Haters Don't Hate Amazon (Facebook On the Other Hand ...)

Check the comments section on any tech blog: People love to hate Apple. They love to hate Microsoft. And Facebook. Each of these companies has spawned a parallel online hater community.

But Amazon? Not so much.

The Amazon haters are no doubt out there. But I contend that the intensity of that hatred just isn’t as high.

Backing me up on that is a new survey from Harris Interactive (HPOL) that found the general public respects Amazon more than any other U.S. corporation.

The marketing firm polled 19,000 U.S. residents in deep detail to find out how they felt about the country’s 60 “most visible” companies. For the first time in the “reputation quotient” poll’s 14-year history, Amazon came out on top.

Rounding out the top five were Apple, Disney, Google and Johnson & Johnson. (Apple’s number-two ranking shows great hate does not exclude great love.)

The poll — independently funded by Harris — broke down reputation into six main categories. Amazon trounced the competition in the category of “emotional appeal,” beating second-place Disney by five points on a 100-point scale – which seems bizarre considering the only contact most of us ever have with Amazon is via a cardboard box.

“Amazon is predominantly a virtual company where you don’t get to see the people. You don’t see brick and mortar,” says Robert Fronk, executive vice-president of reputation management at Harris. “For them to first of all have the highest reputation, but more importantly to be the company with far and away the highest emotional appeal, is amazing.” Harris defines emotional appeal as trust, admiration and respect, not whether you get weepy when your package arrives.

Amazon also topped the products and services category, which Fronk attributed not so much to Amazon-branded products like the Kindle, but the millions of other products it brings together and sells. Even Amazon’s customer service, which is sometimes criticized for being opaque and inaccessible, gets very high marks in the Harris survey from customers and non-customers alike.

Amazon is also helped in the overall survey results by what Fronk describes as the tech industry bump: Americans simply admire the tech industry more than any other. (In what other industry, he says, can a company take a swing at a product and miss and still get credit for taking a chance?) Industries at the bottom of the reputation rankings were tobacco in dead last, followed by government and banking.

Still, tech companies did not escape entirely unscathed. Despite its high rank, Fronk says Apple’s positive reputation is anchored in the survey by positive perceptions of its financial performance — the aspect of its business over which it has the least control. As the company’s plunging stock over the last several months shows, the investing public has no problem tarnishing the reputations of tech companies that don’t live up to expectations

“You don’t want to have the conversations about you moving from innovation and the joy you bring, to always being about the share price,” Fronk says.

Of the most talked-about tech companies, Facebook by far received the least love. While Amazon, Apple and Google all ranked in the top five with total scores above eighty out of 100, and Microsoft ranked 15th with a “good” score above 75, Facebook came in 42nd – sandwiched between Best Buy and T-Mobile – with a score of just over 65, or what Fronk described as the borderline between “average” and “poor.”

“Facebook suffers badly from lack of trust,” Fronk said.

Amazon arguably collects as much personal data about its customers as Facebook does about its users, or at least if not as much, then possibly more intimate: purchase history, product search history, home address, credit card numbers. The Harris survey didn’t ask specifically about individual companies’ use of personal data. Yet it’s hard not to infer that privacy concerns were on the minds of survey participants when answering questions about trust.

Forty-six percent of all respondents said they “definitely would trust” Amazon “to do the right thing.” Only 8 percent said the same about Facebook. Add in “probably would trust” and Amazon’s total shoots to 91 percent, while Facebook’s reaches 49 percent.

Whatever Amazon is doing, or not doing, to earn itself so many points, Facebook apparently needs to take some notes, at least according to this poll’s results. By Harris’ tally, Amazon is the first company in the survey’s history to score negligible negative results across every category. If the results are to be believed, no one really hates Amazon. Says Fronk: “There’s not a detractor base whatsoever.”

Read More..

CNN slots Jake Tapper Show, cuts length of Wolf Blitzer’s “Situation Room”

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – CNN slotted new anchor Jake Tapper‘s upcoming show for 4 p.m. on weekdays, cutting Wolf Blitzer‘s “The Situation Room” back one hour, a CNN spokeswoman told TheWrap.

Tapper, lured away from ABC News in December, was CNN boss Jeff Zucker‘s first major hire since taking charge of the network. Now, with his own show coming in March, Blitzer’s program will but cut from three hours to two as it moves to the 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. time slot.

A CNN spokeswoman told TheWrap Tapper‘s show has no specific starting date yet because it is still in development.

Last month, Turner Broadcasting posted LinkedIn job openings for a senior producer at a new daily program called “Tapper.”

And on Monday, CNN named Federico Quadrani, MSNBC’s executive producer of “Jansing and Company,” as the show’s new executive producer.

Choosing Quadrani – who served as an Emmy-winning producer for NBC’s “Today” show from 2003 to 2009 – is one of Zucker’s higher profile hires as the former “Today” producer attempts to replicate his morning show success at CNN.

After taking charge of the show in 1992, Zucker led “Today” to its ratings highs before Katie Couric‘s departure for CBS. The subsequent exit of Meredith Vieira, who replaced Couric, made it vulnerable to rival “Good Morning America.”

Late last month, CNN announced that it had bought “20/20″ anchor and former “GMA” host Chris Cuomo to lead a new morning show with Erin Burnett.

TV News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Well: Straining to Hear and Fend Off Dementia

At a party the other night, a fund-raiser for a literary magazine, I found myself in conversation with a well-known author whose work I greatly admire. I use the term “conversation” loosely. I couldn’t hear a word he said. But worse, the effort I was making to hear was using up so much brain power that I completely forgot the titles of his books.

A senior moment? Maybe. (I’m 65.) But for me, it’s complicated by the fact that I have severe hearing loss, only somewhat eased by a hearing aid and cochlear implant.

Dr. Frank Lin, an otolaryngologist and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, describes this phenomenon as “cognitive load.” Cognitive overload is the way it feels. Essentially, the brain is so preoccupied with translating the sounds into words that it seems to have no processing power left to search through the storerooms of memory for a response.

---

Katherine Boutin speaks about her own experience with hearing loss.

A transcript of this interview can be found here.

---

Over the past few years, Dr. Lin has delivered unwelcome news to those of us with hearing loss. His work looks “at the interface of hearing loss, gerontology and public health,” as he writes on his Web site. The most significant issue is the relation between hearing loss and dementia.

In a 2011 paper in The Archives of Neurology, Dr. Lin and colleagues found a strong association between the two. The researchers looked at 639 subjects, ranging in age at the beginning of the study from 36 to 90 (with the majority between 60 and 80). The subjects were part of the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging. None had cognitive impairment at the beginning of the study, which followed subjects for 18 years; some had hearing loss.

“Compared to individuals with normal hearing, those individuals with a mild, moderate, and severe hearing loss, respectively, had a 2-, 3- and 5-fold increased risk of developing dementia over the course of the study,” Dr. Lin wrote in an e-mail summarizing the results. The worse the hearing loss, the greater the risk of developing dementia. The correlation remained true even when age, diabetes and hypertension — other conditions associated with dementia — were ruled out.

In an interview, Dr. Lin discussed some possible explanations for the association. The first is social isolation, which may come with hearing loss, a known risk factor for dementia. Another possibility is cognitive load, and a third is some pathological process that causes both hearing loss and dementia.

In a study last month, Dr. Lin and colleagues looked at 1,984 older adults beginning in 1997-8, again using a well-established database. Their findings reinforced those of the 2011 study, but also found that those with hearing loss had a “30 to 40 percent faster rate of loss of thinking and memory abilities” over a six-year period compared with people with normal hearing. Again, the worse the hearing loss, the worse the rate of cognitive decline.

Both studies also found, somewhat surprisingly, that hearing aids were “not significantly associated with lower risk” for cognitive impairment. But self-reporting of hearing-aid use is unreliable, and Dr. Lin’s next study will focus specifically on the way hearing aids are used: for how long, how frequently, how well they have been fitted, what kind of counseling the user received, what other technologies they used to supplement hearing-aid use.

What about the notion of a common pathological process? In a recent paper in the journal Neurology, John Gallacher and colleagues at Cardiff University suggested the possibility of a genetic or environmental factor that could be causing both hearing loss and dementia — and perhaps not in that order. In a phenomenon called reverse causation, a degenerative pathology that leads to early dementia might prove to be a cause of hearing loss.

The work of John T. Cacioppo, director of the Social Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Chicago, also offers a clue to a pathological link. His multidisciplinary studies on isolation have shown that perceived isolation, or loneliness, is “a more important predictor of a variety of adverse health outcomes than is objective social isolation.” Those with hearing loss, who may sit through a dinner party and not hear a word, frequently experience perceived isolation.

Other research, including the Framingham Heart Study, has found an association between hearing loss and another unexpected condition: cardiovascular disease. Again, the evidence suggests a common pathological cause. Dr. David R. Friedland, a professor of otolaryngology at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, hypothesized in a 2009 paper delivered at a conference that low-frequency loss could be an early indication that a patient has vascular problems: the inner ear is “so sensitive to blood flow” that any vascular abnormalities “could be noted earlier here than in other parts of the body.”

A common pathological cause might help explain why hearing aids do not seem to reduce the risk of dementia. But those of us with hearing loss hope that is not the case; common sense suggests that if you don’t have to work so hard to hear, you have greater cognitive power to listen and understand — and remember. And the sense of perceived isolation, another risk for dementia, is reduced.

A critical factor may be the way hearing aids are used. A user must practice to maximize their effectiveness and they may need reprogramming by an audiologist. Additional assistive technologies like looping and FM systems may also be required. And people with progressive hearing loss may need new aids every few years.

Increasingly, people buy hearing aids online or from big-box stores like Costco, making it hard for the user to follow up. In the first year I had hearing aids, I saw my audiologist initially every two weeks for reprocessing and then every three months.

In one study, Dr. Lin and his colleague Wade Chien found that only one in seven adults who could benefit from hearing aids used them. One deterrent is cost ($2,000 to $6,000 per ear), seldom covered by insurance. Another is the stigma of old age.

Hearing loss is a natural part of aging. But for most people with hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the condition begins long before they get old. Almost two-thirds of men with hearing loss began to lose their hearing before age 44. My hearing loss began when I was 30.

Forty-eight million Americans suffer from some degree of hearing loss. If it can be proved in a clinical trial that hearing aids help delay or offset dementia, the benefits would be immeasurable.

“Could we do something to reduce cognitive decline and delay the onset of dementia?” he asked. “It’s hugely important, because by 2050, 1 in 30 Americans will have dementia.

“If we could delay the onset by even one year, the prevalence of dementia drops by 15 percent down the road. You’re talking about billions of dollars in health care savings.”

Should studies establish definitively that correcting hearing loss decreases the potential for early-onset dementia, we might finally overcome the stigma of hearing loss. Get your hearing tested, get it corrected, and enjoy a longer cognitively active life. Establishing the dangers of uncorrected hearing might even convince private insurers and Medicare that covering the cost of hearing aids is a small price to pay to offset the cost of dementia.

---

Katherine Bouton is the author of the new book, “Shouting Won’t Help: Why I — and 50 Million Other Americans — Can’t Hear You,” from which this essay is adapted.

---

This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 12, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the location of the Medical College of Wisconsin. It is in Milwaukee, not Madison.

Read More..

Group of 7 Says It Will Let Market Decide Currency Values

BRUSSELS — Seven major developed countries including the United States and Germany pledged on Tuesday to let foreign exchange markets determine the value of their currencies.

The statement by the Group of 7 prompted relief in Japan, where policy makers have been under fire from some officials in Europe and the United States who say they are unfairly seeking to give their economy a shot in the arm by bringing down the value of the yen.

The statement “properly recognizes that steps we are taking to beat deflation are not aimed at influencing currency markets,” said Taro Aso, the Japanese finance minister.

In a statement, the G-7 powers said they would consult closely to avoid moves that could hurt stability. But they restated a commitment to market-determined exchange rates.

“We reaffirm that our fiscal and monetary policies have been and will remain oriented towards meeting our respective domestic objectives using domestic instruments, and that we will not target exchange rates,” the G-7 said in the statement, which was posted on the Web site of the Bank of England.

Concerns had been mounting in recent weeks about the effects of an ultraloose monetary policy in Japan that has pushed the yen lower against major currencies. The yen’s weakness also had prompted talk of a so-called currency war if other parts of the world followed suit in a competitive devaluation.

The euro’s rise in value has become a particular concern in the euro zone, since it could make exports more expensive and dent growth if demand for European products falls. Those concerns had prompted France to call for some kind of exchange-rate policy.

On Monday, Pierre Moscovici, the French finance minister, said he wanted the Europeans to present a common plan later this week during a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers of the Group of 20 nations to be held in Moscow.

But the head of the German Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann, said Monday that the French initiative was a poor substitute for policy overhauls that, if implemented, would do more for growth.

On Tuesday in Brussels, following a regular monthly meeting of E.U. finance ministers, Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, said there was “no foreign exchange problem in Europe” and that such issues should be discussed at the G-20 meeting in Moscow.

Read More..

Grammys 2013: Fun., Mumford, Gotye lead a newer generation

Grammy Awards voters gave their top honor to British roots music band Mumford & Sons for their album "Babel" on Sunday at the 55th awards ceremony. Other top honors were distributed to a broad array of younger acts, including indie trio Fun., electronic pop artist Gotye, rapper-R&B singer Frank Ocean and rock group the Black Keys.

"We figured we weren't going to win because the Black Keys have been sweeping up all day — and deservedly so," Mumford & Sons front man Marcus Mumford said after he and his band members strode to the stage at Staples Center in Los Angeles to collect the award from last year's winner, R&B-soul singer Adele.

Pop culture historians may look back at 2013, however, as the year the Grammy Awards gave up its long fight against new forms of music dissemination, embracing songs and videos that consumers soaked up by way of YouTube and other Internet outlets as opposed to purchasing them.

PHOTOS: 2013 Grammy Award winners

"Somebody That I Used to Know," the wildly popular collaboration between Gotye and New Zealand pop singer Kimbra, took the top award presented for a single recording upon being named record of the year, which recognizes performance and record production.

"Somebody…" not only was one of the biggest-selling singles of 2012 but also has notched nearly 400 million views on YouTube, powerfully demonstrating the increasingly vital role of the "broadcast yourself" video Internet phenomenon. Different YouTube posts of Ocean's "Thinking About You" single have totaled nearly 60 million views.

New York indie rock trio Fun. was named best new artist, an acknowledgment of the good-time music the group brought to listeners and viewers last summer largely through its runaway hit single "We Are Young," which has racked up nearly 200 million YouTube views. It also was named song of the year, bringing awards for the group's songwriters, Jack Antonoff, Andrew Dost and Nate Ruess, and collaborator Jeff Bhasker.

GRAMMYS 2013: Full coverage | Pre-show winners | Winners | Ballot

"Everyone can see our faces, and we are not very young — we've been doing this for 12 years," Ruess said as they collected the award.

The song's title could also serve as a theme for the evening, which was dominated by other relatively young acts in the most prestigious Grammy categories.

Singer, rapper and songwriter Ocean emerged the victor in the one category that pitted him directly against real-life rival Chris Brown, as his critically acclaimed solo debut album, "Channel Orange," won the urban contemporary album award. A few minutes later Ocean got a second Grammy with Kanye West, Jay-Z and the Dream in the rap-sung collaboration category for their single "No Church in the Wild."

GRAMMYS 2013: Winners list | Best & Worst |  Red carpet | Timeline | Fashion | Highlights

Ocean's tuxedo covered all but his hands, but it appeared as he picked up the urban album award that his left arm remained in a wrist brace he'd exhibited Thursday at rehearsals for this year's broadcast, a remnant of his scuffle last month with Brown over a parking space at a recording studio. Los Angeles Police Department investigators said Ocean informed them that he would not press charges against Brown.

It was the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach who quickly built up steam as the front-runner to dominate this year's awards, taking several statuettes barely an hour into the show, including producer of the year for himself and three with his group including rock performance, rock song and rock album for "El Camino."

The Black Keys homed in on the fundamentals of rock 'n' roll — big guitar riffs, lustful lyrics and a bevy of musical hooks on "El Camino," one of the best reviewed albums of the group's career.

FULL COVERAGE: Grammy Awards 2013

Auerbach picked up another award as producer of the blues album winner, Dr. John's "Locked Down."

Carrie Underwood grabbed the country solo performance Grammy for the title track from her album "Blown Away," which also won the country song award for writers Josh Kear and Chris Tompkins earlier during the pre-telecast ceremony at Nokia Theatre, across the street from Staples Center.

The Zac Brown Band added to its growing place as a new-generation country powerhouse with a win of the country album trophy for its "Uncaged," built on muscular Southern rock guitar riffs, elaborate multipart vocal harmonies and jam-band instrumental excursions.

Last year's big winner, Adele, collected the first statuette of the night for her single "Set Fire to the Rain" in the pop solo performance category.

The show got off to an eye-popping start with a Cirque du Soleil-inspired performance by Taylor Swift of her nominated single "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together."

The preponderance of youthful acts not broadly known to mainstream TV audiences heightened the use of cross-generational pairings. Rising songwriter and singer Ed Sheeran shared the stage early with veteran Grammy darling Elton John, while Bruno Mars teamed with Sting and Rihanna in a Bob Marley tribute later in the show. Several members of Americana acts, including Alabama Shakes and Mumford & Sons, sang alongside veterans John, Mavis Staples and T Bone Burnett in a salute to drummer Levon Helm of the Band.

But it was the young guns to whom the evening — and perhaps the future — of the Grammy Awards belonged.

The Grammys are determined by about 13,000 voting members of the Recording Academy. The eligibility period for nominated recordings was Oct. 1, 2011, to Sept. 30, 2012. The show aired on CBS live except on the West Coast, which gets a tape delay.

randy.lewis@latimes.com

Twitter: @RandyLewis2

Read More..

Under the Gun: When Less Time Can Mean Better Problem-Solving

I’m working on an Alien costume. I’ve got the suit. It was built for me, and it’s gorgeous. But I’m making the head myself, and it’s kicking my butt. The problem: I have too much time.

I’ve learned over decades of building that a deadline is a potent tool for problem-solving. This is counterintuitive, because complaining about deadlines is a near-universal pastime. When I worked with the amazing sculptor Ira Keeler on the space shuttle for Clint Eastwood’s Space Cowboys, Keeler was always proclaiming, “With a couple more weeks, this could be a nice model.” We’re conditioned to believe that the deadline is working against us. But I’m not so sure.

I’d like the head I’m building to be animatronic. The lips would curl back and the jaws would open and snap out, just like in the movie. I’d also like all of these to be controlled by the wearer’s facial movements. I know how each of these actions should work individually, but I keep getting stumped when it comes to choreographing them all to operate together. And when I’m stumped without a deadline, I tend to let things go. So the head has pretty much sat on my bench for seven months.

Any cursory perusal of a fan/maker forum on the web reveals two distinct kinds of projects: the long, meandering, inconsistently updated but impressively detailed effort and the hell-bent-for-leather, tearing-toward-a-deadline build. Solutions to problems of the first type are often methodical and obvious. Solutions for the second type are much more likely to be innovative, elegant, and shockingly simple.

Invariably, the second type of project is propelled by an upcoming event: Comic-Con, Halloween, or even just a visit to a children’s hospital with the 501st Legion (a loosely knit group of Star Wars costumers). Deadlines refine the mind. They remove variables like exotic materials and processes that take too long. The closer the deadline, the more likely you’ll start thinking waaay outside the box.

Meanwhile, my alien head sits there, taunting me, awaiting its resurrection.

Adam Savage (adamsavage.com) is a sculptor, special-effects fabricator, and cohost of Discovery Channel’s MythBusters.

Read More..

“Good Day to Die Hard” takes $10 million in Asian box office

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – “Good Day to Die Hard” is off and running overseas. The Bruce Willis action film took in more than $ 10 million in its debut in seven Asian markets for Fox.

“Django Unchained” was the top international moneymaker for the fourth consecutive week, adding $ 18.7 million from 66 markets. Quentin Tarantino‘s slave saga has now brought in $ 187 million overseas.

“Good Day to Die Hard” opens Thursday in North America. The leading market was Korea, where it made $ 4.2 million. It broke a Fox record in Indonesia with $ 1.4 million and was the biggest of the franchise openings in Hong Kong with $ 1.2 million.

Fox is counting on big things from “Good Day to Die Hard.” Starting with the original film in 1988, which made $ 148 million worldwide, each successive movie has made more money at the global box office.

The last one, “Live Free Or Die Hard,” made $ 383 million in 2007. In all, the “Die Hard” franchise has taken in $ 1.13 billion.

Fox also opened “Lincoln” in seven new markets, contributing to the DreamWorks’ historical drama’s roughly $ 10 million weekend overseas, in which it played in 51 territories. Australia was the top new market with $ 1.8 million for “Lincoln,” which has brought in $ 47.6 million from foreign markets overall.

“Les Miserables,” like “Lincoln” and “Django” a Best Picture Oscar nominee, also brought in roughly $ 10 million over the weekend, from 46 markets. The musical’s international gross now stands at $ 215 million.

Paramount’s 3D action fantasy “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters” added $ 11.6 million from 46 regions and has now brought in $ 84 million at the foreign box office.

Disney’s video game-inspired animated film “Wreck-it Ralph” raised its overall international total to $ 207 million by adding another $ 11.7 million from 66 foreign markets.

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: “Good Day to Die Hard” takes $10 million in Asian box office
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/good-day-to-die-hard-takes-10-million-in-asian-box-office/
Link To Post : “Good Day to Die Hard” takes $10 million in Asian box office
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Well: Getting the Right Addiction Treatment

“Treatment is not a prerequisite to surviving addiction.” This bold statement opens the treatment chapter in a helpful new book, “Now What? An Insider’s Guide to Addiction and Recovery,” by William Cope Moyers, a man who nonetheless needed “four intense treatment experiences over five years” before he broke free of alcohol and drugs.

As the son of Judith and Bill Moyers, successful parents who watched helplessly during a 15-year pursuit of oblivion through alcohol and drugs, William Moyers said his near-fatal battle with addiction demonstrates that this “illness of the mind, body and spirit” has no respect for status or opportunity.

“My parents raised me to become anything I wanted, but when it came to this chronic incurable illness, I couldn’t get on top of it by myself,” he said in an interview.

He finally emerged from his drug-induced nadir when he gave up “trying to do it my way” and instead listened to professional therapists and assumed responsibility for his behavior. For the last “18 years and four months, one day at a time,” he said, he has lived drug-free.

“Treatment is not the end, it’s the beginning,” he said. “My problem was not drinking or drugs. My problem was learning how to live life without drinking or drugs.”

Mr. Moyers acknowledges that treatment is not a magic bullet. Even after a monthlong stay at a highly reputable treatment center like Hazelden in Center City, Minn., where Mr. Moyers is a vice president of public affairs and community relations, the probability of remaining sober and clean a year later is only about 55 percent.

“Be wary of any program that claims a 100 percent success rate,” Mr. Moyers warned. “There is no such thing.”

“Treatment works to make recovery possible. But recovery is also possible without treatment,” Mr. Moyers said. “There’s no one-size-fits-all approach. What I needed and what worked for me isn’t necessarily what you or your loved one require.”

As with many smokers who must make multiple attempts to quit before finally overcoming an addiction to nicotine, people hooked on alcohol or drugs often must try and try again.

Nor does treatment have as good a chance at succeeding if it is forced upon a person who is not ready to recover. “Treatment does work, but only if the person wants it to,” Mr. Moyers said.

Routes to Success

For those who need a structured program, Mr. Moyers described what to consider to maximize the chances of overcoming addiction to alcohol or drugs.

Most important is to get a thorough assessment before deciding where to go for help. Do you or your loved one meet the criteria for substance dependence? Are there “co-occurring mental illnesses, traumatic or physical disabilities, socioeconomic influences, cultural issues, or family dynamics” that may be complicating the addiction and that can sabotage treatment success?

While most reputable treatment centers do a full assessment before admitting someone, it is important to know if the center or clinic provides the services of professionals who can address any underlying issues revealed by the assessment. For example, if needed, is a psychiatrist or other medical doctor available who could provide therapy and prescribe medication?

Is there a social worker on staff to address challenging family, occupational or other living problems? If a recovering addict goes home to the same problems that precipitated the dependence on alcohol or drugs, the chances of remaining sober or drug-free are greatly reduced.

Is there a program for family members who can participate with the addict in learning the essentials of recovery and how to prepare for the return home once treatment ends?

Finally, does the program offer aftercare and follow-up services? Addiction is now recognized to be a chronic illness that lurks indefinitely within an addict in recovery. As with other chronic ailments, like diabetes or hypertension, lasting control requires hard work and diligence. One slip need not result in a return to abuse, and a good program will help addicts who have completed treatment cope effectively with future challenges to their recovery.

How Families Can Help

“Addiction is a family illness,” Mr. Moyers wrote. Families suffer when someone they love descends into the purgatory of addiction. But contrary to the belief that families should cut off contact with addicts and allow them to reach “rock-bottom” before they can begin recovery, Mr. Moyers said that the bottom is sometimes death.

“It is a dangerous, though popular, misconception that a sick addict can only quit using and start to get well when he ‘hits bottom,’ that is, reaches a point at which he is desperate enough to willingly accept help,” Mr. Moyers wrote.

Rather, he urged families to remain engaged, to keep open the lines of communication and regularly remind the addict of their love and willingness to help if and when help is wanted. But, he added, families must also set firm boundaries — no money, no car, nothing that can be quickly converted into the substance of abuse.

Whether or not the addict ever gets well, Mr. Moyers said, “families have to take care of themselves. They can’t let the addict walk over their lives.”

Sometimes families or friends of an addict decide to do an intervention, confronting the addict with what they see happening and urging the person to seek help, often providing possible therapeutic contacts.

“An intervention can be the key that interrupts the process and enables the addict to recognize the extent of their illness and the need to take responsibility for their behavior,”Mr. Moyers said.

But for an intervention to work, Mr. Moyers said, “the sick person should not be belittled or demeaned.” He also cautioned families to “avoid threats.” He noted that the mind of “the desperate, fearful addict” is subsumed by drugs and alcohol that strip it of logic, empathy and understanding. It “can’t process your threat any better than it can a tearful, emotional plea.”

Resource Network

Mr. Moyer’s book lists nearly two dozen sources of help for addicts and their families. Among them:

Alcoholics Anonymous World Services www.aa.org;

Narcotics Anonymous World Services www.na.org;

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration treatment finder www.samhsa.gov/treatment/;

Al-Anon Family Groups www.Al-anon.alateen.org;

Nar-Anon Family Groups www.nar-anon.org;

Co-Dependents Anonymous World Fellowship www.coda.org.

---

This is the second of two articles on addiction treatment. The first can be found here.

Read More..

Euro’s Strength on Agenda for Finance Ministers

BRUSSELS — Concern over the euro came to the fore on Monday ahead of a meeting of finance ministers of the countries using the currency. But this time, with the union’s recession continuing, the topic was the strength of the euro rather than its many weaknesses.

As confidence has grown that the European Union will be able to manage its sovereign debt crisis, the euro has made significant gains against the dollar and other foreign currencies. That is making it more expensive for Europe’s trading partners to buy its exports and could hamper growth.

On Monday, France, which traditionally favors market intervention, renewed its calls for remedial steps, like establishing a target level for the euro’s value.

Exchange rates need “to reflect the economic fundamentals of our economies of the euro zone,” Pierre Moscovici, the French finance minister, said ahead of the regular monthly meeting of so-called Eurogroup ministers. “Exchange rates should not become subjected to moods or speculation.”

Mr. Moscovici said he would make the case for coordinated action to keep a lid on the value of the euro in order to present the plan, possibly at a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers of the Group of 20 nations to be held in Moscow at the end of the week.

The euro was trading at $1.339 on Monday after falling to the low $1.20s in 2012.

But some ministers suggested intervention would be wrongheaded.

“This is mainly decided by the market,” Maria Fekter, the Austrian finance minister, said in response to a question on the euro strength as she arrived at the meeting. “I find an artificial weakening unnecessary.”

The French position is also likely to irritate Germany, where officials suggested last week that intervention on exchange rate markets was a poor way to improve competitiveness.

The strong euro means some European exports, like cars and wine, become more expensive abroad, putting European producers at a disadvantage against foreign competitors. But there are also positive effects. Imports, particularly oil, become less expensive for Europeans, which helps stimulate the economy.

Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank, warned last week that the strength of the euro could weigh on the ability of Europe to pull out of its economic doldrums. Those comments sent the euro down sharply against the dollar and yen.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, the president of the Eurogroup who oversees the agenda for the monthly meetings, said that the strength of the euro could be one of the main subjects discussed on Monday evening. But he also said the meeting was likely to be a short one in order to allow ministers to attend a farewell dinner for Jean Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg who stepped down last month as president of the Eurogroup.

How to handle a bailout for Cyprus was also likely to be discussed by ministers on Monday evening.

Among the potentially explosive issues is whether to force depositors in Cyprus, including wealthy Russians, to take losses on their holdings to help reduce the burden of recapitalizing and restructuring Cypriot banks.

But Vassos Shiarly, the Cypriot finance minister, bluntly rejected that scenario on Monday.

“I would say that the bail-in of depositors is a grossly exaggerated possibility,” Mr. Shiarly said. “We will not accept it under any circumstances.”

No agreement with the Cypriot government in Nicosia is expected until after the departure of President Demetris Christofias, a Communist, who will not be running in elections scheduled for later this month.

International creditors want to wait to negotiate a rescue program with the winner, who is likely to be Nicos Anastasiades of the Democratic Rally, a center-right party.

Read More..

Ambitious makeover planned for old housing project

Denise Penegar puts a little extra effort into the teenage girls, the ones who've dropped out of high school to care for their firstborns.

Don't be afraid, the outreach worker tells them. Come down to the housing project's community center, get your GED and some job skills. Change your life.

"I was one of those girls," said Penegar, now 51 and still living in Jordan Downs, the Watts housing project where she was born.

Sometimes, she imagines how different her life might have been if someone had knocked on her door when she was 17, caring for her first baby. What would it have meant just to have "someone who is here who can help pick me up"?

Penegar is on the front lines of a bold social experiment underway at Jordan Downs, a project notorious to outsiders for its poverty, blight and violence but seen by many longtime residents, for all its problems, as a close-knit community worth preserving.

In the last year, the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles has begun an effort to transform Jordan that could cost more than $600 million. The plan is to turn the complex of 700 aging units into a mixed-income community of up to 1,400 apartments and condominiums, with shops and restaurants and fancy touches such as native plant gardens. The city hopes to draw in hundreds of more-affluent residents willing to pay market rate to live side by side with the city's poorest.

Spurred by changes in federal funding and policy, such "mixed use" developments have sprung up in place of infamous housing projects all over the country. But experts say Jordan is taking an approach that has not been tried on this scale.

Typically, public housing residents are moved out ahead of the bulldozers, scattered to search for new shelter. In Los Angeles, the housing authority has promised that any of the 2,300 Jordan residents "in good standing" can stay in their old units until the day they move into new ones. The project is to be built in phases, beginning with units on 21 acres of adjacent land purchased by the authority in 2008 for $31 million.

To ease the transition, the city has dispatched "community coaches" like Penegar, along with teachers, social workers, therapists — even police officers whose charge is not to make arrests but to coach youth football and triathlon teams.

In essence, officials intend to raze the buildings, not the community — and radically change its character.

It will be an enormous challenge, with success likely to be measured in tiny increments.

Only 47% of adults at Jordan reported any wages to the housing authority last year. As in many urban projects, poverty and social ills have multiplied through the generations, leaving some residents unfamiliar with opportunities and expectations beyond the neighborhood. Some rarely leave the area.

Before inviting in new neighbors with expectations of safety and comfort, the housing authority has begun flooding Jordan Downs with social services. Many of the programs are focused on women, because more than 60% of Jordan Downs' tenants live in households headed by single mothers. But men are targeted too — for job training and lessons in parenting, for instance.

By December, 10 months into the effort, more than 450 families had been surveyed by intake workers and 280 signed up for intensive services.

"Most people would say it's ambitious, but I think it's essential," said Kathryn Icenhower, executive director of Shields for Families, the South Los Angeles nonprofit that is running many of the new programs under a more than $1-million annual contract with the housing authority.

It is unknown, however, how effective the social services will be, how easy it will be to draw in wealthier residents and how many millions of dollars the federal government — a major source of funding — will provide.

Already, the housing authority has picked a development team — the for-profit Michaels Organization and the nonprofit Bridge Housing, both with respectable track records in other cities. But with financing still uncertain, it is unclear exactly how many units will be built or how much various occupants would pay.

Ultimately, a working family could pay hundreds of dollars more in rent than unemployed tenants next door for a nearly identical unit. Officials say they do not expect Watts to draw the same kind of high-income residents as the former Cabrini Green project in Chicago, which sat on prime real estate near downtown. But Jordan is in a convenient location, near the intersection of the 105 and 110 Freeways; and in a high-rent city like Los Angeles, even the steepest rates at Jordan are likely to seem a bargain.

Despite the onslaught of social services and some palpable changes — including a 53% plunge in the violent crime rate at Jordan last year — financial risks abound.

Later this spring, the authority plans to put in an application for $30 million from the federal government's Choice Neighborhoods Program as seed money. Without it, the project could be delayed.

Read More..