SPINE-TINGLING ART: How to promote ink cartridge re-use? Paint models' naked backs. - Saint Paul Pioneer Press (St. Paul, MN)

Byline: Claire Joseph

Sep. 14--The message: use ink responsibly. The medium: paint.

The canvas: human bodies. Body artists plied their skills Wednesday, painting strictly Minnesota matter on models' backs in downtown Minneapolis.

Bob Dylan, Prince and Kevin Garnett were among the main attractions for 'Human Art Gallery: Paintings on a Human Canvas,' sponsored by OfficeMax. The event was aimed at OfficeMax's environmentally friendly ink-cartridge-refill program. While OfficeMax employees chatted with people on their lunch breaks about the consequences of irresponsible ink use, models displayed the beauty that can be found in ink. Royal Palmer, a Burnsville model and actor, showed off an image of the Walker Art Center's 'Spoonbridge and Cherry' sculpture while lying on the ground of a First Avenue parking lot. 'This is a difficult pose to be in,' Palmer said, 'but when I was getting painted, it was really fun. It's neat to see the finished product.' Palmer's back displays the spoon and cherry image with a woman's mouth, wide open, as if she were about to eat the cherry. It 'portrays the public eating up the art scene,' said airbrush and body-paint artist Dawn Svanoe of Madison, Wis. Svanoe spent the past week designing and creating stencils for the piece. Wednesday morning, she painted it, along with 'Purple Rain' and 'Border Battle' at the event. 'Purple Rain' paid homage to music icon Prince, and 'Border Battle' showed the rivalry between the Vikings and Green Bay Packers with the words '40 Years of Cold War.' The exhibit featured 10 human-art designs, including images of famous Minnesota musicians, icons, athletes and sports teams, including the Twins. OfficeMax is offering discounts for customers who bring in old ink cartridges they would like recycled, said company spokesman Bill Bonner. 'It is estimated that people throw away 300 million ink cartridges a year,' said Heather Schwartz, one of the event coordinators, 'and they are not biodegradable.' Claire Joseph can be reached at cjoseph@pioneerpress.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business

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Not enough proof Bears' offense is really better. - Chicago Tribune (Chicago, IL)

Byline: Rick Morrissey

CHICAGO _ One of the great, all-time corrections in sports journalism history came about 20 years ago in Denver.

After much adding, dividing and general calculating, a newspaper columnist had discovered the ultimate proof of parity in the NFL: The league had become so balanced, he wrote, that the average record the season before had been 8-8.

The next day, after hearing from more than a few readers, the chagrined columnist wrote that, upon closer inspection, he had to admit the average record every season is 8-8. Has to be. Somebody has to win and somebody has to lose in equal measure. He regretted the error and his confusion.

There's a reason we writers don't major in math in college. But the point the columnist was trying to make about parity 20 years ago is still valid today. There are a lot of average teams in the NFL.

Here's the difference: At least in the middle of all that mediocrity, we had some great teams to have and to hold _ the 49ers of Joe Montana and Jerry Rice and the Cowboys of Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith, to name a couple.

There are no great teams in the NFL these days, unless the Steelers are hiding their inner `85 Bears and I'm missing it.

Which brings us to this year's Bears. We're being told not to panic about the Rex Grossman Wheel-Spinning Tour. We're being told that good teams have been known to struggle in exhibitions and that the real Grossman was on display Thursday night. That the other guy had been an imposter.

That's all fine and dandy, and I suppose if you subscribe to the theory the Bears can turn it on any time they want, then you're feeling quite relaxed right now. But there is an opportunity here just begging to be grabbed.

If the Bears are as good as they say they are _ and Lovie Smith, Coach Serenity, says they are very good _ they're one of several teams with a legitimate chance to get to the Super Bowl. Hey, I'm just going by what he seems to be saying.

This is where the sense of urgency comes in. This is where the panic starts tugging at your sleeve. If the Bears are that good, it sure would be nice if they left a few clues indicating so. Throw us a bone. Make us feel a little better about things. OK, you give us Grossman's touchdown pass against the Browns on Thursday. A start.

The fact of the matter is that, right now, the Bears are a leap of faith, or at least a decent hop of faith. You figure the defense, if the entire unit doesn't clutch a knee in unison in Week 2, is going to be good, borderline great. You figure the offense will be better than last year because anything would have to be better than last year.

But that's the galling part of this. The Bears are supposed to be much better offensively this season. We've been spoon-fed the promise of Grossman for so long that some of us were full of hope.

So imagine the shock when Grossman looked like Kyle Orton with a better arm in the first three exhibitions. Until Thursday night in Cleveland, he was the king of the overthrown pass. Nobody led a receiver by 10 yards the way our Rex did. But he finally looked good against the Browns in a brief appearance. Finally.

That's not four quarters at Green Bay.

The picture that has been painted of Coach Serenity as a man with a quick trigger finger, as a coach not afraid to make lineup changes_I don't see it. A cold-blooded coach at least would have mentioned that Brian Griese might be, you know, a decent alternative at quarterback.

Instead, we get Smith chanting, 'We like Rex.'

This is a peculiar organization. Linebacker Lance Briggs gets demoted for missing the voluntary off-season workouts. He gets his job back the second day of training camp. Wow, lesson learned.

Running back Cedric Benson gets reprimanded for not standing with his teammates during an exhibition game. How do the Bears react to the brouhaha? By vowing to get to the bottom of who leaked the news to the media.

If they spent as much time trying to fix their offense as they do trying to be Donald Rumsfeld, we would be talking seriously about the Super Bowl here instead of just wondering about it.

This is supposed to be a time of optimism for the Bears. Instead, the quarterback position is still very shaky, taking Grossman's body of work into consideration. Thomas Jones is upset that, after rushing for 1,335 yards last season, the Bears seem more interested in another number _Benson's $17 million in guaranteed money.

Smith has the look on his face that says he will be laughing about all this turmoil come playoff time. Here's hoping he's right.

Here's hoping the Bears don't end up with the NFL's average record.

___

(c) 2006, Chicago Tribune.

Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Young cook savors competition. - The Fayetteville Observer (Fayetteville, NC)

Byline: Chick Jacobs

Sep. 19--Kasey Bass picked up her first cooking pot at age 5.

She hasn't put it down since.

Now 13 and a student at Coats-Erwin Middle School, Bass ranks cooking as one of her favorite pastimes.

'Actually, probably my favorite,' she said.

And certainly the most lucrative. Her recipe for Turkey Veggie Supreme earned her $250 at the recent North Carolina Turkey Festival competition.

'It's fun to do things like this,' Kasey said, brushing away an occasional gnat that wanted to check her culinary skills. 'It's creative, and you get to enjoy what you've created with other people.'

In fairness, it should be noted that Kasey comes by her cooking skills naturally. She comes from a long line of cooks in central North Carolina. Her aunt, Donna Barefoot, was a previous competitor in the turkey contest and a regular at North Carolina State Fair competitions.

'She's the one who got me started in cooking,' Kasey said. 'We'd watch her in the kitchen when we were little, and she'd have us start helping.'

Although she prefers baking -- 'I love making desserts, cookies and things' -- Kasey's entry in the cookoff was a careful consideration of flavor and nutrition.

'I wanted to try something that was easy to make, but nutritious,' she said. 'It's easy to make something quickly, and nobody really has the time to sit and watch things cook all day. But can you make it work without taking all day?

'So it took some time to get the right ingredients. I think it came out pretty good.'

When she's not in the kitchen, you can look for Kasey outdoors. She loves sports, especially softball and basketball.

'I can be competitive,' she said. 'I guess that can be in the kitchen, too.'

1 pound ground turkey

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

1 (1-pound) bag of frozen vegetables, thawed

3 cups hot mashed potatoes, combined with Velveeta prepared cheese to taste, or

3 cups Velveeta instant potatoes

In a medium skillet over medium high heat, cook the turkey until brown, stirring to separate the meat. Drain off the fat.

In a 2-quart shallow baking dish, mix turkey, half the soup, Worcestershire sauce and veggies.

Stir remaining soup into mashed potatoes. Spoon potato mixture over meat mixture.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until hot.

If you know a cook you'd like to see in Cook's Corner, contact Chick Jacobs at jacobsc@fayobserver.com or 486-3515.

To see more of The Fayetteville Observer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.fayettevillenc.com/.

Copyright (c) 2007, The Fayetteville Observer, N.C.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

San Jose Mercury News, Calif., Morning Buzz column: A prodigy gone bust.(Column) - San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, CA)

Byline: John Ryan

Aug. 30--This one ceased being worth a laugh many years ago. It's just so sad.

Todd Marinovich -- whose father, Marv, served as the role model for the current generation's most obsessive and out-of-control sports parents -- could be headed to prison after the latest in a long string of drug-related trouble.

Police said Marinovich, 38, was skateboarding near the Newport Pier boardwalk about 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning and ran away when officers tried to stop him. When they found him hiding in a carport six blocks away, they said, he had powdered methamphetamine, a metal spoon and a hypodermic needle inside his guitar case. He is being held without bail on a felony possession charge and a probation violation.

The way we see it, Todd Marinovich was treated as a full-grown football player from the time he was born. Then when he left the Raiders and football forever in 1992, his life started over. According to that calendar, he's 15 and deserves some mercy.

Pops, on the other hand . . .

Contact John Ryan at jryan@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5266.

To see more of the San Jose Mercury News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mercurynews.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

Big East can relax, but not too much - The Charleston Gazette (Charleston, WV)

MORGANTOWN - The Big East can probably rest easy for a while andnot have to worry about looking over its shoulder to see doom, gloomand the Big Ten approaching.

Whether or not the league should rest easy, well, that's anothermatter entirely.

It is, after all, only a matter of time. It always is and for theforeseeable future always will be. As the BCS league with the mostto lose and the least to gain in any sort of shuffling andrealignment of the 64 current college football power brokers, theBig East as it is currently constituted will always be vulnerable.

So why can the league rest easy for the time being? Well, thereare those who will argue that it cannot. Look at how rapidly theconference landscape changed just in the last week. One day the BigTen was sticking to its 12- to 18-month expansion timetable and thePac-10 wasn't even considered a player, at least in the short term.Within a week, the Pac-10 had added Colorado, the Big Ten hadplucked Nebraska, the Big 12 was - in a span of just 48 hours - leftfor roadkill and then revived in an even stronger form, and the Pac-10 - in that same two-day time frame - went from college sports'potential Goliath right back to David in a sense, having lost thechance to add Texas and Oklahoma and being left to debate therelative merits of Utah.

Shoot, look even at the Big East, which one day was salivatingover the prospect of adding Kansas and Missouri and the next wasback to perhaps foraging for Conference USA's best.

Whew.

Those who will argue that no one knows when the same sort ofrapid-fire, mind-boggling shifts might occur are right, but only toa point. It could very well happen and probably will. But not thisweek or next, not this month and probably not this year. Truth betold, college football may be safe from such upheaval for at least afew years.

The reason? Presidents, purely and simply.

No one can deny that all of this maneuvering is simply an armsrace. There is absolutely no other reason for the Big Ten or the Pac-10 or any other league to begin recruiting members other than tomake themselves bigger and badder. The bigger and badder they get,the more money they reap from television. The more money they have,the bigger and badder they can continue to get.

University presidents, though, will sully themselves only to apoint in such a battle for pigskin preeminence. Big Ten commissionerJim Delany talked in the weeks leading up to those recent eventsabout how his league didn't want to be seen as igniting some sort ofcollegiate athletics Armageddon. You can trust that the message camestraight from the Big Ten presidents for whom he works.

Each and every one of them is loathe to be painted as anythingother than an academician first. Yes, they all understand thesignificance of college athletics and the branding it brings totheir universities, but to be responsible for orchestrating thecalamity that would befall victims of conference expansion (i.e.,the member institutions of the Big East, Big 12, etc.), well, thatis so against the very principles they stand for as to be positivelyrepulsive.

And guess what? Nothing that happened last week painted a singlecollege president in a light other than that of looking out for thebest interests of his university while treading not the slightest onanyone else. Talk about your sighs of relief. The Big Ten addedtelevision value and got to the 12-school level needed to stage afootball championship game, the Pac-10 did the same with Coloradoand Utah, the Big 12 not only survived but will now thrive with muchthe same value and fewer spoons in the pot, and the Big East (aswell as the SEC and ACC) were not affected in the slightest.

Don't think for a moment that every Big Ten president isn'tabsolutely thrilled with that outcome. They have a stronger, soon-to-be richer conference, and in order to get there they sacrificedno other institutions. Plus, they have perhaps staved offcongressional intervention, which was certain to be an issue hadmultiple institutions been adversely affected (and still looms inregard to the BCS itself, although Utah's move to the Pac-10 mightget Orrin Hatch off their collective backs). And so now, if anyonehas the temerity to go to those presidents asking that they furtherexpand by raiding the Big East or the ACC, the answer is simple:We've already won. Let's leave it at that for now.

Will the landscape eventually change again? Sure. But not thisyear and probably not next if the presidents have their way, whichthey will. And by the time those same presidents are receptive tohearing further arguments, who knows what else will have happened toreshape the playing field and alter the participants?

All of which brings us back to the original question: While theBig East can afford to relax, should it?

The answer, of course, is easy: No. Whether it be in a year ortwo years or whenever, the same issues are going to arise. Asinarguably the smallest and most vulnerable of the six BCSconferences (vulnerable precisely because it is the smallest andwithout much football star power, and because of its location woveninto the Northeastern media markets), it will be a target. In fact,it will be a much more exposed target should the Big 12, asexpected, come out of this round of expansion even stronger.

How to strengthen the Big East, though, is the tricky part, andnot only from the perspective of its presidents, who also are loatheto disrupt and adversely affect other institutions. But hasn't thatalways been the case? No one wants to destroy what the league hasgoing for it on the basketball side, but that is at odds with what'sbest for the more lucrative football side. Everyone seems to havewhat they think is the logical solution, but those are usuallysimplistic formulas that fail to address all the issues.

Sure, adding football members seems smart, but how much wouldEast Carolina or Memphis or Central Florida really add? Perhaps anyor all or those schools (or any others that would seem available;Army, Navy, luring back Boston College) might add value, but enoughto increase per-school revenues? Doubtful, and certainly notsignificantly, if at all. And while it would help the schedulingside of football, would any of those schools make the Big East anyless vulnerable the next time the Big Ten comes calling? Not likely.

How about tossing Notre Dame to the curb if it doesn't sign upfor football? That does absolutely nothing for the football side ofthe league (which is the issue) and diminishes (although to whatdegree is arguable) the basketball side. Kicking out Notre Damemight be wise if it forces the Irish to then join the Big Ten andsatisfy that league's hunger, but for how long?

Oh, and convincing Notre Dame to simply become more involved inthe football side (perhaps by increasing the number of games itplays against league schools) is questionable, too. The Irish havealready agreed to do that once and the most significant result was apower play to try and get Connecticut and Rutgers to play seriesthat included no games at Connecticut or Rutgers, but instead inSouth Bend and at neutral sites. Gee, thanks.

Of course, there is always talk of a split between the footballand basketball schools in the Big East (and then forming some sortof alliance between the two), an idea which seems to be picking upsteam. Perhaps that is ultimately what is going to have to happen.After all, adding schools to the football side makes the basketballside even more unwieldy than it currently is.

But again, is it worth potentially destroying what is arguablythe best basketball league in the country in order to add to thefootball side schools whose value (both financially and certainly interms of fortifying the league against future raids) is suspect atbest?

These and others are the questions with which the Big East has tograpple. Fortunately, though, recent events seem to have bought themat least a little more time.

They would be well advised not to relax, but to use that timewisely.

Brent's office party - Scotland on Sunday (Edinburgh, Scotland)

THE demise of humour at Dens Park has been greatly exaggerated.For a kick-off, Dundee manager Jim Duffy is in playful mood. Havingbeen asked for some time with his defender Brent Sancho, he informsthat there are a number of ladies harbouring such a desire. Except,he laughs, he's sure they are after more than an interview. Thereasons may not be instantly recognisable to all but that's because,while the packaging may be to some tastes, it's what's on the insidethat's really attractive.

There's a depth to Sancho that is lacking in the stereotypicalfootballer. Intelligent and warm, his stimulating views on the meatyissues of life and death, education, philosophy, psychology, racism,the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and their legacy on life inhis adopted hometown of New York, are captivating and tackled withopenness and integrity. But on the more frivolous topics of sport,his dream of opening a Caribbean restaurant or his favourite books,he is equally engaging. The serious issues provoke well-thought-outviews and arguments, while an infectious 110-watt smile embraceslight-hearted moments.

It's that grin and the accompanying laughter, which, combined withDuffy's teasing, make a mockery of the headlines declaring a sense ofhumour bypass on Sandeman Street. 'Of course we are in a serioussituation,' he says of their drop into the relegation dangerzone.'But it's not the first time we've had to pull together. I've beenhere almost two years now but there's times when that feels like alifetime. The events that have taken place on and off the field, itseems never-ending at times. But I think adversity sometimes bringsout the best in people and in the situations where you need innerstrength, you learn more and you cherish life, football, yourprofession that bit more. If you want the rainbow you need to weatherthe rain.'

It's an admirably-positive philosophy considering the hand whichlife has dealt him. Experiencing a series of ups and downs in thepast few years, the Trinidad international, who emigrated to New Yorkas a 15-year-old, lost two friends in the Twin Towers tragedy, thensuffered more heartache when his international room-mate and boyhoodfriend, Mickey Trotman, and then, one month later, his cousin, diedin separate car crashes. He arrived at Dundee shortly before the clubwas plunged into administration, and, as he and his team-matesdrowned their sorrows, he was submitted to racial abuse andsubsequently forced to clear his name after being charged withassault.

In between it all he also graduated from university with majors inpsychology and sports science, and carved out a football career whichhas taken him across the USA, on to Finland, home to Trinidad and nowto Tayside, where today he faces friends and former colleagues, NachoNovo and Marvin Andrews.

'It sometimes just feels like I've been there, done that! I'veseen a lot and I've been through a lot of life-learning experiencesand they have helped me as a person, on and off the pitch,' says thedefender, who will celebrate his 28th birthday tonight by havingdinner with his team-mates and friends, including the Rangers duo.'It's made me a more well-rounded individual. You can sit and weepand wonder 'why me?' but if life gives you a silver spoon then Ithink you don't really get to understand or enjoy the meaning oflife. I think some of the things I've been through, although theywere tough on me at the time, have helped me a lot in terms of beinga better human being.'

His study of psychology did not end the day he graduated. The partplayed by the mind, in sport and in everyday life, is of constantintrigue. In his spare time, he only turns to his Playstation if hisbrain is about to overload on the latest information he has garneredfrom the internet, or from books, and his long-term plans revolvearound the psychology of sport.

'Footballers have a lot of spare time and I like to think I use itwisely. I look at life after football and think, 'yeah, I've gotthings I can do after football because of I have an educationalbackground.' I like the challenge of learning and love reading aboutpsychology and it has helped me put things that have happened in mylife into perspective.'

But it does have its pitfalls. He laughs as he recalls his firstday at university. 'In my first day in psychology class, the firstthing I did was start questioning whether or not I was crazy becausethe professor started laying out traits of schizophrenics and forother types of psychological disorders and I started thinking, wait aminute that kind of sounds like me but it was the same for everyoneand when you question things, you get a better hold of who you are.Once you understand your mind off the pitch, it helps you gear yourmind for things on the pitch and that helps you become a betterplayer.'

An amalgam of laid-back Carribean beach bum and win-at-all costsNew Yorker, his recognition of both traits means he has managed tochannel them both positively.

'That's the funny thing with me. I'm such extremes. On the pitchyou wouldn't think I am the same easygoing person I am off the pitchwhen I tend to be very relaxed and easygoing but on the pitch I'm theother side of that Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and I kinda just go to theother extreme and battle, to prove people wrong and to win.

'Off it I'm just relaxed and a very laid-back, cool guy and veryquiet - you don't hear me much but on the pitch it's a differentstory because when I go out there I want to win. If you look back onthe life of Brent Sancho, you'd see me living in Trinidad and thenspending nine years in New York and I think both places are reflectedin the kind of person I am.

'New York is fast-paced and there's an attitude where you have tosucceed in life. There's no failures over there - no ribbons ormedals for second-placed and I've learned that attitude all the waythrough university and living there but there's also my Carribeanside, my West Indian side, being from Trinidad, where it's allcoconut trees and lying back on the beach, so the way I live my lifeis a mix of both. But I love challenges. Even when I decided to goprofessional, I started late. I was 21 and I'd finished universityand a lot of people didn't give me much of a chance but for me thathelped. I like when the odds are stacked up against me. I like beingthe underdog. I like that mental fight and I think I've become abetter human being and a better football player because of thechallenges I've had to face.'

The battle with racism has been a virtual constant in his life. Aguy who wears his heart on his sleeve, he also wears it on his wrist,which is adorned with a 'Stand Up, Speak Up' anti-racism charitywristband.

It was a racist slur directed at him on a night out in Dundeewhich led to the player and team-mate Stephen McNally facing assaultcharges. Although he was ultimately cleared, the court case stilltook its toll on Sancho and his parents. His dad was besieged by themedia in Trinidad, and family, drip-fed inaccurate information in aperverse game of Chinese whispers, required daily updates from areassuring Sancho, who deep down needed reassurance of his own.

'Again, I've been through a lot in my life but that was one of thetoughest, sitting in court, knowing you are innocent but feelingguilty because you are sitting in a dock. It was a surreal world. Ikept thinking this can't be happening but it was and all becausesomeone had too much to drink and started saying things theyshouldn't have. But I try to find the silver lining in every cloudand I'd say I learned a lot about myself and, though, initially, Imight have been angry, I can't say I hate the person who put methrough that. I sympathise with them and hope they get to learn aboutblack people and the pain and suffering that something like thatbrings to someone. I hope that in retrospect they have learned fromthat and other people have learned too.'

He looks to New York for inspiration. A city of diverse culture,there was very little integration before the terrorist attack on theTwin Towers. 'But since then, people have realised life is too short.Now you go out in The Village and there are black and white peoplesitting together and it seems normal. And it's a generation thing.Hopefully the next generation will see that and realise that's theway it should be.'

Stay Outside! - Santa Fe Reporter

Zen and the Art of Camping

If your camping enthusiast obsessively shaves every ounce off his pack, gift him or her Fozzils ($19.95), an origami serving set that combines Zen-style solace with picnic pleasure. The set includes a dish, cutting board/funnel, spoon, strainer and peace of mind, and is available at Sangre de Cristo Mountain Works (328 S. Guadalupe St., 984-8221).

Wave of the Future!

Nothing says hot like a fanny pack, and nothing says efficiency like a fanny pack that has replaced cumbersome zippers with state-of-the-art magnetic seals. The Reel Life (500 Montezuma Ave., in Sanbusco Market Center, 995-8114) has the new William and Joseph Surge Mag Series Fanny Pack ($99.99). It allows the winter fisherman's chilled, stiff fingers to singlehandedly access his (or her) kit and kaboodle.

Simple and Cool

Flylow Ail-Purpose Gloves ($25) are waterproof, supple and durable. Made of abrasion-resistant pigskin and manufactured independently in the Western Hemisphere (Denver, that is), Flylow's back-to-basics work-style gloves are the ultimate all-purpose mitts for backcountry, the resort or just getting the ice off your windshield. Pick them up at Santa Fe Mountain Sports' new location (1221 Flagman Way, 988-3337).

Get Em Hooked

The Watcher Master River Landing Net ($99.99) is made in the USA, gorgeously handcrafted and surprisingly practical. The ultra-light-weight net's no-snag PVC-molded bag keeps hooks in the fish and not in the trash because of another ruined net. Find one for the fisherperson in your life at High Desert Angler (453 Cerrillos Road, 988-7688).

Snugly Being the Operative Word

Your comfort is Alpine Sports' (121-B Sandoval St., 983-5155) concern. Colorful, casual and comfy, the Marmot Flair Fleece Jacket ($90) comes in black, turquoise or plum and is the perfect companion for lining a winter coat. It's much softer than most fleeces and fits snugly, so it also looks better.

Take Myofascial-licious

Winter runners are in too much of a hurry to always properly care for those hard-working muscles and aching bones. Nevertheless, sprint into The Running Hub (527-B W. Cordova Road, 820-2523) to give the runner in your life the pleasure of the Pro-Tec Foam Roller ($25). The high-density massager improves flexibility and eases upper and lower back tension.

Myofascial-licious

Winter runners are in too much of a hurry to always properly care for those hard-working muscles and aching bones. Nevertheless, sprint into The Running Hub (527-B W. Cordova Road, 820-2523) to give the runner in your life the pleasure of the Pro-Tec Foam Roller ($25). The high-density massager improves flexibility and eases upper and lower back tension.

Myofascial-licious

Winter runners are in too much of a hurry to always properly care for those hard-working muscles and aching bones. Nevertheless, sprint into The Running Hub (527-B W. Cordova Road, 820-2523) to give the runner in your life the pleasure of the Pro-Tec Foam Roller ($25). The high-density massager improves flexibility and eases upper and lower back tension.

Myofascial-licious

Winter runners are in too much of a hurry to always properly care for those hard-working muscles and aching bones. Nevertheless, sprint into The Running Hub (527-B W. Cordova Road, 820-2523) to give the runner in your life the pleasure of the Pro-Tec Foam Roller ($25). The high-density massager improves flexibility and eases upper and lower back tension.

the Pen!

The Fisher Trekker Space Pen ($30) is good no matter the situation you throw its way. If this pen is good enough for outer space, it's perfect for the winter sportsman. Santa Fe Pens (500 Montezuma Ave., in Sanbusco Market Center, 989-4742) carries the pen as well as the pressurized refi liable ink cartridges. The pen clips conveniently to lanyards, belt loops or gloves and even writes reliably upside down.

Say No To Ninja Cyclists

Jf you know cyclists who ride in low visibility, late at night or during blizzards, keep their wheels parallel and underneath them with Black Burn's Flea Rear Light ($29.99) at rob and Charlie's (1632 St. Michael's Drive, 471-9119). This ultra-light and ultra-bright clip-on flasher comes with a long-lasting rechargeable battery and is solar charger compatible.

Harlot Hour

Bike N Sport's (524-C W. Cordova Road, 820-0809) The Roxanne ($80) is local Santa Fe company Harlot Clothing's simple, chic and warm winter sport top. There's no embarrassing neon Lycra for the modern lady cyclist; it's all about strength, durability and practicality. The 'dri-wool microblend' eliminates odor and reduces moisture - two side effects of biking that are even worse than Lycra.

Don't Worry. Ride Happy

Santa Fe's newest bike shop, The Broken Spoke (1403 Second St., 992-3102), can assuage all kinds of worry with the Xtreme Sports IO ($10) and the IT Clip ($4). The ID bracelet gives EMTs access to emergency contact info and life-saving medical records for a $5 annual subscription. The IT Clip keeps Mamma E happy, as it allows her children to recycle goat-head-ruined tubes and convert them into practical and earth-friendly bungee cords.

Myofascial-licious

Buzz, with some bugs; We make noise over Cuban, Beckham, but history suggests a few cicadas in the ointment - Chicago Sun-Times

So I come back from the All-Star Game in San Francisco, and guesswhat's gone?

Cicadas.

Every last one of the horde -- dead, worm food, mulch. Fromnatural causes. Many were recycled through my dog's stomach, I mightadd.

For all of you who wrote in a few weeks ago angrily decrying mypassion for 'cicada baseball,' wherein the bug becomes the ball --wildly uncontrollable, with a break at the end that is sick --please relax.

My children, to whom I taught the game, are not damaged from theexperience. They still know the difference between an occasional bugsplat and dogfighting at Michael Vick's.

Me, I promise never to hurl a cicada again.

For 17 years.

- Mark Cuban's hat is now officially in that Cub buyers' ring.

Pitcher Carlos Zambrano says he'd enjoy playing for an owner likeCuban.

'He don't like to loss,' Big Z said Friday. 'I don't like toloss. I could be fine by him.'

Me, I like Cuban just fine. I like the fact you can e-mail himand he will e-mail you back, no matter how lowly a creature you are.

I also like that before he got married he had a virtuallyunfurnished mansion in Dallas, through which he used to roller-blade.

I further like the fact he offered to let Dennis Rodman move inwith him, or something like that, if he came to the Mavericks, orsomething like that.

I also like the fact he had the shrewdness to sell Broadcast.comto Yahoo for billions just before the tech meltdown of the early2000s, after which Broadcast.com might have been worth peanuts

But here's what I don't like.

Cuban lives in Dallas, and the Cubs live in Wrigleyville.

As much as he hates 'to loss,' as much as we all hate 'to loss,'what does that mean?

How many NBA titles have the Mavs won under Cuban's direction?

I remember asking him a few years back when it would be prudentfor a bruised investor to get back into the stock market.

'Never,' he said.

'You mean, like, never?' I asked.

'Never.'

Gee, Apple stock has done OK.

And Halliburton.

Yes, Cuban screams at refs, and he wears his team's jersey, andhe routinely gets fined by NBA commissioner David Stern for hisoutbursts, but what does that mean? Do you want the whiniest kid atthe playground running your sandlot team? His second team?

But here's the thing that truly blows my mind, makes me as leeryof Cuban as any wannabe sports rich guy with more dollars thansense: He had Steve Nash as his point guard, and he got rid of him.

Steve Nash.

That, in my opinion, rivals the old Tribune owners losing GregMaddux. And don't we all agree the old owners were morons?

- Good God, David Beckham and his stick-figure wife have come toAmerica to save us from football, basketball, baseball, golf,tennis, darts, hot-dog-eating, and every other competitive sport weenjoy.

'WELCOME TO L.A., DAVID BECKHAM,' says the cover of this week'sSports Illustrated, with the sub-head, 'Will He Change the Fate ofAmerican Soccer?'

I mean, why should he?

Beckham may have Hollywood looks and an ever-changing hairdo anda five-year, $32.5 million deal with the Los Angeles Galaxy, butwhat does any of that mean to a sport that fits in with the Americandemand for scoring, on-field stardom, hand usage and violence aboutas well as a spoon in a chainsaw drawer?

In soccer all you have to do is kick the ball 50 yards away fromsomebody to negate his importance, and scoring a goal every thirdgame is considered an offensive onslaught for one man.

'My family has now moved to Los Angeles, something we're lookingforward to ... and in our life everything's perfect,' Beckham saidwhen introduced to the hometown crowd in mighty Carson, Calif. 'So,on to my new challenge.'

'Everything's perfect' should be a huge clue right there. What isthis guy, a Stepford Husband?

I think he should sit down with Scary -- I mean, Posh -- Spice,his blank-faced, bony wife, and say, 'Let's eat a sandwich, luv.'

Victoria Beckham -- talent-less, aging, starving, falcon-eyed,driven to be something -- literally terrifies me. I would rather belocked in a dark room with Ronald McDonald.

These two English people are way too eager to be creatures wedon't need in this country, more gossip-column celebrities without abrain cell between them.

And as to saving soccer?

Beckham is a heartthrob, I guess, for young girls, 'Bend It LikeBeckham' fans and Us magazine readers. Sort of a solo dude fromMenudo.

But for the rest of us?

Soccer is fine every four years at World Cup time.

This is about the 50th time soccer was going to 'explode' in theUSA. Remember Pele and Freddy Adu?

I say nil-nil to the new two.

- The Oklahoma football team must forfeit all nine of its winsfrom the 2005 season, including its win over Oregon in the HolidayBowl. This is because the Sooners used a couple of players who hadbeen paid for work they had not performed at a Norman cardealership.

That made them no different from a lot of car salesmen, but tothe NCAA it's a no-no.

The dumbest thing is, you can't really un-do a sports win orloss.

The players know what happened, how they felt, what they gainedor lost right then on the field or court.

So you add a 'W' to your record and years down the road a littlekid asks, 'How bad did you beat Oklahoma, Grandpa?' And you can say,'Well, l'il Billy, we didn't, really. Not by the score, anyway.'

NAMES & FACES - The Washington Post

Two thousand dollars a plate just doesn't buy what it used to.

We hear that Ohio Republicans were stumped Thursday when they satdown for their Bush/Cheney '04 fundraiser in Columbus and found . . .plasticware. But the attendees were especially puzzled when theyreached for their forks. There weren't any.

'The lack of silverware was not the Hyatt Regency Columbus'sidea,' senior catering manager Theresa Mullins told us yesterday.'Apparently it's a trend in Republican fundraising.'

Perhaps it would make sense if plasticware were offered as asecurity precaution, but Mullins said that wasn't the case. 'It's inorder to prevent noise and clanging in the room. They [the Bush/Cheney '04 team] wanted to make sure that the room was very quiet.'

The good news is that to eat the food at these fundraisers(Thursday's luncheon, which raised $1.4 million, consisted of roastbeef sandwiches, a pickle wedge, fruit on toothpicks, chips andcookies), you don't need utensils.

'We were asked to design a menu that didn't need silverware,'Mullins explained. 'But we wanted to make sure people could spreadtheir condiments and that kind of thing,' hence the plastic knivesand spoons (for stirring).

But as one exasperated event-goer told us, 'So much for the highlife. . . . Limousine liberals in East Hampton and Malibu would neverstand for such a meager spread. No wonder Harvey Weinstein is sofat!'

It looks as though we won't be saying bye bye bye to JustinTimberlake anytime soon.

The 22-year-old singer with a multi-platinum solo recordingcareer, who recently signed on to headline a global ad campaign forMcDonald's, is now also a one-stop shop for ABC Sports. He willprovide music, star in promos and serve as a special sportscorrespondent for the network's NBA coverage. Not a bad deal for theformer Mouseketeer.

'This provides a unique integration of sports and entertainment,and Justin's interest and enthusiasm, not only in the NBA but in allsports, should help provide our broadcasts with a new, freshapproach,' said Michael Penn, senior vice president and executiveproducer of ABC Sports.

But that's not all for the pop star. He also has an NBC speciallined up, 'Justin Timberlake: Down Home in Memphis,' where he'llperform a few songs and provide his viewing audience with a tour ofhis home town. What with touring, guest-hosting 'Saturday NightLive,' etc., how ever does he find time to canoodle with hisgirlfriend, actress Cameron Diaz?

And the showdown begins: Who is to blame for the collapse ofRosie, the magazine? Rosie O'Donnell and her ex-publisher GrunerJahrUSA started their bitter courtroom battle Thursday.

After the magazine ceased publication in September 2002, GJslapped O'Donnell with a $100 million lawsuit. She countersued for$125 million. And based on the attorneys' opening statements, it'sgoing to get ugly.

'She went from being warm and fun-loving on TV to an 'uber-bitch,' ' GJ attorney Martin Hyman said.

O'Donnell's attorney, Lorna Schofield, didn't dispute reports thather client could be difficult to work with, saying, 'Rosie is notMother Teresa. She is loud, she has a temper and when provoked she isopinionated. She's gay and she is in a committed relationship and isthe mother of four. What you see is what you get.'

'Why don't they want me?'

-- Elizabeth Smart, asking her parents why CBS didn't want her toplay herself in the film about her kidnapping and rescue, accordingto an upcoming issue of TV Guide.

-- Compiled by Anne Schroeder

NARROW FOCUS BY NBC DISTORTS OLYMPIC PICTURE - The Buffalo News (Buffalo, NY)

Everything is getting hazy. The lighting is dim. Faces appear,bathed in a surreal glow. Figures move in slow motion. Soft musicplays.

An afterlife experience? A glimpse into the great beyond?

Nah. Just another Olympic Moment -- the personality profiles ofindividual athletes that look like a Hallmark Card come to life.

The Olympics are the world's most spectacular and inspiringsporting event. Too bad it's filtered through the camera eye ofNBC-TV.

The network covers competitions involving Americans almostexclusively, force-feeds us gobs of warm-and-fuzzy features onindividual athletes, concentrates on major sports, and has anauseating weakness for corniness and cliche.

Granted, when you pay $456 million to broadcast the thing, yougo heavy on the home team and schmaltz. We don't expect much actualjournalism, and we're not disappointed.

The worst is the personality profiles that regularly interruptthe competition. Here's Bela, the gruff but gentle bear of a coach.Here's Dominique, the plucky young star who's fighting back frominjury. It's all soft music, hazy focus, slow motion. Everybody is'hungry for gold' or 'dreaming of Atlanta.' After a while, you'rereaching for the barf bag.

Knowing who these athletes are enhances our appreciation of theevents. But spare us the surreal glow and paint-by-numberssimplicity. It's like being spoon-fed pablum.

But it goes beyond that.

Given the concerns about the toll of intense gymnasticstraining on adolescents, the warm-and-fuzzy features edgeperilously close to propaganda.

For that matter, you don't get much perspective in the eventcommentary. We were told that 14-year-old Dominique was competing'with a 4-centimeter stress fracture in her tibia.' There's aquestion whether such an injury is a badge of courage or a productof self-abuse. Yet there was no ambiguity or hint of a larger issuein the commentator's voice, just admiration.

We expect NBC to focus on American athletes. But after a while,it's as if other countries are there only because the USA can'tcompete against itself. The U.S. athletes are the stars, the othersare mere bit players.

The Olympics are supposed to glorify the heights attainable bythe human body and spirit. Country is secondary to individualdemonstrations of grace, strength and courage.

Canadian TV is partial to Canadian athletes, but far lessemphatically than NBC. Canadian TV devoted a chunk of time Thursdayto the USA vs. Cuba in men's volleyball simply because it was agreat match.

How many events are shown on American TV that don't involve anAmerican competitor? For that matter, how many events do we see inprime time?

Thursday's night's USA vs. Cuba volleyball thriller was ignoredby NBC. Because the headline stuff gets shown to death, lesser --but equally dramatic -- events get overlooked.

In fairness, NBC does some things well. There was anextraordinary shot of Shannon Miller's foot nearly coming off thebalance beam during her routine. Viewers are so close to the actionthat they can count the athletes' nose hairs. There are occasionalfeatures on athletes from other countries. Studio host Bob Costasis easy to take.

And NBC-TV has no control over the Olympics' single largestirritation, the U.S. men's basketball team.

The presence of NBA players is testament to America's inabilityto lose gracefully.

We mustered the pros a couple of Olympics ago, after the restof the world caught up to our collegians. The USA's failure to winOlympic men's basketball gold in 1988 was treated as a nationalcrisis. The consensus: Better to blow 'em out with the big gunsthan to let the college guys settle for silver. And who cares ifthe games are as competitive as the Bills vs. Orchard Park High?

The result is a sorry spectacle. The gold medal is a foregoneconclusion. The only question is whether the NBA stars can stayawake until the end of the games.

At least the Olympics was special to the college guys. The NBAstars stay at a hotel, don't mingle with other athletes and -- mostsignificantly -- don't share their spirit. One gets the feelingthat their motivation isn't a gold medal, but the productendorsements the Olympic connection brings.

50 YEARS OF UTTER NUTTERS; IT'S THE only book where Paula Radcliffe and Sir Steve Redgrave compete for space with a bearded lady and some bloke with 20ft fingernails. To mark the 50th birthday of the Guinness Book of World Records, we asked BRIAN McIVER to scour its pages for 50 of the wildest and weirdest human achievements in history. And no, there's no record for the most pointless record.(Features) - Daily Record (Glasgow, Scotland)

Byline: BRIAN McIVER

1 MLongest Female Beard: Vivian Wheeler of Illinois, USA, grew an 11ins beard after her mum died and now works in a circus.

2 50 MBiggest Ball Of Cling Film: Chef Andy Martell made a ball 54ins round in Toronto, Canada, last year. 3 MMost Items Regurgitated: Stevie Starr, of Glasgow, swallowed a billiard ball, a bumble bee, a goldfish, a ring and a padlock and key. He brought up the ring locked inside the padlock.

4 MBiggest Butter Sculpture: A 160ft version of the Statue of Liberty was built at Sydney harbour in Australia in April. It melted.

5 1 MLongest Fingernails: In 1998, Shridhar Chillal, of Poona, India, had nails on his left hand with a total length of 20ft, 2.25ins.

6 MBiggest Belly-button Fluff Collection: Aussie Graham Barker has collected 15.41g of his own navel fluff since 1984.

7 MBowling ball Stacking: David Kremer, of Wisconsin, USA, stacked 10 in 1998. 8 MLongest Woman's Legs: Sam Stacy, of, Doncaster, South Yorkshire, has 49.75ins legs.

9 MMost Lightning Strikes Survived: Virginia park ranger Roy C Sullivan was zapped seven times between 1942 and 1977. He had his hair set alight and lost his eyebrows. 10 MLargest Underpants: The Exeter Council for Voluntary Service unveiled a pair of 31.29 ft wide, 16 ft tall pants on June 7, 2003.

11 MMost People Wearing Groucho Marx Glasses: US schoolboy Joe Kavanagh gathered 937 Grouchos in 2003. 12 MBiggest Scottish Country Dance: The Toronto Branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society staged a 512-person reel on August 17, 1991.

MBiggest Hug: A total of 4703 people hugged for 10 seconds in Kristanstad, Sweden in 2001.

14 MBiggest Accordion Group: Dutch band The Stedeker Dansers assembled 566 accordionists in 2000.

15 MMost Worms Eaten in 30 Seconds: Mr C. Manoharan ate 200 in Chennal, India, last November. 16 MMost Socks Worn on One Foot: Kirsten O' Brien put 41 socks on one foot in London in May 2003. 17 MBiggest Bubblegum Bubble Blown: Susan Montgomery Williams, of Fresno, California, blew a 23-inch bubble in July, 1994. 18 MMost Cockroaches Eaten: Ken Edwards ate 36 in a minute on The Big Breakfast in March 2001. 19 MMost Cobras Kissed: Gordon Cates of Alachua, Florida, kissed 11 cobras in Los Angeles in September, 1999.

20 MMilk Squirting: Mike Moraal, of Vancouver, Canada, squirted some milk 2.615 metres out of his eye in Paris in September, 2001.

21 MMost Bees in Mouth: Dr Norman Gary held 109 for 10 seconds in LA in 1998.

MLoudest Burp: Paul Hunn's belch registered 118.1 decibels in 2000.

2223MMost Instruments in One-Man-Band: Rory Blackwell played 108 instruments at once in Dawlish, Devon, in May, 1989.

24 MFastest Turkey Plucker: Vincent Pilkington of County Cavan, Ireland, plucked a turkey in 90 seconds in November, 1980. MFastest Skiing Behind Motorbike: 25Gary Rothwell was towed at 156.4 mph in Liverpool in 1999. MFastest Ejection of Spaghetti From26Nose: Kevin Cole, of New Mexico, USA, blew a strand of spaghetti 19cm in 1998.

27 M Chainsaw Juggling: Tom Comet, of Canada, juggled three saws 44 times at the 2002 Edinburgh Festival. 28 MCream Cracker Eating: Sports agent Ambrose Mendy, of London, ate three cream crackers in 49.15 seconds in 2002.

29MFastest 100m on Unicycle: Pete Rosendahl did it in12.11 seconds in Las Vegas in 1994. 30 MMost Sheep Sheared in 24 Hours: New Zealanders Alan MacDonald and Keith Wilson machine-sheared 2220 in June, 1988. 31 MHighest Legal Base Jump (skydive without a plane): Nick Feteris and Glenn Singleman jumped from a Pakistani mountain ledge 19,300ft up. 32 MLongest Fall Survived Without Parachute: Stewardess Vesna Vulovic fell 33,330ft in 1972. She broke both legs.

33 MLongest Bout of Hiccups: Charles Osborne, of Iowa, USA, started hiccuping in 1922 and stopped in 1990. He died a year later.

34 MMost Common Skin Infection: 70 per cent of humans have athlete's foot.

35 MMost Valuable Tooth: One of Sir Isaac Newton's sold for pounds 730 in London in 1816. 36 MMost Fingers,Toes: Indian brothers Tribhuwan and Triloki Yadav have 12 toes and 10 fingers each.

37 MMost Artificial Joints: Charles Wedde, of Michigan, and Anne Davison, of Tyne and Wear, have both had 12 joint replacements. 38 MLongest Tongue: Englishman Stephen Taylor's tongue is 9.4 cm long. 39 MMost Tattooed Man: Tom Leppard, of Skye, has spots tattooed on 99.9 per cent of his body.

40 MMost Body Piercings In One Session: KamMa was pierced 600 times in a day in Sunderland in 2002.

41 M Hairiest Family: Mexican circus acrobats Victor and Gabriel Ramos Gomez have hair on 98per cent of their bodies. 42 MMost spoons balanced on face: 15, by American Tim Johnston in May this year.

MHair Splitting: British engineer Alfred West could split a hair into 17 strands. 4344 MMost Plastic Surgery: Peruvian Transsexual Fulvia Sandoval has had 64 ops. 45 M Oldest Male Stripper: Bernie Barker, of Miami Beach, is 64. 46 MLongest Ear Hair: Indian Radhakant Bajpal has 5.19ins ear tufts.

47 MBiggest Dog Biscuit: Made in the US in 1999, it was 7.7ft long and 1.9ft wide. 48 MBiggest Artificial Christmas Tree: 52mhigh and 62m wide - made by locals in Porto Alegre, Brazil.

49 MMost Rhinestones On AHuman Body: Spanish designer Maria Rosa Pons stuck 30,361 rhinestones sequins to a model in 2001.

50 MMost Guinness World Records Held: Ashrita Furma, of New York State, holds 20 records, for feats including milk bottle balancing and pushing an orange with his nose.

CAPTION(S):

Winnipeg's silent film star.(Lillian Rich Nicholson) - Manitoba History

By all appearances, Lionel Edward 'Leo' Nicholson was born in 1894 with a proverbial golden spoon in his mouth. His father Edward was a Winnipeg grocery broker who could afford the best for his kids. Young Leo and his older sister Mae were frequent playmates with the children of the city's social elite. Their violin and piano performances were featured on the cover of Town Topics, the city's arts and culture magazine. Their mother Madge was one of Manitoba's first automobile owners, and she often took her two children on 'road trips' to rural Manitoba and the USA. The Nicholsons summered at the large family cottage on Lake of the Woods, entertained guests at the St. Charles Country Club, or took extended holidays in Europe, Japan, and China. They enjoyed the mineral waters of Hot Springs, Arkansas, and they wintered in California, Bermuda, and other sunny locales. As a teenager, Leo attended private school in Wisconsin, and raced his mother's car while home on holiday. And, after a tour of duty as a dashing fighter pilot with the Royal Naval Air Service in World War I, Leo married a movie star.

Leo returned from the war with a 19-year-old English bride named Lillian Rich. They settled into a comfortable home on Oxford Street in Winnipeg. The 5'3' dark-haired beauty must have immediately captivated her new father-in-law's heart. Seeing a future for her in Hollywood, Edward Nicholson bankrolled Lillian with $1,000 of his own money. She had publicity photographs taken in the summer of 1919, including one of her lounging playfully on the porch of her home, then headed off to Tinsel Town.

With Leo as her manager, Lillian's found immediate success on the silver screen. Her first role in the 1919 movie The Day Site Paid was followed by a flurry of roles, mostly dramas and Westerns with such stars as Tom Mix, Jack Hoxie, Harry Carey, and Ed 'Hoot' Gibson. She made five movies in 1920, seven in 1921, and six in 1922. (1) Then, none in 1923. What happened? Her 'sugar daddy' father-in-law, having sold his business in 1917, died that year in California after a long illness. Leo accompanied the body back to Winnipeg for burial. Lillian apparently decided that her marriage to Leo was now a liability: she locked up their California house and divorced him. Soon afterwards, her career was back on track; she appeared in six movies in 1924, and eight in 1925. Her career hit its peak in 1925 when she played 'the man-eating, social-climbing Flora in Cecil B. DeMille's extravagant The Golden Bed. She played her femme fatale in a blond wig and the New York Times thought she looked 'extraordinarily beautiful.'' (2) The next year, a role in the railroad movie Whispering Smith would be considered her only other notable performance. (3) Her movie output waned gradually in the early 1930s. Like many silent film stars, Lillian probably did not have a voice to suit the 'talkies' that were becoming common. Her career ended in 1940 after a series of uncredited roles as nurses or telephone operators, and she died quietly in January 1954.

Leo, meanwhile, looked for other employment in California. He allegedly tried his hand at directing movies although there are no records on what ones he made, if any. Then he had the idea of becoming a sports journalist in the new medium of radio, and began broadcasting football games in Los Angeles under the sponsorship of an automobile agency. In 1930, he moved back to Canada where, in Vancouver as kindly 'Big Brother Bill', he created a radio program to feature talented local children. (4) His love of sports reporting reasserted itself, however, and he began calling 'every sports event that has a book of rules' (5), including bicycle races, softball, golf tourneys, and salmon derbies. (6) He announced home games for the Montreal Canadiens hockey team in 1941 and, for a time, wrote a sports column for the Vancouver News-Herald newspaper. Known for his rapid-fire elocution, Leo was widely credited for popularizing box lacrosse in Canada, and for describing it as 'the fastest sport on two feet.' He remarried but had no children. He worked vigorously on behalf of Vancouver charities and war bond drives, but he died after a brief illness at a young age, just 52, in October 1947. Like his movie star first wife, there is no indication that Leo Nicholson ever returned to his home town and, like her, he is virtually unknown today. But for a brief time just after World War I, a silent film star was born on a quiet Winnipeg street, and nurtured by a wealthy local businessman whose son later 'made good' as one of Canada's first sports broadcasters.

Acknowledgements

A series of minor misadventures in Victoria, BC in late 2004 eventually led me to photograph albums compiled by Mae Nicholson Bawlf, sister to Leo. Among the wealth of information contained in them were clues to Lillian Rich's brief residence in Winnipeg. I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Alexandra Bawlf, her sister Virginia Bawlf, and her cousin Nick Bawlf (all of them descended from Winnipeg grain merchant Nicholas Bawlf), as well as Professor Gene Walz, in piecing together this little-known historical tidbit.

Gordon Goldsborough

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Notes

(1.) Lillian Rich's filmography can be found on several Internet sites, including http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0723678.

(2.) Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide, www.allmovie.com

(3.) Ibid.

(4.) 'Leo's Life Was an Exciting One', Vancouver News-Herald, 29 October 1947, p. 10.

(5.) 'Leo Nicholson Funeral Set for Thursday', Vancouver Sun, 29 October 1947, p. 1.

In October '10, it's time to hang 10 - Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)

Top 10 sports media- related things we see causing tension during

the 10th month of the 10th year of this decade:

10 You may be looking live now at the first day of the Ryder Cupcompetition on ESPN, but what time the sun comes up for day twodepends, again, on NBC's clock.

The network's call to go with a 5 1/2-hour digital delay (doesanyone use videotape anymore?) during Saturday's play in Wales meansit doesn't have to bump Jay Leno, Jimmy Fallon and Carson Daly latertonight and there's still time to cash in on some overnightinfomercials. But by the time we're allowed to view it - thatawkward 5 a.m., because that's how it lines up with an 8 a.m. EDTlaunch - the event could be decided and we'd already know about itthanks to our Internet machine.

'What? I didn't know that,' Paul Azinger, the 2008 U.S. Cupcaptain and an ESPN analyst tonight, told USA Today when told aboutthe Saturday TV delay. 'I don't even know how to comment.'

It's the Summer Olympics all over again. And this must be the NBCcompromise, after Dick Ebersol couldn't convince the Ryder Cuppeople to actually start their event in the dark with flashlights soit could be in prime time the night before on the East Coast.

9 The NHL's U.S. TV rights with Versus and NBC expire after thisseason, and commissioner Gary Bettman recently said 'we will havediscussions in the not-so-distant future ... we will deal with thenext contracts in the ordinary course.'

What's been ordinary about how the NHL buries its product on TV?And what's to wait for?

'There is a lot of hype and focus on it,' Bettman added. 'We arenot at the stage viewing it with the same level of scrutiny as it'sbeen getting. That's not to say it's not important.'

Read between the lines: Make sure your cable or dish system hasthe National Geographic Channel.

8 An Associated Press report on the Miami Heat's opening oftraining camp this week noted there were about 275 media credentialsgiven out and 'players posed for pictures with some reporters afterpractice, a sight that rarely, if ever, happens in Miami.'

Note to 'reporters:' There's a slight difference between being'embedded' and 'in bed' with the team you cover.

7 A new Deloitte survey shows while plenty of 3D TV sets areready to be sold, 83 percent of the respondents 'agree 3D is notimportant enough to buy a new television.'

And then there's wearing the glasses.

'Aside from possibly being uncomfortable and geeky, they are alsoa barrier to the multitasking that consumers engage in whilewatching TV, including surfing the Web, reading e-mail, talking oninstant message and reading books, newspapers and magazines,' saidDeloitte's Ed Moran in a story on Televisionbroadcast.com.

ESPN's programmers, who spoon-feed the key 18-to-34 maleattention deficit disorder demographic, couldn't factor that inbefore launching its own 3D TV channel?

6 The Lakers begin the 2010-11 season with all the contracts oftheir broadcasters - Joel Meyers and Stu Lantz on TV, Spero Dedesand Mychal Thompson on radio - needing to be renewed, or rejected,moving forward.

5 ESPN's change-over this week to a high-definition broadcast of'Pardon the Interruption' and 'Around the Horn' will be the greatestdeterrent to any future sportswriters aspiring to stroke their egoson TV. Except for Woody Paige.

4 Eric Karros' wide, wild goatee. Not a violation of his Fox MLBcontract?

3 CBS college basketball play-by-play man Gus Johnson, who usesthe catch phrase 'Rise and Fire' to no end, has launched a line of T-shirts with that graphic on it. A version on the NCAA.com storesells for $34.95.

For a 'lightweight ribbed' piece of cotton with short sleeves.

2 FoxSports.com's Ken Rosenthal writes this week:

'Baseball, due to its refusal to expand instant replay, is headedfor more controversy this postseason. And the sport's powers thatbe, led by commissioner Bud Selig, have no one but themselves toblame.

'Once again, baseball is about to walk straight through a glassdoor. I will not feel sorry for the sport when some blown calloccurs in Game 3 of the World Series and the play is shown to death -not just on all-sports networks but also all-news channels - turningoff even casual fans. ...'

A hint that Fox, which again carries the World Series and isRosenthal's employer, will load up with extra replay machines?

1 Immediately after the Texas Rangers agreed to a new 20-yearextension last week with the local Fox Sports Net channel for areported $1.5 billion, which figures to boost the team's playerpayroll by at least $25 million a year, speculation started abouthow this is a good sign for Dodgers current owner Frank McCourtlooking to line his pockets soon with a cash influx from Fox SportsWest/Prime Ticket.

Unless he goes ahead with a Dodgers' network; DTV is the workingtitle, according to divorce court records.

'Why would Fox be willing to shell out so much for the Rangers inan era when the LosAngeles Dodgers, a bigger market team with a morevaluable product and was once owned by Fox, takes in only about $45million a year for its cable rights?' asked the Dallas Morning News'Barry Horn. 'The answer is simple. Fox has done the math and thinksthe value is there.'

Once Fox does its due diligence with the Dodgers, and sees theMcCourts still are in charge, what value will it find?

WHAT SMOKES

Fox's ability to find a sponsor willing to finance a pushed-upfirst pitch to the third game of the upcoming World Series is astart in the right direction toward making the product more viewer-friendly for future generations. Yet it's hardly a major move, perse - a 3:57 p.m. PT/6:57 p.m. ET for the game set Oct. 30 -considering it's only an hour earlier from every other start time(except Sunday's Game 4, which will wait for the finish of Fox's NFLcoverage). 'We've said over the years that if advertisers werewilling to support earlier starts at prime time levels, we'd be ableto begin games earlier,' Fox Sports president Eric Shanks said in arelease. He noted Chevrolet is the sponsor (with parent-company GMstill 60 percent owned by the U.S. government) that stepped up.

Zenyatta's attempt Saturday at Hollywood Park to win her 19thrace in a row in a final prep for defense of the Breeders' CupClassic in November airs live on ESPN at about 4:10 p.m., busting inon the 'NASCAR Sprint Cup Happy Hour' and the college footballscoreboard shows. Joe Tessitore, Randy Moss, Jerry Bailey, HankGoldberg, Jeannine Edwards and Jay Privman make up the broadcastteam for the Lady's Secret Stakes. ESPN Classic (and ESPN3.com) willbe on live Saturday from 3:30-5 p.m. to do the pre- to post-racecoverage.

WHAT CHOKES

Inspiring tales as wheelchair rugby clatters into Scotland - The Scotsman

THE clattering of metal on metal was music to the ears of thelatest Scottish sporting star Mike Kerr yesterday as he brought hisGreat Britain team-mates back to his home city of Glasgow.The 29-year-old was paralysed diving into a swimming pool on holiday inCorfu 11 years ago, but, sport having been the main focus in hislife before then, the former amateur football centre-half has usedwheelchair rugby to move to a new level of competition.After fiveyears battling to win a place in the fully professional GreatBritain squad, he finally achieved his dream this year, and theformer Uddingston Grammar School pupil is looking forward tocompeting in the Paralympics in London and claiming a first medalfor GB.He told The Scotsman: 'It is fantastic to be playing in myhome city because, for me, playing wheelchair rugby has been aboutfour or five-hour trips south.'I've been in chair for 11 years inAugust past. I had a diving accident on holiday. I say a divingaccident, but I dived into a swimming pool at the shallow end andknew from the moment I hit the bottom of the pool that I wasparalysed. I just knew. I'm paralysed from the nipples down. When Ifirst had my accident I was really weak and it took me a long timeto build up my strength, but wheelchair rugby gave me a real focus.I played football, a little rugby and some other sports before theaccident. Sport was all I was ever good at.'A year after my accidentI tried wheelchair rugby and fell in love with it. It was fullcontact and that was the big draw, and I'm really fit and healthynow.'The main purpose of Kerr's and the GB squad's visit to theKelvin Hall was to launch a new Scottish team that will compete inthe British league, joining the Gaelic Warriors from Ireland, Welshand English teams. The Glasgow players like the name 'Warriors' too,and the SRU and able-bodied Warriors and Scotland skipper AlastairKellock have offered their support. Scotland attack coach GregorTownsend gamely had a shot in the wheelchair yesterday and declaredit as tough as it looks, while the Wooden Spoon charity are alsobacking the venture.The sport is played by teams of four players ona basketball-style gym court, with defenders and attackers graded bytheir disability, and wheelchairs specially adapted, at a cost of upto GBP4,000, to mirror their roles in the game. Funding is,therefore, a major issue with this venture initially supportedlargely by English sport.What was also launched yesterday, however,was a UK pilot scheme for youth wheelchair rugby. It kicks off nextweek at Ashcraig School in Craigend, Glasgow. The team will becoached by Steve Palmer, one of the UK's leading internationalistsover the past decade. The former GB captain, who suffered a spinalinjury 15 years ago in similar circumstances to Kerr - he was pushedinto a pool by friends on holiday in Rhodes - lost his place to theScotsman in the GB team and has retired at the age of 38.He said:'After 11 years at the top level I don't have the same fire now,whereas Mike certainly does and he is really grasping hisopportunity.'But when I was asked to get involved in this pilot inGlasgow and then taking the initiative across the UK, I hadbutterflies in my stomach again.'The Paralympics in Beijing was thebest three weeks of my life and the memories will live with meforever. I've probably had a better life being in the chair andplaying wheelchair rugby than I had beforehand. Before, I was justanother guy who goes to work; ends up in the pub of an evening. I'ma lot healthier now than I would have been, I've travelled the worldseveral times, I've got friends in places like Australia, NewZealand, USA, Canada and all over Europe, and experiences of beingpart of Olympics, World Championships and Paralympics opening andclosing ceremonies, competing on the world stage.'I tell you whatwheelchair rugby has given me as well, the knowledge that I could gointo a training session in a bad mood, and in this full-contactsport, you can hit a few people [in chairs], get rid of a lot of badenergy and go home with a smile on your face.'Although we're all'love your fellow man' we all love a bit of violence, especiallywhen it's legal. I know there's a bit of tenacity in the Scots aswell, so I think we'll get going up here pretty well. Wheelchairrugby has been fantastic to me and I feel I'm a better person forme.'Palmer is an engaging and ambitious character, and havingwatched youngsters from Ashcraig having a ball yesterday learningthe game - Ashcraig will be the venue for all youngsters and adultsinterested in playing wheelchair rugby to join up - he sees a futurefor a Scotland national side, and French and Italian teams leadingto a championship that mirrors the Six Nations.Kerr added: 'To getselected for the Paralympics would be the pinnacle. I need to keepworking hard and hoping for the best. I've never done any other job,so if I lose my place in this team I will lose my job. When I had myaccident a lot of people helped me so I'm pleased to be able to givesomething back. It's nice to be the face of the sport in Scotland,but my hope is that seeing us performing well internationally andinitiatives like this will make more people in wheelchairs realisethat they can have fun and a future in sport at a very highlevel.'More info: www.gbwr.org.uk

Forget archery. Streaking is original Olympic pursuit TOM SHIELDS ON THE GAMES - The Sunday Herald

IT is safe once again to watch television now that the Olympicsare over. There is much less chance of finding Team BBC going allhyper-jingo because some bloke has paddled his canoe a bit fasterthan the rest and got a gold medal for it.

Even worse was when Team BBC got all depressed because a weelassie has fell aff her BMX bike and failed to contribute toBritain's stupendous collection of medals.

I do not buy into this Team GB business. It's a copy of Team USAand if GB is going to be naffily patriotic, it should be done in amore British way. Or, preferably, not at all.

What is the big deal, anyway, about this haul of medals? Most ofthem were awarded for messing about in boats, going a bike, orsitting on a horse. Not very Olympian pursuits.

The Olympics are not very Olympian these days. They are playingsoftball which, apparently, is a variation on rounders. They arewindsurfi ng.

They are jumping about on trampolines and surely it will not belong until the bouncy castle is included as a discipline.

Some of the so-called sports are so high-tech, you wonder wherethe individual skill factor comes in. Archery involves bits of kitthat look more Nintendo Wii than Robin Hood.

Same with the shooting, apparently.

But I'm a big fan of small bore shooting. I think they shouldshoot some big bores as well. Compile your own list of targets.

Perhaps, we might return to the original ancient Greek concept.The first written report on the Olympics dates from 776BC which is along time ago, just before my dear colleague Doug Gillon startedcovering the games for the Herald.

My research assistant Wikipedia reveals that the 776BC Olympiadconsisted of just one event, the stade which was a run ofapproximately 210 yards. It was won by a cook called Coroebus whoran naked.

Coroebus is the first recorded Olympic champion and possibly thefirst known streaker.

The ancient Greek games featured a pursuit called pankrationwhich spectators of a bloodthirsty disposition might like to seerestored to the modern Olympics. Pankration was not so much a sportas unmitigated violence.

Punching, kicking and choking were all allowed. An adeptpankraist would be able to deliver the 'straight kick to thestomach'.

Other pankraistic niceties include the 'tracheal dig using thethumb' and the 'choke from behind using the forearm'.

Were pankration introduced for London 2012, I can imagine acommentator on Team BBC enthusing over a superb tracheal grip chokeas a Team GB pankraist goes for gold.

We might even have the modern pankration which would involve theuse of knives and guns as well as punching, kicking and choking.

There is plenty of scope for axing sports from these bloatedOlympics.

Stuff like badminton, baseball, volleyball, dressage (wherehorses walk around a paddock), and fencing (where no-one getsstabbed, unlike in modern pankration).

Who needs Olympic football and tennis when they are on all theyear round anyway?

The Olympics should be all about the track and fi eld events.Good, oldfashioned running, jumping and throwing things.

To prevent it all becoming too serious, I would introduce the egg-andspoon race. Real eggs, not potatoes where there is scope forcheating by digging the spoon in.

And the three-legged race.

And catching the javelin.

To be fair, a number of athletes have tried to add to the generalgaiety with their dropping-the-baton variations on the relay race.

With the exclusion of extraneous pursuits (such as basketballwhich I missed from my earlier hit list) and even with the inclusionof the eggand-spoon and three-legged races, the Olympics could bedone and dusted over a long weekend and we could get back to thefitba.

Meanwhile, it's going to be a long and tedious journey to 2012 asTeam BBC and other media get their teeth into the preparations forthe London games. It will be even more gruesome when the games takeplace.

There is one ray of hope. Team Scotland might do quite well.

CRUFTS has been taken to task over canine health. The BBC said itis reviewing coverage of the show in the light of its owndocumentary investigation into systematic inbreeding which leavesmany dogs with debilitating conditions.

It is a noble initiative by Team BBC but I fear they are barkingup the wrong tree. We are dealing here with dogowners. People whoare barking in their own right.

People who trail round after animals picking up shit. People wholovingly French-kiss a slabbery bloodhound.

People who actually believe their dog understands what they aresaying.

People who feed a poodle chicken breast and feed their childrenchicken nuggets. Do not expect these irrational people to understandgenetics.

I know, since I once was dog-crazy.

I put up with a Labrador who thought Clarks children's shoes (ata day's wages a pair) was a snack food.

I put up, but not for too long, with a setter who roamed thecountryside chasing aeroplanes.

Then there were my two well-bred pugs, the epitome of Kennel Clubdeportment. Patrick was forever trying to get up his mum, Sophie.

Sophie was no angel, enticing Patrick behind the sofa in thefirst place.

The BBC will not be able to change the animal instinct. We'retalking about the humans who run Crufts, not the canines.

NHS Greater Glasgow are concerned about my emotions. Which isnice of them since they have GBP42m of budget cuts to worry about atthe moment.

They have sent me a survey via my GP saying: 'Clinicians areaware that emotions play an important part in illnesses. . . Thisquestionnaire is designed to help your clinician know how you feel.'

The emotional evaluation consists of a series of statements, eachwith a choice of four options.

Such as: 'I get a sort of frightened feeling as if somethingawful is about to happen'. I lied, of course, choosing: 'A littlebut it doesn't worry me.'

Other lies and half-truthful answers included: Worrying thoughtsgo through my mind? From time to time but not too often. (Recession?Unemployment?

Fuel poverty? World War Three? A blood sugar count nearly as bigas my waist measurement? I laugh in the face of adversity. ) I feelcheerful? Most of the time. (Despite all the people who ask me:'What's up with your face?') I get sudden feelings of panic? Notvery often. (Well, quite often. OK, very often indeed. ) There weresome entirely honest and truthful replies: I have lost interest inmy appearance? I take just as much care as ever. (The phrase badly-packed parachute springs to mind. ) I can sit at ease and feelrelaxed?

Definitely. (Except I only sit when there is no opportunity tolie down. ) I can laugh and see the funny side of things?

As much as I always could. (I think it's called being clinicallymorose. ) But the main thrust of the survey is dread. Do I get asort of frightened feeling like butterflies in the stomach? Do Ifeel tense or wound up?

Actually, I was quite all right really until I got thisquestionnaire.

San Antonio Express-News All About Cars column. - San Antonio Express-News (San Antonio, TX)

Byline: G. Chambers Williams III

Apr. 9--NISSAN ENJOYING SWEET RIDE: Nissan's strong push over the past five years to become a household name and major automotive presence in the U.S. has paid off.

For the company's fiscal year ending March 31, Nissan has joined the elite million-vehicle-sales club in the United States. The company sold 1,001,200 Nissan and Infiniti vehicles here over the past year, joining General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler, Toyota and Honda as the only automakers to have achieved that kind of success.

'This milestone achievement, along with record-breaking sales for the past three consecutive years, not only made company history but also fulfilled Nissan North America's fiscal year commitment to sell 1 million units,' the company said in announcing the year-end results.

Nissan has been on a roll since shortly after Carlos Ghosn took over the company in 1999 and began bringing really cool new products to market, including some of my personal favorites: the current-generation Nissan Altima midsize sedan, the Nissan 350Z sports car, the Infiniti G35 sport sedan and sport coupe, and the Nissan Titan full-size pickup.

Those are just a few of the successes the company has racked up over the past several years.

Just like what's been happening at Cadillac, it seems that just about everything Nissan has touched since the turn of the century has turned to gold.

Other recent runaway successes have included the Nissan Xterra compact SUV, which this year entered its second generation; the midsize Pathfinder SUV, which also is completely redesigned for 2005; and the Maxima, which was redesigned last year and is the flagship sedan in the Nissan lineup.

There also are the Infiniti FX35 and FX45, radical-looking crossover luxury sport wagon/SUVs that have created a whole new segment in the industry; the similarly styled Nissan Murano, one of the coolest affordable sport wagon/SUVs on the market; and for 2006, the all-new Infiniti M35 and M45 luxury sport sedans, which by all accounts appear to be the best sedans the company has ever built.

'We're extremely happy with not only meeting our fiscal year objective, but also by breaking our own sales records,' said Jed Connelly, Nissan North America's senior vice president for sales and marketing. 'We applaud all of our employees and dealers who worked hard toward this 1-million-unit goal. And, of course, we thank our customers for placing their trust in our brand.'

San Antonio dealers played a part in that success as well, the company said. Sales in the San Antonio market increased 14 percent over the previous year, and the market was one of its strongest in Texas.

Overall, sales in Texas were up 24 percent over the previous year, Nissan said.

'Nissan has experienced phenomenal sales growth in the U.S., with Texas accounting for much of that new growth,' said John Spoon, vice president for Nissan's South Central Region. 'Our dealers in San Antonio really stepped up to the plate introducing new products and helping to strengthen Nissan's customer base in the city. All of that hard work has truly paid off, and we couldn't have reached this milestone without them.'

The company said sales growth 'was not only driven by established models such as the Altima midsize sedan, but also by all-new products' such as the more powerful 2006 Xterra, the redesigned 2006 Frontier midsize pickup, the third-generation Pathfinder and the Titan pickup.

'Dealers here have come a long way, but we still have a lot of work to do if we want to continue to grow in the San Antonio market,' said Mike Cook, dealer operations manager for the South Central Region. 'As we approach this new fiscal year, we will have new challenges, but with this outstanding dealer body and exciting new product in the pipeline, I'm confident we will continue to succeed as we have this past year.'

Toyota and Honda still outsell Nissan here, with Toyota the leading import brand. Honda sales have cooled somewhat nationwide, though, as Nissan's sales have boomed.

Some analysts attribute Honda's problems to strong competition from Nissan and another up-and-coming Japanese rival, Mazda Motor Co.

Nissan, Toyota and Honda are the only import brands in the million-unit-sales club, but Toyota is way ahead of its Japanese counterparts.

While Nissan was finally joining the club, Toyota moved into the next bracket: selling more than 2 million vehicles in the U.S. for the first time. For calendar year 2004, Toyota Motor Sales USA reported it sold 2,060,048 vehicles here.

The company also posted its 10th consecutive year of record sales gains in the United States, and its Lexus division was the nation's top-selling luxury brand for the fifth straight year. And the Toyota Camry midsize sedan was the best-selling car in the United States for 2004, having beaten the Honda Accord three years in a row for the top spot.

As for Honda, some of the luster of previous years has disappeared, blamed by some analysts on the bland styling of the company's vehicles, as well as a perceived complacency by Honda in the marketplace.

Although Honda set sales records in the United States for the ninth consecutive year in 2004, a big sales push in December was needed to help the company achieve a meager 1.4 percent increase in sales over 2003.

The company sold 1.19 million vehicles in the U.S. during 2004. But Honda's U.S. sales were down 10.6 percent in the first two months of this year, according to industry weekly Automotive News.

Honda also has seen the median age of its customers increase to 45 from 43 last year. Toyota, Nissan and some other rivals are seeing their customer bases getting younger. Toyota has been helped in that respect by its new Scion youth brand, which is being seen as much more 'cool' than Honda vehicles by consumers younger than 25.

Don't ever count Honda out, though. The company knows how to build cars that appeal to the masses, even if they aren't seen as being very cool. And the masses will continue to buy those vehicles.

Where Nissan is scoring is with consumers who consider style nearly as important as substance. They are learning that with Nissan, you can have a cool vehicle that will last a long time with very little maintenance, just like vehicles from Honda and Toyota that might not be seen as so stylish. Toyota has acknowledged its problems with blandness and says it's working hard to overcome that perception.

NEW SUBARU SUV TO BEGIN AT $31,320: Subaru of America says the base price for its all-new 2006 B9 Tribeca midsize SUV will be $31,320 for a five-passenger version and that a fully equipped seven-passenger model with rear-seat entertainment system and navigation will list for $38,320.

The B9 Tribeca, which was introduced in January at the Detroit auto show, will go on sale late next month. It will become the company's flagship vehicle and will be the largest Subaru vehicle yet.

Production began recently at Subaru's plant in Lafayette, Ind.

Also, Subaru introduced two new versions of its compact Forester sport utility at the recent New York auto show. They are another L.L. Bean edition, featuring a tie-in with the famous outdoor equipment retailer; and a sporty performance model called the 2.5 XT Limited, which comes with a 230-horsepower engine.

Send your car questions or news of your club events to G. Chambers Williams III, San Antonio Express-News, P.O. Box 2171, San Antonio, TX 78297-2171; telephone (210) 250-3236.

To see more of the San Antonio Express-News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mysanantonio.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, San Antonio Express-News

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Andrew Weil, M.D. Launches Weil Baby Line of Ultra-safe, Environmentally Friendly Feeding Products. - Pediatrics Week

To provide parents with safe, healthy and environmentally responsible choices in baby feeding products, Andrew Weil, M.D., world-renowned leader in integrative medicine, and Key Baby, LLC, are pleased to announce the launch of the Weil Baby™ line of bottles, nipples, sippy cups, pacifiers, gift sets and accessories. Trusted and tested by pediatricians, lactation consults and moms, the complete range of products are based on Dr. Weil's 30 years of clinical experience. Weil Baby™ products are currently available on www.weilbaby.com and will be available at select Babies 'R' Us stores, www.BabiesRus.com, select Whole Foods stores and Duane Reade stores in late August.

'These products reflect the prudent combination of functional design and the best material-safety available today to help infants get a healthy start in life,' said Dr. Weil. 'My philosophy is that it is far better to maintain good health from an early age than to attempt to achieve it later in life.'

Weil Baby™ Products are a Breakthrough in Healthy and Safe Feeding

Weil Baby™ bottles and sippy cups feature the breakthrough AirWave™ one-piece venting system, which helps eliminate air bubbles ingested by babies and toddlers, reducing the risk of colic, gas and spit-up. The containers are made of both glass and Tritan™, a remarkable clear material that contains no bisphenol A, commonly known as BPA, which may disrupt normal estrogenic activity (EA). Extensive laboratory testing has shown that Tritan™ is completely EA-free, making the Weil Baby™ line ultra safe.

Weil Baby™ Products are High Quality and Unique

Weil Baby™ made the investment to produce the products in the USA to offer moms the highest degree of quality assurance that the products have met strict quality control standards and have lot-number traceability. These qualities are rarely, if ever found in other baby feeding products.

The current Weil Baby™ line sports a unique, stylish look -- the bottles are made in an ergonomic cylindrical shape, while the handle, sippy cups and pacifiers come in assorted colors. 'The principle aim was not to create 'high style' baby feeding products, but rather to make products that were optimally safe, healthy and convenient,' said Dr. Weil. 'But as is often the case with objects that are carefully designed to be extremely functional, they just happen to be attractive!'

Weil Baby™ Products are Environmentally Friendly

Weil Baby™ products are also good for the environment. American production means shorter transportation routes, which minimizes our carbon footprint. The packaging is made with 100 percent recycled paper, the windows are made PET, one of the most recyclable materials on earth. The inserts are fully compostable and dissolve in water because they made from Plantic which is also known as Biomax from DuPont .

A Complete Healthy-feeding Collection

In 2010, Weil Baby™ plans to add several breast pumps to the line, including the only FDA-approved, hospital grade breast pump sold at retail. They are designed to be the most comfortable pumps available, easily adjustable and highly portable -- perfect for moms-on-the-go. In addition, Weil Baby™ is also adding formula dispensers, nipple shields for breast feeding, electric steam sterilizers and bottle warmers, travel bottle warmers, collapsible snack containers and an innovative silicone breast milk spoon feeding system. 'At that point, a complete healthy-feeding collection will be in place,' said Dr. Weil.

Keywords: Weil Baby, Conservation, Ecology, Environment, Food, Pediatrics, Sports, Colic, Pediatric, Pediatrics.

Clash of the Titans: will Diller be taken off his own board?(Barry Diller and John Malone of IAC/InterActiveCorp.) - Daily Variety

The battle between Barry Diller and John Malone that's suddenly erupted signals the end of an era and of an alliance that's endured more than two decades.

Malone has lost patience with Diller's awkward aggregation of dotcoms, known as IAC/InterActiveCorp. And he was incensed by Diller's attempt to squeeze him out of the picture--especially after putting up with a tepid stock and Diller's princely pay packages.

IAC shares closed Tuesday at $25.65--up from the day before but well off their 52-week high of over $40.

Malone had long been a Diller fan. He provided seed money and support to launch Silver King Communications in 1995 with Diller as chairman-CEO. A major stockholder, Malone formally agreed way back then to let Diller, who'd had a brilliant career at ABC, Paramount and Fox, vote his interest in Silver King. And Malone stuck with the company though many iterations: USA Networks, USA Interactive, InterActiveCorp.

But now it's war. Acrimony and court papers continued to fly Tuesday as Diller said Malone had 'gone off the deep end' in seeking to oust Diller and a handful of other directors from IAC's board.

Malone filed papers in Delaware Chancery Court Monday asking that Diller, his wife Diane Von Furstenberg, Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman, Jr., banker Steve Rattner, Victor Kaufman, Alan Spoon and Arthur Martinez be replaced by a Liberty slate.

At issue is Diller's plan, announced last November, to split IAC into five separate publicly traded companies: HSN, Ticketmaster, Interval Intl. vacation timeshare service, LendingTree mortgage broker and a downsized IAC which would include the Ask.com search engine. The move is an acknowledgement that the pieces aren't doing much together-Lending-Tree in particular has been hard hit by the mortgage crisis and is dragging down the rest.

IAC has two classes of stock, A and B. Through a combination of the two, Malone controls 30% of IAC's equity and 62% of its voting rights, even though Diller is still legally entitled to vote that stake as he wishes.

Fur started to fly when Diller asked the Delaware court earlier this month if the new entities could have one single class of stock, instead of two. That change would serve to dilute Liberty's voting control over the new companies by half and, according to Malone, constitutes a 'corporate coup.'

Liberty insists that a split-up of this magnitude represents a 'fundamental change' which would require Liberty's consent before Diller can exercise his proxy authority. Liberty's lawsuit alleges that Diller 'orchestrated the spinoff proposal in a self-serving attempt to rid himself of Liberty's control ling influence,' and followed the suit by the request to oust Diller and purge the board.

Liberty also questions Diller's leadership of the company, and his large compensation packages; he was among the nation's highest-paid CEOs in 2005 and 2006.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

IAC countered that, 'Under the proxy, Diller is entitled to vote the shares without regard to the directions of Liberty and without subservience to the specific interests of Liberty.'

And Diller called Liberty's DiRer latest move regarding the board 'a desperate sideshow ... All it demonstrates is that Liberty will stop at nothing to advance their own interests at the expense of the other stockholders. Needless to say, IAC will not be daunted.'

Pundits don't think it's likely Malone has a strong legal case to clean out IAC's board at this point. But it's not clear how the issue of voting control will shake out.

'To take away voting control from a shareholder is, I think, a very tricky thing to do. It seems that he (Malone) would somehow have to be compensated for giving up his voting rights,' said one Wall Streeter.

Pros wrestling

The battle is expected to be long and rough.

Malone, a cable pioneer who made his name as a brilliant financial strategist and prescient investor, is the guy who spent two years playing mind games with the formidable Rupert Murdoch. Malone purchased a big chunk of News Corp. voting stock on the sly stock Murdoch really didn't want him to have. The News Corp. chief was forced to buy it back after many months of tense negotiations. Malone walked away-with nearly 40% of DirecTV, regional sports networks in three cities, and a bundle of cash.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

MaloneMalone also spooked Time Warner in 2006 when it applied to the Federal Trade Commission to speed up the conversion of its nonvoting stock in Time Warner into voting shares. Time Warner management was then (as now) under intense pressure to take action to boost the share price.

But he's had his missteps. He saw his company evolve from a Wall Street darling into an overly complex mishmash of stakes in various entities, some start-ups, some established. As the market soured on Liberty, Malone engineered a breakup into several spinoffs and tracking stocks. While confusing at first, the maneuver has proved rather successful. Liberty Global, especially, is now a favorite with investors.

Diller, a creative and visionary Hollywood exec, has plenty of Street cred as a brilliant dealmaker.

A particular one-two punch has become legend on Wall Street: Diller had Edgar Bronfman, Jr. sell him Universal's TV biz for $1.2 billion in cash and a minority stake in Diller's company. Bronfman then unloaded Universal to Vivendi. The French conglom's CEO Jean-Marie Messier bought the assets back from Diller in a deal worth $10.4 billion.

Diller, with a stake in Vivendi Universal Entertainment, was a headache for NBC as the GE unit acquired VUE. GE bought out Diller's personal stake in VUE right off' for hundreds of millions. But through IAC, Diller still controlled an uncomfortably large 5.4% share in the new NBC Universal. After years of irritably fielding questions about Diller's influence, GE bought him out in 2005 in a deal worth $3.4 billion.

It was after parting ways with Universal that Diller devoted himself full time to creating an online behemoth, snapping up various Netcos in short order and juggling them. In 2003, IAC acquired travel site Expedia from Microsoft for $1.5 billion. Other buys included Precision Response, Styleclick and Hotels.com.

Later, IAC spun Expedia off into a separate public company. Diller merged Ticketmaster's online business, Ticketmaster.com, with CitySearch into a separate company with an IPO in 1998. He recombined Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch Inc. with Ticketmaster in 2001.

Russia series summit to think about - Chicago Sun-Times

Bravos, brushbacks and other electrical bananas from the cluttered laptop of your admittedly atavistic sports media critic:

- NBC's jackknifing audience numbers for the Vancouver Olympics prove one thing -- the National Hockey League must ice the concept, post haste, before re-upping for yet another Reamed Dream at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

After ''modernizing'' and further ''Americanizing'' the NHL, commissioner Gary Bettman can't be faulted for presuming he could push the globalization of the league via the Winter Olympics -- even if it meant bringing the regular season to a hollow halt during a month when it should be flourishing.

But it's just not happening.

If anything drove that point home, it was that the figure skating-skiing-bobsledding triple on NBC Sunday night outdrew MSNBC and the USA's 5-3 victory over Canada by a viewership ratio of almost 3-to-1. That comparative TV interest, according to international media, was even more lopsided in other countries.

One possible solution for Bettman and his governors: Resurrect a streamlined version of the old Canada-USSR ''Summit Series'' as a September prelude to the 2014-15 NHL season.

After an NHL-less Winter Games, match the new Stanley Cup champions that fall in an international best-of-three vs. the Sochi gold medalists.

Unprecedented world championship rights, global theater and what a start to the new NHL season -- plus, no more major trifling with the classic rhythms of an NHL campaign.

- ESPN's suspension of Tony Kornheiser from ''Pardon the Interruption'' for his stupid and sexist remarks about network colleague Hannah Storm raises the old question: How did this Scaramouche ever get this far in the business to begin with?

If you like 'em talent-free, devoid of original thought and as telegenic as Barney Fife's nephew, Kornheiser is your man. To think he made his bones at the Washington Post only makes it that much more understandable how the extremely unctuous newspaper clings to LBJ-era JFK assassination theories and had Watergate spoon-fed by an embittered old FBI guy.

Kornheiser is expected back on ''Pardon the Dolt'' in two weeks. That's bad news for co-host Michael Wilbon, a beacon of understated class and style. Maybe ''Leering K'' will quit for good and land a more appropriate gig -- like waste-flow reporter at the Potomac PennySaver.

TWEET-HENGE: WSCR-AM (670) listeners heard the implosiveness continue to tick one recent midday when a whiffy McHost referred to Northern Illinois football as ''meaningless.'' That characterization was sure to set ledgers gnashing in DeKalb, where NIU administrators have guaranteed significant coin to air Huskies games on 670-AM since 2005.

- Former ESPN basketball analyst Rick Majerus says he wants his upscaling St. Louis Billikens out of the Atlantic-10 and back into the Missouri Valley Conference. Could DePaul then be in line for a balancing overture from the Valley? ... An excellent pre-Madness primer is Thornridge: The Perfect Season by Illinois-bred sportscaster Scott Lynn ($22.95, authorhouse.com).

- Colorado authorities have completed a cold-case review into the 1988 disappearance of suburban sportswriter Keith Reinhard with no significant advances. Long-distance odds on the enduring mystery: mayhem, 3-5; mountain, 6-5; Mexico, 20-1. ... Comcast SportsNet will devote chunks of programming in and around the Bulls-Portland game Friday night to mark the first anniversary of the passings of Johnny Kerr and Norm Van Lier.

- Bob Vorwald, WGN-Channel 9 director of production, is mixing business with literary basepaths: He has books titled What It Means To Be a Cub and What It Means To Be a White Sox set for March release before April TV specials of the same names. ... Sticky-fingered Chet Coppock is scheduled to perform ''Bitch'' from his ''Barnaby's on State'' catalog with Legs Akimbo at Goose Island in Wrigleyville Saturday night. Anabel Roda of WLS-AM (890) fronts ''Legs.''

- Jimmy Kimmel, on the urgent overkill from Vancouver: ''I have learned a lot from the Olympics -- mostly that I really miss football season.'' ... And Rocky Wirtz, to Crain's Shia Kapos, on the essence of his beverage and hockey businesses: ''It's always about ice. Either you're skating on it or puting it in your glass.''

Jim O'Donnell's sports media column appears Thursdays in the Sun-Times.

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