Downsyndrome.com

PRIVATE INVESTOR

The most experienced investors say that the best investment decisions are the ones that make them feel the queasiest.

Well, I’m feeling quite ill now, I can tell you. I just went a bit mad and bought some shares in two very unsuitable companies: The Restaurant Group and Alliance & Leicester. If you could name two areas that are going to do especially badly from the current downturn they would indeed be eating out and property. The credit crunch will inflict serious, stomach-turning damage there. And yet, it could still be that the shares have been oversold. There are signs of hope with both my purchases.

First, The Restaurant Group. Having taken a long-term view that restaurants are a good place to be, especially the “mid-market” sector, I bought into quite a few restaurant companies last year. The Restaurant Group runs the likes of Garfunkel’s, and earlier this month revealed trading results that were surprisingly upbeat. I wish I’d bought them before that, but you can’t have everything, I suppose.

Now, you have to remember that the economic slide has hardly begun, so that may not persist, but the logic behind this particular group is fairly compelling.

With the effects of the credit crunch, people trade down in the short term from more expensive groups, and in the long term there’s a trend towards more and better spending on leisure - families over time moving from McDonald’s and KFC to the likes of The Restaurant Group’s brands of Garfunkel’s, Frankie & Benny’s and Chiquito. The Restaurant Group plans to open 30 to 35 new restaurants this year, and they already own four at Terminal 5, Heathrow. They also avoid high street sites, preferring to operate in rural areas, leisure parks and through airport concessions. In addition, the group has kept its prices up.

I think that the 10 to 15 restaurants do have a decent future, provided they get though this storm, and it may be that some economists are exaggerating the pain we are all going to feel.

The key thing is unemployment, and so far the jobs market has proved notably flexible. In other words, even if we’re facing a bit of a squeeze, families will still eat out for as long as they’re confident that they’ll have a wage coming in. That might change, but it would be wrong to assume that it will necessarily do so. And, long term, the restaurants/eating out story is a good one. Just think how much you enjoy it.

In the case of Alliance & Leicester, I feel slightly more unwell. Maybe I should mention that this purchase is actually a repurchase, because I sold my windfall shares in the mortgage bank a couple of years after it demutualised, and they went for a good deal more than the price I recently paid for them; over 8, I think, rather than the 422p a share I shelled out last week.

I also bought some more a couple of years ago when there was some hot gossip about them being taken over by a French bank for 15 a share. That never happened, and I sold them at a small loss. Alliance & Leicester peaked at more than 12 at the height of the takeover speculation.

Anyway, let bygones be bygones; each investment decision has to be examined afresh. It’s fairly easy to press the case against A&L, and I have done so in these pages before.

On top of the welter of arguments to avoid the banking sector as a whole, the smaller players suffer a bit from what I would term Northern Rock Syndrome - that is, they are distrusted simply because they, like the Rock, are demutualised, smaller institutions, and therefore some of the Rock’s infamy has rubbed off on them. They, too, relied too much on wholesale fund-ing, though not to anything like the same degree, and they too pursued a policy of expansion, though again not with the reckless-ness displayed at the Rock. Furthermore, they too lack the experience of the major banking groups and the size and diversity to weather problems.

All true. But, as I wrote a couple of weeks ago, it may well be that, even after all those factors are taken into account, the problems are “in the price”.

The possibility of rights issues and yet more write downs of losses are already being accounted for in the share valuations of the likes of Alliance and Leicester and Bradford and Bingley, an even cheaper but frightening prospect where the shares hover not much higher than the rights. By the way, I’ve also recently taken the opportunity to top up my holding in Barclays.

So, yes, I do now think the banks are generally oversold. But buying into banks and restaurants is giving me a little indigestion. Pass the Rennie’s.

s.ogrady@independent.co.uk

Copyright c 2008 Independent Newspapers UK Limited. All rights
owned or operated by The Independent.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

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Eight-year-old Garrett Ross had been playing baseball just days before his life took a horrifying turn.

The transplanted heart he’d received as an infant was failing. He received a new one right away, but a return to his old life was six months away at best and unlikely at worst.

Now, just three months after surgery, he’s playing catch with his dad at their home in eastern El Paso County.

When the boy grabs his mitt and calls on J.D. Ross to go outside, the man drops everything. Some parents, Ross said, will tell their kids “in a little while” when they want to do something.

“There’s no ‘little while,’” said Ross. “We fought too long and hard to get the opportunity to play catch again.”

The fight began at Garrett’s birth, when he was diagnosed with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, in which the left side of the heart is undeveloped and not functioning. As his heart neared the end of its expected life, a donor came through, and he got his first transplant when he was 71/2 months old. Garrett went on to play baseball, compete in rodeos and speak publicly about the importance of organ donation.

But earlier this year, after he starting getting chest pains, the boy learned his second heart was dying. At The Children’s Hospital in Aurora, he received a new heart from a boy who arrived at the hospital the same night and died of meningitis.

Days after Garrett’s March 2 transplant, the boy who had been a standout at baseball tryouts was crying in pain just to walk across the room or down the hall.

Garrett was first told he could not go home until August. Then June. It turned out to be May.

Now, he creates imaginary rodeo competitions in his room, complete with multiple events.

“He’ll jump around and act like he’s riding a bucking horse,” his dad said Friday.

On Thursday, the boy was able to visit his school, the Pikes Peak School of Expeditionary Learning. Although he generally must avoid public places because of a suppressed immune system, Garrett was able to sit at a distance from his peers and talk to them about what he went through.

Getting a chance to be around other kids has been good medicine. Garrett struggled with loneliness after his surgery, his father said, and craved the happy routine that ended so abruptly earlier this year. At times, his sister, 6-yearold Jessi, would sneak away to a closet and cry.

When they returned home a week ago, those days were all but forgotten.

“I could hear the kids just squealing, having fun,” Ross said. “It was a type of a laughter that I had not heard in three months or more. Tears welled up in my eyes.”

The fight isn’t over. Garrett’s immune system will remain dangerously vulnerable for six to 12 months. There are worries about the durability of his new heart. The family faces significant medical bills.

Those battles are for another day, Ross said.

“We don’t have anything to complain about. We’re so lucky… I don’t know what six months or a year is going to look like for us, but I know right now we’re all right.”

The Rosses’ story has struck a chord with hundreds of people in Colorado Springs and as far away as Pennsylvania.

Larry Martin, a family friend and chief investigator for the 4th Judicial District District Attorney’s Office, helped raise about $10,000 to cover the family’s medical bills. He got employees to pay for the privilege of wearing jeans to work on certain Fridays, and he organized a bake sale and silent auction.

One of Ross’ long-time friends, Pennsylvania State Police Cpl. Douglas Brigham, started a blog and e-mailed his network of contacts to help the family. On Thursday, he arrived in Colorado Springs on a motorcycle to present them with about $10,000 he raised through his efforts.

A trust fund has been set up for Garrett’s medical care.

Ross sometimes struggles with the idea that two children had to die for his son to live, but he tells Garrett’s story in hopes people will realize the value of organ donations.

That message came through, tragically, as recently as Friday.

Garrett had recently seen a TV news story about a 6-year-old boy who suffered a severe head injury, and he wanted to give the boy a get-well card because he was also being treated at Children’s Hospital in Aurora. After the boy’s family learned about Garrett’s card, they met with the Rosses.

On Friday, Ross received word from the father that the boy died. Garrett had inspired them to donate their child’s organs.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0198 or bnewsome@gazette.com

HOW TO HELP

Donations can be made to the Family Fund for Garrett Ross at any branch of Ent Federal Credit Union.

Copyright 2008
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

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BBC Scotland needs leadership talent too

MAGGIE Cunningham, head of programmes for BBC Scotland, says the leadership of BBC Scotland “are very happy to let the facts speak for themselves” (Mail, May 11). Very well.

Until last week, at 9am on a Sunday, there was a radio programme of current affairs and news, Sunday Live.

This drew on international reports, live interviews, national news, arts and sport and did so in a literate, knowledgeable and lively way, often showing both wit and insight.

Last Sunday, as Cunningham seeks to boast in her letter to you, this was replaced by a chatshow led by Shereen Nanjiani. We had an hour of inconsequential chit-chat between Nanjiani and two former tabloid editors and a chatshow host and moved beyond the studio only to hear a pre-recorded interview with Jack McConnell - hardly a substitute for the variety of current affairs interviews, often live and dealing with breaking news, presented by Sunday Live.

BBC Scotland does not lack excellent talent. What it lacks is excellent leadership with vision. BBC Scotland will, as Iain Macwhirter observed (Opinion, May 4), remain second-rate until it has leadership as good as most of its talent. One remembers Tom Devine’s proposed seminar title: “BBC Scotland - a national humiliation.”

Ian Brown Pitlochry

Party card-carriers

WENDY Alexander’s senior adviser, Mike Elrick, admits that he “tore up” his party card “in disgust” (News, May 18). He must be pretty strong as Labour membership cards are plastic. I have often tried to tear mine up with no success. My failure to do so is the real reason why I am still a member.

Bob Holman Glasgow

Class war revisited

NEIL Mackay (Opinion, May 4) misses the point about the rising hatred for us white working-class folk. It is all the consequence of programming.

Journalists in the media spew out hate for us white workers.

In the Daily Express, William Hickory suggested we should be fed some kind of chemical to stop us having sons who will grow up to be “neds” like their fathers. In the Scotsman, Robert McNeil spews out hatred and contempt for white workers. He also calls us “neds” and our sons “nedlings”.

According the McNeil we’re “bone-idle” and “vicious”. We also “think the world owes us a living”. McNeil’s solution is to infect us with pneumonic plague germs to get rid of us.

Methinks it’s time Elish Angiolini QC, the Lord Advocate, was prosecuting these bigots in a court under the race hate laws.

In The Independent, Yasmin AlibhaiBrown sneers at us white workers as “lazy slobs”. She is an Asian, forsooth!

She vaunts forth her middle-class status, like Gerry Gable of Searchlight.

He calls white workers “loonys” from the comfort of his GBP500,000 house in the Essex stockbrokers’ belt. In the evil hatesheet Fighting Talk the middleclass lefties, who are mostly employed in fat-salaried control jobs in the public sector, say we’re “not worth a shit!”

It’s not surprising then to see Neil Mackay’s middle-class acquaintances spew out bile for poor white unemployed workers. It is the same evil mindset as of [19th-century political economists] Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo, who hated white workers away back when.

We workers see it as the programming of the public mind to accept the abolition of social security payments.

Harry Mullin Glasgow

The bridge to PFI

I CAN’T believe the Sunday Herald can do an investigation into the corruption involved with PFI (News, May 18) without a mention of the Skye Bridge. This was the flagship that had to work to lay the foundations for the future of PFI.

In June 1997, Robbie the Pict in conjunction with SKAT (Skye and Kyle Against Tolls) exposed the corruption and dirty dealings by government ministers and companies as to the true cost of what we, the public, would pay over the next 25 years. Some of the SKAT members refused to pay the tolls and many of the SKAT group are still “criminals” in the eyes of the law, for to refuse to pay was made a criminal offence rather than a civil one.

The Conservative government had to make PFI work to pave the way for the schools and hospitals that were to follow to line the pockets of certain institutions and individuals.

The SKAT group revealed all the corruption that was involved with PFI but nobody would listen. I can only hope that after 11 years your exposure of PFI (now PPP) will make someone see sense and stop pouring money into these institutions’ and individuals’ pockets.

H Slater Isle of Skye

Riot responsibility

I READ your article in the Sunday Herald regarding the Rangers supporters fracas in Manchester (News: Special Report, May 18). It contains a lot of the usual “cringeing Jock” hyperbole, but not a mention of how a similar problem can be prevented in the future.

As an old retired London copper, who attended many marches, I was appalled at the apparent disorganisation of the Manchester police and council. There should be a full public inquiry into the whole affair.

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THE WEEK IN REVIEW

At an initial glance, there is little in JJB Sports to attract investors. Sales were down 8 per cent in the 13 weeks to the end of April; revenues fell 8.3 per cent. Dresdner Kleinwort says JJB is trading at 14 times estimated 2009 earnings. Gearing is so high that a 1 per cent change in sales leads to a 10 per cent move in operating profit. Dresdner has the group at hold, saying that the potential recovery story is good. However, it has not started yet. Sell.

ALIZYME

Shares in the biotech firm spiralled down in April on news that Renzapride, its irritable bowel syndrome drug had failed its phase- three trial. The price has edged down since. Buying into smaller biotech companies is always a punt. Valuations are largely driven by news flow. Alizyme is expecting lots in the next few months, and most of it is likely to be good. Buy.

PREMIER OIL

With the black stuff at almost $130 a barrel and rising, most oil companies are doing well. Tullow Oil’s shares jumped massively a couple of weeks ago on news of a major new find off Ghana. The same could be about to happen to Premier Oil. The group revised its target of 50,000 barrels per day to 80,000 by 2012. Analysts say the stock is still cheap compared with the sector. Buy.

BUSINESS POST

Shares at the mail firm rose 12.73 per cent after it announced a 45 per cent increase in full year pre-tax profits, with revenue up by 10 per cent. Dresdner Kleinwort reckons the stock could reach 460p. Seymour Pierce foresee a more modest 320p.

Business post is a growth stock. Shares trade at a discount and, despite this week’s impressive gains, there is still room for improvement. Buy.

THUS GROUP

The telecoms group has been growing, with 12-month earnings before charges up 33 per cent. Thus has avoided the profit warnings that have beset some peers. Annual results impressed analysts. Cazenove described the figures as “solid” and thinks the stock looks cheap, saying shares trade at a discount to Kcom and Colt, at 5.2 and 4.8 times. It says the stock will outperform the market. Buy.

MITIE GROUP

The cleaning and support services group, in preliminary 2008 results, said that after hitting growth of 10.1 per cent, next year will follow suit. Pre-tax profits were up 20.5 per cent. But the market was not listening, with the stock languishing near its year low, suggesting that most think the shares fairly valued.

The stock traded at 263p in March, and has fallen for no good reason since. Hold.

TRAFFICMASTER

The firm provides vehicle navigation and tracking systems, and has deals with Citron and the US leasing firm Ryder. A trading statement was as bland as the recent performance of shares.

The house broker, Landsbanki, says the group is undervalued and should aim for a somewhat racy price of 60p. However, the group is performing well and it is probably fair to say that the stock is too low. Hold.

MANGANESE BRONZE

The maker of London’s iconic black cabs is banking on its joint venture with the Chinese group Geely. The group announced, in first- quarter results, that orders for its China-made taxi have risen to 3,000. The international move is new and unpredictable; however, the group needed to get away from its purely UK market. Analysts urge a “more positive stance”. That is the best Manganese can currently hope for. Hold.

GREAT PORTLAND ESTATES

Property will fall before it gets better. However, a longer term punt on the real estate investment trust might be worthwhile: the company’s portfolio is concentrated in central London. Analysts say the portfolio’s performance was down 0.5 per cent in the year to the end of March, against 8.8 per cent down at Land Securities, and 10 per cent at British Land. But they believe the group is fairly valued. Hold.

DE LA RUE

At this point in the cycle, cash is king, say economists. If that is so, a group with a licence to print money is probably worth looking at. De La Rue, which prints bank notes for the UK and other countries, announced a 23.7 per cent leap in profits this week, and also said it plans to sell its other division, cash services, which observers expect to raise as much as 400m - more good news to investors, as is the 160m special dividend. Buy.

GRAINGER

Grainger is a residential housing group, which has 92 per cent of its property let under a regulation scheme where rents are set by the rent officer and rise on average by 11 per cent every two years. The company issued upbeat half-year results this week, but poor sentiment in the sector has kept the shares down. When the market improves, investors should back the stock, but not now. Hold.

MOTHERCARE

Baby retailer Mothercarehas performed well while its peers have struggled in recent months. This week, it produced strong results. A potential cloud for investors is that its shares are trading on a P/ E ratio of 13.7 against a multiple of about 10 for the sector for 2009. But we believe its booming international business helps to justify this. Buy.

Copyright c 2008 Independent Newspapers UK Limited. All rights
owned or operated by The Independent.
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

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LOS ANGELES, May 23 /PRNewswire/ — SheKnows.com (http://www.sheknows.com/), one of the fastest growing online destinations for women, announced today the panelist lineup of five young dads with diverse backgrounds and unique perspectives on parenting. Panelists include "American Idol" favorite, Bo Bice; co-founder of Invisible Children, Jason Russell; author Steve Almond; NHL player and center for the Anaheim Ducks, Todd Marchant; and founder of The Dad Network, Matt McAffee.

"The New Face of Fatherhood" panel will feature these fathers’ opinions on hot parenting topics such as sex education, down’s syndrome and vaccination, coinciding with SheKnows polling readers for four weeks leading up to Father’s Day. SheKnows is an authoritative source for women ages 25-54 and is currently one of the top 10 online properties for women.

Bo Bice (http://www.bobice.com/) is an "American Idol" favorite and Season 4 runner-up. Since his "AI" run, Bo has released the albums "The Real Thing" and "See the Light." His single, "Witness," spent three consecutive weeks at number one on VH1’s Top 20 countdown. Bo lives in Nashville with his wife, Caroline, and 2 year-old son, Aidan. The couple is expecting another child in August.

Jason Russell is a filmmaker and co-founder of Invisible Children (http://www.invisiblechildren.com/), a film documentary turned movement, working to improve the quality of life for individuals in conflict/post-conflict regions through education and economic opportunities. He has a son and says he wants 9 more children with wife and best friend, Danica.

Steve Almond is the author of two story collections, "My Life in Heavy Metal" and "The Evil B.B. Chow," the novel "Which Brings Me to You" (with Julianna Baggott), and the non-fiction book "Candyfreak." His new book is a collection of essays, "(Not That You Asked)." Almond lives outside Boston with his wife and daughter Josephine, who can now make the noises of seven different farm animals. His on-line home is StevenAlmond.com (http://www.stevenalmond.com/).

Todd Marchant is an NHL player and center for the Anaheim Ducks. He won his first Stanley Cup when the Ducks defeated the Ottawa Senators in the 2007 Stanley Cup Finals. Todd started a hockey school which raised $50,000 for charities to help less fortunate children achieve their goals. He and his wife, Caroline, have 3 children: Lillian, Ashley and Timothy.

Matt McAffee is the founder of The Dads Network (http://www.thedadsnetwork.org/) which guides and assists Dads’ Network Communities in providing a safe, secure, free place for fathers to receive support and empower one another to become better dads and community leaders. He and his wife Linda have a son, Tyler, and are expecting a daughter in May.

You can find the "New Face of Fatherhood" panelists’ bios, photos and discussion questions featured on SheKnows.com (http://www.sheknows.com/).

About SheKnows

SheKnows.com (http://www.sheknows.com/) is the authoritative source for women ages 25-54 with exclusive articles and content on pregnancy, parenting, health, hobbies, entertainment, money, dating, beauty and celebrities — and also serves as the demographic/psychographic hub for a family of other female-centric web properties. As one of the fastest growing destinations on the web with sites like soaps.com, lovingyou.com, pregnancyandbaby.com, fabulousfoods.com, childfun.com, and familycenter.com, SheKnows is currently one of the top 10 properties for women and attracts over 12 million unique visitors with over 100 million page views each month. Unlike online distributed networks that merely aggregate disparate unrelated websites, SheKnows is a legitimate branded destination which owns most and manages all its sub-properties. For advertisers, opportunities for sponsorship and creative integration go beyond the banner to make marketing messages an uninterrupted part of the user experience. Founded in 1999, the company is based in Los Angeles with sales offices in New York and Chicago. SheKnows is part of AtomicOnline (http://www.atomiconline.com/), a diversified online media company.

   CONTACT
   Erica Schrag
   Manager, Public Relations & Marketing
   erica.mildh@atomiconline.com
   310.828.0056 x.395

CONTACT: Erica Schrag, Manager, Public Relations & Marketing, +1-310-828-0056, ext. 395, erica.mildh@atomiconline.com, for SheKnows.com

Web site: http://www.atomiconline.com/ http://www.sheknows.com/

COPYRIGHT 2008 PR Newswire Association LLC
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning

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Local mountain bikers are increasingly displaying an unusual behavior that could be called “Single-Speed Syndrome.”

The syndrome is marked by a compulsion to remove all but one set of gears from your bike, or, in extreme cases, have a single-speed bike custom built.

The syndrome almost always infects experienced riders — dedicated veterans who already own three to five top-end bikes — and can result in an acute selling off of those bikes until only the single speed remains.

In advanced stages, affected riders often talk about a sense of “being more connected to the trail” and “getting back to what biking is all about.” Other symptoms include stronger legs and arms, and a smoother riding style.

Warning: Single-Speed Syndrome is contagious.

All joking aside, the trend of riding a bike with no shifters, no derailleurs and one set of gears does seem to be spreading. What was once the realm of only a few especially soulful and technology- averse riders gains more devotees by the day.

People who don’t ride a single speed only need to think back to their first bike, when feet trying to pedal downhill would spin like pinwheels and riding uphill meant getting as much speed as possible, then standing up and cranking, losing speed until pushing on the pedals felt like slogging through knee-deep cement, and finally getting off to walk.

The best place to get a taste of the single-speed world is the weekly group ride, which meets most Sunday mornings at Dogtooth Coffee Co.

The first biker to show up for a recent 10 a.m. ride was Scott Boyer, a friendly guy covered in tattoos and with a long ponytail who started

— the group ride almost a year ago.

“I gave up my geared bike a couple years ago,” he said. “And we started this ride so people who were all into the same thing could do it together.”

Soon the other guys (and most of the time it’s just guys) rolled up — all sporting the thin, muscular legs and defined veins of serious cyclists, but with a carefree, goofy attitude more fitting for a bunch of dudes playing a friendly game of Frisbee golf.

“Where are we going today, sweetheart?” one jokingly asked Jon Csakany, the ride leader for the day.

“The loop’s about 55 miles,” he said. “Not too far, but with a lot of up.”

Not too far? Perhaps Single-Speed Syndrome also warps your sense of scale.

They pedaled off, riding north on the Santa Fe Regional Trail out of town and past the Air Force Academy, where they headed up to the crest of the Rampart Range to connect to a series of trails, both well-known and barely known, for an eight-hour ride.

Csakany had picked the route. As he pedaled he explained how he came down with the syndrome 10 years ago.

“It was before I had met anyone else who was doing it,” he said. “I Frankensteined together a bike from other parts, and it immediately just seemed to fit me.”

Others in the group offered similar stories. Some simply like how the bike physically feels under their feet. Some like not having to maintain 27 gears worth of shifters and derailleurs. Some say the philosophical component is just as important.

“A lot of us have worked in the bike industry,” said Joey Ernst, a former U.S. Cycling Team mechanic who now works at Old Town Bike Shop.

“And you’re constantly assaulted by all these new innovations — manufacturers making things more complex, more advanced, more expensive to get a tiny advantage. For 30 years that is what mountain biking has been doing. I wanted to get back to what it’s all about — enjoying the ride.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by most single speeders: As increasingly technologically advanced bikes climb in price to as high as $6,000, having less is actually having more.

They are the cycling Amish, giving up modern distractions in hopes of reaching a higher goal.

Several hours into the ride, the group pulled up at the shore of a mountain lake and stopped to sit on a log for a snack. The water lapped at the steep shore. The far side bristled with dark pines. Above them, Pikes Peak’s long, snowy ridges spread like an enormous gull’s wings.

“You want to know what it’s all about? This is what it’s all about,” one of the guys said. “No worries, not having to feel like you need to race. Just good friends and riding.”

It’s hard to pin down where the single-speed trend started. Don Mc-Clung, a legendary frame builder who lives in Salida, has been building single speeds for a devoted few since the late 1980s. But the bikes’ riders have remained a miniscule counterculture until recently, when major manufacturers such as Cannondale, Giant, Specialized and Trek started mass-producing stock single speeds.

“They really caught on in the last five years,” said Tim Halfpop, the manager at Old Town Bike Shop. “If you want to know where they came from, I guess they were always there. The first balloon-tire bikes people used as mountain bikes in places like Crested Butte in the ’70s were single speeds.”

Of course, there are reasons the first mountainbikes evolved into the multi-geared, full-suspension beasts they are now. Pedaling a rigid single speed is hard work. THE SCOOP ON SINGLE SPEEDS

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[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

"Oh, my God, look at these prices!" gasps Kim Cattrall, her eyes bugging in horror at the Four Seasons’ continental breakfast menu. And she’s right–$30 for lox on a bagel is insane.

But still: Samantha Jones? Wringing her hands over menu prices? Shouldn’t she be ordering mimosas with impunity and fearlessly flirting with our waiter, a Hugo Boss model with Crest Whitestrips teeth?

Actors encounter this delusion all the time: the expectation that they are the character they’re known for-in Cattrall’s case, a brazen practitioner of sexual immoderation. It’s a common enough problem that using it to open a magazine profile feels a little cliched. But for Cattrall, who for six seasons played a role that is now inked indelibly on the American consciousness, it’s a bigger issue than for most. Even I’m a little shocked when our server turns out not to be a statuesque Hugo Boss model but a small Asian woman who cries out, "Anything for you!" when Cattrall asks for some sak.

"Some people have that lifestyle," she says of Samantha’s "appetite," as she calls it. "I don’t. I never have." She’ll reassert this fact several times during our chat–you get the sense it’s the one point she really wants to make sure ends up in the article. For our interview, she’s not even wearing much makeup, and her shoes look suspiciously comfortable. Her carefully chosen words are spoken almost sotto voce, nothing like Samantha’s voice, so sassy-kitten it’s almost vaudevillian.

"People book me on jobs and expect Samantha to show up," which can be exasperating. Why me? Cattrall must think. No one expects Kristin Davis to arrive at an event as a relentlessly sunny type-A husband hunter. For some reason, Samantha’s personality stubbornly adheres to its vessel, possibly because it represents an ideal, the kind of person we like to imagine there’d be more of, if the world were a different place. It’s such a powerful persona that Cattrall refers to Samantha in the third person without even seeming to notice she’s doing so. "She has a tremendous fan base," she says of her character, as if talking up a colleague.

By "fan base," of course, one can deduce to whom she’s referring. Could Samantha Jones be any gayer? Saucy, witty, usually single, sexually unabashed, and on the far side of 40, she’s also the oldest of the four Sex and the City women by nearly 10 years. "And definitely the most theatrical," Cattrall says. "I think [the producers] wanted her a little bit older because when she speaks there’s a life experience there that weighs in."

In other words, she’s the very definition of a diva, and as such she brings a certain wisdom that validates the lifestyle she’s chosen–which in turn validates gay men in their 30s, 40s, and 50s with lifestyles similar to hers: not settled down, too flamboyant for their age. In an era where being 40, gay, and not partnered in a civil union is considered vaguely shameful-even "bad for the cause"–Samantha makes it seem hip and fantastic.

I ask Cattrall if she’d recommend marriage to the gays, now that it’s nominally possible. "You know, marriage doesn’t work for me. Never did. I’ve done it a few times"–three, to be exact–"and I didn’t do very well at it. But I’ve found that for a lot of my friends who are gay who have gotten married, it means so much to them to have a marriage that’s an open celebration. It’s not just an exchange of rings."

Samantha’s age and for that matter Cattrall’s lends her another appealing attribute: a memory of an era of sexual decadence.

"I’m a child of the ’60s and ’70s," Cattrall says. "It was before the plague, and sexuality wasn’t thought of as a scary thing. Samantha was like a voice from the recent past saying, ‘If it feels good, go with it. Protect yourself, but go with it.’"

"Go with it" was something a lot of gay men were ready to hear when the show debuted in 1998. Two years earlier Bill Clinton had signed the Defense of Marriage Act, defining gay unions as less important than straight ones in the eyes of the federal government. In 1997, thanks to the new "cocktail" antiretroviral therapies, AIDS deaths began falling for the first time since the syndrome was first publicly recognized 16 years earlier. Had the show existed just a few years before, when AIDS was a still the very definition of fear, the character of Samantha would have been a very different role model–she might have been glamorous, but her feral sexuality would have had a tragic lining. By the late ’90s, however, we were embracing a new wave of sexual liberation, and Samantha’s rejection of conventional relationships made her the perfect icon for the era.

"It was about getting away from the fear-based," says Cattrall. "Samantha’s fear base is not about disease; it’s about intimacy. And a lot of people"-she doesn’t mention us specifically-"have many sexual partners because they’re scared of intimacy." With her three-ways and her dabbling in same-sex experiences, Samantha was the show’s most celebratory character. But she was "also coming to terms with being kind of a dinosaur," says Cattrall. When she finally accepted the role (after turning it down three times), she wondered, Are people going to believe that a woman in her 40s has this amount of choice?

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A disastrous crash in Pacific salmon closes the season. Fishermen wonder: will they come back?

Bill Dawson, the owner of San Francisco’s Seafood Suppliers, has been in the salmon business for 35 years. Dawson has seen California’s salmon harvest rise and fall, but this year’s crash is unprecedented in his lifetime. “The salmon,” he says, “have gone off a cliff. It’s disastrous.”

For the first time, federal and state fisheries officials have closed the season in California and in most of Oregon. The reason: only 90,000 fish returned last fall to the Sacramento River chinook run, down 90 percent from just a few years ago. Experts blame the plunging numbers on water diversions for agriculture and communities (in some years more than half the Sacramento’s water is siphoned off), pollution, dams that have cut off salmon from their …

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KEVIN DOYLE has admitted that Reading have been all talk this season.

The Ireland striker never believed second syndrome would hit the Royals, after they finished eighth in their debut Premiership season last year.

But here they are, on the final day of the season, third from bottom and hoping another team slip up to save them from relegation.

The 23-year-old said: “It seems to happen to anyone who comes up and finishes in the top half, the second season seems to be more difficult and they struggle.

“We wanted to be one of the teams who change that and show it doesn’t always happen.

“But obviously it’s come down to this. “We’ve been saying all along that we’d be fine but now it’s the last game.

“And it’s not even in our hands so we have to win and hope that Fulham don’t.”

Reading face already relegated Derby County away, while Fulham, one point ahead, play FA Cup Finalists Portsmouth.

Doyle, who scored just five goals this season compared to his 13 last time out, insists there is no better opposition to be facing than Derby. He added: “They know they won’t be in the Premier League next season so there is no pressure there, they can go out and play their football.

“But there’s no doubt that on form and results this season if there’s any team you want to play on the last game of the season then it’s Derby.

“It’s all or nothing and we’ll either be very happy this time next week or very depressed.”

Copyright 2008 MGN LTD
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.

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JUNEAU, Alaska — The results of Gov. Sarah Palin’s prenatal testing were in, and the doctor’s tone was ominous: “You need to come to the office so we can talk about it.”

Palin, known for a resolve that quickly launched her from suburban hockey mom to a player on the national political stage, said, “No, go ahead and tell me over the phone.”

The physician replied, “Down syndrome,” stunning the Republican governor, who had just completed what many political analysts called a startling first year in office.

She had arrived at the Capitol on an ethics reform platform after defeating the incumbent Republican in the primary and a former two- term Democratic governor in the general election. Her growing reputation as a maverick for bucking her party’s establishment and Alaska’s powerful oil industry quickly gained her a national reputation.

Now she is trying to balance caring for her special-needs child and running a state.

The doctor’s announcement in December, when Palin was four months pregnant, presented her with a possible life- and career-changing development.

“I’ve never had problems with my other pregnancies, so I was shocked,” said Palin, a mother of four other children.

“It took a while to open up the book that the doctor gave me about children with Down syndrome, and a while to log on to the Web site and start reading facts about the situation.”

The 44-year-old governor waited a few days before telling her husband, Todd, who was out of town, so she could understand what was ahead for them.

Once her husband got the news, he told her: “We shouldn’t be asking, ‘Why us?’ We should be saying, ‘Well, why not us?”‘

There was never any doubt the Palins would have the child, and on April 18 she gave birth to Trig Paxson Van Palin.

“We’ve both been very vocal about being pro-life,” Palin said. “We understand that every innocent life has wonderful potential.”

Down syndrome is caused by the presence of an extra chromosome in the fetus’ cells. It’s a genetic abnormality that impedes physical, intellectual and language development.

The mother’s age is a large factor in the chances of having a Down child. Once a woman turns 40, the chances of having a Down child is 1 out of 100, according to the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

During her first year in office, Palin distanced herself from the old guard, powerful Republicans in the state GOP, even calling on tight-lipped veteran U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens to explain to Alaskans why federal authorities were investigating him.

She asked Alaska’s congressional delegation to be more selective in seeking earmarks after what came to be known as the “Bridge to Nowhere” turned into a national symbol of piggish pork-barrel spending.

She stood up to the powerful oil industry, and with bipartisan support in the statehouse she won a tax increase on oil companies’ profits.

She also found time to pose for the fashion magazine Vogue while she was pregnant, and she has been mentioned as a potential running mate for presidential candidate John McCain.

Three days after giving birth, Palin returned to work in her Anchorage office, accompanied by Trig and her husband.

This was not a mother’s typical visit to the office to show off the new baby; instead, she was serving notice that a child of special needs would not hinder her professional commitments.

“It’s a sign of the times to be able to do this,” she said. “I can think of so many male candidates who watched families grow while they were in office.

“There is no reason to believe a woman can’t do it with a growing family. My baby will not be at all or in any sense neglected.”

Neither, Palin said, will the state, as she prepares to lead deliberations for a multibillion-dollar natural gas pipeline. She calls it the economic future of the state, a means of getting North Slope natural gas to consumers throughout North America.

“I will not shirk my duties,” she said.

Other politicians have pressed forward with their careers despite jarring personal news.

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards continued with his campaign despite the return of his wife Elizabeth’s breast cancer, though he eventually dropped out.

Another elected official who has a child with Down syndrome said that Palin will probably have detractors, but that it shouldn’t change ambitions for the mother or child.

U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington state Republican, has just celebrated the first birthday of her son Cole, her first child, who was born with Down syndrome. She is busy campaigning for a third term, and Cole often travels with her between Washington, D.C., and the Pacific Northwest.

“Cole opened my eyes to the pain and trouble a lot of families endure,” Rodgers said. “He’s allowed me to see people and circumstance more deeply, and the generosity of people.

“It’s in human nature to focus on the negative, on what the person can’t do. In our mind, we are focused on what he can do, what he will be able to do and do very well.”

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