Art for Wealth’s Sake: Art Basel Paints a Picture of Miami’s Separate and Unequal Worlds






It’s 10 p.m. on a Friday night. A naked girl is splashing about in the swimming pool at the Standard Hotel Miami. She is from New York and runs a nonprofit for homeless teens. We’ll call her Liz: “You’re so boring!” she yells from the middle of the pool.


It was a common refrain here during Art Basel Miami Beach—now the world’s largest contemporary art fair—where many of earth’s most privileged humans gather for a week of champagne and gawking at art (and at each other) in the sun.






The poolside celebration was for Terry Richardson, a fashion photographer known for his sexually charged (or sexually abusive, depending on your source) shoots. A cell phone company, HTC, spent $ 100,000 to sponsor the party, a book release for Richardson. This is a typical event, one of hundreds that occur during what is commonly referred to as “Basel.”


MORE: Scenes From a Class War (VIDEOS)


Basel is now 11 years old. It’s gone from a decent sized art fair to an international marketing and branding orgy with few parallels. Because all the big collectors fly down private, and scores of cool young New Yorkers file in on JetBlue, luxury brands rush in to hit both their “target demos” and “tastemakers” in one shot.


In terms of tourism dollars, Basel is Miami’s highest grossing week. Hotels on South Beach were demanding thousands per night for rooms. The fair’s main sponsor was the honorable UBS, the very same Swiss bank that just settled a billion dollar fraud case with international authorities. UBS not only robs the world and stashes terrorist/dictator cash, it sponsors art fairs too—cool guys.


Most Miamians don’t care about Art Basel. The city is only 11 percent white (far and away the primary Basel target demographic), and most of the 40 percent Hispanic and 20 percent black populations live far from the South Beach glam, many in poverty. Miami has the second widest gap between rich and poor in America, after New York. Blacks make an average of $ 15,000 a year. Whites double that, at $ 37,000. But at $ 19,000, the city’s majority Hispanics aren’t doing so well either.


Disparity defines the art world too, with its hungry artists and rich collectors and patrons. So it’s fitting that the largest contemporary art fair in the world happens in Miami.


Few people are more detached from the short-end reality of income disparity than the global art tribe. These arbiters of the cultural elite fly around the world to various openings and fairs then retreat to galleries, museums and studios in their home cities before heading out again. Of course, there are exceptions. Some artists at Basel retain a socio-politico aesthetic. A good example is Barbara Krueger, whose text-orientated pieces mocking consumerism and political power were selling for $ 200,000 to $ 500,000 and became the talk of the fair.


Bearing many hallmarks of a third world city, Miami breaks down into two distinct populations. The rich live across Biscayne Bay on beautiful beaches and gated islands. The poor are stretched across downtown’s grid, where every block headed west from the bay is worse than the one before it. The city has few economically diverse neighborhoods.


The two Miamis can easily be visited on the same day. Last week. Alex “A-Rod” Rodriguez, the New York Yankee third baseman with the largest sports contract in history, was having a party in his $ 30 million modernist manse.


I skipped A Rod’s soiree, mainly because I hate the Yankees, to hang out with Dee, a 22-year-old drug dealer who lives on west 20th Street downtown. All he wanted was customers: “Man, who down here needs anything? I’m fucking broke. I live in the projects with my aunt. Gotta get out.”


Dee said he’d take any job—as in, “I’ll work at Chick-fil-A, man!” Saddled with a criminal record, he’s never been hired anywhere.


We cruised over to 75th Street, the main drag in Little Haiti, where public housing is painted lime green and similarly awesome pastel paint jobs cover buildings advertising W.I.C and Western Union.


“There are no banks here,” Dee tells me. “We don’t have enough money.”


UBS—where are you?


The South Beach Basel crowd hosted quite a few Hurricane Sandy benefits. But I didn’t find one art world benefit for Miami’s poor. There is a definite willful ignorance in plopping your billionaires down at dinners and six-figure parties in the name of “culture” while ignoring masses of people who are in dire need of said culture and are readily at hand: The impoverished residents of Miami.


Back in New York, I catch up with Liz, the naked pool gal. She’s in Tompkins Square Park, the epicenter of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Stella is smiling. Her art world disdain has clearly dried off.


“I have no idea why I was in Miami,” she says. “Who were those people? Why are they so boring, and why did that one guy in the black suit keep saying Le Baron over and over again?”


Around the same time I get a text from Dee. “You know anyone still down here? Tryna get that $ .”


I inform Lee that Le Baron is a Parisian disco that does a chic party every night of Basel.


Lee receives this information as she’s handing out clean needles and Narcan to the local crust punk populace, all of whom she knows by name.


“Do these people really care?” she asks.


Sadly, Basel people do seem to express more concern about French discos and wearing aggressive outfits than they do about the inequality in America—maybe best seen in Miami’s two worlds.


I have an idea for Art Basel next year. In the process of exchanging all those millions for bought and sold visions, try and help some of the people from Miami.


Are wealthy visitors obligated to alleviate some of the local misery when they party in the midst of poverty? Take a position in COMMENTS.


These are solely the author’s opinions and do not represent those of TakePart, LLC or its affiliates.


Related Stories on TakePart:


• Dispatch From Morocco: ‘Excuse Me, Aren’t We About to Start a War Here?’


• America, Syria and the State of Child Soldiering 2012


• Census Shows Sharp Increase in U.S. Poor



Ray LeMoine was born in Boston and lives in New York. He’s done humanitarian work in Iraq and Pakistan and has written for various media outlets, including the New York Times, New York Magazine and the Awl.


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Actor Depardieu puts Paris house up for sale






PARIS (Reuters) – French actor Gerard Depardieu, accused of trying to escape the taxman by buying a house just over the border in Belgium, has put his sumptuous Parisian home up for sale.


Depardieu, the latest wealthy Frenchman to seek shelter from government tax hikes, is selling a vast early 19th-century manor house in the Saint Germain district of the capital, playground of writers, jazz musicians and art dealers over the decades.






His real estate agent declined to say how much he was asking for a property that is on a list of protected national monuments and, as well as the main house, has a swimming pool, landscaped gardens and an ultramodern annex that once served as a theatre.


News of the Parisian sale plan came a day after French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault described Depardieu’s behavior as “pathetic” and unpatriotic at a time when the French are being asked to pay higher taxes to reduce a bloated national debt.


An angry member of parliament has proposed that France adopt a U.S.-inspired law that would force Depardieu or anyone trying to escape full tax dues to forego their nationality.


The 63-year-old “Cyrano de Bergerac” star recently bought a house in Nechin, a Belgian village a short walk from the border with France, where 27 percent of residents are French nationals, local mayor Daniel Senesael told French media on Sunday.


Depardieu also enquired about procedures for acquiring Belgian residency, he said.


The move comes three months after Bernard Arnault, chief executive of luxury giant LVMH and France’s richest man, caused an uproar by seeking to establish residency in Belgium – a move he said was not for tax reasons.


Belgian residents do not pay wealth tax, which in France is now levied on those with assets over 1.3 million euros ($ 1.7 million). Nor do they pay capital gains tax on share sales.


Socialist President Francois Hollande is pressing ahead too with plans to impose a 75-percent supertax on income over 1 million euros.


While Depardieu’s real estate agents did not comment on the price being sought for the Paris property, a local newspaper suggested it could be in the region of 50 million euros.


At average prices quoted on the Internet, a property of that size would command upwards of 20 million, without the additional status of a national monument, celebrity appeal or the artwork renovation commissioned by Depardieu when he bought it in 2003.


Depardieu’s agents declined to comment.


(Reporting by Brian Love and Gerard Bon; editing by Andrew Roche)


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Dr. William F. House, Inventor of Cochlear Implant, Dies





Dr. William F. House, a medical researcher who braved skepticism to invent the cochlear implant, an electronic device considered to be the first to restore a human sense, died on Dec. 7 at his home in Aurora, Ore. He was 89.




The cause was metastatic melanoma, his daughter, Karen House, said.


Dr. House pushed against conventional thinking throughout his career. Over the objections of some, he introduced the surgical microscope to ear surgery. Tackling a form of vertigo that doctors had believed was psychosomatic, he developed a surgical procedure that enabled the first American in space to travel to the moon. Peering at the bones of the inner ear, he found enrapturing beauty.


Even after his ear-implant device had largely been supplanted by more sophisticated, and more expensive, devices, Dr. House remained convinced of his own version’s utility and advocated that it be used to help the world’s poor.


Today, more than 200,000 people in the world have inner-ear implants, a third of them in the United States. A majority of young deaf children receive them, and most people with the implants learn to understand speech with no visual help.


Hearing aids amplify sound to help the hearing-impaired. But many deaf people cannot hear at all because sound cannot be transmitted to their brains, however much it is amplified. This is because the delicate hair cells that line the cochlea, the liquid-filled spiral cavity of the inner ear, are damaged. When healthy, these hairs — more than 15,000 altogether — translate mechanical vibrations produced by sound into electrical signals and deliver them to the auditory nerve.


Dr. House’s cochlear implant electronically translated sound into mechanical vibrations. His initial device, implanted in 1961, was eventually rejected by the body. But after refining its materials, he created a long-lasting version and implanted it in 1969.


More than a decade would pass before the Food and Drug Administration approved the cochlear implant, but when it did, in 1984, Mark Novitch, the agency’s deputy commissioner, said, “For the first time a device can, to a degree, replace an organ of the human senses.”


One of Dr. House’s early implant patients, from an experimental trial, wrote to him in 1981 saying, “I no longer live in a world of soundless movement and voiceless faces.”


But for 27 years, Dr. House had faced stern opposition while he was developing the device. Doctors and scientists said it would not work, or not work very well, calling it a cruel hoax on people desperate to hear. Some said he was motivated by the prospect of financial gain. Some criticized him for experimenting on human subjects. Some advocates for the deaf said the device deprived its users of the dignity of their deafness without fully integrating them into the hearing world.


Even when the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology endorsed implants in 1977, it specifically denounced Dr. House’s version. It recommended more complicated versions, which were then under development and later became the standard.


But his work is broadly viewed as having sped the development of implants and enlarged understanding of the inner ear. Jack Urban, an aerospace engineer, helped develop the surgical microscope as well as mechanical and electronic aspects of the House implant.


Karl White, founding director of the National Center for Hearing Assessment and Management, said in an interview that it would have taken a decade longer to invent the cochlear implant without Dr. House’s contributions. He called him “a giant in the field.”


After embracing the use of the microscope in ear surgery, Dr. House developed procedures — radical for their time — for removing tumors from the back portion of the brain without causing facial paralysis; they cut the death rate from the surgery to less than 1 percent from 40 percent.


He also developed the first surgical treatment for Meniere’s disease, which involves debilitating vertigo and had been viewed as a psychosomatic condition. His procedure cured the astronaut Alan B. Shepard Jr. of the disease, clearing him to command the Apollo 14 mission to the moon in 1971. In 1961, Shepard had become the first American launched into space.


In presenting Dr. House with an award in 1995, the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery Foundation said, “He has developed more new concepts in otology than almost any other single person in history.”


William Fouts House was born in Kansas City, Mo., on Dec. 1, 1923. When he was 3 his family moved to Whittier, Calif., where he grew up on a ranch. He did pre-dental studies at Whittier College and the University of Southern California, and earned a doctorate in dentistry at the University of California, Berkeley. After serving his required two years in the Navy — and filling the requisite 300 cavities a month — he went back to U.S.C. to pursue an interest in oral surgery. He earned his medical degree in 1953. After a residency at Los Angeles County Hospital, he joined the Los Angeles Foundation of Otology, a nonprofit research institution founded by his brother, Howard. Today it is called the House Research Institute.


Many at the time thought ear surgery was a declining field because of the effectiveness of antibiotics in dealing with ear maladies. But Dr. House saw antibiotics as enabling more sophisticated surgery by diminishing the threat of infection.


When his brother returned from West Germany with a surgical microscope, Dr. House saw its potential and adopted it for ear surgery; he is credited with introducing the device to the field. But again there was resistance. As Dr. House wrote in his memoir, “The Struggles of a Medical Innovator: Cochlear Implants and Other Ear Surgeries” (2011), some eye doctors initially criticized his use of a microscope in surgery as reckless and unnecessary for a surgeon with good eyesight.


Dr. House also used the microscope as a research tool. One night a week he would take one to a morgue for use in dissecting ears to gain insights that might lead to new surgical procedures. His initial reaction, he said, was how beautiful the bones seemed; he compared the experience to one’s first view of the Grand Canyon. His wife, the former June Stendhal, a nurse, often helped.


She died in 2008 after 64 years of marriage. In addition to his daughter, Dr. House is survived by a son, David; three grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.


The implant Dr. House invented used a single channel to deliver information to the hearing system, as opposed to the multiple channels of competing models. The 3M Company, the original licensee of the House implant, sold its rights to another company, the Cochlear Corporation, in 1989. Cochlear later abandoned his design in favor of the multichannel version.


But Dr. House continued to fight for his single-electrode approach, saying it was far cheaper, and offered voluminous material as evidence of its efficacy. He had hoped to resume production of it and make it available to the poor around the world.


Neither the institute nor Dr. House made any money on the implant. He never sought a patent on any of his inventions, he said, because he did not want to restrict other researchers. A nephew, Dr. John House, the current president of the House institute, said his uncle had made the deal to license it to the 3M Company not for profit but simply to get it built by a reputable manufacturer.


Reflecting on his business decisions in his memoir, Dr. House acknowledged, “I might be a little richer today.”


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Hillshire Brands starting up in new space

Hillshire Brands, formerly known as Sara Lee, is prepare to move their operation from a Downers Grove corporate campus to a downtown Chicago location. (Chris Walker, Chicago Tribune)









Hillshire Brands was literally on the move this past week.


The $4 billion meat company, carved from Sara Lee Corp. and anchored by Hillshire Farm, Jimmy Dean and Ball Park brands, moved from a gleaming, glassy corporate campus in Downers Grove — complete with a fountain in a man-made lake — into a refurbished industrial building in Chicago's noisy West Loop.


Aside from the logistical ballet in relocating about 600 employees and contractors, the move is expected to stimulate a new and innovative culture that Hillshire needs for growth.








Sara Lee began working on the move about a year ago when it signed a lease for the building at 400 S. Jefferson St. After spinning off its international beverage business, Sara Lee changed its name to Hillshire Brands in June and turned to a new management team. CEO Sean Connolly calls the move part of Hillshire's "rebirth."


On Wednesday evening, technical staff began disconnecting office computers, and employees were asked to work from home.


Moving trucks arrived in Downers Grove on Thursday and were to haul office contents in reusable plastic crates 23 miles to the new space by Friday evening. On Saturday, IT staff were to reconnect computers, copiers and printers with the expectation that on Monday, Hillshire employees can begin work. The company has declined to say how much it's spending on the move or building out the new space.


Moving a corporate headquarters is a complex undertaking.


"It's really about those hundreds of details you have to keep track of," explained Brian Hunter, a 12-year veteran of the company's real estate department whose team orchestrated the move. He came with plenty of experience. Seven years ago he consolidated three company offices and 1,100 employees at the Downers Grove campus. But this move is part of something bigger.


"This isn't a coming together under one roof," Hunter said. "It's completely different, a rebirth if you will. We've disposed of several businesses, spun off some things and emerged with a new name, new culture and new leadership. And that was a reason for selecting a location where Hillshire could take the entire building, rather than rent a few floors in a skyscraper.''


A major challenge was making the move work within four months, starting Aug. 1, when Hillshire got access to the interior of the building. That's when crews began constructing pantries, kitchens, cubicle pods, offices, conference rooms and private phone booths, a nod to employees who lost offices as part of a more open floor plan.


Built in 1944 to house a lithograph company, the building is probably known to thousands of baby boomers because it was used as an examining and entrance station for inductees into the armed forces during the Vietnam War.


The building largely was vacant when Sterling Bay Cos. purchased it late last year, then spent $24 million on renovations over roughly an eight-month period. Windows were added, walls and two internal water towers were taken down, and the roof was replaced.


The space's modern look — white walls and splashes of lime green and bright orange in the furniture and upholstery — is offset by lingering elements of the old building. For instance, holes from old conduit boxes still show, an effort to be "authentic," Hunter said.


Open communication


A lesson Hunter learned from the office consolidation seven years ago is that there's no such thing as too much communication. Earlier this year he launched a monthly newsletter called "the 411 on 400" a nod to the company's new address on South Jefferson Street. Recently it morphed into a weekly email, reminding employees how to pack and when, and what to expect. The tone was lighthearted. In keeping with his jovial spirit, Hunter dusted off his old hard hat from the last move. It has a Sara Lee logo on one side, so he slapped a Hillshire Brands sticker on the other.


Town hall meetings were held, at which employees were shown mock-ups of their future workspaces and photos of what was being built. Hunter's presentations included virtual tours. In addition, some team leaders took their people on building tours. Some made practice runs of their new commutes, as some employees' trips will lengthen significantly.


With the idea of getting employee buy-in, Hunter's team put four types of cubicles on display at the company's campus and asked for feedback. Employees voted for their favorites online, and the company purchased the cubicles with the most votes.


The communication efforts appear to have made a difference.


"I have never felt like I was in the dark," said Mike Schwartz, a 31-year-old assistant brand manager for Ball Park. He also credited Hunter's team with having "done a very good job being honest about the move."


Schwartz, who lives in Glenview, had a 35-minute driving commute to Downers Grove. The move to the West Loop will stretch his commute beyond an hour. That includes driving to the train, a Metra ride and walking to the office. But Schwartz said he's looking forward to the "excitement and energy" of a downtown work environment. He's also looking forward to catching up with grad school friends who live in the city, either at lunch or with beers after work.





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Barrington High School dance cancelled after rumors









Barrington High School District 220 has cancelled a dance scheduled for this evening following rumors about someone planning to bring a gun to the event, the district's superintendent said in an email to parents today.


Barrington High School had planned to hold a dance spoofing the supposed prediction of the Mayan Calendar that the world will end Dec. 21. But this morning, word spread among students that someone might bring a gun to the dance, according to an email from District Superintendent Tom Leonard.


School officials and police had not been able to confirm whether the rumor is credible, but in light of Friday's mass killing in Connecticut, officials decided to cancel the event, Leonard said in the email.





By about 4:30 p.m., there had been no arrests in connection with what had been circulating among students, and police were investigating whether any actual threat occurred or was credible, Barrington Police Chief Daniel Libit said in an email.


"Every threat, no matter how flippant, is regarded seriously – including severe consequences for those involved. This no joking matter," Leonard said.


"We won't risk student safety or the possibility a copycat assailant could try to inflict violence at one of our own schools," Leonard said in the email. "Some will say we are overreacting, but we have no reservations about being exceedingly cautious given the current atmosphere and our ongoing focus on protecting students."


Although threats in 2008 against the Barrington High School prom resulted in tightened security and not that dance's cancellation, Leonard said that the information about possible threats came several days before the prom, and authorities were better able to set tighter security and investigate the threats in advance of the prom.


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Chicano rock pioneers Los Lobos marking 40 years






LOS ANGELES (AP) — They are seen as the progenitors of Chicano rock ‘n’ roll, the first band that had the boldness, and some might even say the naiveté, to fuse punk rock with Mexican folk tunes.


It was a group called Los Lobos that had the unusual idea of putting an accordion, a saxophone and something called a bajo sexto alongside drums and Fender Stratocaster guitars and then blasting a ranchera-flavored folk tune or a Conjunto inspired melody through double reverb amps at about twice the volume you’d normally expect to hear.






“They were Latinos who weren’t afraid to break the mold of what’s expected and what’s traditionally played. That made them legendary, even to people who at first weren’t that familiar with their catalog,” said Greg Gonzalez of the young, Grammy-winning Latino-funk fusion band Grupo Fantasma.


To the guys in Los Lobos, however, the band that began to take shape some 40-odd years ago in the hallways of a barrio high school is still “just another band from East LA,” the words the group has used in the title of not one but two of its more than two dozen albums.


As a yearlong celebration of Los Lobos‘ 40th anniversary gets under way, having officially begun on Thanksgiving, much is likely to be made of how the band began as a humble mariachi group, toiling anonymously for nearly a decade at East LA weddings and backyard parties before the unlikely arrival of rock stardom.


That’s, well, sort of true.


For long before there was mariachi in Los Lobos‘ life, there was power-chord rock ‘n’ roll. Before the Latin trio Las Panchos had an impact, there was Jimi Hendrix.


“I actually went to go see him when I was 14 or 15,” says drummer-guitarist and principal lyricist Louie Perez, recalling how he had badgered his widowed mother to spend some of the hard-earned money she made sewing clothes in a sweatshop on a ticket to a Hendrix show.


“I sat right down front,” he recalls, his voice rising in excitement. “That experience just sort of rearranged my brain cells.”


About the same time, he had met a guitarist named David Hidalgo in an art class at James A. Garfield High, the school made famous in the 1988 film “Stand and Deliver” that profiled Jaime Escalante’s success in teaching college-level calculus to poor barrio kids. Soon the two had recruited fellow students Conrad Lozano and Cesar Rosas, both experienced musicians.


“Cesar had played in a power trio,” Perez recalls, while Lozano had been playing electric bass guitar for years.


It was sometime in November 1973 (no one remembers the exact day so they picked Thanksgiving) when the band is believed to have been born.


And the group might have stayed just another garage band from East LA, had it not been for a Mexican tradition called Las Mananitas.


“It’s a serenade to someone on their birthday,” Perez explains, and the group members’ mothers had birthdays coming up.


“So we learned about four or five Mexican songs and we went to our parents’ homes and did a little serenade,” Hidalgo recalled separately.


They were such a hit that they began scouring pawn shops for genuine Mexican instruments and really learning to play them.


Because they were at heart a rock ‘n’ roll band, however, they always played the music a little too loud and a little too fast. That was acceptable at the Mexican restaurants that employed them, until they decided to break out the Stratocaster guitars they had so coveted as kids.


“They said, ‘Well, that’s not what we hired you for,’” Perez says, chuckling.


So they headed west down the freeway to Hollywood, where initially the reaction wasn’t much better.


Saxophonist Steve Berlin recalls seeing the hybrid group showered with garbage one night when they opened for Public Image Ltd. Two years later, however, when they opened for Berlin’s group the Blasters, the reaction was different.


“It was quite literally an overnight success kind of thing,” the saxophonist recalls. “By the next morning, everybody I knew in Hollywood, all they were talking about was this band Los Lobos.”


A few nights later, they asked Berlin if he might jam with them. They were working up some tunes melding punk rock with Norteno, a Latin music genre that uses an accordion and a saxophone, and they needed a sax player.


For his part, Berlin says, he had never heard of Norteno music.


Something clicked, however, and soon he was producing the group’s first true rock album, 1984′s “How Will the Wolf Survive?” At the end of the sessions he was in the band.


The next 28 years would be pretty much the same kind of up-and-down ride as the first 12 were.


The group became international rock stars in 1987 with their version of the Mexican folk tune “La Bamba” for the soundtrack of the film of the same name. They melded 1950s teen idol Ritchie Valens’ rock interpretation with the original Son Jarocho style and sent the song to No. 1.


A two-year tour and a couple albums that nobody bought followed, leaving the group broke and disillusioned.


So they poured their anger and disillusionment into the lyrics and power chords of “Kiko,” the 1992 album now hailed as their masterpiece. A new version, recorded live, was released earlier this year.


The influence of Los Lobos‘ cross-cultural work can be heard to this day in the music of such varied young Latino groups as the hip-hop rockers Ozomatli, the Son Jarocho-influenced alt-music band Las Cafeteras and the Latino pop-rock group La Santa Cecilia, says Josh Kun, an expert on cross-border music.


“All of these bands inherited, wittingly or not, the experimental and style crossing instincts that Los Lobos proved were possible while hanging onto and developing your roots as a Mexican-American group,” said Kun, who curated the Grammy Museum’s recent “Trouble in Paradise” exhibition that chronicled the modern history of LA music.


For Los Lobos, winner of three Grammys, that was just the natural way of doing things for guys, Perez says, who learned early on that they didn’t fit in completely on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border.


“As Mexican-Americans in the U.S. we’re not completely accepted on this side of the border. And then on the other side of the border it’s like, ‘Well, what are you?’” he mused.


“So if that’s the case,” he added brightly, “then, hey, we belong everywhere.”


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School Yoga Class Draws Religious Protest From Christians


T. Lynne Pixley for The New York Times


Miriam Ruiz during a yoga class last week at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School in Encinitas, Calif. A few dozen parents are protesting that the program amounts to religious indoctrination. More Photos »







ENCINITAS, Calif. — By 9:30 a.m. at Paul Ecke Central Elementary School, tiny feet were shifting from downward dog pose to chair pose to warrior pose in surprisingly swift, accurate movements. A circle of 6- and 7-year-olds contorted their frames, making monkey noises and repeating confidence-boosting mantras.




Jackie Bergeron’s first-grade yoga class was in full swing.


“Inhale. Exhale. Peekaboo!” Ms. Bergeron said from the front of the class. “Now, warrior pose. I am strong! I am brave!”


Though the yoga class had a notably calming effect on the children, things were far from placid outside the gymnasium.


A small but vocal group of parents, spurred on by the head of a local conservative advocacy group, has likened these 30-minute yoga classes to religious indoctrination. They say the classes — part of a comprehensive program offered to all public school students in this affluent suburb north of San Diego — represent a violation of the First Amendment.


After the classes prompted discussion in local evangelical churches, parents said they were concerned that the exercises might nudge their children closer to ancient Hindu beliefs.


Mary Eady, the parent of a first grader, said the classes were rooted in the deeply religious practice of Ashtanga yoga, in which physical actions are inextricable from the spiritual beliefs underlying them.


“They’re not just teaching physical poses, they’re teaching children how to think and how to make decisions,” Ms. Eady said. “They’re teaching children how to meditate and how to look within for peace and for comfort. They’re using this as a tool for many things beyond just stretching.”


Ms. Eady and a few dozen other parents say a public school system should not be leading students down any particular religious path. Teaching children how to engage in spiritual exercises like meditation familiarizes young minds with certain religious viewpoints and practices, they say, and a public classroom is no place for that.


Underlying the controversy is the source of the program’s financing. The pilot project is supported by the Jois Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in memory of Krishna Pattabhi Jois, who is considered the father of Ashtanga yoga.


Dean Broyles, the president and chief counsel of the National Center for Law and Policy, a nonprofit law firm that champions religious freedom and traditional marriage, according to its Web site, has dug up quotes from Jois Foundation leaders, who talk about the inseparability of the physical act of yoga from a broader spiritual quest. Mr. Broyles argued that such quotes betrayed the group’s broader evangelistic purpose.


“There is a transparent promotion of Hindu religious beliefs and practices in the public schools through this Ashtanga yoga program,” he said.


“The analog would be if we substituted for this program a charismatic Christian praise and worship physical education program,” he said.


The battle over yoga in schools has been raging for years across the country but has typically focused on charter schools, which receive public financing but set their own curriculums.


The move by the Encinitas Union School District to mandate yoga classes for all students who do not opt out has elevated the discussion. And it has split an already divided community.


The district serves the liberal beach neighborhoods of Encinitas, including Leucadia, where Paul Ecke Central Elementary is, as well as more conservative inland communities. On the coast, bumper stickers reading “Keep Leucadia Funky” are borne proudly. Farther inland, cars are more likely to feature the Christian fish symbol, and large evangelical congregations play an important role in shaping local philosophy.


Opponents of the yoga classes have started an online petition to remove the course from the district’s curriculum. They have shown up at school board meetings to denounce the program, and Mr. Broyles has threatened to sue if the board does not address their concerns.


The district has stood firm. Tim Baird, the schools superintendent, has defended the yoga classes as merely another element of a broader program designed to promote children’s physical and mental well-being. The notion that yoga teachers have designs on converting tender young minds to Hinduism is incorrect, he said.


“That’s why we have an opt-out clause,” Mr. Baird said. “If your faith is such that you believe that simply by doing the gorilla pose, you’re invoking the Hindu gods, then by all means your child can be doing something else.”


Ms. Eady is not convinced.


“Yoga poses are representative of Hindu deities and Hindu stories about the actions and interactions of those deities with humans,” she said. “There’s content even in the movement, just as with baptism there’s content in the movement.”


Russell Case, a representative of the Jois Foundation, said the parents’ fears were misguided.


“They’re concerned that we’re putting our God before their God,” Mr. Case said. “They’re worried about competition. But we’re much closer to them than they think. We’re good Christians that just like to do yoga because it helps us to be better people.”


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Retailers hope shoppers pick up pace









Debbie Scarlati experienced a bit of anxiety when she realized that Christmas Day was just 11 days away.


"Truly, I was a whole week off," she said, holding three bags at Oakbrook Center on Friday. "I had a little bit of a panic attack, and now, I'm done."


The Downers Grove mom planned to cut her holiday spending this year but had trouble reining in herself.





"I really should be spending less," she said, "but I have this real fault that if I see it, and sometimes because you're under the gun and you have to get it, you just get it. You just buy it."


Scarlati's late start and weakness for shopping is what stores are counting on. Sales over Black Friday weekend soared to a record $59.1 billion, but they tapered off in the following weeks.


The number of shoppers and sales in stores during the first week of December lagged last year's, according to ShopperTrak. Consumers postponed their purchases and mild temperatures slowed sales of cold-weather gear.


Now, with 10 days to Christmas, businesses must get shoppers like Scarlati to spend.


On Friday, Wal-Mart took the rare step of slashing prices on some iPads and the latest iPhones. Kohl's has promised to pick up the tab for one shopper a day.


This weekend, Sears is rolling out another round of door-buster sales. And next weekend — just days before Christmas — Macy's will stay open for 48 hours straight and Toys R Us for 88 hours.


Experts expect prices to fall even further as Christmas approaches. Retailers, desperate to unload inventory, will offer steep percentage discounts. "This year, 40 percent is standard fare," said Wendy Liebmann, CEO of WSL Strategic Retail.


Discounts are likely to creep to 50 percent, she said, in part due to fierce competition with online merchants.


The sales not only appeal to frugal shoppers, but to people who probably shouldn't still be shopping at all. "Promotions at this late in the game are geared to get people to spend more than they intended," said Tom Compernolle, principal in Deloitte's retail practice.


Stores are also trying fancy promotions to gain shoppers' attention. Clothing store Banana Republic has touted airline tickets and Fiat car giveaways in an effort to grab market share.


Other big-name retailers such as Amazon, Target and Wal-Mart have engaged in price-matching wars. "No retailer wants to be outflanked, and when they see a competitor doing something, they want to match it," Compernolle said.


Retailers have plenty of people to win over. Nearly a fifth of consumers have yet to start holiday shopping, while another fifth plan to drop into stores again after taking a break, research firm NPD Group estimated.


With Christmas on a Tuesday, this year's shopping season has five weekends, not the typical four. There are two left.


"We might see the rush this weekend," said Suzanne Cook-Beres, Oakbrook Center's marketing manager.


This year, the mall is trying social media to reel in customers. People who take photos and post them on photo-sharing site Instagram are eligible to win a $20 gift card. "We looked at this to be a great opportunity to say … what will this do?" Cook-Beres said. To beat last week's lull, Oakbrook promised shoppers who spent $250 or more a $20 mall gift card that can be used at most stores.


At Northbrook Court, mall executives are focusing on entertainment, offering "pet night" on Monday evenings and a day at the "elf academy" for children, marketing manager Stacy Kolios said.


The question is whether shoppers will give in to special perks and lower prices.


Compernolle predicts they will, despite the looming "fiscal cliff," because "consumer confidence has climbed since September," he said.


But retail consultant Jeff Green isn't convinced.


Discounts will likely draw shoppers, but promotions, like Kohl's plan to pick up one shopper's tab every day until Christmas Eve, are a "little obscure for most people," Green said.


"If you're a power shopper you'll care, but the general public probably won't," he said.


Corilyn Shropshire is a Tribune reporter; Erin Chan Ding is a freelance writer. Tribune Newspapers' Shan Li contributed.


crshropshire@tribune.com


Twitter @corilyns





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Man kills 26 at Connecticut school, including 20 kids












A man opened fire Friday inside two classrooms at the Connecticut elementary school where his mother worked as a teacher, killing 26 people, including 20 children, as youngsters cowered in corners and closets and trembled helplessly to the sound of gunfire reverberating through the building.

The killer, armed with two handguns, committed suicide at the school and another person was found dead at a second scene, bringing the toll to 28, authorities said.









Police shed no light on the motive for the attack.

The rampage, coming less than two weeks before Christmas, was the nation's second-deadliest school shooting, exceeded only by the Virginia Tech massacre that left 33 people dead in 2007.

Panicked parents looking for their children raced to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, a community of about 27,000 residents 60 miles northeast of New York City. Youngsters at the kindergarten-through-fourth-grade school were told to close their eyes by police as they were led from the building.

Schoolchildren -- some crying, others looking frightened -- were escorted through a parking lot in a line, hands on each other's shoulders.

"Our hearts are broken today," a tearful President Barack Obama, struggling to maintain composure, said at the White House. He called for "meaningful action" to prevent such shootings.

Youngsters and their parents described teachers locking doors and ordering the children to huddle in the corner or hide in closets when shots echoed through the building. Authorities didn't say exactly how the shootings unfolded.

They also gave no details on the victim discovered at another scene, except to say that the person was an adult found dead by police while they were investigating the gunman.

A law enforcement official identified the gunman as 20-year-old Adam Lanza, the son of a teacher. A second law enforcement official said his mother, Nancy Lanza, was presumed dead.

Adam Lanza's older brother, 24-year-old Ryan, of Hoboken, N.J., was being questioned, the first official said. Earlier, a law enforcement official mistakenly identified Ryan as the shooter.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record about the unfolding investigation.

The gunman drove to the school in his mother's car, the second official said. Three guns were found -- a Glock and a Sig Sauer, both pistols, inside the school, and a .223-caliber rifle in the back of a car.

Lanza's girlfriend and another friend were missing in New Jersey, the official also said.

State police Lt. Paul Vance said 28 people in all were killed, including the gunman, and one person was injured.

Robert Licata said his 6-year-old son was in class when the gunman burst in and shot the teacher.

"That's when my son grabbed a bunch of his friends and ran out the door," he said. "He was very brave. He waited for his friends."

He said the shooter didn't utter a word.

Stephen Delgiadice said his 8-year-old daughter was in the school and heard two big bangs. Teachers told her to get in a corner, he said.

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