New America Today

How to Never Look Fat Again: Dressing Thinner

2010-03-11T15:54:28Z

Author of How to Never Look Fat Again, Charla Krupp

Do you ever stare in the mirror and wince, certain that you look too heavy? Author Charla Krupp feels your pain. Even though, to all appearances, she's a svelte style expert who has appeared on dozens of TV shows and written for top fashion magazines such as Glamour and InStyle, Krupp also worries about looking fat. Convinced that most women feel the same way, Krupp, author of the bestselling book, How Not To Look Old, reached out to experts across the U.S. to figure out how women can look 10 lbs. thinner by dressing differently. The result is her new book, How to Never Look Fat Again: Over 1,000 Ways to Dress Thinner -- Without Dieting! TIME senior reporter Andrea Sachs caught up with Krupp in New York City before her nationwide book tour.

(See a step-by-step guide to dressing yourself thin.)

Why does looking a few pounds lighter matter so much?

We want to look and feel great at all times. We want our self-confidence to be really up there, and when you look in the mirror and you start to pick at your thighs and your calves and it starts to erode your self-esteem, that's not good. It's tougher than ever to hold on to your job these days. People are getting laid off left and right. I'm not saying that if you're overweight you are going to get laid off, but you know employers are looking for every little excuse to get rid of people; so looking good is a great defense. You always want to look young and you want to look slim and you want to look in control. We have a lot of negatives in our society attached to people who are overweight -- sloppy, lazy, undisciplined. You don't want anything negative to affect people's opinions about you because this is a really tough time that we're living in. Every little detail counts.

(See 10 cool ways to get in shape.)

You're not saying that people should stop dieting and exercising, are you?

No. I really believe that you do have to diet and exercise, especially as you get older. You have to find healthy food that works for you. You always have to be conscious of what you put in your mouth. You can't just eat like you used to. When we were in college everybody just ate pizza every night. I thought I was never going to ace the test unless I had a doughnut from the store around the corner. I could never have a doughnut today! You know we have to change our eating habits because our metabolism has slowed down.

(See top 10 notable new diet books.)

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A Fair Fight

2010-03-11T15:49:30Z

The White House panel on faith-based initiatives, a middling and contradictory group, kinda sorta got it right on religion and government.

]]> NEWSWEEK

LISA MILLER

There has been some bellyaching in recent months--including by me, and also especially in The Washington Post--over the relevance and influence of the task force of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (a god-awful mouthful of an administrative tag if ever there was one). This was a committee of about two dozen people, appointed by President Obama just over a year ago, asked to address some of the country's most important values issues and make recommendations to the president. Rumors persisted that relations within the council were acrimonious and, given that council members had such differing views on questions of faith--they were progressive and conservative and were at odds over the best government role inside churches and other faith-based institutions--there was no way to hammer out any but the lowest-common-denominator type of resolution. The most persistent complaint, and the one that I continue to hear, is the worry that their recommendations, which they offered to the president this week, would not get a fair hearing at the highest levels of the administration.

That would be a shame. The report addresses interrreligous dialogue, climate change, fatherhood, and poverty among other things. There are, certainly, some namby-pamby recommendations in the report--upholding fatherhood as a good thing, for example--but elements of the report have heft. Especially serious and provocative are the task force's recommendations on the subject of reforming the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships itself. Though bureaucratic and unsexy, these recommendations essentially demand that the administration clarify the muddy and inconsistent ground rules for religious groups seeking federal funds for charitable work. This has long been a legislative and administrative quagmire, characterized by misunderstandings, favoritism, and legal challenges. At this moment in time, when Boston's Catholic Charities has closed its historic adoption agency rather than take government money and so be required to adopt children to homosexual married couples, such clarification would seem necessary indeed.

Council members were able to agree that the constitutional separation of church and state is foundational and that recipients of government money be more clearly informed about what that means in terms of their activities--at the federal and at the local level. Most interesting, the task force asked the president to revise language that bars religious groups receiving federal aid from "inherently religious activities, such as worship, religious instruction and proselytizing" saying the word "inherently" allowed too much room for misunderstanding. "Explicitly," they said, would be a better word choice.

The task force was also able to agree that protecting the religious identities of religious institutions is crucial. They disagreed over things like whether a religious organization receiving government aid could perform social services in a room containing religious symbols, and whether churches receiving government money should be required to set up a separate corporation for those funds. In a political environment of gridlock and frustration, the clarity of these agreements--and even of the disagreements--is welcome.

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How Obama Is Making the Same Mistakes as Bush

2010-03-10T18:11:17Z

]]> TIME MAGAZINE

MARK HALPERIN

Who would have thought that one of Barack Obama's biggest missteps as President would be repeating some of the bad habits of George W. Bush? No single factor was more instrumental in Obama's 2008 victory than his pledge to completely reverse the nation's course once in the White House. Instead, over the past year, Obama has mimicked some of Bush's most egregious blunders, leading to much of the political predicament in which the present decider finds himself today.

This is not to say that Obama has maintained Bush's policies, although his Administration's continuity on issues ranging from Afghanistan to Wall Street has alienated the left. And he certainly hasn't done himself any favors by failing to inspire the general public to rally around his agenda. But Obama's stumbles atop the high wire of running the federal government have created perhaps the greatest danger to his presidency, and they are oddly reminiscent of the misguided practices that tripped up his predecessor.

(See pictures of Obama's first year in the White House.)

Consider all the ways in which the current occupant of the Oval Office has -- inadvertently or otherwise -- repeated the errors of the recent past:

No Chief Economic Spokesperson. Quick: Name all three of Bush's Treasury Secretaries. Hard to do, isn't it? Like Bush, Obama has failed to install an economics commander in chief who can serve as the public face and the in-house honcho of the Administration's financial team. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, National Economic Council chief Larry Summers and Council of Economic Advisers chair Christina Romer all bring strengths to their positions, but none is especially effective at conveying either a consistent message or a sufficient urgency, and none stands out symbolically or practically as America's economics czar. It is not practical for the President himself to serve as the daily go-to guy on any one issue, and given the short- and long-term consequences of the financial and unemployment crises, Obama desperately needs a distinct leader to handle this vital job. Bush needed a Robert Rubin figure, and so does Obama.

Failure to Integrate Policy, Politics and Communication. By the end of Bush's two terms, even some of his supporters were disappointed (and, at times, horrified) by how much of the decisionmaking at the highest levels of government were more a result of political machinations than rigorous, substantive policymaking. From its earliest days, Obama's White House has failed to put in place the necessary procedures and personnel to move strong, serious ideas along the conveyor belt from the minds of wonky experts cloistered in the Old Executive Office Building chambers to the President's lips as he introduces new initiatives at dramatic public events.

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03.08.10 / In Honor of International Women's Day

2010-03-10T17:18:51Z

03.08.10 / Fighting for Health Insurance Reform

2010-03-10T17:18:12Z

Lindsey Graham to President Obama: Time to 'Step It Up'

2010-03-10T17:16:31Z

Demonstrators take part in a rally in front of the Department of Homeland Security Jan. 26, 2010. ]]> POLITICO

GLENN THRUSH

President Barack Obama is summoning two key senators to the Oval Office on Thursday for an update on immigration reform efforts -- but one of them, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), thinks Obama should be the one giving the update.

Graham, less than thrilled at the notion of providing the equivalent of a book report to the headmaster in chief, said Obama's lack of direction on immigration reform is hampering Graham's efforts to recruit additional Republicans to the cause.

"At the end of the day, the president needs to step it up a little bit," Graham told POLITICO on Tuesday. "One line in the State of the Union is not going to do it."

For the past six months, Graham and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) -- who meet with Obama at 3 p.m. Thursday -- have worked on a reform framework. Their plan, which hasn't been introduced yet, includes a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants (a liberal must-have) while sweetening the pot for moderates by proposing tough new safeguards, including a biometric national ID card for workers.

To the frustration of many reform advocates, Obama has kept his opinions of the possible deal vague, giving a head nod to reform in his State of the Union speech but not much more.

Obama spokesman Nick Shapiro offered no response to Graham's challenge but reiterated the administration's intention to allow Congress to hash things out before Obama weighs in, an approach reminiscent of his health reform strategy.

"The president's commitment to fixing our broken system remains unwavering," Shapiro said. "Earlier, the president told members of both parties that if they can fashion a plan to deal with these problems, he is eager to work with them to get it done, and he has assigned [Homeland Security] Secretary [Janet] Napolitano to work with stakeholders on that effort."

Shapiro went on to reiterate Obama's core principles -- not prescriptions -- including resolving "the status of 12 million people who are here illegally." He punted when asked about the controversial ID system, which has the backing of some immigrant groups while sparking fierce opposition from civil libertarians.

"There are a number of options on the table, but we are clear that we need to build on and improve the existing verification system if we are going to get control of the job market for undocumented workers," he said.

Napolitano, who has held dozens of meetings on the topic with House members and senators, was supposed to attend a previously scheduled Graham-Schumer meeting Monday, which had to be postponed when Graham's flight from South Carolina was delayed. She'll be overseas during Thursday's meeting, an administration official said.

Graham said he wants a greater sense of direction to break the cycle of distrust that doomed comprehensive immigration reform during the Bush administration, despite the support of a Republican president and major party figures like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).

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The Violence in Nigeria: What's Behind the Conflict?

2010-03-10T17:14:13Z

Citizens of Dogo Nahawa village stand by a mass grave as health officials cover bodies killed during a religious clash with the Hausa Fulani, on March 8, 2010. ]]> TIME MAGAZINE

MEG HANDLEY

The hundreds of villagers killed with machetes near the central Nigerian city of Jos on Sunday have thrown the sectarian problems of Africa's most populous nation into the spotlight again. Nigerian officials claim the latest bloodshed -- most victims were Christians, many of them women and children -- was retaliation for clashes in the same city in Jan. In that massacre, Christian attackers killed 300 Muslims.

Nigeria has been wracked by periodic episodes of violence for decades. The country's 150 million people are divided about equally between Christians and Muslims, and further splintered into about 250 tribes. Jos, some 300 miles north of Nigeria's largest city, Lagos, sits smack-dab in the center of Nigeria's tumultuous "middle belt," a so-called cultural fault line that divides the country's Muslim north from the Christian south. The "middle belt" is a melting pot where the major ethnic groups of Nigeria -- Hausa-Fulani Muslims and Yoruba and Igbo Christians -- usually coexist peacefully but sometimes collide.

(See pictures of the two sides of Nigeria.)

Many Nigerians argue that the real reason for the violence isn't ethnic or religious differences but the scramble for land, scarce resources and political clout. Poverty, joblessness and corrupt politics drive extremists from both sides to commit horrendous atrocities. Although the nation rakes in billions of dollars in oil revenue annually, the majority of Nigerians scrape by on less than a dollar a day. In the Plateau state, where Jos is located, Muslim cattle herders from the north and Christian farmers from the south vie for control of the fertile plains.

That poor distribution of wealth has also sparked conflict in Nigeria's oil-rich southern delta region, where militants lobbying for a greater share of oil revenue regularly blow up pipelines and kidnap foreign oil workers. Andrew Kakabadse, Professor of International Management Development at the U.K.-based Cranfield School of Management, says oil companies have at various times pitted ethnic factions against one another for economic gain.

(See pictures of Lagos.)

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Is 2010 the Year of Avoiding Taxes?

2010-03-10T17:10:58Z

]]> US NEWS & WORLD REPORT
MATTHEW BANDYK

In a speech last May, President Obama said, "Nobody likes paying taxes . . . . And yet, even as most American citizens and businesses meet these responsibilities, there are others who are shirking theirs." He was referring to offshore tax havens and other loopholes that wealthy Americans often exploit to reduce their tax burden. But it doesn't take moving money to Switzerland to avoid paying taxes. If history is any guide, 2010 will be a year in which many Americans use a few simple methods to reduce their tax liability, which could potentially cost the government billions of dollars.

This year is the last before the expiration of tax cuts originally put in place by the Bush administration. If Congress allows these tax cuts to expire, as the president supports, in 2011 the top marginal tax rates will increase from 28, 33, and 35 percent to 31, 36, and 39.6 percent.

Although it is not certain that tax rates will go up, many wealthy Americans are looking at 2010 as the end of the party. "Everybody thinks taxes are going up and tax breaks are being eliminated. Everybody's thinking this, and they're planning for it," says Lance Wallach, a New York author, lecturer, and financial consultant who advises high net-worth clients, including entertainers and athletes. His phone is ringing off the hook with questions from clients about how they can take advantage of this year's rates relative to 2011's.

One of the most popular strategies is moving income from 2011 to this year. Usually, accountants encourage clients to postpone income so there is less income taxed in one year. But in 2010, the incentives have flipped. "This is the exact opposite. Accelerating your income makes 100 percent sense," says Wallach.

Creative maneuvering. This would not be the first year taxpayers have pursued this strategy. In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected president with promises to raise taxes on wealthy Americans, which Congress did in 1993, boosting the top marginal rate from 31 to 39.6 percent. In late 1992, many taxpayers, expecting rates to be higher the next year because of Clinton's victory, moved more income onto 1992's tax return to avoid paying more with the higher rate. Robert Carroll, an economist at a Washington research organization called the Tax Foundation, estimates that about $20 billion was shifted and paid at the 31 percent rate rather than the 39.6 percent--meaning there was about $1.5 billion that the federal government did not collect in revenue.

Something similar could happen this year. "Anyone who has flexibility with income is going to try to shift their income," says Carroll. An example of flexibility would be a business owner who gives himself or herself a bonus in December 2010 rather than January 2011.

There's also an incentive to delay tax deductions. For example, state property and income taxes can be deducted from federal income tax returns. Wallach says he is recommending that clients hold off on paying those taxes until next year, so that the deductions can be cashed in at the higher rate.

Some may choose to delay charitable gifts for the same reason--charitable giving is tax deductible, so some taxpayers may decide to hold off on a gift they would make in 2010 and instead give a larger amount in 2011. "What we know from history, if the taxes go up, people will delay their giving," says Nancy Raybin, chair of the Giving Institute, an association of nonprofit consultants. But Raybin says such delays usually are not significantly damaging to charities because people will often just push a gift forward a few months--from December to January, for example. "If there's a 12-month delay, it could be a problem. But if a donor is just delaying one month, it's not a big problem," she says.

These tax-avoidance strategies will probably be a one-time deal for those who pursue them. A study by economist Austan Goolsbee, currently a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, found that the 1993 drop-off in reported income was temporary. Income bounced back in following years. If tax rates appear to be steady after 2011, accelerating one's income or delaying deductions is no longer advantageous. But taxpayers will continue to look for ways to reduce their liability--they just need the time and money to find the loopholes. Wallach says most of his clients will adjust to higher tax rates with his help. "For the very sophisticated people, there will always be loopholes," he says, such as deducting travel and entertainment expenses. "None of my clients pay more in taxes than a schoolteacher."

What Ever Happened to the Gender Gap?

2010-03-10T17:04:22Z

We've Come a Long Way, but not Far Enough: Women demand equal pay for equal work at a 1970 women's rights march in Detroit.
]]> NEWSWEEK
Jessica Bennett and Jesse Ellison

It still exists. On the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, the World Economic Forum reveals some sobering news: workplace equality is still a myth.

A day after the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, and nearly halfway through the 30th Women's History Month, some dispiriting news: gender equality--at least when it comes to the corporate world--is still a myth. A new report by the World Economic Forum finds that even though more women are employed around the world than ever before, and now make up 52 percent of U.S. workers, major multinational companies are failing to capitalize on their talents. In surveys with human-resources executives at 600 companies across 16 industries and 20 countries, the Forum's Corporate Gender Gap Report found that disparities in education and health have all but disappeared worldwide, but when it comes to political empowerment and economic participation, women haven't advanced much. "Women are as healthy and as educated as men," the study's author, Saadia Zahidi explains, but "no country, and few companies, have actually reached gender equity."

In the United States, the study shows that female employees still tend to be concentrated in entry- or mid-level positions, and that the biggest barrier to female leadership isn't parenthood or opting out (as conventional wisdom would have it), but "masculine or patriarchal corporate culture" and a "lack of mentors." Women still make 78 cents for every dollar a man earns in the United States, according to the National Committee on Pay Equity--an inequity that is repeated the world over--and one that is often blamed on motherhood. (As The Economist recently put it, "it's motherhood, not sexism" that is holding women back.) But as this study and a slew of recent evidence shows, the problem is far bigger than motherhood alone. A new Catalyst survey shows that young MBA graduates make some $4,600 less than their male counterparts from the moment they step foot in the workforce; U.S. education data shows young women, a year out of college, bring home just 80 percent what their male colleagues do, regardless of profession. "Young women start in jobs that are lower paid, with lower status, and they have less job satisfaction overall," says Herminia Ibarra, a professor at INSEAD, the European Institute of Business Administration, and one of the study's authors.

The WEF report, coupled with the Catalyst study and other recent data, suggest that the equality that many men and women may have thought was well established is, in fact, still a long way off. A recent report by the White House Project shows that U.S. women are still just 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs, and less than a third of politicians and law-firm partners--despite being the majority of college graduates and a near majority of law-school grads. A woman may have won the Oscar for best director this past weekend--for the first time in the history of the Academy Awards--but 83 percent of the writers, producers, and directors of 2007's 100 highest-grossing films were men, a recent U.S.C. Annenburg study found; in those films, fewer than 30 percent of speaking roles were played by women. Women have made up the majority of college journalism majors since 1977 and two of the three network TV anchor chairs are now occupied by women, but female bylines at the 11 top political and intellectual magazines are still outnumbered by a rate of 7 to 1, according to the White House Project. The same imbalance can even apply to the Web, where the founder of a popular copywriting Web site, "Men With Pens," revealed late last year that "he" was actually a she. "It's a fact that the majority of business is conducted by men," James Chartrand (she continues to use her nom de Web) told NEWSWEEK. "So I assumed, if I choose a male name I'll be viewed as somebody who runs a company, not a mom sitting at home with a child hanging off her leg." (Chartrand said her business doubled once she began using a male name.)

In an era when companies have adopted antidiscrimination policies based on gender, why are women still hitting up against a glass ceiling? Mostly, it's the persistence of longstanding workplace norms. You can blame "culture, culture, culture," says Ibarra. "The U.S. always scores abysmally in terms of work/life balance," says the WEF's chief operating officer Kevin Steinberg. "But even here, culture still ranks as the highest impediment to success."

According to the study's authors, the gender gap isn't just costing women their careers and promotions, it's costing companies profits and the nation a significant amount in economic growth. WEF estimates that closing the employment gender gap could increase U.S. GDP by up to 9 percent. Recent research from London Business School, meanwhile, suggests that productivity levels go up when men and women work together in tandem--in part because gender parity counters the idea of group think, or the frequency of like-minded groups to defend ideas that may be ill conceived. "Companies that have men and women in leadership positions have a higher return on their investment," says Judy Rosener, a business professor at U.C. Irvine and an expert on workplace gender politics. Simply put, "Difference does not mean deficiency. Difference means added value." It's a lesson as old as time, but one that clearly bears repeating.

Has Obama Hit Bottom?

2010-03-10T16:53:27Z

NEWSWEEK
MICHAEL HIRSH

Come November, the president and his party may find themselves succeeding most by failing the least.
]]> At this juncture in his presidency, Barack Obama might think about taking his political cue from the title of Richard Fariña's 1960s novel: Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me. In the race to the bottom that American politics has become--the only question is which party will be less popular going into the November election--Obama's been written off so completely that the Democrats' electoral prospects may be starting to look up simply because they can't drop much lower.

True, with the congressional elections still eight months away, it's impossible to say whether this is some kind of a bottom or a turning point. Many unknowns could still turn November into the rout against the Democrats that everyone now expects: soaring gas prices, double-dip recession, a terrorist setback. But consider: after months of failures and embarrassing White House miscalculations, some very serious downward trend lines are starting to stabilize or even poke upward. The jobless rate, at 9.7 percent, seems to be settling in below the politically radioactive 10 percent level, and many economists tentatively suggest it could stay there. Health-care reform may or may not pass, but at least the president has decided to take his campaign for it out on the road, away from dysfunctional Washington.

And while some polls show that Obama is still vulnerable on national security, especially as his administration seems to shilly-shally over how to try terrorists, public sentiment is lagging behind some very positive facts emerging on the ground. U.S. forces seem to be going from success to success in Afghanistan and Pakistan--next stop Kandahar, Gen. Stanley McChrystal recently announced after the triumphant offensive in Marja--and the seemingly successful Iraq election may allow the president to resume his withdrawal timetable. (One big worry is whether the haggling over a new government in Baghdad will open the door to sectarian fighting, as happened in 2006 after the last national election, but "we don't see a catastrophic event on the horizon right now," Gen. Ray Odierno told MSNBC.)

In fact, it's possible the national-security issue, typically a source of GOP strength against Democrats, could become an electoral winner for Obama come November, especially with the latest internecine row among Republicans over Liz Cheney's virulent attack on Justice Department lawyers who have defended terror suspects. If the president can muster a tough sanctions package against Iran (said to be in the works), restart Mideast peace talks (the Palestinian Liberation Organization voted over the weekend to resume indirect talks with Israelis), and announce a new START agreement with Russia in the spring, the Republicans may find themselves both neutered on national security and negated on the economy.

This sort of reckoning contradicts the conventional wisdom, of course. Obama & Co. are still getting intensely negative reviews in the media, which has reached a crescendo of second-guessing. "W.H. Grapples With Turmoil," reads Mike Allen's latest in Politico. White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, castigated as "the devil's spawn" by scandal-plagued Democratic Rep. Eric Massa of New York, is catching most of it. "The stupid season has arrived for Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel," Peter Baker writes in the opening paragraphs of his recent profile in The New York Times Magazine, "The Limits of Rahmism." The Democrats are still reeling from a spate of retirements, most corrosively Evan Bayh's departure from the Senate, and scandals that have forced the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel, to step aside in addition to Massa.

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Easier FAFSA Inspires Hope for More Aid

2010-03-10T16:52:22Z

Experts offer advice on how to avoid expensive financial aid mistakes]]> US NEWS & WORLD REPORT
KIM CLARK

Procrastination and tricky financial aid rules have been costing millions of college students big bucks. But new efforts to make the Free Application for Federal Student Aid easier may enable more students to qualify for more money.

[Video: Common Mistakes on the FAFSA]

About half of all students who file a FAFSA miss their state's deadline and thus lose out on opportunities for extra grants, one study has found. And another recent study found that students who sought free professional help filling out their FAFSAs got 30 percent more aid than those not offered advice and assistance.

[Read 10 Factors That May Affect Financial Aid.]

Students who haven't filed their applications by March 1 have already missed deadlines in at least nine states. But aid officials urge those who've waited until now to buckle down and fill out the form soon. The federal government is still accepting applications for its grants and loans. And students lucky enough to live in the two dozen states with later deadlines still have a chance of getting maximum aid. A few of the soon approaching deadlines: Indiana's deadline is March 10. Kentucky and North Dakota's cutoff date is March 15. Mississippi's is March 31. About 20 other states have deadlines April 1 and later.

In addition, one of the biggest reasons for procrastination, the difficulty of the form, has been reduced this year. The most recent electronic version of the FAFSA has eliminated several redundant questions. And in some cases, the FAFSA is allowing those who've filed their taxes to click a button and have their relevant tax information automatically entered into their FAFSA--saving a lot of time and energy.

"The FAFSA uses some tax lingo that is not user-friendly," says Amanda Weick, an H&R Block tax preparer in Maple Heights, Ohio, who helped with a study to see the impact that free FAFSA help, provided to a sampling of families who happened to go to H&R Block to get their taxes prepared, would have on students. Students who got their FAFSAs started while completing their tax forms were 33 percent more likely to receive federal grants. In many cases, the students had assumed they wouldn't receive anything, Weick said. "We were able to say to them: 'Based on your tax return, you may be eligible for this amount of money.' And you could see the wheels turning in their mind," Weick said.

The H&R Block study is now over, but the Department of Education is trying to spread the help to all American students by getting the Internal Revenue Service to transfer its tax data directly into FAFSAs. So far, only those who filed a tax form in 2008 and are still working on a FAFSA for the current academic year can use the automatic option. The Department of Education says it hopes to have the automatic tax fill-in option up and running for the 2010-11 FAFSA by this summer.

Still, even those who have their tax questions automatically filled in can get tripped up by other arcane rules and gotchas. Simple mistakes such as not using a full formal name can cause big headaches, for example.

[More on Paying for College]

Failing to read the fine print can also result in expensive errors. The FAFSA states that the values of some assets, such as homes or retirement accounts, shouldn't be included, but some parents mistakenly add those in and thus reduce their eligibility for aid, says Al Hoffman, a private aid counselor in New London, Conn.

Likewise, he says he often has to deliver bad news to stepparents who mistakenly believe that prenuptial agreements absolve them of financial responsibility for stepchildren's tuition.

The FAFSA also doesn't give any advice on how to structure family finances to increase availability for aid, such as using savings to pay down bills or debts, or moving a student's college savings into a 529 college savings account, Hoffman notes.

Battlefield Priest

2010-03-09T19:14:42Z

Soldiers' Mass

An army chaplain from Versailles, Ohio, Father Carl Subler offers spiritual guidance and religious services to U.S. soldiers stationed in Afghanistan.

]]> Itinerant

Father Subler travels from unit to unit by hitching rides on military helicopters or on Stryker infantry vehicles.

Vestment

On a recent Sunday, Subler performed Mass at three patrol bases in the Badula Qulp region of Helmand Province. The soldiers in this area are engaged in an aggressive effort to reclaim a Taliban stronghold near the town of Marjah.

Service

Father Subler has used MRE boxes as a makeshift altar for this Mass in the Badula Qulp area. It is not uncommon for the services to be interrupted by the sound of explosions or gunfire.

Wafers

A smoke grenade container holds communion wafers.

Praise the Lord

A former Navy radar operator, Subler attended seminary in Columbus, Ohio, then went to parachute school. He holds the rank of Captain.

Blessing

Subler blesses non-denominational chaplain Cpt. Gary Lewis at Forward Operating Base Frontenac in Kandahar province. Chaplain Lewis counsels grieving soldiers in 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry, which has suffered 21 fatalities since its deployment last summer, the most of any U.S. Army battalion during the Afghan war.

Twilight

"I find that my prayer life kind of suffers when I'm back home," says Subler. "I can pop a top on a cold one and watch TV. I find the more creature comforts are taken away from us, in many ways, we look to God with even more hope."

SOURCE: TIME Magazine

Inside the World of Eliot Spitzer

2010-03-09T19:10:10Z

Full Speed Ahead

A year and a half after his dramatic fall from power, Eliot Spitzer has slowly, tentatively returned to the public arena. He is a favorite guest on cable news shows and recently appeared on The Colbert Report.

]]> The Office

Spitzer currently spends much of his days at his father's real estate firm, where he keeps busy until six, when he heads home to make dinner for his daughters.

Going Somewhere?

Though Spitzer would like to return to politics, any bid for office he might make would most certainly be clouded by the scandal that lurks in his past.

Next Stop

"Politics gets my heart pounding faster than buying a building and raising rents," Spitzer says. But "you have to understand what my family would go through. It would be unbearable. I just couldn't do that to them. It would be day after day of the ugly stuff."

Citizen Spitzer

"When you go through what I've gone through," the former governor says, "you come to appreciate who matters and what and why. But you also lose a bit of the edge that leads you to tilt at windmills. Maybe you might call that ambition. Silda" -- his wife -- "used to say, 'Being right isn't the only thing.' I would get so caught up in the ambition of proving to the world we're right. You can destroy yourself that way."

SOURCE: TIME Magazine

James Cameron's Best Special Effects

2010-03-09T18:55:12Z

The Terminator, 1984

In the course of his celebrated career, director James Cameron has continuously pushed the limits of special-effects technology with a long succession of cutting-edge films. His directorial visions have often outpaced the technology readily available during the production of his movies, forcing him to either create the needed technology from scratch or wait until tech breakthroughs could catch up with his ideas. A low-budget film, produced for roughly $6.5 million, that went on to become both a box-office and critical hit, The Terminator was the film that kick-started Cameron's legacy.

]]> Aliens, 1986

Following up on his success with The Terminator, Cameron took the director's chair for the sequel to Ridley Scott's original film Alien. Most of the sequel's visual effects were created with traditional miniatures, combined with creative lighting and camera techniques. With computer-generated special effects still in their infancy, the signature aliens were merely stuntmen in giant suits. The famous alien queen was slightly harder to re-create. Cameron's artistic desire resulted in a monstrous 14-ft.-tall alien menace controlled by hydraulics and a team of puppeteers.

Send In the Marines

During the making of Aliens, Cameron, then still a young director, often clashed with many of his cast and crew members, who viewed him as too inexperienced to fill the shoes of the esteemed director Ridley Scott. Because The Terminator had not yet been released in the U.K., where Aliens was made, the British crew had little knowledge of Cameron's work. Years later, Sigourney Weaver, who starred as Ellen Ripley in Aliens, would once again work with the visionary director in a little film featuring blue-skinned humanoid creatures.

The Abyss, 1989

Because special-effects technology had not advanced enough to create the underwater environments needed to make The Abyss, Cameron did the next best thing: he shot underwater. An unfinished nuclear reactor in South Carolina provided a space large enough to allow him and his crew to submerge an entire set for the underwater scenes. To render the iconic alien water tentacle featured in the film, Cameron turned to another pioneer in the industry -- George Lucas' renowned special-effects company Industrial Light & Magic.

Old School

An underwater set meant underwater filming. Cameron, along with his director of photography and other crew members, spent countless hours submerged in the gargantuan set in order to attain the desired realism. Cameras outfitted in specially designed watertight housings were used to shoot the movie, while military-grade microphones were attached to each actor's helmet to pick up audio.

Terminator 2: Judgment Day, 1991

Encouraged by his success with computer graphics in rendering a water tentacle for The Abyss, Cameron proceeded with his vision of a Terminator made of liquid metal -- the T-1000. Portrayed by actor Robert Patrick, this polymorphic assassin could shape-shift into anyone it touched, courtesy of computer-graphics wizardry provided by Industrial Light & Magic. The T-800 Terminator role, reprised by Arnold Schwarzenegger, would require only makeup and, in the scenes where his metallic endoskeleton is revealed, prosthetic parts.

Tag Team

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Cameron share a moment on the set of Terminator 2: Judgment Day. The director-actor pair would end up filming one more film together, the 1994 spy comedy True Lies. One would go on to pursue political ambitions, while the other would go on to sink a boat and create a planet from scratch.

Titanic, 1997

As with the making of The Abyss, special-effects technology lagged behind his vision, so to make this Oscar-winning epic, Cameron turned to a more tried-and-true method to sink a boat: he sunk one. The entire seagoing set was constructed in a 5-million-gal. tank that could be flooded and tilted to re-create the sinking of the famed ocean liner. For the chaotic scene where the ship finally sinks into the water, a nearly full-scale replica of the ill-fated Titanic was re-created as a tilting set just so stuntmen could fall to their watery cinematic demise. The more dangerous falls in the scene, however, were rendered through the use of computer graphics.

Reprieve

After the record-breaking success of Titanic, Cameron would take a break from producing feature-length movies to pursue a series of documentary projects. One such project was Ghosts of the Abyss, a 2003 documentary film that explores the wreckage of the Titanic. It was during this break from moviemaking that he experimented with the 3-D cinematography that would play a prominent role in his return to the big screen in 2009.

Avatar, 2009

When Cameron returned to feature-length filmmaking, he spared no expense in bringing to life the story and world he envisioned. The director had actually been contemplating the worlds depicted in Avatar before he even began working on Titanic. He waited for more than 10 years for special-effects technology to catch up to his vision. Having watched the development of creatures like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, he felt that advances in photorealistic animation had improved enough for him to realize his dream.

Fusion Camera System

In making Avatar, the director used numerous technologies to turn his vision into reality. He developed a special 3-D camera, called the Fusion Camera System, and employed the same company that gave life to the hobbits and elves of the Lord of the Rings trilogy -- New Zealand-based Weta Digital -- to handle the visual effects in the film. Industrial Light & Magic and several other companies were also brought on board in order ensure that all the special effects could be finished on time.

Augmented Reality

A special video setup called the augmented-reality system was developed so director and actors could view their interactions with the lush computer-generated world in real time.

Looking Back

At almost every turn, Cameron's imaginary worlds have led to the generation of real dollars. Avatar, produced on a budget estimated to be in excess of $200 million, went on to become the first film to gross more than $2 billion worldwide.

SOURCE: TIME Magazine

Rebuilding Destroyed Cities

2010-03-09T18:22:11Z

Antigua, Guatemala

Once the capital of Guatemala, Antigua was moved twice before it was abandoned and the capital set elsewhere. After Mayan conflicts with the Spanish led it to move from what is now Iximche to the Alotenango Valley, a volcano eruption in 1541 forced the city to relocate once again, this time to its current location in the Panchoy Valley. A series of earthquakes in the 18th century led the Spanish crown to decree that the the capital be moved to present-day Guatemala City.

]]> Antigua, Today

The few citizens who stayed behind after the Spanish-mandated evacuation set out to build a new Antigua that would sit harmoniously within the city's historical ruins. In 1979 the city was awarded UNESCO World Heritage status and is now a popular destination for tourists.

Lisbon, 1755

An earthquake on the morning of Nov. 1, 1755, triggered massive tsunamis and fires that ravaged the city of Lisbon. The quake had a profound effect on Portugal, causing significant political strife and squelching its colonial ambitions.

Lisbon Today

Out of the rubble, Lisbon was rebuilt with wider, more modern streets and avenues. In a strikingly contemporary gesture, the ruins of the Carmo Convent were kept as a memorial to the tragedy, with the new city built around it.

Saint-Pierre, Martinique, 1902

The coastal city of Saint-Pierre was destroyed on May 8, 1902, when the Mount Pelee volcano erupted, killing more than 30,000 people -- nearly the total population of the town.

Saint-Pierre Today

At the time of the 1902 disaster, Saint-Pierre was Martinique's largest city and economic hub, trafficking in sugar production and rum. Owing in large part to the city's geographical location and volcanic volatility, the rebuilding of Saint-Pierre has been limited, and many ruins remain. Today the city boasts a modest population of about 5,000 citizens and operates primarily as an off-the-beaten-path tourist destination.

San Francisco, 1906

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake remains one of the most legendary moments in the history of California -- a state that has seen more than its share of strong quakes. Most of the city's damage was caused by fires sparked by ruptured gas lines that burned out of control for days. News of the disaster spread quickly; within weeks, hundreds of thousands of dollars had been donated from around the world to the city's relief effort.

San Francisco Rebuilt

Like Lisbon, San Francisco saw the disaster as an opportunity to reorganize itself, widening many streets and constructing a subway under Market Street. By 1915, the golden city was nearly 100% rebuilt, and that year it hosted the Panama-Pacific Exposition, above. While the expo was meant to showcase the city's rebirth, the fair is perhaps best remembered for the introduction to the transcontinental telephone line that gave people in New York the chance to hear the hush of the Pacific. In present-day San Francisco, there are no great monuments to the 1906 disaster. Instead, the city is littered with the ornate palaces and conservatories built in 1915 to trumpet the city's resilience.

Tokyo, 1923

The casualty estimates of the 8.3-magnitude quake that flattened Tokyo and the port city of Yokohama in the fall of 1923 range from approximately 100,000 to 142,000 people. Much of the damage to the city's structures resulted from typhoon-fueled firestorms that raged in the wake of the disaster. Widespread misinformation about the cause of the catastrophic fires lead to murderous anti-Korean mob violence.

Tokyo Today

Following the devastation of the earthquake, a reconstruction plan for Tokyo was drawn up that included a modern network of trains, roads and parks. As in many other capital cities ravaged by natural disasters, the tragedy triggered a discussion about relocating the the seat of government, but the idea was dismissed once rebuilding got under way. The start of WW II, however, put many of the reconstruction projects on hold, and the areas of the city that had been rebuilt were subjected to devastating Allied air strikes throughout the war. A park memorializing the 1923 quake was constructed on the site where 30,000 people died in a firestorm. The park is host to many small memorials, including one for the Korean victims of the disaster-instigated vigilante killings and one honoring the citizens killed during the Tokyo air raids.

Berlin, 1943-45

Berlin's 200-year history as a capital city has been fraught with war and rebuilding. Toward the end of WW II, British air strikes pummeled the city, while Soviet ground troops further damaged the capital's historic buildings with rocket launchers and hand grenades.

Berlin Today

Rebuilding a war-torn city is a far more delicate matter than responding to the damage caused by a natural disaster. In the case of Berlin in particular, politics and national character were pushed to the forefront as the city was transformed into a symbol of the postwar divide between East and West. Once Germany was reunited in 1989, Berlin resumed its place as the capital, while its rebuilding efforts have become a study in the politics of balancing architecture, memorial and memory.

Berlin's Future?

The complexity of reimagining the German capital is exemplified by the controversy surrounding the rebuilding of the Hohenzollern Stadtschloss, a palace in the center of the city closely associated with the country's Prussian past. Hated by the communists and severely damaged during the war, the original building was torn down during the Soviet era. Constructed in its place was the Palace of the Republic, a bronze-and-steel triumph of boxy 1970s Soviet design. In 2003 the German government voted to tear down that building and replace it with an exact faux-Baroque copy of the Stadtschloss, a decision that has been regarded by some as a bulldozing of the past, a form of architectural forgetfulness that is frowned upon by many urban planners, historians and critics.

Hiroshima, Japan, 1945

On Monday, Aug. 6, 1945, at 8:15 a.m., the nuclear bomb "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima, instantly killing 80,000 people and flattening the city. A little more than one month later, a devastating typhoon hit the area, wiping out what few roads and bridges were still in operation and killing more than 3,000 people.

Hiroshima Today

Similar to some German cities' postwar reconstruction efforts, Hiroshima has used modern architecture to communicate the politics and narrative of its people. While most of the city was rebuilt with a modern lilt, the Hiroshima Commercial Exhibition Hall, severely damaged in the bombing, was kept as a memorial to the war. Commonly referred to as the A-bomb Dome, the building sits at the tip of Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park, a sprawling area of green grass, community centers and various monuments. It is a tranquil respite in the center of the city, dedicated to the legacy of the atomic bomb, the memory of war and the hope for peace.

Mostar, Bosnia, 1992-95

During the Bosnian war, a 1993 siege on the city of Mostar resulted in the total destruction of the the city's many historical buildings and bridges. When the war finally came to an end two years later, the city, once a cradle of classic 16th century architecture, lay in ruins, pockmarked and shattered from years of heavy artillery shelling. The city's ancient bridge, Stari Most, a 427-year-old structure that had given Mostar its name ("the bridge keepers"), had been completely destroyed.

Mostar Today

The destruction of Stari Most was considered to be a tremendous cultural loss, and its rebuilding became a global cause. Organizations like UNESCO and the World Bank donated funding for the bridge's reconstruction. The new bridge, a direct copy of the original, was opened in 2004. In an effort not to lose the memory of the '93 bombings, stone plaques carved with the words "Never Forget" are embedded in walls and roads around the city. In the shadow of the new bridge, these words are a stark reminder of Bosnia's recent bloodshed.

Beirut, 1975-90

It is estimated that during the 15-year civil war that ravaged Lebanon, 100,000 people were killed and another 100,000 critically wounded. Much of the infrastructure of Beirut, the capital city, was destroyed in the fighting, its city streets lined with countless scarred and hollowed buildings.

Beirut Today

A hotbed of intellectual and cultural activity as well as a major tourist destination before the war, Beirut since the 1990s has been steadily repairing its reputation and architecture. Much of the early rebuilding was handled by Solidere, a Lebanese stock company founded by then Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. Though Lebanon has remained politically volatile in the 20 years since its civil war, Beirut has regained much of its prewar luster. In 2009 the city was a frequent feature in the New York Times travel section and topped its year-end list of the best places to visit.

New Orleans, 2005

Category 3 Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast in August 2005, causing significant damage to New Orleans' infrastructure. Subsequent flooding devastated the city. In the weeks following the storm, large swaths of New Orleans remained underwater, and as the national and local governance scrambled to help the drowning city, many wondered how it would recover from the disaster.

New Orleans Today

After five years of desperation and stalemated efforts, there are fewer FEMA trailers in storm-damaged lots then there once were, but New Orleans continues to struggle to rebuild, a situation exacerbated by the 2008 economic downturn. In 2009, frustrated by the leaden pace of rebuilding, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan told the residents of New Orleans that he was "angry" and "personally disturbed."

Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 2010

January's massive earthquake in Haiti devastated its capital city. With most of its basic infrastructure flattened and the majority of its citizens living in temporary housing and tents, Port-au-Prince is beginning to think about how it will rebuild itself.

Haiti Today

Rebuilding Haiti will not be easy, nor will it happen quickly, but some urban planners have suggested that there may be a silver lining in the city's destruction. As with so many places that have been gutted by natural disasters, the earthquake in Haiti may give the nation the opportunity to construct a new capital that is stronger, healthier and more resilient. Tomorrow's Port-au-Prince could have the soul of the past and the structure of the future.

Santiago, Chile, 2010

The world was still reeling from the tragedy in Haiti when news broke of an 8.8-magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Chile. While the South American quake was many times stronger than the one that devastated Haiti in January, its death toll so far has been significantly lower. Chile's major cities have experienced considerable damage, and many villages struck by the massive tsunami have all but disappeared. Only time will tell how they will recover and what the rebuilt nation will look like.

SOURCE: TIME Magazine