Katherine Power of Clique Media: Think Like an Entrepreneur

Abstract: This interview with Katherine Power , chief executive of Clique Media Group , a media and marketing agency, has been edited for space and clarity. Q. What were your early years like? A. I’m originally from Orange County, Calif. My parents were in the horse business, and we had racehorses growing up. But I was much more of a city kid, and not that much into horses. From a young age, I was a very serious dancer, doing ballet and jazz and everything else. I was much more of my grandmother’s child. She grew up in Los Angeles, her parents were in the film industry and she ran a retail store. When I was young, I would stay with her and work at her store. I loved the cash register, dressing the mannequins, and I remember learning how to sell when I was about 9. I would act nonchalant and just express my opinion, and people believed me. I was very entrepreneurial from a young age. I also didn’t have a traditional education. Because of dance, I was doing independent study by eighth grade. And I initially thought I wanted to be a film producer. So my plan was to go to Santa Monica College and then transfer to U.S.C. for film school. I had started an internship the summer before at Touchstone Pictures. But on the first day at S.M.C., I showed up early to find parking. I drove around and around and around and couldn’t find a spot. And so I decided, this is not for me. I called Touchstone and said, “I’m available Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, if you’ll have me.” I worked for this producer every single day for free, and soon after she hired me as her assistant. I have just been working ever since. Who were your biggest influences early on? My choreographer was Marguerite Derricks , and she basically taught us what it was like to work in the real world. She treated us like adults and taught us how to be professional and respectful. We would constantly have directors or producers coming to watch us to hire us for various events or movies, like “Austin Powers.” It was about always doing your best and putting your best foot forward. You never know where an opportunity can come from. She helped shape who I am today, particularly being thick-skinned, because you go to auditions and you get rejected. But I don’t even think of it as rejection, because of her. I just think of it as a change in course. I’m weirdly missing the gene that tells you to be afraid of putting yourself out there. Did you always want to be a chief executive? We started the company in 2006, and at first we did everything in the beginning and really built up the business. Then we hired a C.O.O. to run the business side, and I was the creative director. When we grew to a certain scale, we debated whether to bring in a C.E.O. In order to be a C.E.O., you have to be both an operator and a visionary, and I think it’s really hard to find kind of that combination. One of our board members said to me, “Katherine, I really think you should do it.” So my career was sort of born again in 2014. At that point, we had hired dozens of employees, and because I had done pretty much every job at the company, I was able to really understand what we should spend money on, what we shouldn’t, how long something should take and what the right talent was to put in a specific position. As an entrepreneur and as a C.E.O., you have to be very creative. You have to understand how to get from Point A to Point B with X amount of resources, and see if there are alternative ways to get there. How do you hire? I look for very entrepreneurial people. I look for people who can quantify their value, who can really think like an entrepreneur and put a value around their skill set and growth. So if you look at a resume of someone who was a lifestyle writer for XYZ publication, I like to see that they wrote 16 pieces of content per week resulting in X percent growth in page views over three months. I also always ask people, when you go home at night and think before bed that today was a great day, what made it a great day? That gives me a lot of insight into exactly what they care about. And I look for people who have created their own experience. So maybe you worked for a fashion brand but on the side you created your own blog dedicated to home décor, or you learned about a specific industry, or you took on an additional job or internship just to learn about a new field. And what kinds of answers are you listening for to the question about what makes it a good day? It depends on the job, but it’s typically when there has been some sort of accomplishment or efficiency created, like, “I saved X amount of money by doing something this way.” Or if I’m interviewing for my assistant position, I want to hear someone talk about making every meeting run on schedule and being able to fit everyone in. Again, it depends on the position, but I want to hear that they get excited about the things I care about. What career advice do you give to new college grads? Find something you love to do and then figure out a way to get paid for it. That’s what I’ve always done. And if you don’t have experience, create your own. But there are some people who don’t know yet what they love to do. I would tell them to identify either companies that they’re passionate about or individuals that they’re passionate about, then do a lot of research. If it’s a company, what are the different roles you can have there? Or if you’re following a certain person’s career, how did they get there, what is their role like? With the internet now, it’s almost like you can have a virtual mentor.

Clique Media Group
Katherine Power
Careers and Professions
Job Recruiting and Hiring
Entrepreneurship
Dance
Management


Fan’s Statue Will Honor Martin Brodeur, Foundation of Devils’ Glory Years

Abstract: If all goes according to plan, Jon Krawczyk will load a slightly larger-than-life bronze statue of a hockey player onto his truck in early February, cover it tightly, and haul it more than 2,800 miles from his home in Malibu, Calif., to Newark. “I don’t want to put this in anybody else’s hands,” said Krawczyk, who is sculpting the work. The statue is of Martin Brodeur, the goaltender who won three Stanley Cups and an N.H.L.-record 691 games — a record 125 by shutout — before announcing his retirement last January. All three Cups and all but three victories and one shutout came in 21 seasons with the Devils. Brodeur, now the assistant general manager of the St. Louis Blues, will have his No. 30 retired in a ceremony on Feb. 9, before the Devils play the Edmonton Oilers at Prudential Center. The game, not surprisingly, is a sellout. Brodeur, 43, will become the fourth Devils player to have his number raised to the rafters there, joining three defensemen from the team’s Cup runs in 1995, 2000 and 2003: Ken Daneyko (No. 3), Scott Stevens (No. 4) and Scott Niedermayer (No. 27). Image Brodeur at his last game for the Devils, on April 13, 2014. He almost always marked victories by raising his stick to the crowd, tilting his helmet back and winking at his children in the seats — a pose that provided inspiration for the statue. Credit Bruce Bennett/Getty Images The Devils won those Cups with a stout defense and a team-first concept, but Hugh Weber, the president of the Devils and Prudential Center, said that retiring Brodeur’s number “didn’t seem like enough.” So the club hired Krawczyk over the summer to create a lifelike sculpture of Brodeur, the first statue of one of its championship players that the team has commissioned for its home. It will be unveiled at a ceremony outside the arena on Feb. 8. “When they brought it up, I was shocked,” Brodeur said in a telephone interview. “I never expected a statue like that, to be standing outside ... forever.” Krawczyk, 45, is uniquely qualified for the job. His 22-foot, 6,000-pound stainless-steel abstract sculpture of an anonymous hockey player firing a slap shot has stood outside Prudential Center since 2009. Just as important, Krawczyk is an ardent Devils fan who grew up in Boonton Township, N.J., and attended Delbarton School, in nearby Morristown. He watched the Devils as a child from Section 116, Row 10 at what was then Brendan Byrne Arena, the Devils’ old home in East Rutherford. “The Devils were a way for my father and I to communicate,” Krawczyk said. “And Marty Brodeur was the big guy on campus — the No. 1 guy.” After Krawczyk graduated from Connecticut College, he moved to California to pursue his art career. When he heard an arena was being built in Newark, Krawczyk pitched the idea of a hockey player sculpture to Michael Gilfillan, a friend from Delbarton who was a part owner of the Devils at the time. The sculpture was largely a hit and has become a meeting place for fans. Not long after Joshua Harris and David Blitzer took over the Devils in 2013, they wanted to salute the team’s glory days through a series of events. It became apparent to them that Brodeur had accomplished enough to warrant his own statue. Image The retired numbers of three of Brodeur’s teammates on Stanley Cup-winning Devils teams — Scott Niedermayer, Ken Daneyko and Scott Stevens — hang in the rafters at Prudential Center. Credit Bruce Bennett/Getty Images They contacted several artists before choosing Krawczyk. “Part of the reason we picked Jon is because we wanted to try to represent New Jersey whenever we can,” Weber said. “The fact that he’s from New Jersey gave him a leg up.” But the Devils also wanted advice from Brodeur as to what the statue would look like. There are hockey prototypes: In 2010, the Boston Bruins unveiled a statue that depicted defenseman Bobby Orr flying horizontally with his arms stretched in front of him after scoring his Stanley Cup-clinching goal in 1970 — one of hockey’s most indelible images. In 2013, the Philadelphia Flyers unveiled a statue near their arena depicting goaltender Bernie Parent and the captain Bobby Clarke hoisting the Stanley Cup later in the ’70s. After choosing Krawczyk, the Devils sent him to Brodeur’s St. Louis home a few months ago with 200 action photographs of Brodeur. They spread the photos on his dining-room table. Something soon became apparent to both men: Brodeur almost always celebrated his victories, including his last game with the Devils on April 13, 2014, by raising his stick to the crowd, tilting his helmet back on his head and winking at his children in the seats. Image A sculpture by Krawczyk of an anonymous player is already installed at Prudential Center. Brodeur played 21 seasons for the Devils and holds a host of N.H.L. goaltending records, including most shutouts. Credit Bruce Bennett/Getty Images “That was something I did over and over again in my career,” Brodeur said. “We thought that was more appealing.” Laughing, Brodeur later said, “That’s something I did without even knowing I did it.” And that settled it. Krawczyk had a working model called “The Salute.” He and Brodeur have stayed in touch mostly by email to go over specifics relating to the project, which Krawczyk said will be cast Jan. 10. Most of Krawczyk’s work is abstract, he said, but in producing this sculpture, he has used real pads, gloves and a sweater from Brodeur to help create what Krawczyk thinks will be a “dead-on” piece of art. The Devils are also holding a contest in which winning fans can place Devils or Brodeur-related memorabilia inside the statue, which will be sealed, like a time capsule. When asked how he thought he would feel at the unveiling, Brodeur said: “It’s hard to know now. I think the emotions are going to come through when I start remembering back.” Krawczyk took the job knowing his work would stand as a testament to Brodeur’s contributions for years, or at least as long as the bronze lasts. “That’s good pressure,” Krawczyk said. “It makes you work a little harder and a little better.”

Ice hockey
Martin Brodeur
Monuments and Memorials
Art
Prudential Center
Sculpture
Devils
Jon Krawczyk


Winfield Street Slides

Abstract: Hidden by trees near Esmeralda Avenue in Bernal Heights is a semi-secret joy ride where daredevils can propel themselves. The adjoining 40-foot Winfield Street Slides were constructed by local volunteers in the late 1970s, with city assistance. HANK PELLISSIER Adrenaline Rush The slide is a magnet for young children during daylight, especially on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Teenagers enjoy dark screaming rides on weekend nights, accelerated by sitting on wax paper or cardboard. Here for Good The volunteers who conceived and built the slide and adjacent garden park were primarily long-haired Bernal artists and activists in their mid-to-late 20s. Several remain nearby, including Mike Nolan (co-founder of Pickle Family Circus), Claudia Viek (microenterprise promoter) and Buck Bagot (community activist). Civic Help City agencies provided tools; a landscape designer, Andrew Butler; and materials to transform the steep, empty lot into a beautiful public space. Mr. Nolan regards it as “a pretty good example of government-neighborhood cooperation.” Slippery Politicians At the park’s dedication party in 1979, a shrieking Mayor Dianne Feinstein slid down her chute, racing and defeating the district supervisor, Lee Dolson. Mayor Willie L. Brown Jr. enjoyed the plunge at a rededication in 1998, wearing a three-piece suit and a fedora. Tom Ammiano, the District 13 assemblyman and a nearby resident, has also enjoyed gleeful descents. Critters Galore Nearby Bernal Heights Park has more than 26 acres of open space, with blackberries, skunks, possums, owls, hawks, snakes and dozens of off-leash dogs sniffing around for the occasional coyote. Narrow Escape The slide was temporarily closed and almost removed in 1997-98 when it required prohibitively expensive repairs. Determined Bernal residents held dozens of meetings for nine months, circulated a petition, made 150 phone complaints and provided volunteer labor to reduce the price and save the park. Stable Amenity Bernal’s bedrock foundation protects residents from seismic damage. “Earthquake shacks” built for refugees in 1906 now start around $500,000. Progressive Neighborhood After completing the slide project, the activists established the Bernal Heights Neighborhood Center and built inexpensive housing for the neighborhood’s diverse population. Mr. Bagot defines Bernal as “a community that wanted to guide its own destiny.” Annie Sprinkle, the sexologist and Bernal resident, says it’s an “ecosexy paradise.”

San Francisco Bay Area (Calif)
Parks and Other Recreation Areas


Dutch Postal Deal

Abstract: TNT, a Dutch postal company, said it would sell its logistics business to a private equity company in the United States, Apollo Management, for about $1.9 billion to focus on its main delivery networks business. TNT, which will retain a 5 percent stake in the unit, will return up to 1 billion euros ($1.28 billion) of the 1.48 billion euro sale proceeds to shareholders through a share buyback. The transaction will probably be completed by the end of the year, TNT said in a statement. TNT said in December that it intended to sell the division, which provides supply-chain logistics for mid- to large-size corporations but has low profit margins compared with its competitors.

Netherlands
Postal Service
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures


How a ‘Good War’ in Afghanistan Went Bad

Abstract: Two years after the Taliban fell to an American-led coalition, a group of NATO ambassadors landed in Kabul, Afghanistan , to survey what appeared to be a triumph — a fresh start for a country ripped apart by years of war with the Soviets and brutal repression by religious extremists. With a senior American diplomat, R. Nicholas Burns, leading the way, they thundered around the country in Black Hawk helicopters, with little fear for their safety. They strolled quiet streets in Kandahar and sipped tea with tribal leaders. At a briefing from the United States Central Command, they were told that the Taliban were now a “spent force.” “Some of us were saying, ‘Not so fast,’ ” Mr. Burns, now the under secretary of state for political affairs, recalled. “While not a strategic threat, a number of us assumed that the Taliban was too enmeshed in Afghan society to just disappear.” But that skepticism had never taken hold in Washington. Since the 2001 war, American intelligence agencies had reported that the Taliban were so decimated they no longer posed a threat, according to two senior intelligence officials who reviewed the reports. The American sense of victory had been so robust that the top C.I.A. specialists and elite Special Forces units who had helped liberate Afghanistan had long since moved on to the next war, in Iraq . Those sweeping miscalculations were part of a pattern of assessments and decisions that helped send what many in the American military call “the good war” off course. Like Osama bin Laden and his deputies, the Taliban had found refuge in Pakistan and regrouped as the American focus wavered. Taliban fighters seeped back over the border, driving up the suicide attacks and roadside bombings by as much as 25 percent this spring, and forcing NATO and American troops into battles to retake previously liberated villages in southern Afghanistan. They have scored some successes recently, and since the 2001 invasion, there have been improvements in health care, education and the economy, as well as the quality of life in the cities. But Afghanistan’s embattled president, Hamid Karzai , said in Washington last week that security in his country had “definitely deteriorated.” One former national security official called that “a very diplomatic understatement.” President Bush’s critics have long contended that the Iraq war has diminished America’s effort in Afghanistan, which the administration has denied, but an examination of how the policy unfolded within the administration reveals a deep divide over how to proceed in Afghanistan and a series of decisions that at times seemed to relegate it to an afterthought as Iraq unraveled. Statements from the White House, including from the president, in support of Afghanistan were resolute, but behind them was a halting, sometimes reluctant commitment to solving Afghanistan’s myriad problems, according to dozens of interviews in the United States, at NATO headquarters in Brussels and in Kabul, the Afghan capital. At critical moments in the fight for Afghanistan, the Bush administration diverted scarce intelligence and reconstruction resources to Iraq, including elite C.I.A. teams and Special Forces units involved in the search for terrorists. As sophisticated Predator spy planes rolled off assembly lines in the United States, they were shipped to Iraq, undercutting the search for Taliban and terrorist leaders, according to senior military and intelligence officials. As defense secretary, Donald H. Rumsfeld claimed credit for toppling the Taliban with light, fast forces. But in a move that foreshadowed America’s trouble in Iraq, he failed to anticipate the need for more forces after the old government was gone, and blocked an early proposal from Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, and Mr. Karzai, the administration’s handpicked president, for a large international force. As the situation deteriorated, Mr. Rumsfeld and other administration officials reversed course and cajoled European allies into sending troops. When it came to reconstruction, big goals were announced, big projects identified. Yet in the year Mr. Bush promised a “Marshall Plan” for Afghanistan, the country received less assistance per capita than did postconflict Bosnia and Kosovo, or even desperately poor Haiti, according to a RAND Corporation study. Washington has spent an average of $3.4 billion a year reconstructing Afghanistan, less than half of what it has spent in Iraq, according to the Congressional Research Service. The White House contends that the troop level in Afghanistan was increased when needed and that it now stands at 23,500. But a senior American commander said that even as the military force grew last year, he was surprised to discover that “I could count on the fingers of one or two hands the number of U.S. government agricultural experts” in Afghanistan, where 80 percent of the economy is agricultural. A $300 million project authorized by Congress for small businesses was never financed. Underlying many of the decisions, officials say, was a misapprehension about what Americans would find on the ground in Afghanistan. “The perception was that Afghans hated foreigners and that the Iraqis would welcome us,” said James Dobbins, the administration’s former special envoy for Afghanistan. “The reverse turned out to be the case.” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the administration’s policy, saying, “I don’t buy the argument that Afghanistan was starved of resources.” Yet she said: “I don’t think the U.S. government had what it needed for reconstructing a country. We did it ad hoc in the Balkans, and then in Afghanistan, and then in Iraq.” In interviews, three former American ambassadors to Afghanistan were more critical of Washington’s record. “I said from the get-go that we didn’t have enough money and we didn’t have enough soldiers,” said Robert P. Finn, who was the ambassador in 2002 and 2003. “I’m saying the same thing six years later.” Zalmay Khalilzad, who was the next ambassador and is now the American ambassador to the United Nations, said, “I do think that state-building and nation-building, we came to that reluctantly,” adding that “I think more could have been done earlier on these issues.” And Ronald E. Neumann, who replaced Mr. Khalilzad in Kabul, said, “The idea that we could just hunt terrorists and we didn’t have to do nation-building, and we could just leave it alone, that was a large mistake.” A Big Promise, Unfulfilled After months of arguing unsuccessfully for a far larger effort in Afghanistan, Mr. Dobbins received an unexpected call in April 2002. Mr. Bush, he was told, was planning to proclaim America’s commitment to rebuild Afghanistan. “I got a call from the White House speech writers saying they were writing a speech and did I see any reason not to cite the Marshall Plan,” Mr. Dobbins recalled, referring to the American rebuilding of postwar Europe. “I said, ‘No, I saw no objections’, so they put it in the speech.” On April 17, Mr. Bush traveled to the Virginia Military Institute, where Gen. George C. Marshall trained a century ago. “Marshall knew that our military victory against enemies in World War II had to be followed by a moral victory that resulted in better lives for individual human beings,” Mr. Bush said, calling Marshall’s work “a beacon to light the path that we, too, must follow.” Mr. Bush had belittled “nation building” while campaigning for president 18 months earlier. But aware that Afghans had felt abandoned before, including by his father’s administration after the Soviets left in 1989, he vowed to avoid the syndrome of “initial success, followed by long years of floundering and ultimate failure. “We’re not going to repeat that mistake,” he said. “We’re tough, we’re determined, we’re relentless. We will stay until the mission is done.” The speech, which received faint notice in the United States, fueled expectations in Afghanistan and bolstered Mr. Karzai’s stature before an Afghan grand council meeting in June 2002 at which Mr. Karzai was formally chosen to lead the government. Yet privately, some senior officials, including Mr. Rumsfeld, were concerned that Afghanistan was a morass where the United States could achieve little, according to administration officials involved in the debate. Within hours of the president’s speech, Mr. Rumsfeld announced his own approach at a Pentagon news conference. “The last thing you’re going to hear from this podium is someone thinking they know how Afghanistan ought to organize itself,” he said. “They’re going to have to figure it out. They’re going to have to grab ahold of that thing and do something. And we’re there to help.” But the help was slow in coming. Despite Mr. Bush’s promise in Virginia, in the months that followed his April speech, no detailed reconstruction plan emerged from the administration. Some senior administration officials lay the blame on the National Security Council, which is charged with making sure the president’s foreign policy is carried out. The stagnation reflected tension within the administration over how large a role the United States should play in stabilizing a country after toppling its government, former officials say. After the fall of the Taliban in December 2001, Mr. Powell and Ms. Rice, then the national security adviser, argued in confidential sessions that if the United States now lost Afghanistan, America’s image would be damaged, officials said. In a February 2002 meeting in the White House Situation Room, Mr. Powell proposed that American troops join the small international peacekeeping force patrolling Kabul and help Mr. Karzai extend his influence beyond the capital. Mr. Powell said in an interview that his model was the 1989 invasion of Panama, where American troops spread out across the country after ousting the Noriega government. “The strategy has to be to take charge of the whole country by military force, police or other means,” he said. Richard N. Haass, a former director of policy planning at the State Department, said informal talks with European officials had led him to believe that a force of 20,000 to 40,000 peacekeepers could be recruited, half from Europe, half from the United States. But Mr. Rumsfeld contended that European countries were unwilling to contribute more troops, said Douglas J. Feith, then the Pentagon’s under secretary for policy. He said Mr. Rumsfeld felt that sending American troops would reduce pressure on Europeans to contribute, and could provoke Afghans’ historic resistance to invaders and divert American forces from hunting terrorists. Mr. Rumsfeld declined to comment. Some officials said they also feared confusion if European forces viewed the task as peacekeeping while the American military saw its job as fighting terrorists. Ms. Rice, despite having argued for fully backing the new Karzai government, took a middle position, leaving the issue unresolved. “I felt that we needed more forces, but there was a real problem, which you continue to see to this day, with the dual role,” she said. Ultimately, Mr. Powell’s proposal died. “The president, the vice president, the secretary of defense, the national security staff, all of them were skeptical of an ambitious project in Afghanistan,” Mr. Haass said. “I didn’t see support.” Mr. Dobbins, the former special envoy, said Mr. Powell “seemed resigned.” “I said this wasn’t going to be fully satisfactory,” he recalled. “And he said, ‘Well, it’s the best we could do.’ ” In the end, the United States deployed 8,000 troops to Afghanistan in 2002, with orders to hunt Taliban and Qaeda members, and not to engage in peacekeeping or reconstruction. The 4,000-member international peacekeeping force did not venture beyond Kabul. As an alternative, officials hatched a loosely organized plan for Afghans to secure the country themselves. The United States would train a 70,000-member army. Japan would disarm some 100,000 militia fighters. Britain would mount an antinarcotics program. Italy would carry out changes in the judiciary. And Germany would train a 62,000-member police force. But that meant no one was in overall command, officials now say. Many holes emerged in the American effort. There were so few State Department or Pentagon civil affairs officials that 13 teams of C.I.A. operatives, whose main job was to hunt terrorists and the Taliban, were asked to stay in remote corners of Afghanistan to coordinate political efforts, said John E. McLaughlin, who was deputy director and then acting director of the agency. “It took us quite awhile to get them regrouped in the southeast for counterterrorism,” he said of the C.I.A. teams. Sixteen months after the president’s 2002 speech, the United States Agency for International Development, the government’s main foreign development arm, had seven full-time staffers and 35 full-time contract staff members in Afghanistan, most of them Afghans, according to a government audit. Sixty-one agency positions were vacant. “It was state-building on the cheap, it was a duct tape approach,” recalled Said T. Jawad, Mr. Karzai’s chief of staff at the time and Afghanistan’s current ambassador to Washington. “It was fixing things that were broken, not a strategic approach.” A Shift of Resources to Iraq In October 2002, Robert Grenier, a former director of the C.I.A.’s counterintelligence center, visited the new Kuwait City headquarters of Lt. Gen David McKiernan, who was already planning the Iraq invasion. Meeting in a sheet metal warehouse, Mr. Grenier asked General McKiernan what his intelligence needs would be in Iraq. The answer was simple. “They wanted as much as they could get,” Mr. Grenier said. Throughout late 2002 and early 2003, Mr. Grenier said in an interview, “the best experienced, most qualified people who we had been using in Afghanistan shifted over to Iraq,” including the agency’s most skilled counterterrorism specialists and Middle East and paramilitary operatives. That reduced the United States’ influence over powerful Afghan warlords who were refusing to turn over to the central government tens of millions of dollars they had collected as customs payments at border crossings. While the C.I.A. replaced officers shifted to Iraq, Mr. Grenier said, it did so with younger agents, who lacked the knowledge and influence of the veterans. “I think we could have done a lot more on the Afghan side if we had more experienced folks,” he said. A former senior official of the Pentagon’s Central Command, which was running both wars, said that as the Iraq planning sped up, the military’s covert Special Mission Units, like Delta Force and Navy Seals Team Six, shifted to Iraq from Afghanistan. So did aerial surveillance “platforms” like the Predator, a remotely piloted spy plane armed with Hellfire missiles that had been effective at identifying targets in the mountains of Afghanistan. Predators were not shifted directly from Afghanistan to Iraq, according to the former official, but as new Predators were produced, they went to Iraq. “We were economizing in Afghanistan,” said the former official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. “The marginal return for one more platform in Afghanistan is so much greater than for one more in Iraq.” The shift in priorities became apparent to Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon’s former comptroller, as planning for the Iraq war was in high gear in the fall of 2002. Mr. Rumsfeld asked him to serve as the Pentagon’s reconstruction coordinator in Afghanistan. It was an odd role for the comptroller, whose primary task is managing the Pentagon’s $400 billion a year budget. “The fact that they went to the comptroller to do something like that was in part a function of their growing preoccupation with Iraq,” said Mr. Zakheim, who left the administration in 2004. “They needed somebody, given that the top tier was covering Iraq.” In an interview, President Bush’s national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, insisted that there was no diversion of resources from Afghanistan, and he cited recently declassified statistics to show that troop levels in Afghanistan rose at crucial moments — like the 2004 Afghan election — even after the Iraq war began. But the former Central Command official said: “If we were not in Iraq, we would have double or triple the number of Predators across Afghanistan, looking for Taliban and peering into the tribal areas. We’d have the ‘black’ Special Forces you most need to conduct precision operations. We’d have more C.I.A.” “We’re simply in a world of limited resources, and those resources are in Iraq,” the former official added. “Anyone who tells you differently is blowing smoke.” A Piecemeal Operation As White House officials put together plans in the spring of 2003 for President Bush to land on the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and declare the end of major combat operations in Iraq, the Pentagon decided to make a similar, if less dramatic, announcement for Afghanistan. On May 1, hours before Mr. Bush stood beneath a “Mission Accomplished” banner, Mr. Rumsfeld appeared at a news conference with Mr. Karzai in Kabul’s threadbare 19th-century presidential palace. “We clearly have moved from major combat activity to a period of stability and stabilization and reconstruction activities,” he said. “The bulk of the country today is permissive, it’s secure.” The Afghanistan announcement was largely lost in the spectacle of Mr. Bush’s speech. But the predictions of stability proved no less detached from events on the ground. Three weeks later, Afghan government workers who had not been paid for months held street demonstrations in Kabul. An exasperated Mr. Karzai publicly threatened to resign and announced that his government had run out of money because warlords were hoarding the customs revenues. “There is no money in the government treasury,” Mr. Karzai said. At the same time, the American-led training of a new Afghan Army was proving far more difficult than officials in Washington had expected. The new force, plagued by high desertion rates, had only 2,000 soldiers. The Germans’ effort to train police officers was off to an even slower start, and the British-led counternarcotics effort was dwarfed by an explosion in the poppy crop. Already, small groups of Taliban fighters had slipped back over the border from Pakistan and killed aid workers, stalling reconstruction in the south. A senior White House official said in a recent interview that in retrospect, putting different countries in charge of different operations was a mistake. “We piecemealed it,” he said. “One of the problems is when everybody has a piece, everybody’s piece is made third and fourth priority. Nobody’s piece is first priority. Stuff didn’t get done.” A month after his announcement in Kabul, Mr. Rumsfeld’s aides presented a strategy to the White House aimed at weakening warlords and engaging in state-building in Afghanistan. In some ways, it was the approach Mr. Rumsfeld had rejected right after the invasion. Pentagon officials said that Mr. Rumsfeld’s views began to shift after a December 2002 briefing by Marin Strmecki, an Afghanistan expert at the Smith Richardson Foundation, who argued that Afghanistan was not ungovernable and that it could be turned into a moderate, Muslim force in the region. Mr. Strmecki said that the United States needed to help Afghans create credible national institutions and that Pashtuns, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group and historically the Taliban’s base of support, needed a more prominent role in the government. Mr. Rumsfeld, according to aides, was impressed by Mr. Strmecki’s emphasis on training Afghans to run their own government and hired him. Then another personnel change helped alter Afghanistan policy. Mr. Khalilzad, an Afghan-American who was a senior National Security Council official and a special envoy to Iraq exiles, was appointed ambassador to Afghanistan. Mr. Khalilzad said he accepted the job after Mr. Bush promised to greatly expand resources in Afghanistan. “We had gotten the president to a significant increase,” Mr. Khalilzad recalled. A leading neo-conservative, Mr. Khalilzad could get Ms. Rice or — if need be — Mr. Bush on the phone. He had been a counselor to Mr. Rumsfeld and had worked for Dick Cheney when Mr. Cheney was the first President Bush’s defense secretary. “Zal could get things done,” said Lt. Gen. David W. Barno, a former American military commander in Afghanistan. When Mr. Khalilzad arrived in Kabul on Thanksgiving 2003, he brought nearly $2 billion — twice the amount of the previous year — as well as a new military strategy and private experts to intensifying rebuilding. They started a reconstruction plan dubbed “accelerating success” that involved the kind of nation-building once dismissed by the administration. General Barno expanded “Provincial Reconstruction Teams” to build schools, roads and wells and to win the “hearts and minds” of Afghans. The teams amounted to a much smaller version of the force that Mr. Powell had proposed 18 months earlier. By January 2004, Afghanistan had reached a compromise on a new Afghan Constitution. With American backing, Mr. Karzai weakened several warlords. In October 2004, Mr. Karzai, who had been appointed president, was elected. At the same time, NATO countries steadily sent more troops to Afghanistan, and soon Mr. Rumsfeld, needing for troops for Iraq, proposed that NATO take over security for all of Afghanistan. By spring 2005, Afghanistan seemed to be moving toward the success Mr. Bush had promised. But then, fearing that Iraq was spinning out of control, the White House asked Mr. Khalilzad to become ambassador to Baghdad. A Lingering Threat Before departing Afghanistan, Mr. Khalilzad fought a final battle within the administration. It revealed divisions within the American government over Pakistan’s role in aiding the Taliban, a delicate subject as the administration tried to coax Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, to cooperate. In an interview on Afghan television, Mr. Khalilzad noted that Pakistani journalists had recently interviewed a senior Taliban commander in Pakistan. He questioned Pakistan’s claim that it did not know the whereabouts of senior Taliban commanders — a form of skepticism discouraged in Washington, where the administration’s line had always been that General Musharraf was doing everything he could. “If a TV station can get in touch with them, how can the intelligence service of a country, which has nuclear bombs, and a lot of security and military forces, not find them?” Mr. Khalilzad asked. Pakistani officials publicly denounced Mr. Khalilzad’s comments and denied that they were harboring Taliban leaders. But Mr. Khalilzad had also exposed the growing rift between American officials in Kabul and those in Islamabad. Mr. Grenier said that when he was the C.I.A. station chief in Islamabad the issue of fugitive Taliban leaders was repeatedly raised with senior Pakistani intelligence officials in 2002. “The results were just not there,” he recalled. “And it was quite clear to me that it wasn’t just bad luck.” Pakistani had backed the Taliban throughout the 1990s as a counterweight to an alliance of northern Afghan commanders backed by India, Pakistan’s bitter rival. Pakistani officials also distrusted Mr. Karzai. Deciding that the Pakistanis would not act on the Taliban, Mr. Grenier said he had urged them to focus on arresting Qaeda members, who he said were far more of a threat to the United States. “From our perspective at the time, the Taliban was a spent force,” he said, adding, “We were very much focused on Al Qaeda and didn’t want to distract the Pakistanis from that.” But Mr. Khalilzad, American military officials and others in the administration argued that the Taliban were crossing from Pakistan into Afghanistan and killing American troops and aid workers. “Colleagues in Washington at various levels did not recognize that there was the problem of sanctuary and that this was important,” Mr. Khalilzad said. But it was not until 2006, after ordering a study on Afghanistan’s future, that Mr. Bush strenuously pressed General Musharraf on the Taliban. Later, Mr. Bush told his aides he worried that “old school ties” between Pakistani intelligence and the Taliban endured, despite the general’s assurances. The Pakistanis, one senior American commander said, were “hedging their bets.” “They’re not sure that we are staying,” he added. “And if we are gone, the Taliban is their next best option” to remain influential in Afghanistan. As 2005 ended, the Taliban leaders remained in hiding in Pakistan, waiting for an opportunity to cross the border. Soon, they would find one. To Afghans, a Fickle Effort In September 2005, NATO defense ministers gathered in Berlin to complete plans for NATO troops to take over security in Afghanistan’s volatile south. It was the most ambitious “out of area” operations in NATO history, and across Europe, leaders worried about getting support from their countries. Then, American military officials dropped a bombshell. The Pentagon, they said, was considering withdrawing up to 3,000 troops from Afghanistan, roughly 20 percent of total American forces. NATO’s secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said he had protested to Mr. Rumsfeld that a partial American withdrawal would discourage others from sending troops. In the end, the planned troop reduction was abandoned, but chiefly because the American ground commander at the time, Lt. Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, concluded that the Taliban were returning and that he needed to shift troops to the east to try to stop them. But the announcement had sent a signal of a wavering American commitment. “The Afghan people still doubt our staying power,” General Eikenberry said. “They have seen the world walk away from them before.” To sell their new missions at home, British, Dutch and Canadian officials portrayed deployments to Afghanistan as safe, and better than sending troops to Iraq. Germany and Italy prevented their forces from being sent on combat missions in volatile areas. Those regions were to be left to the Americans, Canadians, British and Dutch. Three months after announcing the proposed troop withdrawal, the White House Office of Management and Budget cut aid to Afghanistan by a third. Ms. Rice said that much of the money allocated to Afghanistan the previous year had not been spent. “There was an absorption problem,” she said. Mr. Neumann, then the ambassador, said he had argued against the decision. Even so, American assistance to Afghanistan dropped by 38 percent, from $4.3 billion in fiscal 2005 to $3.1 billion in fiscal 2006, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service. By February 2006, Mr. Neumann had come to the conclusion that the Taliban were planning a spring offensive, and he sent a cable to his superiors. “I had a feeling that the view was too rosy in Washington,” recalled Mr. Neumann, who retired from the State Department in June. “I was concerned.” Mr. Neumann’s cable proved prophetic. In the spring of 2006, the Taliban carried out their largest offensive since 2001, attacking British, Canadian and Dutch troops in southern Afghanistan. Hundreds of Taliban swarmed into the south, setting up checkpoints, assassinating officials and burning schools. Suicide bombings quintupled to 136. Roadside bombings doubled. All told, 191 American and NATO troops died in 2006, a 20 percent increase over the 2005 toll. For the first time, it became nearly as dangerous, statistically, to serve as an American in Afghanistan as in Iraq. Mr. Neumann said that while suicide bombers came from Pakistan, most Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan were Afghans. Captured insurgents said they had taken up arms because a local governor favored a rival tribe, corrupt officials provided no services or their families needed money. After cutting assistance in 2006, the United States plans to provide $9 billion in aid to Afghanistan in 2007, twice the amount of any year since 2001. Despite warnings about the Taliban’s resurgence from Mr. Neumann, Mr. Khalilzad and military officials, Ms. Rice said, “there was no doubt that people were surprised that the Taliban was able to regroup and come back in a large, well-organized force.” Divisions Over Strategy In July 2006, NATO formally took responsibility for security throughout Afghanistan. To Americans and Europeans, NATO is the vaunted alliance that won the cold war. To Afghans it is little more than a strange, new acronym. And NATO and the Americans are divided over strategy. The disagreement is evident on the wall of the office of Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the commander of the 35,000 NATO forces in Afghanistan, where he keeps a chart that is a sea of yellow and red blocks. Each block shows the restrictions that national governments have placed on their forces under his command. Red blocks represent tasks a country will not do, like hunting Taliban or Qaeda leaders. Yellow blocks indicate missions they are willing to consider after asking their capitals for approval. In Washington, officials lament that NATO nations are unwilling to take the kinds of risks and casualties necessary to confront the Taliban. Across Europe, officials complain the United States never focused on reconstruction, and they blame American forces for mounting air attacks on the Taliban that cause large civilian casualties, turning Afghans against the West. The debate over how the 2001 victory in Afghanistan turned into the current struggle is well under way. “Destroying the Al Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan was an extraordinary strategic accomplishment,” said Robert D. Blackwill, who was in charge of both Afghanistan and Iraq policy at the National Security Council, “but where we find ourselves now may have been close to inevitable, whether the U.S. went into Iraq or not. We were going to face this long war in Afghanistan as long as we and the Afghan government couldn’t bring serious economic reconstruction to the countryside, and eliminate the Taliban’s safe havens in Pakistan.” But Henry A. Crumpton, a former C.I.A. officer who played a key role in ousting the Taliban and became the State Department’s counterterrorism chief, said winning a war like the one in Afghanistan required American personnel to “get in at a local level and respond to people’s needs so that enemy forces cannot come in and take advantage.” “These are the fundamentals of counterinsurgency, and somehow we forgot them or never learned them,” he added. He noted that “the United States has 11 carrier battle groups, but we still don’t have expeditionary nonmilitary forces of the kind you need to win this sort of war.” “We’re living in the past,” he said. Among some current and former officials, a consensus is emerging that a more consistent, forceful American effort could have helped to keep the Taliban and Al Qaeda’s leadership from regrouping. Gen. James L. Jones, a retired American officer and a former NATO supreme commander, said Iraq caused the United States to “take its eye off the ball” in Afghanistan. He warned that the consequences of failure “are just as serious in Afghanistan as they are in Iraq.” “Symbolically, it’s more the epicenter of terrorism than Iraq,” he said. “If we don’t succeed in Afghanistan, you’re sending a very clear message to the terrorist organizations that the U.S., the U.N. and the 37 countries with troops on the ground can be defeated.”

Afghanistan
Iraq
United States Armament and Defense
Taliban
Terrorism
Karzai Hamid


Anger and Scrutiny Grow Over Poisoned Water in Michigan City

Abstract: FLINT, Mich. — Michigan’s attorney general opened an investigation Friday into lead contamination in Flint’s drinking water , and the governor asked President Obama to declare a disaster as National Guard troops fanned out across this anxious city to help distribute bottled water, water filters and testing kits. The actions drew new scrutiny to an environmental crisis that poisoned the water supply for a year and a half before it was addressed. The contamination has left a city of 100,000 people unable to use tap water for drinking, cooking or bathing, and has caused mounting political woes for the governor, Rick Snyder. In the last three weeks, a panel appointed by Mr. Snyder reported that state officials had for months wrongly brushed aside complaints about the contamination. The governor apologized for the state’s performance, Michigan’s top environmental regulator resigned, and federal agencies announced that they were investigating. In recent days, even as Mr. Snyder has declared a state of emergency, requested federal action and summoned the National Guard, he has continued to face intense criticism that the state has been slow to react, despite admitting that it bungled the problem. In Flint, a poor city plagued by aging infrastructure and declining population, residents and business owners voiced anger, frustration and fear. “I mean, this is insane, you know?” Sonya Houston, 42, said as she visited a fire station to pick up a water filtration pitcher. She said that she and her husband had only recently found a new home and that their daughters, ages 7 and 8, “can’t even use the water in their own home.” Image Niecole Middleton, right, with her twins, and a relative, Patrice Moore, waited for help in carrying cases of bottled water to her car. Credit Brittany Greeson for The New York Times Now, they are considering moving out of the city. Holding up the pitcher, she said, “This is not enough to keep us here.” Jason White, vice president for medical affairs at a local hospital, McLaren Flint, said the water supply became so poor in 2014 “that we got reports from our sterile processing people, those who clean the surgical instruments, that they were seeing corrosion,” prompting the hospital to replace its water filters. Since Monday, when officials began distributing emergency supplies at fire stations, thousands of people have streamed in, and aid workers have rationed lead testing kits, one per person, for fear of running out. “The volume of people that have been coming here, it’s a nonstop deal for 12 hours a day,” said David Cox Jr., the city fire chief. “We weren’t ready for it.” The governor sent two requests Thursday night to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which this week has been distributing its own surplus supplies of bottled water, saying that the crisis was beyond the state’s ability to manage. One asks that the president declare a state of emergency, allowing for immediate assistance like water, food and generators; the other asks him to declare a major disaster, allowing for millions of dollars in loans and grants to residents and the state for long-term needs like new water pipes, an improved filtration plant or temporary housing for residents. FEMA and the White House declined to offer a timetable for a decision. But Representative Dan Kildee, a Democrat whose district includes Flint, said, “We expect something within the next couple of days.” The attorney general, Bill Schuette, said Friday that his office would investigate “what, if any, Michigan laws were violated in the process that resulted in the contamination crisis.” Mr. Schuette, a Republican, is considered a likely candidate for governor. Mr. Snyder, also a Republican, cannot run again in 2018 because of term limits. The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Justice are also investigating possible violations of federal law. Neither those agencies nor the office of Mr. Schuette (pronounced SHOO-tee) would say what people or agencies might be the subjects of the investigation. But the recent report from a task force appointed by the governor blamed the state’s Department of Environmental Quality, saying that officials there had taken a lax approach to enforcement and that they responded to concerns about Flint’s water with “aggressive dismissal, belittlement and attempts to discredit these efforts and the individuals involved.” Researchers at Virginia Tech who looked into the lead poisoning were even more damning, reporting last month that Michigan officials not only ignored complaints about the smell, taste and color of the water, but also lied about lead levels and tried to conceal evidence. And there have been reports that the city failed in its own lead-testing duties. The state says it has identified 43 people suffering from elevated levels of lead, which poisons the nervous system and can stunt brain development in children. In addition, state officials disclosed this week that in 2014 and 2015, there was a spike in Legionnaire’s disease cases in Genesee County, which includes Flint, including 10 fatalities, coinciding with the contamination of the water supply. They said they were investigating whether there might be a connection. From 2011 to 2015, Flint was in state receivership, its finances controlled by a succession of four emergency managers appointed by Mr. Snyder’s administration. The state returned some financial control to the city last year, and Mr. Snyder said Friday that he wanted to give it still more autonomy. It was one of those state-appointed managers who, in a cost-cutting move, switched the city in April 2014 from taking water from Detroit’s system to drawing water from the Flint River. Almost immediately, people began to complain about the water’s color, smell and taste. Bacterial contamination was found, and then the chemicals used to disinfect the water caused a different kind of contamination, but state officials insisted that the problems had been managed and that the water was safe. It was not until September that evidence of lead poisoning became public, and officials began to acknowledge it. It turned out that the river water was corrosive, causing lead to leach from pipes. Image Specialist Joseph Puzniak of the Michigan National Guard assisting Flint residents on Friday. Credit Brittany Greeson for The New York Times The city switched back to using Detroit water in October, but it is unclear how long the leaching will continue. Flint is a member of a regional water authority that is building a new pipeline to bring water from Lake Huron, which should be operational later this year. Monette Brown, 36, said she began using bottled water in 2014, after the city supply changed, and well before she heard anything about lead contamination. On Friday she had three cases stacked next to her dining table. Even with a filter, she said, she did not feel safe letting her children, ages 17, 8 and 5, use the tap water in her house on Flint’s west side. “It kind of scares me,” she said. “I have to go get my kids checked often” for lead poisoning. Early last year, the University of Michigan-Flint installed water filters and began using more bottled water, said Susan E. Borrego, the chancellor. “Flint has, well, there are moments when you think we can’t get a break,” Dr. Borrego said. Still, there are occasional flashes of grim humor. At the Flint Crepe Company, a sign under the water jug on the bar reads, “unleaded.” The Department of Environmental Quality has acknowledged that it should have required that anti-corrosion chemicals be added to the river water, and that it should have taken complaints more seriously. “I do not believe it was any type of willful neglect or disregard,” said Keith Creagh, interim director of the department. “But I think it was a culture that was not inquisitive enough to bring new data in, to have a more substantive conversation around the appropriate outcome.” Mr. Kildee asked for a federal disaster declaration in September. Mr. Snyder declared a state of emergency on Jan. 5, and this week he activated the National Guard, asked for help from FEMA and sought a disaster declaration. “Everything they have done at the state level has been way too late,” Mr. Kildee said. “What I am hoping does not get lost is the need to provide, on a long-term basis — and I mean decades — support for the kids who were poisoned.”

Flint Michigan
Rick Snyder
FEMA
Water
Lead
Michigan
Water pollution


Manager Terry Collins Cleared to Return to Mets

Abstract: Mets Manager Terry Collins, who missed his team’s game Sunday after feeling ill that morning in Milwaukee, will be back in the dugout Tuesday. Collins was seen by a doctor at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee on Sunday, and the Mets said that all tests had come back negative. He was cleared by the doctor and by the Mets’ medical staff to fly back to New York. With the bench coach Dick Scott managing in Collins’s absence on Sunday, the Mets lost, 5-3 , to the Brewers. The Mets were off on Monday and start an eight-game homestand Tuesday at Citi Field against the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Atlanta Braves and the Kansas City Royals. Collins, who turned 67 last month, is the oldest manager in the majors. He signed a two-year contract extension, through 2017, after guiding the Mets to the World Series last season.


Felix Hernandez and Mariners Are Set to Break the Bank

Abstract: The price for elite pitching will soon cross a new threshold. Felix Hernandez and the Seattle Mariners were on the verge of a contract extension Thursday that would make him the first pitcher in baseball history to earn $25 million per season on a multiyear deal. The pending agreement was confirmed by a baseball official. The deal would cover the next seven years, replacing the two years remaining on his existing contract. Hernandez’s contract continues the steady progression of star pitchers’ salaries. Before the 2011 season, Cliff Lee signed a deal with the Philadelphia Phillies that averages $24 million per year. In December, the Los Angeles Dodgers signed Zack Greinke to a deal averaging $24.5 million. Now comes the contract for Hernandez, with a total value that exceeds the previous record of $161 million, from C. C. Sabathia’s first Yankees contract, which he signed before the 2009 season. (That deal was amended after the 2011 season, when the Yankees gave Sabathia a five-year, $122 million extension from 2012 through 2016.) Image Seattle is close to giving Felix Hernandez a contract extension that could pay him $25 million a season. Credit Ted S. Warren/Associated Press Since Hernandez’s first full season, 2006, only Sabathia, Roy Halladay, Justin Verlander and Dan Haren have thrown more innings, and only Sabathia and Verlander have recorded more strikeouts. Hernandez won the American League Cy Young Award in 2010, when he led the league in earned run average at 2.27, despite a 13-12 record. He led the majors in shutouts last season, with five, including a perfect game in August. The Mariners must still improve their offense, having finished last in the league in runs in each of the last four seasons. But re-signing Hernandez, who turns 27 in April, allows them to keep their franchise player, with several top prospects likely to join him in the rotation soon. Mariners General Manager Jack Zduriencik explained in September the importance of Hernandez to his long-term plan. “Let’s be realistic,” Zduriencik said. “When we get to where we want to go — and we hope we’re on our way — we’re going to have to have a staff ace. Felix is that. Any club that’s a good club, what are they looking for? A top-of-the-rotation guy. Well, guess what? We have one. “I know he likes it here, and he looks around and sees a bunch of young kids and a minor league system that’s pretty good. He can see the vision, and he knows he’s going to be a part of this thing.”


Robin Lane Gets the City Talking With Sidewalk Chalk

Abstract: ON Thursday evening, Robin Lane was out there with his stick of chalk, standing at his spot on the northeast corner of Second Avenue and 33rd Street in Kips Bay, Manhattan. In the middle of the Midtown bustle, he dropped to one knee and began scrawling one of his chalk messages on the gum-pocked sidewalk. “New Yorkers tend to walk looking down, not up,” explained Mr. Lane, who for the past 15 years has made a weekly ritual of creating an underfoot billboard on the same four-foot square of sidewalk here, never missing a week. Let the children have their Twitter and Instagram blips. Mr. Lane sticks to chalk on concrete. He calls the pre-weekend postings “chalk talk”: newsy provocations for his neighbors to discuss. After a spate of gun violence this year, he wrote, “Bat Signal, get the guns off the street.” Last year, as Tropical Storm Irene approached, he assured New Yorkers, “The sun will come out tomorrow, it’s a hard knock life.” And after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, he left a simple “911” with the last two digits bent horizontally to suggest the fallen towers. “I usually go with what’s topical,” said Mr. Lane, whose messages are faded by feet and erased by rain within days. If not, he uses a bottle of water to clean the slate before writing his next one. The message on Thursday related to the day’s news that the city had passed a ban on the sale of large sugary beverages. “NYC Bd of Health bans super size drinks,” he wrote in six-inch-high letters. “What’s next condoms.” “Oh, did the ban begin today?” asked a woman walking her dog. Mr. Lane did not look up, so the woman asked another pedestrian. “See, this is what I want,” Mr. Lane whispered, “to stimulate conversation and just walk away.” Mr. Lane lives halfway down the block in a rent-stabilized studio on 33rd Street. He is youthful and spry but reluctant to reveal his age because, he said, “that can hurt you in my line of work.” His line includes performance art, magic, modeling and dancing, but he makes much of his living day trading. In other words, he is a typical Manhattanite, and as such, he has something to say. “I’ve always been an expressionist, and this is one of my forms of expression,” he said, dressed in running shoes, rolled up slacks, shirttails and a green tie smudged with chalk. “I don’t really want people to know it’s me writing them, and I don’t even want to discuss them,” he said. “Sometimes I come out and write them after midnight, just so I won’t be seen.” But he can rarely leave a message without some passer-by coming up and saying, “So, you’re the guy.” This is precisely what Marisa Koeppel said recently, having lived on the block and followed the messages for two years before she spied Mr. Lane in the act. “People notice them,” said Ms. Koeppel, 30, a guidance counselor at Midwood High School in Brooklyn, as she happened upon Mr. Lane again during his writing on Thursday. “Sometimes they’re funny; sometimes they’re controversial, or inspirational.” Moments later, another woman walked up and blurted out: “Is that you? Oh, my God!” The woman, Marisol Banuelos, 34, a bond saleswoman, told Mr. Lane that she had been photographing the messages and posting them to a Facebook album titled “33rd St & 2nd Ave Wisdom” since she moved to the block a year ago from Miami. Of course, not everyone loves the chalk. “Some building managers and irate neighbors have tried to tell me to stop, and I have to remind them about the First Amendment,” said Mr. Lane, who grew up in the Bronx, attended St. John’s University and took theater classes at New York University. He is a lifelong bachelor with no children. “Dealing with a woman is a full-time job,” he said. “My cats sleep in bed with me, and I don’t think there’s any woman in this neighborhood who wants to deal with that.” His two aging cats — Sammy, 17, and Snowflake, 12 — are infirm and must be hydrated constantly through a tube, which takes much of Mr. Lane’s time. “My cats are my No. 1 priority,” he said. “My doctor says my numbers — my cholesterol and other levels — are good, so I’d give anything to trade my numbers with my cats’ numbers.” And for viewers of his sidewalk scrawling, he said, “It gives them an anchor, like, ‘The messages are still here, so everything’s O.K.’ ”

Kips Bay (NYC)
Lane Robin
Manhattan (NYC)


A Nod to Journalistic Integrity Is Seen in an Editor’s Return

Abstract: Who says industry magazines are cozy with their advertisers? Last week, the International Data Group removed the chief executive of its largest-circulation computer magazine, PC World , and reinstated its top editor, who had quit days earlier over the executive’s decision to not run an article critical of an advertiser. The editor in chief, Harry McCracken , rejoined the magazine on Wednesday after the disputed article, “ 10 Things We Hate About Apple ,” was posted on the magazine’s Web site. It was a hero’s homecoming for Mr. McCracken, who was praised on the PCWorld.com message boards and in the blogosphere for sacrificing himself in the name of journalistic integrity. “I was on the brink of canceling my subscription,” wrote one reader. “Now that McCracken’s back, I’ll stick around, too.” PC World, a monthly magazine with a companion Web site that mixes technology news with product reviews, has a reputation for smart and sometimes hard-hitting articles that often offend big tech companies. In recent years, it has criticized several of its advertisers for what it described were bait-and-switch tactics and price gouging. Its survey of the reliability of manufacturers has given poor ratings to several of the magazine’s advertisers. It even has a regular column chronicling the defects in Microsoft software. Mr. McCracken says that several advertisers have withdrawn ads over the years, after their products were negatively reviewed in the magazine, most recently last month. (He would not name the advertiser.) “PC World is surprisingly reportorial, especially against some other technology magazines that don’t invest a lot” in articles that might provoke companies, said Sam Whitmore , an analyst in Beverly, Mass., who tracks technology publishers. That may explain why Mr. McCracken’s resignation drew the attention of hundreds of bloggers . It became a cause célèbre for many who viewed the spiking of the article as an affront to Silicon Valley’s Fourth Estate. To others, it was a confirmation of what they had long suspected — that the business side routinely meddles in editorial decisions at technology magazines, especially in recent years, as ad pages have declined considerably, leaving many magazines to rely on only a handful of advertisers. Mr. McCracken says he did not quit to make a statement. But now, a part of him is glad that the skirmish became public. “With the conclusion we reached, this should tell everyone that computer journalism isn’t sleazy,” he said. Even so, on blogs and in interviews, some observers noted that the final version of the Apple article appeared next to another article titled, “ 10 Things We Love About Apple ,” making them wonder whether a compromise had been made to appease Apple, and whether the “We Hate” article had been toned down before publication. Mr. McCracken, a 12-year veteran of PC World, said that the dustup with his boss occurred while the “We Hate” article was still a draft, and that editing was done before it was published. He said, however, that it was edited without consideration to how Apple might react. He also said that the “We Love” article had been planned all along. He acknowledged that the “We Hate” article made for an odd source of controversy, because it required little reporting and contained no news. “We saw it as a fun little story that would get people talking,” he said. Wired News called it a “fluffy piece of Digg bait” meant to compel user-driven news sites like Digg.com to link to it. The ousted chief executive of PC World, Colin Crawford , has been reassigned to his old job of overseeing business development for International Data’s online properties. He did not respond to messages left at his office and on his cellphone. Mr. Crawford, who had been at PC World for only two months, spent 10 years as chief executive of the company’s Macworld magazine, which is devoted to Apple’s line of Macintosh products. International Data also runs the Macworld convention, where the chief executive of Apple, Steven P. Jobs, introduced the iPhone in January. Apple is “not just any advertiser,” Mr. Whitmore, the analyst, said, pointing out that Mr. Jobs had a reputation for trying to influence coverage of the company. Apple did not return calls seeking comment. The writers of the Apple articles, Narasu Rebbapragada and Alan Stafford, declined to comment.

Magazines
Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations
International Data Group
Computers and the Internet
Crawford Colin
Apple Inc


The Importance of Studying Another Culture

Abstract: Philippe Guettat has been chairman and chief executive of Martell Mumm Perrier-Jouët since 2012. Q. Tell me about the first time you managed a team. A. It was when I arrived in Singapore back in 1992, as a marketing manager for Pernod Ricard’s very small subsidiary there at that time. I was 28 and I had joined Pernod Ricard the year before in Cognac [France], managing Asia on my own from there. In Singapore, I had a tiny team of two people, but quickly I started to look after the sales team, which was also small. I was not officially in charge, but the company spirit was very entrepreneurial and pioneering — it was really about doing things, empowering people. At the time our brands weren’t known in the region and it was really about making things happen, discovering the market and the way of doing business, trying to create an impact, even on a small scale. Q. What do you remember most clearly about the experience? A. Discovery, pleasure — in terms of emotions. Nothing looked impossible. Even if it was difficult with limited resources, we did things collectively with a strong team spirit. I remember that in the morning, I would be briefing the sales team on the commercial plans, then going afterward to negotiate directly with the buyer from large retailers, then going to the Hilton for a wine tasting to get a contract signed, then in the evening going to karaoke trying to negotiate promotions for our cognac. Very diverse, very exciting. Q. That wasn’t the first time you were taken out of your own culture, was it? A. No, I’d already spent some time regularly in Asia, coming to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, three weeks at a time, five times a year for a job at Yoplait. For that, I remember taking a course about Japanese etiquette and I also took some lessons in Japanese. We were working with a union of agricultural cooperatives, a very traditional Japanese company, and there were a lot of dos and don’ts. It was critical to get the etiquette right and we would rehearse ahead of time, with my boss. I read a lot of books about Japanese culture. The industry I now work in is more modern, but what I’d learned has helped me a lot. Q. You’ve also spent eight years in China. Do you think it’s important for a foreign chief executive going there to study the culture? A. It’s vital, and I see it has a matter of respect. You need to understand the people you’re dealing with, and it’s a point of conversation. This willingness to learn more and better will help you at a later stage to shape your approach to situations and people. Q. What did you learn in China? A. Respect, curiosity, attention to detail, and the capacity to listen to others and display real genuine interest. You have to be true to yourself. There is always this need for the Chinese to really know the people they’re dealing with, and they’re very good at finding that out. In fact, it will be much easier to work when they understand you and the way you function. So it’s really about being sincere, simple and approachable. There is a lot of resistance in Asia, and in particular China, when you are too distant or seem arrogant. You need to show you can have fun, too, and you’re a human being. Q. Part of the Chinese culture of doing business is often around a drink. Any advice? A. Yes. Do entertain, it’s important, but you need to remember while you are there, it’s a business relationship, even if you can have fun. Q. In your industry do you require certain qualities to succeed? A. You need to be able to embody the brand and its values. With us, it’s very much about conviviality. We’re selling drinks but also the happiness of sharing great moments in a group. You need to like that and be able to personify it in order to be a role model. Secondly and deriving from this, you need to like people, because it’s a people business — not just consumers but clients as well. It’s about personal relationships. Q. What makes a great leader? A. It’s clear you need to have the fundamentals, good strategic thinking, strong analytical skills and the capacity to implement and execute. But before that, what is quite critical is also the dimensional vision. The vision as a concept is not always easy to understand, so I’ve tried to conceptualize it. It’s a kind of sense of idealism: This is what we’re doing and this is where we want to go, and then you start shaping the belief that this can be achieved and how to get there and how to take the whole team on that journey. It can be extremely powerful and it’s very much about the willingness to create, growing the business, growing people, growing brands. And I think it’s also important to be willing to create and to be generous, in terms of giving your time to explain where you want to go, to convince people of the validity of your purpose. Q. What qualities do you look for in your top team? A. First of all and as much as possible, always work with people who are already in place. But when I have to hire someone, I’m very keen on selecting people who abide by the values of the group. That includes entrepreneurship, people who can function on their own and have a drive to do, who have a sense of conviviality, the ability to interact with others, a strong professionalism but at the same time a kind of informality and being quite relaxed in your way of dealing with each other.

Management
Martell Mumm Perrier-Jouët
Philippe Guettat
China


Tracy Morgan Critically Hurt in New Jersey Car Crash

Abstract: The actor and comedian Tracy Morgan finished a stand-up comedy show in Delaware on Friday night and headed back to New York City with several other comedians. Around 1 a.m., a tractor-trailer slammed into the back of their luxury van, overturning it and setting off a chain reaction that involved four other vehicles. When emergency workers arrived, Mr. Morgan was critically injured, and another comedian, James McNair, was pronounced dead at the scene. Two other comedians and Mr. Morgan’s assistant were injured. Mr. Morgan, 45, a former “Saturday Night Live” and “30 Rock” cast member, and his assistant, Jeff Millea, 36, were airlifted in a helicopter to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, N.J. On Saturday, Mr. Morgan’s publicist said that he remained in critical condition. “His family is now with him and he is receiving excellent care,” the statement said. The van, a 2012 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter, was traveling northbound on the New Jersey Turnpike in Cranbury Township, about 45 miles from New York City, when it was hit early on Saturday. The comedians had just performed at the Dover Downs Hotel and Casino in Dover, Del., as part of Mr. Morgan’s “Turn It Funny” comedy tour. Image A tractor-trailer that hit the limousine bus in which Mr. Morgan was riding sat in a lot in Cranbury, N.J. Credit Robert Stolarik for The New York Times On Saturday evening, the driver of the tractor-trailer, Kevin Roper, 35, of Jonesboro, Ga., was charged with one count of death by auto and four counts of assault by auto, according to the Middlesex County prosecutor’s office. Mr. Roper is being held at the Middlesex County jail, Sgt. First Class Gregory Williams, a spokesman for the New Jersey State Police, said. His bail was set at $50,000. The preliminary investigation by the state police found that Mr. Roper, who was traveling north in the center lane of the highway, failed to observe slow-moving traffic ahead of him, Sergeant Williams said. Mr. Roper noticed the traffic at the last minute and tried to swerve, but he still struck the van. Mr. McNair, 62, was a longtime comedian who lived in Peekskill, N.Y. Another comedian, Ardie Fuqua, 43, and Mr. Millea remained in critical condition on Saturday evening, a hospital spokesman said. A fourth comedian, Harris Stanton, was treated at the hospital and released. No other injuries were reported. Walmart U.S. confirmed on Saturday that one of the company’s trucks was involved in the crash. Photos from the scene showed a Walmart truck with substantial damage on the front. The company will take full responsibility if it is determined that the Walmart truck caused the accident, the company’s chief executive, Bill Simon, said in a statement. “This is a tragedy and we are profoundly sorry that one of our trucks was involved,” the statement said. “We are working quickly to understand what happened and are cooperating fully with law enforcement to aid their investigation.” Image Traffic moved pass the scene of the accident on the northbound lanes of New Jersey Turnpike on Saturday. Credit David Gard/Associated Press It continued: “We can’t change what happened, but we will do what’s right for the family of the victim and the survivors in the days and weeks ahead.” The bus was operated by Atlantic Transportation Services, based in Rehoboth Beach, Del. The company said on Saturday that the driver of the van had not received life-threatening injuries from the crash. Mr. Morgan was scheduled to perform at the Fillmore Charlotte in Charlotte, N.C., on Saturday night. That show was canceled . Many entertainers expressed concern for Mr. Morgan on Twitter on Saturday. Steve Martin called Mr. Morgan “a real gentleman and hilariously funny.” Questlove, of the band the Roots, posted , “Strength & Speedy Recovery to @RealTracyMorgan who survived a massive car crash this morn.” Tributes also poured in for Mr. McNair, who went by the name Jimmy Mack, from comedians, including Mike Epps. After the show on Friday night, Mr. Fuqua posted a photo on Twitter of Mr. Morgan on stage. “This is what it looks like from the stage to see a standing ovation from 1500 people,” he wrote. “Then we traveled back to NYC in style in a luxury Mercedes Sprinter. Road life is a good life!”

Tracy Morgan
Car Crash
Cranbury NJ
New Jersey
Kevin Roper
James McNair


Weekly Conference Calls Give N.F.L.’s Key Figures a Chance to Say Little

Abstract: For a little while Wednesday, the Patriots and the Jets were models of cooperation. Their respective headquarters in Massachusetts and New Jersey were connected via telephone hookups so that their vastly dissimilar head coaches could speak to reporters from each city. The Jets will meet the Patriots for an A.F.C. divisional playoff game Sunday in Foxborough, Mass. On Wednesday, it was dueling speaker phones. In Foxborough, reporters who cover the Patriots spoke to Jets Coach Rex Ryan, wondering whether he would add to his healthy catalog of audacious statements . In Florham Park, N.J., reporters who cover the Jets sought — in vain — to elicit some kind of reaction from Patriots Coach Bill Belichick about the heated rhetoric emanating from Ryan and the Jets. The conference call is a Wednesday ritual in the N.F.L., even during the playoffs. Head coaches and one player, in separate sessions, sit in an office, perhaps with their feet on a desk or doodling on a pad, and answer questions via telephone while reporters on the other end stare down at a small speaker hoping for something more than predictable clichés. This Wednesday did promise more, and sometimes it delivered. From Ryan came a dismissive defense of Antonio Cromartie’s reference to the Patriots quarterback Tom Brady in Wednesday’s Daily News, in which Cromartie, a Jets cornerback, used an obscenity to describe Brady. From New England came a disciplined lesson in how to avoid controversy, in all its purposely bland, Belichickian precision. Asked his reaction to Cromartie’s comment, Belichick responded with the truth, if nothing else. “Really trying to focus on getting our team ready to play on Sunday,” the voice from the speaker phone crackled. Asked if he felt Cromartie’s comment crossed a line, the voice said, “We’re going to do our best to win on Sunday.” And then came one more attempt. A reporter asked Belichick if he and Ryan, who earlier this week declared that the matchup between the two coaches was personal , would engage in a foot race before the game, almost as if he expected the famously all-business coach to play along. “I think we’ll do our best to win on Sunday,” Belichick responded in his best name, rank and serial number intonation. Who knows? Maybe Belichick wasn’t even speaking live. Maybe the Patriots had hooked up a recording of his answers to a thousand similar questions during his 11-year tenure with the team . After all, Cromartie or no Cromartie, Belichick’s answers rarely vary. Brady, meanwhile, took Cromartie’s epithet in stride. “I’ve been called worse,” Brady said during said his turn on the call. “In fact, Belichick calls me that. My offensive coordinator calls me that. I know they like me, so maybe he really likes me, too.” At the Jets’ practice facility, Cromartie refused to back off his statement, and he reiterated his dislike for Brady, which he said had festered since 2006, Cromartie’s rookie year. He also said he was offended that Brady seemed to taunt the Jets as the Patriots romped, 45-3, in their Dec. 6 matchup in New England. “If you look at it, he’s already up by 30,” Cromartie said, referring to the game. “Why do you want to add more points and keep your quarterback in? We’re making sure we’re trying to prepare ourselves this week, and try and send a message right back.” Ryan, during his call, did not contradict Cromartie, said he would not punish him and even defended his right to say what he said. At first, Ryan claimed not to know what had been said. When told, he chuckled. “O.K.,” he said. “All right, well, first off, you know, in this country you’re allowed to have opinions and obviously, as an organization, we respect Tom Brady, there’s no question about it. But hey, is there dislike between us and Brady and Brady against the Jets and all that? Of course there is.” He added: “There’s plenty of respect. But we don’t have to be all lovey dovey and say, ‘Oh, he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.’ We have a right to our opinion and a comment like that is no big deal. A guy makes a comment, big deal.” It was Ryan who first made reference to Brady’s “antics” on the field, which Ryan said were directed at him. On Wednesday, some of Cromartie’s teammates also took note of Brady’s celebrations during the 45-3 win. One was Jason Taylor, who amplified his views by getting on the conference call, too. “Keep him out of the end zone,” Taylor said during his session with Patriots reporters, “and you won’t be offended by it.” Whichever team succeeds on Sunday will be back on another conference call next Wednesday. But it won’t be Jets versus Patriots, and maybe there won’t be any questions about obscenities.

Football
News and News Media
New England Patriots
New York Jets


Sold on a View, New Year’s Revelers Fall to a Forgery Scheme

Abstract: Getting into the LOL Times Square Comedy Club should not be difficult: Go to Times Square, and when a person with an LOL sign or identification badge approaches you and asks, “Hey, do you like comedy?” say yes. You’re in. Make your way to the club on Seventh Avenue and head upstairs to the windowless bar and black-box theater crowded with tables for two. Enjoy the show. So the club’s owner and workers and the police were surprised to find the club suddenly become, for one night only, the hottest ticket in the area. So hot that counterfeit tickets started showing up at the doorman’s podium out front. Was a famous comic rumored to be making an appearance? No. The spike in demand was based not on what was happening inside the club, which is four months old, but rather on what was going on outside. Location, location, location — it was New Year’s Eve, and a few blocks away, a big, bright ball would soon drop slowly down a pole while the world watched. “I don’t remember in other years having issues like this,” said Lt. Sean Burke, who has worked in Times Square for 12 of his almost 20 years with the Police Department. “This was an unprecedented level.” The scene played out in front of many revelers, including Robert Judson, a house framer from Rochester who had watched the ball drop on television many times — “our whole life.” He brought his family to Manhattan for the first time last month to see it in person. His experience that night — a chain of hassle and deceit and frustration and empty promises — matched that of many others who thought they held tickets to the club and yet found themselves stranded on the flanks of the famous crossroads. The Rochester group arrived in Times Square the morning of New Year’s Eve and was met by the familiar question: Do you like comedy? “They are selling tickets,” Mr. Judson recalled last week. But there was more, the promoter told them. The club offered a prime view of the ball drop. “If we buy tickets for $75 apiece, we can come right out the front door and see from the patio,” Mr. Judson said. The family members bought five tickets and left the area, thinking they were all set for later and would not have to spend the day in a holding pen like so many other tourists. They were wrong. When they arrived at West 47th Street and Avenue of the Americas, a long block from the club, they found it blocked off by a police barricade. Officers directed them up the avenue, where they were met by a similar sight at West 48th Street and onward, all the way to West 52nd Street. They asked an officer for help: Lieutenant Burke. He had already seen others in their predicament. “There’s a whole bunch of people holding the same ticket,” he recalled last week. So he led them back downtown, planning to speak to the officers at 48th Street to allow access to the club to ticket holders. Image A counterfeit ticket to a club in Times Square from which buyers hoped to watch the festivities. Credit Jeffrey E. Singer for The New York Times He noticed people with lanyards and laminated badges selling tickets to the club, holding signs promising “Ball Drop Access,” he said. He heard them tell buyers they would see the ball drop. And more ticket holders had fallen in with his group. “By now, I’ve got 20 people,” he said. “It’s a parade.” Officers posted on other corners were reporting that they were also being approached by groups of people with tickets to LOL, Lieutenant Burke said. He led his group to the club’s door. There, more confusion: Some ticket holders did not have reservations, and others wanted refunds. All were told there was no such thing as “ball drop access” here. A freelance reporter for The New York Times, Jeffrey E. Singer, noticed and chatted with angry ticket holders. Lieutenant Burke led the group from Rochester and other grateful visitors (“If I ever go to Australia, I’ll never pay for a beer”) to a side door of the club and left. The club’s owner, Roy Arias, was called down. This being his first New Year’s Eve in the location, he admitted he had not accounted for the difficulty that ticket holders would face getting there, he said. But he said he was shocked by what he heard about the promises surrounding the ball drop. After all, there aren’t even windows. He pointed out text on the front of the special New Year’s Eve ticket that read, “You will NOT see the ball drop.” Then, the larger issue began to unfold. People were showing up at the club with fake tickets. They looked good at a long arm’s length, but up close, they were missing the individual ticket numbers that are present on the real tickets, as well as the perforation along the stub. A man who works with the club, Tyler Fuller, walked to Eighth Avenue to meet another lieutenant who was with a group of ticket holders. He said the lieutenant showed him stacks of tickets that, the lieutenant told him, officers had seized. Some were photocopies of real tickets, which had been available to the public for a few days. Some were from a previous location for the club. Mixed in were fake identification badges for sellers, the names handwritten under photos. A counterfeiting cottage industry had sprung up around the humble LOL, where the biggest headache is usually a rogue promoter who tells people Louis C. K. is performing to quicker offload his tickets. Then customers vent online. And the club was not alone in its sudden popularity that night. Two men were selling $50 tickets to a New Year’s Eve party at the pizza chain Sbarro off West 49th Street. A woman who had bought two tickets arrived at the pizzeria ready to party, only to be told there was no party. She flagged the police, who found 140 more tickets in one of the men’s drawstring bags. Mr. Arias said the ticket sellers did not work for him, but they did buy club tickets in bulk to sell on the street. Ironically, in all the commotion, the club was dead on New Year’s Eve, he said, pointing to unopened cases of liquor in his small office days later. Police officers, finding fake tickets and believing the club was spreading ball-drop misinformation, were not allowing ticket holders to pass barricades, Mr. Arias said. The patrons the club did admit had tickets both real and fake, Jazzlyn Douglas, a manager, said. Five comedians performed to mostly empty rooms. At midnight, Mr. Arias planned on serving a champagne toast, but the crowd of 40 or so had stepped outside to look up. By then, Mr. Judson and his group had come and gone. They paid more than $50 for two soft drinks, a margarita and a beer, Mr. Judson said, then left in disgust. Finally, good news: They, along with some other aggrieved ticket holders, were led by the police to a nearby pen. He thought back days later. What was the highlight of the trip? “Seeing the ball drop,” he replied. “I wouldn’t take it back for anything.”

Fraud
New Year
Times Square and 42nd Street Manhattan
LOL Times Square Comedy Club


To the Olympics and Beyond, Iona Is in It to Win

Abstract: Correction Appended NEW ROCHELLE - LIKE the little engine that could, Iona College has been working hard to get ahead, and having the persistence of the storybook train may be the college's best strategy for success. Iona, a New Rochelle institution founded in 1940 by the Christian Brothers, a Catholic order, has raised $82.6 million over the past few years to build four new buildings and establish scholarships. In the past decade, it has increased enrollment by 22 percent. Its sports programs are thriving, and college officials hope this year's winning men's basketball team will attract renewed attention, and money, from alumni. In addition, the college was named by Intel as among 50 American colleges and universities with the best wireless access. And in a development that has thrilled much of the campus, 11 mass communications majors are flying to Turin, Italy, this week to work as interns for NBC at the Olympic Winter Games. "It's a question of mission and vision and strategic planning," said Iona's president, Brother James A. Liguori, explaining the college's recent achievements. "We are fortunate in having a full house," he said. "If you don't attract enough students, you're going to sink." Nationwide, Catholic college and university enrollment is healthy and growing, said Richard A. Yanikoski, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities in Washington, a nonprofit organization with 200 members. Mr. Yanikoski estimated that there are about 400,000 undergraduates studying at Catholic institutions in the United States, up from 366,000 in 2002. But in Westchester, Marymount College has not been faring well. The college, which is in Tarrytown, will close next year because of financial problems and decreased enrollment. Iona's situation is different, as it slowly and quietly raises its profile. Last year, Intel named Iona among the 50 campuses with the best wireless network, a list that also included Dartmouth College, the United States Military Academy at West Point and Carnegie Mellon University. The college has wireless access throughout its 35-acre campus, said Meghan Flynn, a college spokeswoman. Brother Liguori said that Iona's financial health depended on the willingness of the 40,000 alumni to make donations, and that "it doesn't hurt to win some basketball games." Before Friday's game against Buffalo, the Gaels were 14-3. "The alumni are always prouder and more connected when we do well," Brother Liguori said. Iona has 21 National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I sports teams, including those in men's and women's basketball, men's and women's swimming and diving, men's and women's cross country, and men's and women's soccer. The 44,000-square-foot Hynes Athletics Center, which opened recently, includes an eight-seat rowing tank for Iona's several crew teams, one of only two such tanks in Westchester County. But to many Iona students, the trip to the Olympic Games by the mass communications majors is the most exciting development. Some of the students met earlier this month in the Robert V. LaPenta Student Union, a 41,000-square-foot-building that opened in August last year, eager to discuss the internships. Samantha Ryan, 21, a senior from Kingston, N.Y., was hired by NBC to be a runner, but has no idea, really, what that means. "Whatever they tell me to do is what I'm doing," she said. NBC hired 123 interns nationwide, from about a dozen colleges and universities, with the largest groups coming from Iona, George Washington, Syracuse, Cornell, Hofstra, Ithaca, La Salle, the University of Hartford and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said Michael M. McCarley, a spokesman for NBC Olympics. At Iona, the network interviewed 60 students on campus. NBC recruited at Iona, in part, Brother Liguori said, because a member of the board was a former NBC executive. But the students have to find and pay their own airfare to Turin, as well as pay about $65 a night for lodging and food, they said. "I look at it as an investment, an opportunity to better us and bring us into the real world," said Marie McAliney, 22, a senior from Warwick, N.Y. "That's what I tell my dad when he says he's paying for everything." While most of the interns said they were eager to get the free wardrobe of NBC jackets, hats, gloves, snow pants and long underwear the network promised, they were also nervous about traveling alone and the possibility of terrorism. "I worry about security," said Joe Charles, 21, from Hackensack, N.J., who was the only male student chosen from Iona, and will be a runner in Turin. Andrea Fassacesia, 20, a junior from Mahopac, said her family was "more nervous about terrorists than I am." Iona has set up a Web site (www.iona.edu/news/olympics/) on which the students will post photographs and diary entries about their experience at the Games. And the fact that the students were given this opportunity is something that Iona admissions officers "will take on the road next year" when recruiting new students, said Rob Franek, publisher of Princeton Review Books, a test-preparation and college-admissions services company in Manhattan. "They will say, very proudly, 'This is a good example of what Iona students can do,' " he said. In the most recent issue of his company's book, "The Best Northeastern Colleges, 2006: 224 Select Schools to Consider," Iona was rated in four categories on a scale ranging from 61 to 99 for quality of life, academics, admissions and financial aid, Mr. Franek said. Iona's rating, a sum of the scores, was 296. This is about the same as Pace University's (294) and Purchase College's (292), and slightly lower than that of Manhattanville (315) and Sarah Lawrence (344). Columbia University rated 378. While Westchester residents may perceive Iona as a commuters' college, 70 percent of freshmen live on campus, and about 55 percent of all undergraduates live on campus or nearby, said Ms. Flynn, the Iona spokeswoman. Two new residence halls opened last August, and house 358 students in apartment-style suites, she said. About 80 percent of Iona students are Catholic, one in four come from Westchester, and 30 percent are first-generation college students, Brother Liguori said. The total cost of the college is slightly more than $30,000 a year, but 93 percent receive some form of financial aid. Ms. Ryan and her twin sister, Kimberly Kennedy, also to be an Iona intern in Turin, attend the college, the sisters said, because "they offered us a great financial package," a two-for-the-price-of-one sale that the family could not refuse. Mr. Charles, who was raised by his grandmother, also chose Iona because the college offered him a financial package that pays for about 60 percent of his tuition. As for his NBC internship, Mr. Charles is hoping "this is a way to get job opportunities with NBC or a sports network," he said. Many of the other students echoed his hope that a media job might come their way as a result of the internship. But Ms. McAliney had a more specific goal. "I plan on pushing Katie Couric over," she said. Westchester Correction: February 5, 2006, Sunday An article last Sunday about Iona College misstated the surname of a spokeswoman for the college. She is Meghan Finn, not Flynn.

WESTCHESTER COUNTY (NY)
COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES