It's all about the readers' happiness | TribLIVE

By Eric Heyl

Published: Saturday, November 24, 2012, 8:56?p.m.
Updated 9 hours ago

The business plan isn?t ideal.

Giving away a product that you also are selling tends to depress profits, but Chris Rodell isn?t at all depressed. He?s quite content, and he wants you to be as well.

Rodell has written a whimsical self-improvement book titled ?Use All the Crayons!? It?s an enlightening guide to being happy in tension-plagued times even if you?re wondering how you?ll make the next mortgage payment.

If you want a copy, Rodell will provide one for free.

He would prefer you pay the $15.95 cover price. He?s as fond of regular meals as the next person.

But if you can?t spare the coin and you?d still like to read his ideas for leading an enriching existence, just email him at storyteller@chrisrodell.com.

He?ll send you the book.

?This is something that I want people to have,? said Rodell, 49, of Latrobe. ?I know a lot of unhappy people going through tough times. Making $15.95 (on a book sale) is a poor excuse to keep someone marginally less cheerful.?

Rodell is a veteran freelance writer whose work has appeared in publications such as People, Playboy, Sports Illustrated and the National Enquirer. It wasn?t an easy way to earn a living in the best of times. When the Great Recession hit, writing gigs dried up faster than spit in the desert.

Rodell and his family were flat-out broke.

?We should have been miserable, we should have been angry,? he recalled. ?We weren?t.?

That?s when he got the idea for the book. He compiled a list of things he found inspiring or amusing, eventually interspersing 501 suggestions on how to lead a more colorful life with 33 essays illustrating how he provides pigmentation to his own.

Preachy, it?s not. A sampling of the advice offered:

? Mow the lawn in different patterns each week. Ask the neighbors to vote on their favorite.

? Never fail to include in your cards to newlyweds this sage advice for a long and happy marriage: Always argue naked.

? Get a $75 tattoo of an $18,000 Rolex for your wrist.

I?d reveal more, but then you won?t want to buy the free book.

?Crayons? was rejected by numerous publishers that Rodell said had more qualms about him than his work. ?A lot of them wondered how they could sell a self-help book by a guy who can?t even help himself,? he said.

Rodell published the book himself, but recently sold the audio rights to the Gildan Media Corp. He reports brisk sales at the Greensburg Barnes & Noble, where he?ll have a book signing on Dec. 1.

He also contends that giving the book away actually has been an effective sales technique.

?It hasn?t been unusual for a recipient to turn around and buy copies for other people,? he said. ?One guy I sent a copy to ended up buying 25 copies, one for each of his employees.?

The business model doesn?t guarantee Rodell a windfall, but that?s OK.

He might not ever get rich, but he?s already wealthy in other ways.

Eric Heyl is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-320-7857 or eheyl@tribweb.com.

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Source: http://triblive.com/news/ericheyl/3001432-74/book-rodell-eric-heyl-1595-advice-business-buy-com-copies

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PFT: Colts cheerleaders shave heads to support coach

Bills Colts FootballAP

It wasn?t the prettiest football game you?ll ever see in Indianapolis on Sunday, but the Colts didn?t need style points to improve their chances of making the playoffs this season.

They needed a victory and they got just that. They beat the Bills 20-13 to improve to 7-4 in the season and leave themselves in strong position as the AFC playoff picture continues to take shape. There wasn?t much of the sizzling Andrew Luck we?ve seen at other points this season, but there also wasn?t any of the guy whose interceptions fueled an ugly loss to the Patriots last weekend.

Luck completed 20-of-37 passes for 240 yards on the day. Eight of those passes went to Reggie Wayne, who also drew a crucial pass interference penalty on Bills rookie corner Stephon Gilmore to help run out the clock at the end of the fourth quarter. Another one of Luck?s completions was to T.Y. Hilton for a touchdown in the third quarter, giving Hilton a touchdown catch to go with his 75-yard punt return score in the first half.

The touchdown drive in the third quarter featured Luck at his best as he completed six-of-nine passes and converted three third downs to keep the team rolling toward the end zone. Those moments are what lingers as the memory of Luck from the game. While they were less efficient than you?d like to see, he made enough of the big plays to keep drives alive to assure the Colts of a victory.

It wasn?t flashy, which also goes for the team?s defense. It was the best performance of the year for the unit, although it was short on takeaways (one interception which safety Tom Zbikowski fumbled right back to Buffalo) and other explosive plays. They gave up some plays that moved Buffalo down the field, but the red zone was kept under tight wraps on Sunday.

There aren?t any realistic playoff dreams left in Buffalo these days. C.J. Spiller ran for 107 yards on 14 carries, including a 41-yarder to set up Buffalo?s only touchdown of the day, but Ryan Fitzpatrick hit on just 17-of-33 passes for 180 yards to keep the team from taking advantage of several chances handed to them by a game defense. Mario Williams had three sacks, Justin Rogers had an interception and the Colts offense scored only 13 points. The Bills weren?t able to generate enough points, though, and that?s become a broken record in the wake of Bills games this season.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/11/25/colts-cheerleaders-shave-heads-in-support-of-chuck-pagano/related/

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Great Lakes leaders tell Congo rebels to stop war, leave Goma

While camping in the Grand Canyon with her boyfriend earlier this month,? Samantha Busch, 22, decided to pull a prank on her overprotective mom, Rebecca. Busch texted a photo of herself looking like she was falling off a cliff, when in reality, she was perfectly...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/great-lakes-regional-presidents-start-talks-over-congo-110243262.html

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New Shop Caters to Chefs and Culinary Enthusiast ? The Spoon

The Spoon Shop, a new specialty retailer catering to gourmet chefs and culinary enthusiasts, is open. Owned by residents Tracy Ackerman and Preston Crowl, The Spoon Shop is located in the former Gourmet Chefs Supply in the Old Industrial Area and stocks staples for creating and enjoying food.

The Spoon Shop owners Preston Crowl and Tracy Ackerman

The couple is busily stocking their shelves with a host of new items?like the award-winning Garlic Twist or must-haves like the Aerolatte milk frother. Some of the inventory is geared for perfecting culinary creations with ease; others are for holiday gift-giving, like the scientific, yet fun, Molecular Gastronomy Kit.

Find a selection of bar ware, fun napkins, aprons and Chef Wear, novelty items like Hawaiian-themed cutting boards and numerous gadgets and gizmos. The Spoon Shop will be expanding its grilling and barbecue selections for the outdoor chef.

Offering quality, name brand products from the USA and abroad, The Spoon Shop sells cookwear by Scanpan, LeCreuset, Lodge and All-Clad. Featured cutlery lines include Wusthof, Global, Chun and Forschner/Victorinox.

?We have new inventory arriving weekly,? says Ackerman, who enjoys baking and is known for her cream pies and ?cake pops.? The Spoon Shop has a separate room full of essentials for baking and candy making, complete with a wide variety of cookie cutters and candy molds.

Located near Pacific Island Fitness at 74-5583 Luhia St. #B-14, The Spoon Shop is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays and 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays. Watch for new product updates on Facebook. Phone 808-329-2433.

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Source: http://damontucker.com/2012/11/19/new-shop-caters-to-chefs-and-culinary-enthusiast-the-spoon-shop/

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Expert sees a gathering storm for top fund manager

U. S. Attorney for the Southern district of N.Y. Preet Bharara speaks at a news conference, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2012, in New York. Mathew Martoma, a former hedge fund portfolio manager was arrested Tuesday on charges that he helped carry out the most lucrative insider trading scheme in U.S. history, enabling investment advisers and their hedge funds to make more than $276 million in illegal profits. (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano)

U. S. Attorney for the Southern district of N.Y. Preet Bharara speaks at a news conference, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2012, in New York. Mathew Martoma, a former hedge fund portfolio manager was arrested Tuesday on charges that he helped carry out the most lucrative insider trading scheme in U.S. history, enabling investment advisers and their hedge funds to make more than $276 million in illegal profits. (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano)

U. S. Attorney for the Southern district of N.Y. Preet Bharara speaks at a news conference, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2012, in New York. Mathew Martoma, a former hedge fund portfolio manager was arrested Tuesday on charges that he helped carry out the most lucrative insider trading scheme in U.S. history, enabling investment advisers and their hedge funds to make more than $276 million in illegal profits. (AP Photo/Louis Lanzano)

(AP) ? The arrest of a former hedge fund portfolio manager in what prosecutors are calling one of the most lucrative insider trading schemes ever indicates that prosecutors may be setting their sights higher ? toward a wealthy business leader the suspect's firm was connected to, an expert says.

Mathew Martoma made an arrangement to obtain secret, advance results of tests on an experimental Alzheimer's drug that netted more than $276 million for his fund and others, according to charges filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

He was arrested Tuesday on allegations that he used the information to advise other investment professionals to buy shares in the companies developing the drug, then later to dump those investments and place financial bets against the companies when the tests returned disappointing results.

Martoma's trades helped reap a hefty profit from 2006 through July 2008, while he worked for CR Intrinsic Investors LLC of Stamford, Conn., an affiliate of SAC Capital Advisors, a firm owned by Steven A. Cohen, one of the nation's wealthiest hedge fund managers.

The government has been scrutinizing SAC since at least November 2010, when the FBI subpoenaed SAC and other influential hedge funds. Martoma is the fourth person associated with SAC Capital to be arrested on insider trading charges in the past four years.

Martoma will have great incentive to cooperate with the government because the size of the gains would add years, if not decades, to any potential sentence upon conviction, said John Sylvia, co-chairman of the securities litigation practice at the Mintz Levin law firm in Boston.

It was clear from the court papers that Cohen was referenced frequently and was a likely target of investigators, he said, though they might not be able to build a sufficient case against him.

"There's little doubt as to where the government's sights are," Sylvia said. "I don't think it takes Sherlock Holmes to figure it out."

Martoma was arrested at his home in Boca Raton, Fla., and made an initial appearance in federal court in West Palm Beach, Fla., where he was released on $5 million bail on charges of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud. He was scheduled to return to court Monday in Manhattan.

Martoma's attorney, Charles Stillman, called his client "an exceptional portfolio manager who succeeded through hard work and the dogged pursuit of information in the public domain. What happened today is only the beginning of a process that we are confident will lead to Mr. Martoma's full exoneration."

SAC spokesman Jonathan Gasthalter said the company and Cohen "are confident that they have acted appropriately and will continue to cooperate with the government's inquiry."

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil papers in the case against CR Intrinsic Investors, Martoma and Dr. Sidney Gilman. The civil complaint said the illegal money was earned in July 2008, when various hedge funds traded ahead of a negative public announcement involving the clinical trial results of an Alzheimer's drug being jointly developed by Elan Corp. and Wyeth, both pharmaceutical companies.

The SEC complaint said that Martoma carried out the scheme with Gilman, an 80-year-old professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School who served as chairman of a safety committee overseeing the clinical trial. Gilman was selected by Elan and Wyeth to present the final clinical trial results at a July 29, 2008, medical conference.

Messages left with the University of Michigan Medical School were not immediately returned.

Gilman's lawyer, Marc Mukasey, said his client is cooperating with the SEC and the U.S. attorney's office, and has entered into a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors.

A copy of the agreement released by federal prosecutors Tuesday showed that Gilman will forfeit nearly $187,000 that he received from Elan for consulting work in 2007 and 2008 and from an expert networking firm for consultations between 2006 and 2009 with Martoma's hedge fund.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Martoma gained from "cultivating and corrupting" Gilman, eventually receiving $9 million in bonus pay for the year when the trades were made.

Martoma met with the doctor about 42 times, beginning in the summer of 2006, and eventually convinced him to start talking about the drug trial, prosecutors said.

The SEC said leaks by Martoma caused hedge fund portfolios managed by CR Intrinsic and by an affiliated investment adviser to liquidate more than $700 million in holdings in Elan and Wyeth.

The massive repositioning, the SEC said, allowed CR Intrinsic and various hedge funds to reap huge illicit profits and avoid steep losses.

"By cultivating and corrupting a doctor with access to secret drug data, Mathew Martoma and his hedge fund benefited from what might be the most lucrative inside tip of all time," Bharara said.

The prosecutor said the doctor sent him a draft of the 24-page presentation he planned to make at a conference announcing the results.

That is when Martoma "had to do a spectacular about-face because he understood that ? with these negative results looming ? the hedge fund's massive $700 million stake had become a terrible bet," Bharara said. "And so, just like that, overnight, Martoma went from bull to bear as he tried to dig his hedge fund out of a massive hole."

The news caused Elan's stock price to plunge by more than 40 percent. The price of Wyeth fell about 12 percent.

The bets against the drug developers brought additional profits totaling $76.2 million. That is roughly the same amount that prosecutors said former hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam made in illegal profits before he was arrested. The one-time billionaire is serving an 11-year prison sentence in what was once considered the biggest insider trading case in U.S. history.

A year later, a hedge fund employee recommended that Martoma be terminated, and he was let go in 2010, Bharara said.

___

AP Business Writer Daniel Wagner in Washington contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-11-21-US-Insider-Trading-Arrest/id-d40809f76b164075bceda660c99df8cb

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Euro slips, shares stabilize as Greek deal proves elusive

LONDON (Reuters) - World shares and the euro were rocked on Wednesday by the failure of Greece's international lenders to reach agreement on releasing emergency aid, though prices stabilized on efforts by politicians to reassure markets that a deal was close.

Euro zone finance ministers, the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank will gather again on Monday after nearly 12 hours of talks through the night failed to reach a consensus on how to bring Greece's debts down.

After the meeting ended, French Finance Minister Pierre Moscovici said a deal was just "a whisker away", while European paymaster Germany said a plan to provide Greece with funding until 2016 was being developed.

The euro area's blue chip stock index, the Euro STOXX 50 , which fell 0.3 percent in early trading, recovered to be up 0.1 percent at 2,511.50 points.

"The old worries about the euro zone show investor sentiment remains on a knife edge", said Richard Hunter, head of UK equities at Hargreaves Lansdown.

In the main European centers the German DAX and France's CAC-40 indexes were up around 0.2 percent while London's FTSE 100 was unchanged.

Stock index futures pointed to a flat-to-higher open on Wall Street for its last session before the Thanksgiving holiday.

"Until such time as we get a little bit of clarity on when this Greek aid is released ... I think markets, especially since we're heading into Thanksgiving tomorrow, will trade fairly quietly", Michael Hewson, senior markets analyst at CMC Markets, said.

The euro followed a similar path, initially falling 0.5 percent when the meeting on Greece broke up without a deal, only to recover to be little changed at around $1.2810.

Prices for German debt, the safest in the euro zone, had eased slightly, sending 10-year yields down 0.6 basis points to 1.41 percent.

However, a sale of 3.25 billion euros ($4.2 billion) of new German 10-year debt, which paid an interest rate of 1.5 percent, drew solid demand from investors worried about the outlook.

FED WARNING

World equity markets had come under pressure before the Greek delay by a warning from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday that the central bank lacked the tools to cushion the impact of a potential U.S. fiscal crisis.

The Fed chief said worries over how the current budget negotiations, aimed at preventing a series of mandatory tax increases and spending cuts early next year, had already damaged growth in the world's largest economy.

Bernanke's comments snapped a two-day rally on Wall Street, but gains in Asian markets and the recovery in European shares left MSCI world equity index unchanged at around 324.1 points.

Asian shares had initially fallen in reaction to the Greek aid payment delay but recovered to close with small gains due to a rise in mainland Chinese markets and in Tokyo.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan gained 0.3 percent, while Japan's Nikkei stock average closed up 0.9 percent at a two month-high.

YEN WEAKNESS

The Nikkei's gains came as shares in exporters rose after the yen hit a seven-month low against the dollar on expectations that a new government will aggressively push the Bank of Japan to expand monetary stimulus.

Japan's opposition Liberal Democratic Party, tipped to win next month's general election also promised to boost spending as it emerged that exports had fallen in annual terms for a fifth straight month in October.

The yen hit a low of 82.30 to the dollar, its weakest level since early April.

The euro's softness and the weaker Japanese yen lifted the dollar by 0.1 percent against a basket of key currencies , which weighed on commodities such as gold, which fell 0.15 percent to $1,725.50 an ounce.

In the oil market Brent crude rose more than $1 a barrel as concern about the lack of aid to Greece was offset by fears of supply disruption from the Middle East, after an explosion on a Tel Aviv bus in Israel intensified fears of the conflict with Gaza worsening.

"There are opposing forces where the uncertainty in Europe and the United States meets with the bullish uncertainty in the Middle East ... so I think we're going to see a volatile market," said Jeremy Friesen, commodity strategist at Societe Generale in Hong Kong.

Brent crude futures were up $1.07 cents at $110.90 a barrel, off an earlier session-high of $111.08. U.S. crude rose 71 cents to $87.46.

(Additional reporting by Tricia Wright and Jessica Jaganathan; Editing by Will Waterman and Giles Elgood)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/asian-shares-steady-refocusing-u-fiscal-cliff-023518978--finance.html

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Coconut Conservationist Seeks Pacific Islands For Fun And Palm Preservation

The diversity of coconut trees like these planted along the beach in the northern Philippines is in danger, but a French scientist has a plan.

Jay Directo/AFP/Getty Images

The diversity of coconut trees like these planted along the beach in the northern Philippines is in danger, but a French scientist has a plan.

Jay Directo/AFP/Getty Images

French adventurer-scientist Roland Bourdeix has a grand, almost surreal, vision for how to preserve a thousand or more genetic varieties of coconut trees. Imagine, as he does, turning dozens or hundreds of remote Pacific islands into coconut sanctuaries. Each island would contain just a few varieties of these trees. No others would be allowed, because the whole point of this exercise is to prevent uncontrolled mixing of genes from different varieties.

But why? Are coconut trees, the source of oil and newly trendy coconut water, somehow in danger?

Not exactly. At least not for now. There are plenty of coconut palms all over the tropics, and coconut production has been slowly growing.

But that masks a potential long-term problem, says Stephan Weise, Deputy Director General for Research at Bioversity International in Rome. Most coconut production comes from a small slice of the coconut's gene pool. Producers rely on a handful of high-producing varieties or hybrids.

Those commercial varieties are slowly overwhelming traditional varieties that people in the tropics have tended for thousands of years. Those traditional strains of coconut are the storehouse of the coconut's genetic diversity: All of the colors, shapes, tastes, and survival tools that this species possesses ? and may need again someday.

Conserving such diversity in agricultural crops is a familiar problem. Whether it's rice or cucumbers, farmers around the world have been replacing traditional "landraces" with a small number of high-yielding varieties created by plant breeders.

But the situation with coconuts has an additional twist, Weise says.

First of all, scientists can't yet preserve a particular line of coconuts in refrigerated "gene banks," as they do with standard seeds. They can't dry, freeze, and preserve coconuts for decades, as they can with corn kernels. Instead, coconuts have to be preserved as living trees, growing outside.

This leads to the second problem. Coconut varieties growing in the open air often won't reproduce themselves reliably. Their flowers pick up pollen from other trees nearby, which often turn out to be commercial varieties or hybrids. And when that happens, their genetic identity is "diluted." Their offspring won't contain their particular combination of genes. Some genes may be lost altogether.

So what's the secret to preserving these heirloom coconuts? For starters, scientists have set up a dozen open-air coconut gene banks. They're reproducing each variety through careful hand-pollination of the trees. But Weise says that's expensive and labor-intensive, especially when trees get tall, with flowers beyond the reach of ladders. (There's also the threat of disease; a coconut collection in Papua New Guinea is under quarantine right now because of an outbreak of disease nearby.)

Which brings us back to Roland Bourdeix's crazy-sounding idea. Bourdeix is a scientist at CIRAD, a French research institute on agricultural development, and he's one of the world's leading experts on coconuts. The key to preserving coconut biodiversity more cheaply, he thinks, is isolation. And there's no more isolated place than a lonely Pacific island. Just convince people on one of these islands to plant coconut trees from a single variety (or a handful of distinctly different varieties), and the problem, at least for that small corner of the coconut's gene pool, is practically solved.

So Bourdeix is now scouting the Pacific for such islands. He's found several where the inhabitants are willing to help turn his vision into reality. One of them is well-known already: The Tetiaroa Atoll in French Polynesia, an idyllic retreat once owned by Marlon Brando.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/11/20/165262197/coconut-conservationist-seeks-pacific-islands-for-fun-and-palm-preservation?ft=1&f=1007

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Schaeuble says euro zone, IMF agree on Greek debt buyback

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Wednesday euro zone governments and the IMF agreed on a Greek debt buyback program among a series of measures aimed at covering the country's financing needs.

Schaeuble also told reporters none of the measures under consideration to help Greece would affect Germany's 2013 budget plan and said the Bundestag lower house of parliament should be able to vote on further aid for Athens by the end of next week.

"Additional measures are needed (for Greece) and we have spoken about this intensively with the International Monetary Fund. We agree essentially that the (financing) gap can and will be filled, that a buyback program of Greek debt on the market will be carried out," he said.

Schaeuble was speaking after euro zone finance ministers and the IMF failed for a second week to reach a deal to release emergency aid for Greece.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers, writing by Gareth Jones, editing by Noah Barkin)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/schaeuble-says-euro-zone-imf-agree-greek-debt-132009957--finance.html

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