White House, Republicans dig in ahead of budget talks

Speaker of the House John Boehner tells Scott Pelley in a "CBS Evening News" interview that a budget deal is now out of his hands.

WASHINGTON—

Positions hardened on Wednesday between President Barack Obama and Republican congressional leaders over the budget crisis even as they arranged to hold last-ditch talks to prevent harsh automatic spending cuts beginning this week.

Looking resigned to the $85-billion in "sequestration" cuts starting on Friday, government agencies began reducing costs and spelling out to employees how furloughs will work.

Expectations were low that a White House meeting on Friday between Obama and congressional leaders, including Republican foes, would produce any deal to avoid the cuts.

Public services across the country - from air traffic control to food safety inspections and education - might be disrupted if the cuts go ahead.

Put into law in 2011 as part of an earlier fiscal crisis, sequestration is unloved by both parties because of the economic pain it will cause, but the politicians cannot agree how to stop it.

A deal in Congress on less drastic spending cuts, perhaps with tax increases too, is needed by Friday to halt the sequestration reductions which are split between social programs cherished by Democrats and defense spending championed by Republicans.

Obama stuck by his demand that Republicans accept tax increases in the form of eliminating tax loopholes enjoyed mostly by the wealthy as part of a balanced approach to avoiding sequestration.

"There is no alternative in the president's mind to balance," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters.

Obama wants to end tax breaks for oil and gas companies and the lower "carried interest" tax rate enjoyed by hedge funds.

But Republicans who reluctantly agreed to raise income tax rates on the rich to avert the "fiscal cliff" crisis in December are in no mood for that.

"One thing Americans simply will not accept is another tax increase to replace spending reductions we already agreed to," said Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

In one of the first concrete effects of the cuts, the administration took the unusual step of freeing several hundred detained illegal immigrants because of the cost of holding them.

Republicans described that move by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a political stunt aimed at scaring them into agreeing to end the sequestration on Obama's terms.

Carney denied the White House had ordered the release.

Friday's White House meeting will include McConnell and the other key congressional leaders: Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, and House Speaker John Boehner, the top U.S. Republican.

'BELATED FARCE'?

But the chances of success were not high.

One congressional Republican aide criticized the White House for calling the meeting for the day the cuts were coming into effect. "Either someone needs to buy the White House a calendar, or this is just a - belated - farce. They ought to at least pretend to try."

Unlike during other fiscal fights in Congress, the stock market is taking the sequestration impasse calmly.

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Global Health: After Measles Success, Rwanda to Get Rubella Vaccine

Rwanda has been so successful at fighting measles that next month it will be the first country to get donor support to move to the next stage — fighting rubella too.

On March 11, it will hold a nationwide three-day vaccination campaign with a combined measles-rubella vaccine, hoping to reach nearly five million children up to age 14. It will then integrate the dual vaccine into its national health service.

Rwanda can do so “because they’ve done such a good job on measles,” said Christine McNab, a spokeswoman for the Measles and Rubella Initiative. M.R.I. helped pay for previous vaccination campaigns in the country and the GAVI Alliance is helping to finance the upcoming one.

Rubella, also called German measles, causes a rash that is very similar to the measles rash, making it hard for health workers to tell the difference.

Rubella is generally mild, even in children, but in pregnant women, it can kill the fetus or cause serious birth defects, including blindness, deafness, mental retardation and chronic heart damage.

Ms. McNab said that Rwanda had proved that it can suppress measles and identify rubella, and it would benefit from the newer, more expensive vaccine.

The dual vaccine costs twice as much — 52 cents a dose at Unicef prices, compared with 24 cents for measles alone. (The MMR vaccine that American children get, which also contains a vaccine against mumps, costs Unicef $1.)

More than 90 percent of Rwandan children now are vaccinated twice against measles, and cases have been near zero since 2007.

The tiny country, which was convulsed by Hutu-Tutsi genocide in 1994, is now leading the way in Africa in delivering medical care to its citizens, Ms. McNab said. Three years ago, it was the first African country to introduce shots against human papilloma virus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer.

In wealthy countries, measles kills a small number of children — usually those whose parents decline vaccination. But in poor countries, measles is a major killer of malnourished infants. Around the world, the initiative estimates, about 158,000 children die of it each year, or about 430 a day.

Every year, an estimated 112,000 children, mostly in Africa, South Asia and the Pacific islands, are born with handicaps caused by their mothers’ rubella infection.

Thanks in part to the initiative — which until last year was known just as the Measles Initiative — measles deaths among children have declined 71 percent since 2000. The initiative is a partnership of many health agencies, vaccine companies, donors and others, but is led by the American Red Cross, the United Nations Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Unicef and the World Health Organization.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 27, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated the source of the vaccine and some financing for the campaign. The vaccine and financing is being provided by the GAVI Alliance, not the Measles and Rubella Initiative.

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Author tells businesses to be like Mike

CAPTIONS

MJ in 1982
Michael Jordan in his college days with teammates Matt Doherty (44) and Sam Perkins and coach Dean Smith. (AP photo by Robert Willett /October 14, 1982)

By Samantha Bomkamp




Tribune reporter

10:11 a.m. CST, February 27, 2013

An author of a new book has some sage advice for business leaders: Be more like Michael Jordan.

Bruce Piasecki, who penned "Doing More with Teams: The New Way to Winning," says Michael Jordan's long and storied career "is a shining example of how the best teams operate."

Jordan shouldn't be emulated just because of the Bulls star's individual success, the author says, but by the way he showed leadership and helped create a seemingly unstoppable team, meshing with different personalities such as the quiet Scottie Pippen and outrageous Dennis Rodman to create a basketball dynasty.

Those team dynamics are similar in the business world, the author says. And businesses are most successful when they are led by the right leaders and are composed of a mix of people with varying talents, he argues.

Jordan also is held up as an example in other tenets of good business teamwork the author describes.

-- Ego and individual goals have no place on teams.

"When we pin all our hopes on a single individual and ignore the context in which he or she operates, we will be disappointed," he says.

--  Failure is part of winning.

"Leaders must instill in teams a tolerance of losing," he said. "We must convey that failure is a part of life and thus a part of business."

Jordan, who helped the Chicago Bulls win six NBA championships, famously said "I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed."

The book is set to be released next month but is available for pre-order on Amazon.com.

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Midwest winter storm: Snow, sleet making travel hazardous

Chicago's midday full weather forecast. (WGN - Chicago)

A winter weather advisory is in effect until tonight as sleet, freezing rain and snow hit the Chicago area, making travel hazardous and grounding hundreds of flights.

The National Weather Service expects the heaviest snow to fall this afternoon. Winds gusting at 35 to 40 mph will reduce visibility and glaze roads, the weather service warned in the advisory.

"Snowfall rates in excess of an inch per hour could occur at times," it said, predicting 3 to 6 inches by Wednesday morning. "This will likely be a heavy wet snow sometimes referred to as heart attack snow."

Mike Bardou, a weather service meteorologist, said "the early part of the rush hour will be most affected."

The advisory expires at 9 p.m. in Cook, Will and DuPage counties, and at midnight in DeKalb, Kane, Lake, McHenry and several other counties in north central Illinois.

As of about 4:30 p.m., the weather service had reported these snowfall accumulations: 5.5 inches in northwest suburban Bull Valley, 5 inches in north suburban Lake Bluff, 4.9 inches in northwest suburban Elk Grove Village, 4 inches in northwest suburban South Elgin and Schaumburg, 3.3 inches in west suburban Winfield, 1.8 inches in north suburban Morton Grove, and 1.5 inches at Midway International Airport and southwest suburban Romeoville.

About 600 flights have been canceled at O'Hare International Airport and about 170 at Midway, according to FlightStats, which gathers data from airports and airlines. There were about 734 flights delayed at O'Hare and 118 at Midway.

On the roads, spinouts have been reported on interstates 90, 94 and 55, according to the Illinois State Police.

The Illinois State Police Chicago District has instituted its emergency snow plan. In an accident where there are no injuries and the cars are driveable, the drivers should exchange information at a safe place and file accident reports with the state police within 10 days.

Chicago's Streets and Sanitation Department has deployed its entire fleet of 284 plows. Drivers will plow the main roads, such as Lake Shore Drive, through the evening rush hour. As the snow begins to taper off, the plows will clear residential roads, said department spokeswoman Anne Sheahan.

Extra plows are being deployed to the 2^nd congressional district to help residents get to their polling places for today's primary election, Sheahan said.

Road conditions were treacherous throughout the southwest suburbs, especially along Interstates 55 and 80 in Will County, police and fire officials said.

Several vehicles have slipped into ditches along I-55 near Plainfield, especially near U.S. Route 30, said Jon Stratton, a deputy chief with the Plainfield Fire Protection District.  "On I-55, there are vehicles everywhere in the ditch," Stratton said. "Visibility is going down and roads are getting all snow covered, so it's going to be an interesting day."

The most serious accident in the area so far today occurred when an SUV slid under a semi's trailer on the Route 30 overpass over I-55, Stratton said.

Firefighters extricated the woman who was driving the SUV, and she was taken by ambulance to Provena Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Stratton said. The woman was conscious and stable when removed from the SUV, he said.

A school bus carrying about 35 elementary students collided with a plow truck in Plainfield around 4 p.m., but no injuries were reported, officials said.

In fact, the students from Plainfield's Central Elementary School seemed to be more excited by the firefighters and police officers who responded than startled by the crash, said Stratton.

"They were all happy to see us, waving out the windows," he said.

The crash occurred near the intersection of Mill Street and Plainfield Naperville Road, Stratton said. The bus suffered minor damage to its front-end but appeared to be drivable, Stratton said. The plow truck, a pickup, was operated by a private company or contractor, he said.

A school official came to the scene after the collision to help check on the students, Stratton said.

Stratton also said road conditions have gradually improved in the Plainfield area as the afternoon has gone on. Most primary roads are in good shape, he said, but many secondary roads are still snow-covered.

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Cellar victim Kampusch raped, starved in film of ordeal

VIENNA (Reuters) – A new film based on the story of Austrian kidnap victim Natascha Kampusch shows her being repeatedly raped by the captor who beat and starved her during the eight-and-a-half years that he kept her in a cellar beneath his house.

Kampusch was snatched on her way to school at the age of 10 by Wolfgang Priklopil and held in a windowless cell under his garage near Vienna until she escaped in 2006, causing a sensation in Austria and abroad. Priklopil committed suicide.

Kampusch had always refused to respond to claims that she had had sex with Priklopil, but in a German television interview on her 25th birthday last week said she had decided to reveal the truth because it had leaked out from police files.

The film, “3,096 Days” – based on Kampusch’s autobiography of the same name – soberly portrays her captivity in a windowless cellar less than 6 square metres (65 square feet) in area, often deprived of food for days at a time.

The emaciated Kampusch – who weighed just 38 kg (84 pounds) at one point in 2004 – keeps a diary written on toilet paper concealed in a box.

One entry reads: “At least 60 blows in the face. Ten to 15 nausea-inducing fist blows to the head. One strike with the fist with full weight to my right ear.”

The movie shows occasional moments that approach tenderness, such as when Priklopil presents her with a cake for her 18th birthday or buys her a dress as a gift – but then immediately goes on to chide her for not knowing how to waltz with him.

GREY AREAS

Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who plays the teenaged Kampusch, said she had tried to portray “the strength of someone’s soul, the ability of people to survive… but also the grey areas within a relationship that people don’t necessarily understand.”

The British actress said she had not met Kampusch during the making of the film or since. “It was a very isolated time, it was a bubble of time, and I wanted to keep that very focused,” she told journalists as she arrived for the Vienna premiere.

Kampusch herself attended the premiere, looking composed as she posed for pictures but declining to give interviews.

In an interview with Germany’s Bild Zeitung last week, she said: “Yes, I did recognize myself, although the reality was even worse. But one can’t really show that in the cinema, since it wasn’t supposed to be a horror film.”

The movie, made at the Constantin Film studios in Bavaria, Germany, also stars Amy Pidgeon as the 10-year-old Kampusch and Danish actor Thure Lindhardt as Priklopil.

“I focused mainly on playing the human being because… we have to remember it was a human being. Monsters do not exist, they’re only in cartoons,” Lindhart said.

“It became clear to me that it’s a story about survival, and it’s a story about surviving eight years of hell. If that story can be told then I can also play the bad guy.”

The director was German-American Sherry Hormann, who made her English-language debut with the 2009 move “Desert Flower”, an adaptation of the autobiography of Somali-born model and anti-female circumcision activist Waris Dirie.

“I’m a mother and I wonder at the strength of this child, and it was important for me to tell this story from a different perspective, to tell how this child using her own strength could survive this atrocious martyrdom,” Hormann said.

The Kampusch case was followed two years later by that of Josef Fritzl, an Austrian who held his daughter captive in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.

The crimes prompted soul-searching about the Austrian psyche, and questions as to how the authorities and neighbors could have let such crimes go undetected for so long.

The film goes on general release on Thursday.

(Reporting by Georgina Prodhan, Editing by Paul Casciato)

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Advanced Breast Cancer May Be Rising Among Young Women, Study Finds

The incidence of advanced breast cancer among younger women, ages 25 to 39, may have increased slightly over the last three decades, according to a study released Tuesday.

But more research is needed to verify the finding, which was based on an analysis of statistics, the study’s authors said. They do not know what may have caused the apparent increase.

Some outside experts questioned whether the increase was real, and expressed concerns that the report would frighten women needlessly.

The study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that advanced cases climbed to 2.9 per 100,000 younger women in 2009, from 1.53 per 100,000 women in 1976 — an increase of 1.37 cases per 100,000 women in 34 years. The totals were about 250 such cases per year in the mid-1970s, and more than 800 per year in 2009.

Though small, the increase was statistically significant, and the researchers said it was worrisome because it involved cancer that had already spread to organs like the liver or lungs by the time it was diagnosed, which greatly diminishes the odds of survival.

For now, the only advice the researchers can offer to young women is to see a doctor quickly if they notice lumps, pain or other changes in the breast, and not to assume that they cannot have breast cancer because they are young and healthy, or have no family history of the disease.

“Breast cancer can and does occur in younger women,” said Dr. Rebecca H. Johnson, the first author of the study and medical director of the adolescent and young adult oncology program at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

But Dr. Johnson noted that there is no evidence that screening helps younger women who have an average risk for the disease and no symptoms. “We’re certainly not advocating that young women get mammography at an earlier age than is generally specified,” she said.

Expert groups differ about when screening should begin; some say at age 40, others 50.

Breast cancer is not common in younger women; only 1.8 percent of all cases are diagnosed in women from 20 to 34, and 10 percent in women from 35 to 44. However, when it does occur, the disease tends to be more deadly in younger women than in older ones. Researchers are not sure why.

The researchers analyzed data from SEER, a program run by the National Cancer Institute to collect cancer statistics on 28 percent of the population of the United States. The study also used data from the past when SEER was smaller.

The study is based on information from 936,497 women who had breast cancer from 1976 to 2009. Of those, 53,502 were 25 to 39 years old, including 3,438 who had advanced breast cancer, also called metastatic or distant disease.

Younger women were the only ones in whom metastatic disease seemed to have increased, the researchers found.

Dr. Archie Bleyer, a clinical research professor in radiation medicine at the Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland who helped write the study, said scientists needed to verify the increase in advanced breast cancer in young women in the United States and find out whether it is occurring in other developed Western countries. “This is the first report of this kind,” he said, adding that researchers had already asked colleagues in Canada to analyze data there.

“We need this to be sure ourselves about this potentially concerning, almost alarming trend,” Dr. Bleyer said. “Then and only then are we really worried about what is the cause, because we’ve got to be sure it’s real.”

Dr. Johnson said her own experience led her to look into the statistics on the disease in young women. She had breast cancer when she was 27; she is now 44. Over the years, friends and colleagues often referred young women with the disease to her for advice.

“It just struck me how many of those people there were,” she said.

Dr. Donald A. Berry, an expert on breast-cancer data and a professor of biostatistics at the University of Texas’ M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said he was dubious about the finding, even though it was statistically significant, because the size of the apparent increase was so small — 1.37 cases per 100,000 women, over the course of 30 years.

More screening and more precise tests to identify the stage of cancer at the time of diagnosis might account for the increase, he said.

“Not many women aged 25 to 39 get screened, but some do, but it only takes a few to account for a notable increase from one in 100,000,” Dr. Berry said.

Dr. Silvia C. Formenti, a breast cancer expert and the chairwoman of radiation oncology at New York University Langone Medical Center, questioned the study in part because although it found an increased incidence of advanced disease, it did not find the accompanying increase in deaths that would be expected.

A spokeswoman for an advocacy group for young women with breast cancer, Young Survival Coalition, said the organization also wondered whether improved diagnostic and staging tests might explain all or part of the increase.

“We’re looking at this data with caution,” said the spokeswoman, Michelle Esser. “We don’t want to invite panic or alarm.”

She said it was important to note that the findings applied only to women who had metastatic disease at the time of diagnosis, and did not imply that women who already had early-stage cancer faced an increased risk of advanced disease.

Dr. J. Leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said he and an epidemiologist for the society thought the increase was real.

“We want to make sure this is not oversold or that people suddenly get very frightened that we have a huge problem,” Dr. Lichtenfeld said. “We don’t. But we are concerned that over time, we might have a more serious problem than we have today.”

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JPMorgan to eliminate 4,000 jobs in 2013

JPMorgan Chase & Co. plans to cut 3,000 to 4,000 jobs in its consumer bank in 2013, representing about 1.5 percent of the company's overall workforce, as the bank tries to improve the profitability of its branches.

The cuts will come mainly through attrition, spokeswoman Kristin Lemkau said. The bank's branches have 63,500 employees, representing about a quarter of JPMorgan Chase's total employees.

JPMorgan is one of the few big U.S. banks that is still adding branches to its network, but to boost profit it plans to scale back the tellers it has on hand for routine transactions and to add some salespeople for products and services like wealth management that can boost revenue.

The net effect will be to reduce staff per branch by 20 percent through 2015, the company's head of consumer banking, Ryan McInerney, said in a presentation to investors.

In JPMorgan Chase's mortgage business, the company reiterated its previously announced plans to shed 13,000 to 15,000 jobs by 2014.

JPMorgan Chase had 5,614 branches at the end of 2012, and plans to increase its network by about 100 branches a year, it said. Chase's U.S. branch network is second to Wells Fargo & Co's in size.

The bank is hoping to focus on selling more to wealthy depositors. Its average consumer checking account has a balance of $4,276, and about half of all affluent U.S. households are within two miles a Chase branch or automated teller machine, the bank said.

JPMorgan Chase overall earned $21.9 billion last year, excluding accounting charges linked to changes in the value of its debt. The bank said it has the potential to earn about $27.5 billion, thanks in part to efficiency gains. It aims to cut overall expenses by $1 billion in 2013.

For overall staffing levels, JPMorgan Chase had 258,965 employees globally at the end of 2012. Its headcount rose following the financial crisis, to 262,882 in the second quarter of 2012 from 219,569 in the first quarter of 2009. Since last year's second quarter, staffing levels have drifted lower.

JPMorgan Chase shares were down 1.3 percent at $47.08 on Tuesday morning on the New York Stock Exchange.
 

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Woman freed after conviction in son's death tossed

Nicole Harris, who has been locked up since the 2005 death of her son, walked out of an Illinois prison today after an appeals court threw out her murder conviction.

Harris emerged from Dwight Correctional Center in front of a gathering of news crews after being reunited with her other son.

"I'm just overwhelmed and I'm thankful that's it's going to be over and I just want to be home with my son," Harris told the assembled media.

"I'm just ready to get on with my life and hold my son."

The Chicago woman was 23 when a jury found her guilty of killing her 4-year-old son Jaquari in their Northwest Side apartment following her confession to authorities. But Harris has long maintained that her confession was false and the result of threats and manipulation by police.

She said today that she was able to make it through the past seven years knowing that "I'm innocent and the truth will come out."

"It was like at some point I just knew this isn't it, that this was not my final destination."

In a 90-page ruling last October that vacated her conviction, the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said there were "many reasons" to question her confession.

The appeal judges also ruled that Diante, then 5, should have been allowed to testify.

Now 14, Diante was the first person to meet Harris when she was released into an outer room of the prison at about 11:30 a.m. today.  Diante walked in bearing a balloon that read, "It's your Day" and a teddy bear. Harris threw her arms around him, wept softly and kissed him.

When asked later what it was like to see her son at that time, she said, "There are no words."

At exactly noon, a prison official told Harris she was "free to go." She clutched hands with a close friend and walked out of the prison. She had been told to get her things together around 8:30 a.m. this morning, she told the media, and said that, at that time, "I was beyond anxious."

Jaquari had been found dead with an elastic bedsheet cord wrapped around his neck. Diante had told authorities that he was alone with Jaquari when he saw him wrap the cord around his neck while playing.

Prosecutors, who argued that Diante also said he was asleep when Jaquari died, accused Harris of strangling Jaquari with the cord because she was angry he would not stop crying.

Harris' release, which the state argued against, is not the end of legal battle. The state has appealed the October ruling, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. In addition, Cook County prosecutors could still move to retry her. A representative from the state's attorney's office said no decision on a retrial has been made.

For now, Harris said, "I just want to enjoy life."

"I'm just glad to be free. I'm just glad to be free."

deldeib@tribune.com

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Satire site The Onion apologizes for offensive Oscar tweet

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Onion, a source for online and printed satire that routinely skewers celebrities, apologized on Monday for a what it called a crude and offensive tweet directed at nine-year-old Oscar nominee Quvenzhané Wallis.

The Internet was abuzz with commentary after The Onion on Sunday night referred to the young Best Actress nominee using a four-letter term seen as perhaps the most offensive word in American English.

Steve Hannah, The Onion’s chief executive, found the tweet devoid of humor.

“On behalf of The Onion, I offer my personal apology to Quvenzhané Wallis and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the tweet that was circulated last night during the Oscars,” Hannah said in a statement. “It was crude and offensive – not to mention inconsistent with The Onion’s commitment to parody and satire, however biting.”

“No person should be subjected to such a senseless, humorless comment masquerading as satire,” he said.

The Onion removed the tweet within an hour of its publication, instituted stricter new procedures for Twitter and took steps to discipline the people responsible, Hannah added.

“Miss Wallis, you are young and talented and deserve better. All of us at The Onion are deeply sorry,” Hannah wrote to the star of “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” who became the youngest ever Best Actress nominee and gleefully reveled in the honors bestowed upon her in the film awards season.

(Reporting by Daniel Trotta, editing by G Crosse)

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Books: Gauging Faces and Bodies in the Botox Age

You never know what a little vanity will do for a person’s health. Some people bloom in their quest for physical improvement, others wither, and a few are completely destroyed. Despite centuries’ worth of efforts to penetrate the complicated thickets where health and beauty intertwine, there is always more to explore, as two new books make clear.

Dr. Eric Finzi, a dermatologist in the Washington area, has produced what may be the first authorized biography of botulinum toxin, the fearsome poison that, bottled into mild-mannered Botox, enhances foreheads everywhere. This little molecule does its good work by paralyzing muscles: In the forehead it inactivates the frown-producing corrugators, while used elsewhere on the head and body it can alleviate migraine headaches, stop problem sweating and ease the spasticity associated with a range of neurological diseases.

But even those who know all about the drug’s physical effects will be intrigued by Dr. Finzi’s narrative, because it turns out that cosmetic Botox may not be all about vanity after all. Research studies, including some by Dr. Finzi, have found that the substance appears to alleviate depression more safely and perhaps more effectively than the usual treatments.

That result at first seems trivial and obvious: If you stop frowning at people, they’ll like you more  and treat you better, and you won’t feel so blue. But the process turns out to be considerably more sophisticated and complicated, because it appears to apply even to people without visible frown lines.

Dr. Finzi calls it “noncosmetic cosmetic surgery” and traces the postulated mechanism to some of the lesser-known work of William James and Charles Darwin. Both thinkers argued that facial expressions are not just the outward manifestations of emotion, but vital links in the unconscious neurological processes that create emotion. In other words, if you cannot smile, you will never be as happy as if you could, and if you cannot frown, you will be unable to experience the full intensity of the negative emotions manifested by frowning, depression included.

This “facial feedback hypothesis” has found some modern confirmation in a study showing that injections of Botox into the forehead seem to inhibit activation of the amygdala, the brain structure thought to regulate all gut-wrenching emotion.

Dr. Finzi expands his narrative with a discussion of the subtleties of common facial expressions, including homage to interested parties like Norman Cousins and his idea that laughter could cure disease.

But the book’s major focus is the frown: Dr. Finzi offers anecdotes suggesting that taming overactive corrugators may save marriages and boost careers, and then, spinning some of the still largely debatable theories linking depression and anger with chronic disease, he postulates that Botox treatments may someday prove to help forestall heart disease and cancer.

That’s quite a set of achievements for one bad little molecule, gram for gram the most potent toxin we know. Dr. Finzi is no stylist, but the momentum of his argument keeps the reader with him for the duration (and undoubtedly quite a few overactive corrugators will be soothed into submission as a result).

The complexities of the face almost pale in comparison with those of the torso, as Abigail C. Saguy makes clear in “What’s Wrong With Fat?” “Once you put down this book you will never hear the word ‘obesity’ the same way again,” she promises, and she is absolutely correct.

Dr. Saguy, a sociologist at U.C.L.A., methodically teases out all the overtones of the loaded words we use to describe big bodies. These bodies are, after all, neither good nor bad, just big.

But “fat” often implies the coexistence of sloth, gluttony and self-indulgence. “Obesity” equals disease to medical professionals, while in the world of public health it is a raging epidemic with substantial global mortality. Those immersed in the conventional ideals of beauty see being overweight as an aesthetic disaster, but others find it sexually irresistible, and to activists “fat” has become a rallying cry, with weight-based discrimination a violation of social justice as deplorable as that stemming from race or gender.

In fact, the concept of bigness has become so laden with overtones good and bad — guilt, blame, fear, anger and desire, among others — that finding a value-free way to describe men and women who are larger than average has become almost impossible. “Heavy,” “plus-size,” “corpulent” and “fleshy” all carry weighty implications in one sphere or another.

Dr. Saguy analyzes it all, and asks why. She winds up paying particular attention to the debate in the medical world over the actual health consequences of being fat: Studies keep confounding the reigning supposition that thin is best with evidence that modestly overweight may be even better. Meanwhile, those who are larger than average are routinely blamed for their size, a phenomenon augmented by deplorably simplistic media coverage (unlike anorexia, interestingly enough, which is remarkably free of the same connotations of personal fault).

Much of Dr. Saguy’s text is academic and requires some determination to penetrate, but she also provides immensely readable nuggets, notably a brief discussion of her experiences attending an annual convention of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, where, seven months pregnant, she underwent a funhouse-mirror body-image transformation worthy of Alice in Wonderland. Like Dr. Finzi’s narrative deficiencies, hers fade into unimportance in the face of fascinating and illuminating material.

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