Bond soars with record $87.8M 'Skyfall' debut

LOS ANGELES (AP) — James Bond's "Skyfall" has extended its worldwide box-office rule to North America, hauling in a franchise-record $87.8 million in its first weekend at U.S. theaters.

Adding in $2.2 million from Thursday night previews at IMAX and other large-format theaters, "Skyfall" has taken in $90 million domestically, according to studio estimates Sunday.

That lifts the worldwide total for "Skyfall" to $518.6 million since it began rolling out overseas in late October. Internationally, the 23rd Bond flick added $89 million this weekend to raise its overseas revenue to $428.6 million.

The third installment starring Daniel Craig as British super-spy Bond, "Skyfall" outdid the $67.5 million U.S. debut of 2008's "Quantum of Solace," the franchise's previous best opening. "Skyfall" more than doubled the $40.8 million debut of Craig's first Bond film, 2006's "Casino Royale."

"Skyfall" already has passed the $407.7 million overseas total for "Quantum of Solace" and by Monday, it will top the $432.2 million international haul for "Casino Royale."

The Craig era has reinvigorated one of Hollywood's most-enduring franchises, whose first big-screen Bond adventure, "Dr. No," debuted 50 years ago.

"It's quite a testament to Bond, considering it's the 50th anniversary. What a great anniversary present," said Rory Bruer, head of distribution at Sony, which produces the Bond films along with MGM.

"Skyfall" was the weekend's only new wide release, but Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" had a huge start in a handful of theaters. Starring Daniel Day-Lewis as the 16th president, "Lincoln" took in $900,000 in 11 theaters for a whopping average of $81,818 a cinema. By comparison, "Skyfall" averaged $25,050 in 3,505 theaters.

"Lincoln" centers on the months leading up to the president's assassination in April 1865, as he maneuvers to pass the 13th amendment abolishing slavery and end the Civil War. Distributor Disney will expand "Lincoln" into nationwide release of about 1,600 theaters Friday and may widen the film further over Thanksgiving week.

The film has strong Academy Awards prospects for two-time directing winner Spielberg, two-time acting recipient Day-Lewis and the rest of the cast, which includes Oscar winners Sally Field and Tommy Lee Jones.

"The performances are some of the greatest of recent time," said Dave Hollis, head of distribution for Disney. "I don't know if you're ever going to think about it again without seeing our actor as Lincoln. Daniel is extraordinary in the role."

"Skyfall" took over the top spot at the weekend box office from Disney's animated comedy "Wreck-It Ralph," which fell to No. 2 with $33.1 million, raising its domestic total to $93.7 million.

While "Skyfall" marked a new high for Bond's opening-weekend revenue, the film has a long way to go to match the biggest audiences 007 has ever drawn. Adjusted for inflation, Sean Connery's 1965 Bond adventure "Thunderball" would have taken in an estimated $508 million domestically in today's dollars, with its 1964 predecessor "Goldfinger" not far behind at $444 million, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.

The Bond films over the last two decades have come in around the $200 million range domestically in inflation-adjusted dollars.

Still, Craig's Bond is setting a new critical standard for the franchise. While "Quantum of Solace" had a so-so critical reception, "Skyfall" and "Casino Royale" are among the best-reviewed Bond films, with critics and fans enjoying the darker edge Craig has imprinted on 007.

"'Skyfall' is to the Bond franchise what 'The Dark Knight' was to the Batman franchise," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. "By taking it to a whole other level, this is a different kind of Bond that can be taken really seriously."

Directed by Sam Mendes, the Academy Award-winning filmmaker behind "American Beauty" and Craig's director on "Road to Perdition," ''Skyfall" continues the current franchise's exploration into the emotional traumas that have shaped Bond's cool, aloof manner.

The film reveals secrets out of the past of Bond's boss, British spymaster M (Judi Dench), and pits 007 against a brilliant but unstable former agent (Javier Bardem) who's out for revenge.

Hollywood remains on a brisk pace this fall as the busy holiday season approaches. Overall domestic revenues totaled $172 million, up 26 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Immortals" led with $32.2 million.

For the year, domestic revenues are at $9.1 billion, up 4.3 percent from 2011's, according to Hollywood.com.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "Skyfall," $87.8 million.

2. "Wreck-It Ralph," $33.1 million.

3. "Flight," $15.1 million.

4. "Argo," $6.7 million.

5. "Taken 2," $4 million.

6. "Here Comes the Boom," $2.6 million

7. "Cloud Atlas," $2.53 million.

8. "Pitch Perfect," $2.5 million.

9. "The Man with the Iron Fists," $2.49 million.

10. "Hotel Transylvania," $2.4 million.

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Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak:

1. "Skyfall," $89 million.

2. "Argo," $12 million.

3. "Wreck-It Ralph," $11.2 million.

4. "Hotel Transylvania," $11.1 million.

5. "A Werewolf Boy," $10.5 million.

6. "Cloud Atlas," $8.7 million.

7. "Paranormal Activity 4," $6 million.

8 (tie). "Asterlix and Obelix: God Save Britannia," $4.4 million.

8 (tie). "Confession of Murder," $4.4 million.

10. "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted," $4.1 million.

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Online:

http://www.hollywood.com

http://www.rentrak.com

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Mind Faded, Darrell Royal’s Wisdom and Humor Intact Till End

Three days before his death last week at 88, Darrell Royal told his wife, Edith: “We need to go back to Hollis” — in Oklahoma. “Uncle Otis died.”

“Oh, Darrell,” she said, “Uncle Otis didn’t die.”

Royal, a former University of Texas football coach, chuckled and said, “Well, Uncle Otis will be glad to hear that.”

The Royal humor never faded, even as he sank deeper into Alzheimer’s disease. The last three years, I came to understand this as well as anyone. We had known each other for more than 40 years. In the 1970s, Royal was a virile, driven, demanding man with a chip on his shoulder bigger than Bevo, the Longhorns mascot. He rarely raised his voice to players. “But we were scared to death of him,” the former quarterback Bill Bradley said.

Royal won 3 national championships and 167 games before retiring at 52. He was a giant in college football, having stood shoulder to shoulder with the Alabama coach Bear Bryant. Royal’s Longhorns defeated one of Bryant’s greatest teams, with Joe Namath at quarterback, in the 1965 Orange Bowl. Royal went 3-0-1 in games against Bryant.

Royal and I were reunited in the spring of 2010. I barely recognized him. The swagger was gone. His mind had faded. Often he stared aimlessly across the room. I scheduled an interview with him for my book “Courage Beyond the Game: The Freddie Steinmark Story.” Still, I worried that his withering mind could no longer conjure up images of Steinmark, the undersize safety who started 21 straight winning games for the Longhorns in the late 1960s. Steinmark later developed bone cancer that robbed him of his left leg.

When I met with Royal and his wife, I quickly learned that his long-term memory was as clear as a church bell. For two hours, Royal took me back to Steinmark’s recruiting trip to Austin in 1967, through the Big Shootout against Arkansas in 1969, to the moment President Richard M. Nixon handed him the national championship trophy in the cramped locker room in Fayetteville. He recalled the day at M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston the next week when doctors informed Steinmark that his leg would be amputated if a biopsy revealed cancer. Royal never forgot the determined expression on Steinmark’s face, nor the bravery in his heart.

The next morning, Royal paced the crowded waiting room floor and said: “This just can’t be happening to a good kid like Freddie Steinmark. This just can’t be happening.”

With the love of his coach, Steinmark rose to meet the misfortune. Nineteen days after the amputation, he stood with crutches on the sideline at the Cotton Bowl for the Notre Dame game. After the Longhorns defeated the Fighting Irish, Royal tearfully presented the game ball to Steinmark.

Four decades later, while researching the Steinmark book, I became close to Royal again. As I was leaving his condominium the day of the interview, I said, “Coach, do you still remember me?” He smiled and said, “Now, Jim Dent, how could I ever forget you?” My sense of self-importance lasted about three seconds. Royal chuckled. He pointed across the room to the message board next to the front door that read, “Jim Dent appt. at 10 a.m.”

Edith and his assistant, Colleen Kieke, read parts of my book to him. One day, Royal told me, “It’s really a great book.” But I can’t be certain how much he knew of the story.

Like others, I was troubled to see Royal’s memory loss. He didn’t speak for long stretches. He smiled and posed for photographs. He seemed the happiest around his former players. He would call his longtime friend Tom Campbell, an all-Southwest Conference defensive back from the 1960s, and say, “What are you up to?” That always meant, “Let’s go drink a beer.”

As her husband’s memory wore thin, Edith did not hide him. Instead, she organized his 85th birthday party and invited all of his former players. Quarterback James Street, who engineered the famous 15-14 comeback against Arkansas in 1969, sat by Royal’s side and helped him remember faces and names. The players hugged their coach, then turned away to hide the tears.

In the spring of 2010, I was invited to the annual Mexican lunch for Royal attended by about 75 of his former players. A handful of them were designated to stand up and tell Royal what he meant to them. Royal smiled through each speech as his eyes twinkled. I was mesmerized by a story the former defensive tackle Jerrel Bolton told. He recalled that Royal had supported him after the murder of his wife some 30 year earlier.

“Coach, you told me it was like a big cut on my arm, that the scab would heal, but that the wound would always come back,” Bolton said. “It always did.”

Royal seemed to drink it all in. But everyone knew his mind would soon dim.

The last time I saw him was June 20 at the County Line, a barbecue restaurant next to Bull Creek in Austin. Because Royal hated wheelchairs and walkers, the former Longhorn Mike Campbell, Tom’s twin, and I helped him down the stairs by wrapping our arms around his waist and gripping the back of his belt. I ordered his lunch, fed him his sandwich and cleaned his face with a napkin. He looked at me and said, “Was I a college player in the 1960s?”

“No, Coach,” I said. “But you were a great player for the Oklahoma Sooners in the late 1940s. You quarterbacked Oklahoma to an 11-0 record and the Sooners’ first national championship in 1949.”

He smiled and said, “Well, I’ll be doggone.”

After lunch, Mike Campbell and I carried him up the stairs. We sat him on a bench outside as Tom Campbell fetched the car. In that moment, the lunch crowd began to spill out of the restaurant. About 20 customers recognized Royal. They took his photograph with camera phones. Royal smiled and welcomed the hugs.

“He didn’t remember a thing about it,” Tom Campbell said later. “But it did his heart a whole lot of good.”

Jim Dent is the author of “The Junction Boys” and eight other books.

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Lenders, title insurers find new ways to delay or kill mortgages

Do you know the difference between credit rescoring and credit repair?

Apparently, some lenders don't. As a result, they are refusing to fund mortgages that they otherwise would approve.

At the same time, some title companies are starting to play hardball with borrowers who have recently undertaken home improvement projects. Even if the work is relatively minor, and even if it has been completed, the companies are refusing to issue title insurance policies, effectively stopping refinancings in their tracks.

For as long as Richard Temme of Woodland Hills Mortgage in Woodland Hills can remember, title companies would write policies on properties with recent or ongoing construction as long as the borrower agreed to indemnify the company against mechanic's liens. But lately, the mortgage broker reports, title firms have become much more cautious.

The typical indemnification holds the title company harmless from any liabilities, losses, damages, expenses or charges the company may incur because of mechanic's lien disputes between the borrower and the contractor. Borrowers also usually agree to defend any action based on a lien and do all the things necessary or appropriate to clear the lien from the title.

But in an increasing number of cases, that is not enough, Temme says. "We've seen title companies declining to issue on many more loans" than in the past, he says. As a result, he adds, "even minor home improvement projects, recent or unfinished, can hold up or kill a loan."

This may be a California phenomenon because the laws are different in other states. But in the Golden State, contractors, subcontractors and suppliers can file liens retroactively to the day they started their work or furnished materials.

If that date of the lien is before the day the mortgage is closed, the lien, not the mortgage, is in the first position. As a result, some title agencies are not writing policies unless the borrower can put a much higher level of net worth behind the indemnification, Temme says. And some are not accepting any indemnification at all.

Meanwhile, otherwise good loans are being rejected by lenders that confuse rescoring with credit repair. They are not the same.

Credit repair is often a scam. In fact, attorneys at the Federal Trade Commission say they've never seen a legitimate operation that offers to erase bad credit, create a new credit identity on your behalf or remove bankruptcies, judgments, liens or bad loans from your record. If the bad information in your file is correct, there is nothing that can be done to remove it, at least not legally.

No wonder lenders want nothing to do with applicants who have paid someone to clear accurate data from their records. If you have bad credit, after all, you are probably a bad risk.

Rescoring, on the other hand, corrects errors in your file, which may result in an increase to your all-important credit score.

Whereas credit repair firms are not legitimate, the 70-odd companies that provide rescoring are credit reporting agencies that work with the national credit repositories — Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. As resellers of credit information contained within the three repositories, they not only provide the majority of all credit reports but also have a legal obligation to you and your creditors.

Moreover, according to Terry Clemans of the National Credit Reporting Assn., rescoring is a program developed in conjunction with and processed through the big three credit repositories. Indeed, each repository maintains a special rescoring department that deals directly with resellers.

When a credit file is rescored, it is checked twice for accuracy, first by the reseller and again by the national repository. It is, Clemans says, "one of the safest transactions for any creditor because everything is double-verified."

If a change is warranted — say, a trade line was reported incorrectly, or the damaging information is not yours but someone's with a similar name — the miscue is corrected at the repository level and a new credit report and credit score are issued.

If you believe data in your credit file are incorrect, you can have the data removed on your own if you have the time and patience. It can take anywhere from 30 to 45 days. But if you are in a hurry, you can pay a reseller to do it for you, usually within 24 to 72 hours, Clemans says. The cost ranges from $50 to a few hundred bucks, depending on how complex the problem is.

Rescoring has been a popular service for seven or eight years, Clemans says, and he thinks some lenders are so worried about bad risks that they are confusing credit rescoring with credit repair. He calls it a "knee-jerk reaction after all the pain" resulting from the mortgage meltdown.

"I have heard from lenders … claiming they are trying to protect themselves from consumers 'gaming' the system for better rates," he says.

But as Clemans sees it, lenders that object to rescoring are basically telling a consumer seeking a quick resolution of incorrect data that they can't have it corrected for that particular loan application. As a result, he wonders whether it is lenders who are gaming the system in an effort to force borrowers into higher interest rates.

Whether or not that's true, there's little that would-be borrowers can do besides take their business elsewhere — or sue the lender under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

As far as mechanic's liens are concerned, mortgage broker Temme is telling his refinancing customers to advise the title company in writing of any construction or rehab projects on the property. Otherwise, he says, if a lien is filed, the title company may sue for the amount it has to pay the lender to pay off the lien.

And tell the title firm early. Even if the company will accept an indemnification, the process can take weeks, he says, noting that loans can be lost during that period.

lsichelman@aol.com

Distributed by Universal Uclick for United Feature Syndicate.

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Kentucky's 4.3 earthquake rattles widespread region

A 4.3-magnitude earthquake centered in southeastern Kentucky on Saturday has shaken residents from northern Ohio to North Carolina and Alabama.

The earthquake, centered more than half a mile underground about eight miles west of Whitesburg, Ky., did not appear to cause any structural damage in the Ohio Valley. The epicenter was about 35 miles west of the southwestern Virginia border.

More than 200 people from Ohio, Alabama, Pennsylvania, Georgia Indiana and North Carolina reported feeling the temblor on the U.S. Geological Survey’s website, some more than 300 miles away.

Earthquakes in Kentucky are not uncommon, mainly occurring along its western border, along the New Madrid fault zone that traces northeast from the Arkansas-Tennessee border along Missouri and up to Indiana. That region reported three earthquakes between 7.5 and 7.7 in 1811 and 1812, according to the USGS.

Kentucky’s biggest earthquake was a 5.2 in 1980 in Sharpsburg, a town in Kentucky’s northeast.

Property damage totaled more than $1 million during that temblor, with collapsed chimneys and cracks in the ground seen about 7 1/2 miles away from the epicenter.

Earthquakes east of the Rocky Mountains are more infrequent and harder to attribute to a specific fault because the region sits on a tectonic plate that doesn’t end until the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Deeper, smaller faults east of the Rockies are studied far less, the USGS reports.

These same features, however, also make them more noticeable. A 4.0-temblor on the East Coast can be felt 10 times farther away than if it happened in California, according to the USGS. An earthquake in Maine last month was felt as far south as Connecticut, rattling windows and shaking kitchen tables.

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joseph.serna@latimes.com

Twitter: @JosephSerna

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War photography exhibit debuts in Houston museum

HOUSTON (AP) — It was a moment Nina Berman did not expect to capture when she entered an Illinois wedding studio in 2006. She knew Tyler Ziegel had been horribly injured, his face mutilated beyond recognition by a suicide bombing in the Iraq War. She knew he was marrying his pretty high school sweetheart, perfect in a white, voluminous dress.

It was their expressions that were surprising.

"People don't think this war has any impact on Americans? Well here it is," Berman says of the image of a somber bride staring blankly, unsmiling at the camera, her war-ravaged groom alongside her, his head down.

"This was even more shocking because we're used to this kind of over-the-top joy that feels a little put on, and then you see this picture where they look like survivors of something really serious," Berman added.

The photograph that won a first place prize in the World Press Photos Award contest will stand out from other battlefield images in an exhibit "WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath" that debuts Sunday — Veterans Day — in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts. From there, the exhibit will travel to The Annenberg Space for Photography in Los Angeles, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington and The Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The exhibit was painstakingly built by co-curators Anne Wilkes Tucker and Will Michels after the museum purchased a print of the famous picture of the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima, taken Feb. 23, 1945, by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal. The curators decided the museum didn't have enough conflict photos, Tucker said, and in 2004, the pair began traveling around the country and the world in search of pictures.

Over nearly eight years and after viewing more than 1 million pictures, Tucker and Michels created an exhibit that includes 480 objects, including photo albums, original magazines and old cameras, by 280 photographers from 26 countries.

Some are well-known — such as the Rosenthal's picture and another AP photograph, of a naked girl running from a napalm attack during the Vietnam War taken in 1972 by Huynh Cong "Nick" Ut. Others, such as the Incinerated Iraqi, of a man's burned body seen through the shattered windshield of his car, will be new to most viewers.

"The point of all the photographs is that when a conflict occurs, it lingers," Tucker said.

The pictures hang on stark gray walls, and some are in small rooms with warning signs at the entrance designed to allow visitors to decide whether they want to view images that can be brutal in their honesty.

"It's something that we did to that man. Americans did it, we did it intentionally and it's a haunting picture," Michels said of the image of the burned Iraqi that hangs inside one of the rooms.

In some images, such as Don McCullin's picture of a U.S. Marine throwing a grenade at a North Vietnamese soldier in Hue, it is clear the photographer was in danger when immortalizing the moment. Looking at his image, McCullin recalled deciding to travel to Hue instead of Khe Sahn, as he had initially planned.

"It was the best decision I ever made," he said, smiling slightly as he looked at the picture, explaining that he took a risk by standing behind the Marine.

"This hand took a bullet, shattered it. It looked like a cauliflower," he said, pointing to the still-upraised hand that threw the grenade. "So the people he was trying to kill were trying to kill him."

McCullin, who worked at that time for The Sunday Times in London, has covered conflicts all over the world, from Lebanon and Israel to Biafra. Now 77, McCullin says he wonders, still, whether the hundreds of photos he's taken have been worthwhile. At times, he said, he lost faith in what he was doing because when one war ends, another begins.

Yet he believes journalists and photographers must never stop telling about the "waste of man in war."

"After seeing so much of it, I'm tired of thinking, 'Why aren't the people who rule our lives ... getting it?' " McCullin said, adding that he'd like to drag them all into the exhibit for an hour.

Berman didn't see the conflicts unfold. Instead, she waited for the wounded to come home, seeking to tell a story about war's aftermath.

Her project on the wounded developed in 2003. The Iraq War was at its height, and there was still no database, she said, to find names of wounded warriors returning home. So she scoured local newspapers on the Internet.

In 2004 she published a book called "Purple Hearts" that includes photographs taken over nine months of 20 different people. All were photographed at home, not in hospitals where, she said, "there's this expectation that this will all work out fine."

The curators, meanwhile, chose to tell the story objectively — refusing through the images they chose or the exhibit they prepared to take a pro- or anti-war stance, a decision that has invited criticism and sparked debate.

And maybe, that is the point.

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Plushnick-Masti can be followed on Twitter at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP

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The New Old Age Blog: The Emotional Aftermath of Hurricane Sandy

Let’s talk about the emotional aftermath of the storm that left tens of thousands of older people on the East Coast without power, bunkered down in their homes, chilled to the bone and out of touch with the outside world.

Let’s name the feelings they may have experienced. Fear. Despair. Hopelessness. Anxiety. Panic.

Linda Leest and her staff at Services Now for Adult Persons in Queens heard this in the voices of the older people they had been calling every day, people who were homebound and at risk because of medical conditions that compromise their physical functioning.

“They’re afraid of being alone,” she said in a telephone interview a few days after the storm. “They’re worried that if anything happens to them, no one is going to know. They feel that they’ve lost their connection with the world.”

What do we know about how older adults fare, emotionally, in a disaster like that devastating storm, which destroyed homes and businesses and isolated older adults in darkened apartment buildings, walk-ups and houses?

Most do well — emotional resilience is an underappreciated characteristic of older age — but those who are dependent on others, with pre-existing physical and mental disabilities, are especially vulnerable.

Most will recover from the disorienting sense that their world has been turned upside down within a few weeks or months. But some will be thrown into a tailspin and will require professional help. The sooner that help is received, the more likely it is to prevent a significant deterioration in their health.

The best overview comes from a November 2008 position paper from the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry that reviewed the effects of Hurricane Katrina and other disasters. After Katrina, “the elderly had the highest mortality rates, health decline and suicide rates of any subgroup,” that document notes. “High rates of psychosomatic problems were seen, with worsening health problems and increased mortality and disability.”

This is an important point: Emotional trauma in older adults often is hard to detect, and looks different from what occurs in younger people. Instead of acknowledging anxiety or depression, for instance, older people may complain of having a headache, a bad stomachache or some other physical ailment.

“This age group doesn’t generally feel comfortable talking about their feelings; likely, they’ll mask those emotions or minimize what they’re experiencing,” said Dr. Mark Nathanson, a geriatric psychiatrist at Columbia University Medical Center.

Signs that caregivers should watch out for include greater-than-usual confusion in an older relative, a decline in overall functioning and a disregard for “self care such as bathing, eating, dressing properly and taking medication,” Dr. Nathanson said.

As an example, he mentioned an older man who had “been sitting in a cold house for days and decided to stop taking his water pill because he felt it was just too much trouble.” Being distraught or distracted and forgetting or neglecting to take pills for chronic conditions like diabetes or heart disease can have immediate harmful effects.

Especially at risk of emotional disturbances are older adults who are frail and advanced in age, those who have cognitive impairments like Alzheimer’s disease, those with serious mental illnesses like schizophrenia or major depression, and those with chronic medical conditions or otherwise in poor physical health, according to the geriatric psychiatry association’s position paper.

A common thread in all of the above is the depletion of physical and emotional reserves, which impairs an older person’s ability to adapt to adverse circumstances.

“In geriatrics, we have this idea of the ‘geriatric cascade’ that refers to how a seemingly minor thing can set in motion a functional, cognitive and psychological downward spiral” in vulnerable older adults, said Dr. Mark Lachs, chief of the division of geriatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College. “Well, the storm was a major thing — a very large disequilibrating event — and its impact is an enormous concern.”

Of special concern are older people who may be in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia who are living alone. For this group, the maintenance of ordinary routines and the sense of a dependable structure in their lives is particularly important, and “a situation like Sandy, which causes so much disruption, can be a tipping point,” Dr. Lachs said.

Also of concern are older people who may have experienced trauma in the past, and who may suffer a reignition of post-traumatic stress symptoms because of the disaster.

Most painful of all, for many older adults, is the sense of profound isolation that can descend on those without working phones, electricity or relatives who can come by to help.

“That isolation, I can’t tell you how disorienting that can be,” said Bobbie Sackman, director of public policy for the Council of Senior Centers and Services of New York City. “They’re scared, but they won’t tell you because they’re too proud and ashamed to ask for help.”

The best remedy, in the short run, is the human touch.

“Now is the time for people to reach out to their neighbors in high-rises or in areas where seniors are clustered, to knock on doors and ask people how they are doing,” said Dr. Gary Kennedy, director of the division of geriatric psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

Don’t make it a one-time thing; let the older person know you’ll call or come by again, and set up a specific time so “there’s something for them to look forward to,” Dr. Kennedy said. So-called naturally occurring retirement communities with large concentrations of older people should be organizing from within to contact residents who may not be connected with social services and find out how they’re doing, he recommended.

In conversations with older adults, offer reassurance and ask open-ended questions like “Are you low on pills?” or “Can I run out and get you something?” rather than trying to get them to open up, experts recommended. Focusing on problem-solving can make people feel that their lives are being put back in order and provide comfort.

Although short-term psychotherapy has positive outcomes for older adults who’ve undergone a disaster, it’s often hard to convince a senior to seek out mental health services because of the perceived stigma associated with psychological conditions. Don’t let that deter you: Keep trying to connect them with services that can be of help.

Be mindful of worrisome signs like unusual listlessness, apathy, unresponsiveness, agitation or confusion. These may signal that an older adult has developed delirium, which can be extremely dangerous if not addressed quickly, Dr. Nathanson said. If you suspect that’s the case, call 911 or make sure you take the person to the nearest hospital emergency room.

This is a safe place to talk about all kinds of issues affecting older adults. Would you be willing to share what kinds of mental health issues you or family members are dealing with since the storm so readers can learn from one another?

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Power struggle at Warner Bros.

Two years ago Time Warner Inc. Chief Executive Jeff Bewkes created an Office of the President to inspire three ambitious executives into collegial competition for the top job at Warner Bros., Hollywood's largest film and television studio.

"These three will work as a unit," Bewkes declared.

But the effort has inspired distrust and disharmony inside Warner Bros., the studio known for Batman, Bugs Bunny and "The Big Bang Theory" as well as for its decades of management stability.

The three competing candidates — Television Group President Bruce Rosenblum, Motion Pictures Group President Jeff Robinov and Home Entertainment Group President Kevin Tsujihara — do not work as a unit. They rarely meet as a trio or get involved in one another's businesses, according to several people associated with the studio who were not authorized to speak publicly.

And although Bewkes said anyone jockeying or politicking for the job of Warner Bros.' chairman would "eliminate themselves" as contenders, the three men have been maneuvering for position while their subordinates quietly advertise their bosses' qualities and rivals' shortcomings.

Morale is low and anxiety is high on Warner's Burbank lot. Some insiders describe an atmosphere in which executives are hesitant to extend contracts, staffers are afraid to cross department lines for fear of "taking sides" and potential partners are wary of signing long-term deals without knowing who will be in charge.

Some have also expressed frustration that the succession process has dragged on so long and that Bewkes has remained publicly silent on the matter.

"People are very preoccupied with the issue of succession, and it creates an undercurrent of tension and awkwardness," said a Warner Bros. executive, one of more than a dozen interviewed by The Times who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "It's like being a kid wondering if your parents are about to break up."

The runoff officially launched in September 2010 when Warner's professorial chairman, Barry Meyer, agreed to postpone his planned retirement until the end of 2013 — after 42 years at the company and 14 in the top job.

Bewkes, who like the three candidates declined through a spokesperson to be interviewed, envisioned the Office of the President as a way to groom Robinov, Rosenblum and Tsujihara by helping them "see and think beyond their own businesses," according to a person familiar with his thinking.

Bewkes is expected to announce early next year whether he has selected one of the three men to be the new chairman or if, after the long and public bake-off, he is electing to bring in an outsider.

The historic Burbank entertainment company, founded in 1923 by brothers Jack, Harry, Sam and Albert Warner, has traditionally been Hollywood's most stable studio. Jack Warner sold it in 1967, and two years later new owner Steve Ross installed talent agent Ted Ashley, who remained in charge until 1980. Former CBS President Bob Daly and film executive Terry

Semel then sat atop Warner Bros. from 1981 to 1999, when Meyer was named chairman.

"This is a company that is 90 years old and basically has had just four management teams," Daly said. "It's the culture of the studio — its history and continuity — that makes Warner Bros. so special. There's such a family feeling there."

But the family feeling has become strained. Robinov and Rosenblum are said to be the most personally competitive, while turf wars over topics such as whose division controls Web shows have popped up between Rosenblum and Tsujihara. Robinov and Tsujihara have maintained the tightest relationship.

Rosenblum is viewed by many at the studio as the front-runner for the top job. Meyer was a longtime TV business affairs executive before ascending to the corporate suite, and television has become increasingly important to Warner's bottom line.

The affable and ambitious Rosenblum — who has worked at the studio for nearly 24 years, including seven as the top TV executive — has been accused of promoting his candidacy. Last year he was elected chairman of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which bestows the annual Emmy Awards, a move seen by detractors as a way to boost his leadership credentials.

At a 2011 farewell party for Meyer's longtime deputy, Alan Horn, a string of speakers shared fond memories of the outgoing executive. Rosenblum's remarks surprised some attendees, however, when he jokingly reminded them that most Warner leaders had come up from the TV ranks.

The reserved and rough-edged Robinov — who joined the studio 15 years ago and replaced Horn as Warner's top movie executive last year — has a lower public profile. Perhaps to combat this, he has enlisted an outside publicist to help burnish his and his group's image.

Tsujihara appears to be the least competitive and the likeliest to partner up should Bewkes solve the leadership issue by appointing two executives to run the studio. However, the buttoned-down Stanford MBA, who is known as a digital guru and acquisitions expert, lacks operational experience in the studio's marquee film and TV production businesses.

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L.A. school board may rescind furlough days, restore school year

By Stephen Ceasar

November 9, 2012, 1:52 p.m.

In the wake of the passage of a state tax measure, Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. John Deasy will call on the Board of Education next week to restore a full 180-day academic calendar and rescind all planned employee furlough days for the current school year.

The passage of Proposition 30 on Tuesday means that current school district budgets across the state are protected from $5.4 billion in cuts that were otherwise scheduled to take effect.

The day after its passage, teachers union officials called  on the district to restore full pay for employees and to bring back a full school year.  Teachers had accepted up to 10 unpaid furlough days — five of them being instructional days for students

“With their strong support of Proposition 30 the voters of Los Angeles County made it clear they want the LAUSD to do what’s best for our youth,” said Deasy, in a statement. “Restoring the full calendar and keeping our employees in the schools is a pivotal step in this effort.”

Proposition 30 will add a quarter-cent to the state sales tax for four years and impose a seven-year tax hike on California's highest earners. The money raised by the measure — up to $8 billion in the current fiscal year — will prevent the planned $5.4-billion cut from primary and secondary schools, as well as a $250-million reduction in each of the state's two public university systems.

The measure passed statewide with 54% of the vote. In Los Angeles County, voters supported the temporary tax increase with a plurality of 60%.

“The voters of this state literally saved us from an educational calamity,” Deasy said.

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Korea Linux Forum 2012: Maximizing Utility

Hosted by the Linux Foundation Korea Linux Forum 2012, the first Linux Forum in Korea, was held at the JW Marriott (Central City, Seoul) on October 11^th and 12th. Samsung, a key sponsor of the event, has long been partnered with Linux. Currently a platinum member of the Linux Foundation, which is the highest level, it is cooperating actively as a director of the board. 

Jim Zemlin, Chairman of the Linux Foundation, Wonjoo Park, Director of Samsung Electronics software center, Taejun Heo, a developer of Google, and Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux participated in this year’s event and shared their expertise. 

Jim Zemlin gave the opening speech, complimenting on how well Korean users are contributing to Open Source solutions. In addition, he mentioned how Samsung utilizes Linux, an Open Source, in diverse fields ranging from mobile platforms based on Android to appliances to the like of washers, TVs, etc. Zemlin also pointed out that not only Samsung but other global companies such as Google, IBM, and HP are actively utilizing Open Source. 

Wonjoo Park, Vice President at Samsung Electronics Convergence Platfomr Lab, explained about the kinds of technology that had been developed by Samsung using Open Sources. Check out more about his lecture in the video below:

Other than lectures, Korea Linux Forum 2012 also featured a set of panel discussions. A popular session starred Jon Cobet, Taejun Heo, Greg Kroah Hartman, and Ted T’so where they talked about the difficulties Linux developers face, as well as the and marketability of Linux. These star figures drew many developers’ attention by talking about a wide range of topics from the bright employment prospects for Linux kernel developers to the kernel development. 

Lastly, Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux also had a Q/A session. The most common question he received was whether Linux would remain as the most popular brand of Open Source in the future. You may check out his answer through this video! 

If you’d like to see more about this event, here’s the last video we have regarding this event: 

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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He called it, and now Silver's a pop-culture star

NEW YORK (AP) — The other night, Nate Silver got a little taste of what things are going to be like for him, post-Election 2012.

The 34-year-old statistician, unabashed numbers geek, author and creator of the much-read FiveThirtyEight blog at The New York Times had gone out for a drink with friends on Manhattan's Lower East Side. But he couldn't stay incognito; Immediately, he says, people sitting at the bar recognized him.

He was surprised, but probably shouldn't have been. After all, for 24 hours, ever since his election forecasts had proved uncannily successful — he correctly predicted the presidential winner in all 50 states, and almost all the Senate races — he'd been hailed as the election's "other winner," who'd silenced doubters and proven the value of a cool-headed, math-based approach.

That very night, he'd appeared on Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show" for the second time in three weeks. "Don't you want to stand up and say, 'I am Nate Silver, bow down to me!!'" Stewart roared, as the bespectacled Silver sat and chuckled. His name was trending on Twitter and he was the subject of a satirical Twitter hashtag, "Drunk Nate Silver." The Hollywood Reporter said he'd "made statistics sexy again." Many called his story a real-life "Revenge of the Nerds" tale.

And oh, his new book had soared to No. 2 on Amazon, after he linked to it on Twitter an hour after the first network call for President Barack Obama. ("This is probably a good time to link to my book," he'd tweeted at 12:13 a.m. — the closest he came to gloating.)

Even so, Silver says he wasn't quite prepared for that incident in the bar.

"It's odd," he said Thursday in a telephone interview from his Brooklyn home. "Is this going to happen every day, as opposed to once a month? I still have to get accustomed to this."

Silver, who uses computer models that he runs on a beat-up laptop at home, is quick to acknowledge the accomplishments of others using similar methods. "It's a little strange to become a kind of symbol of a whole type of analysis," he said. And he noted that similar work was being done with, for example, weather, all the time. "You have to give those forecasters way more credit," he said. "Their forecasts have real life-and-death consequences"

In politics, too, others have used similar computer models to predict races. What Silver has done, though, is not only arrive at a formula that uses aggregated polls and other weighted factors to achieve his predictions, but to write about them in an accessible and engaging way.

His father, political science professor Brian Silver, attributes his son's success to a two-pronged drive: "He's driven by a need to get the answers to a problem, but he also is very concerned with the narrative, with telling the story," said the elder Silver, who teaches at Michigan State University.

The father recalls his son at 2 years old, already revealing himself as a prodigy with numbers — his mother asked him to count to three, and he went to 20. By four, he understood negative numbers, and could multiply in his head.

Needless to say he was a math whiz, but he also was a debating champion, winning competitions in high school. "On the debate team, it was OK to be a geek," Brian Silver explained. Nate then went off to the University of Chicago, where he earned a degree in economics.

A few years in consulting followed. It bored him, but it was during those years that Silver turned his love of baseball into a sophisticated forecasting system of player performance. That became his new career; he sold the system to Baseball Prospectus, and wrote a weekly column there on baseball research.

In 2007, Silver started writing about politics — at first under a pseudonym, "Poblano." He quickly gained an audience for his forecasts during the presidential primaries. In March of 2008, he began his FiveThirtyEight blog, and a few months later revealed his name.

"People had been thinking Poblano was a major pollster," said his father. "He was just a kid with a B.A. in economics."

With his success in the 2008 race — he got every state right except for Indiana — Silver was already a big name. In 2009 he was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People. In 2010, he licensed his blog to The New York Times.

But the 2012 election brought a new level of pressure. While Democrats flocked to his blog and took daily solace in his consistent prediction that Obama would win — though not by a lot — commentators on the right were critical, and he was accused of weighting his forecasts too heavily toward Democrats.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, called him a "joke." Silver responded by betting him that Obama would win, a bet that Scarborough didn't take him up on and that was later criticized by the Times ombudsman. (That bet was the poker player in him, Silver says now; he spent a couple years playing serious online poker.)

Much more disturbing, said Silver, were what he called the homophobic comments that some resorted to on the Web. "That was a little shocking," he said. Added his father: "It got very personal."

But Silver says he always felt confident in his projections. "I didn't see any particular reason for the polls to be off the mark," he said. "Republicans said Democrats were oversampled, but without much justification. I felt pretty confident personally." Silver predicted 90.9 percent certainty that Obama would win, and forecast him getting 313 electoral college votes; he has 303 without Florida, which is still counting and could take him to 332.

On Election Day itself, Silver felt nervous, but only because there was nothing left to do. Once the early results started coming in, he relaxed. And then, of course, came vindication. "You know who won the election tonight? Nate Silver," said Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. Even Bret Baier on Fox gave credit on air to Silver. On "The Daily Show," Stewart basically credited Silver with saving the reputation of arithmetic — and more. "Like, gravity would have been up for grabs," Stewart quipped, if Silver had been wrong.

There have been some gripes that Silver doesn't reveal his actual formula. "He has very carefully explained how he does things," his father answers. "But he's not giving away his code. He shouldn't be expected to do that."

Nate Silver does say, however, that in the future, "Maybe we'll have to be clearer." He also voices concern that precise forecasting could have the frightening effect of influencing voter behavior — something that obviously doesn't happen in areas like weather. "You don't want to influence the same system you are trying to forecast," he said.

Silver also says he doesn't necessarily expect the same results forever. "I know we're going to have some misses sooner or later," he said, adding that an incorrect forecast on the Senate race in North Dakota is "proof that we can be wrong — and polls can be wrong." Others have pointed out that Silver's forecasting is, of course, only as good as the polls he is using, since he's not a pollster himself.

For now, though, he's trying to enjoy it all as much as he can.

"When you get into statistical analysis, you don't really expect to achieve fame," he observed wryly. "Or to become an Internet meme. Or be parodied by The Onion — or be the subject of a cartoon in The New Yorker. I guess I'm kind of an outlier there."

What's ahead for Silver? Turns out, forecasting his own future feels much more difficult than forecasting an election.

"It can be a fulltime job, figuring out what your job is going to be," he quipped.

For now, he has a second book to write, part of a two-book deal. And FiveThirtyEight is set to remain at the Times until mid-2013. After that, he doesn't know yet, though he noted, with understatement: "I know I'll have more opportunities now." But he added: "I'm sure there will be a FiveThirtyEight forecast in 2016."

For now, he prefers to look at life, and life choices, as a poker player, since he loves the game.

"You get steely nerves playing poker," he said. "It's part skill and part luck. You hope you win enough bets to make a living on, right?"

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