Ask Well: Coaxing Parents to Take Better Care of Themselves

Dear Reader,

Your dilemma of wanting to get your parents to change their ways to eat better and exercise reminds me of an old joke:

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Only one, but the light bulb has to really want to change.

Sounds like your parents may be about as motivated as the light bulb right now. Still, there are things you can do to encourage them to move in a healthier direction. But the first step should not be to hand them a book. Unless you lay some prior groundwork, that gesture may seem almost as patronizing as an impatient tone of voice – and probably as likely to backfire.

Instead, start a conversation in a caring, nonjudgmental way. Ask, don’t tell. “Say, ‘You know, I might not know what I am talking about, but I am really concerned about you,” suggested Kevin Leman, a psychologist in Tucson, Ariz., and author of 42 books on changing behavior in families and relationships. Ask simply if there is anything you can do to help.

Leading by example is also more effective than lecturing. “The son can role-model health by inviting his parents to dinner and serving healthful items that he is fairly certain they will find acceptable, or ask them if they are interested in going out dancing with him and his wife,” suggested Ann Constance, director of the Upper Peninsula Diabetes Outreach Network in Michigan.

Pleasure is a better motivator for change than pain or threats. Use the grandchildren as bait. Ask if they want to take the grandchildren to the zoo or a park that would require a good bit of walking around for everyone. Or the grandchildren could ask them to come along on one of those 2K fund-raiser-walks that many schools hold. After all, a day with the grandchildren is always a pleasure in itself. (O.K., usually a pleasure.)

Tempted to give them the gift of a health club membership? “Save your money,” Dr. Leman said. Try a more indirect (and cheaper) approach. Create a mixed-tape of up-tempo music from their era. (“Songs they listened to from the ages of 12-to-17, which is what we all listen to for the rest of our lives,” said Dr. Leman) They will enjoy it any time — maybe even while walking.

If you really want someone you love to make a change, the key is to ask them to do something small and easy first because that increases the chances they will do something larger later. Psychologists call that “the foot in the door technique,” said Adam Davey, associate professor of public health at Temple University in Philadelphia, referring to a classic 1966 experiment called “Compliance Without Pressure.” In the study, which has been duplicated by others in many forms, researchers asked people to sign a petition or place a small card in a window in their home or car about keeping California beautiful or supporting safe driving. About two weeks later, the same people were asked to put a huge sign that practically covered their entire front lawn advocating the same cause.

“A surprisingly large number of those who agreed to the small sign agreed to the billboard,” because agreeing to the first small task built a bond between asker and askee “that increases the likelihood of complying with a subsequent larger request,” Dr. Davey explained.

Any plan for behavioral change is most likely to succeed if it is very specific, measurable and achievable, according to Ms.Constance.

And the new behavior should also be integrated into daily life — and repeated until it becomes a habit. For example, if you want to walk more, start with a 10-minute walk after dinner on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Ms. Constance suggested. The next week, bump it up to 12 minutes.

Don’t give up, even if you meet initial resistance — it is never too late for your parents or you or any of us to change. “Taking up an exercise program into one’s 80s and 90s to build strength and flexibility can result in very tangible and enduring benefits in a surprisingly short time,” insisted Dr Davey.

As for instructive reading, Dr. Leman is partial to one of his own books, “Have a New You by Friday,” and Dr. Davey recommends “Biomarkers: The 10 Keys to Prolonging Vitality,” by William Evans. Ms. Constance recommends the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web site on physical activity and exercise tips for the elderly, as well as the National Institute of Health’s site on the DASH diet.

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DealBook: Morgan Stanley Strives to Coordinate 2 Departments Often at Odds

Several hundred Morgan Stanley retail branch managers descended on the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes resort in Florida early this month for a retreat. They were greeted by an unlikely colleague, Colm Kelleher, who runs the company’s sales and trading and investment banking departments.

Traditionally, traders and investment bankers think of themselves as the elite of Wall Street and look down on the retail business, seeing it as pedestrian. Yet Mr. Kelleher had a message for the branch managers: His group can work with retail brokers to increase profits at Morgan Stanley.

That message evokes the strategic emphasis that followed the 1997 merger of Morgan Stanley with Dean Witter, Discover & Company. The rationale for that deal was to create a financial supermarket where the retail brokerage and the investment banking businesses could complement each other.

But the company’s swaggering traders wanted little to do with the financial advisers, creating tension and turmoil that would lead to upheaval at the top.

The company over the years has set up revenue sharing agreements between bankers and traders. But that, too, created strife, with bankers and traders accusing each other of deliberating misstating revenue to avoid splitting fees, which some traders called the investment banker tax.

“Morgan Stanley has a horrible history of getting these groups to work together,” said Richard Bove, an analyst with Rafferty Capital Markets.

Yet since Morgan Stanley moved to acquire control of the Smith Barney brokerage business from Citigroup in 2009, the balance of power has shifted to wealth management, which now accounts for almost 52 percent of the company’s revenue, up from roughly 16 percent in 2006.

Gregory J. Fleming, the chief of the brokerage business, and Mr. Kelleher have been under pressure from shareholders to coax greater profits from the low-margin brokerage business by finding ways for retail and investment banking to work better together. The two men are said to have a good working relationship, leading to renewed optimism that the company can finally find synergies among its various divisions.

That is a change from a few months ago, when cooperation was difficult, according to employees at the company, because of personality conflicts between Mr. Kelleher and the investment banker Paul Taubman, who were the two co-heads of the institutional securities business. The employees spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the policy against speaking to the news media without permission.

Mr. Taubman departed recently after a power struggle, leaving Mr. Kelleher solely in charge of sales and trading, and investment banking.

In recent months, the company has made changes intended to improve communication among divisions. Last fall, Morgan Stanley transferred Eric Benedict, an ally of Mr. Kelleher, to wealth management to run its capital markets operation. Previously Mr. Benedict worked for Mr. Kelleher on the equity syndicate desk.

A few months after Mr. Benedict moved to wealth management, the company created a bond, or fixed income, sales group to focus on middle-market clients. The company then transferred some of its smaller banking clients into wealth management to give them more attention. The fixed-income division will share revenue from this middle-market unit with wealth management.

James P. Gorman, the chief executive of Morgan Stanley, is hoping that its sales and trading unit will work more closely with wealth management to increase lending, better tailor structured products for retail clients and improve collaboration on events like public offerings, company insiders said.

For instance, Morgan Stanley may take a company public and the executives at that company may need advice managing their personal wealth. In such an instance, the bankers would alert wealth management, which could dispatch a broker to assess the situation.

In January, on a call with investors to discuss the company’s fourth-quarter results, Mr. Gorman said 35 projects were under way to encourage collaboration between these businesses. One focus is how to increase lending to the firm’s corporate and individual clients.

A lot is riding on Mr. Gorman’s strategy. Morgan Stanley, which for years was best known for its high-flying trading operations and investment bank, was badly bruised in the financial crisis. Since then regulators have established rules that require banks to post more capital against riskier operations, compelling Morgan Stanley to scale back or get out of certain businesses. Morgan Stanley has shrunk its fixed income department, where most of its risk taking was embedded.

But, if Mr. Gorman can make it work, Mr. Bove predicted the chief could return Morgan Stanley to its former glory, “albeit in a different form.” Mr. Bove has a buy rating on Morgan Stanley.

Morgan Stanley emerged from the financial crisis safer, but less profitable. In 2012 it posted a return on equity (excluding a charge related to its debt) of 5 percent. Return on equity is an important measure of how effectively shareholder money is being deployed. Goldman posted a return on equity for the same period of 10.7 percent. To simply cover its debt expenses and other capital costs, Morgan Stanley must achieve a return on equity closer to 10 percent.

Investors also focused on another number, from Morgan Stanley’s wealth management unit. That division posted a pretax profit margin of 17 percent in the fourth quarter of 2012, exceeding most analysts’ expectations.

The number was higher than expected, according to people briefed on the matter but not authorized to speak on the record, because the company deferred from the fourth quarter some major costs like compensation for certain executives.

As a result, some analysts and rivals are wondering how sustainable that level is. Morgan Stanley insiders say while some one-time items did help increase that number, it wasn’t significant and they expect Mr. Fleming to produce a lower but still high pretax profit margin for the current quarter.

“Although the first-quarter margin is seasonally lower, we believe that we can drive margins to the high teens and above over time even with only with modest revenue growth and a low interest rate environment,” said Ruth Porat, chief financial officer at Morgan Stanley, on a conference call last week with fixed-income investors.

For that number to rise significantly, Mr. Fleming must make some of recent initiatives work, analysts say.

“Everyone is watching that number,” said an executive at a rival firm who was not authorized to speak on the record. “If they can increase, it will be a sign Gorman’s strategy is working, but so far not everyone is convinced.”

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This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 19, 2013

An earlier version of the article incorrectly stated that wealth management now accounts for almost 52 percent of the company’s profit. Wealth management now accounts for almost 52 percent of the company's revenues.

A version of this article appeared in print on 02/19/2013, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Morgan Strives To Coordinate 2 Departments Often at Odds.

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Jerry Buss dies at 80; Lakers owner brought 'Showtime' success to L.A.

Longtime Lakers owner Jerry Buss has died at the age of 80. Last week, it was revealed that he was hospitalized with an undisclosed form of cancer.

When Jerry Buss bought the Lakers in 1979, he wanted to build a championship team. But that wasn't all.

The new owner gave courtside seats to movie stars. He hired pretty women to dance during timeouts. He spent freely on big stars and encouraged a fast-paced, exuberant style of play.

As the Lakers sprinted to one NBA title after another, Buss cut an audacious figure in the stands, an aging playboy in blue jeans, often with a younger woman by his side.

PHOTOS: Jerry Buss through the years

"I really tried to create a Laker image, a distinct identity," he once said. "I think we've been successful. I mean, the Lakers are pretty damn Hollywood."

Buss died Monday of complications of cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, according to his longtime spokesman, Bob Steiner. Buss was 80.

Lakers fans will remember Buss for bringing extraordinary success — 10 championships in three-plus decades — but equally important to his legacy was a sense of showmanship that transformed pro basketball from sport to spectacle.

Live discussion at 10:30: The legacy of Jerry Buss

"Jerry Buss helped set the league on the course it is on today," NBA Commissioner David Stern said. "Remember, he showed us it was about 'Showtime,' the notion that an arena can become the focal point for not just basketball, but entertainment. He made it the place to see and be seen."

His teams featured the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal and Dwight Howard. He was also smart enough to hire Hall of Fame-caliber coaches in Pat Riley and Phil Jackson.

"I've worked hard and been lucky," Buss said. "With the combination of the two, I've accomplished everything I ever set out to do."

A Depression-era baby, Jerry Hatten Buss was born in Salt Lake City on Jan. 27, 1933, although some sources cite 1934 as his birth year. His parents, Lydus and Jessie Buss, divorced when he was an infant.

His mother struggled to make ends meet as a waitress in tiny Evanston, Wyo., and Buss remembered standing in food lines in the bitter cold. They moved to Southern California when he was 9, but within a few years she remarried and her second husband took the family back to Wyoming.

His stepfather, Cecil Brown, was, as Buss put it, "very tight-fisted." Brown made his living as a plumber and expected his children (one from a previous marriage, another son and a daughter with Jessie) to help.

TIMELINE: Jerry Buss' path

This work included digging ditches in the cold. Buss preferred bell hopping at a local hotel and running a mail-order stamp-collecting business that he started at age 13.

Leaving high school a year early, he worked on the railroad, pumping a hand-driven car up and down the line to make repairs. The job lasted just three months.

Until then, Buss had never much liked academics. But he returned to school and, with a science teacher's encouragement, did well enough to earn a science scholarship to the University of Wyoming.

Before graduating with a bachelor's degree in chemistry, when he was 19 he married a coed named JoAnn Mueller and they would eventually have four children: John, Jim, Jeanie and Janie.

The couple moved to Southern California in 1953 when USC gave Buss a scholarship for graduate school. He earned a doctorate in physical chemistry in 1957. The degree brought him great pride — Lakers employees always called him "Dr. Buss."

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New Whale Species Unearthed in California Highway Dig

By Carolyn Gramling, ScienceNOW

Chalk yet another fossil find up to roadcut science. Thanks to a highway-widening project in California’s Laguna Canyon, scientists have identified several new species of early toothed baleen whales. Paleontologist Meredith Rivin of the John D. Cooper Archaeological and Paleontological Center in Fullerton, California, presented the finds Feb. 17 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“In California, you need a paleontologist and an archaeologist on-site” during such projects, Rivin says. That was fortuitous: The Laguna Canyon outcrop, excavated between 2000 and 2005, turned out to be a treasure trove containing hundreds of marine mammals that lived 17 million to 19 million years ago. It included 30 cetacean skulls as well as an abundance of other ocean dwellers such as sharks, says Rivin, who studies the fossil record of toothed baleen whales. Among those finds, she says, were four newly identified species of toothed baleen whale—a type of whale that scientists thought had gone extinct 5 million years earlier.

Whales, the general term for the order Cetacea, comprise two suborders: Odontoceti, or toothed whales, which includes echolocators like dolphins, porpoises, and killer whales; and Mysticeti, or baleen whales, the filter-feeding giants of the deep such as blue whales and humpback whales.The two suborders share a common ancestor.

Mysticeti comes from the Greek for mustache, a reference to the baleen that hangs down from their jaw. But the earliest baleen whales actually had teeth (although they’re still called mysticetes). Those toothy remnants still appear in modern fin whale fetuses, which start to develop teeth in the womb that are later reabsorbed before the enamel actually forms.

The four new toothed baleen whale species were also four huge surprises, Rivin says. The new fossils date to 17 to 19 million years ago, or the early-mid Miocene epoch, making them the youngest known toothed whales. Three of the fossils belong to the genus Morawanocetus, which is familiar to paleontologists studying whale fossils from Japan, but hadn’t been seen before in California. These three, along with the fourth new species, which is of a different genus, represent the last known occurrence of aetiocetes, a family of mysticetes that coexisted with early baleen whales. Thus, they aren’t ancestral to any of the living whales, but they could represent transitional steps on the way tothe toothless mysticetes.

The fourth new species—dubbed “Willy”—has its own surprises, Rivin says. Although modern baleen whales are giants, that’s a fairly recent development (in the last 10 million years). But Willy was considerably bigger than the three Morawanocetus fossils. Its teeth were also surprisingly worn—and based on the pattern of wear as well as the other fossils found in the Laguna Canyon deposit, Rivin says, that may be because Willy’s favorite diet may have been sharks. Modern offshore killer whales, who also enjoy a meal of sharks, tend to have similar patterns of wear in their teeth due to the sharks’ rough skin.

The new fossils are a potentially exciting find, says paleobiologist Nick Pyenson of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. Although it’s not yet clear what Rivin’s team has got and what the fossils will reveal about early baleen whale evolution, he says, “I’ll be excited to see what they come up with.” Pyenson himself is no stranger to roadcut science and the rush to preserve fossils on the brink of destruction: In 2011, he managed, within a week, to collect three-dimensional images of numerous whale fossils found by workers widening a highway running through Chile’s Atacama Desert.

Meanwhile, Rivin says her paper describing the fossils is still in preparation, and she hopes to have more data on the three Morawanocetus, at least, published by the end of the year. As for the fourth fossil, she says, it might take a bit longer: There’s still some more work to do to fully free Willy from the rock.

This story provided by ScienceNOW, the daily online news service of the journal Science.

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At 80, Yoko Ono sees a world full of new activism

BERLIN (Reuters) – Half a life-time ago, artist Yoko Ono lay in an Amsterdam hotel bed with husband John Lennon, staging a week-long “bed-in” for peace and feeling they were very alone in their activism.

Today, Ono, whose own energy for campaigning has never tired, sees a world full of activists, maintaining her energy and faith in humanity.

“When John and I did the bed-in, not many people were with us. But now there are so many activists, I don’t know anyone who is not an activist,” she told Reuters in an interview in Berlin on Monday, her 80th birthday.

“Even the corporations – John always used to say the corporations need to be with us… Corporations now say 10-20 percent of their profits will go to such and such charity. They have to do that almost for people to feel good about it.”

The late Beatle and Ono’s 1969 bed-in to protest against the Vietnam war was repeated in Montreal, Canada. Press attention was huge, but much of it was mocking.

Ono, who gave a sell-out concert in Berlin on Sunday alongside their son Sean Lennon which closed with the anthem “Give peace a chance”, said it was still critical to stand up for peace despite new conflicts in the intervening decades.

“I don’t want to be drowning in sadness. I think we have to stand and up and change the world,” she said.

The artist, born to a wealthy Japanese family in Tokyo in 1933, has recently become a passionate opponent of fracking, a controversial procedure which has sharply lifted energy output in the United States but which critics fear pollutes drinking water deep underground and could increase earthquake risks.

“Fracking is an incredible risk to the human race, I don’t know why they even thought of doing it,” she said.

Ono, whose birthday is being marked by a major retrospective of her work in Frankfurt, said she feels she is becoming freer in her art.

“My attitude has changed… I’m allowing things to happen in a way I hadn’t planned before,” she said.

Asked about her feelings on becoming an octogenarian, she said: “I’m surprised. It is a miracle in a sense that I am 80, I am proud about it. Not everybody gets there.”

(Reporting by Alexandra Hudson, editing by Gareth Jones and Paul Casciato)

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DNA Analysis, More Accessible Than Ever, Opens New Doors

Matt Roth for The New York Times

Sam Bosley of Frederick, Md., going shopping with his daughter, Lillian, 13, who has a malformed brain and severe developmental delays, seizures and vision problems. More Photos »

Debra Sukin and her husband were determined to take no chances with her second pregnancy. Their first child, Jacob, who had a serious genetic disorder, did not babble when he was a year old and had severe developmental delays. So the second time around, Ms. Sukin had what was then the most advanced prenatal testing.

The test found no sign of Angelman syndrome, the rare genetic disorder that had struck Jacob. But as months passed, Eli was not crawling or walking or babbling at ages when other babies were.

“Whatever the milestones were, my son was not meeting them,” Ms. Sukin said.

Desperate to find out what is wrong with Eli, now 8, the Sukins, of The Woodlands, Tex., have become pioneers in a new kind of testing that is proving particularly helpful in diagnosing mysterious neurological illnesses in children. Scientists sequence all of a patient’s genes, systematically searching for disease-causing mutations.

A few years ago, this sort of test was so difficult and expensive that it was generally only available to participants in research projects like those sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. But the price has plunged in just a few years from tens of thousands of dollars to around $7,000 to $9,000 for a family. Baylor College of Medicine and a handful of companies are now offering it. Insurers usually pay.

Demand has soared — at Baylor, for example, scientists analyzed 5 to 10 DNA sequences a month when the program started in November 2011. Now they are doing more than 130 analyses a month. At the National Institutes of Health, which handles about 300 cases a year as part of its research program, demand is so great that the program is expected to ultimately take on 800 to 900 a year.

The test is beginning to transform life for patients and families who have often spent years searching for answers. They can now start the grueling process with DNA sequencing, says Dr. Wendy K. Chung, professor of pediatrics and medicine at Columbia University.

“Most people originally thought of using it as a court of last resort,” Dr. Chung said. “Now we can think of it as a first-line test.”

Even if there is no treatment, there is almost always some benefit to diagnosis, geneticists say. It can give patients and their families the certainty of knowing what is wrong and even a prognosis. It can also ease the processing of medical claims, qualifying for special education services, and learning whether subsequent children might be at risk.

“Imagine the people who drive across the whole country looking for that one neurologist who can help, or scrubbing the whole house with Lysol because they think it might be an allergy,” said Richard A. Gibbs, the director of Baylor College of Medicine’s gene sequencing program. “Those kinds of stories are the rule, not the exception.”

Experts caution that gene sequencing is no panacea. It finds a genetic aberration in only about 25 to 30 percent of cases. About 3 percent of patients end up with better management of their disorder. About 1 percent get a treatment and a major benefit.

“People come to us with huge expectations,” said Dr. William A. Gahl, who directs the N.I.H. program. “They think, ‘You will take my DNA and find the causes and give me a treatment.’ ”

“We give the impression that we can do these things because we only publish our successes,” Dr. Gahl said, adding that when patients come to him, “we try to make expectations realistic.”

DNA sequencing was not available when Debra and Steven Sukin began trying to find out what was wrong with Eli. When he was 3, they tried microarray analysis, a genetic test that is nowhere near as sensitive as sequencing. It detected no problems.

“My husband and I looked at each other and said, ‘The good news is that everything is fine; the bad news is that everything is not fine,’ ” Ms. Sukin said.

In November 2011, when Eli was 6, Ms. Sukin consulted Dr. Arthur L. Beaudet, a medical geneticist at Baylor.

“Is there a protein missing?” she recalled asking him. “Is there something biochemical we could be missing?”

By now, DNA sequencing had come of age. Dr. Beaudet said that Eli was a great candidate, and it turned out that the new procedure held an answer.

A single DNA base was altered in a gene called CASK, resulting in a disorder so rare that there are fewer than 10 cases in all the world’s medical literature.

“It really became definitive for my husband and me,” Ms. Sukin said. “We would need to do lifelong planning for dependent care for the rest of his life.”

Now, when doctors bill for medical services, insurers pay without as many questions. And Eli’s schools recognize how profound his needs are. “This isn’t just some kid with dyslexia,” his mother said, adding: “My son needs someone who literally is holding his hand. He runs, he doesn’t know ‘no.’ And he does not talk.”

The typical patient with a mystery disease has neurological problems, and is often a baby or a child. There are reasons for that.

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Draghi Seeks to Quiet Talk About Global Currency War

BRUSSELS — The president of the European Central Bank sought Monday to ease fears that countries including Japan were deliberately weakening their currencies and that European exporters were threatened by a round of competitive devaluations among the world’s major economies.

The comments by Mario Draghi appeared to show how some of the world’s most senior economic policy makers were continuing to grapple with the prospect of a “currency war,” even after finance ministers from the Group of 20 pledged over the weekend to refrain from devaluing their currencies to gain a competitive advantage in global trade.

During an afternoon of scheduled testimony before the European Parliament’s Economic and Finance Committee in Brussels, Mr. Draghi noted that the euro’s current exchange rate was close to its long-term average. He advised officials not to make alarmist comments.

“Most of the exchange rate movements that we have seen were not explicitly targeted; they were the result of domestic macroeconomic policies meant to boost the economy,” Mr. Draghi told the committee, without mentioning any countries by name. “In this sense, I find really excessive any language referring to currency wars.”

But Mr. Draghi also seemed to suggest that central banks could succumb to mutual suspicion about whether they were deliberately seeking to set exchange rates. “The less we talk about this, the better it is,” he said.

Underscoring the point, Mr. Draghi said he had “urged all parties” to exercise “very, very strong verbal discipline” at the G-20 finance ministers’ meeting in Moscow over the weekend.

The euro hit a record of ¥127.18 on Feb. 2, up from ¥114.48 at the start of the year. It stood at just ¥94.31 in July 2012. The euro traded at ¥125.46 on Monday, up slightly, and was flat against the dollar, at $1.3352.

Since the rapid strengthening of the euro against the yen and other major currencies, there has been a concerted push by industrialized nations to convey the message that they will let the markets determine the value of their currencies.

Last week the Group of 7 sought to quell fears of a developing currency war. Then, over the weekend, the G-20 finance ministers issued a statement saying they had concluded that loose monetary policy, including steps to weaken currencies, were acceptable if used as a means to stimulate domestic growth. But they also warned that such policies should not be used to benefit a country’s position in global trade.

Guntram B. Wolff, the deputy director of Bruegel, a research organization, said that he believed Japan’s central bank policy makers were carrying out an expansionary monetary policy in an appropriate way — as a means to spur economic growth, not as a way to aid Japanese exporters.

Instead, Mr. Wolff said, Mr. Draghi might be concerned about the U.S. Federal Reserve, where policy makers are considering continuing their expansionist monetary policy until the unemployment rate falls significantly, and about the Bank of England, which may end up pursuing similar policies as it revises the way it sets goals for economic growth.

“The bigger question is what central banks in the developed world are doing — I’m thinking here about the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve — and whether we have a danger of competitive devaluation,” Mr. Wolff said. “While we claim that all of this is done for domestic purposes, the internal and external goal can become the same, and then you have the risk that this turns toxic.”

A loose monetary policy intended to spur growth often has the effect of devaluing a currency, making a country’s exports more affordable and its competitors’ exports more expensive. For example, a strong euro means that exports like cars and wines become more expensive abroad. That puts European producers at a disadvantage in competing with foreign producers on world markets.

Yet a strong euro also brings some advantages for Europe. Certain imports — like energy, in the form of oil and natural gas — become more affordable.

Over the past few years, emerging-market countries like Brazil have openly accused slow-growing advanced countries like the United States of unfairly pushing down the value of their currencies with their aggressive monetary policies. And, for years, the United States has accused export-reliant emerging economies, in particular China, of manipulating their currencies, too.

More recently, in Japan, stimulus programs backed by the newly elected prime minister, Shinzo Abe, have kept interest rates near zero and flooded the economy with money, which has reduced the cost of Japanese products around the world.

In Europe, while confidence has grown that the Union will be able to manage its sovereign debt crisis, the euro has made significant gains against the dollar and other currencies. That is making European exports more expensive, a factor that could hamper growth.

The gains have prompted François Hollande, the president of France — which has traditionally taken a more interventionist stance in economic matters — to call for a European exchange-rate policy.

Mr. Draghi did allow that the relative strength of the euro “is important for growth and price stability” and that “to the downside,” an “appreciation of the euro is a risk.” He said the E.C.B. would assess whether the exchange rate was having an effect on inflation.

But for now, Mr. Hollande has very little traction on the issue. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the newly appointed president of the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers, gave the French request short shrift this month, and a senior German official has decried the French initiative as a poor substitute for policy overhauls.

“Can you have a managed exchange rate in Europe?” asked Karel Lannoo, the chief executive of the Center for European Policy Studies, a research organization in Brussels. “Probably not, when you consider how hard it would be to agree on a rate and the means to maintain it. ”

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Hollywood directs its star power toward a campaign closer to home

A stylish crowd waited beneath a flashing marquee outside the Fonda Theatre. "Appearing tonight!" the sign read. "Eric Garcetti 4 Mayor."

In a city where political campaigns are typically waged at neighborhood meetings, not Hollywood concert halls, last week's star-studded fundraiser for Garcetti highlighted the entertainment industry's outsized role in this year's mayoral race. Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel started the show with a stand-up routine and musician Moby got the crowd of several hundred dancing. Actress Amy Smart urged everyone to tweet about the campaign, and actor Will Ferrell beamed in via video to pledge that if Garcetti is elected, every resident in the city will receive free waffles.

Hollywood is taking to City Hall politics like never before, veterans say, with power players such as Steven Spielberg leading a major fundraising effort and celebrities such as Salma Hayek weighing in via YouTube. A Times analysis of city Ethics Commission records found that actors, producers, directors and others in the industry have donated more than $746,000 directly to candidates, with some $462,000 going to Garcetti and $226,000 to City Controller Wendy Greuel.

Several of Greuel's big-name celebrity supporters, including Tobey Maguire, Kate Hudson and Zooey Deschanel, recently hosted a fundraiser for her at an exclusive club on the Sunset Strip. She is getting extra help from Spielberg and his former partners at DreamWorks, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, who have given at least $150,000 and are raising more for an independent group funding a TV ad blitz on her behalf.

The burst of support is coming from an industry often maligned for paying little attention to local politics.

While Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is often photographed at red carpet events and former Mayor Tom Bradley was famously close to actor Gregory Peck, serious Hollywood money and star power has tended to remain tantalizingly out of reach for local politicians. "It's no secret that the entertainment industry has never really focused on the city that houses it," said Steve Soboroff, who ran for mayor and lost in 2001.

Political consultant Garry South, who has worked on mayoral and gubernatorial campaigns, recalled having to pay celebrities to appear at fundraisers in the past. Hollywood has long embraced candidates in presidential and congressional elections, South said, in part because they have more influence over causes favored by celebrities.

"The mayor of L.A. is not going to get us out of Afghanistan. The mayor of L.A. is not going to determine whether or not gay marriage is legal," South said. "The local issues are just not as sexy."

But this year, if you're a part of the Hollywood establishment, chances are you've gotten invitations to fundraisers for Greuel, Garcetti or both.

The difference this time is that both candidates have worked to cultivate deep Hollywood connections, observers say. Garcetti has represented Hollywood for 12 years, overseeing a development boom and presiding over ceremonies to add stars — Kimmel recently got one — on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Greuel is a former executive at DreamWorks, where she worked with the moguls who founded the studio. She has also served for 10 years on the board of the California Film Commission.

City Councilwoman Jan Perry and entertainment attorney Kevin James have reaped far less financial support from the industry, records show, although each claims a share of celebrity endorsements. Dick Van Dyke sponsored a fundraiser for Perry and Oscar winner Dustin Lance Black has given to James.

Agent Feroz Taj, who attended Garcetti's Moby concert, said a flurry of activity around the race, involving friends and colleagues, piqued his interest. He said he's never been involved in a political campaign, but now when he receives invites to Greuel events, he says he is supporting Garcetti.

Industry insiders have been buzzing about a letter they say is being circulated by an advisor to Spielberg and Katzenberg, urging people to give $15,000 to an independent group supporting Greuel. The DreamWorks founders have made a difference for Greuel in previous elections. In 2002, financial support from the studio executives and their allies helped her squeak out a victory in one of the closest City Council races in history.

This time around, billionaire media mogul Haim Saban is getting involved, providing his Beverly Hills estate for a Greuel fundraiser featuring U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Greuel has also received contributions from Tom Hanks and actresses Mariska Hargitay and Eva Longoria, neither of whom have given to a local political campaign before, according to records.

Garcetti, on the other hand, has picked up contributions from former Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner, as well as newcomers to local politics Jake Gyllenhaal and Hayek, who once traveled with Garcetti on a global warming awareness mission to the South Pole. The actress released a video endorsing Garcetti and thanking him for helping her find her wallet in the snow.

Campaign consultant Sean Clegg linked the industry's burgeoning interest in mayoral politics to President Obama's election, which he said had "a catalyzing effect on Hollywood." Indeed, many Greuel and Garcetti supporters were Obama backers. Hayek hosted a fundraiser for Obama and Longoria served as a co-chair of his reelection campaign.

Clegg is a consultant for Working Californians, an independent campaign committee that hopes to raise and spend at least $2 million supporting Greuel, with donations from Spielberg and others in Hollywood, as well as the union representing Department of Water and Power employees.

Generally, Clegg argued, Hollywood money is different than the special-interest funding campaigns collect. "Money is coming out of the entertainment industry more on belief and less on the transactional considerations," he said.

But Raphael Sonenshein, director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A., said Hollywood's new interest in local elections may be tied to growing concerns about film production being lured elsewhere by tax incentives.

Garcetti and Greuel have both pledged to reverse job losses tied to runaway television and film production, with Garcetti touting a recent proposal to eliminate roughly $231,000 in annual city fees charged for pilot episodes of new TV shows. The number of pilots shot locally has dropped 30% in recent years, but city budget analysts say the tax break would have a minimal effect because city fees represent only a small portion of production costs.

On the council, both candidates voted to eliminate filming fees at most city facilities. Greuel tells audiences she has an insider's perspective on the industry's needs and says she will create an "entertainment cabinet" to help it thrive. "I have sat with studio heads," she said in a recent interview. "They want a city . . . that is a champion for film industry jobs in Los Angeles."

Greuel may have Garcetti beat on experience in the studio front office, but he is the only candidate with his own page on IMDb.com — a closely watched industry website that tracks individuals' film and television credits.

The councilman, a member of the Screen Actors Guild, has made several television appearances, including one for the cable police drama "The Closer." He played the mayor of Los Angeles.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com

Times staff writer Maloy Moore contributed to this report.

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<cite>Halo</cite> Creator Unveils Its Next Masterpiece, a Persistent Online World

"Citadel": Concept art from Bungie's Destiny.

BELLEVUE, Washington — Destiny, the new game from the creator of Halo, isn’t just another shooter. It’s a persistent online multiplayer adventure, designed on a galactic scale, that wants to become your new life.

“It isn’t a game,” went the oft-heard tagline at a preview event on Wednesday. “It’s a world where the most important stories are told by the players, not written by the developers.”

This week, Bungie Studios invited the press into its Seattle-area studio to get the first look at Destiny. Although the event was a little short on details — Bungie and Activision didn’t reveal the launch date, handed out concept art instead of screenshots, and dodged most of my questions — it gave an intriguing glimpse at what the creator of Halo believes is the future of shooters.

Bungie was acquired by Microsoft in 2000, and its insanely popular shooter was the killer app that put the original Xbox on the map. Bungie split off from its corporate parent in 2007, and Microsoft produced Halo 4 on its own last year. The development studio partnered up with mega-publisher Activision for its latest project, which was kept mostly secret until now.

Destiny, slated for release on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, isn’t exactly an MMO. Activision CEO Eric Hirshberg called it a “shared-world shooter” — multiplayer and online, but something less than massive.

“We’re not doing this just because we have the tech,” Hirshberg said. “We have a great idea, and we’re letting the concept lead the tech.”

Built with new development software created specifically for Destiny, this new game is set in Earth’s solar system and takes place after a mysterious cataclysm wipes out most of humanity. The remaining survivors create a “safe zone” underneath a mysterious alien sphere called “The Traveler.”

The enigmatic sphere imparts players with potent weapons, magic-like powers and defensive technology. Thanks to these gifts, people have begun reclaiming the solar system from alien invaders that moved in while humanity was down.

Bungie fired off a list of design principles that guide Destiny’s creation: Create a world players want to be in. Make it enjoyable by players of all skill levels. Make it enjoyable by people who are “tired, impatient and distracted.” In other words, you don’t have to be loaded for bear and pumped for the firefight of your life every time you log on to Destiny.

After this brief overview, writer/director Joseph Staten used concept art and narration to outline an example of what a typical Destiny player’s experience might be.

Beginning in the “safe zone,” a player would start out from their in-game home and walk into a large common area. From here, the player would be able to explore their surroundings and meet up with friends. Then, they might board their starships and fly to another planet, let’s say Mars, in order to raid territory held by aliens.

During this raid, other real players who traveled to the same zone (like visiting a particular server on an MMO) would be free to come and go as they please. For example, a random participant could simply walk on by. They could stop and observe. Or they could get involved in the fight. In this instance, Staten suggested that a passerby would join the raid and then break off from the group after the spoils were divvied up without any user interface elements to fuss with. Walk away, and it’s done.

Bungie made a point of saying several times over that Destiny will not have any “lobby”-type interfaces, or menus from which to choose from a list of quests. Instead, players will simply immerse themselves in the world and organically choose to participate in whatever activities they stumble upon. Bungie promised solo content, cooperative content, and competitive content, though it provided no further examples of these.

The developer said that by employing very specialized artificial intelligence working entirely behind the scenes, players will encounter other real players who are best suited for them to interact with, based on their experience levels and other factors.

Staten didn’t say how many players would be able to exist in the world at the same time, but said that characters will be placed in proximity to each other based on very specific criteria, not simply to “fill the world up.”

Bungie showed off three distinct character classes throughout the day’s presentations: Hunter, Titan and Warlock. Although no differences were outlined between them apart from the Warlock being able to use a kind of techno-magic, the developer was keen to emphasize the idea that each character in Destiny would be highly customized and unique, and will grow with the player over an extended period of time.

While many games make the same promise, Destiny’s vision of “an extended period of time” isn’t 100 hours. It’s more like 10 years.

Bungie’s plan is for the Destiny story to unfold gradually over the course of 10 “books,” each with a beginning, middle and end. Through this will run an overarching story intended to span the entire decade’s worth of games, although like many other topics covered during the day, Bungie gave little detail about how this will work.

The developer spent a lot of time emphasizing its claim that no game has been made at this scale before. Bungie says it has a whopping 350 in-house developers working on Destiny.

Senior graphics architect Hao Chen gave examples of the sort of impenetrable mathematics formulas that allow Bungie to craft environments and worlds at a speed that it claims was previously impossible.

Bungie’s malleable team system was also said to increase its output. With the ability to co-locate designers, artists, and engineers at any time, Bungie says it can go through exceptionally rapid on-the-spot iteration and improvement for each facet of the game.

Apart from highly improved technology and the basic concept of humanity taking back the solar system, there’s just not a lot of hard information on Destiny at the moment. One thing that was made quite clear is that the game will not be subscription-based. Every presenter was clear in stating that players will not pay a monthly fee to participate in this persistent world.

While fees may not be required, a constant connection to the Internet will be. Since the core concept of Destiny is exploring a world that exists outside of the player’s console and is populated by real people at all times, it “will need to be connected in order for someone to play,” said Bungie chief operating officer Pete Parsons.

Representatives from both Bungie and Activision gave vague answers when Wired pressed for further details, often stating that they “were not ready” to discuss specifics. Whether that means those things are still being kept from the press, or whether they have not yet been determined by the development team, was unclear.

Questions currently unanswered: How will players communicate? How will players interact with each other outside of combat? What content exists in the non-combat “safe zones”? Subscriptions may be out, but what about in-app purchases? Will player versus player combat be available? Will the game ship on a disc or be download only? Will its persistent world allow Xbox and PlayStation gamers to play together? What content and interactions will be possible via smartphones and tablets (which Bungie alluded to)? Will the fancy new tools be licensed to other developers?

And so on.

For now, Bungie is asking us to take it for granted that it will execute on a bold 10-year plan for a very different sort of shooter. In the history of the always-changing gaming industry, no one’s ever been able to pull off a 10-year plan for anything. Can Bungie do it?

Hey… they made Halo, right?

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Discovery bets on 2 dope series about pot growers

NEW YORK (AP) — Cupcake makers, pawnbrokers and storage container raiders have all had their moments in reality television’s spotlight. Now the time may be right for marijuana growers — and the people who chase them.

The Discovery network debuts a six-episode series, “Weed Country,” at 10 p.m. Wednesday and will replace it with “Pot Cops” in April. Both examine the marijuana trade in northern California.

It fits Discovery’s efforts to introduce interesting subcultures to viewers, said Nancy Daniels, the network’s executive vice president for production and development on the West Coast. Discovery tried a series about a medical marijuana dispensary in Oakland two years ago, “Weed Wars,” and is sticking with dope even though the show didn’t do very well in the ratings.

“We still think it’s an interesting world and maybe we didn’t tap into the right part of it,” Daniels said.

Based on its first episode, “Weed Country” is a nuanced effort at giving equal time to both sides of the issue. Producers find colorful growers who use science to make the best product possible. They don’t believe what they are doing is wrong. “We’re flying the flag of civil disobedience,” one grower said.

The growers may be trying to dodge the law, but don’t hesitate to open up different facets of their business to television cameras.

At the same time, “Weed Country” shows the challenges faced by law enforcement. It follows one group’s careful training for backwoods missions to find farms guarded by growers who are armed and intent upon protecting their crops.

“It surprised me with how deep and complex it was,” Daniels said.

The show does have some distracting reality TV contrivances. Before one commercial break, a grower making a late-night delivery to a customer becomes suspicious of a van that ominously pulls out behind him on a dark road. After the break, the van drives innocently by. At another point, producers lead you to believe the grower is about to be pulled over by police when, after a commercial, it becomes clear the officer is going after someone else.

The “Pot Cops” series will be told from the point of view of law enforcement, after producers reached an agreement for access to officers hunting down marijuana farms in California’s Humboldt County.

Discovery had planned to air the two programs back-to-back on the same night and promote it as “Weed Wednesday” on the network. But those plans were dropped because unrelated programming expected to be available this spring had fallen through and Discovery needed “Pot Cops” to fill a hole on its schedule in April.

The change had nothing to do with feeling cold feet about a “Weed Wednesday” promotion, Daniels said.

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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