Well: A Vegetarian Thanksgiving Table

Every year, Well goes vegetarian for Thanksgiving to celebrate the fall harvest and the delicious vegetable dishes that take up most of the space on holiday tables.

This year, we have another terrific lineup of vegan and vegetarian recipes from some of your favorite food writers and chefs. Cooking up a meat-free celebration will inspire you to be more creative in the kitchen all year round, preparing vegetarian and vegan main courses and side dishes that burst with the flavors of the seasonal harvest. Even if you still plan to serve a traditional bird (although plenty of people skip the turkey), Well’s Vegetarian Thanksgiving series will give you some new recipes and inspiration for meat-free cooking to be enjoyed by all the omnivores and herbivores at your table.

To kick off Well’s 2012 Vegetarian Thanksgiving, I asked my favorite vegan chef, Chloe Coscarelli, to offer some of her fall favorites. I first learned about Ms. Coscarelli when I saw her bake her way to victory with dairy-free and egg-free vegan cupcakes on the popular Food Network program “Cupcake Wars.” Since then, she has released a new cookbook, “Chloe’s Kitchen,’’ appeared on the “Today” show and other programs and now plans to release another book, “Chloe’s Vegan Desserts,” in February.

The key to successful vegan cooking, says Ms. Coscarelli, is not to try to replicate meat and cheese dishes with fake no-meat products. Instead, the goal is to develop dishes with rich, satisfying flavors and textures that will make you forget you’re eating vegan food.

“It’s more about finding other flavors,” she said. “That’s a huge principle of my cooking and my recipes. I’m not throwing a bunch of fake cheese and fake meat on top of something and calling it a pizza.’’

I wanted to start our Vegetarian Thanksgiving series with recipes from Ms. Coscarelli because I have had so much success making many of her dishes. Her chocolate pumpkin bread pudding, made with coconut milk and organic canned pumpkin, is now a personal holiday favorite. At my house, we fill our plates with her Maple-Roasted Brussels Sprouts With Hazelnuts and love her Harvest-Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms.

One of my favorites, a homemade fall pizza prepared with squash, caramelized onions and a decadent garlic and white bean purée, is featured below. Ms. Coscarelli also offers a unique vegan take on mashed yams (no butter!) and a delicious cauliflower and black-eyed pea dish that may become a new holiday tradition.

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“Chloe’s Kitchen”
Roasted Apple, Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Pizza

This fall vegetable pizza is a great vegetarian main course, or it can be cut into pieces as an appetizer. The creamy consistency of the white bean purée makes this dish seem like a decadent treat, and you won’t even notice that it doesn’t have cheese.

Garlic White Bean Purée:
1 (15-ounce) can cannellini or other white beans, rinsed and drained
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 cloves garlic
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 to 2 tablespoons water

Pizza toppings:
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
Sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper
2 cups butternut squash, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 cup spinach
1 apple, peeled and thinly sliced

Pizza dough (store-bought is fine, or make your own)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Make the Garlic White Bean Purée by blending the beans, oil, lemon juice, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper in a food processor. Add water, as needed, until a smooth consistency forms. Set aside. Can be made two days in advance.

2. In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat and sauté onions until soft and lightly caramelized, about 20 to 30 minutes. Season generously with salt and pepper.

3. While the onions are cooking, toss remaining 2 tablespoons oil with squash and season generously with salt and pepper. Transfer to a large-rimmed baking sheet and roast for 30 to 35 minutes until squash is fork-tender, turning once or twice with a spatula. Remove from oven and set aside. Turn heat up to 450 degrees.

4. Prepare pizza. Brush a large-rimmed baking sheet (approximately 9 by 13 inches) with oil. Stretch homemade or store-bought pizza dough into a rectangle and fit it into the prepared baking sheet. Spread a layer of the Garlic White Bean Purée evenly over the rolled-out dough. (You may not want to use all of it.) On top of the dough, arrange the spinach, caramelized onions, roasted butternut squash and apple slices. Season with salt and pepper, and brush the edges of the crust with olive oil.

5. Bake at 450 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes, rotating midway, until the crust is slightly browned or golden. Let cool, slice and serve.

Yield: 4 servings

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“Chloe’s Kitchen”
Coconut Mashed Yams With Currants

Try these easy butter-free, dairy-free mashed yams, dressed up with creamy coconut and an infusion of warm autumn spices. Every so often you’ll catch a plump currant that will make that bite even better.

3 large garnet or other yams, peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces
1 cup canned coconut milk, mixed well before measuring
1/3 cup maple syrup or packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/3 cup currants, soaked in warm water for 10 to 15 minutes and drained

1. Place yam pieces in a large pot and cover with cold water. Cover and bring to a boil. Cook until fork-tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain and return to pot.

2. Add coconut milk, maple syrup, salt and spices, and mash with a potato masher until smooth. Adjust seasoning to taste. Add more coconut milk for a creamier texture and more maple syrup for a sweeter flavor. Mix in currants and serve.

Yield: 6 servings

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“Chloe’s Kitchen”
Southern Skillet Black-Eyed Peas and Cauliflower With Quick Biscuits

Add a new flavor to your Thanksgiving table with this sweet and saucy black-eyed pea dish. Leftovers can be eaten in a bun, sloppy-Joe style. The biscuits are easy — no rolling or folding required.

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced
2 cups cauliflower florets, roughly chopped into 1/2-inch pieces
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
2 (15-ounce) cans black-eyed peas, rinsed and drained
1 (14-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup water
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup packed brown sugar or maple syrup
2 tablespoons white or apple cider vinegar
Quick Biscuits, recipe below
Whipped Maple “Butter,”recipe below

1. In a large pot, heat oil over medium-high heat and sauté onions and green peppers until soft. Add cauliflower and cook, stirring frequently, until it is lightly browned, about 5 to 8 minutes. Add garlic, cumin, chili powder, cinnamon, cayenne and salt, and cook a few more minutes.

2. Stir in black-eyed peas, tomato sauce, water, soy sauce, brown sugar and vinegar. Reduce heat to medium. Simmer, uncovered, for 10 to 15 minutes. Adjust seasoning to taste. Serve in soup bowls with biscuits and whipped maple “butter” on the side.

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“Chloe’s Kitchen”
Quick Biscuits With Maple “Butter”

Quick Biscuits
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for work surface
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegan margarine, plus extra for brushing
3/4 cup soy, almond or rice milk

Whipped Maple “Butter”
1 cup vegan margarine, at room temperature
1/4 cup maple syrup

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. You can make the dough by hand or using a food processor.

2. By hand: Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add margarine and cut it roughly into flour using a pastry cutter, until mixture is the texture of coarse meal with a few larger margarine lumps. Work quickly so the margarine does not melt. Add nondairy milk and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined. Do not overwork.

3. Food processor: Combine flour, baking powder and salt in the food processor and pulse for about 5 seconds until ingredients are combined. Add margarine and pulse in the food processor until mixture is the texture of coarse meal with a few larger margarine lumps. Work quickly so the margarine does not melt. Add nondairy milk and pulse a few times until just combined. Do not overwork.

4. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and pat into an oblong shape, about 1 inch thick. Using a 2 1/2-inch floured cookie or biscuit cutter, cut the biscuits out and place them on a baking sheet. Brush the tops lightly with melted margarine and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes, or until they begin to turn golden. Remove biscuits from oven immediately and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

5. Make the maple “butter.” In a mixing bowl, using a whisk or electric mixer, whip margarine with maple syrup until light and fluffy. Refrigerate until serving.

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Square Feet: A Wounded Wall Street Is Expected to Stay Put

Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

A businessman made his way Monday into One New York Plaza in Manhattan's financial district, where the cleanup from Hurricane Sandy was still underway.

More than two weeks after Hurricane Sandy came ashore in Manhattan, sending an 11-foot surge of seawater over much of the southern tip of the island, the financial district is still in tatters.

Dozens of office buildings that were flooded by the storm still lack power and are off-limits to tenants, and many streets are a chaotic mess of generators, work crews and pumps.

Still trying to gauge the extent of the damage, many landlords have been vague about when their buildings will reopen. And some tenants, who have been uprooted to tiny conference rooms in New Jersey or industrial spaces in Brooklyn, are weighing whether to come back to the neighborhood at all.

But despite the uncertainty and destruction, many analysts don’t expect the bulk of tenants to pack up and leave for good, nor do they think that future tenants will rule out the neighborhood over fears they might get flooded.

“I don’t think it will become an overriding factor in the location decision,” said John Wheeler, the head downtown broker for Jones Lang LaSalle, echoing other top brokers. “I guess time will tell if I’m being too sanguine about this.”Brokers add that the neighborhood remains a compelling place to locate a business. Even with some train lines hampered by storm damage, it is still amply served by mass transit, with more than a dozen subway lines and ferry service. The new apartments and condos built in recent years, along with new boutiques and restaurants, also mean that many people can now live a few blocks from their office.

Besides, rents are notably competitive with other business districts in Manhattan, at about $40 a square foot in the financial district, compared with $65 in midtown, according to Cassidy Turley, the brokerage, though the downtown figure is expected to climb when the two new World Trade Center buildings come online.

Complicating the prognosis about the neighborhood’s long-term health is the fact that getting an exact handle on the extent of damage has been tricky. Many major landlords have been reluctant to respond to even basic questions about the status of their buildings. And many brokers have refused to discuss individual properties.

And while the city’s Buildings Department declared early last week that nine downtown buildings were completely off-limits, and another 445 were partially habitable, it did not differentiate between commercial and residential structures.

Jones Lang LaSalle has been one of the few brokerages to tackle the issue. It concluded that a hefty 20 percent of all the major office buildings below Canal Street are closed, or 37 out of 183, according to data compiled as of Monday. And those shuttered buildings, most of which are east of Broadway, represent 29.2 million square feet of space, the data shows.

Anecdotal evidence, too, suggests the damage has been severe. Late last week, the Water Street corridor, which runs along the East River, appeared alarmingly hard-hit.

Men in white hazmat outfits pushed garbage bins on streets, which rumbled with the sounds of generators. Several traffic lights were still dark. Clumps of yellow hoses snaked up escalators and through lobbies. And security guards, protecting against looters, were more numerous than people wearing suits.

Among the buildings confirmed closed were: 99 Wall Street, 199 Water Street, One Wall Street Plaza and 180 Maiden Lane. Others that appear to be closed include 55 Water Street, 85 Broad Street, 7 Hanover Square and 10 Hanover Square, among others. Four New York Plaza, where The Daily News is based, could be closed for a year, though One New York Plaza, whose basement shopping center took on 30 feet of water, should reopen in two weeks, according to a spokeswoman for the building’s landlord, Brookfield Office Properties.

Going forward, some tenants are concerned that floods will become a regular occurrence; after all, just 15 months ago, the city was soaked by Tropical Storm Irene. These tenants say their fears were confirmed by comments that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo made after Hurricane Sandy about how destructive weather events are likely to recur.

“He was like, ‘If you don’t believe in global warming, wake up and see what’s happening here,’ and he was right,” said Andrea Katz, a development director for WBAI, the public radio station, which has a 10,000-square-foot space at 120 Wall Street. The lower floors of the Art Deco building, which is at South Street and owned by Silverstein Properties, were flooded by Hurricane Sandy.

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Mike D'Antoni to be next coach of the Lakers

Mike D'Antoni, not Phil Jackson, will be the next coach of the Lakers.

"We signed Mike D'Antoni to a multi-year deal," Lakers spokesman John Black said, mentioning the team's owner and top two executives. "Dr. [Jerry] Buss, Jim Buss and Mitch Kupchak were unanimous that Mike D'Antoni was the best coach for the team at this time."

D'Antoni, 61, coached the New York Knicks last season and the Phoenix Suns before that. He will officially take over the Lakers within a week or two, depending how quickly he recovers from knee-replacement surgery.

The Lakers will introduce their new coach at a news conference as early as Tuesday but more likely later in the week. Bernie Bickerstaff will remain the team's interim coach for now.

D'Antoni signed a three-year deal for $12 million. The team holds an option for a fourth year.

Jackson was the overwhelming favorite to return to the Lakers until they heard his informal demands, which included a stake in team ownership, according to a person familiar with the situation.

"He was asking for the moon," said the person, who also declined to be identified because they are not authorized to discuss the situation.

The Lakers then moved quickly to sign D'Antoni. He replaces Mike Brown, who was fired Friday after the Lakers began the season 1-4, their worst start since 1993.

Earlier Sunday, Lakers guard Steve Nash said it would "be a coup" for the Lakers to bring back Jackson, but he also had kind words for D'Antoni.

"Obviously, I think everyone knows how much I love Mike," said Nash, who played four seasons and won two MVP awards under D'Antoni in Phoenix. "If he were the coach, it would be seamless and terrific for me, and I think the team as well.”

D’Antoni was most recently employed by the Knicks, when he was forced to resign under pressure last season after an 18-24 start.

Kobe Bryant did not hide his excitement for the prospect of Jackson returning but, like Nash, he was also on board with D'Antoni.

"They know how I feel about Phil. They know how I feel about D'Antoni," Bryant said Sunday. "I like them both."

D'Antoni's coaching staff with the Lakers likely will start with two longtime assistants -- his brother, Dan D'Antoni, and Phil Weber.

The new Lakers coach has a 388-339 coaching record in the NBA. He led the Suns to the Western Conference finals in 2005 and 2006 with Nash running the show.

Bryant became familiar as a boy with D'Antoni, who was a star in the Italian league in the 1980s, when Bryant's father also played in Italy. D'Antoni helped Olimpia Milano win five league titles and two European club titles. D'Antoni also worked with Bryant on the U.S. national team as an assistant.

ALSO:

Photos: Lakers Coach Mike D'Antoni

Lakers, Steve Nash playing waiting game

Interim Coach Bernie Bickerstaff tries to keep it simple

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Introducing Wired's 'Top 3': May the Best Gadgets Win

Apple iPad. Microsoft Surface. Google Nexus 10. Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1. Amazon Kindle Fire HD. Samsung Galaxy Note 16GB (Wi-Fi) 10.1, White. Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 (Wi-Fi) 8GB. LG G-Slate V909 32GB Wi-Fi & 4G Unlocked 8.9-inch. Sony Tablet S. Pioneer 11.6-inch Atom DreamBook ePad tablet. Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 (gray, 32GB).

Gadget fatigue: It’s what happens when you start thinking about what tablet or smartphone or laptop or TV you want to buy. Too many choices. Too many variables. Too many upgrades.

Exactly how much stuff is coming out? Consider Motorola’s cellphone lineup. Its popular Razr series released six models over the last year — the Droid Razr, the Droid Razr Maxx, the Droid Razr HD, the Droid Razr Maxx HD, the Droid Razr M and the Razr I. Motorola, owned by Android mobile OS maker Google, also makes a number of other phones, such as the Atrix HD and Electrify.

Wired is here to help. We’ve reorganized our gadget reviews to highlight three clear winners in each of the most important consumer electronics categories. It’s called Wired’s Top 3, and it means what it says. Every day, you’ll find the three most successful gadgets, as judged by Wired reviewers, among hundreds of available mobile phones, tablets, e-readers, TVs and more.

Each category comes with in-depth buying advice. And we’ll be updating these lists and guides as soon as new products arrive, so you don’t have to slog through endless SKUs to find the stuff you need to look at before you make a purchase.

Think of it as noise-canceling tech for gadget news and reviews.

Don’t agree with our choices? Tell us so in the comments, and make your own suggestions for new (and old) products we should throw into the cage to face off with our current Top 3.

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Hathaway says ‘Les Mis’ made her feel deprived

NEW YORK (AP) — Anne Hathaway credits her new husband Adam Schulman for helping her get through the grueling filming of the screen adaptation of “Les Miserables.”

In “Les Mis,” the 30-year-old actress plays Fantine, a struggling, sickly mother forced into prostitution in 1800s Paris.

Hathaway lost 25 pounds and cut her hair for the role. She tells the December issue of Vogue, the part left her in a “state of deprivation, physical and emotional.” She felt easily overwhelmed and says Shulman was understanding and supportive.

The couple wed in September in Big Sur, Calif. Hathaway wore a custom gown by Valentino whom she collaborated with on the design. Working with the designer is a memory she says she will “treasure forever.”

The December issue of Vogue hits stores Nov. 20.

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Online:

http://www.vogue.com/

Entertainment News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Well: Can Foods Affect Colon Cancer Survival?

A new study suggests that what you eat may affect your chances of surviving colon cancer.

The research is among the first to look at the impact that specific nutrients have on the likelihood of disease recurrence in people with colon cancer, one of the leading causes of cancer death in the United States. It found that people treated for Stage 3 disease, in which tumor cells have spread to lymph nodes, had greatly increased chances of dying of it or experiencing a recurrence if their diets were heavy in carbohydrate-rich foods that cause spikes in blood sugar and insulin.

The patients who consumed the most carbohydrates and foods with high glycemic loads — a measure of the extent to which a serving of food will raise blood sugar — had an 80 percent greater chance of dying or having a recurrence during the roughly seven-year study period than those who had the lowest levels. Stage 3 colon cancer patients typically have a five-year survival rate of about 50 to 65 percent.

The study, however, was observational, meaning it could only highlight an association between carbohydrates and cancer outcomes without proving direct cause and effect. The researchers also obtained some of their data from food questionnaires that required patients to recall details about their diets, a method that can be unreliable.

Still, the researchers, who published their findings in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, believe insulin may play a critical role in colon cancer recurrence. Chronically high insulin levels have been linked to cancer recurrence and mortality in previous research, and people with a history of Type 2 diabetes or elevated plasma C-peptide, a marker of long-term insulin production, have also been found to have an increased risk of colon cancer. One hypothesis is that insulin may fuel the growth of cancer cells and prevent cell death, or apoptosis, in cancer cells that have spread.

“It’s not simply that all carbs are bad or that you should avoid all sugar,” said Dr. Jeffrey A. Meyerhardt, the lead author of the study and an associate professor of medicine at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. It’s not as simple as ‘sugar causes cancer to grow.’”

He added: “Different carbs and sugar lead to different responses in your body. I think people should focus on a well-balanced diet” and substitute foods associated with lower glycemic loads or carbs for foods that have higher levels.

Earlier research published by Dr. Meyerhardt’s group showed that Stage 3 colon cancer patients who most closely followed a Western-style diet — with high intakes of meat, fat, refined grains and sugary desserts — had a threefold increase in recurrence and death from the disease compared with those who most strongly deviated from Western patterns of eating.

For this study, Dr. Meyerhardt and his team wanted to see to what extent carbohydrate intake could influence the progression of the disease, so they followed about 1,000 Stage 3 colon cancer patients taking part in a clinical trial sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. The patients, who had all had surgery and chemotherapy as part of their treatments, provided information on their diets and lifestyle habits. But the researchers went beyond just carbohydrate and sugar intake, taking into account glycemic measures.

The glycemic index, an increasingly popular nutritional measure, looks at the rate at which carbohydrate-containing foods raise a person’s fasting level of blood sugar and subsequent need for insulin. Sugary drinks, white bread and other highly processed carbohydrates rank higher on the index, while those that are digested more slowly, like brown rice, many vegetables, unrefined grains and legumes, have a lower index value.

Another barometer, however, is the glycemic load, which refers to the blood sugar effect of a standard serving of a food. A glycemic load of 10 or less for a food is generally considered low, while 20 or more is high. The latest study showed that glycemic load and total carbohydrate intake were the best predictors of cancer recurrence and mortality, and the link was strongest in people who were overweight or obese.

Dr. Meyerhardt said the findings suggest that colon cancer patients would be wise to keep glycemic load in mind while making food decisions, looking for ways to work into their diets foods that rank lower on the scale.

“So if you think about beverages, most juices and certainly sodas have a higher glycemic load than flavored waters and tomato juice and things like that,” he said. “Fruits like a date or raisins have very high glycemic loads, whereas fresh fruits like an apple, orange or cantaloupe all have sugar but have a very low glycemic load. Substitute brown rice for white, whole grains instead of white bread, and instead of having a starchy potato as your side dish, substitute beans and vegetables.”

One expert who was not involved in the research, Somdat Mahabir, a nutritional epidemiologist with the National Cancer Institute’s division of cancer control and population sciences, said the findings from the latest study must be borne out in further research. But in the meantime, making dietary changes that reduce glycemic load is a reasonable recommendation for colon cancer patients, he said, since it can only be helpful, not harmful.

“The results of the current study need to be confirmed, but the current indications are that diet is important to colon cancer survival,” Dr. Mahabir said.

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California's Iraq and Afghanistan war dead remembered

They came from Walker Basin, a speck of a community at the edge of the Sequoia National Forest. From the farm town of Reedley, where a barber gives boys joining the military free haircuts before they ship out.

They came from San Francisco. Los Angeles. San Diego.

When they died, photos went up on post office walls in their hometowns. On Veterans Day, there are parades and charity golf tournaments. Buddies gather at graves to drink to the ones who are gone.

In the 11 years since the wars began in Iraq and Afghanistan, 725 service members from California have been killed.

As all veterans are honored, the fallen are remembered

Many died young — 41% were not yet 22. Sixty-three were still teenagers.

They were fun-loving singles. Forty-seven were engaged. They were married, leaving behind 307 wives and husbands. They had children — 432 sons and daughters.

Forty of their obituaries noted that the Sept. 11 attacks spurred them to join up. Some were in elementary school when they watched the Twin Towers fall.

The scope of their loss can't be measured at one point in time. Life moves on, the wars are winding down. But towns, families and individual lives continue to be shaped by their absence.

Lately, 9-year-old Naomi Izabella Johnson has been asking a lot of questions about her father, Allen Johnson, a Special Forces medical sergeant from Los Molinos who was killed on foot-combat patrol in Khanaqin, Afghanistan, in 2005.

What was his favorite color? School subject? Animal? Book? Did he like mashed potatoes?

"It helps me for when I try to imagine him," she said.

Two months ago, her 10-year-old brother, Joshua, started crying inconsolably.

"What's wrong?" his mother, Eunice Johnson, recalled asking.

"I'm starting to forget — sometimes I can't see Daddy's face."

In Yuba City, Taylor Silva, 21, has been spending some time alone. Last week marked six months since her fiance, Chase Marta, 24, was killed by a roadside bomb in the Ghazni province of Afghanistan. He was one of more than 40 California service members to have died in the line of duty since last Veterans Day.

"I know his family and best friend have it just as hard. But we're all being a little quiet to each other because we're all a reminder to each other. His mom can't see me without crying," Silva said.

Seventeen women from California have been killed in the wars.

Hannah Gunterman McKinney of Redlands had told her father that the Army wouldn't send a new mother to Iraq. But she was deployed when her son, Todd Avery Gunterman, was just 1. Ten months later, in 2006, she was run over by a Humvee in Taji, north of Baghdad. She was 20.

She had joined the military as a way to earn money to go to fashion school. She reenlisted because she was a single mother and wanted to give her son financial stability. Now her parents are raising Todd Avery.

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How I Was Drawn Into the Cult of David Petraeus

When it came out that CIA Director David Petraeus had an affair with his hagiographer, I got punked. “It seems so obvious in retrospect. How could you @attackerman?” tweeted @bitteranagram, complete with a link to a florid piece I wrote for this blog when Petraeus retired from the Army last year. (“The gold standard for wartime command” is one of the harsher judgments in the piece.) I was so blind to Petraeus, and my role in the mythmaking that surrounded his career, that I initially missed @bitteranagram’s joke.

But it’s a good burn. Like many in the press, nearly every national politician, and lots of members of Petraeus’ brain trust over the years, I played a role in the creation of the legend around David Petraeus. Yes, Paula Broadwell wrote the ultimate Petraeus hagiography, the now-unfortunately titled All In. But she was hardly alone. (Except maybe for the sleeping-with-Petraeus part.) The biggest irony surrounding Petraeus’ unexpected downfall is that he became a casualty of the very publicity machine he cultivated to portray him as superhuman. I have some insight into how that machine worked.

The first time I met Petraeus, he was in what I thought of as a backwater: the Combined Armed Center at Fort Leavenworth. It’s one of the Army’s in-house academic institutions, and it’s in Kansas, far from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2005, Petraeus ran the place, and accepted an interview request about his tenure training the Iraqi military, which didn’t go well. Petraeus didn’t speak for the record in that interview, but over the course of an hour, he impressed me greatly with his intelligence and his willingness to entertain a lot of questions that boiled down to isn’t Iraq an irredeemable shitshow. Back then, most generals would dismiss that line of inquiry out of hand, and that would be the end of the interview.

One of Petraeus’ aides underscored a line that several other members of the Petraeus brain trust would reiterate for years: “He’s an academic at heart,” as Pete Mansoor, a retired Army colonel who served as Petraeus’ executive officer during the Iraq surge, puts it. There was a purpose to that line: it implied Petraeus wasn’t particularly ambitious, suggesting he was content at Fort Leavenworth and wasn’t angling for a bigger job. I bought into it, especially after I found Petraeus to be the rare general who didn’t mind responding to the occasional follow-up request.

So when Petraeus got command of the Iraq war in 2007, I blogged that it was all a tragic shame that President Bush would use Petraeus, “the wisest general in the U.S. Army,” as a “human shield” for the irredeemability of the war. And whatever anyone thought about the war, they should “believe the hype” about Petraeus.

I wasn’t alone in this. Petraeus recognized that the spirited back-and-forth journalists like could be a powerful weapon in his arsenal. “His ability to talk to a reporter for 45 minutes, to flow on the record, to background or off-the-record and back, and to say meaningful things and not get outside the lane too much — it was the best I’ve ever seen,” Mansoor reflects. It paid dividends. On the strength of a single tour running the 101st Airborne in Mosul, Newsweek put the relatively unknown general on its cover in 2004 under the headline CAN THIS MAN SAVE IRAQ? (It’s the first of three cover stories the magazine wrote about him.) Petraeus’ embrace of counterinsurgency, with its self-congratulatory stylings as an enlightened form of warfare that deemphasized killing, earned him plaudits as an “intellectual,” unlike those “old-fashioned, gung-ho, blood-and-guts sort of commander[s],” as Time’s Joe Klein wrote in 2007. This media narrative took hold despite the bloody, close-encounter street fights that characterized Baghdad during the surge.

That March, I was embedded with a unit in Mosul when I learned Petraeus was making a surprise visit to its base. The only time he had for an interview was during a dawn workout session with company commanders, I was told, but if I was willing to exercise with everyone else, sure, I could ask whatever I wanted. The next morning, Petraeus came out for his five-mile run and playfully asked: “What the hell is Spencer Ackerman doing in Mosul?” It’s embarrassing to remember that that felt pretty good, but it did. And sure enough, while I sweated my way through a painful run — I had just quit smoking and was in terrible shape — he calmly parried my wheezed questions. I only later realized I didn’t gain any useful or insightful answers, just a crazy workout story that I strained to transform into a metaphor for the war. (“‘This tires you out that day, but it gives you stamina over the long run,’ he noted. ‘And this is about stamina. It’s absolutely grueling.’” Ugh.)

There was another element at work: counterinsurgency seemed to be working to reduce the tensions of Iraq’s civil war, as violence came down dramatically that summer. So when I got the occasional push-back email from Petraeus’ staff that my reporting was too negative or too ideological, I feared they had a point. And I got exclusive documents from them that — surprise, surprise — not only vindicated Petraeus but made the general seem driven by data and not ideology.

To be clear, none of this was the old quid-pro-quo of access for positive coverage. It worked more subtly than that: the more I interacted with his staff, the more persuasive their points seemed. Nor did I write anything I didn’t believe or couldn’t back up — but in retrospect, I was insufficiently critical. And his staff never cut off access when they disagreed with something I’d written. I didn’t realize I was thinking in their terminology, even when I wrote pieces criticizing Petraeus. A 2008 series I wrote on counterinsurgency was filled with florid descriptions like “Petraeus is no stranger to either difficulty or realism.”

Politicians and the press treated Petraeus as a conquering hero. Tom Ricks, then the Washington Post’s senior military correspondent, wrote that Petraeus’ “determination” was the “cornerstone of his personality,” and portrayed the success of surge as that determination beating back the insurgents and the nay-sayers. “The soldiers and marines told us they feel that they now have a superb commander in Gen. David Petraeus,” wrote Brookings Institutions analysts Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack after a return from Iraq. “They are confident in his strategy, they see real results, and they feel now they have the numbers needed to make a real difference.” John McCain hugged Petraeus so closely during his 2008 campaign that Post columnist Jackson Diehl dubbed the general “McCain’s Running Mate.”

But by the time President Obama tapped Petraeus to run the Afghanistan war in 2010, something had changed. Petraeus’ mouth was saying “counterinsurgency,” with its focus on protecting civilians from violence, but in practice, he was far more reliant on air strikes and commando raids. He was even touting enemy body counts as measurements of success, which was completely antithetical to counterinsurgency doctrine, and his staff’s insistance that nothing had changed sounded hollow.

But then there was Broadwell to spin the shift away. On Ricks’ blog, she described the complete flattening of a southern Afghan village called Tarok Kolache, confidently asserting that not only was no one killed under 25 tons of U.S. air and artillery strikes, but that the locals appreciated it. Danger Room’s follow-up reporting found that the strikes were even more intense: two other villages that the Taliban had riddled with bombs, were destroyed as well. But Broadwell, who was traveling around Afghanistan and working on a biography of Petraeus, didn’t grapple with the implications of Petraeus shifting away from counterinsurgency, let alone the fortunes of the Afghanistan war.

Broadwell didn’t have a journalistic background, and it seemed a bit odd that she was visibly welcomed into Petraeus’ inner circle. At a Senate hearing Petraeus testified at last year, for instance, I met Broadwell for the first time in person, and noted that she sat with Petraeus’ retinue instead of with the press corps. Some of Petraeus’ old crew found it similarly strange. “I never told General Petraeus this, but I thought it was fairly strange that he would give so much access to someone who had never written a book before,” Mansoor recalls.

At the same time, consider this passage from All In:

Far beyond his influence on the institutions and commands in Iraq and Afghanistan, Petraeus also left an indelible mark on the next generation of military leaders as a role model of soldier-scholar statesman. … Creative thinking and the ability to wrestle with intellectual challenges are hugely important in counterinsurgency but also any campaign’s design and execution, he felt; and equipping oneself with new analytical tools, civilian and academic experiences, and various networks had been invaluable for him and — he hoped — for those whom he’d mentored and led.

The uncomfortable truth is that a lot of us who’ve covered Petraeus over the years could have written that. It’s embarrassingly close to my piece on Petraeus’ legacy that @bitteranagram tweeted. And that’s not something you should fault Petraeus for. It’s something you should fault reporters like me for. Another irony that Petraeus’ downfall reveals is that some of us who egotistically thought our coverage of Petraeus and counterinsurgency was so sophisticated were perpetuating myths without fully realizing it.

None of this is to say that Petraeus was actually a crappy officer whom the press turned into a genius. That would be just as dumb and ultimately unfair as lionizing Petraeus, whose affair had nothing to do with his military leadership or achievements. ”David Petraeus will be remembered as the finest officer of his generation, and as the commander who turned the Iraq War around,” emails military scholar Mark Moyar. But it is to say that a lot of the journalism around Petraeus gave him a pass, and I wrote too much of it. Writing critically about a public figure you come to admire is a journalistic challenge.

Conversations with people close to Petraeus since his resignation from the CIA have been practically funereal. People have expressed shock, and gotten occasionally emotional. It turns out, Mansoor sighed, “David Petraeus is human after all.” I wonder where anyone could have gotten the idea he wasn’t.

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China says Hollywood putting pinch on domestic films

BEIJING (Reuters) – China‘s films are taking a hit from a trade deal that allows for more U.S. movie imports, the country’s broadcast regulator said on Sunday, with their share of the box office take sliding even as the industry’s total revenues outpace those of last year.

The movie pact, which exempted 14 films from China’s annual quota of 20 foreign films per year, was hammered out in February during a trip to the United States by Vice President Xi Jinping, the man expected to take the ruling Communist Party‘s top spot after a congress held this week in Beijing.

After signing the deal, the number of American films in China and their proportion of revenues have increased by a “large margin”, Vice Minister of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television Tian Jin said.

“The past dominance of domestic films in the Chinese market has been shaken,” Tian told a press briefing on the sidelines of the congress held once every five years.

China’s 2012 box office revenues reached 13.27 billion yuan ($ 2.12 billion) at the end of October, Tian said, already outpacing revenues from all of 2011. But the share of revenues for domestically produced films was only 41.4 percent, constituting “a huge drop”.

Tian said the U.S. film industry is reaping massive profits while domestic producers are under greater pressure, mainly because Chinese movies cannot compete with the Hollywood spectacles.

“The competitiveness of Chinese-made films must be raised,” he said.

Chinese film industry experts have said that Hollywood’s looming shadow means Chinese producers need to focus on quality if they are going to elevate their appeal to a Chinese audience.

February’s deal stemmed from a victory in a 2009 U.S. World Trade Organization case that challenged Beijing’s restrictions on import and distribution of copyright-protected materials.

The U.S. movie industry has long complained about China’s tight restrictions on foreign films, which they say helps fuel demand for pirated DVDs that are widely available in China.

It also argued that it was being boxed out of a booming market, as the fast-growing Chinese middle class spends more money in theatres.

The Chinese film market is seen as one of the largest potential markets for Hollywood, but it has also been tightly controlled by the state-owned China Film Group.

Chinese films frequently compete for international awards, but winners overseas are often not those supported by China’s government, which tend to fan nationalist and patriotic sentiment.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Mind Faded, Darrell Royal’s Wisdom and Humor Intact Till End

Three days before his death last week at 88, Darrell Royal told his wife, Edith: “We need to go back to Hollis” — in Oklahoma. “Uncle Otis died.”

“Oh, Darrell,” she said, “Uncle Otis didn’t die.”

Royal, a former University of Texas football coach, chuckled and said, “Well, Uncle Otis will be glad to hear that.”

The Royal humor never faded, even as he sank deeper into Alzheimer’s disease. The last three years, I came to understand this as well as anyone. We had known each other for more than 40 years. In the 1970s, Royal was a virile, driven, demanding man with a chip on his shoulder bigger than Bevo, the Longhorns mascot. He rarely raised his voice to players. “But we were scared to death of him,” the former quarterback Bill Bradley said.

Royal won 3 national championships and 167 games before retiring at 52. He was a giant in college football, having stood shoulder to shoulder with the Alabama coach Bear Bryant. Royal’s Longhorns defeated one of Bryant’s greatest teams, with Joe Namath at quarterback, in the 1965 Orange Bowl. Royal went 3-0-1 in games against Bryant.

Royal and I were reunited in the spring of 2010. I barely recognized him. The swagger was gone. His mind had faded. Often he stared aimlessly across the room. I scheduled an interview with him for my book “Courage Beyond the Game: The Freddie Steinmark Story.” Still, I worried that his withering mind could no longer conjure up images of Steinmark, the undersize safety who started 21 straight winning games for the Longhorns in the late 1960s. Steinmark later developed bone cancer that robbed him of his left leg.

When I met with Royal and his wife, I quickly learned that his long-term memory was as clear as a church bell. For two hours, Royal took me back to Steinmark’s recruiting trip to Austin in 1967, through the Big Shootout against Arkansas in 1969, to the moment President Richard M. Nixon handed him the national championship trophy in the cramped locker room in Fayetteville. He recalled the day at M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston the next week when doctors informed Steinmark that his leg would be amputated if a biopsy revealed cancer. Royal never forgot the determined expression on Steinmark’s face, nor the bravery in his heart.

The next morning, Royal paced the crowded waiting room floor and said: “This just can’t be happening to a good kid like Freddie Steinmark. This just can’t be happening.”

With the love of his coach, Steinmark rose to meet the misfortune. Nineteen days after the amputation, he stood with crutches on the sideline at the Cotton Bowl for the Notre Dame game. After the Longhorns defeated the Fighting Irish, Royal tearfully presented the game ball to Steinmark.

Four decades later, while researching the Steinmark book, I became close to Royal again. As I was leaving his condominium the day of the interview, I said, “Coach, do you still remember me?” He smiled and said, “Now, Jim Dent, how could I ever forget you?” My sense of self-importance lasted about three seconds. Royal chuckled. He pointed across the room to the message board next to the front door that read, “Jim Dent appt. at 10 a.m.”

Edith and his assistant, Colleen Kieke, read parts of my book to him. One day, Royal told me, “It’s really a great book.” But I can’t be certain how much he knew of the story.

Like others, I was troubled to see Royal’s memory loss. He didn’t speak for long stretches. He smiled and posed for photographs. He seemed the happiest around his former players. He would call his longtime friend Tom Campbell, an all-Southwest Conference defensive back from the 1960s, and say, “What are you up to?” That always meant, “Let’s go drink a beer.”

As her husband’s memory wore thin, Edith did not hide him. Instead, she organized his 85th birthday party and invited all of his former players. Quarterback James Street, who engineered the famous 15-14 comeback against Arkansas in 1969, sat by Royal’s side and helped him remember faces and names. The players hugged their coach, then turned away to hide the tears.

In the spring of 2010, I was invited to the annual Mexican lunch for Royal attended by about 75 of his former players. A handful of them were designated to stand up and tell Royal what he meant to them. Royal smiled through each speech as his eyes twinkled. I was mesmerized by a story the former defensive tackle Jerrel Bolton told. He recalled that Royal had supported him after the murder of his wife some 30 year earlier.

“Coach, you told me it was like a big cut on my arm, that the scab would heal, but that the wound would always come back,” Bolton said. “It always did.”

Royal seemed to drink it all in. But everyone knew his mind would soon dim.

The last time I saw him was June 20 at the County Line, a barbecue restaurant next to Bull Creek in Austin. Because Royal hated wheelchairs and walkers, the former Longhorn Mike Campbell, Tom’s twin, and I helped him down the stairs by wrapping our arms around his waist and gripping the back of his belt. I ordered his lunch, fed him his sandwich and cleaned his face with a napkin. He looked at me and said, “Was I a college player in the 1960s?”

“No, Coach,” I said. “But you were a great player for the Oklahoma Sooners in the late 1940s. You quarterbacked Oklahoma to an 11-0 record and the Sooners’ first national championship in 1949.”

He smiled and said, “Well, I’ll be doggone.”

After lunch, Mike Campbell and I carried him up the stairs. We sat him on a bench outside as Tom Campbell fetched the car. In that moment, the lunch crowd began to spill out of the restaurant. About 20 customers recognized Royal. They took his photograph with camera phones. Royal smiled and welcomed the hugs.

“He didn’t remember a thing about it,” Tom Campbell said later. “But it did his heart a whole lot of good.”

Jim Dent is the author of “The Junction Boys” and eight other books.

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