Most Recent Posts: 2015-02-15

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King Of Condensed Films: Meet Chuck Workman, The Oscars' Montage Master

Oscar-watchers expect to see certain things every year: fabulous dresses, maudlin speeches, montages.

You know, those assortments of expertly edited clips looking back at who died in the past year, or the ones that sum up each best picture nominee in just a couple of minutes.

For 20 years, Chuck Workman created many of the Oscar montages. He likens the task to making a fruitcake.

"You don't want to have too many raisins, too many nuts," he says. "But you wanna have plenty of raisins and plenty of nuts."

Workman used plenty of raisins and plenty of nuts in his montage of the movie Babel when it was nominated for best picture back in 2007. Workman boiled the 143-minute movie down to just two minutes, which he packed with about 50 scenes.

"You're looking for a flow," he says. "What is pushing this thing forward? What is making it happen?"

Workman's montages just wash over you, says Tom Provost, a writer, director and film professor.

"In the film community, everyone knows Chuck Workman," Provost says. "As an editor he's kind of a god."

In fact, one of Provost's favorite movies is Precious Images, for which Workman won a 1987 Oscar. It's a short movie that manages to encompass the history of Hollywood film just by using montage.

"His transitions are incredible," Provost says, pointing to how Workman turns a corner in the film from musicals to horror movies. "We see this great famous shot of Esther Williams in a pool and then we get almost an identical shot from Jaws."

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Workman honed his cutting skills for years making movie trailers, for such films as Star Wars, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and The Terminator. Provost says you could see his skill in the Oscars' "In Memorium" montages.

"Not only could he isolate a movie in one image, but with the 'In Memorium' segments, he could really isolate a performer," he says.

But montage-making wasn't always easy for Workman — particularly best picture montages for movies he disliked. "The Cider House Rules," he groaned. "Precious."

In 20 years of making montages for the Oscars, Workman's favorite might be a 1994 salute to the people behind the scenes: gaffers, grips, dancers, dressers, even accountants. He remembered how Stephen Sondheim rewrote his song "Putting It Together" for an over-the-top number — part live, part montage — starring Bernadette Peters in a glamorous golden gown.

But those kind of theatrical, production-heavy montages are becoming Oscar relics. While "In Memorium" is not going anywhere, Workman says his style of elaborately edited celebrations of old, increasingly obscure movies has given way to newer media.

"They'd rather have Ellen DeGeneres taking a selfie," he says, with just a bit of a grumble. "What does that have to do with movies?"

Workman has not produced any montages for the Oscars since 2010. It was fun, he says, but he does not miss it. Most recently, he celebrated Hollywood history by directing a 2014 documentary called Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Welles.

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Korean Tailors Try To Keep The Lunar New Year Hanbok Ritual Alive

Getting ready for the Lunar New Year once meant buying a new set of clothes for many families of Korean ancestry.

For centuries, the costume known as hanbok – a two-piece outfit traditionally made of embroidered cotton or silk worn by men and women – has played a central role in the new year's wardrobe.

"Family members would get together in a new set of hanbok and bow to each other in a traditional way, wishing good health and fortune," explains Minjee Kim, a costume historian who has studied hanbok, a style of dress modeled from 17th- and 18th-century daily attire worn during the Joseon Dynasty.

But this Lunar New Year tradition is waning.

While hanbok dresses are still in high demand during wedding season, these days a bride's hanbok dress might be the only one she ever buys. "Young couples today in Korea are not having as many children, so when they all get together for traditional holidays, those gatherings are very small," Kim says. "They don't try to keep their traditions strictly by wearing hanbok."

Kim adds that the cost of the custom-made outfits, which can run as high as several thousand dollars, has forced many families to scale back from making annual hanbok purchases.

Some families also turn to rental boutiques like Hanbok Story in Queens, N.Y.

Youjung Jung takes a customer's order for a new outfit at her store Hanbok Story in Queens, N.Y. Hansi Lo Wang/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Hansi Lo Wang/NPR

Youjung Jung takes a customer's order for a new outfit at her store Hanbok Story in Queens, N.Y.

Hansi Lo Wang/NPR

Owner Youjung Jung, 57, opened the store six years ago after emigrating from South Korea. She says she's disappointed that fewer people are keeping the hanbok tradition in her home country and the U.S. Designing and making the outfits have been part of the family business for Jung as far back as her grandmother's generation. But her adult children, she says, have no plans to continue the business.

"It's a problem," she says with her eyes downcast.

For some Korean-Americans who live nearby, Jung's store has been invaluable.

Jinhee Kim, who lives in Queens, stopped by to buy a hanbok for the Lunar New Year after picking up her seven-year-old daughter from Korean-language school.

"I want my daughter to follow the Korean tradition. I'm just here for her," Kim says.

Lisa Anderson, who is Korean-American and also lives in Queens, says she is not getting a hanbok of her own for the new year, but she is getting her wardrobe ready for her son's doljanchi, or first birthday celebration.

"A lot of Korean women believe you should have a least one hanbok in your closet just in case," Anderson explains as Jung wraps a measuring tape around her husband Berris' waist. He's getting a hanbok, too.

Berris, who is Jamaican-American, says wearing the outfit is a way to keep the Korean culture alive in his family.

"I wish that my mother-in-law was still alive, and I wish that my wife had brothers and sisters. But she doesn't. She's an only child. So I think that if we don't maintain it, then it can very well be lost," he says.

Youjung Jung measures Berris Anderson for a hanbok as his wife Lisa watches. Hansi Lo Wang/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Hansi Lo Wang/NPR

Youjung Jung measures Berris Anderson for a hanbok as his wife Lisa watches.

Hansi Lo Wang/NPR

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The Oscars Are Coming, With One Big Hit And Few Close Contests

On today's All Things Considered, NPR film critic Bob Mondello and I have a chat with Audie Cornish about the inevitable, inscrutable Oscars.

There are eight films up for Best Picture this year: American Sniper, Whiplash, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, The Theory Of Everything, Birdman, Boyhood, and Selma. Of these, exactly one is a giant popular hit. And it's not the one that oddsmakers will tell you is going to emerge with the victory. In fact, there's a distinct absence of races this year that are perceived to be especially close. So with mostly small-box-office films and mostly contests that seem to have clear winners, what's to watch on Sunday?

Well, host Neil Patrick Harris, our Official Host Of Lots Of Things, for one. He's done the Emmys and the Tonys and probably spends his Sunday nights hosting impromptu awards ceremonies for his family, but this year, he's getting the big stage for the first time.

Meanwhile, we'll be on Twitter, like much of the rest of the world, using the hashtag #NPROscars.

Banned From The Ride-Share Business In Spain, Uber Turns to Food Delivery

Late last year, a Spanish judge prohibited Uber from operating in Spain, after protests by taxi drivers. Days later, the company announced it was closing down operations here.

But less than two months later, it's reinvented itself as UberEATS, converting its network of drivers into food deliverymen.

Customers in Spain can log onto the same Uber smartphone app which they used to request rides (though they may need to update the app; Spanish telecom operators were ordered to block the original app after a judge's ruling in December). A new option labeled UberEATS allows users to order food from participating restaurants. The service is part of a partnership with the Spanish foodie website Plateselector.

Uber debuted this new service in Barcelona last night, promising food delivery in 10 minutes or less. The company already provides a similar service in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, called UberFRESH.

"The global fame of Spanish gastronomy, the cosmopolitan character of Barcelona and Spaniards' great acceptance of new opportunities in the 'on-demand' economy, are the main reasons the company chose Barcelona as the first city outside the U.S. to launch UberEATS," the company said in a statement emailed to journalists.

Most dishes cost around $11, with about a $3 delivery fee. Just like with the ride-share service, customers with GPS-enabled smartphones can watch a little taxi icon getting closer, delivering their meal.

In addition to Spain, Uber faces ride-share bans in South Korea, Thailand, India and France. It also faces stiff resistance from taxi drivers and unions in Germany, Belgium and elsewhere. In India, Uber was criticized as unsafe after allegations that a woman was raped by her Uber driver. And in Sydney, Australia, the company came under fire for jacking up prices during a hostage crisis.

Nevertheless, the five-year-old San Francisco-based company has expanded to more than 50 countries. Uber is privately-held, but has been valued by investors at more than $40 billion.

That's a lot of takeout food.

The Comedy And Good Conversation Of Harris Wittels

Harris Wittels died Thursday. He was a stand-up comic, a television writer/producer, a musician, a frequent and dependably hilarious guest on comedy podcasts, and an author who unleashed the concept of the #humblebrag upon the cultural landscape.

He was 30 years old.

When anyone dies, our sadness is tinged with something darker and more selfish; we resent the time we'll never get to spend with that person, the days and months and years that will pile up without their presence.

When a comedian dies, particularly one so young, we feel that resentment more keenly, because laughter is a limited resource - one of a very few things with the power to make those days and months and years pass more easily.

You'll see some writing today about Wittels' coinage of the term humblebrag – the tendency for people, celebrities especially, to express a distinctly performative brand of faux-humility on social media. It became a whole thing, the #humblebrag hashtag, one Wittels frequently expressed some misgivings about.

On Twitter, you can read some of his fellow comics weighing in on his stand-up and his music (with the band Don't Stop or We'll Die, formed with Paul Rust and Michael Cassady) while his fellow Parks and Recreation writers laud his singular contributions to that show. (By the way: You know Harris, Pawnee's Animal Control guy? That was him.)

But you and me, let's talk podcasts.

Wittels may not have been a household name – in your household, anyway. In my household, and in the households of the nation's comedy nerds, his name meant something. When you saw it listed as a guest on a given comedy podcast, as he was frequently on Scott Aukerman's Comedy Bang Bang (nee Comedy Death Ray), you dropped everything and started listening while the file was still downloading.

On Comedy Bang Bang, Wittels was quick, self-deprecating, and hugely funny: he'd try out jokes he'd earlier typed into his phone in an impromptu segment called "Harris' Phone Corner" (which almost immediately became "Harris' Foam Corner" – never mind, long story) and revel in the affectionate mockery they'd inevitably receive from Aukerman and guests.

With Aukerman, he co-hosted the podcast Analyze Phish, a show whose premise (Wittels a Phish super-fan, Aukerman a bemused Phish-skeptic; they talk) does little to hint at its dogged, exultant silliness, or the exasperated affection the two men share.

I've used the word "affection" twice in the last two paragraphs, because that's the word that came through most clearly in every Wittels appearance: the guy was loved. You can hear it.

Here's a thing about podcasts – their loose, rangy, long-form format breeds a distinctive strain of intimacy. You're listening to a conversation between two or more people, with all the digressions and hoary jokes their shared history engenders, and if feels familiar, comfortable, warm.

Last November, Wittels made a second appearance on You Made It Weird, a podcast whose host, Pete Holmes, greets guests with a weaponized form of gregariousness that, if unchecked, can dominate conversations.

Listen to Wittels' appearance. You get past the ghoulishness of it quickly: yes, Wittels talks at length about cycling through addiction and recovery, and tells some harrowingly funny and off-handedly profane stories about his first, fumbling encounters with heroin. But listen to how Wittels tells them – how clear-eyed, unsentimental, brutally honest, and hilarious he is.

He's all of those things at once, each one bound up inextricably with the other. Listen to how Holmes – even Holmes! – gets quieter and quieter as Wittels talks.

It's a conversation that clocks in at an hour and forty minutes. It would never fit into the programmatic confines of radio or television; it flows, it doubles back, it halts, it lurches forward. It's a weird gift, is what it is.

Wittels is gone, and that's sad. Infuriatingly so. There's that familiar resentment – he was only 30 years old, which means we won't get decades and decades of his comedy.

But he was improbably and gratifyingly prolific. His Twitter feed (@twittels) is still there, still hilarious, still so recognizably him.

There's the Comedy Bang Bang and Analyze Phish archives, filled with Wittels' voice and humor and jokes so determinedly bad they shade into performance art.

So while mourning his absence, maybe spend some time today, and in the days and months and years to come, enjoying his digital presence.

Do a search. Listen. Laugh.

Humana Discloses Widening Justice Dept. Probe Of Medicare Advantage Plans

Humana, Inc. faces new scrutiny from the Justice Department over allegations it has overcharged the government by claiming some elderly patients enrolled in its popular Medicare plans are sicker than they actually are.

The Louisville, Ky.-based insurer disclosed the Justice Department's recent civil "information request" in an annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb. 18. The company noted that it is cooperating with authorities.

"We continue to cooperate with and voluntarily respond to the information requests from the Department of Justice and the U.S. Attorney's Office," Humana wrote.

The privately run Medicare Advantage plans offer seniors an alternative to standard Medicare, which pays doctors for each service they render. By contrast, under Medicare Advantage, the health plans are paid a set fee monthly for each patient based on a complex formula known as a risk score. Essentially, the government pays higher rates for sicker patients and less for those in good health.

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Fraud Case Casts Spotlight On Medicare Advantage Plans

But overcharges related to inflated risk scores, intentional or not, have cost taxpayers billions of dollars in recent years, as the Center for Public Integrity reported in a series published last year.

The Center first disclosed multiple investigations of the Humana Medicare Advantage plan last May based on records filed by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami in a civil suit.

More Scrutiny Coming For Medicare Advantage, Obamacare Nov. 4, 2014

But Humana's financial disclosure offers fresh details into the wide scope of the Justice review, indicating it is taking aim at a range of common Medicare Advantage billing practices and fraud controls, as well as Humana's use of home health assessments of patients in its plans. The industry argues these "house calls" improve the health of elderly patients, but federal officials have been concerned that the primary objective is to raise risk scores and revenues.

Humana said the Justice Department had requested a range of records about "our business and compliance practices related to risk adjustment data generated by our providers and by us, including medical record reviews conducted as part of our data and payment accuracy compliance efforts, the use of health and well-being assessments, and our fraud detection efforts."

The government probe comes at an inopportune time for the burgeoning Medicare Advantage industry, which is mounting an intense lobbying and advocacy effort to stave off proposed government funding cuts.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is set to release proposed funding levels for 2016 on Friday. More than 16 million seniors have joined these private health plans. Humana has enrolled about 3.2 million people in Medicare Advantage plans.

What will happen to the rates is not yet clear. But the Obama administration's 2016 budget seeks to cut some $36 billion from Medicare Advantage plans over the next decade related to oversized risk scores.

Allegations that some Medicare Advantage plans manipulate risk scores, a process known in the industry as "upcoding," have been surfacing over the past year in the federal courts.

The Center for Public Integrity has previously reported on several of these whistleblower lawsuits, including one filed by a Miami doctor against Humana.

In that case, Olivia Graves alleges that a Humana medical center had diagnosed abnormally high numbers of patients with diseases such as diabetes with complications that boosted Medicare payments — diagnoses that "were not supported by medical records." Graves alleges that Humana knew about the overcharges but took no action to stop them. Humana has denied the allegations.

And in early February, a federal grand jury in West Palm Beach, Fl. indicted Dr. Isaac Kojo Anakwah Thompson on eight counts of health care fraud. He's accused of cheating Medicare out of about $2.1 million by inflating risk scores of some Humana-enrolled patients. Thompson, 55, is free on a $1 million bond and has declined comment through his lawyer.

The Florida indictment did not accuse Humana of wrongdoing, but company spokesman Tom Noland said that it had repaid the government. He declined to say how much.

New scrutiny of home visits also could prove troublesome for the industry. At least one whistleblower, a former manager at a California firm that does medical home visits, has alleged that the process was abused to inflate risk scores.

Humana has been a major promoter of these home assessments. In an email to the Center today, Noland wrote: "We believe in continuing to do in-home assessments as we see this as an important step in establishing care management plans for our members living with multiple chronic conditions."

Noland declined to say how many of the home assessments Humana has performed. But the company has previously said that it conducted the assessments for about 531,000 members in the first three months of 2014.

This piece comes from the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan, nonprofit investigative news organization. To follow CPI's investigations into Medicare and Medicare Advantage waste, fraud and abuse, go here.

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Canadian Lawmaker Uses 'Tight Underwear' Excuse To Explain Absence

A member of Canada's House of Commons has earned laughs and toasts from his colleagues, after he blamed his absence during a vote on tight underwear that makes him uncomfortable.

MP Pat Martin of Winnipeg Centre gave the explanation to foil an attempt to have his vote thrown out because, contrary to parliamentary rules, he had left his seat during the voting process.

"I can blame it on a sale that was down at the Hudson's Bay [store]," Martin announced. "They had men's underwear on for half price. I bought a bunch that was clearly too small for me. I find it difficult to sit for any length of time, Mr. Speaker."

Maintaining a deadpan delivery even as howls of laughter began, Martin added, "I apologize if it was necessary for me to leave my seat briefly, but I did not mean to forfeit my right to vote."

Applause broke out as Martin sat back down. Several of his colleagues raised glasses of water in his direction.

The incident touched off a round of jokes on Twitter. Our friends at the CBC have collected some of the best comments.

"How do I deal with that?" the presiding officer, Deputy Speaker Joe Comartin, asked after Martin stood and delivered his response. After a short interval, Comartin drew more laughs when he announced, "I have no briefing on this type of a motion."

Recounting the events, Comartin acknowledged that Martin had left his seat and that he had instructed the member to return to his chair.

"I didn't understand the explanation at the time, that he subsequently gave," he added. "Can't say I really understand it at this point."

In the end, Comartin ruled that Martin's vote would stand.

When Martin spoke to the CBC about the incident later Thursday, he suggested that his story wasn't entirely serious, and that he was trying to quash what he called an "overreaction" by a member of a rival party.

"I believe that his point of order was tongue in cheek and it warranted a cheeky response," Martin said.

While he admitted that a half-off sale is like "catnip to a Winnipegger," the lawmaker also wondered whether "a lot of the grumpiness in the House of Commons might be traced to the fact that MPs are buying one size too small in their knickers."

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As 'Hollywood Jobs' Turns 10, We Follow Up With The Folks In The Credits

It's been 10 years since we launched the annual Hollywood Jobs series, in which we explore odd movie jobs — you know, the ones you see in the closing credits. In the last decade, producer Cindy Carpien and I have talked to key grips, animal wranglers, focus pullers, foley artists, shoemakers, slate operators, loopers, food stylists and many more. Today we check back with some folks we've profiled in the past, to ask how their jobs have changed since we last met.

Our first stop is Santa Monica studio of award-winning costume designer Julie Weiss (she did Frida, American Beauty, Blades of Glory). On Sunday you'll see her work in the Oscar musical numbers. Weiss says the major change in her job is the way computers have affected her day. "If I go to an interview I don't take all those sketches," she says, "They're on the screen."

Hollywood Jobs

Costume Designer Dips into Hollywood's Closet

It's nice to have less to schlep, but the technology comes with a price — she says it's harder to show off a fabric on a screen.

Another change? These days, more and more movies are made outside of Hollywood. States like Georgia, Louisiana and Michigan offer big tax incentives to the industry. New legislation may bring films back, but in the meantime, businesses that once served the movies are dwindling in L.A. Costume houses have closed and for Weiss, that's a minus. No longer are there "racks and racks of memories that you can look at."

As movies have moved out of town Weiss has taken on a wider variety of work; she now does theater, TV, even video games. "I want to be a good storyteller and if it means that that's what it takes to be there — I'm there," she says.

Smart phones have also had an impact. People have started watching movies on them. This makes Weiss "a little agitated."

"A film — it should be seen on a screen," she says. "You should be able to witness it at the same proportion or bigger than life. ... I guess maybe it would make the job a little easier — I wouldn't have to worry about if the third button matched — but I don't want to do it that way."

Doug Dresser shows off his trunk full of necessities: a cooler, trash bags, caution tape, cold weather gear, hats, emergency medical kit, rain gear, extra pair of socks, WD-40 ... Cindy Carpien/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Cindy Carpien/NPR

'Where Have You Been?'

The last time we saw Doug Dresser, he'd taken us to an abandoned hospital morgue. Today we find him in Pacific Palisades, overlooking the ocean. Dresser is a location scout — one of the first folks hired on a film — to hunt down places where the cameras will roll.

Dresser's movie morgue days may be over. He's doing more TV commercials now — today scouting lunch places and renting driveways for his trucks, for a one-day shoot.

Hollywood Jobs

For Location Scouts, It's All About Making The Scene

"Ten years ago, they used to make movies in Los Angeles," Dresser says. "Right now, you can count on one hand the amount of feature films they're making here."

That means a lot of travel for Dresser. "I was gone last year for seven months," he says. "Two years before that, I was gone for 10 months."

The travel takes a toll; Dresser has two young children and he wants to watch them grow up. And it isn't just his kids who notice he's gone, he says: "After I came back [shooting] in North Carolina ... my dry cleaner asked me, 'Where have you been? I haven't seen you in a very long time — did you go to another drycleaner?'"

Dresser misses the old feature film days. "There's nothing better" he says, than "being able to start from a blank page and helping craft the look of a movie."

Trish Gallaher Glenn shows off the butter gun that was created for the new SpongeBob SquarePants movie. Cindy Carpien/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Cindy Carpien/NPR

Building A Better Butter Gun

When we first interviewed property master Trish Gallaher Glenn, she was on the set of The Muppets movie. Now, in a Paramount storage warehouse she's hauled out a special prop for us — a butter gun, used in the new SpongeBob movie, Sponge Out of Water. In the film, Burger-Beard the Pirate (Antonio Banderas) sprays melted butter with a wide-mouthed gun. The 10-pound prop was made in resin with a 3-D printer.

Hollywood Jobs

Objectively Speaking, It's All About The Prop Master

Artisans still had to paint the gun to look antique, but the 3-D printer lets the prop master duplicate the gun easily. "We made two of them," Glenn says. "Because with an action prop, if it breaks ... you lose a day of shooting." The gun isn't on screen for more than a few seconds but each one cost about $20,000.

The 3-D printer can re-work gun parts on quick demand, and Glenn says that's a real change. "Before, we would have had a sculptor, who worked for weeks and weeks," she says.

Margie Simkin works in her office on Sunset Blvd., overlooking the iconic Hollywood landscape. Courtesy of Gianna Butler hide caption

itoggle caption Courtesy of Gianna Butler

'We Got 1,100 Submissions'

Casting director Margie Simkin says technology has had a major effect on the way she does her job. A decade ago she had to sift through piles and piles of 8x10 headshots that arrived in the mail every day. By 2008, that mail deluge had begun to subside — again, the influence of computers.

"We put out a call, which you do online, and said we were looking for someone to do a few lines, two days' work, and within hours we got 1,100 submissions," she says.

And that was just actors in Los Angeles. Now, it's global. All over the world, performers hit a button, record themselves, send off the file — and hope. It's efficient but also exhausting for the casting director on the other end.

"I sort of sit there at night, sometimes in bed, and go through thousands of submissions," Simkin says.

Hollywood Jobs

An Actor's Best Friend? The Casting Director

For the men and women who call Hollywood their professional home, technology and out-of-state tax incentives have been game-changers in the last 10 years. These shifts tell the larger story of the new Hollywood — and reveal how a vast local industry is tottering. And, as they used to say in the old movies, as the sun slowly sets on a decade of Hollywood Jobs, we bid a fond farewell to our film-making friends, adapting (mostly) to new technologies, with the old ways still in their hearts.

Twin Cyclones Slam Australia's North Coasts

In what is being described as an unprecedented occurrence, Australia is getting slammed by two major cyclones at the same time.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Cyclone Lam blew out a wind monitoring station as it barreled ashore as a Category 3 storm at Elcho Island in Australia's North Territory . Winds were 100 mph, the highest ever recorded at that location. Meanwhile, 1,000 miles to the southeast in Queensland, an even stronger hurricane, Cyclone Marcia, hit as a Category 4 storm with winds gusting to 177 mph. It has since been downgraded to a Category 1.

UPDATE: More than 57,000 homes are currently without power across #TCMarcia affected areas in Qld. #9News pic.twitter.com/Ok2qIMLv8a

— Nine News Brisbane (@9NewsBrisbane) February 20, 2015

While Lam targeted sparsely populated Arnhem Land, Marcia has made landfall northwest of Brisbane and has more people in its direct path. Although there were no reported of deaths or injuries from Marcia, Channel Nine Brisbane says 57,000 homes were left without electricity and that flooding had left some areas inaccessible to utility crews.

Tens of thousands took shelter as rapidly strengthening Marcia approached before making landfall earlier Friday, Reuters says.

"Emergency services scrambled to evacuate thousands of homes before pulling out and warning anyone who had not left to barricade themselves inside," the news agency reported.

According to the BBC, the mayor of Rockhampton says the town is in lockdown.

The Guardian says:

"Roofs were destroyed and powerlines and trees felled in the town of Yeppoon, where the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said families had undergone "a terrifying experience." ...

"Yeppoon was the only populated area that took the brunt of Marcia at its most powerful, with the cyclone weakening to a category three by the time it reached the city of Rockhampton, which nevertheless also suffered widespread wind damage, flash flooding and power outages."

As we reported on Thursday, several thousand people on Elcho Island lost power when Lam made landfall there.

The Morning Herald says the twin storms are the strongest on record to make near-simultaneous landfall in Australia. It also says that the storms are the first to hit Australia this year and the third latest to arrivals in the past five decades.

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Australia

Canadian Lawmaker Uses 'Tight Underwear' Excuse To Explain Absence

A member of Canada's House of Commons has earned laughs and toasts from his colleagues, after he blamed his absence during a vote on tight underwear that makes him uncomfortable.

MP Pat Martin of Winnipeg Centre gave the explanation to foil an attempt to have his vote thrown out because, contrary to parliamentary rules, he had left his seat during the voting process.

Maintaining a deadpan delivery even as howls of laughter began, Martin added, "I apologize if it was necessary for me to leave my seat briefly, but I did not mean to forfeit my right to vote."

Applause broke out as Martin sat back down. Several of his colleagues raised glasses of water in his direction.

The incident touched off a round of jokes on Twitter. Our friends at the CBC have collected some of the best comments.

Recounting the events, Comartin acknowledged that Martin had left his seat and that he had instructed the member to return to his chair.

"I didn't understand the explanation at the time, that he subsequently gave," he added. "Can't say I really understand it at this point."

In the end, Comartin ruled that Martin's vote would stand.

"I believe that his point of order was tongue in cheek and it warranted a cheeky response," Martin said.

humor

Canada

Twin Cyclones Slam Australia's North Coasts

In what is being described as an unprecedented occurrence, Australia is getting slammed by two major cyclones at the same time.

UPDATE: More than 57,000 homes are currently without power across #TCMarcia affected areas in Qld. #9News pic.twitter.com/Ok2qIMLv8a

— Nine News Brisbane (@9NewsBrisbane) February 20, 2015

Tens of thousands took shelter as rapidly strengthening Marcia approached before making landfall earlier Friday, Reuters says.

"Emergency services scrambled to evacuate thousands of homes before pulling out and warning anyone who had not left to barricade themselves inside," the news agency reported.

According to the BBC, the mayor of Rockhampton says the town is in lockdown.

The Guardian says:

"Roofs were destroyed and powerlines and trees felled in the town of Yeppoon, where the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, said families had undergone "a terrifying experience." ...

As we reported on Thursday, several thousand people on Elcho Island lost power when Lam made landfall there.

cyclones

Australia

An American Dream, A Cuban Soul: Poet Richard Blanco Finds 'Home'

It's said that every writer spends his or her entire life working on a single poem or one story. Figuratively, of course, this means that writers are each possessed by a certain obsession. As such, their entire body of work, in one way or another, is generally an attempt to dimension some part of that obsession, ask questions about it, answer them, and then ask many new questions.

Blanco says his recordatorio, a memento of his birth shows "I was a man of the world before I could even walk." Richard Blanco hide caption

itoggle caption Richard Blanco

Blanco says his recordatorio, a memento of his birth shows "I was a man of the world before I could even walk."

Richard Blanco

But — writer or not — I think that's true of any life; we all have an obsession that permeates and shapes our lives. In my case, my life is my art, and my art is my life — one in the same — and my personal and artistic obsession comes down to a single word, one question: What is home? And all that word calls to mind with respect to family, community, place, culture and national loyalties. A word, a universal question that we all ask ourselves, especially in a country like the United States, home to so many peoples and cultures.

Richard a.k.a 'Little Riqui' celebrating his third birthday with his brother Caco, his mother Geysa and father Carlos — all dressed in their 1970's best! Richard Blanco hide caption

itoggle caption Richard Blanco

Richard a.k.a 'Little Riqui' celebrating his third birthday with his brother Caco, his mother Geysa and father Carlos — all dressed in their 1970's best!

Richard Blanco

My obsession began long before I was a writer, perhaps before I was even born. Let me explain. As I like to say — tongue-in-cheek: I was made in Cuba, assembled in Spain, and imported to the United States, meaning that my mother left Cuba in 1967 seven months pregnant with me (my soul is Cuban, I claim); she boarded a flight to Spain with one suitcase, my father, and my six-year-old brother in her arms. Shortly after I was born in Madrid, we emigrated once again to the United States — Manhattan.

In one of the images I share here is a memento (un recordatorio) of my birth; it shows that by the time I was 45 days old, I figuratively belonged to three countries and had lived in two world-class cities. Adding to my confusion, for reasons I don't understand, there are also images of the Eiffel Tower and the Swiss Alps! The photo shown in the memento is my first, newborn photo, which is also the photo of my green card — my first I.D. in the United States. I was a "man of the world" before I could even walk. Before I even learned to say my first word, I was subconsciously asking those questions that would obsess me all my life and work: Where am I from? Where is home? Where do I belong?

Richard a.k.a 'Little Riqui' modeling by the pool of a roadside motel on the family's drive from New York City to Miami when they moved down in 1972. Richard Blanco hide caption

itoggle caption Richard Blanco

Richard a.k.a 'Little Riqui' modeling by the pool of a roadside motel on the family's drive from New York City to Miami when they moved down in 1972.

Richard Blanco

Adding to my obsession, in 1972 we moved to a galaxy far, far away: Miami, where I grew up between two real-imagined worlds. One world was the 1950s and 1960s of my parents and grandparents — that paradise, that homeland so near and yet so foreign to where we might return any day, according to my parents. A homeland that I had never seen.

The other, less obvious world was America. To paraphrase Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Liz Balmaseda: "we love living in Miami because it's so close to the United States — and you don't need a passport." And indeed, I grew up in a very un-diverse community. Everybody was Cuban, from the grocer to the mayor, gardener to doctor. Typical of a child, I contextualized America through food, commercials, G-rated versions of our history in text books and television shows, especially The Brady Bunch. More than a fiction or fantasy, I truly believed that, just north of the Miami-Dade County line, every house was like the Brady house, and every family was like them. I longed to be a "real" American like Peter Brady (or Marsha Brady, given my burgeoning homosexuality!).

Richard a.k.a 'Little Riqui' on his first visit to the iconic Miami Seaquarium during the hey-day of Flipper. Richard Blanco hide caption

itoggle caption Richard Blanco

Richard a.k.a 'Little Riqui' on his first visit to the iconic Miami Seaquarium during the hey-day of Flipper.

Richard Blanco

I sense there is a general misconception that children of immigrants and exiles embrace our given culture and heritage since childhood. For me at least, that wasn't the case; there was an initial rejection of my cubanidad due to a generational and linguistic divide. Whatever my parents and grandparents liked was immediate grounds for rejection. They listened to salsa, I listened to AC/DC; they spoke Spanish, my brother and I insisted on English. And this is how I spent most of childhood and adolescence until I was mature enough — in my early twenties — to let those questions that had subconsciously lingered in me, surface: Where am I from? Where is home? Where do I belong?

Richard a.k.a 'Little Riqui' after a day at the beach, in the arms of his father Carlos and with his uncle Toti, brother Caco, and cousin Mirita. Richard Blanco hide caption

itoggle caption Richard Blanco

Richard a.k.a 'Little Riqui' after a day at the beach, in the arms of his father Carlos and with his uncle Toti, brother Caco, and cousin Mirita.

Richard Blanco

That's when I started writing and the full onset of my obsession began. Through my poetry, I came out of my Cuban closet, and retraced my childhood, going over the fine details of all that I had questioned my whole my life. As author Anas Nin noted: "We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect." I certainly did.

In that reconnaissance of my culture, I eventually returned to Cuba for the first time. I say "returned" because in my mind it was like a returning to everything I felt I had somehow known all my life on account of the years of letters from my relatives that my mother would read aloud to me, from the black-and-white photos of cousins that looked like me, from all the family folklore and gossip I had heard. It all came to life the moment I stepped off the plane, as if I had lived on the island all my life. But I hadn't.

The experience of visiting Cuba filled in many blanks in my life, but only half my life. I soon realized — as we all do when we travel — that I was as American as I was Cuban. And despite any yearnings to return to live in the "homeland," I might as well been an immigrant from the 19th century who couldn't physically or psychologically return to the mother county. Since that first trip, I have returned many times to Cuba, and each time I learned a little more about who I am as a Cuban and, ironically, who I am as an American. I look forward to the new relationships on the horizon between Cuba and the United States. Maybe someday it will all merge into a hybrid that suits who I am.

After my visits to Cuba, I said to myself: "Well, let's finally go and live in America." I left Miami for me first creative writing professorship at Central Connecticut Sate in Hartford. "Oh boy," I thought, still clinging to my romanticized version of America epitomized by New England: sleigh rides in the snow singing Jingle Bells ("in a one horse hope and say?"); Brady Bunch houses with chimneys exhaling curly cues of smoke; pilgrims in gold-buckled shoes; me and Martha Stewart doing arts and crafts in Westport every week.

What was I thinking? Well, I was still clinging to my romanticized/commercialized sense of the America I "knew," still wanting to be that "true" American. Of course, that fantasy soon flattened out into reality. Now what? Neither of my two imaginary worlds — Cuba or America — had proven to be true. So I caught the travel bug and decided to explore the world with my same obsession: Where am I from? Where is home? Where do I belong? Was it Venice, Paris, or Madrid where I was born? It soon dawned on me what Pascal noted: "The sole cause of a man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room." What was that "room" that I had left?

My answer was Miami. I figured it was the only place I belonged — or belonged to me. That city — just like me — caught between the two imaginary worlds I knew so well. The city that understood me. And so I moved back there after nearly 14 years away, expecting that nothing had changed, because no one had asked my permission. But it had. Sadly it was no longer the city where I grew up or the city I left as an adult. Gladly, it had become a beautiful, dynamic city nonetheless, but not the one I had expected. The experience spoke to me of the old adage: You can never come back home. Now what?

Naturally, I moved to Bethel, Maine (insert sarcasm here) at the other end of I-95 — the northern-most state, as far away as I could get from Miami. Not entirely on purpose, there was a practical reason: my husband Mark had a great business opportunity there. And I thought: "What the hell — why not?" Though secretly I was still wishing for that ever-illusive Brady Bunch house that I hoped I might find there. I didn't. But in Maine, I settled into a certain peace, believing that all my life I would feel like un desterado — a banished man without land, earth. I had almost accepted that — then the White House called and asked me to write a poem about America for President Obama's second inauguration.

Wow. Suddenly all those questions about home and place and belonging surfaced again. How could I write a poem for a country that I wasn't sure I belong to? I wasn't really American, was I? It wasn't only a creative challenge, but an emotional, cultural, and spiritual one as well. In retrospect, I understand that the inaugural poem I wrote, "One Today," was infused with all my longing for, and my same obsession with the idea of home.

While sitting on the platform next to my mother, waiting to be called up to the podium to read my poem to the entire nation, I turned to her and said: "Well, I guess we are finally americanos." She gave me a gentle smile as if saying, I know, I know. For the first time in my life I knew I had a place at the American table. I had found my place. The greatest gift of the whole experience was to realize that I was home all along — home was in my own backyard, so to speak.

I spoke the first line of the poem: "One sun rose on us today..." and I understood that "us" meant my story, my mother's story (who grew up in a dirt-floor home in Cuba), and the stories of all 800,000 people before me, as well as the millions of lives I was indirectly representing. We were—and always will be—a grand part of the grand American narrative, a narrative that is still being written. America is a work-in-progress—ever changing and fluid—and we need to rework the rhetoric, the conversation, because from its very inception our nation has been about immigration and immigrants, who are not a drain on us, but the essence of who we are and our very survival economically, politically, culturally and—most importantly—spiritually.

Richard Blanco and Michel Martin will head to Miami next week to hear more about how immigration is shaping the American story. Michel will host an event there in partnership with member station WLRN.

Richard Blanco

Miami

Immigration

Poetry

Cuba

U.S. West Coast Port Dispute Forces Shippers To Find Alternatives

The global shipping industry is a ferociously competitive business, and the Transpacific route — from Asia to the West Coast seaports of the U.S. — is considered one of the most lucrative routes. Normally, cargo ships carrying everything from fruits and vegetables to cars and electronics can count on getting into a berth at one of the 29 West Coast seaports in a reasonable time.

Now it can take up to two weeks to berth the enormous cargo ships, thanks to contract disputes between the shipping lines and the union representing 20,000 dockworkers. About 50 cargo ships are anchored offshore, waiting to be unloaded.

"Ships are just stuck doing nothing, they're just losing money and at the same time schedules are going to pot," says Janet Porter, an editor with Lloyds List, a shipping industry news provider.

The ongoing disruptions at the West Coast seaports are forcing companies to put on more ships and re-route them. That includes heading north to ports in British Columbia, Canada. Stephen Brown, the president of the Chamber of Shipping of BC, says shipping companies already began diverting to ports in western Canada in May when negotiations between West Coast dock workers and ship owners first began. He says that tailed off for awhile when it looked like the negotiations were going well.

"And then about 3 months ago when the slowdown began, and ships became significantly delayed, then we saw another round of diversion to Canadian ports, to Vancouver and Prince Rupert," he says.

The problem is Vancouver and Prince Rupert can't handle the volume of ports such as Los Angeles and Long Beach and so get congested. Canada also doesn't have the rail and road networks like those along the West Coast of the U.S. so it takes longer to move cargo once it's unloaded. There are other alternatives, such as ports in Mexico and along the Gulf Coast.

Brown says the U.S. East Coast ports are very busy with ships coming in from Asia via the Suez Canal. He says it take a bit longer in terms of sailing distance. Also, freight rates — the cost to ship a container — are now higher on the East Coast because of the demand.

"But in terms of the costs that are being incurred in the delays, that additional freight rate doesn't seem to be the issue, it's more one of trying to get some sort of reliability out of the supply chain," he says.

Timothy Simpson, a communications director with shipping giant, Maersk Line, says shipping companies have to try to take in every variable, such a bad weather or work slowdowns, that could affect the supply chain. He says it can be a guessing game.

"You have to look at what's happening today and how we're going to adjust. you know that's really the best way that we found to manage it," he says.

Still, Simpson says Maersk Line has a team that meets daily to review all those variables that can affect the shipping industry.

global trade

shipping

trade

Canada

U.S. West Coast Port Dispute Forces Shippers To Find Alternatives

"Ships are just stuck doing nothing, they're just losing money and at the same time schedules are going to pot," says Janet Porter, an editor with Lloyds List, a shipping industry news provider.

"And then about 3 months ago when the slowdown began, and ships became significantly delayed, then we saw another round of diversion to Canadian ports, to Vancouver and Prince Rupert," he says.

"You have to look at what's happening today and how we're going to adjust. you know that's really the best way that we found to manage it," he says.

Still, Simpson says Maersk Line has a team that meets daily to review all those variables that can affect the shipping industry.

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shipping

trade

Canada

четверг

From Iran To Comedy Central: Maz Jobrani's Path To 'Middle Eastern Funny Man'

After Sept. 11, President George Bush made a speech about America's enemies — Iran, Iraq and North Korea — in which he referred to them as the "Axis of Evil." At first, that name worried Iranian-American comedian Maz Jobrani. But then he decided to do what he always does: laugh about it. He and some friends even started the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, which featured comedians of Middle-Eastern descent.

I'm Not A Terrorist, But I've Played One On TV

Memoirs of a Middle Eastern Funny Man

by Maz Jobrani

Hardcover, 225 pages | purchase

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Alabama Gov. Apologizes To Indian Government In 'Excessive Force' Case

Patel had been in the U.S. for a couple of weeks to help with a new grandson in Madison, a suburb of Huntsville in northern Alabama, when he was stopped by two officers responding to a call about suspicious activity.

The police video reveals a language barrier.

"He don't speak a lick of English," an officer says, complaining that Patel was walking away. Patel's arms are then restrained behind his back, and Madison policeman Eric Parker slams Patel to the ground, face down. He was hospitalized earlier this month with a spinal cord injury and is undergoing rehabilitation.

Bentley says that state officials will investigate; an FBI probe already is underway.

"Please accept our sincere apology to your government, Mr. Patel and the citizens of India who reside and work in our state," he wrote.

Patel's lawyer, Hank Sherrod, says the family is grateful for the Indian government's support, and welcomed the governor's response.

"They really appreciate the governor making such a public apology," he said.

Nevertheless, Patel has sued the Madison Police Department. The police chief has also apologized and is firing officer Eric Parker, who has been charged with assault.

The Two-Way

Alabama Police Officer Arrested Over Severe Injuries To Indian Man

Parker's attorney, Robert Tuten, says the officer will fight both the dismissal and the charge.

Anupreet Singh, the president of the Huntsville India Association, says his group met with Madison city leaders Monday to talk about ways to improve communication and cultural understanding.

Police stopped Patel after a neighbor called to report "a skinny black guy" with a toboggan hat, thought to be peering into garages.

"I don't want to blame that person for making that call. But I do want to say that people have to know their neighbors — get around, meet them, see what they are about, learn their culture," he says. "That's what should come out of this incident."

Alabama

police brutality

India

Now This Is An Example Of Truly Educational Radio

Every day, 17-year-old Kaday goes to school by turning on the radio.

She's one of the million school-age children in Sierra Leone who've had no classroom to go to since July. That's when the government closed all schools to curb the spread of Ebola.

But that doesn't mean the kids have stopped learning. In October, the government launched a radio education program, partnering with UNICEF and several development organizations. Teachers write and record hourlong lessons that are broadcast on 41 government radio stations, as well as the country's only TV channel. Younger children listen in the morning; older ones tune in during the afternoon and evening.

"This is to ensure that children's rights to education is not disrupted even when schools have been closed," says Wongani Grace Taulo, UNICEF's education chief in Sierra Leone. "It's been more than half a year of school closure. The implications can be devastating when children just stay home [and] lose out on their academic gains."

UNICEF's partner organizations visit around 2,000 households of school-age children each week to see how many children are listening. At first, fewer than 20 percent were tuned in. Gradually the numbers picked up. At its peak, more than 70 percent of students were listening. The average rate, Taulo says, is about 50 percent.

The radio lessons could be critical in a country where the decade-long civil war had weakened the education system even before Ebola struck. Fewer than 45 percent of adults are literate, and the secondary school attendance rate among adolescent boys and girls is 40 and 33 percent, respectively. The Ebola outbreak has threatened to reverse any progress Sierra Leone and its neighbors Guinea and Liberia have made in rebuilding its schools.

Angela Kamara, 6 years old, takes a lesson from the radio. Tolu Bade/Courtesy of UNICEF hide caption

itoggle caption Tolu Bade/Courtesy of UNICEF

Angela Kamara, 6 years old, takes a lesson from the radio.

Tolu Bade/Courtesy of UNICEF

Listen to one of the radio lessons4:03

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Listen to one of the radio lessons

When schools finally reopen in Sierra Leone, Taulo adds, the radio program will be adjusted to serve as a complement — rather than an alternative — to classrooms.

But school by radio isn't a perfect solution.

Radio is by far the most common way Sierra Leoneans get their information, with studies estimating that between 70 and 90 percent of the population tune in daily. But the number of people who actually own a radio is only about 25 percent, the country's education minister told Agence France-Presse.

And that's a "generous estimate," says Chernor Bah, a girl's rights advocate from Sierra Leone. He's been helping make sure the radio program reaches as many underserved children as possible.

"With adolescent girls, there's an even greater challenge," he says. "Girls tend to face the additional burden of providing for their families. So instead of being home listening to the radio, most girls will be outside selling food."

Even if students do listen, says Bah, the radio program doesn't give them a chance to interact with teachers and other students. The government encourages students to send questions via text message, but many of the poorest students can't afford a phone.

That's where organizations like BRAC, one of the world's largest education organizations, have stepped in. With support from the Malala Fund, the nonprofit has bought radios for 1,200 of the most marginalized girls in Sierra Leone. It's also created 40 informal classrooms, where six or seven girls get together with a mentor up to four times a week to discuss the day's lessons, learn about Ebola and discuss personal challenges.

Bah particularly remembers Kaday, the 17-year-old, whose mother was one of the first health care workers in Sierra Leone to die of Ebola. "This is a story of a girl who has gone through too much," Bah says. Before Ebola struck, her parents sent her to live with an aunt in the city, hoping Kaday could get an education there. But the aunt tried to persuade her to have sex with an older man for money. Another aunt treated her as a housemaid.

School may not be in session, but there are special clubs for girls to talk about their radio lessons and just have fun hanging out. Alison Wright/Courtesy of BRAC hide caption

itoggle caption Alison Wright/Courtesy of BRAC

School may not be in session, but there are special clubs for girls to talk about their radio lessons and just have fun hanging out.

Alison Wright/Courtesy of BRAC

"This girl, now 17, is only in grade six because of all this back and forth," Bah recalls. "The [school club] is the place she feels normal again."

Kaday had just taken her sixth-grade exam when schools shut down. All she wants, Bah says, is to go back to class. "You don't forget a girl like that."

Sierra Leone

ebola

Education

Will A Tipped Wage Hike Kill Gratuities For New York's Waiters?

The restaurant economy of New York City may be nearing a tipping point.

State officials are recommending a big hike in the minimum hourly wage for people who work for tips. But that idea is giving many restaurateurs indigestion in New York City, home to more than 20,000 restaurants. Some say a tipped wage hike could upend the whole system of tipping.

And many servers say tips are the No. 1 reason why they started waiting tables.

"You need money, OK? Waiting tables has always been a job where you can rapidly start making money," says Steve Dublanica, a former waiter who now writes a blog called Waiter Rant.

"You can have your terrible night, where you walk out with $10," he adds. "And then you can have a great night where you walk out with 300 [dollars]."

The Salt

After 23 Years, Your Waiter Is Ready For A Raise

The Salt

Customers Can Keep The Tip — Which Might Please Restaurant Workers

The New York State wage board wants to take some of the sting out of those $10 nights. Like restaurants in many places in the U.S., those in New York pay their tipped employees less than the minimum wage with the expectation that their tips will make up the difference. This is called the tipped minimum wage.

The federal tipped minimum wage is $2.13, but New York state's is higher: $5 an hour. The wage board wants to raise that to $7.50 at the end of the year. And as you might expect, restaurants are not happy about this proposal.

"I don't know of any place ever that's increased a minimum wage or a tipped wage by 50 percent," says Melissa Fleischut, president of the New York State Restaurant Association. "I just think it's unheard of."

Actually, the wage hike would be smaller for servers who already earn more than minimum wage if you count their tips. In New York City, many servers make way above minimum wage anyway, but restaurateurs still say this change would mean a serious jump in their labor costs in an industry where margins are thin.

"It's a matter of life and death," says Philippe Massoud, the executive chef of ilili, a Lebanese restaurant in Manhattan.

He says he thinks the hourly increase could have major unintended consequences for the industry.

"I wouldn't be able to have as many waiters as I have here because if I'm over-staffed, the cost is so enormous that it's going to hit me financially," Massoud says. "So by default, all of a sudden, I'm going to be understaffed, and the quality of my service is going to go down."

Other restaurateurs say they're considering getting rid of tipping altogether and just paying waiters by the hour. To do that, the restaurant would have to collect a lot more money from the dining public, probably in the form of a service charge or higher menu prices.

As The Salt has reported, a few restaurants around the country are experimenting with this higher hourly wage, no-tip model. And just this month, New York City's Dirt Candy, an acclaimed vegetarian restaurant, reopened with a no-tip policy: Instead of a service charge, its bills now include a 20 percent mandatory administrative fee that goes toward the salary of all restaurant employees.

"If this happens, we will, in all likelihood, go to a service charge model that's used in Europe," says Jimmy Haber, CEO of ESquared Hospitality, which operates more than a dozen restaurants, including BLT Prime in New York. "We'll pay our front-of-house employees a fixed hourly wage, which means that we're going to have to work them a lot less hours."

There are a handful of restaurants in the U.S. that already pay their servers higher hourly wages and benefits. But mostly, they're at the very high end, including Michelin-starred places like Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif., or Per Se in New York. Experts are skeptical that this is going to catch on widely because no restaurant wants to suddenly jack up its prices by 20 percent.

All Tech Considered

Technology May Turn You Into A Bigger Tipper

Planet Money

Why We Tip

"Customers will look at the menu price, and because it's higher, they'll think you're more expensive," says Michael Lynn, who teaches at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration.

He's studied tipping and says restaurants that include service in their prices are judged differently than the competition.

"Those restaurants are perceived as more expensive than restaurants with slightly lower menu prices, but there's tipping expected," Lynn says.

There are plenty of states, including California, Washington and Nevada, where restaurants have to pay employees the full minimum wage, Lynn says, yet tipping is still the norm.

Dublanica also thinks tipping is here to stay.

"If you could somehow work things out, where everyone was equitably compensated and got what they needed to live a human life, and the employers made enough money to stay happy, I'd be all for that," he says. "But I've got news for you: That's not going to happen."

Right now, New York's commissioner of labor is considering the wage board's recommendations. He's expected to decide on them soon.

tipping

tips

restaurants

minimum wage

A Sophisticated Version Of Guess The Grape вЂ” But Is It A Sport?

As the 500-year-old bell tower tolls, about 25 students from the University of Oxford cross a medieval cobblestone street. They duck under a stone archway and slip into a room named after T.S. Eliot, who studied here a century ago.

The students drop their backpacks and get ready for practice. They're here to hone their tongues. This week, an elite team of Oxford's six best tasters will battle the University of Cambridge to see which group has the most refined palate.

In the back of the Oxford practice room, the coach, Hanneke Wilson, is setting things up. She's published a book about wine. She oversees a wine cellar. And right now, she's struggling to uncork a few bottles.

"Corks can be very recalcitrant," she mutters to herself. Moments later, she succeeds and slips the bottles into cloth sleeves that disguise their labels.

Oxford and Cambridge have academic awards to see which school is smarter, and boat races to determine which is stronger. And for the past half-century, their blind wine tasting societies have held competitions. It's all part of an epic rivalry that dates back to the 13th century.

Now, these tasting teams are hoping to be recognized as an official sport.

As practice gets underway, wine is the only topic of conversation. Students list the regions they've visited: Bordeaux, Champagne, Alsace.

"I basically plan my holidays around vineyards," says Yee Chuin Lim, a master's student in development studies. Other students confess they do the same.

Soon the room is quiet and tense. One student makes his way around the long table, setting out wine glasses. Another student pours. Then, they start a sophisticated version of "guess the grape."

They study the color. They swirl the glass and take a big sniff. Eventually, they sip it and swish it, constantly jotting down what they notice. Finally, they spit it out; there is no drunkenness allowed. And, before the clock runs out, they guess.

Coach Wilson explains: "You get five points for the predominant grape variety, five for the country of origin, two points for the main viticulture region, three for the subdistrict, two for the vintage and then five points for your tasting note."

Basically, you need to know what grape, from when and from where — the more specific, the better. This means your tongue needs to have a database of wine. Plus, it helps to have a good working knowledge of agricultural practices and winemaking techniques.

"Wine tasting, as you will by now have realized, is very difficult," coach Wilson says.

Oxford's ultimate goal is, of course, beating Cambridge. Historically, Oxford has the edge, but Cambridge is the defending champion.

"It's very tense. People get jolly nervous. We go to the Oxford and Cambridge Club in London, so it's on neutral territory," Wilson says. "And the match happens in total silence."

Early in the morning on their big day, the team will head over to the train station. Ren Lim, a doctoral student in biophysics, has made this trip three times to represent Oxford. He says that on the train there is a scramble to find seats together. Then they pop open a bottle, cover the label and do a quick practice session right there.

"When you start dishing out glasses," Lim remembers, "you get funny looks."

The Salt

Most Of Us Just Can't Taste The Nuances In High-Priced Wines

When people ask him about why he devotes so much time to blind wine tasting, Ren Lim says, "I still struggle to find why."

The Salt

Wine Wisdom With A Wink: A Slacker's Guide To Selecting Vino

It is fun and challenging, he admits. And of course, college kids will be college kids.

Remember how you have to spit out the wine after you taste it? Well, you spit into a black spittoon that students from the two teams are supposed to share. But Ren Lim says that when you've got a mouth full of wine, sometimes your archrival will "hog onto the spittoon and deprive you of the privilege to use it."

Coach Wilson says that in more than 20 years of coaching, she's noticed that "Cambridge always makes more noise slurping and spitting than we do. We think they do this to put us off our stride."

But there's one thing both of these teams agree on.

"We treat wine tasting as a sport," Wilson says. "We train for it, the way we train for a competitive sports match."

She says both Oxford and Cambridge have petitioned to become officially recognized as sports teams. After all, it worked for chess. But so far, the powers that be haven't been persuaded.

"They think that sport involves running around and kicking or hitting things. We disagree, but there you are," Wilson says with a sigh.

Still, other universities are catching on. Blind tasting has spread around the U.K., and it's even crossed the pond. Both Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania's business schools have teams, among others. They let spectators watch — and taste for themselves.

Here in Oxford, competitions still happen behind closed doors.

So do the practices. As this one winds down, the team captain calls on Mateusz Tarkowski to guess the last pair of red wines. Tarkowski studies computer science, and he's hoping to make Oxford's wine team.

"Cherries on the palate. Of course it's a dry wine," Tarkowski looks down at his notes. "I definitely thought it was Italian." Then, he decides to hazard a guess.

When the sock comes off, Tarkowski has guessed right — full marks. It's been a good practice.

2014 Midterm Election Was The Most Expensive One Yet

As the presidential hopefuls chase after big donors, the Center for Responsive Politics brings us a quick look in the rearview mirror:

The 2014 congressional midterm elections cost $3.77 billion, the center says, making them (no surprise here) the most expensive midterms yet. CRP also reports that those dollars appeared to come from a smaller cadre of donors — 773,582, the center says. That's about 5 percent fewer than in the 2010 midterms.

CRP found that the average contribution swelled from $1,800 in 2010, to slightly more than $8,000 in 2014. That appears to reflect the growth of superPACs, political committees created by the Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling and other court decisions earlier in 2010. SuperPACs disclose their donors but have no contribution limits.

Another flourishing sector of politics is the 501c4 secret-money groups, which don't disclose their donors or, in many cases, their spending. Conservative groups accounted for 78 percent of the known spending by secret-money groups. (Secret-money groups must disclose some overtly partisan advertising and some field work.) Liberal groups led in the disclosed-money arena of superPACs, with 52 percent of the spending.

Overall, CRP found that Republican candidates, party committees and outside groups spent $1.77 billion, about $44 million more than Democrats.

Besides the donors to secret-money groups, CRP's data don't include the number of donors who gave $200 or less. Those smallest of small donors are exempt from federal disclosure law.

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Popular Mexican Actress Lorena Rojas Dies

Popular Mexican actress Lorena Rojas has died of cancer at age 44.

Rojas was born Seydi Lorena Rojas Gonzlez in Mexico City and got her big break in the 1990s with the telenovela Alcanzar Una Estrella. She later starred in Azul Tequila, El Cuerpo del Deseo and Pecados Ajenos. Her most recent telenovela was Rosario.

She also moved into films, such as Corazones Rotos, and stage in the musical Aventurera. Earlier this year, she'd put out a children's album called Hijos Del Sol, inspired by her daughter Luciana.

Rojas had been battling cancer since 2008. She died on Monday in Miami.

EU-Greek Drama Deepens As A Deadline Approaches

This time, they're through. Done. They're walking out the door on Friday.

Unless they aren't. Unless they renew their vows and their union grows ever closer.

That's basically where Greek officials and European finance ministers are in their complicated relationship. After years of possible-breakup drama, a real deadline will arrive Friday and the parties must decide: Are we in this thing together or not?

If Greece tells Europe, in effect: "Fine. Walk away. Russia will love us instead," then Europe — and the United States — may have a whole new set of economic and geopolitical problems to worry about.

There were hints Tuesday that Greece is moving toward saying: "Wait! Let's talk. I know we can work it out." Those positive rumors kept European financial markets calm — for now.

But economists say real stability will come only when the hints and rumors have been turned into a clear proposal.

This fraught relationship has been having its ups and downs for so long, you may have stopped paying attention. To help you catch up, here's a 1-2-3 recap, and a look-ahead to Friday:

1) Greece is a small country with a big problem; for years, it was spending too much. So the government had been borrowing a lot, and finally could not meet its debt obligations when the global recession hit.

2) But Greece is not a stand-alone country, free to default on debt or devalue its currency. It's part of the European Union, and uses the euro. Europeans did not want one of their members to tumble into financial chaos.

3) So in 2012, EU finance ministers helped cobble together a plan to bail out Greek debt in exchange for the country raising taxes while cutting wages, pensions, public investment and social security benefits.

With the bailout in place, Greece's economy started improving. But a lot of Greeks who had depended upon government pensions and paychecks were still suffering. In late January, voters elected a new prime minister, Alexis Tsipras, who opposed austerity.

The Two-Way

Talks Collapse, As Greece Rejects E.U. Bailout Deal

Parallels

In A Twist, Greeks Demonstrate In Favor Of Their Government

The Two-Way

Greece's Left-Wing Prime Minister Takes Charge

The timing of his election was, shall we say, awkward because on March 1, Greece's credit lines will expire.

Europe's finance ministers met Monday. They had hoped to come up with an extension of the bailout package — with its attached austerity strings.

Negotiations broke down. Afterwards, Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told reporters: "In the history of the European Union, nothing good has ever come out of ultimatums."

Dutch Finance Minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem kept holding firm, saying Athens must agree to more austerity and make the next move: "It's really up to the Greeks."

But there's little time left. Friday is the real deadline because national parliaments need time to ratify any deal before the Feb. 28 expiration of the existing bailout.

Speculation had been swirling that Greece might turn to Russia or China for help. That would be a bad outcome from the perspective of U.S. and European officials, who do not want Greece to: grow distant from Europe; pull out of the euro currency union; or default on its debts.

Any of that could shake up financial markets. There's been more than a hint of jitters in the banking sector: Greek banks reportedly have been losing deposits at the rate of 2 billion euros ($2.27 billion) a week.

IHS Global Insight, a forecasting firm, issued an assessment Tuesday morning saying that failure to reach an agreement could cause turmoil in Greece, bringing "a re-emergence of wide-scale protests, riots and labour strikes, which would cause disruption to businesses."

But on Tuesday afternoon, The Wall Street Journal quoted an unnamed source saying Greece will try to escape such turmoil by asking for a temporary credit extension of up to six months. So maybe, once again, there will be no clear resolution, just another agreement to keep living together — for now.

Although most economists side with EU officials, some liberals don't. One example is U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, an Independent from Vermont. He says Greece should stand its ground and European officials should allow Tsipras to do what Greek voters want.

Blocking him from reversing austerity would "make a sham of the recent democratic election held there," Sanders said in an essay.

Greek bailout

Greece

In Richard Price's New Novel, Haunted Cops And Cases They Couldn't Close

There's always been one guy in every precinct who has been so haunted by a case that they either knew who did it and couldn't prove it, or the guy walked, and it just gets inside the cop to the point [that] when they retire, they're sneaking out all the legal boxes with all the case files, all the transcripts, the interviews and everything. And they're going to continue working on it in their basement, have a six-pack of beer and start making odd calls like they're still cops. They can't let go of this thing — this thing can't let go of them.

It's different for every cop in a world of 20 years of mayhem, they each pick one case that got to them. It's rarely the goriest case; it's rarely about a body count. It's about some element of this crime that spoke to them — identification with the aggressor, identification with the victim. ...

The point is all these obsessed cops with their single case. ... They all reminded me of [Moby Dick's] Ahab ... they're looking for their whales. They're looking for their whites.

On moving to Harlem

When I was with my soon-to-be wife Lorraine Adams, the novelist, we were sitting there one day when we decided we were going to ultimately live together and it just came out, "Where do you want to live?" It just came out of her mouth, "Harlem." Now, my experience with Harlem, even though my grandmother had been born there in the turn of the 20th century, my experience with Harlem for the last 15 years before that was going up there with the crime scene unit or the night watch to process a dead body on the sidewalk, so I had a very narrow view of Harlem. I'd just go up there for death. So when she said [that] I just thought, "Gulp, OK."

Here's this big-deal writer, this macho writer of Clockers and Freedomland, and all of a sudden his mate says, "Harlem," and he has to swallow a golf ball. Then I realized, she, Lorraine had been to Iran, Afghanistan, she's been to Pakistan seven times, always on her own, and now she's with a guy, this big-shot street guy and I was just too embarrassed to say, "No," So I said, "OK." ...

So we rent a house, I go up there, it's the first day, I'm bracing [myself] and I can't get close to my house because there are movie trailers because they're shooting an episode of Sesame Street in the house across the street. So that was my first day in Harlem.

On what happens when there's a public outcry against police

My thoughts go to two places: One is that when cops are attacked, they close ranks. I'm not talking about the blue wall of silence, but I think what happens is "us versus them." I'm talking about incidents which the cops — like [in] Ferguson where an unarmed man was shot, when they get under attack with the media, they just close ranks. It's like buffalo when they see lions out there. ...

More With Richard Price

Author Interviews

Richard Price Details A Gritty 'Lush Life'

'Fresh Air' at 20: Novelist and Screenwriter Richard Price

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The other thing is that I think there are certain sub-climates of cop culture in [cities] like Cleveland ... or Ferguson or, as many cops have told me, Staten Island, [N.Y.] [It's] an island unto itself ... where I think the cops are insulated and have their own culture and they've always been this way. ... When cops feel isolated, when cops feel like there's nothing attacking their infallibility because of the culture and the politicians around them, they kind of feel like they're in a world of their own — that they're the sheriffs and what they do is what they do.

On his pen name, Harry Brandt

First of all, I picked the name Brandt in honor of my former agent Carl Brandt who had represented me from the time I was 22 till the time I was 40. He had died the year before — I was just giving him a little shout out by choosing his name. The reason why I picked the pen name was because what I intended to do in this book was slicker, tighter, faster, more the surface of what's happening, more propelled by the mystery at its core and [it] didn't have any social resonance.

I mean, [in] my earlier books I was always inspired by a crime that spoke to a larger issue in the culture: the Susan Smith kidnappings, the gentrification of the Lower East Side, the impact of crack on a community. ... This time I just wanted to write about people; I wanted to focus on the characters, not the social impact of the story. ... It was going to be different from my other books and I wanted to signal that. ...

Read an excerpt of The Whites

All of a sudden I realized it's another damn book by me, there's no separation, there's no genre, there's no nothing, except another book. And, at that time, it was too late to withdraw the pen name. And so I'm living with it, but if I had to do it all over again — if I had a crystal ball four years ago — I would've had it under my own name.

Commercial Drone Rules To Limit Their Weight, Speed And Altitude

Updated at 2:10 p.m. ET

The Federal Aviation Administration has released long-awaited draft rules on the operation of pilotless drones, opening the nation's airspace to the commercial possibilities of the burgeoning technology, but not without restrictions.

In short, the proposed rules that have been a decade in the making would limit drones weighing no more than 55 lbs to flying no more than 100 mph at an altitude no higher than 500 feet. The FAA would ban their use at night and near airports. And, they could only be operated by someone with a certification who keeps the vehicle "in line of sight" at all times.

The FAA also will require anyone using Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for commercial purposes to obtain a special pilot certification to operate them.

"We ... want to capture the potential of unmanned aircraft and we have been working to develop the framework for the safe integration of this technology into our airspace," Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said during a teleconference with journalists about the new proposed rules.

Under the rules, these aircraft could inspect utility towers, antennas, bridges power lines and pipelines in hilly or mountainous terrain," FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said, adding that wildlife conservation, search and rescue, movie making and aerial photographs for real estate purposes were also among the opportunities that could be opened up by the new regulations.

In a statement, the White House called drones "a potentially transformative technology in diverse fields such as agriculture, law enforcement, coastal security, military training, search and rescue, first responder medical support, critical infrastructure inspection, and many others."

The statement says that the proposed rules ensure "that the Federal Government's use of UAS takes into account ... important concerns and in service of them, promotes better accountability and transparent use of this technology."

FAA Drone Rules

Reuters, quoting industry experts, calls the new rules "relatively benign."

Even so, the news agency says, "the rule was unlikely to help Amazon.com in its quest to deliver packages with unmanned drones, since its approach requires an FAA-certified small drone pilot to fly the aircraft and keep it line of sight at all times — factors not envisioned in the online retailer's plan."

The draft regulations must still undergo public comment and revision before being officially adopted.

Neema Singh Guliani, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, says in a statement that the proposal represents "an important step in restricting how the government uses this powerful surveillance technology."

But, Guliani says, it "falls short of fully protecting the privacy of Americans.

"For example, the proposal allows the use of data gathered by domestic drones for any 'authorized purpose,' which is not defined, leaving the door open to inappropriate drone use by federal agencies," she says.

FAA

drones

With Oil Fields Under Attack, Libya's Economic Future Looks Bleak

Parallels

Libya Today: 2 Governments, Many Militias, Infinite Chaos

The headquarters of the National Oil Corporation in Tripoli are gleaming, the floors marble, the offices decked out with black leather chairs and fake flowers. It seems far from the fighting going on over oil terminals around the country.

But the man in charge looks at production and knows the future is bleak.

"We cannot produce. We are losing 80 percent of our production," says Mustapha Sanallah, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Corporation.

He looks like a typical executive, decked out in a suit and glasses. But beneath his calm veneer, he's worried.

"Now we have two problems: low production and low price," he says.

At the current rate, he expects that the country won't even earn 10 percent of the budget money Libya had in 2012, before militias started taking oil infrastructure hostage.

"If there is security in Libya, we can resume production within a few days," Sanallah says.

If there's one thing that has a chance of keeping Libya from totally falling apart, it's oil. It provides nearly all the country's revenue. It's what militias are fighting over. And it's the prize coveted by the two rival governments — one in Tripoli, the other in Libya's east — that claim to be running the country.

The Tripoli faction is seen as Islamist, the eastern government as anti-Islamist — but the fighting is mainly over turf and resources like oil, rather than ideology.

The international community has recognized the eastern government, but it opposes what it sees as the east's divisive attempt to set up a rival national oil company and take control of the industry, something Sanallah says is impossible anyway.

"We are still the NOC [National Oil Company]; the legal NOC is here. I am the chairman of NOC," he says. "[The east] nominated a new chairman of NOC, but there's no staff, there's no people, there's no hardware, there's no software."

International mediators are trying to keep the oil company independent of either side, but oil fields are under attack. One tanker was bombed, and another one was threatened.

Sanallah says he wants to keep oil out of the fight.

"I hope so. I hope so," he says — but he doesn't sound convinced.

His employees are fighting fires at major oil terminals, and with no real security forces, it only takes a few gunmen to shut things down or hold them hostage.

"I think the message was clear to the oil company: There is no security, good security. Otherwise a few people cannot control the vein of the blood of Libya," he says.

And with the terminals closing, Libya's battered economy is taking even more blows because foreign oil companies are pulling out. Libya is only producing about 330,000 barrels a day, increasing the economic burden.

"When you are closing the terminals, it means you cannot produce oil, and if you cannot produce oil, then you cannot produce gas. So we are making up the gas by importing diesel. This is another burden on the shoulders of NOC," he says.

Again, oil is basically what pays for any central Libyan government. How much? "All — 90 to 95 percent. There is no revenue but oil," he says.

If negotiations don't end the fighting, Sanallah says, the country will collapse. A functioning oil industry could be all that stands between Libya as a nation, and Libya as a failed state.

Libya

oil

How Singapore Transformed Itself Into A Food Lover's Destination

Lonely Planet named Singapore its top country destination for 2015. An island known as a little red dot on the world map, Singapore has less than 5.5 million people.

But when it comes to tourism, Singapore punches above its weight, with nearly 14 million tourists visiting the island in the first eleven months of 2014. And as a result of a long-term plan by the Singapore government, many of them come for the food.

That food includes meals for about $5 that can be found in Singapore's famous hawker centers, sprawling compounds made up of about 100 stalls under one roof. That's where so-called auntie and uncle food vendors serve Singapore's famous street food, a mix of Chinese, Indian, Malay and Indonesian dishes.

You can find many versions of chicken rice, considered one of Singapore's national dishes, which features steamed or blanched white bird meat. You can also find chili crab, a well-loved seafood dish stir-fried in a tomato and chili-based sauce, and rojak, fried dough that has been grilled over charcoal.

When the government of Singapore decided to make culinary training a centerpiece of its plan to turn the island into a world-class tourist destination, it invited the Culinary Institute of America to open its first international branch on the island. Four years ago, Managing Director Eve Felder moved to Singapore with her family to set up the program — around the same time that celebrity chefs like Wolfgang Puck and Mario Batali also arrived.

Felder says the culinary institute's Singapore program features the same curriculum as its other branches in the U.S., which teach students to prepare classical cuisine in the European tradition. The basic techniques used in preparing world-class cuisine are the same whether you're making a beef bourguignon or a curry, she says.

Food offerings including squid dough fritters at Hawker Center, Airport Road, Singapore. The island nation is famous for its street food, a mix of Chinese, Indian, Malay and Indonesian dishes. Carole Zimmer hide caption

itoggle caption Carole Zimmer

Food offerings including squid dough fritters at Hawker Center, Airport Road, Singapore. The island nation is famous for its street food, a mix of Chinese, Indian, Malay and Indonesian dishes.

Carole Zimmer

"Part of our being here is to professionalize and teach the whys of cooking, so it's not haphazard," Felder says." The whys are all the same. The difference is in the flavor profiles."

Those flavor profiles run the gamut from learning to prepare Asia's classic dishes to making pastry cream. One morning in January, 19 students wearing chef's aprons and tall white hats gather in the institute's pastry kitchen. Teacher Yvonne Ruperti lines up the ingredients for mixing pastry cream. "Pastry and baking" is part of the institute's 18-month course.

Student Yan Iskanear watches Ruperti closely as she mixes cornstarch, milk, butter, salt and vanilla. Iskanear, one of 200 applicants who vied for 33 places in the culinary institute's fall semester, says he's proud of his country's food.

"Singaporean cuisine is a mixture of so many cultures, so many traditions," Iskanear says, adding,"With the culinary institute here, we learn the trade, we learn the expertise and we use the Singaporean culture, the Singaporean food. And we elevate ourselves to be on a par with all the bigger culinary countries of the world."

Nathaniel Jodin, who graduated from the Culinary Institute's Singapore branch in 2013, says everybody on the island calls themselves a foodie: "They go around and eat. They critique the food."

Jodin is now head chef at GastroSmiths, a small restaurant in downtown Singapore that borrows from cuisines around the world to create its signature dishes, such as scallop seviche and a rib-eye rice bowl.

Jodin says his parents were not happy with his choice to become a chef rather than a doctor or lawyer, because they worried he wouldn't earn enough in the kitchen. "They were very concerned," he says. "And it's a very Asian culture kind of thing. They want you to get good jobs."

But these days, some of the best jobs in Singapore are in the restaurant industry, according to Ryan Clift, who owns the Tippling Club. "This is a career where you will never be unemployed for the rest of your life. It's a universal language. It's food. It's cooking, you know."

A food vendor at Hawker Center, Airport Road, Singapore Carole Zimmer hide caption

itoggle caption Carole Zimmer

A food vendor at Hawker Center, Airport Road, Singapore

Carole Zimmer

Clift has been cooking since he was 13. He used to run a restaurant in Australia and opened the Tippling Club here in 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis, managing to stay in business by selling a lot of what he called "FU-the Subprime Cocktail" for $100 each — a drink that he says was big enough to share among several people.

Now, Clift prepares meals that consist of modernist gastronomy dishes, such as edible charcoal and peppers that look like hot coals. Some of those meals can cost $5,000 for a 32-course dinner that serves up to 12 people. He says at least 45 percent of his bookings each night are international guests who come for one reason: "They are flying here as gastro tourists, and they are coming here just to eat."

Felder of the Culinary Institute's Singapore branch says she hopes she is training students to attract more gastro tourists and to earn accolades from the passion they display in the kitchen.

The way Felder puts it, "We teach them how to make people's dreams come true. A kitchen is high pressure. It's hot. Your hands smell like shrimp or whatever. But you must do it with grace. It is grace under pressure."

Singapore hopes that grace under pressure and skills in the kitchen will help make it the gastronomic gateway to Asia.

gastro tourism

Singapore

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