Connecticut Dining | Hartford

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Giant-Size Flagship of a Growing Empire

A Review of Max Downtown Restaurant, in Hartford

George Ruhe for The New York Times

Max Downtown, in Hartford, has 25-foot ceilings and giant wall murals.

By RAND RICHARDS COOPER

Published: April 6, 2012

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RICHARD ROSENTHAL is Connecticut's Danny Meyer , a restaurateur-Midas who rules an ever-expanding empire of trattorias and seafood emporia, taverns and luxury burger joints. With his Max Food Group celebrating its 25th anniversary, the time seemed ripe to revisit the flagship, situated on the ground floor of Cityplace I , Hartford's prime power building and the tallest in the state.

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George Ruhe for The New York Times

CHEF'S CHOICE The shellfish sampler at Max. The New American menu created by its executive chef emphasizes seafood.

Fittingly, everything about Max Downtown is oversize: the 25-foot ceilings and giant wall murals, a huge blackboard invoking Connecticut food providers in Whitmanesque cadences ("From the icy waters of Stonington to the rolling hills of Litchfield"), front-door awnings with "Max" in letters probably big enough to appear on Google Earth.

Oh, and some pretty sizable steaks, too.

Expense is no obstacle, is the message. Swiftly circulating servers, attired in black vests and white aprons, trail whiffs of foie gras and truffles. The décor features Champagne bottles in those goliath sizes, Balthasars and Melchiors, named for ancient kings. The wine list's 400 entries rise to a lofty $1,149 Harlan Cabernet.

The New American menu created by Hunter Morton, the executive chef, emphasizes seafood — and the results were terrific, beginning with an appetizer of golden-fried, panko-coated calamari in a spicy sambal aioli. The starter menu offers ahi two ways: a lavish tartare, mixed up with peppery, citrusy yuzu kosho and served atop mashed avocado; or wok-seared, coated with sesame seeds and cut in a nifty row of triangles. This was tuna so fresh I skipped the wasabi. The Max crab cake was equally appealing, a big dome of incredibly fresh Maryland crabmeat plated atop a colorful swirl of parsley-asparagus purée.

Of the nonseafood starters, artichoke hearts were slightly lost in a welter of cherry peppers, cubed eggplant, pine nuts and bits of chèvre. But I loved the pappardelle, broad pasta ribbons in a Parmesan sauce with crisped prosciutto, micro-greens and a big dose of truffles. Both an heirloom beet salad and a duck with pear salad were thinly dressed, and it was tempting to pick out the treats and ignore the tangle of frisée and endive. Far better was an artfully deconstructed Caesar salad, uncut Romaine leaf on a plate dotted with roasted garlic cloves and a Parmesan tuile bearing a single silvery anchovy.

Half the main courses at Max are steaks, in styles ranging from cowboy-hearty to mignon-dainty. My companion ordered an aged rib-eye from Brandt Beef (a hormone-and-antibiotic-free California farm), tender and richly marbled. And my Kansas City strip — a mammoth, bone-in cut cooked to pink-red perfection — was the tastiest lean steak I've ever eaten.

We couldn't decide on a sauce, so our obliging waiter brought all five: béarnaise, house steak sauce, red-wine reduction, cognac peppercorn cream and Maytag blue cheese. Was it déclassé of us to turn our dinner into a sloppy dipping session? Perhaps, but this is Max. "Our servers should make you feel they're working for you, not us," said Steven Abrams, Max's managing partner, in a recent telephone conversation.

Max's chophouse specials include unusual cuts, like a bone-in fillet, and we rejoiced one night to find tournedos Rossini, seared foie gras piggybacked on twin filets mignons. This kingly dish epitomizes unctuousness: two sublime meats in a truffled Madeira sauce with the concentrated savor of a marrowy veal stock cooked way down. The side dishes we ordered presented quality to match: buttery sautéed wild mushrooms; roasted Brussels sprouts, suffused with the salty deliciousness of bacon; and asparagus with Hollandaise sauce.

For those interested in something other than beef, excellent alternatives exist. A wedge of farm-raised Shetland Island salmon, cooked a la plancha, was rich and flaky, though the fingerling potatoes accompanying it lacked flavor. Stonington scallops came perfectly butter-browned in a bowl of beet pasta, braised cabbage, bacon and asparagus tips with a delicate Parmesan broth. A grilled Homestead pork chop, partnered with sausage-and-focaccia stuffing and crisp haricots verts, was moist enough to stand on its own — but even better when dredged through a rosemary-tinged port-wine reduction.

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Theo www.nytimes.com

Russia Reflects on 20th Anniversary of Collapse of Communism

Tin The Thao | medical student |

They have been called three days that changed world history. Twenty years ago, communist hardliners tried to mount a military coup to preserve the Soviet Union.

Photo: AP

Gennady Burbulis, right, stands next to Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin, second right, making a V-sign to thousands of Muscovites at a rally in front of the Russian federation building to celebrate the failed military coup in Moscow, August 22, 1991 (file photo)

It has only been 20 years since Soviet citizens awoke to find the ballet Swan Lake playing endlessly on their television sets.

Soon the word spread: Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was under house arrest in a Black Sea resort.  Hardline communist leaders had ordered tanks and armored personnel carriers to surround Moscow's White House, the seat of power of Russia's new President Boris Yeltsin.

Cautiously at first, then by the thousands, Muscovites poured out of their apartments to stop the tanks.

Within three days, the coup collapsed. In front of KGB headquarters, protesters pulled down the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the hated Soviet secret police.

Konstantin Eggert, a Russian journalist who covered the popular uprising, recalls the jubilation when people realized Soviet soldiers were moving their tanks in reverse.

"It was a jubilant mood," said Eggert.  "These three days were unique in my life in the sense that probably for the first and last time I saw what a people, with a capital P is. And I am very proud of all those Russians who were on the streets of Moscow these days because that was the time when we felt that the country is ours and we really are citizens."

The coup's failure sparked the formal collapse of the Soviet Union four months later.

For Mikhail Shneider, custodian of a memorial to the three Moscow men killed in the coup, the day should be celebrated in Russia with the reverence associated with May 9, the day that Nazi Germany surrendered.

Shneider says that both systems - Communism and Fascism - killed millions, not only in Russia but in neighboring countries.  He says this weekend is the anniversary of "the happiest days of my life."

But many Russians do not that share that joy.

This month a nationwide Levada poll found that almost half of respondents said that Russia had gone in the wrong direction since the fateful days of August 1991.

Only 27 percent said they felt it had gone in the right direction.

With the passage of years, memories of the Soviet Union have softened.

Russians now take for granted their freedom to travel overseas, freedom to speak out on the Internet, freedom to consume, and  freedom to practice religion of their choosing.

Instead they chafe at what they see around them in modern Russia, high levels of corruption and huge wealth gaps.

Many agree with Prime Minister Putin who has lamented that the collapse of the USSR is the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century.

But many analysts say that Russia, with its aging and shrinking population, will eventually adjust to its post-Imperial status - the way the French and British did in the 1960s.

"This renewed quality of Russia is still underappreciated by the majority of the population, which still harks back to the late days of the Soviet Union, which is dead anyway," Eggert noted.  "And I think at some point in time the Russians will understand you cannot resurrect it. You cannot create a Soviet Union Lite, even if you wanted to. And you have to really move forward."

At the Carnegie Moscow Center, researchers see no turning back for Russia. The boom in international travel and the largely unfettered Internet, are changing Russians.

Natalia Bubnova, the center's deputy director, said that one day the nation will appreciate the heroism of the thousands of Muscovites who left their apartments to face the guns and tanks - unarmed.

"There was a lot of courage, self-sacrifice, determination, and independent action, independent thinking in those days," said Bubnova.  "These were the best features demonstrated by people who on their own will risked their lives for the better of the country. This gives hope for the country for the future."

Late Saturday, veterans of that era are to gather at a memorial at a busy Moscow intersection.

They will mark the days when it seemed that tanks would turn back time.

Theo www.voanews.com

Huong ra cho gom Cham Bau Truc

Xem tivi truc tuyen | medical student |

Nghệ nhân gốm Bàu Trúc tạo dáng cho sản phẩm.

Thổi hồn cổ vào gốm Chăm hiện đại

Có một người mà cái tên của anh như đã gắn liền với làng gốm cổ xưa này, đó là nhà thiết kế, họa sĩ Sĩ Hoàng. Cái tên quá quen thuộc với nhiều người trong giới mỹ thuật. Thời còn là sinh viên của Trường đại học Mỹ thuật thành phố Hồ Chí Minh, Sĩ Hoàng đã từng ra thực tập tại làng gốm Bàu Trúc. Và chính tại nơi này, anh đã có một bà mẹ nuôi vốn là một nghệ nhân nổi tiếng: nghệ nhân Đàng Thị Vệ, người đã giúp đỡ anh một cách chân tình trong suốt thời gian thực tập. Ân tình đó cứ theo anh đi suốt những năm tháng sau này.

Trong một lần trở lại thăm người xưa chốn cũ, khi trở về, anh cứ mãi ám ảnh bởi một tương lai không mấy sáng sủa của nghề làm gốm gia dụng của làng Chăm Bàu Trúc. Anh đã thử thiết kế một số mẫu mã gốm mỹ nghệ rồi đưa cho người mẹ nuôi của mình tạo tác thử. Kết quả là gần 100 sản phẩm gốm mỹ nghệ Bàu Trúc kết hợp giữa cách làm gốm truyền thống của làng Chăm Bàu Trúc cùng với kiểu dáng của Sĩ Hoàng đã ra mắt công chúng trong một lần trưng bày của họa sĩ Sĩ Hoàng tại TP Hồ Chí Minh. Điều bất ngờ đã xảy ra: Tất cả sản phẩm gốm mỹ nghệ "làm thử" đó đều được người tham quan mua hết. Cũng từ đấy, một hướng đi mới tốt đẹp mở ra cho người dân làng gốm cổ Bàu Trúc là: làm gốm mỹ nghệ!

Và chính từ những gợi mở của Sĩ Hoàng, bằng bàn tay tài hoa của mình, người dân làng gốm cổ Bàu Trúc bắt đầu sáng tạo ra những mẫu mã mới như: lư, lọ, độc bình, tượng và thời gian gần đây là những mặt hàng phong thủy được du khách trong và ngoài nước ưa chuộng. Hàng loạt cửa hàng gốm mỹ nghệ Chăm Bàu Trúc đã được mở ra tại chính làng gốm cổ và du khách có thể nhìn ngắm thỏa thích các thao tác làm gốm độc đáo của các nghệ nhân.

Anh Đàng Xem, chủ một cửa hàng gốm mỹ nghệ Chăm ở Bàu Trúc cho biết, chỉ một thời gian ngắn sau khi khai trương, cửa hàng của anh đã đón nhiều đoàn du khách đến thăm. Mới đây, anh đã có được một đơn đặt hàng 3.000 sản phẩm, trị giá 60 triệu đồng.

Bền vững cho làng gốm cổ

Rõ ràng là người dân làng gốm cổ Bàu Trúc đã nhanh nhạy nắm bắt cơ hội ngàn vàng để phát triển và làm sống lại một làng nghề mang đậm nét văn hóa của đồng bào Chăm. Tuy nhiên, để bảo tồn và phát huy nghề gốm truyền thống của đồng bào Chăm một cách có hiệu quả thì cần phải có sự "tiếp sức" của chính quyền địa phương. Năm 2009, UBND tỉnh Ninh Thuận đã có đề án "Hỗ trợ phát triển làng nghề - du lịch Ninh Thuận" mà tổng kinh phí lên đến hơn 20 tỷ đồng. Đây là tiền đề và cũng là cú hích để thúc đẩy làng nghề gốm cổ Bàu Trúc vươn lên sánh vai cùng với các làng nghề gốm cổ khác trên cả nước. Bằng nguồn vốn trên, Bàu Trúc đã xây dựng được một nhà trưng bày "Gốm Chăm mỹ nghệ". Đó sẽ là địa điểm mà khách du lịch trong và ngoài nước đến tham quan, tìm hiểu về lịch sử hình thành làng gốm và cách thức mà các nghệ nhân làng gốm Chăm tạo ra một tác phẩm gốm. Và để có thể đưa sản phẩm gốm Chăm Bàu Trúc đến với thị trường, Bàu Trúc đã xây dựng được một HTX có tên "HTX Gốm Chăm Bàu Trúc" với 25 hộ xã viên mà hầu hết là những nghệ nhân có tên tuổi của làng nghề. HTX sẽ đóng vai trò giúp cho người dân làng nghề tiêu thụ sản phẩm, tham gia các hội chợ quảng bá và xúc tiến thương mại nhằm đưa các sản phẩm gốm mỹ nghệ Chăm Bàu Trúc đến với người tiêu dùng. Bên cạnh đó, người dân làng nghề đã tiếp cận được với nguồn vốn tín dụng để mở rộng sản xuất, hạ tầng cơ sở làng nghề như điện, đường,... đã được Nhà nước đầu tư, môi trường làng nghề ngày càng được cải thiện theo hướng ngày càng khang trang, sạch sẽ hơn.

Bà Đàng Thị Gia, một nghệ nhân của làng gốm cổ Bàu Trúc năm nay đã 74 tuổi và đã có gần 60 năm trong nghề làm gốm nói với chúng tôi: "Nghề gốm này là văn hóa của người Chăm chúng tôi! Vì thế, không thể nào chúng tôi bỏ được. Nay nhờ có Nhà nước giúp xây nhà trưng bày, làm đường và cho chúng tôi vay vốn để phát triển nghề, người Chăm chúng tôi rất biết ơn Nhà nước!".

Để giải bài toán chất lượng cho gốm Chăm Bàu Trúc, sắp tới đây, một lò nung bằng ga trị giá 200 triệu đồng sẽ được đầu tư, xây dựng cho HTX Gốm Chăm Bàu Trúc, khi đó sản phẩm gốm Chăm sẽ được nâng cao hơn nữa cả về chất lượng và mỹ thuật.

Tuy nhiên, để người dân làng gốm cổ Bàu Trúc vừa có thể gìn giữ và phát triển vốn cổ, vừa có thể phát triển được kinh tế xây dựng làng nghề thì cần có một chiến lược quảng bá sản phẩm làng nghề một cách dài hơi, bài bản để sản phẩm có thể vươn xa, để Bàu Trúc mãi mãi là một địa chỉ văn hóa không thể thiếu của Ninh Thuận.

Bài và ảnh: HOÀNG CÔNG TÂM (Hội Văn nghệ Ninh Thuận)

Theo en.baomoi.com

For Philadelphia Eagles, Green Isnt Just a Team Color

Cong ty SEO | medical student |

The National Football League, one of the biggest businesses in the United States, also wants to become one of the most environmentally-friendly companies in the world as well.

Photo: AP

Philadelphia Eagles running back LeSean McCoy scores a touchdown at Lincoln Financial Field, where about a third of the stadium's power is expected to come from the sun and wind.

Twelve of its 32 teams have instituted sustainable practices over the past decade. The trend started with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2003, and now the team is aiming to get a third of their stadium's power from the sun and wind, while also ensuring none of the waste generated there ends up in a landfill.

While the Philadelphia Eagles won't begin their pre-season games at Lincoln Financial Field Stadium until August, people who work behind the scenes are already scoring big in sustainability.

"Each year, we kept adding and evaluating new opportunities," says Don Smolenski, the team's chief operation officer, who adds the Eagles are constantly hustling to make the team a lean, green earth-friendly machine.

Courtesy Philedelphia Eagles

As part of the team's effort to go green, the Philadelphia Eagles divert more than 65 percent of the stadium's trash away from landfills, sending it instead to an energy-from-waste plant.

That includes focusing on everything from light sensors in people's offices to compostable cutlery and plates, from having on/off motion sensors on snack machines to even composting grass clippings from the field.

The main goal, Smolenski says, is to make sure everything is reused, recycled or turned into energy.

This year, the Eagles began to divert more than 65 percent of the stadium's trash away from landfills

"We take it to an energy-from-waste plant that actually makes energy from the waste that's left over, says Dieter Scheel, a development manager for Sustainable Waste Solutions, which is working with the Eagles organization. "So anything that goes in here is turned into energy."

Eventually, the Eagles plan to recycle 100 percent of the stadium's waste.

Stadium officials are thinking green elsewhere, as well.

The Eagles challenged Aramark, the company that handles its food services, to use environmentally-friendly cleaning supplies and compostable utensils.

Aramark facility manager Kevin Hughes says his company went a step further. "All the oil that's produced within our kitchens, and our concessions stands, at the fry stands or grill stands is recovered and then taken to a recycler who recycles and refines the oil into a biodiesel blend."

Some of that oil is sold on the market, while some of it is used for Aramark's own equipment.

But the stadium's most ambitious plan is its effort to obtain 30 percent of its energy from renewable resources. Most of that will come from 1,100 solar panels and 14 wind turbines placed around the stadium and on its upper deck.

Sustainable building developer G.C. Bancroft notes that the middle of a city is not the most efficient setup for generating wind power.

You got the mixes and heights of buildings, which causes a mix of wind situations," Bancroft says. "Really for a wind turbine scenario to be effective, you need to be able to predict what kind of [result] you're going to get in wind."

Still, according to Don Smolenski, it's the largest sustainability effort in the National Football League.

"With our recycling efforts, we recognize we have a special platform where we can lead by example," he says. "And that's been very important to us."

So, while the Eagles defensive linemen are making tackles on the field, Eagle officials say they'll continue tackling waste, and scoring points for sustainability.

Theo www.voanews.com

Start-Ups Look to the Crowd

may chu gia tot | medical student |

When Eric Migicovsky, an engineer, wanted to develop a line of wristwatches that could display information from an iPhone — like caller ID and text messages — he went the traditional route of asking venture capitalists to finance his company.

By JENNA WORTHAM

Published: April 29, 2012

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Pebble Technology

The Pebble, a line of wristwatches being developed with money raised through Kickstarter.

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Three Years of Kickstarter Projects

Kickstarter Surprises Tech Startup

Kickstarter Surprises Tech Startup

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James Estrin/The New York Times

The founders of Kickstarter, from left, Charles Adler, Perry Chen and Yancey Strickler.

But he couldn't even get a foot in the door, let alone secure any money for what he called the Pebble watch.

So he turned to Kickstarter, a site where ordinary people back creative projects. Backers could pledge $99 and were promised a Pebble watch in return.

Less than two hours after the project went up on the site, Mr. Migicovsky and his partners hit their goal of $100,000.

"By that night, we were at $600,000," said Mr. Migicovsky, who is 25 and a recent engineering graduate of the University of Waterloo. "We went out for a beer to celebrate, went home and slept, and when we woke up, we were at a million dollars."

As of Friday afternoon, nearly 50,000 people had pledged close to $7 million — and there is still two weeks left before the fund-raising window closes . (As of Sunday afternoon, the total had passed $7 million.)

Pebble is the latest — and by far the largest — example of how Kickstarter , a scrappy start-up sprouted in the New York living room of its founders three years ago , is transforming the way people build businesses.

Although the site first began as a way for people to raise money for quirky projects like pop-up wedding chapels, around-the-world boating trips and offbeat documentaries, it quickly expanded to include video game production, feature films and innovative new gadgets, like the Elevation dock , a sleek stand for the iPhone, or Brydge , which turns an iPad into a laptop resembling the MacBook Air.

The large amount of money that Pebble has raised — equivalent to what a young company would get in a second round of venture capital financing — also signifies a coming of age for Kickstarter.

"This year marks the year that we've seen Kickstarter enter the real world in a number of ways," said Perry Chen, one of its founders. "At Tribeca Film Fest, there are a dozen different Kickstarter-backed films, there's an installation at the Whitney Biennial that was a Kickstarter project and we just had our birthday party at a Kickstarter-funded restaurant."

Much as the introduction of cheap Web services lowered the barrier to entry for people seeking to create a start-up, and as offshore manufacturing gave entrepreneurs a chance to make products without having to build a factory, Kickstarter offers budding entrepreneurs a way to float ideas and see if there's a market for them before they trade ownership of their company for money from venture capitalists.

Mr. Migicovsky and his partners did not have to give up any portion of their company to the venture capitalists. They still own 100 percent of it.

"Kickstarter is already proving to be a viable alternative to starting a company the traditional way," said David H. Hsu, an associate professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania who studies entrepreneurship and innovation.

"You're activating a user base that you know will be interested in your project," he said. "Which, historically, has always been the biggest trouble for crowdfunding sites, getting traction and critical mass." As Kickstarter prospers, other sites for financing through a crowd have appeared. There's Crowdtilt , a service that lets friends contribute money for outings like a beach vacation; Zokos , a start-up that gives guests a way to pitch in for a dinner party; and Gambitious , a financing site devoted to indie game developers, to name a few.

But Kickstarter is the biggest. To date, it has raised more than $200 million for 20,000 projects, or about 44 percent of those that sought financing on the site. Only projects that meet their stated financing goals receive money.

Patrons who back Kickstarter campaigns are often rewarded with insider access to the projects they finance, and in most cases, a tangible reward for their money. In Pebble's case, the reward is an actual watch, making it a more appealing project than, say, a movie, where the payoff is a little harder to show off to friends.

Kickstarter does not charge anything to set up a campaign. But if it is successful, Kickstarter takes 5 percent of the final amount. Amazon, which processes the payments, takes 3 to 5 percent.

Mr. Migicovsky says he suspected that the Pebble project might be a runaway success. "The plan," he said, "was always to go big."

Before introducing the project on Kickstarter, Mr. Migicovsky says he sought advice from previous successful project founders on Kickstarter, including the creators behind Twine , colorful blocks outfitted with sensors and Internet connectivity, that blew past its original goal of $35,000 to raise more than $500,000 — an anomaly considering that the average Kickstarter project size hovers around $5,000.

"They all told us not to focus on the hacker market because they are already going to love you," he said. "But how can you tell people who have no idea what this is why they should back it?"

A carefully made video helped to earn the trust of their backers. Mr. Migicovsky also played up his four years of experience building smartwatches — previously for BlackBerry products — and his time polishing his ideas in Y Combinator, a technology incubator in Palo Alto, Calif. Mr. Migicovsky also worked to broaden the appeal of the watch beyond a tech-focused audience by working with a company called RunKeeper that helps people track their jogs on their smartphones.

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Corrections April 29

may hut bui | medical student |

An article last Sunday about Alan Z. Feuer, a New Yorker who reinvented himself and was often seen at society balls, included a quotation in which one of Mr. Feuer's society friends misattributed an aphorism. While Henry David Thoreau is often credited with variations of the aphorism "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and die with their song still inside them," that is not what he wrote in "Walden." He merely said, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." (Or to quote another Thoreau aphorism: "You must work very long to write short sentences.")

Published: April 28, 2012

METROPOLITAN

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A brief article in some editions last Sunday about the selection of the Jack Finney novel "Time and Again" for the Big City Book Club, on nytimes.com , misstated the year to which the protagonist of the book is transported back in time. It is 1882, not 1892.

ARTS

An article last Sunday about the director Paul Thomas Anderson's forthcoming movie, which is scheduled to be released Oct. 12 and is expected to be called "The Master," misidentified the setting of his first feature film, "Hard Eight." The movie was set in Reno, Nev., not in Las Vegas.

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A theater entry in last Sunday's Week Ahead column described incorrectly the racial makeup of a new Broadway production of "A Streetcar Named Desire." The play features a multiracial cast that has an emphasis on black actors, but it is not an all-black production.

SOCIETY

Because of an editing error, a report last Sunday about the marriage of Whitney Frick and Andrew Bernstein misstated the surname of the bride's father, Ford C. Frick II, in a subsequent reference. He is Mr. Frick, of course, not Mr. Ford.

TRAVEL

The Frugal Traveler column last Sunday , about a $100 weekend in Melbourne, misstated the conversion from Australian dollars to United States dollars in the totals given for the writer's expenses for Saturday. The Saturday total, 58.35 Australian dollars, was about $60, not $56.02. The column also misstated the conversion for the amount remaining, to be spent Sunday. It was 47.65 Australian dollars, or about $49, not $43.98.

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The Practical Traveler column last Sunday , about ways to avoid waiting in airport lines, gave outdated information about a Transportation Security Administration official. Greg Soule, the agency's spokesman, is no longer with the T.S.A. He left the job on April 20, after the section had gone to press.

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The Q&A column last Sunday , in which Soraya Darabi, a founder of the Foodspotting Web site and app, names some of her favorite travel apps and Web sites, misstated part of her professional experience. She worked in the communications department at Condé Nast Digital on products like epicurious.com ; she was not helping to develop products like epicurious.com for the company. And she advises digital start-ups, which usually entails an equity stake; she is not a paid consultant.

MAGAZINE

An article on April 8 about the musician Jack White misidentified the location of a so-called one-note concert given by his former band, the White Stripes. The concert was held in Newfoundland, not New Brunswick.

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A report in the One-Page Magazine on April 15 about flight attendants' using soft voices on Virgin Atlantic flights misstated a measurement of sound. The attendants will be trained to speak in a volume of 20 to 30 decibels, not a pitch.

REGIONAL

An article on Friday about Carletta Sue Kay, the singing alter ego of Randy Walker, a veteran of the San Francisco music scene for the last several years, rendered the title of the singer's debut album incorrectly. It is "Incongruent," not "Incongruous." It also misspelled the given name of a musician in the group Magnetic Fields, with whom Mr. Walker worked on an album. He is Stephin Merritt, not Stephen.

•

An article about Bay Area teams' tapping into the tech corridors of Silicon Valley to transform baseball contained several errors. It misspelled the name of a company that developed a dynamic pricing system for Giants tickets. It is Qcue, not cQue. It also misquoted Barry Kahn, chief executive of Qcue. He said, "We're seeing a 30 percent uptick on individual ticket revenues," not "We're seeing a 30 percent uptick on the Giants' individual ticket revenues." Finally, Qcue's use of algorithms on tickets was misstated. The company is not adding promotional codes to tickets that allow fans to upgrade their seats or receive discounts, although that may be possible in the future.

BOOK REVIEW

An entry on the hardcover advice best-seller list last Sunday for "All In" misstated the surname of one of the book's co-authors. He is Chester Elton, not Hilton.

•

A review on April 15 about "The Great Animal Orchestra," by Bernie Krause, misstated the history of the author's stint with the folk music quartet the Weavers. While he took over the position in the group once held by Pete Seeger, he did not "replace" Seeger — Seeger was replaced by Erik Darling, who was himself succeeded by Frank Hamilton; Krause replaced Hamilton.

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Theo www.nytimes.com

Cac dia phuong tap trung phong, chong dich benh cho cay trong

Kinh Doanh, Be Trap | medical student |

Ở miền trung, nắng nóng mở rộng khắp vùng, một số khu vực ở Nghệ An, Hà Tĩnh nắng mức 36 - 38oC. Các tỉnh Nam Bộ nắng nóng cũng tăng, riêng khu vực đông Nam Bộ nhiệt độ cao hơn ở 32 đến 35oC.

Ngày 17-4, Bộ Nông nghiệp và Phát triển nông thôn có công điện gửi các bộ, ngành, các tỉnh, thành phố trực thuộc T.Ư về việc tăng cường chỉ đạo sản xuất lúa hè thu năm 2012 ở đồng bằng sông Cửu Long. Bộ yêu cầu các Sở Nông nghiệp và Phát triển nông thôn tại các địa phương ngăn chặn, phòng trừ sâu bệnh trên lúa. Chủ động sử dụng các giống lúa có khả năng chống chịu sâu bệnh và thời tiết tốt, cho năng suất và chất lượng cao. Tu sửa hệ thống thủy lợi, bảo đảm ngăn xâm nhập mặn, chống hạn đầu vụ.

Chi cục Bảo vệ thực vật tỉnh Ninh Bình cho biết: Hiện trên địa bàn tỉnh đã phát hiện hơn 30 ha lúa vụ đông xuân năm 2012 bị nhiễm bệnh đạo ôn lá, gây hại cục bộ đặc biệt là trên trà lúa xuân muộn. Tỉnh chỉ đạo, hướng dẫn các địa phương làm đúng kỹ thuật, không bón phân đạm hoặc phun các loại thuốc kích thích sinh trưởng, phân bón lá. Cán bộ nông nghiệp trực tiếp về cơ sở hướng dẫn hộ nông dân tiến hành phun thuốc trên những ruộng có tỷ lệ nhiễm bệnh từ 3% số lá trở lên.

Hiện toàn tỉnh Đồng Tháp có gần 700 ha lúa hè thu bị nhiễm bệnh vàng lùn, tập trung nhiều là ở các huyện Tân Hồng, Lai Vung, Lấp Vò, Châu Thành. Trong đó, có khoảng 80 ha có tỷ lệ nhiễm từ 10 đến 30% và khoảng 20 ha bị nhiễm nặng. Tuy mức độ nhiễm nhẹ nhưng có nguy cơ lây lan, nhất là trên giống lúa IR50404. Chi cục Bảo vệ thực vật tỉnh khuyến cáo nông dân cần thực hiện triệt để việc nhổ, hủy cây lúa bệnh, phun thuốc trừ rầy nâu trong trường hợp diện tích lúa đã có dấu hiệu bị nhiễm bệnh mật số rầy tăng cao quá ba con/tép. Tích cực chăm sóc, bón phân cân đối để bảo đảm năng suất lúa.

Từ cuối tháng 3 đến nay, tại địa bàn thôn Khau Moàng, huyện Văn Quan, tỉnh Lạng Sơn phát hiện một loại sinh vật gây hại trên cây hồi lên tới hơn 24 ha. Trạm Bảo vệ thực vật huyện đã phối hợp với chính quyền địa phương, tổ chức huy động bà con nông dân tiến hành phun thuốc OFATOX, CYPERKILL 10EC, bước đầu đã đem lại hiệu quả. Đây là năm thứ ba liên tiếp loại sâu này xuất hiện và gây hại trên cây hồi.

Khoanh vùng vị trí các nạn nhân vụ sạt lở mỏ than

Ban Chỉ huy tìm kiếm cứu nạn và khắc phục hậu quả sạt lở bãi thải mỏ than Phấn Mễ (Thái Nguyên) bằng máy dò BTS09 đã dò tìm và khoanh vùng được hai vị trí: một vị trí có một nạn nhân và một vị trí còn lại có bốn nạn nhân bị vùi lấp. Ban Chỉ huy đã mời thêm bốn chuyên gia nước ngoài cùng tham gia tìm kiếm thông qua phương pháp kỹ thuật mỏ - địa chất, tức là thông qua khảo sát địa hình, địa chất, vết trượt, dấu tích của vụ sạt lở để đưa ra những nhận định phục vụ công tác tìm kiếm. Đến thời điểm này, tổng số người tham gia tìm kiếm tại hiện trường là hơn 500 người cùng với chín máy xúc, năm ô-tô tải và một máy ủi. Ban Chỉ huy cũng đã chỉ đạo địa phương di dời thêm tám hộ dân trong vùng bị ảnh hưởng ra khỏi khu vực nguy hiểm.

Theo en.baomoi.com

China Rising Incomes Lead to More Consumer Activists

Kinh Doanh | medical student |

As China"s economy continues to grow, citizens are getting a crash course in consumer rights, as increasing personal wealth leads to a rise in commercial disputes.  One local property conflict in Beijing illustrates the growing activism of upper middle-class Chinese.

Park 1872 is one of the many high-end residential developments that are springing up all over Beijing.  Beneath the sleek exteriors is a drama familiar to many city dwellers, anger over the exorbitant price for parking. But in China, residents say they have little power to negotiate with the state-owned China Merchants Property development company.

So the disgruntled owners have banded together and hired advocate Shu Kexin to represent them.

"But in China, the public security departments have intervened in this and use their public force to interfere in the activities between the parties involved.  You saw there were so many security personnel who came to frighten ordinary people, when in reality, the people do have the right to do such things," he said.

The security officials stormed out before the meeting started ,because they objected to the presence of China Central Television journalists, who residents had called in to report on the dispute.

"Twenty years ago, when so many police show up, it was us who would be scared," stated Shu. "Now, as soon as they saw a TV camera here, they are the ones who are afraid."

Citizen journalism is also playing a role, as consumers use camera phones to document malfeasance, such as a recent incident when owners clashed with plainclothes thugs.  Housewife Shero Cheng, who owns a Park 1872 apartment with her entrepreneur husband, says the conflict has bonded like-minded neighbors.

"We have made friends and our kids have made friends too.  And now, when they want to go play, we can just tell them to go see this or that friend.  We feel like this is a community, not like before, when it was just individuals behind closed doors," she said.

There is still no resolution to the parking conflict, but owners say they will continue their activism.  The neighborhood policeman acknowledges the owners have a cause, but he also reminded them that their protest tactics must follow the law.  China Merchants Property did not accept VOA's request to tell its side of the dispute.

Theo www.voanews.com

Spanish Workers Protest Labor Reforms

tin tức iphone | medical student |

Spanish workers took to the streets Thursday to protest sweeping labor reforms, public spending cuts and widespread unemployment.

Photo: AP

Demonstrator covers face during general strike in Barcelona, Spain, March 29, 2012.

The 24-hour general strike comes a day before government ministers are set to adopt a new austerity budget to meet strict guidelines set by eurozone leaders.

Strikers set up a picket line at Madrid Central Market in Spain's capital, disrupting businesses, banks and public transport hubs. According to news reports, at least 58 demonstrators have been arrested and nine were injured in scuffles.

Union Member Regino Martin says he is trying to convince people to resist the new labor rules and government policies of the recently elected conservative government of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, which make it easier for companies to fire workers and cut wages.

Spain, under pressure from the European Union and international investors to cut spending, is only one of numerous European countries facing tough austerity. Across the continent, tax hikes and cuts in public spending have been met with widespread public protest.

On Friday, ministers are set to adopt a 2012 budget that will cut billions of dollars from government spending. News reports say Spain's economy is headed into its second recession since 2009 with a jobless rate at 23 percent -- the highest in the 27-nation European Union.

No panacea

Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Center for European Reform in London, said austerity measures in Spain, like elsewhere, will not solve its economic problems.

"What's worrying about what we are seeing is that very little seems to have been learned from what happened in Greece and Ireland and Portugal," he said. "They are applying the same strategy to Spain. Now the big risk for the eurozone is that Spain is twice as big as those three economies combined. So if Spain gets into similar difficulties, it won't just be a tragedy for the Spanish people, but it will also pose an existential threat to the euro."

According to Tilford, austerity only serves to shrink rather than grow euro economies. The European Union, he said, needs a closer degree of integration with a federal budget that would enable resources to flow easily among euro countries, what he calls the only feasible -- yet unlikely -- resolution.

"The political will to do what is necessary to stabilize the situation within the eurozone is really just not there," he said. Now that's not to say that we will not see big institutional changes going forward -- it's possible that we will. But it's just as likely that the ongoing crisis will undermine solidarity between countries and that that could actually militate against the changes that are needed to put the single currency on a more sustainable currency."

Eurozone ministers are set to meet in Copenhagen Friday to discuss the bloc's debt rescue fund, which is used to help prop up debt-ridden European governments.

Theo www.voanews.com

Way of the World

gia dinh | medical student |

Gambling on Jobs That Make Things

By CHRYSTIA FREELAND | REUTERS

Published: March 29, 2012

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NEW YORK — Chalk one up for continental Europe’s economic architects. For the past several decades, the Anglo-Saxon consensus was that state interference in the private-sector economy was a mistake. Government bureaucrats were in no position to pick economic winners and losers — and if standing aside meant letting the forces of creative destruction sweep away entire industries, so be it.

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The continental Europeans, most successfully the Germans, demurred. They were unconvinced that the shift from manufacturing to services was either good or inevitable, and they used the full might of the state to try to hang on to their industrial base. The financial crisis may have briefly felt like a vindication of this model — but the near collapse and continued frailty of the euro brought a quick end to that moment of schadenfraude.

When it comes to manufacturing, though, the European approach is being embraced in the White House. In a speech this week, Gene B. Sperling, director of the National Economic Council and assistant to the president for economic policy, carefully laid out the economic rationale for the U.S. shift. Mr. Sperling was careful to point out that the new approach did not amount to industrial policy, or an attempt by the government to pick winners and losers.

But the White House has come to believe, Mr. Sperling said, that manufacturers more broadly should be first among equals. Giving manufacturers slightly lower taxes and more support for their research and development is a good idea, Mr. Sperling argues, for two reasons. First, because manufacturing has a particularly powerful spillover effect on the rest of the economy.

The benign effect of manufacturing Mr. Sperling is most enthusiastic about is the connection with innovation. That link, he argues, has been drawn out in research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s "Production in the Innovation Economy" initiative. Its premise, which Mr. Sperling embraces, is that in most new technologies, innovation happens most quickly and effectively when the inventors work close to the builders.

Apple is today the most beloved — and financially successful — U.S. manufacturer of physical stuff. But Mr. Sperling’s argument amounts to an assertion that the Apple approach — with designers and engineers in California and factories in China — works for the IT business, but not for much else. In most industries, Mr. Sperling contends, those who outsource manufacturing will soon find that they have outsourced their innovative edge, too.

The second pillar of the White House approach is to insist that the decline of U.S. manufacturing, and, by extension, manufacturing in the rich Western economies, is not inevitable. Manufacturing, Mr. Sperling argues, is not the agriculture of the 21st century, a sector fated to provide fewer and fewer jobs over time.

Instead, Mr. Sperling believes that the United States has a chance to bring jobs back home. "The degree that the U.S. is becoming more and more competitive in bringing manufacturing facilities and jobs back to our shores is very encouraging," Mr. Sperling said in an interview after he gave his speech.

This is clearly one of the administration’s talking points this season — on Wednesday, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. trumpeted the rise of "in-sourcing" in a speech in Iowa.

This White House view that the government can — and must — support manufacturing relative to other businesses is a profound shift in the conventional wisdom of the English-speaking world. Since the days of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, the received trans-Atlantic wisdom has been that state intervention is an inevitable failure, that the decline of manufacturing is inevitable, too, and that service-sector jobs can be just as good anyway. The shiny towers of the City of London and the canyons of Wall Street are evidence of that last conviction and, for a while, seemed to be a vindication of it.

Mr. Sperling is an earnest technocrat, and his speech this week was a determined effort to document the intellectual foundations of the White House’s pro-manufacturing tilt. "Let me begin by acknowledging upfront that this is an area where otherwise like-minded economists disagree," Mr. Sperling said at the start of his remarks. His goal is not so much to persuade his listeners that he is right as it is to assure them that his approach is intellectually respectable.

But for all its nerdy leanings, the White House is not the Harvard faculty club, and an election is coming up. Manufacturing could be an area of strong contrast between President Barack Obama and his most likely challenger, Mitt Romney. Mr. Romney has more hands-on experience, but Mr. Obama may have a more deft popular touch.

Unless you have a doctorate in economics, your intuition probably accords with Mr. Sperling’s point that building things is essential to a country’s economic well-being. Mr. Romney, who opposed the bailout of the Detroit carmakers, often finds himself on the other side of that argument.

Inside the United States, the big story this week is the Supreme Court’s deliberations on the legality of Mr. Obama’s health care overhaul . Elsewhere, that is a barely comprehensible local story — all other rich countries provide some version of universal coverage and spend less money and achieve better outcomes than the United States.

But from Berlin to Beijing, the debate about manufacturing and whether governments have a duty to support it is a live issue. That is one more reason this U.S. election campaign matters so much to the rest of the world.

Chrystia Freeland is global editor at large at Reuters.

Theo www.nytimes.com

Passover Seder, Smoothly Done

lap nghiep | medical student |

MY 98-year-old mother calls my Passover seder a gantzeh megillah — a big production. She’s right. For me, the seder is the hardest event of the year to prepare for. Yet it is by far the most meaningful because it commemorates the defining chapter in Judaism, when the Jews fled slavery in Egypt to freedom in the promised land.

Shannon Jensen for The New York Times

The seder plate, clockwise from top: a burned egg, haroseth, shank bone, parsley and horseradish.

By JOAN NATHAN

Published: March 27, 2012

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Recipes for the Passover Table

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Shannon Jensen for The New York Times

For the seder plate, an egg is burned, symbolizing the destroyed temple in Jerusalem.

By the time the 40-plus guests arrive at my home in Washington on the evening of April 6 and are seated around the mismatched tables and chairs, I will let out a deep sigh of relief. I will also probably get chills, knowing that I’m following what was written in the Bible more than 2,500 years ago. We may not "eat the flesh that same night, roasted over fire," as the Book of Exodus says, but we still eat unleavened bread, bitter herbs and many other dishes added to the original meal.

I have been the host of this Passover meal for about three decades. I’ve mixed recipes that we’ve eaten for years with new ones, like eggs that are covered in sand and baked overnight. I have a gefilte fish party with some friends beforehand. The main course and desserts are on a buffet table. I prepare at least five variations of haroseth, a mixture of sweet fruit and nuts that symbolizes the mortar used for buildings in Egypt. (On Wednesday I will make one of them at the White House.) For the vegetarians at my table I make a vegetarian broth with matzo balls.

My seder survival tactics boil down to a few basics. Make a list. Follow it. Always accept help when offered. And remember to create your own family traditions. With my nine-day Passover countdown plan, you can give a stress-free seder for five or 50. And you can enjoy yourself.

Unlike many practicing American Jews, my husband, Allan, and I have only one formal Passover seder and do not use special dishes. But we remove all leavened products and legumes like beans from our house, and we eat matzo each day. We divide the work: he conducts the seder, buys the wines and gets the gifts for the children who find the afikomen, the hidden matzo; I prepare the food and tables.

The seder plate, holding special foods that are mentioned in the seder service, is a focal point of the table. On our seder plate the horseradish, symbolic of the bitterness of slavery, is served with matzo and haroseths whose recipes I have gathered in my trips around the world. I make versions with chestnuts, dates and cherry preserves, all representing places where Jews wandered in the diaspora. This year I’m using a recipe from a recent visit to Arkansas.

The eggs for the plate — symbolic of the sacrifice in the temple in ancient Jerusalem and of everlasting life — are left in the shell, covered in sand and cooked overnight in a tagine, a recipe I found in a French cookbook with Jewish recipes imported from North Africa. My husband’s mother started the formal meal with hard-cooked eggs, serving them peeled and in salt water, an Eastern European custom. I have followed her tradition with my eggs, which come out caramel-colored and creamy.

Then, the gefilte fish, which I make with friends in my kitchen the day before the seder at our annual "gefilte fish-in." My friends bring their own pots and their own mix of whitefish, pike and carp, and onions and carrots. We grind the fish and the onions in my KitchenAid mixer and cook them in six separate pots. With the fish I always serve homemade horseradish sauce; the root holds a place of honor in my garden. Sometimes a guest will bring great horseradish from New York, ground on the Lower East Side; this year I am using a recipe from Kutsher’s Tribeca .

For the children, the most welcome dish is the chicken soup with matzo balls. My matzo balls, neither heavy as lead nor light as a feather, are al dente, infused with fresh ginger and nutmeg. This year, with so many guests, I will freeze them, and the soup, in advance.

On the buffet is either brisket with lots of onions, carrots and wine, or one made with preserved lemon and tomato. There is also roasted chicken with fennel for those who don’t want red meat. With the meat I always serve a spring vegetable like asparagus in an orange mayonnaise that a friend brings, as well as other make-ahead dishes like roasted red-pepper salad , roasted beet salad and, lately, quinoa with vegetables. I have been omitting kugel — too heavy.

For dessert, I have a buffet of Passover chocolate roll, lemon torte, strawberries and a compote with chremsel, a fritter filled with nuts and dried fruit that my father loved when he was growing up in Germany.

Like everything in Judaism, our seder evolves each year and the props seem to pile up. A few years ago we added an orange to our seder plate, symbolizing that a woman, too, can lead a seder. I also have a collection of plastic frogs and snakes to throw when the plagues are mentioned. When we sing the Passover song "Dayenu," I give everyone a scallion, and we playfully hit each other to act out a Persian custom that symbolizes the sting of the whip from Egyptian taskmasters.

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U.S. kindergarten boy brings heroin to show and tell

dientoandammay.edu.vn | medical student |

A five-year-old boy brought packets of heroin to a show and tell at his Connecticut kindergarten, leading to the arrest of his stepfather, police said on Tuesday.

Photo: Photo illustration

The child was proudly displaying packets of a powdery substance to his kindergarten classmates in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on Monday when his teacher noticed what he was holding, Detective Keith Bryant of the Bridgeport Police Department said.

"He was waving it around," Bryant said, adding that the teacher collected the packets and immediately notified her supervisors.

Authorities were called and a field test determined the substance was heroin, he said. Later, the child's stepfather, Santos Roman, 35, showed up at the school and was arrested.

"He went to retrieve it (the heroin), and it wasn't there so he came back for his stepson," Bryant said.

Roman was arraigned on Tuesday on three drug-possession charges, including intent to sell within 1,500 feet (457 meters) of a school and risk of injury to a minor, police said. Roman was held on $100,000 bail.

Theo en.baomoi.com