Recipe Spicy Ginger Muffins

Spicy Ginger Muffins With Currants and Toasted Pecans

Time: One hour

Butter for greasing muffin tin

1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup dark molasses

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons ground ginger

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Pinch ground cloves

5 tablespoons crystallized ginger, finely chopped

1/4 cup chopped toasted pecans

1/4 cup dried currants

1 1/3 cups confectioners’ sugar

3 tablespoons whole milk.

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin.

2. In a medium saucepan, bring 1/2 cup water to a boil. Pour into a large bowl. Whisk in baking soda until dissolved. Whisk in molasses and oil until mixture is tepid. Whisk in eggs and 1/2 teaspoon grated ginger.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, ground ginger, salt, cinnamon and cloves. Gently fold wet ingredients into dry. Fold in 4 tablespoons crystallized ginger, then the pecans and currants. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a muffin comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Cool in pan 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack set over a rimmed baking sheet.

4. Meanwhile, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar, milk and remaining 1/2 teaspoon grated ginger until mixture forms a smooth glaze. Spoon glaze evenly over muffins. Sprinkle tops with remaining 1 tablespoon crystallized ginger.

Yield: 1 dozen muffins.

Turn Those Bytes Into Books By PETER WAYNER

April 17, 2008
Basics
Turn Those Bytes Into Books By PETER WAYNER
THE first time Jeannet Leendertse, a freelance book designer, saw the software on the Blurb.com Web site that could automatically produce a book, she was more than a little sad. “I thought I needed to have a stiff drink for the end of my career,” she said.

The software could help anyone turn some text and photos into a bound book in a few minutes.

Soon after, though, she saw an opportunity. “I realized there would always be people who appreciate time and effort going into design. I decided to put myself onto their Web site.”

Today, Ms. Leendertse still turns a pile of pictures and paragraphs into bound books, but instead of working just for a roster of major publishers like MIT Press, she helps individuals create books. She is participating in an offshoot of the scrapbooking phenomena, the hobby of collecting and preserving photos and mementos.

What was once a pastime for mothers recording family memories for their children has blossomed into a new, fertile marketplace of collaboration. People with stories to tell are creating personalized books filled with pictures, blog entries and even business proposals. While some of these glorified scrapbooks are aimed at the world at large, many new titles were never intended to be sold in stores or marketed in any way. For instance, architects submitting bound proposals for their projects have used some of the scrapbooking tools.

The digital tools — the camera, scanner and word processor — have opened the field of book creation to the amateur as the hobby moves away from pasting buttons and rickrack onto pages. But sometimes the bookmakers need a little help. Ms. Leendertse recently worked with the filmmaker Robert Gardner, who told her: “This is the artwork that I have. This is my story. How do you think the artwork tells the story best?”

She said he gave her access to his archives and they worked together to create “The Impulse to Preserve,” a 384-page book on Mr. Gardner’s philosophy of creating films. She organized the content and arranged the pages of the book. Soon afterward, a publisher, Other Press, saw the design and agreed to publish her finished work.

Suzzanne Connolly, a San Francisco-based book designer at Picturia Press (www.picturiapress.com), says couples who want to bind the pictures from their wedding day come to her with elaborate plans. “We decide on the layout, the color, the fonts and the style and the flow of each book,” she said. “We can find illustrators, photographers and writers for our clients if it is called for.”

One of her projects was a 52-page 7- by-7-inch soft-cover book with black-and-white photos of a man’s huskies, including one that had just died. In another project, she converted a mother’s blog into a 116-page hardcover book.

“She writes practically every day and takes lots of pictures,” Ms. Connolly said. “She wanted to convert her blog into a book so that when her children grew up they would have something wonderful to look at for each year of their lives.”

Scrapbookers have long been haunting sites that sell or give away digital designs, templates and illustrations. The book creators find them useful as well. Some of the most popular are theshabbyshoppe.com, scrappydoodlekits.com, rakscraps.com, peppermintcreative.com and escrappers.com. Some offer free samples while charging for more elaborate versions. Digitalfreebies.com, for instance, distributes a number of free files each Friday while charging $24.95 a year for access to the archives of past releases.

Katie Pertiet, the creative director for DesignerDigitals.com, sells new downloadable artwork for scrapbookers from a Web site she runs with her husband from her home. Last year, she herself created five different books with more than 400 illustrated pages filled with photos and stories about her children and grandchildren.

Every Sunday morning she shares some of these designs with her customers. Some are produced by Ms. Pertiet and others by artists who license their art to the site. She estimates that she sells about 700 packages each Sunday.

Much of the material can only be described as artsy-craftsy and might not work as well for a self-published book on Bauhaus architecture. One set selling for $2.50 comes with images of the alphabet as if it were cut out of felt and sewn on top of red felt apples. Another set selling for $3.99 includes silhouettes of leafless tree branches and spooky birds, “just in time for Halloween.”

A buyer can take these 300-dots-per-inch images and mix them together with their own images or words, cutting and pasting digital versions much as someone would cut and paste actual scraps of fabric and paper.

“What’s popular is creating scrapbook pages that look like they were done with paper,” Ms. Pertiet said. “They get the effects of regular scrapbooking with no mess, no clean-up, no running out of the letter E. They can reuse them over and over.”

Book creators use Adobe Photoshop (about $650), but others find the simpler and less expensive Photoshop Elements (about $100) adequate. Some amateur bookmakers prefer focused scrapbooking software like Nova Development’s Art Explosion Scrapbook Factory (novadevelopment.com) selling for about $40. As the name might imply, the package comes with thousands of fonts, illustrations, templates and “photorealistic embellishments” like pictures of buttons, ribbons or charms.

There are also a number of crossover tools that straddle the line between printed works and multimedia presentations. Smilebox.com, for instance, specializes in scrapbooks and photo albums that can be sent by e-mail or printed on paper. Basic templates are free, but the company also licenses premium versions from professional artists. Customers can either purchase a single license or join Club Smilebox, a monthly all-inclusive subscription that costs $4.99 a month.

Companies that print bound books also offer free programs. Blurb.com and Picaboo.com distribute free software with all the tools needed to start a book. They expect to make money when users upload the final versions to their Web sites and order printed versions. A 7- by-7-inch soft- cover book from Blurb.com starts at $13 for 20 to 40 pages, with extra pages additional. Bigger, fatter books like a 150-page 13-by-11-inch hardcover cost $85. There are volume discounts. Picaboo.com sells some 20-page soft-cover books for $10 and offers a variety of bound books including ones covered with linen or padded leather.

Even with those do-it-yourself tools, the services of a professional might be needed. And they can also be found on sites like www.blurb.com/blurb_nation or www.lulu.com/budgetbookdesign. Many have their clients’ work on display. Editors who make simple grammatical corrections start at around $300 while more thorough editing and rewriting can cost more than $750 and up. Simple formatting and cover design can begin at $200. Prices vary widely depending upon the designer and the amount of time that a project might require, but it’s not unusual to hear of projects that cost more than $5,000.

Eileen Gittins, the chief executive and founder of Blurb.com, says that her site is working on nurturing a culture around creating books by cultivating relationships between the amateurs and the professionals. “We’re finding that books are this very interesting way for people who want to meet up. People want to see each other’s books,” she said. “We realized we had the beginnings of a marketplace here.”

Sorry, but they don’t help you find an agent or a publisher.

MySpace Mind-Set Finally Shows Up at the Office By LAURIE J. FLYNN

April 9, 2008
MySpace Mind-Set Finally Shows Up at the Office By LAURIE J. FLYNN
AS online social networking weaves itself more extensively into the fabric of everyday life, a new class of technology vendors has set out to make the social Web relevant in the workplace, too.

These companies, with names like InsideView and Genius, seek to integrate broad Internet searching with social networking and business intelligence software to give workers access to interrelated pools of information.

“There’s a value in who knows whom that companies are trying to unlock,” said Antony Brydon, co-founder of Visible Path, a social networking company acquired by Hoover’s, a publishing and market intelligence company, in January.

Despite the huge popularity of networks like MySpace and Facebook, they have had a slow start in the business world, where I.T. managers and executives remain leery of them. But that is starting to change as the technology is becoming more integrated into corporate software applications.

“The enterprise segment is trailing the others significantly,” Mr. Brydon said. “But it’s getting traction like never before.”

These days, more companies are starting to appreciate the potential benefits of social networking programs like Visible Path, as well as communications programs, like SelectMinds, that put workers, clients and others in touch with one another. “Social networking solves a lot of problems in the enterprise,” Mr. Brydon said. It can, for example, relieve overburdened corporate e-mail systems by moving much of the group communications to another realm.

As social networking technology has become a more familiar part of the landscape at many companies, it has brought a new buzzword: “socialprise,” referring to the mash-up of social networking features and standard enterprise computing applications.

“In its basic form, companies using social networking are trying to help employees put a face on the other people in the firm,” Mr. Brydon said.

Visible Path is a sort of corporate version of LinkedIn, the popular networking tool that maps the connections among people, providing them with a view of who knows whom among their contacts. Visible Path performs a similar function for the corporate world by working with the existing software infrastructure, giving employees in a company a map of their contacts and their contacts’ relationships. Dun & Bradstreet has used the technology to add relationship mapping to its Hoover’s online catalogs of corporate and executive information.

Further movement of social networking into business appears inevitable. Oracle, IBM and Microsoft, among others, are increasingly adding social networking features to their corporate software applications.

Late last year, Oracle announced an on-demand version of its sales-automation software, CRM On Demand, that includes social networking features similar to those found in MySpace or Facebook, like the ability to create and join groups through its Sticky Notes and Message Center functions. Likewise, Microsoft is adding social networking to its SharePoint program, a Microsoft Office tool for letting groups work together. And just last month, Cisco Systems announced it was buying Tribe.net, a small social-networking site that will allow it to help clients bring their customers together online.

Today the battle lines in corporate social media are being drawn between established technology companies like Oracle, Microsoft and IBM, social media companies like Facebook and MySpace, and start-ups focused from the beginning on business. Corporations are eager to find out the sources of more of these applications — and when they are going to arrive. For them, the true “killer app” remains to be seen.

“It’s an open question who’s going to win this battle,” Mr. Brydon said. “As a whole, the question the Fortune 500 is asking is where is the Facebook for the Fortune 500 that can do for us what Facebook and MySpace have done for consumers?”

Some businesses have adopted social networking to better identify job candidates, in part by helping them maintain relationships with former employees who could serve as an informal recruiting network. SelectMinds works with a company’s enterprise software to create an electronic water cooler where former employees and managers can keep in touch.

“Companies are looking at the knowledge loss and wondering if they can do something to retain it better,” said Mike Gotta, principal analyst with the Burton Group.

Social networking is also finding its way into the sales department, as something of an automated prospecting tool. Programs like InsideView’s SalesView help sales teams identify leads and target customers by scouring more than 20,000 information sources, from the most popular social-networking sites to job boards, blogs and news sites.

For example, a salesman for a financial services company might use SalesView to get information on a prospective client, from her job history and education to her hobbies and favorite restaurants. “The guys who are using this information think of it as a competitive advantage,” said Rand Schulman, chief marketing officer at InsideView, based in Foster City, Calif. On the other hand, there is what Schulman calls the “creepy factor” behind the ease with which companies could use this new class of programs to peruse personal information.

For the past year, Joe Busateri has been looking for a better way to tap into the collective intelligence of his company, MasterCard. Mr. Busateri, a senior business leader in the Global Technology and Operations business unit, has turned to social networking technology to create a system to get employees talking, brainstorming and cooperating across departments.

“The goal is to try to stimulate innovation, to share information and collect ideas,” he said. He has established blogs and wikis, including a site called Priceless Ideas, where employees can broadcast their latest inspiration.

After spending the past few years snubbing the social networking craze as a time-wasting hobby for teenagers (more than 11 percent of online time is spent on MySpace, according to a new study by Compete, a Web analysis company), even the largest companies are beginning to see value in using Internet technology to foster employee communications. But that’s not to say that all enterprises are ready to embrace social networking.

For some corporate managers, the prospect of investing in something that has long been seen as consumer technology is nerve-racking, given the hard economic lessons of the Internet era. For others, promoting unmoderated communications among employees and customers is scary. And then there’s the notion that social networking’s potential to waste employees’ time might outweigh its benefits.

“A lot of companies had been looking at social networking the same way they were looking at the Internet 15 years ago,” said Denis Pombriant, a consultant and technology analyst at Beagle Research Group. “They saw that the Internet could be useful, but in the meantime a lot of investment dollars went up in smoke.”

How Should I.S.P.s Tell You if They Want to Track Your Surfing? By Saul Hansell

April 9, 2008, 3:41 pm

How Should I.S.P.s Tell You if They Want to Track Your Surfing? By Saul Hansell
The term “unavoidable notice” has been bandied about by a group of Internet advertising executives recently as they explored whether to endorse proposals for Internet service providers to keep track of where their customers surfed and what they searched for.

One theory goes that such systems would be acceptable if customers were informed of the plan in a way that they were sure to see, with a clear way for users to choose not to have their activities recorded. (There are some who say that it is simply unacceptable for an I.S.P. to record the content of its customers’ communications under any circumstances.)

One of the leading companies involved in this concept, Phorm, says it is developing a plan that would in fact force users to see an explanation of its program and give them an explicit choice about whether to participate. Since the company won’t start operations for a few weeks, the details, which are very important, haven’t been disclosed.

The other company, NebuAd, which started operation last fall, seems to be going out of its way to avoid being noticed by the users it monitors. It won’t disclose the Internet providers or advertising companies it is working with. And after The Washington Post discovered two Internet providers it works with — Embarq and Wide Open West — those companies have refused to answer any questions about their relationship with NebuAd.

It always struck me that one good test of an idea is whether the people behind it are willing to stand up in public and say exactly what they are doing and why. And that seems a particularly apt way to look at these companies, which claim that their seemingly invasive plans are in fact very sensitive to the privacy of Internet users.

Both NebuAd and Phorm understand this. Both have hired public relations consultants and reached out to privacy advocates. Indeed, as I’ve written, the chief executives of both Phorm and NebuAd reached out to me and spent a long time discussing their companies and how their systems worked.

It’s early, but so far Phorm appears to be more committed to openness than NebuAd. It may have more of a hurdle to overcome to build trust. The company, under its previous name 121 Media, distributed software that displayed pop-up ads on users’ computers. Privacy groups, like the Center for Democracy and Technology, said the company’s software was spyware because it wasn’t disclosed properly when it was installed and was hard to remove.

Now that it has changed its business, Phorm says it is pursuing an open approach. It has published the names of the I.S.P.s it is working with and some sites that will use its advertising system. It has hired Ernst & Young to audit its system. And it says it will allow others to examine the system as well.

Most significantly, Kent Ertugrul, Phorm’s chief executive, told me that it would not start monitoring users until after it pops a screen in front of their browsing to explain the system. He wouldn’t say what the screen would look like. And the choice to opt out of the system, he said, might be on a second screen, not right next to the choice to opt in. Still, he promised that “the opt-out will be more transparent than anything else,” referring to other ad targeting systems.

BT Broadband, one of the three British Internet providers that are working with Phorm, will in fact give users the choice to participate or not on the same screen, at least in its initial tests. Emma Sanderson, BT’s director of value-added services, sent me this in an e-mail message describing how the disclosure will work:

The concept though is pretty straightforward…. the webpage will appear when a customer starts browsing, there will be a description of the service and three buttons - Yes I want the service, No I don’t want the service and I want more information (not these words exactly). If they request more information they will be taken to another page with more detail on it.

She said the company would start testing the service with 10,000 customers in coming weeks. It will be presented as a way to both reduce the number of irrelevant ads users see and also as an aid to online safety because Phorm also helps detect some fraudulent Web sites.

Ari Schwartz, the chief operating officer of the Center for Democracy and Technology, said that this approach may well be appropriate, depending on how easy it is for consumers to understand and how actions are interpreted. If someone closes the pop-up window without making an explicit choice, he said, it should not be considered consent to have their actions monitored.

NebuAd’s approach to disclosure, by any measure, is much further away from “unavoidable notice.” Robert Dykes, NebuAd’s chief executive, told me the company would force I.S.P.’s that participate to notify their customers about the program. But this can be by e-mail, an insert in a billing statement or some other format where boilerplate that consumers don’t read is placed. Of course, it requires that the companies also disclose the system in their privacy statements, another graveyard for unread legalese.
The privacy statement of Embarq is particularly terse. It doesn’t mention NebuAd. It does have a link to opt out of the system which goes to a Web site called Faireagle.com, which is run by NebuAd. Wide Open West has a somewhat more articulate privacy statement. It gives a brief example of how the system may work. It names NebuAd and gives several links where consumers can get more information.

In what other way, if any, did these companies notify their customers? That is one of many questions I had for them that they refused even to consider answering. Peter Smith, the vice president of programming for Wide Open West, declined to comment and declined to say why he was declining to comment.

I then called David Burgstahler, a partner of Avista Capital, the private equity firm that owns Wide Open West. He wouldn’t talk to me either. Amanda Heravi, an Avista spokeswoman, said she would see if she could find someone to talk to me, but I haven’t heard back yet.

At Embarq, Debra Peterson, the company spokeswoman, e-mailed this statement, saying she would entertain no further questions:

Like other companies, we are evaluating behavioral marketing tools, but we have not decided whether to move forward with them. Our Privacy Policy anticipates and alerts customers to possible future use of these tools, and offers customers the opportunity to simply and quickly opt out. EMBARQ takes its customers’ privacy very seriously and we take every precaution to ensure information about our customers remains secure and anonymous.

Embarq by the way is the big local phone company unit spun off from Sprint that is publicly traded.

In my conversation with Mr. Dykes, I asked several times why he wouldn’t name the Internet providers he works with. He said, “It is inappropriate for a vendor to talk about its customers.”

I asked him why users should feel comfortable being involved with a system when the companies using it are afraid to stand up in public and discuss it. I also suggested that customers may want to know in advance whether Internet providers they may choose to do business with will sell information about their browsing to ad targeting firms. He said there is no need to disclose that in advance, particularly because NebuAd allows people to go to its site and request a cookie on their computers that will indicate they don’t want to participate in its tracking program on any Internet provider.

“If someone thinks this is really important, they should simply opt-out,” Mr. Dykes said.

It’s not clear to me that these are the policies that will build the trust level that Mr. Dykes says he needs in order to convince the large Internet providers to sign up for his service.

Betting to Improve the Odds By STEVE LOHR

April 9, 2008
Betting to Improve the Odds By STEVE LOHR
CORPORATIONS live and die by ideas, and many enterprises have used Web-based technologies, like blogs, wikis and social networks, to gather thoughts and hasten their way into new services, products and cost-saving steps.

Now executives say they are harnessing a new Web tool, called prediction markets, to transform the idea pipelines inside their companies. Companies like the InterContinental Hotels Group, General Electric and Hewlett-Packard are using prediction markets to try to improve forecasting, reduce risk and accelerate innovation by tapping into the collective wisdom of the work force.

Like blogs and wikis, prediction markets can spur communication and collaboration within a company. Yet they add rigorous measurement to business forecasts, like estimating the sales of a new product or the chances that a project will be finished on time.

Corporate prediction markets work like this: Employees, and potentially outsiders, make their wagers over the Internet using virtual currency, betting anonymously. They bet on what they think will actually happen, not what they hope will happen or what the boss wants. The payoff for the most accurate players is typically a modest prize, cash or an iPod.

The early results are encouraging. “The potential is that prediction markets may be the thing that enables a big company to act more like a small, nimble company again,” said Jeffrey Severts, a vice president who oversees prediction markets at Best Buy, the electronics retailer.

The store chain has experimented with prediction markets on everything from demand for digital set-top boxes to store-opening dates. For example, Mr. Severts said that in the fall of 2006, the prices in a prediction market on whether a new store in Shanghai would open on time — in December 2006 — dropped sharply from $80 a share into the $40 to $50 range. Players made yes-no bets, and the virtual dollar drop reflected increasing doubt that the store would open on time.

Indeed, Best Buy’s first store in China opened late, in January 2007, but the warning signs from the prediction market helped prevent further slippage.

Mr. Severts noted that prices in a current prediction market — betting whether new offerings from its Geek Squad service will be introduced on time in June — are in the $90 range, an encouraging sign.

Best Buy plans to move beyond pilot projects in prediction markets to involve more workers throughout the company, starting next month. “It helps on two fronts, the speed and accuracy of information, so that management can move faster to deal with problems or exploit opportunities,” Mr. Severts said.

For years, public prediction markets have been used for politics, like the Iowa Electronic Markets and Intrade, where buyers and sellers bet on which candidate will win a particular race. And there are prediction markets where people place bets on news events (Hubdub, among others), video game sales (simExchange) or movie box-office receipts (Hollywood Stock Exchange).

These markets have often been more accurate than professional pollsters or market researchers. The idea is that the collected knowledge of many people, each with a different perspective, will almost surely be more accurate than an individual or small group or even experts. The concept has been championed by academic economists and was popularized by James Surowiecki’s 2004 book “The Wisdom of Crowds.”

Robin D. Hanson, an economist at George Mason University, proposes a “futarchy,” a form of government enhanced by prediction markets. Voters would decide broad goals of national welfare, but betting in speculative markets would determine the policy steps to achieve those goals.

Few in the corporate world go that far. An important issue is whether prediction markets are mainly an innovative way to gather information from employees or a font of reliable answers. “It’s still an open question whether the wisdom of crowds is really wise,” said John Kao, a consultant and the author of “Innovation Nation.”

So far, most of the companies using prediction markets are doing so in limited ways, in one or two departments, testing the concept to see how it goes. But in the last few years, corporate experimentation has moved beyond high-tech businesses into other industries, including retailing, consumer packaged foods, hotels, health care, steelmaking and telecommunications.

Today, analysts say, there are dozens of major corporations testing these markets. The companies include Google, Cisco Systems, GE Healthcare, General Mills, ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steelmaker, and Swisscom, a large telecommunications company.

At the same time, a network of software and service suppliers is developing to cater to corporate prediction markets. The vendors include H.P. and smaller specialist firms like Consensus Point and NewsFutures. The field is attracting start-ups as well.

In 2006, for example, Adam Siegel and Nate Kontny left Accenture, the consulting firm, to found Inkling Markets. Mat Fogarty had been director for financial planning at Electronic Arts, where he experimented with prediction markets, before founding Xpree last year.

“Prediction markets are starting to move into the mainstream, and they will really change the way companies are run in the future,” said Emile Servan-Schreiber, the chief executive of NewsFutures.

At InterContinental Hotels, Zubin Dowlaty, vice president for emerging technologies, decided to create an online market last fall to “harvest and prioritize ideas” from within the hotel’s 1,000-person technology staff. “We wanted to tap the creative class that may not be able to voice their ideas,” Mr. Dowlaty said.

With InterContinental’s prediction market, players were asked to submit ideas anonymously, with a description and the benefit to customers and company. The bettors were given virtual tokens, each receiving 10 green ones to be placed on the best ideas and three red for bad ideas.

There were no limits on the number of times bettors could change their wagers as new ideas came to market, and the market was open for four weeks. The five top ideas (most green tokens), five bottom ideas (most red) and the top five bettors (most accurate, according to market consensus) were listed regularly.

The winners got $500, while second- and third-place finishers received $250 each. The winners, Mr. Dowlaty said, were engineers, analysts and contractors, not managers.

More than 200 people participated, submitting 85 ideas. One person proposed bringing back quarter-operated vibrating beds. “That one got beat down really fast,” Mr. Dowlaty said.

The winning ideas were suggestions to improve searching the company’s Web site to find and book hotel rooms. Two projects have been started as a result of the market, Mr. Dowlaty said.

Next, he said, prediction markets may be opened up to InterContinental’s customers, probably beginning with members of its Priority Club loyalty program. They could bet in markets for improving service and offerings, with points redeemed. “It’s the next frontier and the natural progression for this,” Mr. Dowlaty said.

Setting up corporate prediction markets can be tricky. Public markets for presidential candidates will attract thousands of bettors, but a company may want to run a market only for people with expertise in a certain product or project. At Hewlett-Packard, researchers have been working on techniques and software to make even small prediction markets efficient.

“We want to reduce the wisdom of crowds to the wisdom of 12 or 13 people,” said Bernardo A. Huberman, director of the social computing lab at Hewlett-Packard. Among the techniques, he said, are preliminary tests to assess the “behavioral risk characteristics” of participants to shade predictions from people who are inherently risk seekers or risk averse.

Starting a year ago, a group in the purchasing unit at H.P. began prediction markets on the price of computer memory chips three and six months ahead. The prediction markets, Dr. Huberman said, were up to 70 percent more accurate than the company’s traditional forecasting models. The more accurate predictions, he said, can be used to finesse purchasing, marketing and product pricing decisions.

The H.P. research project has become a service offering called Brain, for Behaviorally Robust Aggregation of Information in Networks. The service is now used in pilot projects by H.P. clients that include Swisscom, which is trying it to predict demand for new services like Internet television on cellphones.

At GE Healthcare, Steven Linthicum, manager for advanced prototyping and innovation, has recently managed prediction markets projects that have generated ideas for software products for the hospital and health care market. Based on that work, patents have been filed and projects are under way.

“These markets bring not only ideas, but what your organization thinks of the ideas,” Mr. Linthicum said. “That’s what leadership needs to know.”

G.E. is also evaluating how broadly prediction markets could be used in the health care division, a $17 billion-a-year unit, and elsewhere in the company.

“We’ll know a lot more at the end of the year how much this becomes part of the decision-making process,” Mr. Linthicum said. “We’re at the crossroads right now.”

2008 Pulitzer Prizes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Media contact:
Clare Oh, clare.oh@columbia.edu and (212) 854-5479
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCES 92nd ANNUAL PULITZER PRIZES IN JOURNALISM, LETTERS, DRAMA AND MUSIC
New York, NY (April 7, 2008)—The 92nd annual Pulitzer Prizes in Journalism, Letters, Drama and Music, awarded on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize Board, were announced today by Columbia University.
The winners in each category, along with the names of the finalists in the competition, follow:
A. PRIZES IN JOURNALISM
1. PUBLIC SERVICE
For a distinguished example of meritorious public service by a newspaper through the use of its journalistic resources which, as well as reporting, may include editorials, cartoons, photographs, graphics and online material, a gold medal.
Awarded to The Washington Post for the work of Dana Priest, Anne Hull and photographer Michel du Cille in exposing mistreatment of wounded veterans at Walter Reed Hospital, evoking a national outcry and producing reforms by federal officials.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: The Charlotte Observer for its illuminating examination of the mortgage and housing crisis in the newspaper’s community and state, resulting in federal probes and changes in a major lender’s practices, and Newsday, Long Island, N.Y., for its comprehensive investigation into the hazardous gap between a New York railroad’s trains and its boarding platforms, spotlighting individual injuries and triggering a multi-million-dollar remedy by the railway.
2. BREAKING NEWS REPORTING
For a distinguished example of local reporting of breaking news, presented in print or online or both, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
- 2 -
Awarded to The Washington Post Staff for its exceptional, multi-faceted coverage of the deadly shooting rampage at Virginia Tech, telling the developing story in print and online.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: The Idaho Statesman Staff for its tenacious coverage of the twists and turns in the scandal involving the state’s senator, Larry Craig, and The New York Times Staff for its swift, penetrating coverage of a fire in the Bronx that killed nine persons, eight of them children.
3. INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING
For a distinguished example of investigative reporting by an individual or team, presented as a single article or series, in print or in print and online, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Two Prizes of $10,000 each:
Awarded to Walt Bogdanich and Jake Hooker of The New York Times for their stories on toxic ingredients in medicine and other everyday products imported from China, leading to crackdowns by American and Chinese officials.
and
Awarded to the Chicago Tribune Staff for its exposure of faulty governmental regulation of toys, car seats and cribs, resulting in the extensive recall of hazardous products and congressional action to tighten supervision.
Also nominated as a finalist in this category were: Miles Moffeit and Susan Greene of The Denver Post for their reports on how destruction of evidence in criminal cases across the nation can free the guilty and convict the innocent, prompting official efforts to correct breakdowns.
4. EXPLANATORY REPORTING
For a distinguished example of explanatory reporting that illuminates a significant and complex subject, demonstrating mastery of the subject, lucid writing and clear presentation, in print or in print and online, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Amy Harmon of The New York Times for her striking examination of the dilemmas and ethical issues that accompany DNA testing, using human stories to sharpen her reports.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Beth Daley of The Boston Globe for her evocative exploration of how global warming affects New Englanders, from ice fishermen to blueberry farmers, and the Staff of the Oregonian, Portland, for its richly illustrated reports on a breakthrough in producing the microprocessors that are a technological cornerstone of modern life.
5. LOCAL REPORTING
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For a distinguished example of reporting on significant issues of local concern, demonstrating originality and community expertise, in print or in print and online, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to David Umhoefer of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel for his stories on the skirting of tax laws to pad pensions of county employees, prompting change and possible prosecution of key figures.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Chris Davis, Matthew Doig and Tiffany Lankes of the Sarasota (Fla.) Herald Tribune for their dogged exposure, in print and online, of predatory teachers and the system that protects them, stirring state and national action, and Jeff Pillets, John Brennan and Tim Nostrand of The Record, Bergen County, N.J., for their probe of how plans to build a luxury community atop old landfills became entangled in questionable state loans and other allegations of favoritism.
6. NATIONAL REPORTING
For a distinguished example of reporting on national affairs, in print or in print and online, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Jo Becker and Barton Gellman of The Washington Post for their lucid exploration of Vice President Dick Cheney and his powerful yet sometimes disguised influence on national policy.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: The New York Times Staff for its stories about CIA interrogation techniques that critics condemned as torture, stirring debate on the legal and moral limits of American action against terrorism, and Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune for his wide ranging examination of complicated racial issues in America, from the courtroom to the schoolyard.
7. INTERNATIONAL REPORTING
For a distinguished example of reporting on international affairs, in print or in print and online, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Steve Fainaru of The Washington Post for his heavily reported series on private security contractors in Iraq that operate outside most of the laws governing American forces.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: The New York Times Staff for its valorous and comprehensive coverage of America’s military efforts to reduce sectarian violence in Iraq, and The Wall Street Journal Staff for its in-depth reports on the dismantling of democracy in Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin.
8. FEATURE WRITING
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For a distinguished example of feature writing giving prime consideration to quality of writing, originality and concision, in print or in print and online, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post for his chronicling of a world-class violinist who, as an experiment, played beautiful music in a subway station filled with unheeding commuters.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Thomas Curwen of the Los Angeles Times for his vivid account of a grizzly bear attack and the recovery of the two victims, and Kevin Vaughan of the Rocky Mountain News, Denver, Colo., for his sensitive retelling of a school bus and train collision at a rural crossing in 1961 that killed 20 children.
9. COMMENTARY
For distinguished commentary, in print or in print and online, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Steven Pearlstein of The Washington Post for his insightful columns that explore the nation’s complex economic ills with masterful clarity.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Regina Brett of The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, for her passionate columns on alienated teenagers in a dangerous city neighborhood, and John Kass of the Chicago Tribune for his hard-hitting columns on the abuse of local political power and a lively range of topics in a colorful city.
10. CRITICISM
For distinguished criticism, in print or in print and online, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Mark Feeney of The Boston Globe for his penetrating and versatile command of the visual arts, from film and photography to painting.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post for her perceptive movie reviews and essays, reflecting solid research and an easy, engaging style, and Inga Saffron of The Philadelphia Inquirer for her forceful critiques that illuminate the vital interplay between architecture and the life of her city. 11. EDITORIAL WRITING
For distinguished editorial writing, the test of excellence being clearness of style, moral purpose, sound reasoning, and power to influence public opinion in what the writer conceives to be the right direction, in print or in print and online, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
No Award
Nominated as finalists in this category were: Maureen Downey of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for her compelling editorials on the harsh sentences that teenagers can receive for
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consensual sex in Georgia, Rodger Jones of The Dallas Morning News for his relentless editorials that led to mandating roll-call votes on all statewide legislation in Texas, and The Wisconsin State Journal Staff for its persistent, high-spirited campaign against abuses in the governor’s veto power.
12. EDITORIAL CARTOONING
For a distinguished cartoon or portfolio of cartoons published during the year, characterized by originality, editorial effectiveness, quality of drawing and pictorial effect, in print or in print and online, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Michael Ramirez of Investor’s Business Daily for his provocative cartoons that rely on originality, humor and detailed artistry.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Tom Batiuk of King Features for a sequence in his cartoon strip "Funky Winkerbean" that portrays a woman’s poignant battle with breast cancer, and Clay Bennett of The Christian Science Monitor for his distinctive cartoons marked by sharp focus and pungent simplicity.
13. BREAKING NEWS PHOTOGRAPHY
For a distinguished example of breaking news photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence or an album, in print or online or both, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Adrees Latif of Reuters for his dramatic photograph of a Japanese videographer, sprawled on the pavement, fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: Mahmud Hams of Agence France-Presse for his picture of a missile, caught in mid-air, as it falls on a target in the Gaza Strip while young Palestinians scramble for safety, and the Los Angeles Times Staff for its powerful and often unpredictable photos that captured wildfires devastating California.
14. FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
For a distinguished example of feature photography in black and white or color, which may consist of a photograph or photographs, a sequence or an album, in print or in print and online, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to Preston Gannaway of the Concord (N.H.) Monitor for her intimate chronicle of a family coping with a parent’s terminal illness.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: David Guttenfelder of the Associated Press for his harrowing portfolio of Vietnamese children afflicted by the toxic legacy of Agent Orange, three decades after the Vietnam War ended, and Mona Reeder of The Dallas Morning News for her memorable pictures of disadvantaged Texans hidden amid the state’s economic abundance.
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B. LETTERS AND DRAMA PRIZES
1. FICTION
For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Díaz (Riverhead Books).
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "Tree of Smoke" by Denis Johnson (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and "Shakespeare’s Kitchen" by Lore Segal (The New Press).
2. DRAMA
For a distinguished play by an American author, preferably original in its source and dealing with American life, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to "August: Osage County" by Tracy Letts.
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "Yellow Face" by David Henry Hwang, and "Dying City" by Christopher Shinn.
3. HISTORY
For a distinguished book upon the history of the United States, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to "What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848" by Daniel Walker Howe (Oxford University Press).
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power" by Robert Dallek (HarperCollins), and "The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War" by the late David Halberstam (Hyperion).
4. BIOGRAPHY
For a distinguished biography or autobiography by an American author, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to "Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father" by John Matteson (W.W. Norton).
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein" by Martin Duberman (Alfred A. Knopf), and "The Life of Kingsley Amis" by Zachary Leader (Pantheon).
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5. POETRY
For a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Two Prizes of $10,000 each:
Awarded to "Time and Materials" by Robert Hass (Ecco/HarperCollins).
and
Awarded to "Failure" by Philip Schultz (Harcourt).
Also nominated as a finalist in this category was: "Messenger: New and Selected Poems, 1976-2006" by Ellen Bryant Voigt (W.W. Norton).
6. GENERAL NONFICTION
For a distinguished and well documented book of nonfiction by an American author that is not eligible for consideration in any other category, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to "The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews, 1939-1945" by Saul Friedländer (HarperCollins).
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "The Cigarette Century" by Allan Brandt (Basic Books), and "The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century" by Alex Ross (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
C. PRIZE IN MUSIC
For distinguished musical composition by an American that has had its first performance or recording in the United States during the year, ten thousand dollars ($10,000).
Awarded to "The Little Match Girl Passion" by David Lang, co-commissioned by the Carnegie Hall Corporation and The Perth Theater and Concert Hall, and premiered October 25, 2007 in Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, New York City (G. Schirmer, Inc.).
Also nominated as finalists in this category were: "Meanwhile" by Stephen Hartke, premiered November 7, 2007 at the University of Richmond (ELR Music Publishing, Inc.), and "Concerto for Viola" by Roberto Sierra, premiered November 11, 2007 at Barnes Hall, Ithaca, NY (Subito Music Publishing).
SPECIAL CITATION
A Special Citation to Bob Dylan for his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.
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The Pulitzer Prize Board made its recommendations for the 2008 prizes when it met at Columbia University on April 3 and 4, 2008, and passed them to President Lee C. Bollinger. The Board announced that the awards would be presented at a luncheon on Thursday, May 29 at Columbia University.
Paul Tash, Amanda Bennett, and David M. Kennedy were re-elected to membership on the board.
The members of the Pulitzer Prize Board are: President Bollinger; Danielle Allen, UPS Foundation professor of social science, Institute of Advanced Study, Princeton University; Jim Amoss, editor, The New Orleans Times-Picayune; Amanda Bennett, executive editor/enterprise, Bloomberg News; Joann Byrd, former editor of the editorial page, Seattle Post-Intelligencer (co-chair); Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor, Associated Press; Thomas L. Friedman, columnist, The New York Times; Paul Gigot, editorial page editor and vice president, The Wall Street Journal; Donald E. Graham, chairman, The Washington Post; Anders Gyllenhaal, executive editor, The Miami Herald; Jay T. Harris, director, The Center for the Study of Journalism and Democracy, University of Southern California; David M. Kennedy, Donald J. McLachlan professor of history, Stanford University; Nicholas Lemann, dean, Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia University; Ann Marie Lipinski, senior vice president and editor, Chicago Tribune; Gregory L. Moore, editor, The Denver Post; Richard Oppel, editor, Austin American-Statesman; Michael Pride, editor, Concord (N.H.) Monitor (co-chair); Paul Tash, editor, CEO and chairman, St. Petersburg Times; and Sig Gissler, administrator of the Prizes.
In any category in which board members have an interest due to the action of the various nominating juries, those members do not participate in the discussion and voting and leave the room until a decision is reached in the affected category. Similarly, members of nominating juries do not participate in the discussion of or voting on entries in which they have an interest.
# # #

2007 Peabody Awards Announced

Complete List of 2007 Peabody Award Winners

67th Annual Peabody Awards Winners Announced
To view web cast
30 Rock Universal Media Studios in association with Broadway Video Television and Little Stranger Inc.
Tina Fey`s creation is not only a great workplace comedy in the tradition of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," complete with fresh, indelible secondary characters, but also a sly, gleeful satire of corporate media, especially the network that airs it.
Art:21 – Art in the 21st Century Art:21, Inc.
Trusting artists to speak for themselves and viewers to "get" what they talk about, the PBS series provides a unique forum for the display, analysis and appreciation of myriad forms of contemporary visual art.
Speaking of Faith: The Ecstatic Faith of Rumi American Public Media
Delving into the "adventurous, cosmopolitan" Islam of a 13th century Persian poet now enjoying revival worldwide, this public-radio series continues to illuminate connections among people of all faiths.
Bob Woodruff Reporting: Wounds of War – The Long Road Home of Our Nation`s Veterans ABC News
Severely injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq, Woodruff made wounded veterans and their struggle with recovery and red tape his special focus and served them well with his sensitive, dogged reporting.
Money for Nothing, The Buried and the Dead, Television Justice, Kinder Prison WFAA-TV
The Dallas station distinguished itself with not one but four investigative series in 2007, probing dubious practices by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, the Texas Railroad Commission, a police department that got too cozy with a TV sexual-predator sting operation and a Homeland Security Prison holding immigrant families.
Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial NOVA/WGBH Educational Foundation, Vulcan Productions Inc., The Big Table Film Company
The centerpiece of this thoughtful, topical edition of NOVA was the recreation, verbatim, of key testimony and argument from a six-week trial in Pennsylvania that served as a crash course in modern evolutionary theory, the evidence for evolution and the nature of science.
Whole Lotta Shakin` Texas Heritage Music Foundation
A red-hot retrospective of rockabilly music, this 10-part series distributed by Public Radio International blended rare interviews, archival radio broadcasts and foot-stomping tunes by obscure practitioners as well as legends such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins.
White Horse BBC World News America, BBC America, BBC World
Uncommonly beautiful for a nightly news feature, but no less trenchant for being artful, it captured a rustic, sleepy inland village on the verge of obliteration by the Chinese government in its attempt to further the country`s economic miracle.
Just Words The Center for Emerging Media
Marc Steiner`s 55 weekly radio reports, four minutes each, gave voice to marginalized people – low-wage workers, recovering drug addicts, the homeless – who rarely get to speak for themselves in the mainstream media and, in doing so, made common social issues immediate and personal.
CNN Presents: God`s Warriors CNN
In six hours over three nights, CNN explored how rising fundamentalist disenchantment with the modern, secular world has affected Judaism, Islam and Christianity in sometimes similar but also different ways.
Dexter Showtime, John Goldwyn Productions, The Colleton Company, Clyde Phillips Productions
With a premise that questions our fondness for avenging heroes – a serial killer who channels his dark urges into police forensics and the killing of other sociopaths – this Showtime series is a masterful psychological thriller and a complex and ambiguous meditation on morality.
Planet Earth Discovery Channel, BBC
Awesome, spectacular, humbling, exhilarating – pick your effusive adjective – the 11-part series documented the natural wonders of our world, some familiar, others never before seen, in stunning high-definition clarity.
CBS News Sunday Morning: The Way Home CBS News
Two unflinchingly candid women who lost limbs while serving in the military in Iraq were the centerpiece of this powerful, thought-provoking report by correspondent Kimberly Dozier, a recovering war casualty herself.
Fight for Open Records WTAE-TV
The Pittsburgh station`s relentless legal campaign to obtain public records of a state-run student loan program netted evidence of financial misconduct and pushed the state to rewrite an antiquated right-to-know law.
To Die in Jerusalem HBO Documentary Films in association with Priddy Brothers
The anguish of the Israeli-Palestine conflict was embodied in this frank documentary about two mothers who lost their respective teenaged daughters, one a suicide bomber, the other her victim.
Design Squad WGBH Educational Foundation
Created to inspire boys and girls in their `tweens and teens to consider an engineering profession, this lively, fast-paced series puts an educational emphasis into the reality-competition television format.
Craft in America: Memory, Landscape and Community Craft in America Inc.
This three-hour chronicle of America`s rich, ongoing traditions of weaving, quilting, woodworking and other craft art was as carefully wrought and as beautifully shot as its subject matter.
Univision`s Ya Es Hora Univision Communications
More than a million legal Hispanic immigrants sought U.S. citizenship as the result of Univision`s multi-faceted campaign to explain the benefits and responsibilities of becoming citizens and how to go about applying.
NATURE: Silence of the Bees Partisan Pictures, Inc., Thirteen/WNET New York
The first in-depth investigation of an alarming, world-wide die-off of honeybees, this documentary underscored the critical role of these pollinators to our food supply and surveyed the forensics that have yet to solve the mystery.
A Journey Across Afghanistan: Opium and Roses Balkan News Corporation – bTV
Surprising and visually distinctive, this Bulgarian news network`s road trip yeilded a rare, everyday Afghan perspective on the fighting between Taliban and western troops, while revealing fascinating efforts to supplant the growing of opium poppies with rose bushes to produce rose oil.
The MTT Files American Public Media, San Francisco Symphony
Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas brought his wealth of knowledge and idiosyncratic insight to bear on subjects as diverse as Igor "Firebird" Stravinsky and James "Cold Sweat" Brown in this delightful, surprising public-radio series.
Project Runway Bravo, The Weinstein Company, The Magical Elves, Full Picture
A series that redeems the reality-contest genre, this face-off competition among upstart fashion designers demands, displays and ultimately rewards creativity that can`t be bluffed.
Taxi to the Dark Side Jigsaw Pictures, Tall Woods, Wider Film, ZDF/ARTE
The brutal death of an Afghani cab driver while in U.S. military custody gave director Alex Gibney the central thread of his searing exploration of detainee interrogation techniques and who, ulimately, bears responsiblity.
Security Risks at Sky Harbor KNXV-TV
This Phoenix station`s unnerving expose of outrageous lapses in baggage-screening at the city`s main airport shook up the Transportation Security Administration all the way to Washington, D.C.
Wait, Wait…Don`t Tell Me! National Public Radio, Chicago Public Radio, Urgent Haircut Productions
A zippy update of one of broadcasting`s long-ago staples, this live quiz show reminds listeners of the week`s news even as host Peter Sagal and various panelists make witty sport of it.
Independent Lens: Sisters in Law Vixen Films, Independent Television Service (ITVS)
Directors Kim Longinotto and Florence Ayisi make viewers flies on the wall of a small-town courthouse in Cameroon overseen by two dynamic, wisecracking, larger-than-life sisters – one the court`s president, the other its state prosecutor – who are helping women stand up to abuse.
Virginia Tech Shooting: The First 48 Hours WSLS-TV
Covering the the worst mass shooting in United States history and its immediate aftermath, the news staff of this station in Roanoke, Virginia, demonstrated knowledge of their community, mastery of their journalistic craft and remarkable, much-needed calm.
The Brian Lehrer Show: Radio That Builds Community Rather Than Divides WNYC Radio
Lehrer`s talk show is a wide open yet shrewdly managed forum in which every sort of political, social and cultural issue is consdiered and where New Yorkers, in all their diversity, can get to know each other.
Nimrod Nation Sundance Channel, Public Road Productions, Wieden and Kennedy
The subject of Brett Morgen`s lyrical, unhurried, eight-part exploration of small town life is Watersmeet, Michigan, a folksy hamlet reminiscent of Mayberry and Lake Wobegone, but undeniably, hearteningly real.
FRONTLINE: Cheney`s Law FRONTLINE, Kirk Documentary Group, Ltd., WGBH-Boston
In a strongly researched and reported hour that sometimes played like a political thriller, "FRONTLINE" traced the Bush Administration`s expansion of Presidental wartime powers to a determined, secretive campaign by the Vice President, that stretches back three decades.
mtvU: Half of Us mtvU
Responding to studies that have shown that nearly half of all college students have experienced bouts of disabling depression, mtvU created an impressive, multi-platform campaign that includes public-service spots and a comprehensive website where students can get information, advice, even upbeat music.
Independent Lens: Billy Strayhorn – Lush Life Robert Levi Films, Independent Television Service (ITVS), Washington Square Films
Along with celebrating the work of the often overlooked arranger and composer ("Take the `A` Train") who was crucial to Duke Ellington`s sound and success, the documentary senstitively explored the homophobia that kept Strayhorn in the shadows.
CBS News 60 Minutes: The Killings in Haditha CBS News, 60 Minutes
This thorough, open-minded investigation of the worst single killing of civilians by American troops since Vietnam put not just the incident into better perspective but the entire Iraq War and the terrible choices it presents both solidier and civilian.
Mad Men AMC, Lionsgate Pictures Television
The way they were on Madison Avenue, in the Manhattan towers and the bedroom communities of New York, circa 1960, is recalled in rich detail and a haze of cigarette smoke in this exemplary period dramatic series.
The Colbert Report Hello Doggie Inc., Busboy Productions, and Spartina Productions
Let none dare call it "truthiness." Colbert, in his weeknight Comedy Central send-up of politics and all that is bombastic and self-serving in cable-news bloviasion, has come into his own as one of electronic media`s sharpest satirists.

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Ben Brantley's Review of Company/ Saw it on Great Performances last night on PBS

November 30, 2006
THEATER REVIEW 'COMPANY'
A Revival Whose Surface of Tundra Conceals a Volcano
By BEN BRANTLEY
Fire flickers, dangerous and beckoning, beneath the frost of John Doyle’s elegant, unexpectedly stirring revival of “Company,” which opened last night at the Ethel Barrymore Theater. This visually severe, aurally lush reinvention of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s era-defining musical of marriage and its discontents from 1970 is the chicest-looking production on Broadway.
One glance at the symmetry, the starkness, the midnight-black palette that dominates the stage, and you feel like putting on a sweater. It’s surely no coincidence that the clear modules that serve as furniture resemble ice cubes. What could be more appropriate for a musical with a passive, willfully unengaged leading man (wearing black Armani, natch), who is almost never seen without a defensive drink in his hand?
But if Bobby the bachelor, embodied with riveting understatement by Raúl Esparza, at first comes across as a man of ice, it becomes apparent that he is in a steady state of thaw. Given the subliminal intensity that hums through Mr. Esparza’s deadpan presence, you sense that flood warnings should probably be posted.
Mr. Doyle is the inspired British director who last year gave New York the most unsettling, emotionally concentrated production on record of another Sondheim musical, the macabre “Sweeney Todd.” In that show, for which Mr. Doyle won a Tony Award, the cast members doubled as musicians, a device repeated in this “Company.”
This “I-am-my-own-orchestra” approach probably shouldn’t be used ad infinitum. Mr. Doyle applied the same stratagem to Jerry Herman’s “Mack and Mabel” in London last summer to underwhelming effect.
But there’s something about Mr. Sondheim that allows Mr. Doyle to find a new clarity of feeling through melding musicians and performers. It is, after all, the person who controls the music in a Sondheim production — in which there is usually a sophistication gap between the songs and the relatively pedestrian book — who has the best chance of finding the show’s elusive but resonantly human heart.
Mr. Doyle’s “Company,” first staged at the Cincinnati Playhouse earlier this year, isn’t the unconditional triumph that his “Sweeney Todd” was, partly because the show itself is less of a fully integrated piece and partly because much of the acting is weaker. Only a few of the 14 ensemble members — playing the couples who are permanent fixtures in Bobby’s life and his strictly temporary girlfriends — seem at ease dispensing Mr. Furth’s brittle, uptown, shrink-shrunk dialogue.
But they all blossom as musicians and singers of wit and substance. As soloists they’re more than adequate, but it’s their work as a team that sounds new depths in “Company” in ways that get under your skin without your knowing it.
Mr. Doyle and his invaluable music supervisor and orchestrator, Mary-Mitchell Campbell, have shaped “Company” into a sort of oratorio for the church of the lonely. The choral passage that opens the show — a litany of variations on Robert (a k a “Bobby, baby”), the name of the central character, about to celebrate his 35th birthday — is performed in near darkness a cappella, sounding like liturgical chant.
The effect is not flippant. The voices — belonging to “those good and crazy people, my married friends”— seem to echo through Bobby’s head like elements of some beautiful but arcane ritual that he can observe only from a distance. Watching is what Bobby does. His outsider’s status is confirmed with pointed eloquence when it registers that Bobby is the only person onstage who isn’t playing an instrument.
The production gets astonishingly diverse theme- and character-defining mileage out of this discrepancy. Bobby’s failure to pick up an instrument and join the band becomes a natural-born metaphor for his refusal to engage with others. Yes, he sings soulfully. But as the other cast members circle the lone Mr. Esparza, playing their instruments, it is clear they possess talents for connecting that Bobby lacks, fears and longs for.
Watching the couples carp and bicker in black-out vignettes — practicing karate, experimenting with pot, visiting a discothèque — you may wonder why Bobby would ever be envious of them (which has always been a problem with “Company”). It’s when they make music together that you understand.
Mr. Doyle’s staging repeatedly and ingeniously echoes this isolating difference. Mr. Esparza is often found climbing onto the top of a Steinway or one of those transparent cubes as others crowd him. Sometimes he stands at a skeptical, uneasy remove as different groups serenade him: the married men with the haunting “Sorry-Grateful”; three girlfriends, all playing saxophones as if they were assault weapons, in a scintillating version of “You Could Drive a Person Crazy.”
The seamlessness of these motifs lends a fresh coherence to “Company,” which was originally structured as a cabaret of urban neurosis. Stand-alone crowd pleasers like “Getting Married Today” (performed by a too-grounded-seeming Heather Laws as the skittish Amy) and “Another Hundred People” (warmly sung by Angel Desai) now blend into a general musical fabric of anxiety in search of reassurance.
Even the fabled character number, “The Ladies Who Lunch,” sung by the worldly, much-married Joanne (a fierce Barbara Walsh), feels less like a show-stopping appendage than it usually does. Instead, building to a climactic repeated note that suggests what Edvard Munch’s silent scream might sound like, it becomes the perfect preface to Bobby’s breakthrough breakdown at the end of the show.
If Ms. Walsh doesn’t erase the memory of Elaine Stritch, who created (and will probably always own) the part, she handles her vodka-stinger-flavored dialogue with a vintage Manhattan suaveness, which is more than can be said for many of the others.
Bruce Sabath, though, is touching and credible as Joanne’s patient husband. And Elizabeth Stanley is absolutely delicious as April, the ditzy airline stewardess, who sings “Barcelona” (the best one-night-stand song in musicals).
The sense that ambivalence and confusion are not unique to Bobby is enhanced by the cold, austere glitter of David Gallo’s set and Thomas C. Hase’s superb lighting. But it’s Mr. Esparza who is the top expert on ambivalence here, giving “Company” the most compelling center it has probably ever had. In previous productions, Bobby has registered principally as a wistful window onto other lives.
But Mr. Esparza is anything but a cipher. Though his Bobby can seem as laconic and drolly unresponsive as Bob Newhart, you are always aware that this is a man in pain. As anyone who saw him in “Cabaret” or “The Normal Heart” knows, Mr. Esparza is generally a pyrotechnic actor, sending sparks and smoke all over the place.
In keeping the lid on such volcanic energy, he makes Bobby’s climactic explosion inevitable. Though he sings beautifully throughout — in ways that define his character’s solipsism — he brings transporting ecstasy to the agony of the concluding number, in which Bobby finally joins the band of human life.
For much of Mr. Sondheim’s career, directors have approached his work as if “keep your distance” were woven into the copyright. More recently, a new generation of artists have heard an altogether different directive: “Come closer.” Mr. Doyle and Mr. Esparza make it clear that there are infinite rewards to be had in accepting that challenge.
COMPANY
A Musical Comedy
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim; book by George Furth; directed by John Doyle; musical staging by Mr. Doyle; musical supervision and orchestrations by Mary-Mitchell Campbell; sets by David Gallo; costumes by Ann Hould-Ward; lighting by Thomas C. Hase; sound by Andrew Keister; hair and wig design by David Lawrence; make-up design by Angelina Avallone; associate director, Adam John Hunter; production stage manager, Gary Mickelson; resident music supervisor, Lynne Shankel; general manager, Richard Frankel Productions and Jo Porter; production manager, Juniper Street Productions, Inc. Presented by Marc Routh, Richard Frankel, Tom Viertel, Steven Baruch, Ambassador Theater Group, Tulchin/Bartner Productions, Darren Bagert and Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. At the Ethel Barrymore Theater, 243 West 47th Street, (212) 239-6200. Running time: 2 hours, 25 minutes.
WITH: Raúl Esparza (Robert), Keith Buterbaugh (Harry), Matt Castle (Peter), Robert Cunningham (Paul), Angel Desai (Marta), Kelly Jeanne Grant (Kathy), Kristin Huffman (Sarah), Amy Justman (Susan), Heather Laws (Amy), Leenya Rideout (Jenny), Fred Rose (David), Bruce Sabath (Larry), Elizabeth Stanley (April) and Barbara Walsh (Joanne).
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Galaxy Drive-in / Leatherheads

Took girls to drive-in. Weather was cool but very nice. Crowded. Long lines until after movie started. Had hamburgers but no french fries available. Had Chilly Dillies! The layout and service and concession stand still are a nightmare that can't be fixed. Bottlenecks at the cash registers and condiment bar because he intentionally narrowed down the space.

George Clooney's Leatherheads is a disappointment. Shows how hard it is it to write, direct and pace comedy (see On the Twentieth Century, His Girl Friday and The Philadelphia Story for watchable movies liberally borrowed from for this one.) Clooney, the director, should have told Clooney, the actor, to do more with character than "Clooney-isms" for bits of business. Renee Zellweger, the tough as nails newspaper women, is no Rosalind Russell. I kept wondering why Julia Roberts did reprise her Ocean's role in this movie.

Galaxy Drive-in/ Leatherheads

Took girls to Galaxy. Weather was a little cool but lovely. Crowded. Talked about all kinds of food options but settled on hamburgers from concession stand. Long lines until after movie started and no french fries. Counter service is dreadful, food is passable and the layout is still wrong (necking people down from both sides in front o condiments is confusing and wrong; both sides are not equally stocked).



George Clooney's Leatherheads earned it C rating . Shows how hard it is to write and direct and pace comedy (see His Girl Friday, On the Twentieth Century and The Philadelphia Story for vastly superior movies that were liberally quoted in this movie.) Clooney, the director, should have asked Clooney, the actor, to quit relying upon "Clooney-isms" for his character. Renee Zellweger's newspaper women is no Rosalind Russell. Made me think about Julia Roberts in the Ocean's movies and wonder why she didn't do this part.

Ben Brantley's Review of South Pacific

April 4, 2008
THEATER REVIEW ‘SOUTH PACIFIC’
Optimist Awash in the Tropics
By BEN BRANTLEY
Love blossoms fast and early in Bartlett Sher’s rapturous revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific,” which opened Thursday at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center. And while you may think, “But this is so sudden,” you don’t doubt for a second that it’s the real thing.
I’m talking partly about the chemistry between the production’s revelatory stars, Kelli O’Hara and Paulo Szot, in the opening scene of this tale from 1949 of men and women unmoored by war. But I’m also talking about the chemistry between a show and its audience.
For this “South Pacific” recreates the unabashed, unquestioning romance that American theatergoers had with the American book musical in the mid-20th century, before the genre got all self-conscious about itself. There’s not an ounce of we-know-better-now irony in Mr. Sher’s staging. Yet the show feels too vital to be a museum piece, too sensually fluid to be square.
I could feel the people around me leaning in toward the stage, as if it were a source of warmth on a raw, damp day. And that warmth isn’t the synthetic fire of can-do cheer and wholesomeness associated (not always correctly) with Rodgers and Hammerstein. It’s the fire of daily life, with all its crosscurrents and ambiguities, underscored and clarified by music.
During the past couple of decades directors have often felt the need to approach the Rodgers and Hammerstein classics with either a can of black paint or misted-up rose-colored glasses. (This has been especially true in London, with the National Theater’s celebrated darkness-plumbing productions of “Carousel” and “Oklahoma!,” and the current sugar-glazed cash-cow of a revival of “The Sound of Music” in the West End.) Mr. Sher, who heralded the return of full-blown lyricism to musicals with his exquisite production of Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas’s “Light in the Piazza” several years ago, puts his trust unconditionally in the original material.
It’s as if a vintage photograph had been restored not with fuzzy, hand-colored prettiness but with you-are-there clarity. Though Michael Yeargan’s perspective-stretching beachscape of a set isn’t photo-realist, you somehow accept it as more real than real, just as the score performed by the sumptuously full orchestra (with musical direction by Ted Sperling) feels from the beginning like thought made effortlessly audible.
Of all the Rodgers and Hammerstein hits “South Pacific” has in recent years seemed the least fit for revival, despite its glorious score. The show’s book, by Hammerstein and Joshua Logan, was inspired by James A. Michener’s “Tales of the South Pacific.” Set during World War II on two Pacific islands, where American sailors were stationed, it is Rodgers and Hammerstein’s most topical work, addressing a war that had ended only four years earlier.
It is also the show in which the creators wear their liberal consciences most visibly. In following two love stories, both between people of different cultures, “South Pacific” made an overt plea for racial tolerance. Few things in showbiz date more quickly than progressive politics.
It made sense that theater iconoclasts, including the Wooster Group (with its wry spoof “North Atlantic”) and Anne Bogart (with a notorious deconstruction set in a mental ward), would see “South Pacific” as a natural demolition target. Even Trevor Nunn’s generally generic restaging of the show for the National Theater had a gritty, sweaty style that brought out the frightened racism in the show’s heroine.
That’s Ensign Nellie Forbush, the Navy nurse from Little Rock whose romance with Emile de Becque, a French plantation owner, runs aground when she learns he had children with a Polynesian woman. The part was created by Mary Martin, playing opposite the opera star Ezio Pinza, and her avowed “cock-eyed optimism” became an emblem for postwar American hope and resilience.
Ms. O’Hara, who played very different incarnations of American womanhood in “Piazza” and the 2006 revival of “The Pajama Game,” doesn’t stint on Nellie’s all-American eagerness. But in a superbly shaded portrait she gives the character a troubled, apprehensive guardedness as well. This self-described hick’s Arkansas accent comes from the country club, not the mountains. And it’s all too easy to imagine her returning to a world of white gloves and cautious good deeds.
Yet Nellie is receptive not just to the serious charms of Emile (the seriously charming Mr. Szot) but to those of the lush landscape in which she finds herself. Ms. O’Hara, whose lovely soprano is never merely lovely here, creates a study in ambivalence that is both subtly layered and popping with energy.
Even when she’s singing that she’s in love with a wonderful guy, she seems to be wrestling with complicated feelings that have surprised her. The same rich sincerity pervades the deep-reaching baritone of Mr. Szot, best known here for his work with the New York City Opera. When he delivers “Some Enchanted Evening” or “This Nearly Was Mine,” it’s not as a swoon-making blockbuster (though of course it is), but as a measured and honest consideration of love.
This reflective aspect infuses every number; nothing is performed as a clap-for-me showstopper. Mr. Sher and Christopher Gattelli, who did the musical staging, have reinvigorated the concept of the organic musical, in which song feels as natural as breathing.
Even crowd-rousers like “Nothin’ Like a Dame,” sung by the chorus of Seabees (led by Danny Burstein, exuberant and infectious as the wily Luther Billis), are made to feel ordinary, as if part of a daily routine. When the entrepreneurial islander Bloody Mary (the Hawaiian actress Loretta Ables Sayre in a terrific New York debut), sings the familiar “Bali Ha’i” and “Happy Talk,” they feel new because they’re rendered as systematic acts of seduction.
You’re always conscious of the calculation in Bloody Mary’s eyes as she tries to secure Lieutenant Cable (Matthew Morrison) as a husband for her daughter, Liat (Li Jun Li, heartbreakingly fragile). Like Ms. O’Hara, Mr. Morrison (who played opposite her in “Piazza”) keeps us aware of just where his Ivy League marine comes from and how disoriented he is in a land of new and shifting rules.
The alluring and divisive shadows and light of the islands are beautifully accented by Mr. Yeargan’s adroit use of slatted screens to define interior spaces that can never entirely shut out the bright world beyond. (The impeccable lighting is by Donald Holder.)
I know we’re not supposed to expect perfection in this imperfect world, but I’m darned if I can find one serious flaw in this production. (Yes, the second act remains weaker than the first, but Mr. Sher almost makes you forget that.) All of the supporting performances, including those of the ensemble, feel precisely individualized, right down to how they wear Catherine Zuber’s carefully researched period costumes.
Notice, by the way, how Mr. Sher implicitly underscores the theme of racism by quietly having the few African-American sailors in the company keep apart from the others. And the production never strains to evoke parallels between the then and now of the United States at war in an alien land.
Above all, though, what impresses about this “South Pacific” is how deeply, fallibly and poignantly human every character seems. Nearly 60 years ago Brooks Atkinson, writing in The New York Times, described the show as “a tenderly beautiful idyll of genuine people inexplicably tossed together in a strange corner of the world.”
I think a lot of us had forgotten that’s what “South Pacific” is really about. In making the past feel unconditionally present, this production restores a glorious gallery of genuine people who were only waiting to be resurrected.
RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN’S SOUTH PACIFIC
Music by Richard Rodgers; lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II; book by Mr. Hammerstein and Joshua Logan, adapted from “Tales of the South Pacific” by James A. Michener; directed by Bartlett Sher; musical staging by Christopher Gattelli; music director, Ted Sperling; sets by Michael Yeargan; costumes by Catherine Zuber; lighting by Donald Holder; sound by Scott Lehrer; orchestrations by Robert Russell Bennett; dance and incidental music arrangements by Trude Rittmann; production stage manager, Michael Brunner; associate producer, Ira Weitzman; general manager, Adam Siegel; production manager, Jeff Hamlin. Presented by Lincoln Center Theater under the direction of André Bishop and Bernard Gersten in association with Bob Boyett. At the Vivian Beaumont Theater, Lincoln Center; (212) 239-6200. Through June 22. Running time: 2 hours 50 minutes.
WITH: Kelli O’Hara (Ensign Nellie Forbush), Paulo Szot (Emile de Becque), Matthew Morrison (Lt. Joseph Cable), Danny Burstein (Luther Billis), Loretta Ables Sayre (Bloody Mary), Sean Cullen (Cmdr. William Harbison), Victor Hawks (Stewpot), Luka Kain (Jerome), Li Jun Li (Liat), Laurissa Romain (Ngana), Skipp Sudduth (Capt. George Brackett) and Noah Weisberg (Professor).
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