Geraldo Rivera Takes on Anti-Immigration Forces

Immigration may not be the overcharged political issue this presidential campaign that many had predicted it would be - especially with the top three candidates having moderate to liberal positions on immigration - but it will still play an important role in this presidential campaign.

And into the fray jumps Fox News host Geraldo Rivera. Rivera has a new book, His Panic: Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S. , that looks at the immigration issue. And Rivera, whose never been afraid to voice a controversial opinion, believes that "The hostility by some anti-immigrant activists against Hispanics is no different from that directed against earlier generations of Irish, Italian and Jewish immigrants."

"It's a hysterical whipping up of a mob frenzy on an issue that should be recognized that it is part of a process that makes this country unique," Rivera (who has a Puerto Rican father and a Jewish mother) tells Steve Inskeep on Morning Edition. "And by exacerbating the differentness of the newcomers, what they do is a gross disservice."

Rivera says it was the shouting match (seen directly below) he had with fellow Fox News host Bill O'Reilly (image that, a screaming match with Bill O'Reilly ...) that inspired him to write the book.

"Many of the most fervent anti-immigrant activists are themselves the children or grandchildren of immigrants," he says. "The style changes, the accents change, the geographical antecedents change, but it's the same. You can track headline for headline the response to the Irish wave of immigration in the mid-19th century to the reaction of the Minutemen and similar radical anti-immigration groups today."

And he has little time for the argument that some people make about border security being the reason reason behind their opposition to immigration.

"Are you really concerned about 'border security,' or are you concerned about the changing demographic face of the United States? [For] example, if it is terrorism that you are concerned about and you want this fence built between the United States and Mexico, why don't you want the same fence built between the United States and Canada? Why isn't there this clamor ... ?

"It's not [fear of] crime, it's not terror, it is demographics that is the true fear. If we wanted secure borders, what about the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts?"

10:54 AM ET | 03- 4-2008 | permalink | comments (35) | e-mail post

How Dixville Notch Got to Vote First

In Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, the local residents take their status as the first community in the U.S. to vote on election day quite seriously. (The community is also the first to vote on the state's primary day.) But did you know that they achieved this honor because of a competitive news wire photographer?

Boston.com has a great video piece on the "Legend of Dixville Notch" that tells the story of how in this small community of less than a dozen people became famous in 1960. United Press International chief photographer Don Robinson convinced the owner of the local hotel, Neil Tillotson, to hold the first vote in the nation.

And in order to make sure that Dixville Notch voted first and beat his journalist competitor, The Associated Press (whose photographers were gathered at the previous first-in-the nation site Hart's Location, New Hampshire) Robinson moved the hands on the clock in the hotel where the voting took place five minutes ahead.

"Those were the kind of things you did back in the golden days of journalism," says retired UPI photographer Dan Wolfe. "It was just a great scam."

8:17 PM ET | 01- 7-2008 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

Kerrey Apologizes to Obama for Muslim Remark

Former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey has apologized to follow Democrat Barack Obama.

The Associated Press is reporting that the apology was for any unintentional insult Kerrey committed by raising the presidential candidate's Muslim heritage while endorsing rival candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. (Obama is a Christian.)

In an interview with the Washington Post on Sunday detailing why he was supporting Sen. Hillary Clinton, Kerrey (who is currently the president of New School University in NYC) also mused on some of the qualifications Obama had for president: "It's probably not something that appeals to him, but I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim. There's a billion people on the planet that are Muslims and I think that experience is a big deal."

Kerrey sent a letter to Obama yesterday, lauding the Illinois senator's qualifications to be president and saying that he "never meant to harm his candidacy." Kerrey told AP in a telephone interview that he sent the letter on his own and had not spoken to Clinton or her campaign about the comments he made Sunday in Iowa. Obama spokesman Bill Burton said the senator accepted Kerrey's apology, sent to the campaign in the mail and via e-mail.

11:51 AM ET | 12-20-2007 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post

Many Voters Won't Pay Attention Until '08 World Series

For people who've been following the two presidential nomination campaigns for several months now, and are looking forward to see what happens in Iowa and New Hampshire, the suggestion that many Americans won't even start to pay attention to who is running for president until after the 2008 World Series might seem wildly mistaken. But that what Charles Cook — the writer of the nonpartisan newsletter, the Cook Political Report, which has been analyzing national elections since 1984 — believes.

Cook made the remark as part of a speech he gave at Fordham University about the 2008 elections. He also called the current political environment the "weirdest" he has ever seen.

New York political consultant Jerry Skurnik, who went to hear Cook's talk and blogged about it on his website, Room 8. Skurnik says this notion of Cook's that people start to pay attention to politics at different times supports a theory that he has.

For people who follow everything in politics, there has never been a better time. Thanks to 24x7 cable, the Internet, broadcast radio, satellite radio, newspapers, magazine, etc. political junkies (apologies to Ken Rudin) can follow almost every door-to-door visit of a candidate in Iowa or New Hampshire.

But there is a dark lining to this silver cloud, Skurnik suggests. For people who don't follow politics, those many folks who don't pay attention until after the last pitch of the series, this is the worse time. In the past, when there were fewer choices, they would rely primarily on the evening newscast, or their local paper, to relay the latest political information the needed. But now, with the wide range of choices of media, many people don't regularly watch any newscast of any kind, or even subscribe to a paper.

So in the end, Spurnik argues, this section of the public is actually less informed that they were before, despite all the information available.

He writes that this difference in when people begin to follow an election could explain why some pundits make predictions that are decidedly off the mark, or miss some trend that ultimately propels a candidate to victory.

1:16 PM ET | 12-17-2007 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post

Bush Countdown Calendars Popular Holiday Gift

Does former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore have shares in a calendar publishing company? Speaking in Bali, Indonesia, to a group gathered to discuss a new global climate treaty, Gore said the U.S. is the principal obstacle to a comprehensive new treaty. And then he said, to loud applause, that it was only one more year and 40 days until current president George W. Bush leaves office.

Gore is apparently not the only one counting. If you can judge by the displays in books stores in the downtown Washington area, counting down the days until Mr. Bush leaves has turned out to be a popular past time. The calendars titles are a bit blunt ... "His Days Are Numbered," "The Bad President," "The End is Near," and "The Official Countdown," and feature sayings like "Hang in there!"and "Almost done." (Publishers say the sale of Bush calendars are up about 30 percent this year.) A gift, perhaps, for your favorite liberal?

But already there are plans afoot to give conservatives something to "gift" next year. If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, some publishers are already talking about a "Bill Clinton, First Lady" calendar.

1:50 PM ET | 12-13-2007 | permalink | comments (20) | e-mail post

Romney's Inner Business Consultant Comes Out

One-time business consultant Mitt Romney showed off his famous appetite for data Tuesday, in the midst of a campaign photo op.

While shaking hands and posing for pictures in a Des Moines shopping mall, Romney and his wife Ann wandered into a business that refills toner cartridges. The couple consulted for a moment over what model of cartridge their home printer uses, then Romney snapped up a price list. "I didn't know how much you wanted to know about it," said the surprised counter clerk.

Romney quickly scanned the list for his model (HP-56 from Hewlett Packard). "There it is," he said. "Nine bucks and ten cents. "Wow, that's a lot less than we pay for a new one." On his way out the door the former venture capitalist said, "That's a good business."

Romney's curiosity might have also carried him — and the scrum of photographers following him — into a beauty salon, but his wife steered them away. "That's the last place I'd want to have a camera watching me, when I'm getting my hair done," Ann Romney said.

- Scott Horsley

8:51 AM ET | 12-12-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

It's Obama Versus (Bill) Clinton For Grammy Award

There's another Clinton-Obama battle shaping up, this one away from Iowa and New Hampshire. This time its the other Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, versus Illinois Senator Barack Obama at this year's Grammy Awards. Both Democrats have been nominated in the Best Spoken Word Album category. (Do they still call them albums? Wait, I've having a flashback to the 70s.)

Clinton's been nominated for the reading of his book "Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World" and Obama for his book "The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream."

Oh yea, there are other nominees, including another president: Maya Angelou, Jimmy Carter and Alan Alda.

Obama is actually the reigning champ in this category. He won it last year for his reading of the autobiographical "Dreams of My Father."

5:16 PM ET | 12- 7-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

Clinton Dumps Celine Dion Song at Campaign Events

It's a parting of the ways that can only be rivaled by the split up of Lewis and Martin, Abbot and Costello, and "Benifer" ... OK, maybe it's not quite that dramatic, but reports indicate that Sen. Hillary Clinton team has decided to drop Celine Dion's song, "You and I."

Clinton had selected the song after thousands of suggestions were submitted to her website. It was used to set the stage as she entered a campaign event. "I can hear your voice calling out to me, Brighter than the sun and darker than the night, I can see your love shining like a light," a recording of the Canadian singer would croon.

But ABC News' Eloise Harper Reports that the "shining" seems to be over. Big Head Todd and the Monsters are in and their "Blue Sky" appear to be the Clinton campaign's new musical selection. (I'm not so sure if it's a good idea for a politician to be associated with anything involving the phrase 'big head.")

So all that hoopla about people sending suggestions and the funny YouTube videos showing the songs submitted... all for nothing?

No word from Celine Dion feels about being replaced. No doubt she's too upset to talk about it right now.

5:54 AM ET | 12- 6-2007 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post

Looking for a Fitting Place for a Romney Interview

Sometimes the best-laid plans of mice, men and NPR hosts go astray. Particularly when an ice storm hits. All Things Considered host Robert Siegel had planned to go to Iowa on Saturday to watch presidential candidate Mitt Romney give a speech and then interview him. But Siegel had to scramble when the weather grounded him, and his editor, Quinn O'Toole in Milwaukee and Romney canceled the speech. Senior editor Susan Feeney was already in Des Moines, juggling communications between Siegel, the NPR engineer and the Romney campaign. Here's Siegel with the rest of the story:

The new plan: Our engineer would go to Romney's hotel room and record the candidate. Quinn would record me at the airport. Romney and I would talk by cell phone, then NPR would mix the two recordings together. Patrick Murray, our engineer, was off buying a snow shovel at a Des Moines hardware store and made a beeline to Romney's hotel. Our window was now just a half an hour away, as Romney's staff had hopes of getting him out of Des Moines.

We needed a place that was reasonably quiet for me to do my end of the interview. Quinn and I started looking as I tried to formulate questions (which I had assumed I would do after watching him campaign in Iowa). The Milwaukee airport conference rooms were locked. We found an "executive work station." It had a noisy air duct overhead that would have made me sound like I was doing hurricane coverage on The Weather Channel.

Then we found a quiet, open, empty office and set up. It wasn't empty for long. Then the man whose office it was turned up. Many NPR reporters have experienced the moment when we have taken outrageous advantage of some situation, could easily have been booted out, but encountered a friendly listener who bent some rule to make a public radio show come together. On the other hand, many NPR reporters have also experienced what we experienced on Saturday. He booted us out of his office. No ifs, ands, buts or kind words for public radio.

As I moved us into the din of the executive work station, where all sorts of other travelers could enter, Quinn scouted again and hit pay dirt. The man at the desk in the airport PGA store told him the quietest, most private room was next door, at the airport Brooks Brothers. A kind lady named Marion permitted us use of that room. It was the fitting room. It was not entirely fitting for an interview (someone rang a Salvation Army bell outside) but, at least, no one interrupted us. So, we can say it was somewhat suitable, which I guess is what Brooks Brothers is all about.

- Robert Siegel

1:07 PM ET | 12- 3-2007 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

Neil Diamond Reveals Identity of 'Sweet Caroline'

Neil Diamond performs in 2005.

Scott Gries/Getty Images

As a Boston Red Sox fan, I probably sing the words to Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline a couple hundred times a year. The 1960s tune has become one of the Sox's theme songs.

But it wasn't until today that Diamond publicly revealed "Sweet Caroline's" true identity. He told The Associated Press that the Caroline of his song is none other than Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy.

Diamond says he was a "young, broke songwriter" when a picture of the president's daughter caught his eye. "It was a picture of a little girl dressed to the nines in her riding gear, next to her pony," Diamond said. "It was such an innocent, wonderful picture, I immediately felt there was a song in there."

Years later, Diamond quickly wrote the song in a Memphis hotel. It went on to become his biggest hit and eventually a Boston baseball staple. Diamond says he's even become a Red Sox fan.

4:25 PM ET | 11-20-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

GPS Devices Catch Workers Goofing Off

State and municipal governments, as well as private employers, are finding ways to use global positioning devices to their advantage, relying on them to help save money — and to catch employees goofing off or doing other work on the job.

For instance, The Associated Press reports, Islip, N.Y., saved nearly 14,000 gallons of gas in a three-month period compared to the previous year after GPS devices were installed on its vehicles. (And when you consider the price of gas, that's a lot of tax money being saved.) Islip Supervisor Phil Nolan says gas consumption is down because town employees, who know they are being tracked, are using the vehicles less often for personal business.

GPS units also have cost some workers their jobs. In Fort Wayne, an administrator in the county health department bought three GPS devices out of her own pocket and moved them around between 12 department vehicles. Six employees were fired when they were caught going to stores, gyms, restaurants, churches and their homes. The administrator was later reimbursed for her purchases.

Needless to say, some employees and their unions don't like this use of GPS and complain that Big Brother is spying on them. That's made the use of GPS a bargaining point in contract negotiations. The Teamsters' tentative contract with United Parcel Service, for instance, says that a new employee cannot be fired for a first offense detected by GPS unless there is proof of intent to defraud.

But the devices also are being used in less controversial ways. In my old town of Boston, GPS units are installed on school buses, allowing the district to tell worried parents how far away a late bus is.

5:36 PM ET | 11-16-2007 | permalink | comments (5) | e-mail post

Blame It on Your Name

Every once in awhile, you run across a study that boggles the mind.

Case in point: Psychologists in marketing at Yale and the University of California, San Diego, have found that "a preference for our own names and initials — the 'name-letter effect' — can have some negative consequences," USA Today reports.

The study of the unconscious influence of names and initials, which will be published in the December issue of Psychological Science, finds that students whose names begin with "C" or "D" get lower grades than those whose names start with "A" or "B." (Heaven knows how this affects the Franks and Felicias of the world.)

The researchers' work supports a series of studies published since 2002 that have found the "name-letter effect" causes people to make life choices based on names that resemble their own. Those studies by Brett Pelham, an associate professor of psychology at SUNY University at Buffalo, have found that people are disproportionately likely to live in states or cities resembling their names, have careers that resemble their names and even marry those whose surnames begin with the same letter as their own.

The USA Today story provides a few examples based on the research, including one that caught my eye. Apparently, a guy named Tom is likely to live in Toronto and marry someone named Tonya.

I don't know about all this. Never mind the Carls or Denises we all know who did well in school. I'm a Tom ... who lives in Virginia ... and married a Barbara.

However, the authors of the study do say that while the effect is more than coincidence, it is small.

Maybe very small.

5:17 PM ET | 11-15-2007 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

Not His Brother's Keeper?

If it had happened in a courtroom, it would have been the Perry Mason moment.

Instead, it was during a congressional hearing that State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard learned, apparently for the first time, that his brother is serving on the advisory board of Blackwater — the U.S. security firm under federal investigation after a Baghdad shooting.

Henry Waxman, chairman of the House oversight committee, started the session by noting Alvin "Buzzy" Krongard's Blackwater connections, but Howard Krongard strongly denied them. "When these ugly rumors started recently, I specifically asked him. I do not believe it is true that he is a member of the advisory board that you stated. And that's something I think I need to say," he told the committee.

But Democrat Elijah Cummings of Connecticut produced e-mails from Erik Prince, the head of Blackwater, welcoming Buzzy Krongard to the board.

After a break, Howard Krongard said he had spoken with his brother and that Buzzy was connected to Blackwater. He immediately recused himself from all matters concerning the security firm.

Even Howard Krongard's supporters on the committee were upset. "He has done you tremendous damage by that," Republican Chris Shays of Connecticut told Krongard.

The Associated Press reports Krongard also has relinquished his role in an investigation of corruption allegations related to the new U.S. embassy in Iraq and is under heavy pressure to resign.

NPR's Michele Kelemen told me there is no word yet on whether the controversy will affect Howard Krongard's long-term position. But she notes that he didn't appear to have anyone from the State Department with him at Wednesday's hearing. A former staffer who quit in August said he didn't recognize anyone from Krongard's office there.

1:28 PM ET | 11-15-2007 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post

Marvel Puts Comics Online

Spider-Man is getting a chance to use his skills on a completely different kind of web.

Marvel Comics has put 2,500 of its comics online. For $9.99 a month — or $4.99 a month if you sign up for a year — you'll get access to all of them (including the first 100 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four). The company is also offering 250 comics for free for a limited time.

Twenty new comics will be added each week, but titles will have to be in print for at least six months before they go online.

Marvel is hoping to recapture the attention of the young people it may have "lost" to the Web, but some see pitfalls for online comics. Dennis Webb, owner of the Comics and Cards Collectorama in Alexandria, Va., told me that he thinks real collectors will want the issues in print and the Web offerings won't change their habits. He adds: "No one has mentioned it at all. There hasn't been any buzz."

4:51 PM ET | 11-14-2007 | permalink | comments (2) | e-mail post

Bringing Up Baby ... at Work

Ksenia Kozlovskaya/iStockphoto

After my son, Liam, was born, I started taking him to the office with me on Fridays so my wife could get some work done. Liam would spend most of the day sleeping in his carrier, but he would also come with me to meetings and crawl around on the floor in my office playing with toys. His Friday visits lasted about six months, and aside from a few bumps, the system worked pretty well.

Turns out that maybe I was ahead of the curve. A growing number of businesses are experimenting with on-the-job parenting, The Boston Globe reports. Some are allowing parents to regularly bring babies to work. A larger number are allowing employees to bring their children in if the nanny is sick or the school has a snow day. A national survey by the Virginia-based Society for Human Resource Management found that companies with policies for those emergency situations increased from 22 percent to 29 percent over the past year.

However, a baby on the job can raise concerns about distractions for a parent's co-workers. So consultant Carla Moquin recommends companies implement specific policies to handle kids at work, such has having the option to decide a baby is too much of a disruption to be at the office.

When I wanted to do the same Friday routine with my daughter, a fellow worker told me privately that she felt uncomfortable with the idea. So I didn't do it. I felt I needed everyone to be OK with the visits, or they would only cause problems.

1:57 PM ET | 11-14-2007 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post

Christmas Gift Cards a Bad Deal for Consumers?

Ah, gift cards ... Just thinking of them brings back all the happy Christmas memories I have of being too lazy to think about that really personal gift I could get someone close to me, panicking at the last second and buying a nice, shiny gift card instead. And I know I'm not the only one. The National Retail Federation predicts that there will be a 6 percent increase in gift card sales this holiday season, meaning that shoppers will spend about $26.3 billion on them.

The Chicago Tribune actually describes that as a "sober 6 percent" because gift card sales went up by a whopping 34 percent last year. However, Consumer Reports' executive editor also says more people are complaining to his magazine about the cards, concerned about lost cards and expiration dates.

This week, Consumer Reports launched a public education campaign aimed at warning shoppers about gift card pitfalls. It started with a full-page ad in The New York Times that read: "Dear Shopper, Last year, shoppers like you were out $8 billion because of unused, lost, or expired gift cards. Easy money for retailers. Lost money for you. Yours truly, Consumer Reports."

The consumer advocacy group's research shows 27 percent of people who received gift cards last year haven't used them yet, the Detroit Free Press reports. And all that unspent money can really pile up: After last year's holiday season, Nordstrom recorded $8 million in income from gift cards unused for five years or more.

The rules on how long you have to use a gift card vary from store to store and state to state. (Here's a chart that details the rules in each state.) Consumer Reports advises using gift cards quickly if you get them.

So does knowing that a sizable number of people never actually use their gift cards change your mind about buying them?

10:07 AM ET | 11-14-2007 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

Research Finds Many Blacks Earn Less than Parents Did

A trio of new reports about the economic mobility of Americans is encouraging in some ways but disquieting in others: Two out of three Americans have higher incomes than their parents, and 50 percent of that group is upwardly mobile, meaning that they have moved up at least one rung on the economic ladder from their parents.

But the studies released today as part of the Economic Mobility Project from the Pew Charitable Trust also found that nearly half of the children born to middle-class black families in the late 1960s fell down the ladder. Forty-five percent of black children whose parents were in an income bracket with median earnings of $55,600, adjusted for inflation, in 1968 are now in the lowest fifth of wage earners.

The reports, written by Julia B. Isaacs, a researcher at the Brookings Institution, used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which followed 2,367 people from across the country, including 730 African-Americans, since 1968.

A summary of key findings for the three reports states, "In every income group, blacks are less likely than whites to surpass their parents' family income and more likely to fall down the economic ladder."

The reports don't offer any reasons for the disparity (that will be looked at more closely in the project's next series of studies), but Isaacs did offer some theories based on other studies to The Wall Street Journal: Black parents have fewer assets, like houses or stocks, to pass on to their children, and marriage rates are lower for blacks than whites, so black children are more likely to grow up to be single parents. A third possibility is that more black women were working 30 years ago than white women, so whites have benefited more economically from women entering the workforce.

3:20 PM ET | 11-13-2007 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

Brits Pay Less for Beer than Bottled Water

Now, here's a bit of good news for beer drinkers: In Britain, beer costs less than bottled water and soda in many supermarkets.

After living in Canada and the United States, where every simple pleasure seems to be heavily taxed, I am heartened to see that in England, a bloke can still get a pint for a decent price. (Years ago, when I was a columnist at a newspaper in Canada, one of my senior editors suggested I run a joke campaign for public office on a platform of lowering beer prices, just to see how people would respond. Readers loved the idea, but the publisher didn't — and killed my budding political career.)

Alas, the British beer drinker's good fortune may not last long. Morning Edition reports that anti-alcohol campaigners, aghast at the idea that beer is cheaper than water, want the government to increase taxes. But even without a tax hike, prices for microbrews at least are likely to rise because of a shortage of the hops used to flavor beer.

11:55 AM ET | 11-13-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

Employers Cracking Down on Unhealthy Behaviors

Earlier this year, Scotts Miracle-Gro announced that smokers could no longer work for the Ohio-based lawn and garden company and that it would test randomly for nicotine. Starting in January, employees of media giant Tribune Co. will have to pay an additional $100 a month in insurance premiums if they or their covered family members smoke.

Welcome to the new world of "tough love" health care, where some companies are trying to limit rising costs by cracking down on potentially unhealthy behaviors, The Washington Post reports.

A survey of 450 major employers this year found that two-thirds were considering more aggressive health care programs for employees. The costs are a big deal for employers. The nonprofit Partnership for Prevention says employers spend an average of $1,685 per employee on absenteeism, low productivity and other indirect costs of individual and family health problems, for a grand total of $226 billion a year.

However, workers in 30 states are protected from penalties for lawful activities, such as smoking, outside work. Union contracts also offer some protection. For instance, the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild has filed a grievance about the smoking penalty at The Baltimore Sun, a Tribune newspaper.

A lawyer representing a former Scotts worker who was fired after testing positive for nicotine argues that if employers can implement these kinds of measures against smokers, it's only a matter of time before they also penalize people "who are overweight or have high cholesterol, or ride motorcycles or sky-dive."

How far should a company be able to go to force employees to adopt healthier lifestyles? What about not hiring people who smoke or who are overweight?

9:57 AM ET | 11-13-2007 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

Online Trading Firm's Stock Value Drops by Half

E*Trade has had better days. Shares in the online stock-trading firm lost more than half their value today following a warning from a Citigroup analyst about a higher "probability of a run on the bank."

TheStreet.com reports that analyst Prashant Bhatia downgraded the stock to a "sell" rating after E*Trade announced Friday that it expected to take additional hits from the subprime mortgage crisis. The firm also said that the Securities and Exchange Commission had launched an informal inquiry into the firm's loans and securities portfolios.

Now, I know next to nothing about the stock market and securities portfolios, but I do know that everyone pulling their money out of a bank is not a good thing. (Anybody who has ever seen It's a Wonderful Life understands that.) So I wondered what would happen if you did have some money in an E*Trade account, like a margin-selling account that day traders like to use, when the company went kaput. Would you lose it all because the company is online rather than a bricks-and-mortar entity?

Well, the message from Karen Petrou, a managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics in Washington, D.C., is that you can relax. A bit. E*Trade, she told me, is an insured depository, which makes it just like a bank (even if it doesn't have ATMs). That means it's protected by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to the tune of $100,000 per customer. (The FDIC doesn't protect stocks, mutual funds and money market accounts, but those wouldn't be affected by what happens to E*Trade as a company.)

Then again, TheStreet reports that 50 percent of E*Trade accounts, about $15 billion, are in excess of $100,000. So maybe only half of its customers can relax. And I'm guessing that there might not be any E*Trade commercials during the Super Bowl this year.

6:04 PM ET | 11-12-2007 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post

Broadway, Hollywood Strikers Share Money Concerns

Members of the Broadway stagehands' union picket during the weekend.

Eric Bechtold/Scoopt/Getty Images

The strikes involving Hollywood writers and Broadway stagehands have more in common than just showbiz. The strikers from the two unions share at least one bargaining concern: They want producers to take revenue from nontraditional sources into account in their contracts.

For TV and film writers, this additional revenue is the main reason for their strike. They are fighting for a share of the money generated from their work through new technologies like the Internet and mobile phones. The creation of revenue from sources other than ticket sales is an issue for the stagehands, particularly in terms of determining a production's profitability.

"When you go into a show like Legally Blonde or Young Frankenstein, you walk past a phalanx of souvenir kiosks," NPR contributor Jeff Lunden told me. And it's these revenue streams that the union says should be considered in a show's bottom line. That will help determine, the union argues, what kind of contract producers can afford.

However, producers argue that old rules force them to pay people who do little or no work and doom many productions to financial failure. Right now, Lunden told me, about one in five Broadway shows is profitable, and it can take around two years to get there.

That leads to another concern the stagehands share with TV and film writers — not everyone works all year long. The stagehands' union argues that the work rules in the contract exist to help protect members who don't work 12 months a year.

Lunden reported for Morning Edition today that no new negotiations have been scheduled in the Broadway strike. But the heat on both sides to reach a settlement might be turned up as tourists cancel trips to New York and economic losses start to hit other businesses, like restaurants and hotels.

3:38 PM ET | 11-12-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

Report Calls for Access to Birth Records for Adoptees

When it comes to making adoption policy, the struggle between one person's right to know and another's right to privacy is often central. But The Associated Press says a report being released today by a leading adoption institute comes down solidly for the right to know, calling for adult adoptees to have access to their birth records, which will allow them to learn their birth parents' identities.

"States' experiences in providing this information make clear that there are minimal, if any, negative repercussions," says the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, which is based in Boston. "Outcomes appear to have been overwhelmingly positive for adult adopted persons and birthparents alike."

According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the institute argues that open records for adoption "do not result in increased abortion rates, decreased adoptions or fractured adoptive families." Currently, eight states allow this kind of access to adults who were adopted.

But opponents of open records, like the National Council for Adoption, say that they violate the birth mother's privacy and point out that sometimes birth parents don't want to develop relationships with the children they gave up for adoption. The president of the council, which favors mutual consent before any contact between an adopted adult and a birth parent, also says that taking away the confidentiality option removes adoption as a choice for some women who feel they would have to have it.

However, some adopted children argue that they need to know their biological background. "There are so many adoptees who want to know who they are," said Paula Benoit, an adoptee and state senator in Maine who lobbied for an open records law. "Can you imagine being denied your identity?"

So what serves the greater good here: the right to know or the right to privacy?

10:53 AM ET | 11-12-2007 | permalink | comments (16) | e-mail post

How High Are the Levels of Chemicals in Our Bodies?

How's your "body burden"? That's the term being used to describe the levels of sometimes toxic chemicals Americans carry in their bodies.

A new study by a group of nongovernmental organizations measured those levels. The chemicals examined can often be found in personal cosmetics like hand creams, in flame retardants put on furniture or in plastics used in shower curtains, to make water bottles harder or to keep teeth from getting cavities.

Thirty-five people from seven states were tested for the toxins. Sharyle Patton, director of Commonweal's Health and Environment Program, one of the NGOs conducting the study, told Day to Day's Alex Chadwick that the levels found in human bodies were equivalent to levels that have been shown to produce "bodily changes" in animals.

Journalist and author David Ropeik says this study contributes to a growing body of evidence that we all carry chemicals we weren't born with. But he says it's important to remember that when a study comes out — especially one with a small sample — it's just one brick in a wall of evidence, "not the defining answer."

6:38 PM ET | 11- 8-2007 | permalink | comments (11) | e-mail post

Study: Caffeine May Help Treat Alzheimer's

My mother, who is approaching 80, used to drink 15 to 20 cups of coffee a day. I kid you not. Finally, her doctor told her she just had to cut back. And she did ... to about 10 cups a day.

So I think she'll be glad to hear that a study has found that the caffeine equivalent of drinking five cups of coffee a day may help prevent or treat Alzheimer's disease. ScienceDaily reports that separate studies also show that using certain blood pressure drugs or taking fish oil may help as well.

The blood pressure drugs appear to block the formation of the sticky wads of protein called amyloid plaques that build up in brains of Alzheimer's patients. Tests with caffeine and fish oil showed they were effective in reducing the plaques in animals.

Gary Arendash, a researcher at the Byrd Alzheimer's Institute in Tampa, Fla., says giving Alzheimer's mice the human equivalent of five cups of coffee, or 500 milligrams of caffeine, breaks apart the sticky plaque. His institute has begun clinical trials with older people. "Caffeine could be a surprisingly effective treatment against this disease,'' Arendash told Bloomberg. "It's almost too good to be true.''

I used to give my mom a hard time about drinking so much coffee. But maybe it's not so bad.

1:33 PM ET | 11- 8-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

MIT Sues Architect Gehry Over Unusual Building

The Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which was designed by Frank Gehry, opened in 2004.

Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

The unique design of the Stata Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology certainly catches your attention. Frank Gehry, the architect who designed it, once said it "looks like a party of drunken robots got together to celebrate."

But MIT, apparently, is no longer celebrating. The university is suing Gehry and the construction company that built the $300 million center, which opened in 2004, alleging that design and construction failures "resulted in pervasive leaks, cracks and drainage problems that have required costly repairs," The New York Times reports.

Gehry, whose firm was paid $15 million for the project, told the Times that issues involved in the lawsuit, which was filed in Boston last week, are "fairly minor. MIT is after our insurance."

Gehry's work has often played a role in debates about form versus function in buildings. For instance, John Silber, former president of Boston University, tells The Boston Globe that Gehry thinks of himself as a sculptor, but that "you don't live in a sculpture."

So should someone who commissions a striking design like this expect to sacrifice some functionality?

5:46 PM ET | 11- 7-2007 | permalink | comments (13) | e-mail post

Media Web Sites Try Selling Words in Stories

Ads seem to be everywhere online: pop-ups, side links, ads that float across your screen, banner ads. Now some online publishers are picking up on yet another idea: selling words in their editorial content and linking them to ads.

It's known as in-text advertising, and it's being used by newspaper sites like AZCentral, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Reno Gazette-Journal and The Indianapolis Star. (For an example, in this AJC story about Georgia football, the words "football" and "sports" have been purchased by a deodorant company. Look for the green text and double underlining.)

Bill Mitchell, editor of Poynter Online, the Web site of the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists and journalism teachers, finds the idea intriguing but sees some problems.

"Reader confusion is a big issue here," he told me. "When you see links in the body of editorial content, you believe that it leads to material that is likely to add to your understanding of the content or enables you to go deeper into the story. You don't think that you're going to an ad."

Continue reading "Media Web Sites Try Selling Words in Stories" »

6:54 PM ET | 11- 6-2007 | permalink | comments (8) | e-mail post

Survey: Fears About Getting Older Differ Around Globe

I confess to having a few worries about growing old since passing the big 5-0, especially when the AARP tried to sign me up. But I was intrigued to see that what people fret about when it comes to aging differs from country to country, according to an international survey.

The survey, conducted by GfK Roper Consulting, a global market-research firm, found that Germans worry most about losing their memories or mental sharpness, The Boston Globe reports. The Dutch worry about gaining weight, while Brazilians fear losing their sex drive and their teeth. Thais are concerned about their eyesight. And Egyptians don't seem to worry about aging much at all.

(My wife, an expert on the Middle East, offered an interesting take on Egyptians' attitudes toward growing old. The trade-off for aging is supposed to be that you become a respected elder in your community, right? Well, that's the case in much of Egyptian society, she says, but perhaps not as true in the West, where so much value is placed on youth.)

And Americans ... well, we worry about a few things: loss of energy, trouble caring for ourselves, memory loss and weight gain.

I fall into the weight-gain concerns camp. Anyone else willing to 'fess up to what worries them about growing old?

1:50 PM ET | 11- 6-2007 | permalink | comments (9) | e-mail post

A Bicycle Built for ... Millions

People rent bicycles in Paris during a transportation strike last month.

Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images

It's apparently an idea that's pedaling its way around the globe. A growing number of cities worldwide are starting self-service bike rental operations, many modeled after a system in Paris.

Der Spiegel reports that once people sign up for the Paris service, they can take as many trips as they like. Basic fees run from $1.45 a day to $42 for a year. People can use bikes from any one of the 750 stations in the city (that number is expected to double to more than 1,400 this year) and return it to any station. The first half-hour is free, but after that, the additional fees climb sharply.

JCDecaux, the French advertising firm that came up with the Paris model, offers cities the ability to pay for the service straight-up or work out a deal that gives the company the rights to sell advertising space on the city's billboards. The cities showing interest in the Paris model include Sydney, Moscow, London and even Chicago.

But would it work in the United States' car-dominated culture? If a similar rental system existed in your city, would you bike rather than hail a cab?

11:17 AM ET | 11- 5-2007 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post

Super Mouse Can Run For Almost Six Hours

Look, there on the treadmill, it's a bird, it's a plane, it's ... super mouse!

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University say they have bred a new kind of "mighty mouse." Officially known as PEPCK-Cmus mice, they can run for three miles and for up to six hours before they tire. They also live up to a year longer, eat 60 percent more -- and don't gain any weight -- are very aggressive and are sexually active far longer than regular mice in a control group.

If you want to see just how amazing these creatures are, check out this video of the mice running.

I talked with Prof. Richard Hanson at Case Western, who was the senior author of the article on the mice that appeared in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. He told me the discovery was total "serendipity." The original research aimed to look at an enzyme involved in the production of glucose, or sugar, as a source of energy in the liver and kidneys. Dr. Hanson said the researchers "over expressed" (or really souped up) the role of the enzyme phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase - or PEPCK-C for short - in muscle tissue to see what would happen to the muscle.

The result was the super mice.

As for the future of the research, Dr. Hanson told me he doesn't see the research being used as a performance-enhancer for humans. 'It's unethical and inappropriate," he said.

Instead, he sees the discovery of the mice's new abilities heading in three directions: 1) looking at the possible link between exercise and cancer, building on previous studies showing exercise may reduce cancer; 2) looking at the role of calorie-reduction because "it may not be the calories you eat as (much as) what you do with them"; 3) looking at the possible link between the muscles and the brain.

'It's unexpected and interesting," he told me.

4:27 PM ET | 11- 2-2007 | permalink | comments (1) | e-mail post

Is It OK for the Government to Withhold Data?

After a year of refusing, NASA said this week that it will reveal the results of an aviation survey that found near collisions, runway interference and other safety problems happen far more frequently than previously believed. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin apologized to members of Congress for saying earlier that the agency had held back the survey data because it would upset travelers and hurt airline profits.

Griffin, however, called into question his own agency's research, saying that NASA doesn't consider the survey's methodology or data to have been sufficiently verified. But a non-NASA expert who worked on the study disagreed with Griffin.

If Griffin had legitimate concerns about the data, was it OK to withhold it? Or is it not a government agency's place to hold back information that would be of interest to many Americans?

9:38 AM ET | 11- 2-2007 | permalink | comments (7) | e-mail post

I Ain't 'Fraid of No Ghost

My grandparents' house in Windsor, Nova Scotia, had a reputation for being haunted. An old man dressed in mid-19th century clothing would suddenly appear in a hallway or in a room, and then when you looked again, he was gone. We eventually found out that the original owner hung himself in the attic after his wife ran off, adding to the mystique.

Belief in ghosts is fairly common in the United States. A poll released last week showed that one in three people believe in ghosts, and 23 percent say they've actually seen or felt the presence of one. But Sharon Begley, science writer for Newsweek, writes that seeing those ghostly images might have something to do with the way the brain tends to fill in the blanks when it gets only partial information and to see patterns in random data. So if wind whipping through a house sounds like a voice, and if we believe in the supernatural, it becomes a voice.

So have you ever seen a ghost? Or do you think it's just your brain getting tricked when you hear things that go bump in the night?

10:57 AM ET | 10-31-2007 | permalink | comments (15) | e-mail post

Furniture Store's Customers Win Along with Red Sox

It seemed crazy. Jordan's Furniture, based just outside Boston, started a promotion earlier this year that promised customers who bought certain items during a month-long period that they would basically get them for free if the Boston Red Sox won the World Series.

Customers took Jordan's up on the offer, placing nearly 30,000 orders. And then, when the Sox beat the Colorado Rockies on Sunday, they hit the jackpot. They are all getting their money back. I've seen estimates that it will cost Jordan's more than $15 million.

But it's not quite as nuts as it might appear: Jordan's took out an insurance policy.

These kinds of promotions are getting more popular each year, says Tiffani Stovall, marketing manager for Odds On Promotions of Reno, Nev. The company underwrites insurance policies like the one Jordan's took out.

Stores use this kind of "conditional rebate" promotion to draw in more shoppers. Many are tied to a sporting event — like, if your team hits a grand slam in the seventh inning, all tires are free — but they don't have be. Stovall's company once insured a promotion that offered rebates if it snowed on Christmas Day.

However, Stovall says few are as big as Jordan's Red Sox giveaway. Odds On Promotions didn't insure that one, but it is handling a similar contest for Shavarsh Jewelers, a Boston-area store that will rebate purchases if the New England Patriots are undefeated this season. The jewelry store is insured for a much smaller amount.

And the rebate ointment is not without its flies for customers. The New Hampshire Union Leader reports that Jordan's will send the "winners" a Form 1099 and notify the IRS because federal law requires taxpayers to report prize income of more than $600.

6:20 PM ET | 10-29-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

Standard Time Switch Caught in Time Warp

iStockphoto

I'm starting to wonder if we'll ever get this time-change thing down.

When I went to pick my wife up at the airport on Sunday, it took me a second to figure out why the pay-and-go parking machine wouldn't let me pay and leave. I had spent almost an hour in the lot, but the machine was telling me that I was trying to leave 10 minutes earlier than I had actually arrived — it had changed back to standard time a week early. (So I ended up leaving without paying.)

The time warp was a result of an energy bill Congress passed in 2005 that moved daylight-saving time three weeks earlier in the spring and a week later in the fall, starting this year. Instead of falling on this past Sunday, the switch will be next Sunday.

Now, Congress built in a two-year waiting period to give people ample opportunity to make changes to computer software, clocks, etc. But that didn't stop problems from cropping up last spring.

David Prerau, who literally wrote the book on seasonal time changes, Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time, told me he expected that. "It's human nature. Look at Y2K. People had 10 years to make that change and still many waited until the last second," he said.

But he figured people would remember to make the change for the fall at the same time. Turns out that not everybody was so forward-thinking.

The Baltimore Sun reports that parking meters in the city fell back an hour, meaning some people got tickets. The New York Daily News notes that many BlackBerry phones, laptop computers and other gadgets switched back as well.

So did you lose an hour? Or like me, end up saving a few bucks because the time worked in your favor?

1:06 PM ET | 10-29-2007 | permalink | comments (3) | e-mail post

Weighing the Chances of the Sanctions Against Iran

The White House announced tough new sanctions against key elements of the Iranian regime on Thursday, but what are the chances they'll actually work?

To find out, one thing you can look for is a "black knight" lurking in the background, says Daniel Drezner, associate professor of international politics at Tufts University. He tells me that a "black knight" is a country that provides the sanctioned regime with the very things the sanctioner just tried to take away.

Considering the rhetoric coming from Moscow these days, Russia might fit that description for Iran. China might try on a knight's helmet as well.

Other things to look for that can help predict sanctions' success? Drezner, who wrote The Sanctions Paradox: Economic Statecraft and International Relations, says there's also the expectation of future conflict. If the sanctioned country believes that bowing to the sanctions won't rule out clashes in the future, then the penalties are ineffective. The leaders just shrug and say, "What's the difference?"

And, as Drezner says, Iran is expecting a lot of future conflict with the United States.

Another factor to consider comes from NPR's global finance guru, Adam Davidson. Adam tells me that most economists believe that the more totalitarian the regime, the less likely financial sanctions are to work. And the more entrepreneurial the country, the more effective sanctions can be. (So they didn't work very well against Saddam Hussein, who controlled the Iraqi economy, but they did have an effect in South Africa, where there was a strong independent business class.)

Iran? Well, it does have a small business class, but most of the key sections of the economy are controlled by the regime and its agents, like the Revolutionary Guard and the Quds Force. What's likely to happen, Adam says, is that the entrepreneurs will get squeezed, while those targeted by the sanctions will increase their share of a shrinking pie.

12:02 PM ET | 10-26-2007 | permalink | comments (13) | e-mail post

Twins, Separated as Babies, Become Sisters Again

The story of Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein, identical twins who were put up for adoption and separated as babies, seems like something from a movie.

While I listened to the twins talk about their lives today on Talk of the Nation, I found it hard not to feel angry that their separation was part of (as host Neal Conan put it) an "ethically dubious" 1960s psychological study investigating the effects of nature versus nurture.

But it's amazing that they were able to find each other. After their adoption, the sisters lived separate lives. Then, more than 30 years later, Elyse d