that is, nakedness.

Mind one's p's and q's

This term for "practicing good manners" was first recorded in 1779, but its origin is disputed. One theory cites bartenders who kept track of a customer's bill in terms of pints and quarts, so a conscientious barkeep would "mind" them; in another, children had to be careful to distinguish the mirror-image letters "p" and "q"; in yet another, French dancing masters cautioned pupils to correctly perform the figures "pieds" and "queues," abbreviated or mispronounced into the English letters "p" and "q."

Get on the bandwagon

In the second half of the 1800s, a bandwagon, or horse-drawn wagon carrying a brass band, would accompany candidates on their campaign tours. Eventually the term was extended so that "getting on the bandwagon" meant supporting a campaign or joining a cause.

Dead cat bounce

This term for a quick but short-lived recovery originated in the 1980s. It referred to stock that would rapidly increase in price, but then return to its low price after speculators resold it. Why a "dead cat"? Because if you throw a dead cat at a wall, it will bounce, all right — but it will still be dead.

Pass the buck

This poker-related idiom refers to shifting responsibility or blame. It originated in the mid-1800s practice of passing around a piece of buckshot, or another object, to remind a player that he would be dealing next. The current meaning was established around 1900.

Steal someone's thunder

This idiom for appropriating someone else's idea comes from an actual incident in the early 18th century. Playwright John Dennis rattled a sheet of tin to create a "thunder machine" for his play Appius and Virginia. A few days later, he heard the device used during a performance of Macbeth, leading him to exclaim, "They steal my thunder!"

Adapted from The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, Second Edition.

"Let me be honest with you," Risser says. "I was born with a political spoon in my mouth. When I was born I think my dad was district attorney. He was state senator for 12 years. As a kid, I used to help him campaign. I had great love for my dad. I knew I was going to follow in his footsteps."

Risser was first elected in 1956. He says he remembers when the Legislature was made up entirely of white men.

"There were no females, there were no minorities or diversity. In fact, they didn't even have a woman's john on the legislative floor," he says. "Now it's much more diversified, which is good."

Other changes, he finds, are not so good.

"The Legislature is more polarized than I've ever seen it. There are more straight party-line votes than there have ever been. I can remember when the rurals would fight the urbans or the eastern part of the state would fight the western part or the north would fight south. But now it isn't that way," he says. "Now it's Democrats versus Republicans."

Nevertheless, he has no inclination to call it quits. "It's the most frustrating job in the world, but it keeps the adrenalin going and it gets you up in the morning. You learn something new every day," he says. "You see different people every day."

And that seems to keep him feeling younger than 85 — whatever 85 means. Risser says it's just a number, that there are many different kinds of ages: your mental age, your physical age — though most 85-year-olds are not riding 2,000 miles a year on their bikes as he does. And he's kept the confidence of his fellow Senate Democrats to the point that they've elected him Senate president when they've had the majority.

But Risser acknowledges there is one respect in which he's an old-timer.

"I don't have Facebook pages, I don't tweet, I don't know how to text. I'm learning to use my iPhone a little bit, but I don't feel confident even to use email," he says. "I'm from the old school, and I still write things down."

More In This Series

Working Late: Older Americans On The Job

For One Senior, Working Past Retirement Age Is A Workout

Next month brings "March madness" for fans of college basketball.

It's also going to bring Roman Catholic cardinals together to choose a new pope.

Which means, according to Religion News Service, it's time to "make your picks in the Vatican's Sweet Sistine brackets!"

Yes, RNS has put brackets online and is getting folks to pick between some of the cardinals who are thought to be pope possibilities. First round voting — on the 16 "sweet sistine" choices — ends at midnight ET on Friday.

Now, as for advice on how to play the game:

— You could look to those, such as NPR's Sylvia Poggioli, who cover the Vatican. As we reported earlier this month, she has crunched the numbers and concluded it's more than likely the next pope will be a European, just like nearly all the others. Italian Cardinal Angelo Scola, 71, is a leading contender.

— Or, you could look to a source that knows something about bracketology, such as the sports staff at USA Today. If basketball brackets are any guide, USA Today says, "favorites rarely win ... long names are out" and seniors aren't going to lead you to victory. USA Today's conclusion? "That leaves one man. If the papal brackets hold true to form, the puff of white smoke will emerge to name Christoph Schoenborn as the new pope."

— Betting parlors in Europe, of course, are laying odds on which cardinal will become the new pope. You might find some good guidance there.

As you would expect, The Two-Way team's attorney wants us to remind everyone that we are not endorsing the idea of betting — on basketball games or pontiffs.

Many of the articles about Marissa Mayer's decision to ban working from home at Yahoo eventually get around to mentioning that she recently added a nursery to her office.

But this is really not a women's issue. I don't think we should talk about it that way.

Men with families often get a free ride in these debates — and working women without kids often feel they are unfairly saddled with baggage that has nothing to do with their lives.

The real question — the one that matters — for Mayer as a new CEO of a struggling company and anyone with a stake in creating more flexible workplaces is this: Does working from home work?

I clearly have a conflict of interest on this one.

I work 20 paces down the hall from my bedroom. I commute in my slippers. I report to the office about 6:30 a.m. and right now it's 10 p.m. and I am still here, though it is not as if I've been working the whole day.

A colleague recently asked me if I sleep. I do, sometimes right in the middle of the day.

I also routinely sneak off and go for a run — or play ultimate Frisbee. (Don't laugh. In Silicon Valley it might be more useful than golf.) When my daughters come home from school I'm here — I might be working, but I can take a break for violin practice or math homework or to get a hug.

And I can write this because I am productive. And — so far — at least the folks at NPR have liked my work. It works for me because, in the end, the hours balance out — and I am in control of my time.

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Working From Home: The End Of Productivity Or The Future Of Work?

Many programs affecting low-income Americans — like food stamps, Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families — are exempt from across-the-board spending cuts set to go into effect March 1.

But many other programs are not, and that has service providers scrambling to figure out how the budget stalemate in Washington might affect those who rely on government aid.

Kathy Yowell is sitting in a wheelchair in the middle of her living room, waiting for her daily delivery from Meals on Wheels of Takoma Park, Md. Today she's getting fish, green beans and spinach, along with a chicken sandwich, fruit, salad, juice and a bagel.

Yowell, 82, says the service is a lifeline, especially after she had spinal surgery last August. Without the help, she says, "I wouldn't be back in my house. I'd be in assisted living, and I don't think I would last very long in a place like that."

That's the case for many of the millions of seniors who are served by Meals on Wheels nationwide. Jill Feasley, who runs the Takoma Park program, says most of her clients are homebound and alone. They need both food and someone to check in on them.

But if automatic spending cuts go into effect this Friday, the Obama administration warns, seniors could get 4 million fewer meals this year alone.

Still, Feasley says her program "wouldn't feel the cuts immediately." Federal funds cover only about one-quarter of her costs, she says, so she has a little flexibility.

"I can dance a lot of dances," Feasley says. "I can try and raise more money from private donations. I can try and serve more hamburger." Anything, she says, to avoid cutting actual meals.

Feasley does worry what the budget impasse will mean for her ability to raise funds in this Washington, D.C., suburb. Many of her donors are government workers and are facing potential furloughs if the sequester kicks in.

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How The Sequester Could Affect Health Care

For centuries, Germany has been synonymous with beer. Tourists flock from around the world to take part in the country's many beer festivals, including the famous Oktoberfest.

But officials say the German beer tradition is waning. A recent government report found Germans drink less beer now than they did a generation ago. To find out why, I visited some pubs and brew experts in Berlin — and heard a range of explanations.

At the Max and Moritz tavern, in a former working-class neighborhood of the German capital, beer once flowed as freely as the nearby Spree River. The pub is named after the characters of a beloved children's tale whose images adorn the walls and shelves, but it's the beer that this tavern is famous for.

Like most traditional German pubs, local brews are served here from taps or in bottles. On the night I visited, most customers were drinking wine or soda pop.

One of those drinking a soda was my husband's friend, Jan Katzmarczyk, a German lawyer who's sworn off alcohol for Lent. Even when he does drink, the 41-year-old says he rarely orders a beer anymore — maybe two a week, but not more.

He took us to several well-known pubs in Berlin to see what his country's statistics agency is reporting: that Germans — despite consuming two and a half billion gallons of beer last year — are drinking less beer now than at any time since 1990.

"People might drink less because it has lots of calories," Katzmarczyk says. "People are thinking much about their bellies, and beer is not helping."

At a nearby tavern called Zur Kleinen Markthalle, or "small market hall," there were more beer drinker. But bartender Andreas Varrelman confirmed what the government is reporting: Fewer patrons order beer these days.

He blamed the decrease on Germany's economic crisis, saying he believes people are more reluctant to go out and spend money, including on beer.

Marc-Oliver Huhnholz, spokesman for the German Brewers Association, says the waning interest in beer is more about changes to German society.

"We have a shift of the population, the people become older and less younger are following," he says. That means there are fewer Germans in younger age groups, which are more typically associated with beer drinking.

“ Germans are drinking less beer now than at any time since 1990.

"I was surprised to hear from the former CEO of Philip Morris, who is no friend of government, no friend of government regulation," says Moss, "to tell me that, 'Look, Michael, in the case of the processed food industry, what you're looking at is a total inability on their part to collectively decide to do the right thing by consumers on the health profile of their products. In this case, I can see how you might need government regulation if [for] nothing else [than] to give the companies cover from the pressure of Wall Street.' "

"Let me be honest with you," Risser says. "I was born with a political spoon in my mouth. When I was born I think my dad was district attorney. He was state senator for 12 years. As a kid, I used to help him campaign. I had great love for my dad. I knew I was going to follow in his footsteps."

Risser was first elected in 1956. He says he remembers when the Legislature was made up entirely of white men.

"There were no females, there were no minorities or diversity. In fact, they didn't even have a woman's john on the legislative floor," he says. "Now it's much more diversified, which is good."

Other changes, he finds, are not so good.

"The Legislature is more polarized than I've ever seen it. There are more straight party-line votes than there have ever been. I can remember when the rurals would fight the urbans or the eastern part of the state would fight the western part or the north would fight south. But now it isn't that way," he says. "Now it's Democrats versus Republicans."

Nevertheless, he has no inclination to call it quits. "It's the most frustrating job in the world, but it keeps the adrenalin going and it gets you up in the morning. You learn something new every day," he says. "You see different people every day."

And that seems to keep him feeling younger than 85 — whatever 85 means. Risser says it's just a number, that there are many different kinds of ages: your mental age, your physical age — though most 85-year-olds are not riding 2,000 miles a year on their bikes as he does. And he's kept the confidence of his fellow Senate Democrats to the point that they've elected him Senate president when they've had the majority.

But Risser acknowledges there is one respect in which he's an old-timer.

"I don't have Facebook pages, I don't tweet, I don't know how to text. I'm learning to use my iPhone a little bit, but I don't feel confident even to use email," he says. "I'm from the old school, and I still write things down."

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Murphy: "There was a feeling in South Boston that people were unfairly labeled as racist if they were opposed to busing, and it was really this anger that a judge — a federal judge — was telling them that, 'Your children will be bused out of the neighborhood across town to a neighborhood that's higher in crime with schools that [have been] found are inferior.'

"So there was this feeling of being put-upon, and so while [Whitey's brother] Billy Bulger became one of the most outspoken political opponents of busing, Whitey was working behind the scenes ... And what we found from talking to some of his former associates is that one of the things he did was drive over to Brookline — to President John F. Kennedy's birthplace — and firebomb his birthplace. Part of the motivation was Ted Kennedy at the time was a very outspoken proponent of the need to desegregate the schools. He was very outspoken about it. And Whitey went over, and he wrote in chalk on the sidewalk, spray-painted on the sidewalk, 'Bus Teddy.' "

On the Debra Davis killing and investigation

Murphy: "It's very strange how this whole thing played out. You have this notorious gangster. He's dating this woman. She vanishes without a trace. And they did put a report in the FBI national computer database listing her as a missing person, and then mysteriously, suddenly there's an update to that report that she's no longer missing. She's been spotted somewhere in Texas, which is a complete lie. So [Davis' mother] knows someone in the FBI went into that database and altered that report."

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Gretta Harley arrived in Seattle in 1990, when grunge was redefining the city. Bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden were turning Seattle into the epicenter of the music world. Harley was a punk rock guitarist searching for her tribe, and in Seattle's thriving music scene, she found it.

"I lived in a house with a bunch of other musicians," Harley says. "And The Screaming Trees lived across the street, Gus Huffer lived around the corner, and Gorilla lived around the corner." While living in close proximity to so many popular Northwestern bands, Harley soon co-founded her own. She and Tess. Lotta formed Maxi Badd, which later became the Danger Gens. Almost 25 years on, Harley is still in music. She teaches and she performs as half of the duo "We Are Golden" with singer Sarah Rudinoff.

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Has there ever been an age that was so grudging about suspending its disbelief? The groundlings at the Globe Theatre didn't giggle when Shakespeare had a clock chime in Julius Caesar. The Victorians didn't take Dickens to task for having the characters in A Tale of Two Cities ride the Dover mail coach 10 years before it was established. But Shakespeare and Dickens weren't writing in the age of the Internet, when every historical detail is scrutinized for chronological correctness, and when no "Gotcha!" remains unposted for long. Photographers using flashbulbs in 1919 in J. Edgar? Transatlantic twin-engine jets in Argo? Really — it totally took me out of the movie!

In a climate of insistent authenticity, there's nothing harder to get right than a period's vocabulary. The past speaks a foreign language that even those who grew up with it can't recover. The producers of Mad Men take pride in fitting out their characters with the correct ties and timepieces. But as the Boston Globe's Ben Zimmer observed, they can't seem to keep anachronisms out of the scripts. Were we already saying "keep a low profile" in 1963? Actually, no — it didn't catch on until 1969, but who can remember these things?

Other writers don't even seem to make an effort to get the dialogue right. Spotting linguistic anachronisms in Julian Fellowes' Downton Abbey is as easy as shooting grouse in a barrel. "I couldn't care less," Lord Grantham says. Thomas complains that "our lot always gets shafted." Cousin Matthew announces he has been on a steep learning curve, a phrase that would have gotten a blank reception even in the Sterling Cooper boardroom.

Television

I'm Just Sayin': There Are Anachronisms In 'Downton'

In a business where effects-laden movies helped Hollywood make a record-setting $10.8 billion last year, many of the studios that create those effects are barely staying afloat.

Visual effects have been a part of the movie industry ever since Georges Melies went on his famous Trip to the Moon in 1902. These days, VFX studios do everything from putting a tiger in a lifeboat on an ocean voyage to choreographing the destruction of a New York City being defended by Earth's mightiest heroes.

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American Airlines and US Airways on Thursday announced they plan to merge to create the country's largest airline, with a route network stretching from coast to coast, and covering large swaths of Latin America, Europe, Canada, the Caribbean and Africa.

The merger would knit together American's parent company, Fort Worth, Texas-based AMR Corp., and Tempe, Ariz.-based US Airways Group Inc. to form a new company worth about $11 billion. The combined carrier — with more than 6,700 daily flights to 336 destinations in 56 countries — would leapfrog over its competitors in terms of passenger traffic, and would retain the name and logo of American.

Here are answers to common questions about the merger:

Why are airlines always pushing for mergers?

Airlines have a very, very hard time making profits. US Airways endured a couple of round trips to bankruptcy court, and American is still trying to pull out of a bankruptcy filed in 2011.

Web Resources

American/US Airways Merger Site

It's settled. When the pontiff steps down Thursday, he'll still be known as Benedict XVI and have the title of "pope emeritus." In public, he'll wear an understated white cassock and stylish brown shoes from Mexico.

The Vatican announcement on Tuesday ends speculation over some of the thorny issues that have been the subject of speculation in the days since the world learned that the 85-year-old Benedict would voluntarily step down, the first pope to do so in more than 700 years.

Vatican spokesman Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi says instead of reverting to his birth name, Joseph Ratzinger, the 265th pope will be known as "His Holiness Benedict XVI, Roman pontiff emeritus."

According to Lombardi, Benedict will continue to wear a white cassock (sans the pontifical ornaments), but forgo his trademark red shoes. Instead, he will wear a pair of handmade brown shoes given to him during a papal visit to Mexico in 2012.

According to The National Catholic Reporter, the pope's "fisherman's ring," which contains the formal seal, will be destroyed, as is custom at the end of a papacy.

" 'It will be broken at a particular moment; when that will happen is up to the college of cardinals,' said Basilian Father Thomas Rosica, who provided English translation of the press conference.

"Rosica also said the decisions regarding the retired pope's title and clothing were made by Benedict, 'but obviously he would have discussed those with other people around him.' "

Megalomaniacs, consider yourselves warned. Anchovies will not help you build your empire. To rule long and prosper, serve corn.

That's the word from archaeologists who say they've solved a mystery that's been puzzling their colleagues for the past 40 years: How did some of the earliest Peruvians manage to build a robust civilization without corn — the crop that fueled other great civilizations of the Americas like the Maya?

The Norte Chico people, who lived some 5,000 years ago, built a thriving civilization — but from the archaeological evidence previously available, it looked like they did it solely on anchovies. And anyone who's ever nibbled an anchovy on a pizza knows there's not a lot of meat on those tiny bones.

Would that have given the Norte Chico enough oomph to build the monumental architecture they left behind, including dozens of large communities with huge earthen platforms and circular ceremonial plazas, some 40 meters across?

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In its bid to reshape itself for the future, Yahoo is returning to a workplace culture of the tech industry's past. The Internet giant has reportedly notified its employees they'll no longer be allowed to work from home. According to an internal memo leaked to tech site All Things D, employees who previously enjoyed teleworking will have to start showing up at an office by June.

The move goes against a popular workplace perk among tech companies and a wider trend toward more work-from-home options across several industries. (Public media is included — NPR has a process allowing staffers to apply for remote-work arrangements.)

Technology has made collaboration easier for employees who aren't physically in the same space, and companies who back telework say it has helped cut costs and compete for wider talent pools.

"Ten years ago, it was seen more as an employee benefit. Today, businesses around the world are seeing telework as a necessity," said Ron Markezich, the corporate vice president of Microsoft's U.S. Enterprise and Partner Group. He led a 2011 Microsoft survey of more than 4,500 information workers that showed a rise in teleworking.

Having no central workplace certainly works for Automattic, the company that controls blogging behemoth WordPress. 120 employees work from their homes in 26 countries, and its leader, Matt Mullenweg, sees distributed employees as the future of work.

"I think it's difficult for a culture to transition from being reliant on in-person interactions to being just as effective in a distributed fashion — it's something you can't do halfway, and the change has to come from the very top," Mullenweg said. "Just because Yahoo can't do it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with being distributed."

Even the government sector, which isn't considered an early adopter of workplace culture change, has a star teleworking model in its ranks. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office boasts that 64 percent of employees work from home under various models.

Business

For Telecommuters, It's Not About Going To Work

MacFarlane opened with a perhaps predictably juvenile and overlong bit in which he sang about all the actresses he'd seen topless in movies, trying to have his cake and eat it too by framing it in a bit where William Shatner visited from the future to show him what it would look like if he were bombing.

Unfortunately, it was very difficult to tell the difference between pretending to bomb and actually bombing — the laughter he received seemed polite at best, and his conviction that saying "boobs" enough times would cause a room full of tuxes and gowns to quake with hilarity seemed misplaced. And then there were sock puppets. It's better forgotten.

Throughout the night, MacFarlane returned over and over to the topic of women and how silly they are — how Jessica Chastain's character in Zero Dark Thirty is an example of how women never let anything go, for instance — to the point where it seemed like his shtick would have benefited from a simple count of how many times he was returning to the well of "Women, am I right?"

“ The best hosts tease sharply but graciously; that's what made Johnny Carson a good Oscars host, and Jimmy Fallon at the Emmys, and recent Golden Globes hosts Amy Poehler and Tina Fey.

11 Flowers was inspired by an incident from Wang's youth. (Its title translates literally as Me, 11.) It is in part a portrayal of the deprivations, both material and spiritual, of the Cultural Revolution. But it just as expressively depicts the universal condition of childhood, a period of intense curiosity and profound cluelessness. Like most kids, Han can feel left out, even within his own family.

The director represents this keenly using point-of-view camera; we see through Han's eyes as he circles a table of gossipy grown-ups, peeking past arms and elbows. The director also simulates the kid's perspective through windows and steam, when hanging his head upside down and during the wooziness of a fever.

Sometimes, Wang employs the viewpoint of another character: Jueqiang (Wang Ziyi), a wounded fugitive who's hiding in the woods. He steals Han's shirt and uses it to stanch the bleeding from his side. The gesture has both practical and symbolic implications. How can the boy tell his mother he lost the new shirt? And how can innocence be restored to a bloodied China?

The movie doesn't dwell on the latter question, although the murder is followed by outbursts of teen-gang violence and Red Guard attacks on "conservatives." Like the whole country, Han's hometown is officiously governed yet prone to anarchy.

Maoism's oppressiveness is conveyed by the patriotic anthems that blare from loudspeakers — and are sung by people, including Han's parents, who prefer traditional tunes but fear being overheard singing them. The bombastic music disappears when the boys visit the woods along the river, where only rustlings and burblings can be heard. For children here, as elsewhere, nature offers both its own charms and a refuge from adult perplexities. (Recommended)

The movie Beasts of the Southern Wild is a fairy tale of a film. It might not seem to have much in common with documentaries about evangelical Christians in Uganda or the billionaire Koch brothers. But these films were all funded by a not-for-profit group called Cinereach. It was started by a couple of film school graduates who are still in their 20s. And now, with Beasts, it has a nomination for Best Picture at this year's Oscars.

Cinereach funded almost all of the $1.5 million budget for Beasts of the Southern Wild, the immersive art-house film about a child who's figuratively and literally adrift in Louisiana swamp country. Named Hushpuppy, and played by youngest-ever Best Actress nominee Quvenzhane Wallis, she vows to survive: "They think we're all gonna drown," she says. "But we ain't going nowhere."

The movie has earned more than $12 million, along with multiple awards and Oscar nominations.

Michael Raisler, at 27 years old, is one of the Best Picture nominee's producers and the creative director of Cinereach, which he founded with Philipp Engelhorn when the two were classmates at New York University's film school. They found that they shared a love for movies and a passion for social change. "Our key goal is to support what we call 'vital stories artfully told,' " he says.

As they learned about the film business, Raisler and Engelhorn learned that the money didn't go to the good movies; it went to the movies that would make more money. Engelhorn decided he wanted his film production company to be separate and apart from worries about commercial viability: "We're not protecting a potential upside or profit potential; we're protecting the vision."

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Do failing grades inspire more effort? Oxfam hopes so. The activist group on behalf of the poor has just handed out report cards to 10 of the world's top food companies, grading their commitments to protect the environment and treat people fairly.

Oxfam doesn't grade on the curve, evidently. Every company flunked. But two European-based companies, Nestle and Unilever, were at least better than the others.

Both companies have policies that are supposed to ensure that workers around the globe are treated fairly, for instance, and they're better-than-average in trying to limited greenhouse gas emissions. Nestle (Taster's Choice; Perrier) got especially high grades for its efforts to conserve water. Unilever (Lipton Tea; Hellman's mayonnaise) got extra credit for policies aimed at helping small farmers.

Oxfam also assigned grades for how companies protect women's rights, contribute to climate change, and provide information about their suppliers.

Associated British Foods (Mazola corn oil; Twinings Tea) came in at the bottom of Oxfam's rankings, but Kellogg's (Pop Tarts) and General Mills (Cheerios, Yoplait) weren't much better.

These grades, it should be noted, are based on official policies, not actual behavior. Neither Oxfam nor any other independent group has the resources to travel the globe to see first-hand how these policies are implemented on, say, tea plantations in remote corners of Sri Lanka and Mozambique.

Oxfam calls its new campaign "Behind the Brands." This strategy — targeting companies that own popular consumer brands — is increasingly popular among environmentalists and other groups devoted to social change. Jason Clay, a vice-president of the World Wildlife Fund, laid out the reasons a couple of years ago in a TED talk.

It comes down to what's practical, Clay said. We could try to convince millions of farmers to work differently. We could try to persuade billions of consumers to buy different products. But it's a lot easier for us to put pressure on a few dozen companies — huge conglomerates that order commodities from every corner of the globe.

Those companies are extraordinarily sensitive when it comes to the image of their consumer brands. They already have very specific rules for their suppliers when it comes to quality and safety. How about associating those brands with environmental quality and worker well-being?

Oxfam says it will be happy to revise its grades when companies improve their performance.

On the Monday of Pope Benedict XVI's final week as leader of the Roman Catholic Church begins, there's word that:

— Britain's most senior Roman Catholic cleric has resigned and will not be taking part in the conclave of cardinals that will select the next pope. As NPR's Philip Reeves reports from London, "Cardinal Keith O'Brien's decision was announced a day after revelations that he behaved inappropriately with several priests."

— Benedict has, as it was rumored he might, decided to allow the cardinals to begin the conclave earlier than rules require. If all the cardinals who are eligible to vote have gathered at the Vatican, the Associated Press and Reuters report, they won't be required to wait the 15 days after Benedict's resignation (which takes effect Thursday) to begin the conclave.

On O'Brien's resignation, Phil tells our Newscast desk that the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland was the subject of a report in Britain's Observer. Phil says that "the newspaper alleged he made inappropriate approaches towards three priests and one former priest in the 1980s. Cardinal O'Brien — archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh — strongly denies this. He's 74, and was due to retire soon."

But the cardinal opted to step down, saying he doesn't want to be a distraction at the conclave of cardinals. His decision, Phil adds, "may increase pressure on several other cardinals who are facing demands to recuse themselves because of their handling of abuse scandals."

From 'On The Media': Inside the Vatican with 'Whispers in the Loggia' blogger Rocco Palmo.

The final death toll has not yet been determined, but the number is high. A hot air balloon carrying tourists on a flight over historic sites around the ancient Egyptian city of Luxor caught fire Tuesday. It then plunged to the ground.

NPR's Leila Fadel reports from Cairo that 19 people may have perished. Al-Jazeera puts the current death toll at 18. According to NBC News, at least 14 people were killed — but another four are said to be missing.

Regardless of the final number, "it was the deadliest hot air balloon accident in the world in at least 20 years," says CNN. Those killed included tourists from Japan, Britain, Belgium and France, according to news reports.

As for the cause, NBC reports that:

"There were conflicting accounts of what happened.

"[Ahmed Aboud, who runs another balloon company and acts as a spokesman for balloon operators in the area] said that gas tanks caught fire and ignited the balloon at about 1,000 feet.

"But an eyewitness, who did not want to be identified, said the balloon was about 12 feet off the ground when a landing rope was thrown to people on the ground. As they grabbed it, the rope wrapped around a gas container, which broke and a fire then started. The witness estimated the balloon then 'shot up 500 meters' (1,640 feet) and the pilot 'jumped out as it was going up.' "

As Italy's elections results came in Monday, the country appeared headed toward political gridlock, a development that rattled financial markets hoping for a clear result.

A center-left coalition, headed by Pier Luigi Bersani and favored in pre-election polls, looked like it would win the lower house of parliament, according to partial results.

But in a surprise, the center-right grouping, headed by the former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, appeared to be ahead in the upper house.

And NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reported from Rome that there were other surprises as well:

The wild-card 5 Star Movement, headed by comedian-turned politician Beppe Grillo, is doing better than expected and may become the biggest single party.

TV network anchors and guests appeared confused and rattled by projections that conflicted with earlier exit polls in a country where many people are hesitant to reavel exactly who they're voting for.

Haven't had a chance to watch the Oscar-nominated documentary shorts? All Things Considered is here to help. In the week leading up to the Academy Awards, NPR's Audie Cornish talked with the directors of the five short films nominated for best documentary short.

The films tell a range of stories — about a preventable disease that's ravaging Africa and the quiet loneliness of Florida retirees, the vibrant art of a homeless teenager and the hard life of "canners," and finally a salon that helps women with cancer cope with their scars.

'Mondays At Racine': For Cancer Patients, A Salon Treatment
One Monday each month, sisters Cynthia and Rachel open the doors to their hair salon, free, to cancer patients. As filmmaker Cynthia Wade documents, the time at the salon spent with hats and wigs does more than address hair loss; it helps women cope with the physical and emotional scars of cancer. (All Things Considered audio and transcript, Feb. 22, 2013)