Picture of the Week

This is the view from an insane North Pole Marathon. Held annually, runners are expected to trudge 26.2 miles (42.1 kilometers) in sub-zero temperatures. Complete and utter lunacy.

Take A Vacation

Take that vacation — it could help your career. Down time helps workers recharge, and smart bosses understand.

Alexa Hamill, who works in human resources for the Philadelphia office of PricewaterhouseCoopers, got a voice mail last May from a partner at her firm advising her to put in for vacation time. The summer was quickly approaching and Hamill had yet to schedule some time off.

She informed the partner that she’d figure it out, but she never did.

In June, the manager paid a visit to her office.

“He asked me to lay out my calendar going forward,” she says.

Even though the summer is the busiest time for her department, the two hashed out a compromise. She would take one of the slower weeks off but call in for a midweek meeting while on vacation.

Her getaway: a trip to the beach in nearby Ocean City, N.J., with her son. “I did relax and was able to recharge my batteries. It made me more effective at work.”

Few workers have a boss who would try that hard to make sure they got their earned vacation time, but what Hamill experienced is part of a small but growing trend in corporate America. Companies are beginning to realize the benefits of vacations for their weary workers — fewer sick days, smaller health care bills and a more motivated workforce.

Unfortunately, not all employers get this, and sometimes it’s the workers themselves that don’t get this, either. They have a perverted view that not taking time off and keeping their nose to the grindstone will advance their career, or keep their jobs from ending up on the chopping block.

But in fact, it could lead to burnout, emotional and physical illness, and end up jeopardizing their careers, their lives.

So take vacation, people!

“Taking a vacation is not a luxury — it’s a necessity,” says Kathleen Hall, founder of The Stress Institute in Atlanta. “If you don’t have the opportunity to relax and reflect you get stressed, and chronic stress is the driver of most diseases — heart disease, obesity, insomnia.”

Despite the repercussions, a growing number of Americans are tempting the stress gods by bypassing their time off even though they’ve earned it. A survey taken by the Conference Board last year before the summer season kicked into gear, found that only 39.8 percent of individuals planned to take a vacation within the next six months, a 28-year low.

A more recent study taken in April by recruiting firm Hudson, found that 56 percent of the work force does not take advantage of all their vacation time. And when they get away, 35 percent of managers check in with the office frequently, often daily; and 14 percent of non-managers do the same. One-quarter of the work force says their boss expects them to be accessible while on vacation.

“We’ve become a nation of workaholics,” says Jeff Pfeffer, Stanford University professor and the author of the forthcoming book "What They Were Thinking: Unconventional Wisdom about Management." “Part of it is a macho culture of ‘I can work more than you can. I don’t need sleep or rest.’ ”

Indeed, the United States is one of the only industrialized nations that does not require employers to provide their workers with vacation or sick time.

Ask yourself, he says, why pro football players play when they’re hurt, even though evidence shows it can shorten their careers. “It’s all this think-tough attitude. That you’re more loyal or dedicated if you forgo vacation.”

“Given how screwed up the American workplace is today, giving up your earned time might get you kudos from some managers," he acknowledges. But it won’t help workers in the long run, he adds.

If your productivity declines, you won’t get raises or promotions, and you could end up losing your job. This becomes even more critical when your job involves creative or critical thought, experts says.

A good rest may even bring career advancement.

“Your vacation just might be the key to identifying the new product or strategy you’ve been struggling with for months,” says Noah Blumenthal, a consultant and author of "You’re Addicted to You: Why It’s So Hard to Change and What You Can Do About It."

For those who do pack their bags, a long weekend won’t really cut it.

"It is important for people to take their vacations — meaning vacations of a week or two long. Taking a day or two doesn't do as much good," explains Wallace Huffman, economics professor at Iowa State University. "Productivity could increase by up to 60 percent for employees in the month or two following a good vacation."

And that doesn’t mean taking along a suitcase full of electronic gadgets that keep you connected to the office or plant. You have to disconnect in order to unwind. Minimize the use of cell phones, laptops and PDAs if you want all the benefits of relaxation, Huffman adds.

“In order to have a successful long-term career, you need to manage your career, plan to take time off regularly to allow your body to regenerate so not to suffer from burnout, exhaustion, depression,” he advises. “This becomes even more important as people live longer.”

Workplace legal expert Robin Bond offered these vacation tips:

Inform others in advance. Let co-workers and clients know of your vacation time as soon as you plan it, and send a reminder of your absence as the dates approach. Advise clients whom they can contact when you are away.
Have a buddy system in place. Get projects to a good stopping place before you leave, and ask a trusted colleague to serve as a backup in case any urgent problems arise in your absence. Be sure to return the favor.
Schedule around busy business cycles.
And relax!

We need to start thinking as a nation that leisure time is why we all work in the first place. No?

Maybe you’re one of those poor souls who don’t even get time off. Pfeffer’s advice if you are in this position, or if you are pressured not to take allotted time: “Find another job.” Don’t hang around waiting for your employer to become enlightened about the benefits of time off, he stresses.

If you get tons of time off at your job and are still not taking it, you may have self-esteem issues, he suspects. Some workers believe that their company will fall apart if they’re not there, and managers can play into that. The bottom line, Pfeffer says, is that it’s all just an “ego trip.”

“You have to say to yourself, ‘I can go away for a week or two, and everything will be fine.’ ”

Top 10 Michael Jackson Songs

The Biggest Hits Of Michael Jackson Career

Michael Jackson has hit the top of the pop singles chart with 13 different singles as a solo artist. These are the 10 biggest of those hits. He easily ranks as one of the most successful and innovative pop artists of all time. All 10 of these songs are essential to any comprehensive pop music collection.

1. "Billie Jean" - 1983
If any single song signaled that Michael Jackson's legacy as one of the top pop artists of all time would be secure, it was "Billie Jean." The song remains a pop milestone and masterpiece. It was written by Michael Jackson and produced by Quincy Jones. Inspired by a real life experience in which Jackson was accused of fathering a baby of one of his fans, the slight sense of paranoia, instantly memorable bass line, and Michale Jackson's trademark vocal yelps and hiccups combined to make "Billie Jean," the second single from Thriller, a keystone in Michael Jackson's career. It spent seven weeks at the top of the pop singles chart in 1983.

2. "Black Or White" - 1991
It had been four years since the album Bad generated five consecutive #1 singles and some in the music industry wondered if Michael Jackson would maintain his commercial clout when Dangerous was released in 1991. All of those questions were soon answered as the lead single "Black Or White" became the second biggest hit single of Michael Jackson's career staying at #1 or seven weeks. All stops were out on celebrity participation with Guns 'n Roses' Slash contributing a guitar solo and Home Alone's Macaulay Culkin starring in the accompanying video. The song itself is a powerful plea for racial unity.

3. "Say Say Say" with Paul McCartney - 1983
The first time Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney teamed up on "The Girl Is Mine" in 1982 it was a smash success hitting #2 on the pop singles chart. The pair went back to the studio with Beatles producer George Martin for "Say Say Say" and the result was an even bigger hit staying at #1 for six weeks.

4. "Rock With You" - 1979
Following the uptempo smash "Don' Stop 'Till You Get Enough" that introduced the album Off the Wall, Michael Jackson proved he was adept with a laidback, soulful tune as well. Rod Temperton wrote "Rock With You," and it was part of the last gasp of the disco era.

5. "Beat It!" - 1983
The album Thriller, was already a smash hit, and "Billie Jean" was an acknowledged classic. Then the third single from the album, "Beat It!," tore down any remaining walls for Michael Jackson as a recording artist. Featuring a blistering guitar solo from rocker Eddie Van Halen and accompanied by a video that tore down barriers for black recording artists at MTV, "Beat It!" was an instant hit.

6. "Man In the Mirror" - 1988
Accompanied by a gospel choir, "Man In the Mirror" is known as one of Michael Jackson's most uplifting hit songs. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Record of the Year. Released in January of 1988, the song was the fourth consecutive #1 hit from the album Bad.

7. "Bad" - 1987
The title song from Michael Jackson's Bad was the second consecutive #1 hit from the album. It was originally conceived as a duet with Prince. "Bad" was accompanied by an 18 minute short film as its music video. It only took the song six weeks to hit the top of the charts.

8. "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" - 1979
Michael Jackson's group with his brothers, the Jackson 5, was one of the most successful family acts of all time. They first hit the pop charts in 1969 when Michael Jackson was 11. By 1979, Jackson was a young adult, and he had not released a major solo hit in seven years. He collaborated with Quincy Jones to blend disco and contemporary R&B with vocals featuring one of the most arresting falsetto voices in pop music. "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" hit the top of the charts, and Michael Jackson's adult recording career had begun.

9. "You Are Not Alone" - 1995
Singer R. Kelly wrote this song in response to his own personal difficulties. When a demo reached Michael Jackson he decided to record "You Are Not Alone" as part of his greatest hits collection HIStory. Co-produced by Kelly, the song debuted at the top of the pop singles chart, the first hit to do so in the history of the Billboard Hot 100.

10. "The Way You Make Me Feel" - 1987
"The Way You Make Me Feel" was the third #1 hit from the album Bad. Reportedly, Michael Jackson recorded the song in response to a request from his mother Katherine to record a song with a shuffling rhythm. Michael Jackson performed the song live at the 1988 Grammy Awards.

Michael Jackson: The Death of Peter Pan

Right now we could all use a selective memory wipe — a magical eraser to remove all the misery Michael Jackson endured and caused. Just for a minute, we'd like to have pure recollections of the thrilling dancer and singer who dominated '80s music, created the all-time best-selling album of new songs (Thriller) and seemed the very model of the cool dude with the sensitive soul. And we wouldn't mind feeling some uncomplicated warmth for the young Jacko who, as the Cupid and Kewpie doll of the Motown brother act the Jackson Five, displayed the charisma that marked him for future and, we thought, perpetual stardom. Why can't a pop icon's life and legacy be as easy as ABC?

On the evening of his death from cardiac arrest, fans by the thousands convened at impromptu memorial sites. Unable to commemorate his passing at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — it was covered by a red carpet outside the Chinese Theatre, where a Bruno premiere was to take place — the pop phenom's admirers placed notes and flowers further down Hollywood Boulevard on the star of a much less famous radio host who happened also to be named Michael Jackson. Newscasters mostly observed the rule of decorum in such matters: speak only good of the dead. As Josh Tyrangiel noted in his TIME.com obit, there was much good, much brilliance, to speak of. Hail to the King of Pop; rest in peace.

And yet, as Tyrangiel also pointed out, Jackson's memory is complicated, compromised, tainted. In some ways his decline was familiar: the star attraction whose star fades. Once the richest of pop idols, he flirted with bankruptcy in the past decade, selling many of his assets to Sony to wipe out huge debts. For years his main income came not from his own music but from royalties from much of the Beatles' catalog, which he owned. (He may have relinquished some of these rights in a financing deal with Sony; details were not made public.) Jackson was also forced to sell his Neverland ranch outside Santa Barbara, Calif., and auction off many of its treasures. Some antics, like dangling his infant son Prince from a balcony, tested the limits of what an eccentric celebrity could get away with.

Other aspects of Jackson's fall come close to being unique. For the past two decades, he has been famous for being infamous: the sad, self-mutilating creature who may have acted on impulses he thought were paternal but were in fact predatory. Accused twice of child molestation — the first time, in 1994, he escaped trial by paying his accuser $22 million; he was acquitted in 2005 of a second charge — Jackson acknowledged the evidence was damning enough even to a public that demands little but that their stars offer a semblance of recognizable humanity.

Soon after his career went stratospheric, Jackson went extraterrestrial. With the aid of plastic surgeons who should have known better, he almost literally defaced himself. For some imaginary Madame Tussaud's, he transformed himself into his own waxed figure, a modern Phantom of the Opera in pallor and disfigurement. A pop star has problems when his fans can't bear to look at him.

Jackson's life was never, ever normal. For a celebrity of his magnitude, to be seen is to be smothered, to be a star is to be a freak, to be loved is to be abused. A poignant and appalling case history that could have come straight out of Krafft-Ebing, Jackson's childhood was marred by mistreatment. In a 1993 interview with Oprah Winfrey, he recalled his youth, when his father Joseph was making millions off his sons' popularity. Jackson said that in puberty — "very sad, sad years for me" — his father routinely called him ugly, "and I would cry every day." When Winfrey asked, Did your father ever beat you? Jackson tried to smile as he said yes. Then, in an aside to his father, he added, "I'm sorry. Please don't be mad at me." With that wincing smile, Jackson was like a wounded orphan who has walked through fire and has booked a return trip.

In 1993, Michael's sister LaToya, who is perhaps not the most reliable of witnesses, claimed that their mother Katherine had called Michael a "damn f----t." How strong is the bond, the bondage, of victim to victimizer? Strong enough that one never breaks free. Jackson dedicated his album Dangerous to "My dearest parents, Katherine and Joseph Jackson."

Michael's speaking and singing voice never matured; neither, it appears, did he. When Winfrey asked Jackson if he was a virgin, he smiled and said he was "a gentleman. You can call me old-fashioned, if you want." Old-fashioned? Archaic. Identifying with the don't-want-to-grow-up Peter Pan — a role he hoped to play in a Steven Spielberg film version of the James M. Barrie play — he called his ranch Neverland, populated it with an exotic menagerie and surrounded himself with young boys. They were meant to be supporting players in an improved, redeemed fantasy version of his own damaged childhood.

Yet Jackson's profound weirdness — not just the glove or the seaweed hair striping his face but the blanched skin, the pained eyes, the tremulous soul — hinted that Peter Pan was the wrong role for him. Wasn't Jackson really one of Peter's Lost Boys, stranded between childhood and adolescence, loved by the public yet feeling caged and abandoned, and searching, groping for the Edenic innocence he believed was any child's birthright? Or, to pick an image from another Disney cartoon classic, Neverland could also be Pinocchio's Pleasure Island, where careless lads were transformed into slaves and donkeys. And this pop-star Pan could instead be the Pied Piper, the musician who lured children into a cave as their parents gasped in fright.

"I love being around them," Jackson wrote in his 1988 autobiography, Moonwalk. "There always seem to be a bunch of kids over at the house, and they're always welcome. They energize me — just being around them." When he welcomed handicapped kids to the ranch, he felt he was their equal, and they were friends he could play with, or sing to — or, he must have thought, love, in the purest sense of the word. The litany of alleged misbehavior in the 2005 trial — making prank phone calls, sneaking drinks, scanning porn sites, even a lesson in masturbation — is not unfamiliar among preteens. If Jackson committed these acts, it was not predator-to-prey but peer-to-peer. Having forgiven the father who abused him, could he not forgive himself for bonding with the children who came into his Neverland bed? Could this Lost Boy even understand the difference between hugging and fondling, affection and assault, generosity and lechery?

He told Winfrey that what he most regretted not having as a kid was "slumber parties." That's what he arranged for his young guests, who were often wounded souls themselves. The boy who brought the complaint against Jackson that went to trial met him after undergoing chemotherapy treatments for leukemia as a 10-year-old. Perhaps we should forget Peter Pan for the moment, and remember that Jackson told Winfrey of his kinship with another outsider, John Merrick, that sweet-souled, tragically deformed creature known as the Elephant Man. "I love the story," he said. "It reminds me of me a lot ... It made me cry because I saw myself in the story."

Even when the charges of child abuse were new and shocking — when British gossip rags were dubbing him Wacko Jacko and Sicko Jacko — there was some sympathy for this sad creature. The public, after all, had more invested in him than they did in the boys he was accused of molesting. And now, in his early and sudden death, his mourners can see him as more sinned against than sinning. They might have used that magical memory wipe on themselves.

But as the first grieving fades, and all those people Jackson's lawyers paid to keep quiet get other people to pay for their stories, the tabloid tattling will return. The noise should be as instructive as it is ugly. It will force Michael Jackson's fans and foes to ask: Why must our stars fall so spectacularly and fail us so egregiously? Perhaps it's because we want them to. Indeed, it may be the primary function of celebrities like Jackson to show us, in their early radiance, what we could dream of being — and in the murk of their decline, what we fear we could become.

Goodbye Michael

«I've been in the entertainment industry since I was six-years-old... As Charles Dickens says, "It's been the best of times, the worst of times." But I would not change my career... While some have made deliberate attempts to hurt me, I take it in stride because I have a loving family, a strong faith and wonderful friends and fans who have, and continue, to support me».
—Michael Jackson

Where to Go this Summer

Prevent Summer Camp Homesickness

Is your tween headed to camp? Consider these ideas for preventing homesickness.

When children go away to summer camp, parents often worry if their child will come down with a case of the homesick blues. Even tweens can suffer from homesickness, but parents should know there are ways to prevent homesickness from ruining an otherwise fun experience. If you think your tween is ready for an overnight camp experience, these suggestions will help you prevent homesickness. And help both of you manage your time without each other.

Stay Positive
It's important to keep the conversation positive when you talk with your child about summer camp. Point out all the fun activities he'll be doing and all the skills he'll be learning. If you keep your tone and conversations positive, your child will learn that summer camp is an experience worth having, and an adventure worth experiencing.

Prepare Your Child
Try to learn as much about the camp as you can beforehand so you can explain what your child's typical day might be like. Be sure he knows that he might be getting up earlier than usual, or that he can't always eat when he wants to. Be sure you don't scare your child about his camp experience. Focusing on things that frighten him, such as bugs, snakes, or the dark of night, might scare him off before he ever sets foot at camp. Instead, tell him that the camp director and camp counselors are experts at having fun and they know how to keep kids safe.

Watch Your Emotions
It's important that your child not feel guilty about leaving you to go to camp. Try not to say things like, "I don't know how I'll ever manage without you!" or, "I'll cry myself to sleep while you're gone." Instead, talk positively about what you have planned while he's away, making sure that it's nothing he'll want to experience with you. Save the trip to the beach for when he's back. Instead, tell him that you plan to clean out the pantry while he's gone, or that you're excited to be able to paint the kitchen while he's away.

Make sure your child knows that you'll be fine while he's gone, and that you're looking forward to hearing about all of his adventures when you pick him up at the end of the week.

Keep in Touch
It's important for parents to keep in touch with their children while they are away at camp. In fact, you might want to write a letter before your camper leaves home, so that the letter is waiting for him when he arrives. Be sure you write letters (or emails) to your child every few days, keeping your letters short and sweet. Update your camper on the family pet, the weather, what you had for dinner, etc. Be sure you don't communicate anything that might concern your child while he's away. Keep your letters light and happy, and be sure to express that you'll see him in just a few days.

Bring Something from Home
It's fine for your child to bring something with him that reminds him of home. It could be a family photo, a blanket, or a small stuffed animal. Even tweens need security items from time to time.

Don't Bargain
Many camps recommend that parents refrain from calling their children while they're at camp, as that can make homesickness even worse. Don't promise that you'll talk to your child while he's away, or that you'll come and get him if he's really miserable. Instead, if you think your child might end up homesick, tell him to find something really fun to do to keep his mind off of his concerns. For example, you could provide your child with a list of activities he should do if he finds himself homesick. The list could suggest that he read a good book, go for a jog, write a letter to one of his siblings, make a list of all the things he likes at camp, come up with nicknames for his camp mates, etc. The idea is to keep his mind busy so that he forgets he's missing home.

Talk to the Camp Director
If you think your child might experience homesickness, make contact with the camp director several weeks in advance of his trip. The camp director may offer suggestions to help you prevent homesickness, and he'll also offer up information on how the camp staff deals with such situations. And that can make you and your child feel a lot better.

Celebrating 1 Year

Meet the New iPhone 3G S

Apple's iPhone has been the must-have smartphone since the first version launched in 2007. But that doesn't mean that the iPhone itself was perfect. Critics (rightfully) derided its low-quality camera, its lack of multimedia messaging, and its inability to capture video clips. Those critics are likely to be pleased with the new iPhone 3G S, which addresses many of these flaws.

Still, while the new iPhone 3G S may be a marked improvement over past versions, it's also facing much tougher competition. Its biggest challenge may come from the Palm Pre, Palm's buzzed-about new touch-screen smartphone. The iPhone 3G S also has to compete with improved BlackBerry devices, such as the Bold and the Curve 8900.

Price and Availability
The iPhone 3G S will be available on June 19 in two versions: 16GB and 32GB. The 16GB version will cost $199, while the 32GB version will cost $299.

But those prices are good for new AT&T customers or existing AT&T customers who are eligible for an upgrade. If you were one of the many who stood in line to buy an iPhone 3G last summer, you're not yet upgrade eligible. That means you'll have to pay $399 for the 16GB iPhone 3G S and $499 for the 32GB version.

Without any contract at all, you'll have to pay $599 for the 16GB version and $699 for the 32GB version.

Design
From the outside, the iPhone 3G S looks exactly like the iPhone 3G. It measures 4.5 inches tall, 2.4 inches wide, and .48 inches deep, and weighs 4.8 ounces. Like the iPhone 3G, the new model comes in black and white versions, and sports a 3.5-inch touch screen.

Most of the changes to the iPhone 3G S have been made on the inside. Battery life is supposed to be better, and storage capacity has been doubled to 16GB and 32GB. Apple also says the iPhone 3G S runs twice as fast as the iPhone 3G.

Web Browsing
The speedier performance of the iPhone 3G S extends to surfing the Web, Apple says. The phone will support AT&T's upgraded HSDPA network, which can reach speeds of 7.2 megabits per second. (Note, though, that AT&T's network is still being upgraded, and the process is expected to continue for two more years, so those high speeds will not be available everywhere.)

Like previous iPhone models, the 3G S runs the mobile version of the Safari browser. This provides, hands down, the best mobile browsing experience available today. You can see entire Web pages as they were meant to be displayed, and can zoom in and out with ease.

Software
The iPhone 3G S comes with the most recent version of the iPhone Software -- version 3.0 -- installed. That means it offers instant access to many of the features that users have been clamoring for, including cut and paste, universal search, and a landscape keyboard that works in most applications.

The iPhone doesn't come with a lot of individual applications installed on it, but it does come with easy access to Apple's App Store. The App Store allows you to browse through thousands of applications (both free and paid), and select titles to download directly to your phone. If you're looking for software for your iPhone, you'll find it in there. The App Store revolutionized the way we get software on our smartphones, and for good reason: It's incredibly easy to use, and incredibly useful.

Messaging
The notable new messaging feature on the iPhone 3G S is support for MMS, or multi-media messaging. This means you can send pictures and videos by SMS, rather than having to send them via e-mail. Past iPhone models allowed you to send plain text messages only. The caveat here, though, is that MMS will not be available until AT&T is ready to offer it, and that's not likely to happen until later this summer.

Other new e-mail features include the ability to search through your e-mail messages and contacts, as well as the option to use a landscape-oriented keyboard when composing messages.

Camera
The camera on the iPhone 3G S is one of the major improvements over past models. It's been upgraded from 2 megapixels to 3 megapxiels, and adds autofocus. It also adds the ability to capture video clips at 30 frames per second. It even includes on-board video-editing software.

Music and More

The iPhone 3G S will retain the excellent iPod features found on previous versions, but will sport a few upgrades. Thanks to the iPhone 3.0 software, you'll be able to rent movies and videos directly from the phone, using iTunes. In the past, you had to purchase or rent most video content on your computer, and then manually transfer it to your phone.

Additional features include a voice control interface, an included digital compass, support for Nike + technology (which allows you to sync workout data with your computer), enhanced GPS capabilities, and support for stereo Bluetooth.

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Mario Puzo

Mario Gianluigi Puzo (October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999) was a two time Academy Award-winning Italian American author and screenwriter, known for his novels about the Mafia, especially The Godfather (1969), which he later co-adapted into a film with Francis Ford Coppola.

Biography
Puzo was born in a poor family of Neapolitan immigrants living in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of New York City. Many of his books draw heavily on this heritage. After graduating from the City College of New York, he joined the United States Army Air Forces in World War II. Due to his poor eyesight, the military did not let him undertake combat duties but made him a public relations officer stationed in Germany. In 1950, his first short story "The Last Christmas" was published in American Vanguard. After the war, he wrote his first book, The Dark Arena, which was published in 1955.

At periods in the 1950s and early 1960s, Puzo worked as a writer/editor for publisher Martin Goodman's Magazine Management Company. Puzo, along with other writers like Bruce Jay Friedman, worked for the company line of men's magazines, pulp titles like Male, True Action, and Swank. Under the pseudonym Mario Cleri, Puzo wrote World War II adventure features for True Action.

Puzo's most famous work, The Godfather, was first published in 1969 after he had heard anecdotes about Mafia organizations during his time in pulp journalism. He later said in an interview with Larry King that his principal motivation was to make money. He had already, after all, written two books that had received great reviews, yet had not amounted to much. As a government clerk with five kids, he was looking to write something that would appeal to the masses. With a number one bestseller for months on The New York Times Best Seller List, Mario Puzo had found his target audience. The book was later developed into the film The Godfather directed by Francis Ford Coppola. The movie received 11 Academy Award nominations, winning three, including an Oscar for Puzo for Best Adapted Screenplay. Coppola and Puzo collaborated then to work on sequels to the original film, The Godfather Part II and The Godfather Part III.

Puzo wrote the first draft of the script for the 1974 disaster film Earthquake, which he was unable to continue working on due to his commitment to The Godfather: Part II. Puzo also co-wrote Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie and the original draft for Superman II. He also collaborated on the stories for the 1982 movie A Time to Die and the 1984 Francis Ford Coppola movie The Cotton Club.

Puzo never saw the publication of his penultimate book, Omertà, but the manuscript was finished before his death, as was the manuscript for The Family. However, in a review originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Jules Siegel, who had worked closely with Puzo at Magazine Management Company, doubted that Puzo had actually finished Omertà and expressed the view that it may have been completed by "some talentless hack."

Puzo died of heart failure on July 2, 1999 at his home in Bay Shore, Long Island, New York. His family now lives in East Islip, New York.

Novels
The Dark Arena (1955)
The Fortunate Pilgrim (1965)
The Runaway Summer of Davie Shaw (1966)
Six Graves to Munich (1967), as Mario Cleri
The Godfather (1969)
Fools Die (1978)
The Sicilian (1984) sequel to The Godfather
The Fourth K (1991)
The Last Don (1996)
Omerta (2000)
The Family (2002)

Nonfiction
The Godfather Papers and Other Confessions (1972)
Inside Las Vegas (1977)

Short Stories
"The Last Christmas" (1950)

Screenplays
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
Earthquake (1974)
Superman: The Movie (1978)
Superman II (1980)
The Godfather Part III (1990)
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)

The Very First Apple Computer

The Apple I was a very early personal computer. In order for it to function, the user had to install a power supply, a keyboard and a monitor. The Apple I sold for $666.66; only 200 units were produced.

Steve Jobs

Steven Paul Jobs (born February 24, 1955) is an American businessman and co-founder, and CEO of Apple Inc. Jobs is the former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios.

In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, created one of the first commercially successful personal computers. In the early 1980s, Jobs was among the first to see the commercial potential of the mouse-driven graphical user interface. After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a computer platform development company specializing in the higher education and business markets. NeXT's subsequent 1997 buyout by Apple Computer Inc. brought Jobs back to the company he co-founded, and he has served as its CEO since then. Steve Jobs was listed as Fortune Magazine's Most Powerful Businessman of 2007.

In 1986, he acquired the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd which was spun off as Pixar Animation Studios. He remained CEO and majority shareholder until its acquisition by the Walt Disney Company in 2006. Jobs is currently a member of Walt Disney Company's Board of Directors. He is considered a leading figure in both the computer and entertainment industries.

Jobs' history in business has contributed greatly to the myths of the idiosyncratic, individualistic Silicon Valley entrepreneur, emphasizing the importance of design and understanding the crucial role aesthetics play in public appeal. His work driving forward the development of products that are both functional and elegant has earned him a devoted following.

Jobs is currently on a leave of absence from Apple due to health issues.


Early Years
Jobs was born in San Francisco and was adopted by Paul and Clara (née Hagopian) Jobs of Mountain View, Santa Clara County, California who named him Steven Paul. Paul and Clara also had a daughter, Patty. His biological parents, Joanne Carole Schieble and Abdulfattah Jandali — a graduate student from Syria who became a political science professor — later married and gave birth to Jobs' sister, the novelist Mona Simpson.

Jobs attended Cupertino Junior High School and Homestead High School in Cupertino, California, and frequented after-school lectures at the Hewlett-Packard Company in Palo Alto, California. He was soon hired there and worked with Steve Wozniak as a summer employee. In 1972, Jobs graduated from high school and enrolled in Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Although he dropped out after only one semester, he continued auditing classes at Reed, such as one in calligraphy. "If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts", he said.

In the autumn of 1974, Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club with Steve Wozniak. He took a job as a technician at Atari, a manufacturer of popular video games, with the primary intent of saving money for a spiritual retreat to India.

Jobs then traveled to India with a Reed College friend (and, later, the first Apple employee), Daniel Kottke, in search of spiritual enlightenment. He came back a Buddhist with his head shaved and wearing traditional Indian clothing. During this time, Jobs experimented with psychedelics, calling his LSD experiences "one of the two or three most important things [he had] done in [his] life." He has stated that people around him who did not share his countercultural roots could not fully relate to his thinking.

He returned to his previous job at Atari and was given the task of creating a circuit board for the game Breakout. According to Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, Atari had offered US$100 for each chip that was reduced in the machine. Jobs had little interest or knowledge in circuit board design and made a deal with Wozniak to split the bonus evenly between them if Wozniak could minimize the number of chips. Much to the amazement of Atari, Wozniak reduced the number of chips by 50, a design so tight that it was impossible to reproduce on an assembly line. At the time, Jobs told Wozniak that Atari had only given them $600 (instead of the actual $5000) and that Wozniak's share was thus $300.

Beginnings of Apple Computer
In 1976, Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, with funding from multimillionaire A.C. "Mike" Markkula, founded Apple. Before Wozniak co-founded Apple with Jobs, he was an electronics hacker. Jobs and Wozniak had been friends for several years, having met in 1971, when their mutual friend, Bill Fernandez, introduced 21-year-old Wozniak to 16-year-old Jobs. Steve Jobs managed to interest Wozniak in assembling a computer and selling it. As Apple continued to expand, the company began looking for an experienced executive to help manage its expansion. In 1983, Steve Jobs lured John Sculley away from Pepsi-Cola to serve as Apple's CEO, asking, "Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water to children, or do you want a chance to change the world?" The following year, Apple set out to do just that, starting with a Super Bowl television commercial titled, "1984." At Apple's annual shareholders meeting on January 24, 1984, an emotional Jobs introduced the Macintosh to a wildly enthusiastic audience; Andy Hertzfeld described the scene as "pandemonium." The Macintosh became the first commercially successful small computer with a graphical user interface. The development of the Mac was started by Jef Raskin, and eventually taken over by Jobs.

While Jobs was a persuasive and charismatic director for Apple, some of his employees from that time had described him as an erratic and temperamental manager. An industry-wide sales slump towards the end of 1984 caused a deterioration in Jobs's working relationship with Sculley, and at the end of May 1985 – following an internal power struggle and an announcement of significant layoffs – Sculley relieved Jobs of his duties as head of the Macintosh division.

NeXT Computer
Around the same time, Jobs founded another computer company, NeXT Computer. Like the Apple Lisa, the NeXT workstation was technologically advanced; however, it was largely dismissed by industry as cost-prohibitive. Among those who could afford it, however, the NeXT workstation garnered a strong following because of its technical strengths, chief among them its object-oriented software development system. Jobs marketed NeXT products to the scientific and academic fields because of the innovative, experimental new technologies it incorporated (such as the Mach kernel, the digital signal processor chip, and the built-in Ethernet port).

The NeXT Cube was described by Jobs as an "interpersonal" computer, which he believed was the next step after "personal" computing. That is, if computers could allow people to communicate and collaborate together in an easy way, it would solve a lot of the problems that "personal" computing had come up against. During a time when e-mail for most people was plain text, Jobs loved to demo the NeXT's e-mail system, NeXTMail, as an example of his "interpersonal" philosophy. NeXTMail was one of the first to support universally visible, clickable embedded graphics and audio within e-mail.

Jobs ran NeXT with an obsession for aesthetic perfection, as evidenced by such things as the NeXTcube's magnesium case. This put considerable strain on NeXT's hardware division, and in 1993, after having sold only 50,000 machines, NeXT transitioned fully to software development with the release of NeXTSTEP/Intel.

Return to Apple
In 1996, Apple announced that it would buy NeXT for $429 million. The deal was finalized in late 1996, bringing Jobs back to the company he founded. He soon became Apple's interim CEO after the directors lost confidence in and ousted then-CEO Gil Amelio in a boardroom coup. In March 1998, in order to concentrate Apple's efforts on returning to profitability, Jobs immediately terminated a number of projects such as Newton, Cyberdog, and OpenDoc. In the coming months, many employees developed a fear of encountering Jobs while riding in the elevator, "afraid that they might not have a job when the doors opened. The reality was that Jobs' summary executions were rare, but a handful of victims was enough to terrorize a whole company."

With the purchase of NeXT, much of the company's technology found its way into Apple products, most notably NeXTSTEP, which evolved into Mac OS X. Under Jobs's guidance the company increased sales significantly with the introduction of the iMac and other new products; since then, appealing designs and powerful branding have worked well for Apple. At the 2000 Macworld Expo, Jobs officially dropped the "interim" modifier from his title at Apple and became permanent CEO. Jobs quipped at the time that he would be using the title 'iCEO.'

In recent years, the company has branched out, introducing and improving upon other digital appliances. With the introduction of the iPod portable music player, iTunes digital music software, and the iTunes Store, the company made forays into consumer electronics and music distribution. In 2007, Apple entered the cellular phone business with the introduction of the iPhone, a multi-touch display cell phone, iPod, and internet device. While stimulating innovation, Jobs also reminds his employees that "real artists ship," by which he means that delivering working products on time is as important as innovation and attractive design.

Jobs is both admired and criticized for his consummate skill at persuasion and salesmanship, which has been dubbed the "reality distortion field" and is particularly evident during his keynote speeches (colloquially known as "Stevenotes") at Macworld Expos and at Apple's own World Wide Developers Conferences.

In 2005, Jobs responded to criticism of Apple's poor recycling programs for e-waste in the U.S. by lashing out at environmental and other advocates at Apple's Annual Meeting in Cupertino in April. However, a few weeks later, Apple announced it would take back iPods for free at its retail stores. The Computer TakeBack Campaign responded by flying a banner from a plane over the Stanford University graduation at which Jobs was the commencement speaker. The banner read "Steve — Don't be a mini-player recycle all e-waste". In 2006 he further expanded Apple's recycling programs to any U.S. customer who buys a new Mac. This program includes shipping and "environmentally friendly disposal" of their old systems.

Stock Options Backdating Issue
In 2001, Steve Jobs was granted stock options in the amount of 7.5 million shares of Apple with an exercise price of $18.30, which allegedly should have been $21.10, thereby incurring taxable income of $20,000,000 that he did not report as income. Apple overstated its earnings by that same amount. If found liable, Jobs may have faced a number of criminal charges and civil penalties. Apple claimed that the options were originally granted at a special board meeting that may never have taken place. Furthermore, the investigation is focusing on false dating of the options resulting in a retroactive $20 million increase in the exercise price. The case is the subject of active criminal and civil government investigations, though an independent internal Apple investigation completed on December 29, 2006 found that Jobs was unaware of these issues and that the options granted to him were returned without being exercised in 2003. On July 1, 2008 a $7 billion class action suit was filed against several members of the Apple Board of Directors for revenue lost due to the alleged securities fraud.

Pixar and Disney
In 1986, Jobs bought The Graphics Group (later renamed Pixar) from Lucasfilm's computer graphics division for the price of $10 million, $5 million of which was given to the company as capital.

The new company, which was originally based in San Rafael, California but has since relocated to Emeryville, California, was initially intended to be a high-end graphics hardware developer. After years of unprofitability selling the Pixar Image Computer, it contracted with Disney to produce a number of computer-animated feature films, which Disney would co-finance and distribute.

The first film produced by the partnership, Toy Story, brought fame and critical acclaim to the studio when it was released in 1995. Over the next ten plus years, under Pixar's creative chief John Lasseter, the company would produce the box-office hits A Bug's Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters, Inc. (2001), Finding Nemo (2003), The Incredibles (2004), Cars (2006), Ratatouille (2007), and WALL-E (2008). Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and WALL-E each received the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, an award introduced in 2001.

In the years 2003 and 2004, as Pixar's contract with Disney was running out, Jobs and Disney chief executive Michael Eisner tried but failed to negotiate a new partnership, and in early 2004 Jobs announced that Pixar would seek a new partner to distribute its films once its contract with Disney expired.

In October 2005, Bob Iger replaced Eisner at Disney, and Iger quickly worked to patch up relations with Jobs and Pixar. On January 24, 2006, Jobs and Iger announced that Disney had agreed to purchase Pixar in an all-stock transaction worth $7.4 billion. Once the deal closed, Jobs became The Walt Disney Company's largest single shareholder with approximately 7% of the company's stock. Jobs's holdings in Disney far exceed those of Eisner, who holds 1.7%, and Disney family member Roy E. Disney, who held about 1% of the company's stock and whose criticisms of Eisner included the soured Pixar relationship and accelerated his ousting. Jobs joined the company's board of directors upon completion of the merger.

Jobs also helps oversee Disney and Pixar's combined animation businesses with a seat on a special six-man steering committee. One of the committee's first decisions was to discontinue the production of so-called "cheapquels" (cheap direct-to-video sequels).

Management Style
Much has been made of Jobs's aggressive and demanding personality. Fortune noted that he "is considered one of Silicon Valley's leading egomaniacs."Commentaries on his temperamental style can be found in Mike Moritz's The Little Kingdom, one of the few authorized biographies of Jobs; Jeffrey S. Young's unauthorized Steve Jobs: The Journey Is the Reward; The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, by Alan Deutschman; and iCon: Steve Jobs, by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon.

In iCon: Steve Jobs the authors point out that Paul Jobs, who adopted Steve, was also known to be aggressive: "Paul was soon hired as a kind of strongarm man by a finance company that sought help collecting on auto loans — an early repo man. Both his bulk and his aggressive personality were well suited to this somewhat dangerous pursuit, and his mechanical bent enabled him to pick the locks of the cars he had to repossess and hot-wire them if necessary."

Jobs has always aspired to position Apple and its products at the forefront of the information technology industry by foreseeing and setting trends, at least in terms of innovation and style. He summed up that self-concept at the end of his keynote speech at the Macworld Conference and Expo in January 2007 by quoting ice hockey legend Wayne Gretzky:

“There's an old Wayne Gretzky quote that I love. "I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.' And we've always tried to do that at Apple. Since the very very beginning. And we always will." ”
—Steve Jobs

Floyd Norman said that at Pixar, Jobs was a "mature, mellow individual" and never interfered with the creative process of the filmmakers.

Personal Life
Jobs married Laurene Powell, on March 18, 1991. Presiding over the wedding was the Zen Buddhist monk Kobun Chino Otogowa. The couple have three children. Jobs also has a daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs (born 1978), from his relationship with Bay Area painter Chrisann Brennan. She briefly raised their daughter on welfare when Jobs denied paternity, claiming that he was sterile; he later acknowledged paternity.

In the unauthorized biography The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, author Alan Deutschman reports that Jobs once dated Joan Baez. Deutschman quotes Elizabeth Holmes, a friend of Jobs from his time at Reed College, as saying she "believed that Steve became the lover of Joan Baez in large measure because Baez had been the lover of Bob Dylan." In another unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs by Jeffrey S. Young & William L. Simon, the authors suggest that Jobs might have married Baez, but her age at the time (41) meant it was unlikely the couple could have children. Baez included a mention of Jobs in the acknowledgments of her 1987 memoir And A Voice To Sing With.

Steve Jobs is also a devoted Beatles fan. He has referenced them on more than one occasion at Keynotes and also was interviewed on a showing of a Paul McCartney concert. When asked about his business model on 60 Minutes, he replied:

“My model for business is The Beatles: They were four guys that kept each other's negative tendencies in check; they balanced each other. And the total was greater than the sum of the parts. Great things in business are not done by one person, they are done by a team of people.”

In 1982, Jobs bought an apartment in The San Remo, an apartment building in New York City with a politically progressive reputation, where Demi Moore, Steven Spielberg, Steve Martin, and Princess Yasmin Aga Khan, daughter of Rita Hayworth, also had apartments. With the help of I.M. Pei, Jobs spent years renovating his apartment in the top two floors of the building's north tower, only to sell it almost two decades later to U2 frontman Bono. Jobs had never moved in.

In 1984, Jobs purchased a 17,000-square-foot (1,600 m2), 14 bedroom Spanish Colonial mansion, designed by George Washington Smith in Woodside, California, also known as Jackling House. Although it reportedly remained in an almost unfurnished state, Jobs lived in the mansion for ten years. According to reports, he kept an old BMW motorcycle in the living room, and let Bill Clinton use it in 1998. He allowed the mansion to fall into a state of disrepair, planning to demolish the house and build a smaller home on the property; but he met with complaints from local preservationists over his plans. In June 2004, the Woodside Town Council gave Jobs approval to demolish the mansion, on the condition that he advertise the property for a year to see if someone would move it to another location and restore it. A number of people expressed interest, including several with experience in restoring old property, but no agreements to that effect were reached. Later that same year, a local preservationist group began seeking legal action to prevent demolition. In January 2007 Jobs was denied the right to demolish the property, by a court decision.

He usually wears a black long-sleeved mock turtleneck made by St. Croix, Levi's 501 blue jeans, and New Balance 992 sneakers. He is a vegetarian.

Jobs had a public war of words with Dell Computer CEO Michael Dell, starting when Jobs first criticized Dell for making "un-innovative beige boxes." On October 6, 1997, in a Gartner Symposium, when Michael Dell was asked what he would do if he owned then-troubled Apple Computer, he said "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." In 2006, Steve Jobs sent an email to all employees when Apple's market capitalisation rose above Dell's. The email read:

“Team, it turned out that Michael Dell wasn't perfect at predicting the future. Based on today's stock market close, Apple is worth more than Dell. Stocks go up and down, and things may be different tomorrow, but I thought it was worth a moment of reflection today. Steve.”

In 2005, Steve Jobs banned all books published by John Wiley & Sons from Apple Stores in response to their publishing an unauthorized biography, iCon: Steve Jobs.

Health Concerns
In mid-2004, Jobs announced to his employees that he had been diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in his pancreas. The prognosis for pancreatic cancer is usually very grim; Jobs, however, stated that he had a rare, far less aggressive type known as islet cell neuroendocrine tumor. After initially resisting the idea of conventional medical intervention and embarking on a special diet to thwart the disease, Jobs underwent a pancreaticoduodenectomy (or "Whipple procedure") in July 2004 that successfully removed the tumor. Jobs apparently did not require nor receive chemotherapy or radiation therapy. During Jobs' absence, Timothy D. Cook, head of worldwide sales and operations at Apple, ran the company.

In early August 2006, Jobs delivered the keynote for Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference. His "thin, almost gaunt" appearance and unusually "listless" delivery, together with his choice to delegate significant portions of his keynote to other presenters, inspired a flurry of media and internet speculation about his health. In contrast, according to an Ars Technica journal report, WWDC attendees who saw Jobs in person said he "looked fine"; following the keynote, an Apple spokesperson said that "Steve's health is robust."

Two years later, similar concerns followed Jobs' 2008 WWDC keynote address; Apple officials stated Jobs was victim to a "common bug" and that he was taking antibiotics, while others surmised his cachectic appearance was due to the aforementioned Whipple procedure. During a July conference call discussing Apple earnings, participants responded to repeated questions about Steve Jobs' health by insisting that it was a "private matter." Others, however, opined that shareholders had a right to know more, given Jobs' hands-on approach to running his company. The New York Times published an article based on an off-the-record phone conversation with Jobs, noting that "while his health issues have amounted to a good deal more than 'a common bug,' they weren’t life-threatening and he doesn’t have a recurrence of cancer."

On August 28, 2008, Bloomberg mistakenly published a 2500-word obituary to Jobs in its corporate news service, containing blank spaces for his age and cause of death. (News carriers customarily stockpile up-to-date obituaries to facilitate news delivery in the event of a well-known figure's untimely death.) Although promptly rectified, many news carriers and blogs reported on the error, intensifying rumors concerning Jobs' health. Jobs responded at Apple's September 2008 keynote Let's Rock by quoting Mark Twain: "Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated"; at a subsequent media event, Jobs concluded his presentation with a slide reading "110 / 70", referring to his blood pressure, stating he would not address further questions about his health.

On December 16, 2008, Apple announced that marketing vice-president Phil Schiller would deliver the company's final keynote address at the Macworld Conference and Expo 2009, again reviving questions about Jobs' health. In a statement given on January 5, 2009 on Apple.com, Jobs said that he had been suffering from a "hormone imbalance" for several months. On January 14, 2009, in an internal Apple memo, Jobs wrote that in the previous week he had "learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought" and announced a six-month leave of absence until the end of June 2009 to allow him to better focus on his health. Tim Cook, who had previously acted as CEO in Jobs' 2004 absence, became acting CEO of Apple, with Jobs still involved with "major strategic decisions."

In response to doubts regarding Apple's veracity regarding Jobs' health, John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote that Apple's disclosures should be taken as accurate, since otherwise the board would be in breach of their legal responsibilities as directors of a publicly-held company.

Honors
He was awarded the National Medal of Technology from President Ronald Reagan in 1985 with Steve Wozniak (the first people to ever receive the honor), and a Jefferson Award for Public Service in the category "Greatest Public Service by an Individual 35 Years or Under" (aka the Samuel S. Beard Award) in 1987.

On November 27, 2007, Jobs was named the most powerful person in business by Fortune Magazine.

On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Jobs into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.

Picture of the Week

Kobe Bryant dunked a ball during Game 6 of the Western Conference finals. In 13 seasons, Bryant has yet to find a true rival -- Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

The Lebanese Wine

Lebanon is the oldest site of wine production in the world. The Phoenicians of its coastal strip were instrumental in spreading wine and viticulture throughout the Mediterranean in ancient times. Despite the many conflicts of the region, the country has an annual production of about 600,000 cases of wine, mostly influenced by French wines of Bordeaux and the Rhone.

History
Vitis Vinifera may have been domesticated in Lebanon, although it probably arrived from the South Caucasus via Mesopotamia or the Black Sea trade routes. Vines grew readily in the land of Canaan, the coastal strip of today's Lebanon, and the wines of Byblos (Gubla, Gebal, Jubail, Jbeil) were exported to Egypt during the Old Kingdom (2686 BC–2134 BC). The wines of Tyre and Sidon were famous throughout the ancient Mediterranean, although not all the cargoes reached their destination; Robert Ballard of Titanic fame found the wrecks of two Phoenician ships from 750 BC, whose cargo of wine was still intact. As the first great traders of wine ('Cherem'), the Phoenicians seem to have protected it from oxidation with a layer of olive oil, followed by a seal of pinewood and resin - this may well be the origin of the Greek taste for retsina. The philosophers Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus of Soli are both said to have enjoyed their wine, in fact the latter died from overindulgence.

Wine played an important part in Phoenician religion, and the Greek/Roman god Bacchus/Dionysus may have originated in the wine rituals of Canaan. Certainly the great temple at Heliopolis (Baalbek) has many depictions of vines and winedrinking, most famously captured by David Roberts in pictures such as 'Baalbec - Ruins of the Temple of Bacchus'. Such rituals may also have influenced the Greek Bacchae, the Jewish Passover Seder feast and the Christian Eucharist. Genesis 14:18 mentions that the Phoenician King Melchizedek gave bread and wine (yayin) to Abraham, and Hosea 14:8 suggests "his fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon". Wine also featured heavily in Ugaritic poetry such as the Rapiuma:

"Day long they pour the wine, ... must-wine, fit for rulers. Wine, sweet and abundant, Select wine... The choice wine of Lebanon, Most nurtured by El."

Once Lebanon became part of the Caliphate, wine production declined, although under the millet system it was tolerated among the Christian population for religious purposes. The Christians also developed Arak, an ouzo-like spirit flavored with aniseed.

Winemaking was revived in 1857, when Jesuit monks planted Cinsaut vines from Algeria at Chateau Ksara near Zahlé in the central Beqaa Valley. In 1868 a French engineer, Eugène François Brun, set up Domaine des Tourelles, and others followed, notably Gaston Hochar's Chateau Musar in 1930. Musar would become the standard bearer for Lebanese wines in the West, famous for taking grapes through the front lines of the Lebanese Civil War which separated the vineyards from the winery.

The French influence between the World Wars promoted a culture of wine drinking, as did the sophisticated Mediterranean culture of Beirut at that time.

Frenchman Yves Morard of Chateau Kefraya was arrested as a spy during the Israeli invasion, and was only released when he proved to the Israelis that he knew how to make wine. Things weren't much better during the 2006 conflict, Ksara losing most of their harvest as their workers fled the Israeli bombing. On the bright side, there was a surge in demand during the fighting as British buyers in particular bought Lebanese wine as a mark of solidarity.

Grape Varieties
Lebanese winemakers have favoured French grapes, particularly Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Rhone varietals such as Cinsaut, Carignan and Grenache. However Lebanon has a rich heritage of indigenous grapes which are attracting more attention, for instance Musar White is made from a blend of Obaideh and Merwah. The Lebanese claim that Obaideh is an ancestral form of Chardonnay - it is possible that it may be genetically similar to the Gouais blanc of the Balkans.

Wineries
All the major wineries have their vineyards in the southern Beqaa Valley. Chateau Ksara remains much the biggest, with 70% of all the country's production. It is no longer connected with the Jesuit monastery of Tanail, it was sold in 1972 and suffered considerably during the civil war, but has now bounced back with some stylish reds and rosés made from Rhone varietals such as Carignan and Cinsaut

Next biggest is Château Kefraya, whose majority of shares were bought by Druze politician Walid Jumblat from the De Bustros family in the late 1980s. The former winemaker, Yves Morard, has now set up Cave Kouroum nearby.

Chateau Musar is perhaps the best known in the West, it was a particular favourite of Auberon Waugh. Musar achieved international recognition at the Bristol Wine Fair of 1979 and for a long time was the only Lebanese wine widely available in the United Kingdom. The second wine, 'Hochar', is made in a lighter style for earlier drinking. Chateau Musar is known for transporting the grapes across the Front line during the civil war.

Massaya is the new kid on the block that has come from nowhere to become one of the most fashionable wines in France.

There are several other significant wineries, including Karam Winery the first wine to be produced in Lebanon's southern region, specifically in Jezzine. Domaine Wardy, Domaine de Baal, Vin Héritage, Château Faqra, Château Nakad, Domaine des Tourelles (who make Brun arak, arguably the best in Lebanon), Clos Saint Thomas, Cave Kouroum, Clos de Cana, Nabise Mont Liban, Enotica, Château Khoury and Couvent St. Sauveur. Lebwine.com has a good summary of them, and there's a useful map at lebanonatlas.com.

The Science of Shopping

You walk into a store in search of a sweater and leave with a suit, skirt and T-shirt — but no sweater. How many times have you done that — leave a store having spent far more than you intended and come out without the one item you really wanted? Urban geographer and retail anthropologist Paco Underhill has spent 15 years researching this phenomenon and unleashes his findings here. In Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, he explains why men who take jeans into the fitting room are twice as likely to buy them as women, how men are beginning to learn to shop like women and why the Internet will never replace the good old-fashioned shopping mall.

Is there a method to our madness when it comes to shopping? Hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as "a Sherlock Holmes for retailers," author and research company CEO Paco Underhill answers with a definitive "yes" in this witty, eye-opening report on our ever-evolving consumer culture. Why We Buy is based on hard data gleaned from thousands of hours of field research -- in shopping malls, department stores, and supermarkets across America. With his team of sleuths tracking our every move, from sweater displays at the mall to the beverage cooler at the drugstore, Paco Underhill lays bare the struggle among merchants, marketers, and increasingly knowledgeable consumers for control.

In his quest to discover what makes the contemporary consumer tick, Underhill explains the shopping phenomena that often go unnoticed by retailers and shoppers alike, including:

* How a well-placed shopping basket can turn a small purchase into a significant sale

* What the "butt-brush factor" is and how it can make sales plummet

* How working women have altered the way supermarkets are designed

* How the "boomerang effect" makes product placement ever more challenging

* What kinds of signage and packaging turn browsers into buyers

For those in retailing and marketing, Why We Buy is a remarkably fresh guide, offering creative and insightful tips on how to adapt to the changing customer. For the general public, Why We Buy is a funny and sometimes disconcerting look at our favorite pastime.

Retail anthropology is a relatively new field of study, where researchers observe the habits of shoppers in a retail environment. The author is a pioneer in this field, and his book is based on thousands of hours of data collected by his team of retail detectives. Whether you are a shopper or a retail employee, this book is a revelation. Written in a breezy, jargon-free style, this is an entertaining and fascinating look at the methods behind that fine madness known as shopping.

With clients ranging from McDonald''s to Starbucks, Estée Lauder to Blockbuster and Citibank to Wells Fargo, Paco Underhill has been profiled in The New Yorker and Smithsonian Magazine, has written for American Demographics and Adweek and lectures widely. He is based in New York City.