Helena Bonham Carter - World-of-Newave.info http://answers.world-of-newave.info/helena-bonham-carter.htm Latest news and articles about Helena Bonham Carter en-us Copyright (c)2004-2008.§/Newave SARL. All rights reserved. webmaster@world-of-newave.com (Webmaster) Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:37:16 GMT Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:37:16 GMT Newave Lisa XML Engine v1.0 - http://www.world-of-newave.info/about.htm 60 http://www.world-of-newave.info/images/wi8831.gif World-of-Newave.info - Knowledge and Informational Database http://www.world-of-newave.info/ 88 31 {LITERATURE > CYBERPUNK} - Tales of the Unexpected http://articles.world-of-newave.info/arts/literature/genres/cyberpunk/tales-of-the-unexpected-20081167210.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/arts/literature/genres/cyberpunk/tales-of-the-unexpected-20081167210.htm Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:19:44 GMT From UK Vogue, "Tales of the Unexpected," starring Tim Burton, Helena Bonham Carter, assorted models, and various others in a strange, surreal reenactment of some of Roald Dahl's greatest hits, James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory among them. Shot by Tim Walker, the set includes eyeball play, interspecial love, and a crazy lift. (Via NOTCOT.)... Boingboing.Net Tales of the Unexpected {new window}   Www.Boingboing.Net - From UK Vogue, "Tales of the Unexpected," starring Tim Burton, Helena Bonham Carter, assorted models, and various others in a strange, surreal reenactment of some of Roald Dahl's greatest hits, James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory among them. Shot by Tim Walker, the set includes eyeball play, interspecial love, and a crazy lift. (Via NOTCOT.)...
Tales of the Unexpected - Boing Boing {...}
Published: November 9, 2008, 7:19 pm - Indexed: November 11, 2008, 11:36 am - Page Size: 55KB
Category: Arts > Literature > Genres > Cyberpunk

]]> Arts > Literature > Genres > Cyberpunk {EUROPE > NEWS AND MEDIA} - My years with Roald. Felicity Dahl talks to Elizabeth Day http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/europe/united-kingdom/news-and-media/my-years-with-roald-felicity-dahl-talks-to-elizabeth-2008114129.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/europe/united-kingdom/news-and-media/my-years-with-roald-felicity-dahl-talks-to-elizabeth-2008114129.htm Sun, 09 Nov 2008 00:04:57 GMT Roald Dahl's writing hut is just as he left it. Tucked away at the end of the garden, it looks like a dilapidated shed, its paint peeling and faded, its tiny windows dusty with disuse. Inside, the mossy green wing-back armchair in which he wrote nearly all his books takes up most of the space. A drawing by Dahl's son Theo is pinned to the wall, the corners brown and furled. A low table is dotted with objects - a brass ornament in the shape of a Spitfire, a metallic ball made from crushed sweet wrappers. There is a mug filled with sharpened pencils and a yellow, lined pad of A4.The shed is freezing cold. An electric heater, perilously rigged up to the ceiling with string, has not been turned on since Dahl's death 18 years ago from leukaemia. But there is a different sort of chilliness here too. Everything is in place, exactly as it should be, except the person who made it so.Felicity, Dahl's widow, does not like to come in here. She refuses to have her photograph taken inside and finds it difficult to spend time surrounded by her late husband's possessions. When I ask her what life is like without him, she answers with a brutal matter-of-factness: 'It's hell.' Her voice wobbles and she starts to cry. 'Anyway...' she says, flapping her hands in front of her face. The tears disappear. A small, embarrassed smile takes their place. 'As he says in Danny [Dahl's 1975 book Danny, the Champion of the World], you have to be a sparky parent. Well, he was a sparky man. To everyone.'People feel they know Roald Dahl. Most of us have read his books and had our childhoods shaped by his fantastical mind and macabre sense of humour. Dahl's vision was one of boundless possibility and unfettered imagination; a world where witches had no toes, where giant peaches could float like zeppelins and where friendly giants subsisted on a revolting diet of snozzcumbers.Sixty-five years after the publication of his first story, The Gremlins, Dahl's books continue to sell at a rate of one million a year. An updated version of his childhood autobiography, Boy, has just been published and several of his other books have been made into films, including Matilda, The Witches and James and the Giant Peach. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prompted two movie adaptations, the most recent directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. Wes Anderson is currently filming an animated Fantastic Mr Fox.Children still pitch up unexpectedly at his Buckinghamshire home, Gipsy House in Great Missenden, where Felicity, 69, lives. 'It's just awful because they look over the gate and say, "Roald Dahl lives here doesn't he?" And I say, "Well he did." "Oh, has he moved?" And I have to say, "No, he died" and it shatters them.'It is not just children who are intrigued by the Dahl legacy. The December issue of British Vogue carries a series of eccentric photographs featuring Tim Burton and his wife Helena Bonham-Carter in locations and costumes inspired by Dahl. In September, a biography by American journalist Jennet Conant, The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring, caused a stir by suggesting that Dahl spent much of the Second World War as an RAF attache in the States, sleeping with wealthy beauties in order to pass on titbits of intelligence gleaned from pillow talk. Dahl's meticulously filed reports had never been published and their intimate revelations raised eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic.'Yes, my God!' says Felicity, shrieking with pleasure when I mention the book. 'The sexiest seducer in Washington! But of course it was true. He was wildly attractive and handsome, in his RAF uniform, speaking English, a fighter pilot - completely seductive. And he was charming and intelligent. A lot of women fell for him.'Felicity, known to her friends and family as Liccy (pronounced Lissy), rarely gives interviews. The requests come in a steady stream, but remembering is an emotive business and she is extremely busy running the Roald Dahl Foundation, a grant-giving charity that aims to help children in the areas of literacy, neurology and haematology. The foundation is about to launch a series of free concerts at Kings Place in London, featuring orchestral versions of Dahl's stories.Today, however, she has agreed to speak in order to publicise the inaugural Roald Dahl Funny Prize, to be awarded on Thursday to this year's most humorous children's book. The prize, organised by the charity Booktrust, is being judged by a panel that includes Michael Rosen, the Children's Laureate, and Dahl's granddaughter, model Sophie Dahl.'People often ask me, "Did he tell lots of jokes?"' says Felicity. 'No. It is in his writing, in his descriptions of things. It was a hidden, subversive humour, not a comedian telling jokes.'Children were his friends, that's what kept him going. The fact that they loved his stories and would then go on to read Biggles and everything else - that, to him, was a miracle. He said, "I feel a bit like a pop star."'She says he would have been horrified by the erosion of children's imaginations by computer games. 'I think [computer] games are absolutely appalling. A child is never left on their own with nothing, so that they have to create their world. The Game Boys and that ghastly stuff have come in and they are absolutely like this...' She does an impression of a goggle-eyed teen staring at a hand-held screen. 'Roald would have had a fit at that.'We meet in Gipsy House, an oversized cottage with low ceilings and yellow- and rose-painted rooms. There are photographs of Dahl everywhere and framed illustrations by Quentin Blake hang on the walls. When Tim Burton came to research Charlie and the Chocolate Factory he burst into tears on the lawn. 'People have strong reactions to this house,' Felicity says.Part of the reason for Dahl's enduring popularity, says his widow, is that he never spoke down to children: 'They were equals.' This, she thinks, was because he never lost his own sense of childish wonderment. He was 67 when Felicity married him (there was a 21-year age gap and she was his second wife, after his first marriage to American actress Patricia Neal), but she says he remained filled with imaginative exuberance. He would produce pink milk for breakfast or make jelly with hundreds and thousands suspended in the gelatine.'He would make the most mundane thing seem fantastic because he would reinterpret it.' On a trip to Zurich to meet Dahl's European literary agent, they caught a funicular railway and noticed that each time the train stopped at a certain platform, the driver would get out, put his hand up into a ceiling beam and pull out a part-smoked cigar. 'He lit it, had two puffs, put it back and got back into the train to drive down again,' says Felicity. 'All day he did this - up and down. When we got back to the city, Roald bought the most expensive Monte Cristo cigar. We went back up the funicular. At the platform, he took the old stubby cigar out and put the new one up in the beam. Then we went back to the hotel. He didn't wait to see the driver's reaction. That's the sort of guy he was. He was always looking to help people and just make their day a little more interesting, because most people's days were very dull.'But he could be cantankerous. His granddaughter Sophie once described him as 'a very difficult man - very strong, very dominant... sort of roaring round the house with these very loud opinions'. Does Felicity recognise this portrayal? 'Um...' she lapses into silence for several seconds. 'I don't remember him roaring round, I must say. But, yes, if one of the children was doing something bad, he would roar at them, but with good reason. Also, there were moments he was so ill, and what people forgot was that he was in constant pain from his back injury from the war, and when you're in constant pain you can get ratty. I would describe it as ratty rather than roaring.'He used to get grumpy when he was finishing a book and I remember saying, "But you should be so pleased you're reaching the end!" And he used to say, "You don't understand - it's the fear of never writing another one."'Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff, South Wales, to Norwegian parents. His childhood was punctuated by tragedy. When he was four, his older sister died of appendicitis. His father Harald never got over his daughter's death and died a month later of pneumonia. Roald was sent to boarding school at Repton, an experience he remembered in Boy as 'days of horrors'. After school, he joined Shell and was posted to East Africa. At the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the RAF. His first mission took him into the heart of enemy territory and he was forced to crash land in the Libyan desert, an episode that left him with a fractured skull and the chronic back injury that plagued him for the rest of his life. He was eventually sent home as an invalid but transferred to Washington as an air attache in 1942.He married Patricia Neal in 1953 and had five children - Tessa, Theo, Ophelia, Lucy and Olivia, who died of measles encephalitis aged seven. Her death was 'catastrophic' says Felicity. 'It was like his father - sort of repeat history.' There were other challenges too. Theo was left brain damaged when, at four months, his pram was hit by a New York cab. Then, in 1965, Neal suffered three burst cerebral aneurysms while pregnant with Lucy. She was left paralysed and unable to speak. Dahl nursed her back to health. Throughout it all, he carried on writing, producing a formidable body of work comprising 16 children's books, two volumes of autobiography and several short story collections, including Tales of the UnexpectedBy the 1970s, Neal was able to walk and talk again, but the marriage was in trouble. While Neal was filming a Maxim coffee commercial, the Dahls were introduced to set designer Felicity Crosland, a divorcee with three young daughters. Soon afterwards, Felicity and Roald began an 11-year affair. When Neal found out, she was devastated, particularly as her own children had known about their father's relationship and tacitly condoned it. Ophelia Dahl, who was 14 when her parents divorced in 1983, said in later years that 'all of us realised that he had found the love of his life with Liccy and there's always a sense of relief when that happens'.But the immediate fall-out was, says Felicity, 'dreadful because we never thought we could get married, we thought we'd keep it secret. No divorce in the world is happy and I think a husband falling for a younger woman must be the worst of all'.Did she feel guilty? 'Yes and no. It was a particularly difficult situation because Pat had a stroke and was not well. I don't know how he managed to bring up these children, run a house, do the school runs and write this major volume of work. He was so worn out, so needing to be looked after which of course Pat couldn't do. So there was terrible pain about that. 'It's a very difficult thing. It's tough on everybody.'Although the tensions of the past have dissipated, it proved especially tough on Felicity: in 1990, her 27-year-old daughter Lorina died of a brain tumour. A few months later, she lost her husband too.'When Lorina got ill, he was, he was...' She trails off. 'Shock does terrible things to you, physically and chemically. Like Roald's mother, I lost a daughter and a husband within months of each other.'Now, however, the extended family rubs along happily. The children and grandchildren split their time between Felicity in Great Missenden and Neal in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. 'We're absolutely all very close, including Pat. 'Looking back on the seven happily married years she spent with Dahl, it was, Felicity feels, worth the emotional cost: 'I don't think anybody who met him wasn't taken aback by his whole presence. He was a spectacularly handsome figure; friendly, you know, very welcoming.'Even at the end, Dahl was still trying to make people's days a little less dull. Felicity recalls that as he lay dying at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, he noticed that the nurses were being forced to wear their own clothes as an experiment to see whether patients responded better to them. 'He said, "What a ridiculous idea. How can you possibly afford to use your own clothes on the wages you get?"'Felicity was sent to Marks & Spencer to buy cardigans, jumpers and trousers. 'I came out with bulging bags. He laid them all out and when the nurses came in he said, "Now choose whatever colour you want." That was a man who was dying, he was so ill and yet he still wanted to spread a funny idea to make them laugh and yet to give them a present, give them a treat. Treats were his big thing.'When we walk outside to Dahl's writing hut, Felicity takes me down a garden path. She stops as the path dips downwards and points to a shiny chunk of bright green jade cut into the stone. She tells me a child from Australia sent him the jade after hearing Dahl on the radio. 'One evening, we were doing our usual tour round the garden and he said, "Do you notice anything different?" I looked up and he said, "Why do you always look up?" So I looked down and there he'd made this little hole in the path and put the piece of jade in with its green side up.' She sighs. 'You know, those are the things in life that matter.'It is a tale that encapsulates much of what makes Dahl's legacy so lasting: his ability to see things from a child's perspective and to transform the ordinary into something unexpectedly enchanting. It was about remembering to look down when all the other adults were looking up.The winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize will be announced on Thursday. For more information, go to: booktrust.org.uk or roalddahlfoundation.orgInspired by Dahl: Fan's recollectionsQuentin Blake Has illustrated all of Dahl's books'We first worked together on The Enormous Crocodile. Our collaboration was like a double act in the music hall. Sometimes you're the straight man and sometimes you're the funny man. Occasionally there were things which were very good to draw and I could actually expand the situation. But there were other bits where the writing was so funny that you just wanted to hold back.'Michael Rosen Current Children's Laureate'In every one of the books, he's on the side of the child. He's thinking all the time about children's desires but he also creates characters that allow children to experience their conflicted feelings about adults. So in The Witches [the 1990 film version of which starred Anjelica Huston, above] the grandmother is the character the boy can bestow all his love on while the witches are the ones he can be angry about. I once met Roald Dahl with my oldest son, and he beckoned Joe over and said: 'What's that growing on your father's face. It's a great disgusting growth and it's probably got yesterday's breakfast in it,' and he went off on a great Twitsian monologue.' Marina WarnerWriter and academic'I still remember some of the plot twists in his adult fiction for their amazing ingenuity. The BFG is my favourite of his children's books. It takes a lot of the horrendous scenes about child-eating and breathes humour into them.' Alan YentobBBC creative director'Whether you are a child or a parent, there are very few writers who make you laugh out loud as consistently as Roald Dahl. There was much of the child in him and in the rather Proustian relish he had for experiences such as eating chocolate.'Dara O'BriainComedian and TV presenter'I got Charlie and The Chocolate Factory [Gene Wilder played Willy Wonka in the film version, above] for my ninth or 10th birthday. I loved details like the prince who made his whole palace out of chocolate, and the Oompa Loompa song was four pages long! And Dahl never let the moral get in the way of the macabre.'Roald Dahlguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds Guardian.Co.Uk My years with Roald. Felicity Dahl talks to Elizabeth Day {new window}   Www.Guardian.Co.Uk - Roald Dahl's writing hut is just as he left it. Tucked away at the end of the garden, it looks like a dilapidated shed, its paint peeling and faded, its tiny windows dusty with disuse. Inside, the mossy green wing-back armchair in which he wrote nearly all his books takes up most of the space. A drawing by Dahl's son Theo is pinned to the wall, the corners brown and furled. A low table is dotted with objects - a brass ornament in the shape of a Spitfire, a metallic ball made from crushed sweet wrappers. There is a mug filled with sharpened pencils and a yellow, lined pad of A4.The shed is freezing cold. An electric heater, perilously rigged up to the ceiling with string, has not been turned on since Dahl's death 18 years ago from leukaemia. But there is a different sort of chilliness here too. Everything is in place, exactly as it should be, except the person who made it so.Felicity, Dahl's widow, does not like to come in here. She refuses to have her photograph taken inside and finds it difficult to spend time surrounded by her late husband's possessions. When I ask her what life is like without him, she answers with a brutal matter-of-factness: 'It's hell.' Her voice wobbles and she starts to cry. 'Anyway...' she says, flapping her hands in front of her face. The tears disappear. A small, embarrassed smile takes their place. 'As he says in Danny [Dahl's 1975 book Danny, the Champion of the World], you have to be a sparky parent. Well, he was a sparky man. To everyone.'People feel they know Roald Dahl. Most of us have read his books and had our childhoods shaped by his fantastical mind and macabre sense of humour. Dahl's vision was one of boundless possibility and unfettered imagination; a world where witches had no toes, where giant peaches could float like zeppelins and where friendly giants subsisted on a revolting diet of snozzcumbers.Sixty-five years after the publication of his first story, The Gremlins, Dahl's books continue to sell at a rate of one million a year. An updated version of his childhood autobiography, Boy, has just been published and several of his other books have been made into films, including Matilda, The Witches and James and the Giant Peach. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prompted two movie adaptations, the most recent directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka. Wes Anderson is currently filming an animated Fantastic Mr Fox.Children still pitch up unexpectedly at his Buckinghamshire home, Gipsy House in Great Missenden, where Felicity, 69, lives. 'It's just awful because they look over the gate and say, "Roald Dahl lives here doesn't he?" And I say, "Well he did." "Oh, has he moved?" And I have to say, "No, he died" and it shatters them.'It is not just children who are intrigued by the Dahl legacy. The December issue of British Vogue carries a series of eccentric photographs featuring Tim Burton and his wife Helena Bonham-Carter in locations and costumes inspired by Dahl. In September, a biography by American journalist Jennet Conant, The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring, caused a stir by suggesting that Dahl spent much of the Second World War as an RAF attache in the States, sleeping with wealthy beauties in order to pass on titbits of intelligence gleaned from pillow talk. Dahl's meticulously filed reports had never been published and their intimate revelations raised eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic.'Yes, my God!' says Felicity, shrieking with pleasure when I mention the book. 'The sexiest seducer in Washington! But of course it was true. He was wildly attractive and handsome, in his RAF uniform, speaking English, a fighter pilot - completely seductive. And he was charming and intelligent. A lot of women fell for him.'Felicity, known to her friends and family as Liccy (pronounced Lissy), rarely gives interviews. The requests come in a steady stream, but remembering is an emotive business and she is extremely busy running the Roald Dahl Foundation, a grant-giving charity that aims to help children in the areas of literacy, neurology and haematology. The foundation is about to launch a series of free concerts at Kings Place in London, featuring orchestral versions of Dahl's stories.Today, however, she has agreed to speak in order to publicise the inaugural Roald Dahl Funny Prize, to be awarded on Thursday to this year's most humorous children's book. The prize, organised by the charity Booktrust, is being judged by a panel that includes Michael Rosen, the Children's Laureate, and Dahl's granddaughter, model Sophie Dahl.'People often ask me, "Did he tell lots of jokes?"' says Felicity. 'No. It is in his writing, in his descriptions of things. It was a hidden, subversive humour, not a comedian telling jokes.'Children were his friends, that's what kept him going. The fact that they loved his stories and would then go on to read Biggles and everything else - that, to him, was a miracle. He said, "I feel a bit like a pop star."'She says he would have been horrified by the erosion of children's imaginations by computer games. 'I think [computer] games are absolutely appalling. A child is never left on their own with nothing, so that they have to create their world. The Game Boys and that ghastly stuff have come in and they are absolutely like this...' She does an impression of a goggle-eyed teen staring at a hand-held screen. 'Roald would have had a fit at that.'We meet in Gipsy House, an oversized cottage with low ceilings and yellow- and rose-painted rooms. There are photographs of Dahl everywhere and framed illustrations by Quentin Blake hang on the walls. When Tim Burton came to research Charlie and the Chocolate Factory he burst into tears on the lawn. 'People have strong reactions to this house,' Felicity says.Part of the reason for Dahl's enduring popularity, says his widow, is that he never spoke down to children: 'They were equals.' This, she thinks, was because he never lost his own sense of childish wonderment. He was 67 when Felicity married him (there was a 21-year age gap and she was his second wife, after his first marriage to American actress Patricia Neal), but she says he remained filled with imaginative exuberance. He would produce pink milk for breakfast or make jelly with hundreds and thousands suspended in the gelatine.'He would make the most mundane thing seem fantastic because he would reinterpret it.' On a trip to Zurich to meet Dahl's European literary agent, they caught a funicular railway and noticed that each time the train stopped at a certain platform, the driver would get out, put his hand up into a ceiling beam and pull out a part-smoked cigar. 'He lit it, had two puffs, put it back and got back into the train to drive down again,' says Felicity. 'All day he did this - up and down. When we got back to the city, Roald bought the most expensive Monte Cristo cigar. We went back up the funicular. At the platform, he took the old stubby cigar out and put the new one up in the beam. Then we went back to the hotel. He didn't wait to see the driver's reaction. That's the sort of guy he was. He was always looking to help people and just make their day a little more interesting, because most people's days were very dull.'But he could be cantankerous. His granddaughter Sophie once described him as 'a very difficult man - very strong, very dominant... sort of roaring round the house with these very loud opinions'. Does Felicity recognise this portrayal? 'Um...' she lapses into silence for several seconds. 'I don't remember him roaring round, I must say. But, yes, if one of the children was doing something bad, he would roar at them, but with good reason. Also, there were moments he was so ill, and what people forgot was that he was in constant pain from his back injury from the war, and when you're in constant pain you can get ratty. I would describe it as ratty rather than roaring.'He used to get grumpy when he was finishing a book and I remember saying, "But you should be so pleased you're reaching the end!" And he used to say, "You don't understand - it's the fear of never writing another one."'Roald Dahl was born in Llandaff, South Wales, to Norwegian parents. His childhood was punctuated by tragedy. When he was four, his older sister died of appendicitis. His father Harald never got over his daughter's death and died a month later of pneumonia. Roald was sent to boarding school at Repton, an experience he remembered in Boy as 'days of horrors'. After school, he joined Shell and was posted to East Africa. At the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the RAF. His first mission took him into the heart of enemy territory and he was forced to crash land in the Libyan desert, an episode that left him with a fractured skull and the chronic back injury that plagued him for the rest of his life. He was eventually sent home as an invalid but transferred to Washington as an air attache in 1942.He married Patricia Neal in 1953 and had five children - Tessa, Theo, Ophelia, Lucy and Olivia, who died of measles encephalitis aged seven. Her death was 'catastrophic' says Felicity. 'It was like his father - sort of repeat history.' There were other challenges too. Theo was left brain damaged when, at four months, his pram was hit by a New York cab. Then, in 1965, Neal suffered three burst cerebral aneurysms while pregnant with Lucy. She was left paralysed and unable to speak. Dahl nursed her back to health. Throughout it all, he carried on writing, producing a formidable body of work comprising 16 children's books, two volumes of autobiography and several short story collections, including Tales of the UnexpectedBy the 1970s, Neal was able to walk and talk again, but the marriage was in trouble. While Neal was filming a Maxim coffee commercial, the Dahls were introduced to set designer Felicity Crosland, a divorcee with three young daughters. Soon afterwards, Felicity and Roald began an 11-year affair. When Neal found out, she was devastated, particularly as her own children had known about their father's relationship and tacitly condoned it. Ophelia Dahl, who was 14 when her parents divorced in 1983, said in later years that 'all of us realised that he had found the love of his life with Liccy and there's always a sense of relief when that happens'.But the immediate fall-out was, says Felicity, 'dreadful because we never thought we could get married, we thought we'd keep it secret. No divorce in the world is happy and I think a husband falling for a younger woman must be the worst of all'.Did she feel guilty? 'Yes and no. It was a particularly difficult situation because Pat had a stroke and was not well. I don't know how he managed to bring up these children, run a house, do the school runs and write this major volume of work. He was so worn out, so needing to be looked after which of course Pat couldn't do. So there was terrible pain about that. 'It's a very difficult thing. It's tough on everybody.'Although the tensions of the past have dissipated, it proved especially tough on Felicity: in 1990, her 27-year-old daughter Lorina died of a brain tumour. A few months later, she lost her husband too.'When Lorina got ill, he was, he was...' She trails off. 'Shock does terrible things to you, physically and chemically. Like Roald's mother, I lost a daughter and a husband within months of each other.'Now, however, the extended family rubs along happily. The children and grandchildren split their time between Felicity in Great Missenden and Neal in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. 'We're absolutely all very close, including Pat. 'Looking back on the seven happily married years she spent with Dahl, it was, Felicity feels, worth the emotional cost: 'I don't think anybody who met him wasn't taken aback by his whole presence. He was a spectacularly handsome figure; friendly, you know, very welcoming.'Even at the end, Dahl was still trying to make people's days a little less dull. Felicity recalls that as he lay dying at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, he noticed that the nurses were being forced to wear their own clothes as an experiment to see whether patients responded better to them. 'He said, "What a ridiculous idea. How can you possibly afford to use your own clothes on the wages you get?"'Felicity was sent to Marks & Spencer to buy cardigans, jumpers and trousers. 'I came out with bulging bags. He laid them all out and when the nurses came in he said, "Now choose whatever colour you want." That was a man who was dying, he was so ill and yet he still wanted to spread a funny idea to make them laugh and yet to give them a present, give them a treat. Treats were his big thing.'When we walk outside to Dahl's writing hut, Felicity takes me down a garden path. She stops as the path dips downwards and points to a shiny chunk of bright green jade cut into the stone. She tells me a child from Australia sent him the jade after hearing Dahl on the radio. 'One evening, we were doing our usual tour round the garden and he said, "Do you notice anything different?" I looked up and he said, "Why do you always look up?" So I looked down and there he'd made this little hole in the path and put the piece of jade in with its green side up.' She sighs. 'You know, those are the things in life that matter.'It is a tale that encapsulates much of what makes Dahl's legacy so lasting: his ability to see things from a child's perspective and to transform the ordinary into something unexpectedly enchanting. It was about remembering to look down when all the other adults were looking up.The winner of the Roald Dahl Funny Prize will be announced on Thursday. For more information, go to: booktrust.org.uk or roalddahlfoundation.orgInspired by Dahl: Fan's recollectionsQuentin Blake Has illustrated all of Dahl's books'We first worked together on The Enormous Crocodile. Our collaboration was like a double act in the music hall. Sometimes you're the straight man and sometimes you're the funny man. Occasionally there were things which were very good to draw and I could actually expand the situation. But there were other bits where the writing was so funny that you just wanted to hold back.'Michael Rosen Current Children's Laureate'In every one of the books, he's on the side of the child. He's thinking all the time about children's desires but he also creates characters that allow children to experience their conflicted feelings about adults. So in The Witches [the 1990 film version of which starred Anjelica Huston, above] the grandmother is the character the boy can bestow all his love on while the witches are the ones he can be angry about. I once met Roald Dahl with my oldest son, and he beckoned Joe over and said: 'What's that growing on your father's face. It's a great disgusting growth and it's probably got yesterday's breakfast in it,' and he went off on a great Twitsian monologue.' Marina WarnerWriter and academic'I still remember some of the plot twists in his adult fiction for their amazing ingenuity. The BFG is my favourite of his children's books. It takes a lot of the horrendous scenes about child-eating and breathes humour into them.' Alan YentobBBC creative director'Whether you are a child or a parent, there are very few writers who make you laugh out loud as consistently as Roald Dahl. There was much of the child in him and in the rather Proustian relish he had for experiences such as eating chocolate.'Dara O'BriainComedian and TV presenter'I got Charlie and The Chocolate Factory [Gene Wilder played Willy Wonka in the film version, above] for my ninth or 10th birthday. I loved details like the prince who made his whole palace out of chocolate, and the Oompa Loompa song was four pages long! And Dahl never let the moral get in the way of the macabre.'Roald Dahlguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
My years with Roald. Felicity Dahl talks to Elizabeth Day | Books | The Observer {...} Felicity Dahl recalls her late husband Roald's seductive charms, his impish generosity - and his habit of having pink milk for breakfast {...}
Published: November 9, 2008, 12:04 am - Indexed: November 9, 2008, 10:07 am - Page Size: 88KB
Category: Regional > Europe > United Kingdom > News and Media

]]> Regional > Europe > United Kingdom > News and Media {NORTH AMERICA > RENTALS} - THE 2 BEDROOM CARTER FLAT LOCATED IN THE MARINA**AMSI** (marina / cow hollow) $4015 2bd http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/business-and-economy/real-estate/rentals/the-2-bedroom-carter-flat-located-in-the-marina-amsi-20081030842.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/business-and-economy/real-estate/rentals/the-2-bedroom-carter-flat-located-in-the-marina-amsi-20081030842.htm Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:36:36 GMT Location: Lombard & Scott, San Francisco The property features: - Two bedroom - One bathroom - Parking: Off Site - Fully equipped kitchen - Fireplace - Jacuzzi - Yard Household Appliances - Stove + Oven - Microwave - Vacuum - Washer/dryer in unit - Iron/Ironingboard - Cable / Digital cable service - Stereo/CD/DVD/VCR - TV/Fast Internet service Conveniently located in the Marina, The Carriage House will provide the privacy and elegance any visitor desires. Traditional English decor throughout, this 2 bedroom Royal Suite has a fully equipped kitchen, Jacuzzi tub, living room, laundry room, and a yard with a beautiful peaceful garden. Close proximity to Chestnut, and Union Streets. The Yacht harbor along with several shops and wonderful restaurants just steps away. High Speed Internet and maid service twice a week included. Parking often available nearby for a small fee. To see our other fabulous furnished properties: - check on our website: http:\\www.amsires.com - click here for all furnished listings from AMSI! If you need more information, please send us an email: stars@amsiemail.com or visit our office, we are located at 2800 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94109 from Monday through Friday between 9am to 5pm. American Marketing Systems, Inc. is a licensed Real Estate Brokerage by the California Department of Real Estate. License # 01254853 exp.3/14/09 Sfbay.Craigslist.Org THE 2 BEDROOM CARTER FLAT LOCATED IN THE MARINA**AMSI** (marina / cow hollow) $4015 2bd {new window}   Sfbay.Craigslist.Org - Location: Lombard & Scott, San Francisco The property features: - Two bedroom - One bathroom - Parking: Off Site - Fully equipped kitchen - Fireplace - Jacuzzi - Yard Household Appliances - Stove + Oven - Microwave - Vacuum - Washer/dryer in unit - Iron/Ironingboard - Cable / Digital cable service - Stereo/CD/DVD/VCR - TV/Fast Internet service Conveniently located in the Marina, The Carriage House will provide the privacy and elegance any visitor desires. Traditional English decor throughout, this 2 bedroom Royal Suite has a fully equipped kitchen, Jacuzzi tub, living room, laundry room, and a yard with a beautiful peaceful garden. Close proximity to Chestnut, and Union Streets. The Yacht harbor along with several shops and wonderful restaurants just steps away. High Speed Internet and maid service twice a week included. Parking often available nearby for a small fee. To see our other fabulous furnished properties: - check on our website: http:\\www.amsires.com - click here for all furnished listings from AMSI! If you need more information, please send us an email: stars@amsiemail.com or visit our office, we are located at 2800 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94109 from Monday through Friday between 9am to 5pm. American Marketing Systems, Inc. is a licensed Real Estate Brokerage by the California Department of Real Estate. License # 01254853 exp.3/14/09
THE 2 BEDROOM CARTER FLAT LOCATED IN THE MARINA**AMSI** {...}
Published: October 31, 2008, 10:36 pm - Indexed: November 1, 2008, 9:53 am - Page Size: 8KB
Category: Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Business and Economy > Real Estate > Rentals

]]> Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Business and Economy > Real Estate > Rentals {SOCIAL SCIENCES > URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING} - America's 'Worst Slum' Revitalized http://articles.world-of-newave.info/science/social-sciences/urban-and-regional-planning/america-s-worst-slum-revitalized-20081072028.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/science/social-sciences/urban-and-regional-planning/america-s-worst-slum-revitalized-20081072028.htm Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:00:00 GMT Thirty-one years ago, Jimmy Carter called Crotona Park East the worst slum in America. Today, this Bronx neighborhood has overcome its past with new homes and a lively park. read more Planetizen.Com America's 'Worst Slum' Revitalized {new window}   Www.Planetizen.Com - Thirty-one years ago, Jimmy Carter called Crotona Park East the worst slum in America. Today, this Bronx neighborhood has overcome its past with new homes and a lively park. read more
America's 'Worst Slum' Revitalized | Planetizen {...}
Published: October 28, 2008, 4:00 pm - Indexed: October 29, 2008, 10:45 am - Page Size: 17KB
Category: Science > Social Sciences > Urban and Regional Planning

]]> Science > Social Sciences > Urban and Regional Planning {NORTH AMERICA > RENTALS} - REMODELED 1 BD CONDO, FULLY FURNISHED, HEART OF NOB HILL**AMSI** (nob hill) $4075 1bd http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/business-and-economy/real-estate/rentals/remodeled-1-bd-condo-fully-furnished-heart-of-nob-20081099035.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/north-america/united-states/california/metro-areas/san-francisco-bay-area/business-and-economy/real-estate/rentals/remodeled-1-bd-condo-fully-furnished-heart-of-nob-20081099035.htm Fri, 24 Oct 2008 23:07:15 GMT Location: Pine St & Powell, San Francisco The property features: - One bedroom - One bathroom - Kitchen - Deck - Pets: No - Convenient public transportation options - Parking: secure garage parking (@ Carter Garage) Household Appliances - Microwave - Oven - Fast internet service - Washer/Dryer in unit - Dishwasher - Digital cable service - Cable TV/CD/VCR/Stereo FULLY FURNISHED and stylish 2nd floor 1bd 1ba condo situated in the heart of Nob Hill. Tucked away across from the Ritz Carlton, this condo is within walking distance to Grace Cathedral, the Masonic Auditorium, Huntington Park, and the Fairmont Hotel. Minutes away is the Powell Street Cable Car, the Financial District, Union Square, Chinatown, North Beach and many of the City's finest restaurants are close by. Recently remodeled this building was converted from a hotel to a condominium building. This unit is equipped with a kitchenette, private patio/deck and parking is available close by at an extra cost. Be the first to occupy this newly remodeled unit and renovated building. Available NOW! To see our other fabulous furnished properties: - check on our website: www.amsires.com - click here for all furnished listings from AMSI! If you need more information, please send us an email: stars@amsiemail.com or visit our office, we are located at 2800 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94109 from Monday through Friday between 9am to 5pm. American Marketing Systems, Inc. is a licensed Real Estate Brokerage by the California Department of Real Estate. License # 01254853 exp.3/14/09 Sfbay.Craigslist.Org REMODELED 1 BD CONDO, FULLY FURNISHED, HEART OF NOB HILL**AMSI** (nob hill) $4075 1bd {new window}   Sfbay.Craigslist.Org - Location: Pine St & Powell, San Francisco The property features: - One bedroom - One bathroom - Kitchen - Deck - Pets: No - Convenient public transportation options - Parking: secure garage parking (@ Carter Garage) Household Appliances - Microwave - Oven - Fast internet service - Washer/Dryer in unit - Dishwasher - Digital cable service - Cable TV/CD/VCR/Stereo FULLY FURNISHED and stylish 2nd floor 1bd 1ba condo situated in the heart of Nob Hill. Tucked away across from the Ritz Carlton, this condo is within walking distance to Grace Cathedral, the Masonic Auditorium, Huntington Park, and the Fairmont Hotel. Minutes away is the Powell Street Cable Car, the Financial District, Union Square, Chinatown, North Beach and many of the City's finest restaurants are close by. Recently remodeled this building was converted from a hotel to a condominium building. This unit is equipped with a kitchenette, private patio/deck and parking is available close by at an extra cost. Be the first to occupy this newly remodeled unit and renovated building. Available NOW! To see our other fabulous furnished properties: - check on our website: www.amsires.com - click here for all furnished listings from AMSI! If you need more information, please send us an email: stars@amsiemail.com or visit our office, we are located at 2800 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94109 from Monday through Friday between 9am to 5pm. American Marketing Systems, Inc. is a licensed Real Estate Brokerage by the California Department of Real Estate. License # 01254853 exp.3/14/09
REMODELED 1 BD CONDO, FULLY FURNISHED, HEART OF NOB HILL**AMSI** {...}
Published: October 24, 2008, 11:07 pm - Indexed: October 25, 2008, 10:00 am - Page Size: 9KB
Category: Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Business and Economy > Real Estate > Rentals

]]> Regional > North America > United States > California > Metro Areas > San Francisco Bay Area > Business and Economy > Real Estate > Rentals {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - IBD omitted part of Obama's statement undermining its accusation of "arrogance" http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/ibd-omitted-part-of-obama-s-statement-undermining-20081048026.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/ibd-omitted-part-of-obama-s-statement-undermining-20081048026.htm Fri, 24 Oct 2008 21:40:38 GMT On October 24, an Investor's Business Daily editorial stated that "[Sen. Barack] Obama has also been acting as if he's got the presidency in the bag," and then quoted Obama telling a crowd in Virginia: "I feel like we got a righteous wind at our backs here." IBD then suggested that "Ronald Reagan ma[de] a point of avoiding overconfidence at the end of the 1980 campaign when it was clear that he would beat Jimmy Carter" and that "Reagan would go after Obama for his arrogance." IBD wrote: "In his inimitable style, Reagan would no doubt warn Obama that that 'righteous wind' he feels could soon become a head wind, and blow all his hot air right back into his face." However, IBD cropped Obama's full statement to the crowd in Virginia, making it appear as though Obama was asserting victory. In fact, Obama said immediately afterward: "[B]ut we're going to have to work. We're going to have to struggle. We're going to have to fight for every single one of those 13 days to move this country in a new direction." Here is what Obama actually said during the October 22 campaign stop in Leesburg, Virginia (compiled from a Breitbart.tv video clip of the first part of Obama's remarks and an MSNBC video clip of the second part): OBAMA: And in 13 days, if you'll stand with me, then I know that we can win Virginia and we can win this election and we can finally bring the change we need to Washington. Now, that's the good news. I feel like we got a righteous wind at our backs here, but we're going to have to work. We're going to have to struggle. We're going to have to fight for every single one of those 13 days to move this country in a new direction. From the October 24 IBD editorial: Saying a whole bunch of nothing with a nice ring to it is not the only way Obama is copying "the little man on the wedding cake," as the ever-witty Alice Roosevelt Longworth referred to Dewey. Obama has also been acting as if he's got the presidency in the bag. "I feel like we got a righteous wind at our backs here," he told a northern Virginia crowd Wednesday. [...] In his book "With Reagan," Edwin Meese recalled Ronald Reagan making a point of avoiding overconfidence at the end of the 1980 campaign when it was clear that he would beat Jimmy Carter. Reagan knew, according to Meese, that "planning to govern before being elected would smack of smugness and have a negative effect on the electorate," and he "constantly worried about being a latter-day Thomas Dewey." Imagine how Reagan would go after Obama for his arrogance -- which extends to his misguided policies to tax the investment that drives the economy, mask tax credits as welfare, spend hundreds of billions more annually and use talk to win the global war on terror. In his inimitable style, Reagan would no doubt warn Obama that that "righteous wind" he feels could soon become a head wind, and blow all his hot air right back into his face. Mediamatters.Org IBD omitted part of Obama's statement undermining its accusation of "arrogance" {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - On October 24, an Investor's Business Daily editorial stated that "[Sen. Barack] Obama has also been acting as if he's got the presidency in the bag," and then quoted Obama telling a crowd in Virginia: "I feel like we got a righteous wind at our backs here." IBD then suggested that "Ronald Reagan ma[de] a point of avoiding overconfidence at the end of the 1980 campaign when it was clear that he would beat Jimmy Carter" and that "Reagan would go after Obama for his arrogance." IBD wrote: "In his inimitable style, Reagan would no doubt warn Obama that that 'righteous wind' he feels could soon become a head wind, and blow all his hot air right back into his face." However, IBD cropped Obama's full statement to the crowd in Virginia, making it appear as though Obama was asserting victory. In fact, Obama said immediately afterward: "[B]ut we're going to have to work. We're going to have to struggle. We're going to have to fight for every single one of those 13 days to move this country in a new direction." Here is what Obama actually said during the October 22 campaign stop in Leesburg, Virginia (compiled from a Breitbart.tv video clip of the first part of Obama's remarks and an MSNBC video clip of the second part): OBAMA: And in 13 days, if you'll stand with me, then I know that we can win Virginia and we can win this election and we can finally bring the change we need to Washington. Now, that's the good news. I feel like we got a righteous wind at our backs here, but we're going to have to work. We're going to have to struggle. We're going to have to fight for every single one of those 13 days to move this country in a new direction. From the October 24 IBD editorial: Saying a whole bunch of nothing with a nice ring to it is not the only way Obama is copying "the little man on the wedding cake," as the ever-witty Alice Roosevelt Longworth referred to Dewey. Obama has also been acting as if he's got the presidency in the bag. "I feel like we got a righteous wind at our backs here," he told a northern Virginia crowd Wednesday. [...] In his book "With Reagan," Edwin Meese recalled Ronald Reagan making a point of avoiding overconfidence at the end of the 1980 campaign when it was clear that he would beat Jimmy Carter. Reagan knew, according to Meese, that "planning to govern before being elected would smack of smugness and have a negative effect on the electorate," and he "constantly worried about being a latter-day Thomas Dewey." Imagine how Reagan would go after Obama for his arrogance -- which extends to his misguided policies to tax the investment that drives the economy, mask tax credits as welfare, spend hundreds of billions more annually and use talk to win the global war on terror. In his inimitable style, Reagan would no doubt warn Obama that that "righteous wind" he feels could soon become a head wind, and blow all his hot air right back into his face.
Media Matters - IBD omitted part of Obama's statement undermining its accusation of "arrogance" {...} Accusing Sen. Barack Obama of "arrogance," an Investor's Business Daily editorial stated that "Obama has also been acting as if he's got the presidency in the bag," and then quoted Obama telling a crowd in Virginia: "I feel like we got a righteous wind at our backs here." But IBD cropped Obama's full statement; Obama said immediately afterward: "[B]ut we're going to have to work. We're going to have to struggle. We're going to have to fight for every single one of those 13 days to move this country in a new direction." {...}
Published: October 24, 2008, 9:40 pm - Indexed: October 25, 2008, 11:26 am - Page Size: 15KB
Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance {NEWS > BREAKING NEWS} - Home Sweet Office: Telecommute Good for Business, Employees, and Planet http://articles.world-of-newave.info/news/breaking-news/home-sweet-office-telecommute-good-for-business-20081093321.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/news/breaking-news/home-sweet-office-telecommute-good-for-business-20081093321.htm Sat, 18 Oct 2008 05:00:00 GMT Ever since OPEC vexed Jimmy Carter into wearing a cardigan, telecommuting has been touted as a fix for what ails the US office worker — the agony and expense of commuting, the drudgery of cubicles, the shortage of family time. Long before the advent of the Web, evangelists were confident that cordless phones and faxes had already made the office a relic. "Working from home holds the promise of a new American dream," Paul and Sarah Edwards gushed in their 1985 manifesto, Working From Home, in which they extolled the virtues of commuting from breakfast nook to den. Two decades later, however, most workers still trudge to the office. Though a third of the more than 150 million working Americans telecommute at least occasionally, most do so just a few days each month. Only 40 percent of companies permit any sort of work-at-home arrangement, which means most insist on full-time attendance. According to a 2006 survey by the Telework Exchange, the top fear among resisters is that they'll lose control of their employees, whom they doubtlessly envision frittering away the hours between 9 and 5 playing Minesweeper and munching Cheetos. Telecommuting's foes couldn't be more misguided. When gasoline costs $4 a gallon, companies shouldn't just be doing all they can to expand telecommuting — they should be scrapping their offices entirely. No, not turning them into toy-filled communal spaces, as advertising titan Chiat/Day infamously did in the early-'90s, but abandoning them outright. That might sound a bit radical to those who swear by the office's supposed benefits, like camaraderie and face-to-face collaboration. But time and again, studies have shown that telecommuters are every bit as engaged as their cubicle-bound brethren — and happier and more productive to boot. Last year, researchers from Penn State analyzed 46 studies of telecommuting conducted over two decades and covering almost 13,000 employees. Their sweeping inquiry concluded that working from home has "favorable effects on perceived autonomy, work-family conflict, job satisfaction, performance, turnover intent, and stress." The only demonstrable drawback is a slight fraying of the relationships between telecommuters and their colleagues back at headquarters — largely because of jealousy on the part of the latter group. That's the first problem you solve when you kill your office. Earlier this year, an IDC report from Asia found that 81 percent of managers believe telecommuting improves productivity, up from 61 percent in 2005. The increase is attributable largely to the proliferation of unified communications technologies — tools that connect mobile and remote workers. These include products like LifeSize Express, the first hi-def videoconferencing system priced at less than $5,000, as well as Web-based services like Google Docs and Glance, which let users view a remote colleague's onscreen work in real time (in the case of Glance, with cursor movements and all). The traditional office, meanwhile, remains a black hole of interruptions, procrastination, and soul-crushing politics. According to Gloria Mark, an informatics professor at UC Irvine, the typical office worker is interrupted or switches tasks every three minutes — hardly enough time to accomplish anything of substance. True, there is value to getting folks together under one roof, but those gatherings needn't occur every day. Instead of leasing traditional offices — currently averaging around $21.25 per square foot annually, and a quarter of that is typically either vacant or underutilized — companies could join meeting-room cooperatives, which allow firms to assemble when necessary. Given that it costs more than $15,000 per year to provide an employee with 200 square feet of cubicle, the savings would be significant — so great, in fact, that companies would still come out thousands of dollars ahead after springing for workers' broadband and VoIP expenses. Ditching the office could also provide businesses with a leg up in the scramble to recruit and retain talent. For starters, location would no longer limit a company's employment pool — gifted Kansans wouldn't be forced to uproot their lives for opportunities in, say, California. Also, based on the average American's commute time, driving speed, and vehicle specs — and assuming that gas costs $4 per gallon — a telecommuter would save around $1,200 a year on fuel alone — an instant salary bump, of sorts. Perhaps you've been an office drone for so long that you can't imagine life without fuzzy, low-slung cubicle walls. Well, given that the typical American house is now over 2,500 square feet — up more than 60 percent since the early '70s — surely you can find room to build your own cube. Add some stale coffee and a buzzing fluorescent light and it will feel just like... well, you know where. Brendan I. Koerner (brendan_koerner@wired.com) is Wired's Mr. Know-It-All. Wired.Com Home Sweet Office: Telecommute Good for Business, Employees, and Planet {new window}   Www.Wired.Com - Ever since OPEC vexed Jimmy Carter into wearing a cardigan, telecommuting has been touted as a fix for what ails the US office worker — the agony and expense of commuting, the drudgery of cubicles, the shortage of family time. Long before the advent of the Web, evangelists were confident that cordless phones and faxes had already made the office a relic. "Working from home holds the promise of a new American dream," Paul and Sarah Edwards gushed in their 1985 manifesto, Working From Home, in which they extolled the virtues of commuting from breakfast nook to den. Two decades later, however, most workers still trudge to the office. Though a third of the more than 150 million working Americans telecommute at least occasionally, most do so just a few days each month. Only 40 percent of companies permit any sort of work-at-home arrangement, which means most insist on full-time attendance. According to a 2006 survey by the Telework Exchange, the top fear among resisters is that they'll lose control of their employees, whom they doubtlessly envision frittering away the hours between 9 and 5 playing Minesweeper and munching Cheetos. Telecommuting's foes couldn't be more misguided. When gasoline costs $4 a gallon, companies shouldn't just be doing all they can to expand telecommuting — they should be scrapping their offices entirely. No, not turning them into toy-filled communal spaces, as advertising titan Chiat/Day infamously did in the early-'90s, but abandoning them outright. That might sound a bit radical to those who swear by the office's supposed benefits, like camaraderie and face-to-face collaboration. But time and again, studies have shown that telecommuters are every bit as engaged as their cubicle-bound brethren — and happier and more productive to boot. Last year, researchers from Penn State analyzed 46 studies of telecommuting conducted over two decades and covering almost 13,000 employees. Their sweeping inquiry concluded that working from home has "favorable effects on perceived autonomy, work-family conflict, job satisfaction, performance, turnover intent, and stress." The only demonstrable drawback is a slight fraying of the relationships between telecommuters and their colleagues back at headquarters — largely because of jealousy on the part of the latter group. That's the first problem you solve when you kill your office. Earlier this year, an IDC report from Asia found that 81 percent of managers believe telecommuting improves productivity, up from 61 percent in 2005. The increase is attributable largely to the proliferation of unified communications technologies — tools that connect mobile and remote workers. These include products like LifeSize Express, the first hi-def videoconferencing system priced at less than $5,000, as well as Web-based services like Google Docs and Glance, which let users view a remote colleague's onscreen work in real time (in the case of Glance, with cursor movements and all). The traditional office, meanwhile, remains a black hole of interruptions, procrastination, and soul-crushing politics. According to Gloria Mark, an informatics professor at UC Irvine, the typical office worker is interrupted or switches tasks every three minutes — hardly enough time to accomplish anything of substance. True, there is value to getting folks together under one roof, but those gatherings needn't occur every day. Instead of leasing traditional offices — currently averaging around $21.25 per square foot annually, and a quarter of that is typically either vacant or underutilized — companies could join meeting-room cooperatives, which allow firms to assemble when necessary. Given that it costs more than $15,000 per year to provide an employee with 200 square feet of cubicle, the savings would be significant — so great, in fact, that companies would still come out thousands of dollars ahead after springing for workers' broadband and VoIP expenses. Ditching the office could also provide businesses with a leg up in the scramble to recruit and retain talent. For starters, location would no longer limit a company's employment pool — gifted Kansans wouldn't be forced to uproot their lives for opportunities in, say, California. Also, based on the average American's commute time, driving speed, and vehicle specs — and assuming that gas costs $4 per gallon — a telecommuter would save around $1,200 a year on fuel alone — an instant salary bump, of sorts. Perhaps you've been an office drone for so long that you can't imagine life without fuzzy, low-slung cubicle walls. Well, given that the typical American house is now over 2,500 square feet — up more than 60 percent since the early '70s — surely you can find room to build your own cube. Add some stale coffee and a buzzing fluorescent light and it will feel just like... well, you know where. Brendan I. Koerner (brendan_koerner@wired.com) is Wired's Mr. Know-It-All.
Get in-depth tech news coverage from Wired and read about how it is shaping culture, education, entertainment, communications and technology. {...}
Published: October 18, 2008, 5:00 am - Indexed: October 21, 2008, 12:15 pm - Page Size: 49KB
Category: News > Breaking News

]]> News > Breaking News {EUROPE > NEWS AND MEDIA} - Higgins secures semi-final spot http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/europe/united-kingdom/scotland/news-and-media/higgins-secures-semi-final-spot-20081027228.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/regional/europe/united-kingdom/scotland/news-and-media/higgins-secures-semi-final-spot-20081027228.htm Fri, 17 Oct 2008 22:30:43 GMT Judd Trump beats world number one Ronnie O'Sullivan 5-4 to reach the Grand Prix semi-finals, while John Higgins, Ali Carter and Ryan Day also progress. News.Bbc.Co.Uk Higgins secures semi-final spot {new window}   News.Bbc.Co.Uk - Judd Trump beats world number one Ronnie O'Sullivan 5-4 to reach the Grand Prix semi-finals, while John Higgins, Ali Carter and Ryan Day also progress.
BBC SPORT | Other sport... | Snooker | Terrific Trump shocks O'Sullivan {...}
Published: October 17, 2008, 10:30 pm - Indexed: October 18, 2008, 11:39 am - Page Size: 35KB
Category: Regional > Europe > United Kingdom > Scotland > News and Media

]]> Regional > Europe > United Kingdom > Scotland > News and Media {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Limbaugh mischaracterized accomplishments of '06 Nobel Peace Prize winner, smeared Jimmy Carter http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/limbaugh-mischaracterized-accomplishments-of-20081074626.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/limbaugh-mischaracterized-accomplishments-of-20081074626.htm Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:07:29 GMT During the October 10 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh mischaracterized the accomplishments of Muhammad Yunus, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Limbaugh stated that Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank Project, received the prize "[b]ecause he came up with a way to offer loans to poor people who couldn't pay them back." According to the Grameen Bank website, Yunus started the Grameen Bank Project in 1976 to "examine the possibility of designing a credit delivery system to provide banking services targeted at the rural poor." The project was transformed into a formal bank in 1983 and, according to the bank's website, has since distributed $7.28 billion in microloans to people in poverty in Yunus' home country of Bangladesh. Contrary to Limbaugh's claim, the bank's monthly report for August 2008 shows a repayment rate of 98.08 percent. Limbaugh went on to talk about former President Jimmy Carter, who was awarded the Peace Prize in 2002, saying, "He was one of the worst presidents -- the worst in my lifetime -- and one of the worst in American history. He got a Nobel Peace Prize, too. Look at the Peace Prize winners and look at how they screw up." Carter received the Peace Price "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." From the October 10 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show: LIMBAUGH: Two years ago, ladies and gentlemen -- two years ago, the Nobel Prize committee awarded the Peace Prize to a man named Muhammad Yunus. He was from Bangladesh. He works at the Grameen Bank. You know why Muhammad Yunus from Bangladesh got the Nobel Peace Prize? Because he came up with a way to offer loans to poor people who couldn't pay them back. A statement from the Nobel committee, awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to a Bangladesh banker: "Lasting peace cannot be achieved until large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Microcredit is one such means." Microcredit? No credit. Endless credit. This stuff's been in the works for I don't know how long. We started it here in this country way, way back. Jimmy Carter, who -- by the way, Jimmy Carter today, ladies and gentlemen, blaming all of this on Bush. And why wouldn't he? Jimmy Carter famous for covering his own rear-end, and this is a big CYA move, because everybody that's looked into this knows it started with him. He was one of the worst presidents -- the worst in my lifetime -- and one of the worst in American history. He got a Nobel Peace Prize, too. Look at the Peace Prize winners and look at how they screw up. [Former Vice President Al] Gore getting one. All these institutions that used to mean something are now nothing more than tools for leftists to award themselves. Mediamatters.Org Limbaugh mischaracterized accomplishments of '06 Nobel Peace Prize winner, smeared Jimmy Carter {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - During the October 10 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh mischaracterized the accomplishments of Muhammad Yunus, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Limbaugh stated that Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank Project, received the prize "[b]ecause he came up with a way to offer loans to poor people who couldn't pay them back." According to the Grameen Bank website, Yunus started the Grameen Bank Project in 1976 to "examine the possibility of designing a credit delivery system to provide banking services targeted at the rural poor." The project was transformed into a formal bank in 1983 and, according to the bank's website, has since distributed $7.28 billion in microloans to people in poverty in Yunus' home country of Bangladesh. Contrary to Limbaugh's claim, the bank's monthly report for August 2008 shows a repayment rate of 98.08 percent. Limbaugh went on to talk about former President Jimmy Carter, who was awarded the Peace Prize in 2002, saying, "He was one of the worst presidents -- the worst in my lifetime -- and one of the worst in American history. He got a Nobel Peace Prize, too. Look at the Peace Prize winners and look at how they screw up." Carter received the Peace Price "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development." From the October 10 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show: LIMBAUGH: Two years ago, ladies and gentlemen -- two years ago, the Nobel Prize committee awarded the Peace Prize to a man named Muhammad Yunus. He was from Bangladesh. He works at the Grameen Bank. You know why Muhammad Yunus from Bangladesh got the Nobel Peace Prize? Because he came up with a way to offer loans to poor people who couldn't pay them back. A statement from the Nobel committee, awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to a Bangladesh banker: "Lasting peace cannot be achieved until large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Microcredit is one such means." Microcredit? No credit. Endless credit. This stuff's been in the works for I don't know how long. We started it here in this country way, way back. Jimmy Carter, who -- by the way, Jimmy Carter today, ladies and gentlemen, blaming all of this on Bush. And why wouldn't he? Jimmy Carter famous for covering his own rear-end, and this is a big CYA move, because everybody that's looked into this knows it started with him. He was one of the worst presidents -- the worst in my lifetime -- and one of the worst in American history. He got a Nobel Peace Prize, too. Look at the Peace Prize winners and look at how they screw up. [Former Vice President Al] Gore getting one. All these institutions that used to mean something are now nothing more than tools for leftists to award themselves.
Media Matters - Limbaugh mischaracterized accomplishments of '06 Nobel Peace Prize winner, smeared Jimmy Carter {...} On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank Project, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 "[b]ecause he came up with a way to offer loans to poor people who couldn't pay them back." But Grameen Bank's monthly report for August 2008 shows a repayment rate of 98.08 percent. {...}
Published: October 13, 2008, 10:07 pm - Indexed: October 14, 2008, 2:36 pm - Page Size: 18KB
Category: Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance

]]> Society > Issues > Business > Media > Bias and Balance {ISSUES > BIAS AND BALANCE} - Myths and falsehoods about the purported link between affordable housing initiatives and the financial crisis http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/myths-and-falsehoods-about-the-purported-link-between-20081098812.htm http://articles.world-of-newave.info/society/issues/business/media/bias-and-balance/myths-and-falsehoods-about-the-purported-link-between-20081098812.htm Sat, 11 Oct 2008 03:24:14 GMT Conservative and other media figures, echoing a reported strategy on the part of Republicans, have attempted to deflect blame for the financial crisis onto proponents of the expansion of affordable housing and legislation and institutions created to effect that expansion. Newsweek senior editor Daniel Gross wrote in an October 7 Slate commentary: On the Republican side of Congress, in the right-wing financial media (which is to say the financial media), and in certain parts of the op-ed-o-sphere, there's a consensus emerging that the whole mess should be laid at the feet of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed mortgage giants, and the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed during the Carter administration. The CRA, which was amended in the 1990s and this decade, requires banks -- which had a long, distinguished history of not making loans to minorities -- to make more efforts to do so. Recent attacks have turned personal, with conservative media -- along with congressional Republicans and Sen. John McCain -- targeting Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) directly as a purported culprit in the financial crisis, falsely representing his decades-long advocacy of increased affordable housing as advocacy of lax oversight over Fannie and Freddie. The attacks are premised on several myths and falsehoods and, in the case of CRA and attacks on minority lending, have taken on a racial tinge. MYTH: The 1977 Community Reinvestment Act forced lenders into irresponsible lending In a September 28 Boston Globe column, Jeff Jacoby asserted: The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites. The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to 'meet the credit needs' of 'low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods.' Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans." Jacoby is not alone in his reference to "minority" lending. On the September 18 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto asked Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), "[W]hen you and many of your colleagues were pushing for more minority lending and more expanded lending to folks who heretofore couldn't get mortgages, when you were pushing homeownership ... Are you totally without culpability here?" Cavuto later said, "I'm just saying, I don't remember a clarion call that said, 'Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster.' " But the suggestion that the financial crisis was caused by banks lending irresponsibly to comply with the CRA is widely discredited. According to housing experts, a large number of subprime loans were not made under the CRA, which applies only to depository institutions. A study released earlier this year by a law firm specializing in CRA compliance estimated that in the 15 most populous metropolitan areas, 84.3 percent of subprime loans in 2006 were made by financial institutions not governed by the CRA. Moreover, Janet Yellen, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, stated in a March 2008 speech that "studies have shown that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households" [emphasis added]. In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr stated: Despite the fact that CRA appears to have increased bank and thrift lending in low- and moderate-income communities, such institutions are not the only ones operating in these areas. In fact, with new and lower-cost sources of funding available from the secondary market through securitization, and with advances in financial technology, subprime lending exploded in the late 1990s, reaching over $600 billion and 20% of all originations by 2005. More than half of subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies not subject to comprehensive federal supervision; another 30 percent of such originations were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts, which are not subject to routine examination or supervision, and the remaining 20 percent were made by banks and thrifts. Although reasonable people can disagree about how to interpret the evidence, my own judgment is that the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight. The housing crisis we face today, driven by serious problems in the subprime lending, suggests that our system of home mortgage regulation, including CRA, is seriously deficient. We need to fill what my friend, the late Federal Reserve Board Governor Ned Gramlich aptly termed, "the giant hole in the supervisory safety net." Banks and thrifts are subject to comprehensive federal regulation and supervision; their affiliates far less so; and independent mortgage companies, not at all. Moreover, many market-based systems designed to ensure sound practices in this sector-broker reputational risk, lender oversight of brokers, investor oversight of lenders, rating agency oversight of securitizations, and so on -- simply did not work. Conflicts of interest, lax regulation, and "boom times" covered up the extent of the abuses -- at least for a while, at least for those not directly affected by abusive practices. But no more. Others who have advanced this or similar claims include guest Jonathan Hoenig during the September 25 edition of The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, radio host Laura Ingraham during the September 25 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, and a September 25 Investor's Business Daily editorial claiming that the CRA "forced banks to make many more subprime loans." MYTH: Excessive lending to undocumented immigrants is responsible for the financial crisis On the October 9 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, San Diego radio host Roger Hedgecock claimed that "[w]e have a situation where today HUD [the Department of Housing and Urban Development] was talking about 5 million illegal alien home mortgage loans that have gone bad." Radio host Joe Madison responded, "You see, this really angers me, because I'm sitting here ... and wondering, how is it that people who are illegal get loans when people in my community who are legal have a difficulty getting loans, and if they do get them, they're often from predators?" Neither Hedgecock nor Madison cited a source for the purported HUD statistic. On October 9, the Drudge Report linked to an article on the Phoenix radio station KFYI website under the headline, "HUD: Five Million Fraudulent Mortgages Held by Illegals..." However, according to an October 9 Phoenix Business Journal article posted at 3:15 pm MT (more than an hour before Lou Dobbs Tonight aired), HUD "says there is no basis to news reports that more than 5 million bad mortgages are held by illegal immigrants" and "a HUD spokesman said ... his agency has no data showing the number of illegal immigrants holding foreclosed or bad mortgages." Other media figures advancing the claim that lending to undocumented immigrants is responsible for the mortgage crisis include syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin, who wrote in her September 24 column that "there's one giant paternal elephant in the room that has slipped notice: How illegal immigration, crime-enabling banks, and open-borders Bush policies fueled the mortgage crisis. MYTH: Congressional Democrats, led by Barney Frank, opposed strengthening oversight over Fannie and Freddie In a September 18 column, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that Frank "sat by as mortgage brokers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made bad loans" and asserted that "[i]nstead of demanding responsible business practices from Fannie and Freddie, Frank continued to pound the table to extend even more credit to 'low income' families." In fact, Frank did not "s[i]t by." Frank's efforts to enhance regulatory oversight on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac include: In 2005, Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, worked with committee chairman Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH) on the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005, which would have established the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to replace the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) as overseer of the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After voting for the bill in committee, Frank voted against final passage of the bill on the House floor, stating that he was doing so because an amendment to the bill on the House floor imposed restrictions on the kinds of nonprofit organizations that could receive funding under the bill. In early 2007, as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank sponsored H.R. 1427, a bill to create the FHFA, granting that agency "general supervisory and regulatory authority over" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and directing it to reform the companies' business practices and regulate their exposure to credit and market risk. Among other things, Frank's legislation, titled the "Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007," directed the FHFA director to "ensure" that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "operate[] in a safe and sound manner, including maintenance of adequate capital and internal controls" and to establish standards for "management of credit and counterparty risk" and "management of market risk." The FHFA was eventually created after Congress incorporated provisions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said were "similar" to those of H.R. 1427 into the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which the president signed into law on July 30. Some in the conservative media have taken the charge further, suggesting that in the 1990s, Frank allowed his relationship with Fannie Mae executive Herb Moses to affect his responsibility as a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee to conduct oversight over Fannie Mae. For example, in an October 3 article, Fox News deputy Washington Managing editor Bill Sammon asserted, in a charge he later echoed on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, "Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank's partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency's push to relax lending restrictions." In his article, however, Sammon cited only two sources: an anonymous Republican congressional staffer and Dan Gainor, who, Sammon did not note, is an employee of the conservative Media Research Center. Moreover, Sammon misrepresented Frank's record by reporting in his article that Frank "spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations" on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Sammon did not note in his article or during an October 6 appearance on The O'Reilly Factor that in the early 1990s, while Frank's Democratic Party still held the majority in Congress, and while Moses was at Fannie Mae, Frank supported bills to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and create a government regulatory agency that would supervise and have authority over some aspects of the company: On September 30, 1991, Frank voted for a bill to create a new regulatory agency to oversee Fannie and Freddie that would have "[r]equire[d] the [agency's] Director to establish by regulation a risk-based capital test for the enterprises," "[r]equire[d] the Director to establish risk-based capital levels for each enterprise according to statutory guidelines," "[e]stablishe[d] minimum capital levels, critical capital levels, and enforcement levels," and "[s]et[] forth mandatory supervisory actions for the enterprises at various capital levels, including mandatory conservatorship." In October 1992, Frank voted for the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, creating OFHEO, which was tasked with "ensur[ing] that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the enterprises) and their affiliates are adequately capitalized and operating safely." As with the bill Frank voted for in September 1991, the new law gave OFHEO authority to set, monitor, and enforce risk-based capital requirements for Fannie and Freddie. Neal Boortz also advanced this claim about Frank and his former partner during the October 8 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show. On October 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that "[a] conservative political organization will begin airing nationwide TV advertisements Wednesday that criticize congressional Democrats for their ties to mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae." MYTH: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the "current financial mess" In a September 19 Huffington Post blog post, Center for American Progress senior fellow David Abramowitz wrote: "There must be a Republican playbook circulating widely with a chapter entitled, 'What to say if asked who's to blame for the foreclosure mess.' Because an awful lot of Republican candidates are all suddenly yelling 'Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae' whenever plunging home prices and the housing crisis comes up. [...] So their plan seems to be to chant Fannie Mae often and loudly enough, and hope the public will get confused about who really caused this huge national calamity. It is always a good political story to just blame a bad guy who has something to do with the same topic. Indeed, during the September 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume said, "Many financial analysts are saying that if mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been effectively regulated years ago, the supercharged subprime mortgage meltdown that led to the current financial mess would either never have happened or would have been nowhere near as severe." But rebutting the suggestion that the subprime mortgage purchasing activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the "current financial mess," economist Dean Baker recently stated: Fannie and Freddie got into subprime junk and helped fuel the housing bubble, but they were trailing the irrational exuberance of the private sector. They lost market share in the years 2002-2007, as the volume of private issue mortgage backed securities exploded. In short, while Fannie and Freddie were completely irresponsible in their lending practices, the claim that they were responsible for the financial disaster is absurd on its face -- kind of like the claim that the earth is flat. Indeed, in a 2006 Securities and Exchange Commission filing (available here) covering its activities in 2004, Fannie Mae stated: "We did not participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages in 2004 and 2005." In the report, Fannie Mae also noted the growth of subprime lending and reported, "These trends and our decision not to participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages contributed to a significant loss in our share of new single-family mortgage-related securities issuances to private-label issuers during this period." Gross wrote in Slate that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were an "integral part" of a "culture of stupid, reckless lending." But, he wrote, they are not the primary culprits in the current financial crisis. He wrote: Investment banks created a demand for subprime loans because they saw it as a new asset class that they could dominate. They made subprime loans for the same reason they made other loans: They could get paid for making the loans, for turning them into securities, and for trading them-frequently using borrowed capital. As an example, he noted that the following happened during testimony by Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: At Monday's hearing, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., gamely tried to pin Lehman's demise on Fannie and Freddie. After comparing Lehman's small political contributions with Fannie and Freddie's much larger ones, Mica asked Fuld what role Fannie and Freddie's failure played in Lehman's demise. Fuld's response: "De minimis." From Fuld's testimony: MICA: And one of your big com -- well, one of the big packagers, or the competitor, so to speak, was Fannie Mae, which was deep into this. And you were -- you were dealing in some of the paper, I think, for secondary markets and other securitized mortgage paper, to basically package it and make money off it. Is that right? FULD: Yes, sir. MICA: What was Lehman Brothers' exposure to the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and what role did their collapse play in precipitating some of your financial troubles? FULD: Our -- MICA: It didn't matter or you -- FULD: Our exposure to both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was de minimis, sir. MYTH: Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has significantly more ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than does John McCain's In articles about the presidential candidates' responses to the economic crisis, the Associated Press, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post reported that the McCain campaign criticized Sen. Barack Obama for, in the words of McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, "his ties to spiraling lenders like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their jet-set CEOs." But those articles did not note that several senior McCain campaign aides have served as lobbyists for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or both. According to a Media Matters for America search of the Senate Office of Public Records' Lobbying Disclosure Act Database, they include: Political adviser Charlie Black, who lobbied for Freddie Mac from 1999 to 2004; National finance co-chairman Wayne Berman, who lobbied for Fannie Mae from 2004 to 2008 and for Freddie Mac in 2004; Congressional liaison John Green, who lobbied for Fannie Mae from 2004 to 2007 and for Freddie Mac in 2003; Arthur Culvahouse, who reportedly headed McCain's vice-presidential search team, lobbied for Fannie Mae in 1999, 2003, and 2004; and William E. Timmons Sr., who reportedly "has been tapped by the McCain campaign to conduct a study in preparation for the presidential transition," lobbied for Freddie Mac from 2000 to 2008. Additionally, several media outlets have reported that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis previously served as president of the Homeownership Alliance, a Washington-based advocacy group whose founding members included Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which Media Matters has noted. MYTH: Democrats sought to divert funding in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act to ACORN On the September 29 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, host Lou Dobbs claimed: "ACORN [Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now] stands to reap hundreds of millions of dollars from a government bailout of Wall Street." Dobbs added later: "This is a straightforward deal for ACORN and other groups, left-wing groups, set up by the Democratic leadership of Congress. They're not interested in the bailout per se. They want to spread this out, and many people believe that this bailout in part is dear to the Democratic leadership because they want to advance a social agenda here as much as much as an economic bailout of Wall Street." Numerous other media figures also reported the false claim that Democrats were trying to steer money to ACORN. In fact, neither the draft proposal nor the final version of the bill contained any language mentioning ACORN. Those making the false claim were misrepresenting a provision -- since removed -- that would have directed 20 percent of any profits realized on troubled assets purchased under the plan into two previously established funds: the Housing Trust Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund, which, under the law authorizing them, distribute funds through state block grants and through competitive application processes, respectively. On the October 9 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund similarly made the false claim that ACORN "almost got a slush fund in the housing bailout bill a few weeks ago." MYTH: Former President Clinton has blamed Democrats for the financial crisis In a September 30 post on Time.com's Swampland blog, Washington bureau chief Jay Carney claimed that comments former President Bill Clinton made during a September 25 interview on ABC's Good Morning America that were subsequently featured in a McCain campaign ad "could undercut Democratic arguments that Bush and the Republicans are primarily responsible" for the financial crisis. During that interview, Clinton said, "I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." But in reporting on the ad, Carney failed to point out that in the very same interview, Clinton also said, "I think the biggest mistake, by the way, that contributed to the current circumstance that almost nobody talks about, is the repeal after decades of something called the uptick rule, which allowed the hedge funds, heavily leveraged, and others to just drive down the market without any kind of automatic stoppers." In a separate interview aired that day with Matt Lauer, co-host of NBC's Today, Clinton stated of the financial situation: "[T]his thing really took off when the SEC, under this administration, exercised less oversight and they got rid of something called the uptick rule, which enabled betting down on housing stocks to go crazy." The uptick rule, which was created in 1938, was a securities trading rule that regulated market short selling, the act of selling a stock that an investor does not own (but borrows from a broker or someone else) in anticipation that the stock's price will decrease. After a June 13, 2007, decision that became effective July 3, 2007, the SEC issued a final rule that repealed the uptick rule. From C-SPAN's October 6 coverage of the House Oversight Reform Committee: MICA: Again, you -- when you opened your statement, you said that Lehman Brothers -- and it was around for what, 150 years -- dealt in some pretty hard assets and some secure investments. You've been around a while. What turned the corner for you to get into some of the more speculative ventures, like subprime and some of the other, again, riskier investments? FULD: As I said in my verbal testimony, our participation in the mortgage-related businesses was clearly a natural for us, given our dominance in fixed income. That was something that went back a number of years. And even as I listened, as I say, to the panel before me, they correctly pointed out that this was a goal of the government to provide funding and mortgages to a number of people that typically would not or could not have received a mortgage. MICA: And one of your big com -- well, one of the big packagers, or the competitor, so to speak, was Fannie Mae, which was deep into this. And you were -- you were dealing in some of the paper, I think, for secondary markets and other securitized mortgage paper, to basically package it and make money off it. Is that right? FULD: Yes, sir. MICA: What was Lehman Brothers' exposure to the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and what role did their collapse play in precipitating some of your financial troubles? FULD: Our -- MICA: It didn't matter or you -- FULD: Our exposure to both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was de minimis, sir. MICA: OK, but their collapse -- did that help precipitate any problems with your firm? FULD: It certainly set the stage for an environment, as I talked about loss of confidence and credit-crisis mentality that permeated our market, clearly set the stage for investors losing confidence, counterparties asking for additional collateral, and clearly an environment that lost liquidity -- MICA: I notice you -- FULD : -- which is the lifeblood of the capital market system. Mediamatters.Org Myths and falsehoods about the purported link between affordable housing initiatives and the financial crisis {new window}   Mediamatters.Org - Conservative and other media figures, echoing a reported strategy on the part of Republicans, have attempted to deflect blame for the financial crisis onto proponents of the expansion of affordable housing and legislation and institutions created to effect that expansion. Newsweek senior editor Daniel Gross wrote in an October 7 Slate commentary: On the Republican side of Congress, in the right-wing financial media (which is to say the financial media), and in certain parts of the op-ed-o-sphere, there's a consensus emerging that the whole mess should be laid at the feet of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed mortgage giants, and the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed during the Carter administration. The CRA, which was amended in the 1990s and this decade, requires banks -- which had a long, distinguished history of not making loans to minorities -- to make more efforts to do so. Recent attacks have turned personal, with conservative media -- along with congressional Republicans and Sen. John McCain -- targeting Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) directly as a purported culprit in the financial crisis, falsely representing his decades-long advocacy of increased affordable housing as advocacy of lax oversight over Fannie and Freddie. The attacks are premised on several myths and falsehoods and, in the case of CRA and attacks on minority lending, have taken on a racial tinge. MYTH: The 1977 Community Reinvestment Act forced lenders into irresponsible lending In a September 28 Boston Globe column, Jeff Jacoby asserted: The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites. The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to 'meet the credit needs' of 'low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods.' Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans." Jacoby is not alone in his reference to "minority" lending. On the September 18 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto asked Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), "[W]hen you and many of your colleagues were pushing for more minority lending and more expanded lending to folks who heretofore couldn't get mortgages, when you were pushing homeownership ... Are you totally without culpability here?" Cavuto later said, "I'm just saying, I don't remember a clarion call that said, 'Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster.' " But the suggestion that the financial crisis was caused by banks lending irresponsibly to comply with the CRA is widely discredited. According to housing experts, a large number of subprime loans were not made under the CRA, which applies only to depository institutions. A study released earlier this year by a law firm specializing in CRA compliance estimated that in the 15 most populous metropolitan areas, 84.3 percent of subprime loans in 2006 were made by financial institutions not governed by the CRA. Moreover, Janet Yellen, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, stated in a March 2008 speech that "studies have shown that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households" [emphasis added]. In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr stated: Despite the fact that CRA appears to have increased bank and thrift lending in low- and moderate-income communities, such institutions are not the only ones operating in these areas. In fact, with new and lower-cost sources of funding available from the secondary market through securitization, and with advances in financial technology, subprime lending exploded in the late 1990s, reaching over $600 billion and 20% of all originations by 2005. More than half of subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies not subject to comprehensive federal supervision; another 30 percent of such originations were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts, which are not subject to routine examination or supervision, and the remaining 20 percent were made by banks and thrifts. Although reasonable people can disagree about how to interpret the evidence, my own judgment is that the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight. The housing crisis we face today, driven by serious problems in the subprime lending, suggests that our system of home mortgage regulation, including CRA, is seriously deficient. We need to fill what my friend, the late Federal Reserve Board Governor Ned Gramlich aptly termed, "the giant hole in the supervisory safety net." Banks and thrifts are subject to comprehensive federal regulation and supervision; their affiliates far less so; and independent mortgage companies, not at all. Moreover, many market-based systems designed to ensure sound practices in this sector-broker reputational risk, lender oversight of brokers, investor oversight of lenders, rating agency oversight of securitizations, and so on -- simply did not work. Conflicts of interest, lax regulation, and "boom times" covered up the extent of the abuses -- at least for a while, at least for those not directly affected by abusive practices. But no more. Others who have advanced this or similar claims include guest Jonathan Hoenig during the September 25 edition of The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, radio host Laura Ingraham during the September 25 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, and a September 25 Investor's Business Daily editorial claiming that the CRA "forced banks to make many more subprime loans." MYTH: Excessive lending to undocumented immigrants is responsible for the financial crisis On the October 9 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, San Diego radio host Roger Hedgecock claimed that "[w]e have a situation where today HUD [the Department of Housing and Urban Development] was talking about 5 million illegal alien home mortgage loans that have gone bad." Radio host Joe Madison responded, "You see, this really angers me, because I'm sitting here ... and wondering, how is it that people who are illegal get loans when people in my community who are legal have a difficulty getting loans, and if they do get them, they're often from predators?" Neither Hedgecock nor Madison cited a source for the purported HUD statistic. On October 9, the Drudge Report linked to an article on the Phoenix radio station KFYI website under the headline, "HUD: Five Million Fraudulent Mortgages Held by Illegals..." However, according to an October 9 Phoenix Business Journal article posted at 3:15 pm MT (more than an hour before Lou Dobbs Tonight aired), HUD "says there is no basis to news reports that more than 5 million bad mortgages are held by illegal immigrants" and "a HUD spokesman said ... his agency has no data showing the number of illegal immigrants holding foreclosed or bad mortgages." Other media figures advancing the claim that lending to undocumented immigrants is responsible for the mortgage crisis include syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin, who wrote in her September 24 column that "there's one giant paternal elephant in the room that has slipped notice: How illegal immigration, crime-enabling banks, and open-borders Bush policies fueled the mortgage crisis. MYTH: Congressional Democrats, led by Barney Frank, opposed strengthening oversight over Fannie and Freddie In a September 18 column, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that Frank "sat by as mortgage brokers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made bad loans" and asserted that "[i]nstead of demanding responsible business practices from Fannie and Freddie, Frank continued to pound the table to extend even more credit to 'low income' families." In fact, Frank did not "s[i]t by." Frank's efforts to enhance regulatory oversight on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac include: In 2005, Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, worked with committee chairman Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH) on the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005, which would have established the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to replace the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) as overseer of the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After voting for the bill in committee, Frank voted against final passage of the bill on the House floor, stating that he was doing so because an amendment to the bill on the House floor imposed restrictions on the kinds of nonprofit organizations that could receive funding under the bill. In early 2007, as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank sponsored H.R. 1427, a bill to create the FHFA, granting that agency "general supervisory and regulatory authority over" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and directing it to reform the companies' business practices and regulate their exposure to credit and market risk. Among other things, Frank's legislation, titled the "Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007," directed the FHFA director to "ensure" that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "operate[] in a safe and sound manner, including maintenance of adequate capital and internal controls" and to establish standards for "management of credit and counterparty risk" and "management of market risk." The FHFA was eventually created after Congress incorporated provisions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said were "similar" to those of H.R. 1427 into the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which the president signed into law on July 30. Some in the conservative media have taken the charge further, suggesting that in the 1990s, Frank allowed his relationship with Fannie Mae executive Herb Moses to affect his responsibility as a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee to conduct oversight over Fannie Mae. For example, in an October 3 article, Fox News deputy Washington Managing editor Bill Sammon asserted, in a charge he later echoed on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, "Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank's partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency's push to relax lending restrictions." In his article, however, Sammon cited only two sources: an anonymous Republican congressional staffer and Dan Gainor, who, Sammon did not note, is an employee of the conservative Media Research Center. Moreover, Sammon misrepresented Frank's record by reporting in his article that Frank "spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations" on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Sammon did not note in his article or during an October 6 appearance on The O'Reilly Factor that in the early 1990s, while Frank's Democratic Party still held the majority in Congress, and while Moses was at Fannie Mae, Frank supported bills to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and create a government regulatory agency that would supervise and have authority over some aspects of the company: On September 30, 1991, Frank voted for a bill to create a new regulatory agency to oversee Fannie and Freddie that would have "[r]equire[d] the [agency's] Director to establish by regulation a risk-based capital test for the enterprises," "[r]equire[d] the Director to establish risk-based capital levels for each enterprise according to statutory guidelines," "[e]stablishe[d] minimum capital levels, critical capital levels, and enforcement levels," and "[s]et[] forth mandatory supervisory actions for the enterprises at various capital levels, including mandatory conservatorship." In October 1992, Frank voted for the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, creating OFHEO, which was tasked with "ensur[ing] that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the enterprises) and their affiliates are adequately capitalized and operating safely." As with the bill Frank voted for in September 1991, the new law gave OFHEO authority to set, monitor, and enforce risk-based capital requirements for Fannie and Freddie. Neal Boortz also advanced this claim about Frank and his former partner during the October 8 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show. On October 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that "[a] conservative political organization will begin airing nationwide TV advertisements Wednesday that criticize congressional Democrats for their ties to mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae." MYTH: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the "current financial mess" In a September 19 Huffington Post blog post, Center for American Progress senior fellow David Abramowitz wrote: "There must be a Republican playbook circulating widely with a chapter entitled, 'What to say if asked who's to blame for the foreclosure mess.' Because an awful lot of Republican candidates are all suddenly yelling 'Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae' whenever plunging home prices and the housing crisis comes up. [...] So their plan seems to be to chant Fannie Mae often and loudly enough, and hope the public will get confused about who really caused this huge national calamity. It is always a good polit