Bucks Blog: The Over-The-Wall Portfolio for Excess Cash

Carl Richards is a financial planner in Park City, Utah, and is the director of investor education at the BAM Alliance. His book, “The Behavior Gap,” was published this year. His sketches are archived on the Bucks blog.

If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ll spend years pouring everything — time, money, passion — into your businesses with the hope that someday it will pay off. If things go well, you’ll wake up one morning and find yourself with excess time, energy and, of course, cash.

Great! But now you have to figure out what do with that cash, and this is when things can get dangerous, fast.

Most entrepreneurs get twitchy at the thought of idle money. They’re used to taking big chances and are comfortable with risk. So, there’s a temptation to assume the same approach to controlled risk when investing outside their business.

One of the smartest guys I know runs an incredibly successful company but provided a textbook example of this approach. As the business matured and started throwing off excess cash, he began thinking about what to do with it. He invested in some pretty strange ventures. He backed a doctor with a new toothbrush design, a car wash and a company that made kayak paddles.

He knew nothing about any of these businesses. Not surprisingly, he lost that money.

Instead of sticking to what he knew to make money and protecting the profits, he made the classic mistake of thinking he could do more. He took risks with money that he promised himself he would never lose.

It’s like what Warren E. Buffett said about the super-smart and incredibly wealthy founders of Long-Term Capital Management, who ended up doing something really dumb: “To make money they didn’t need, they risked what they did have and did need, and that’s foolish.”

Don’t be foolish. If you’re fortunate to have enough money to last for a good long while, the game can, and should, change. Of course you can still focus on growing your business. Or, if you’re a serial entrepreneur, you can build the next one. But at the same time, you can start building a portfolio to protect your future.

One thing I have heard over and over when interviewing successful entrepreneurs is the idea of what I call the Over-the-Wall Portfolio. Of course, the entrepreneurs didn’t call it that. They often referred to it as the safe money or the money they promised their spouse they’d never lose.

Whatever you call it, the concept is pretty simple: You take the excess cash your business generates, or the lump sum from the sale of a business, and throw it over the wall into stable (and probably boring) investments.

Then you forget about it.

The allocation of an Over-the-Wall Portfolio will vary, but here are a few general guidelines to consider:

• Boring. Remember: excitement comes from being an entrepreneur (or the movies), not your over-the-wall money.
• Liquid. If something goes wrong, you want to be able to get to the money.
• Diversified. You can get rich by putting all your eggs in one basket, but you stay wealthy by being diversified.
• Passive. The Over-the-Wall Portfolio can’t depend on you for day-to-day management. You’re too busy with your business and having a life. The last thing you should be doing at night is logging into your day-trading account.

The best part of this strategy? It lets you get back to doing what you do best — running your business. But you get the added comfort of knowing that if your business fails, you’ll be O.K.

Eventually, my entrepreneur friend recognized his problem. One day, he told me, “Carl, I finally figured it out. My job is to stay focused on my business and make money. And with the money I make, I have to be sure I never lose any of it.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Read More..

Speculation over autism, but shooter's 'why' has no easy answer

Among the details to emerge in the aftermath of the Connecticut elementary school massacre was the possibility that the gunman had some form of autism.

Adam Lanza, 20, had a personality disorder or autism, his brother reportedly told police. Former classmates described him as socially awkward, friendless and painfully shy.

While those are all traits of autism, a propensity for premeditated violence is not. Several experts said that at most, autism would have played a tangential role in the mass shooting -- if Lanza had it at all.

FULL COVERAGE: Connecticut school shooting

“Many significant psychiatric disorders involve social isolation,” said Catherine Lord, director of the Center for Autism and the Developing Brain at New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

Autism, she said, has become a catch-all term to describe anybody who is awkward.

Some type of schizophrenia, delusional disorder or psychotic break would more clearly fit the crime, experts said.

The hallmark characteristics of autism are social inability, communication problems and repetitive behaviors or obsessive interests. It emerges in early childhood and exists on a vast spectrum, from those who bang their head against the wall to those who can recite train schedules from memory.

PHOTOS: Connecticut school shooting

The rate of autism has skyrocketed over the last two decades, largely because of an expanded definition of the disorder and increasing awareness. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 88 children have it.

Researchers have struggled to draw clear lines between the various forms. As a result, the American Psychiatric Assn. is folding all of its varieties into a single diagnosis next year: autism spectrum disorder.

It will include people with Asperger’s syndrome -- the higher-functioning type that Lanza was most likely to have had.

There is more aggression associated with autism than with other disabilities. But it usually amounts to a tantrum and does not involve planning, weapons or an intention to harm anybody.

People with autism are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators. Those who are bright -- as Lanza was by several accounts -- often face bullying.

Some wind up in trouble with the law because they are unaware of social convention, and quirkiness or attempts at being friendly get misinterpreted.

Dr. John Constantino, an autism specialist at Washington University in St. Louis, said the social detachment and withdrawal associated with the disorder can accentuate other psychiatric conditions that are connected to violence.

And the feelings of isolation often intensify after high school, with the loss of a structured environment that allows many people with autism to stay afloat.

“They sort of fall off this cliff when they don’t have a village,” Constantino said.

Lanza finished high school early and was living with his mother. Police said he was disturbed by the divorce of his parents in 2009.

None of that, of course, explains why his killed his mother, 20 elementary school students, six women at the school and then himself.

“The only way somebody could do something like this is if they totally lost touch with reality,” said Dr. Daniel Geschwind, an autism expert at UCLA. “Autistic people are not sociopaths.”

ALSO:

Suspect in massacre tried to buy rifle days before, sources say

In Newtown, death's chill haunts the morning after school shooting

Connecticut shooting: Gunman forced his way into school, police say

alan.zarembo@latimes.com

Read More..

8 Christmas Light Shows That Will Rock Your Stockings Off

1. A Christmas Rock Medley

This mind-blowing video comes from South Dakota. Its creator uses the show’s publicity to help raise money for the Make-a-Wish Foundation.

Click here to view this gallery.

[More from Mashable: 63 Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed]

The winter celebration of the evergreen tree is not a modern tradition — it extends back to pre-Christian times and to cultures all over the world.

Maybe your holiday tradition involves stringing thousands of lights across your property for a majestic arrangement. Or perhaps your family just tours the neighborhood to see everyone else’s exhibits. Either way, YouTube is here to provide some sensational seasonal light shows for your viewing and listening pleasure, from festive homes all across the country.

[More from Mashable: 10 Adorable Dog Outfits for the Holidays]

Enjoy these creative displays, and maybe draw a little inspiration for next year’s decorations. If you’re worried about complexity, learn to do it yourself.

Have you seen an unforgettable holiday display we forgot to include? In the spirit of giving, let us know about it in the comments section below.

This story originally published on Mashable here.

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

Sundance film “End of Love” finds distributor

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Gravitas Ventures and Variance Films have acquired all North American rights to writer-director Mark Webber‘s drama “The End of Love,” the companies announced on Thursday.

The father-son drama, which debuted at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, stars Webber alongside Shannyn Sossamon (pictured), and Webber’s real-life son Isaac Love, and features appearances by Michael Cera, Jason Ritter, and Amanda Seyfried.

The film tells the story of struggling actor Mark (Webber), who is forced to grapple with his inability to grow up when the mother of his two-year-old son Isaac suddenly dies. As he kindles a relationship with a young single mother, Mark begins to realize that he can no longer remain in denial about the real-life consequences his choices have on Isaac.

Gravitas Ventures will debut the film across all major video on demand (VOD) platforms on January 21, 2013 with a theatrical release from Variance Films beginning March 1 2013 in select markets.

“Propelled by the authenticity and intimacy of the performances, our acquisition team was unanimous that ‘The End of Love’ was one of the strongest films not only of Sundance, but of all of the films we saw last year,” said Nolan Gallagher, founder and CEO of Gravitas Ventures.

“I’m thrilled that ‘The End of Love’ has found a home with Gravitas and Variance,” said Webber. “In the rapidly changing landscape of how films are seen, these two companies are at the forefront of embracing that change.”

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

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.”

Read More..

Apple takes investors on a wild ride

SAN FRANCISCO — With only modest expectations, Robert Leitao of Santa Clarita made a decision in 1994 that would change his life. He bought Apple stock.

This was several years before Steve Jobs returned to resurrect Apple, long before the iPod, the iPhone or the iPads that would make Apple the most valuable company in the world. A $1 investment in Apple at the start of 1994 is now worth about $70.

"Even with the recent sell-off, I'm still doing very well with the stock," said Leitao, who works as director of operations at a Catholic church in Burbank. "Apple provided for a down payment on our home for our blended family of four kids."

Leitao is one of the countless people whose lives have been touched by Apple's stock, which has become a global economic force. It is now one of the most widely held stocks, and the most valuable. Even as Apple Inc.'s market value fell to $480 billion on Friday, it was still larger than the gross domestic product of Norway or Argentina, and more than the combined value of Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

Yet that astonishing size and economic influence is also what, many analysts believe, contributes to the extraordinary volatility that can make owning Apple's stock a hair-raising experience.

It was inevitable, analysts say, that after Apple's stock rose 74% in the first nine months of this year, a huge wave of selling would occur as fund managers locked in their profits. And yet, in recent years, these huge dips have been followed by even bigger run-ups that led to new record highs, a dynamic that one trader refers to as the "Apple slingshot."

That pattern has some analysts betting Apple will soar above $1,000 a share in 2013, a scenario almost guaranteed to drive the global obsession with the company's stock into an even greater frenzy.

"The impact on shareholders and on the economy is incredible," said Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst for S&P Dow Jones Indices. "We've not seen anything like this in the modern trading era. Ever."

Even after the remarkable decade of Apple's revival, the company's stock managed to reach new milestones this year. Early in 2012, Apple became the sixth company ever to surpass $500 billion in market value. In August, it became the only company in history with a market value topping $622 billion.

That performance affects just about anyone who has a 401(k) account or a pension. According to FactSet, a research firm that tracks investment funds, 2,555 institutional investors — mutual funds, hedge funds and pension funds, among others — owned stock in Apple, just behind the 2,590 that held Microsoft stock, as of Sept. 30, the most recent date funds had to disclose their holdings. However, the value of that Apple stock held by institutional investors on that day was $427 billion, compared with $172 billion for Microsoft, according to FactSet.

Silverblatt said the only company that has come close to having such a strong influence on the broader stock markets since World War II is IBM in the early 1980s, when the PC revolution was just getting started. But not only is the value of Apple's stock remarkable, so is its volatility. Such large stocks rarely have such big, quick swings.

Apple shares peaked at $702.10 on Sept. 19, up from $401.44 at the start of the year, a run that astonished analysts. But just as remarkable has been its collapse, falling as low as $505.75 in intra-day trading Nov. 16.

"It's just amazing because it's such a large company," said Brian Colello, a senior research analyst at Morningstar. "The company lost about $35 billion in market cap in one day. That's the size of some large-cap stocks."

Yet such swings have become commonplace for Apple stock. Before its latest swoon of 23.4% since its September high, Apple had experienced three previous corrections of more than 10% over the last two years.

The value of Apple's stock and its extreme swings have made researching it and trading it almost a full-time job for some people. Jason Schwarz of Marina del Rey edits EconomicTiming.com, which sends out up to five newsletters each week to its 1,000 clients that focus in large measure on Apple. He also helps run Lone Peak Asset Management, which has about $500 million in assets.

Schwarz says that what he calls the "Apple slingshot" is actually a virtue of the shares.

"The extraordinary volatility is the result of Apple's strength," Schwarz said. "People try to blame the volatility on Apple's weaknesses."

Schwarz and many other Apple believers argue that people are making a big mistake when they try to understand the stock's behavior by focusing on various bits of bad news such as an executive shake-up, the Maps controversy or questions about market share or competition. They have almost nothing to do with the regular hits taken by Apple shares, the argument goes.

Instead, folks like Schwarz say more technical factors are at work, such as the fact that the fiscal year for many stock funds ends Oct. 31. When the stock peaked in September, many fund managers rushed to sell to lock in profits for the year. Apple stock makes so much money for so many people, then plummets when shareholders pause to reap their profits, Schwarz says.

The volatility has continued in recent weeks, the argument goes, because fears of higher taxes next year have many fund managers trying to take advantage of short-term swings to make bigger profits. That volatility offers tantalizing windows for huge, short-term profits for investors willing to take the risk.

Read More..

RIM shows how BlackBerry 10 touch screen keys could rival its traditional keyboards [video]

Read More..

“Bennifer” buried as Ben Affleck’s star soars

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – It has taken 10 years of hard work and indie movies, but Ben Affleck finally has moved past his “Bennifer” nightmare.

Affleck, 40, once a tabloid staple who risked becoming a laughingstock during his romance with Jennifer Lopez and their movie flop “Gigli,” is back on top in Hollywood, winning accolades for his work both in front of and behind the camera.

Fifteen years after Affleck shared an Oscar with Matt Damon for their first screenplay, “Good Will Hunting,” buzz is building over a likely second Academy Award nomination next month. It would be Affleck’s first since 1997.

“Finally, people now are ready to go, ‘Wow! He’s at the very top of the food chain,’” Damon told Reuters.

Affleck’s latest film “Argo,” a part-thriller, part-comedic tale of the real-life rescue of six American diplomats from Iran in 1980, this week picked up five Golden Globe nominations and a nod from the Screen Actors Guild for its top prize of best ensemble cast.

The film, which Affleck directed, produced and stars in, has also delighted critics and brought in some $ 160 million at the worldwide box office.

In “Argo,” Affleck’s clean-cut looks are hidden under a long, shaggy 1970s hair cut and beard as he plays CIA officer Tony Mendez, who devised a fake film project to spirit six hostages out of Tehran after the Islamic revolution.

The kudos Affleck is now receiving follows the embarrassing headlines he attracted over his 2002-2004 romance with Lopez.

“It was tough to watch him get kicked in the teeth for all those years because the perception of him was so not who he actually was,” Damon said.

“It was upsetting for a lot of his friends because he’s the smartest, funnest, nicest, kindest, incredibly talented guy. … So that was tough. Now I’m just thrilled. … He deserves everything that he’s going to get,” he added.

With a huge, pink diamond engagement ring for Lopez and gossip about matching Rolls Royces, the pair dubbed “Bennifer” starred in the 2003 comedy romance “Gigli,” which earned multiple Razzie awards for the worst comedy of the year.

SELLING MAGAZINES NOT MOVIES

Damon, by contrast, was seeing his career surge with “The Bourne Identity,” “Syriana” and “The Departed.” But he recalls Affleck’s pain.

“He said (to me), ‘I am in the absolute worst place you can be. I sell magazines, not movie tickets.’ I remember our agent called up the editor of Us Weekly, begging her not to put him on the cover any more. Please stop. Just stop,” Damon said.

About a year after splitting with Lopez, Affleck married actress Jennifer Garner, had the first of three children with her, and started writing and directing small but admired movies like “Gone Baby Gone” in 2007 and 2010′s gritty crime film “The Town.”

Last month, Affleck was named Entertainment Weekly’s entertainer of the year, largely on the back of “Argo.”

The actor-turned-director said that managing the various tones of the film was his hardest challenge.

“I had to synthesize comedic elements and the political stuff and this true-life drama thriller story. … It was scary and it was daunting,” Affleck told Reuters, saying he powered through by “overworking it by a multiple of ten.”

A trip to the Oscars ceremony in February is now considered a shoo-in by awards pundits, but Affleck is not convinced that success is sweeter the second time around.

“It’s harder. On the one hand, coming from obscurity, you have a neutral starting place. Because of the tabloid press and over exposure, I was starting from a deficit,” he said.

“It can be very unpleasant to be in the midst of a lot of ugliness. But I just put my head down and decided … I was going to work as hard as I could, and I never let the possibility enter my mind that I might fail – at least consciously. Subconsciously, I knew I could fail and I was really scared, so it made me work harder.”

(Additional reporting by Zorianna Kit; Editing by Will Dunham)

Celebrity News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Read More..

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.

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.”

Read More..

Microsoft Battles Google by Hiring Political Brawler Mark Penn

SEATTLE — Mark Penn made a name for himself in Washington by bulldozing enemies of the Clintons. Now he spends his days trying to do the same to Google, on behalf of its archrival Microsoft.

Since Mr. Penn was put in charge of “strategic and special projects” at Microsoft in August, much of his job has involved efforts to trip up Google, which Microsoft has failed to dislodge from its perch atop the lucrative Internet search market.

Drawing on his background in polling, data crunching and campaigning, Mr. Penn created a holiday commercial that has been running during Monday Night Football and other shows, in which Microsoft criticizes Google for polluting the quality of its shopping search results with advertisements. “Don’t get scroogled,” it warns. His other projects include a blind taste test, Coke-versus-Pepsi style, of search results from Google and Microsoft’s Bing.

The campaigns by Mr. Penn, 58, a longtime political operative known for his brusque personality and scorched-earth tactics, are part of a broader effort at Microsoft to give its marketing the nimbleness of a political campaign, where a candidate can turn an opponent’s gaffe into a damaging commercial within hours. They are also a sign of the company’s mounting frustration with Google after losing billions of dollars a year on its search efforts, while losing ground to Google in the browser and smartphones markets and other areas.

Microsoft has long attacked Google from the shadows, whispering to regulators, journalists and anyone else who would listen that Google was a privacy-violating, anticompetitive bully. The fruits of its recent work in this area could come next week, when the Federal Trade Commission is expected to announce the results of its antitrust investigation of Google, a case that echoes Microsoft’s own antitrust suit in the 1990s. A similar investigation by the European Union is also wrapping up. A bad outcome for Google in either one would be a victory for Microsoft.

But Microsoft, based in Redmond, Wash., has realized that it cannot rely only on regulators to scrutinize Google — which is where Mr. Penn comes in. He is increasing the urgency of Microsoft’s efforts and focusing on their more public side.

In an interview, Mr. Penn said companies underestimated the importance of policy issues like privacy to consumers, as opposed to politicians and regulators. “It’s not about whether they can get them through Washington,” he said. “It’s whether they can get them through Main Street.”

Jill Hazelbaker, a Google spokeswoman, declined to comment on Microsoft’s actions specifically, but said that while Google also employed lobbyists and marketers, “our focus is on Google and the positive impact our industry has on society, not the competition.”

In Washington, Mr. Penn is a lightning rod. He developed a relationship with the Clintons as a pollster during President Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election campaign, when he helped identify the value of “soccer moms” and other niche voter groups.

As chief strategist for Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 campaign for president, he conceived the “3 a.m.” commercial that raised doubts about whether Barack Obama, then a senator, was ready for the Oval Office. Mr. Penn argued in an essay he wrote for Time magazine in May that “negative ads are, by and large, good for our democracy.”

But his approach has ended up souring many of his professional relationships. He left Mrs. Clinton’s campaign after an uproar about his consulting work for the government of Colombia, which was seeking the passage of a trade treaty with the United States that Mrs. Clinton, then a senator, opposed.

“Google should be prepared for everything but the kitchen sink thrown at them,” said a former colleague who worked closely with Mr. Penn in politics and spoke on condition of anonymity. “Actually, they should be prepared for the kitchen sink to be thrown at them, too.”

Hiring Mr. Penn demonstrates how seriously Microsoft is taking this fight, said Michael A. Cusumano, a business professor at M.I.T. who co-wrote a book about Microsoft’s browser war.

“They’re pulling out all the stops to do whatever they can to halt Google’s advance, just as their competition did to them,” Professor Cusumano said. “I suppose that if Microsoft can actually put a doubt in people’s mind that Google isn’t unbiased and has become some kind of evil empire, they might very well get results.”

Nick Wingfield reported from Seattle and Claire Cain Miller from San Francisco.

Read More..