Washington D.C. To Swear In Secretary Of Love

Tourism officials in the nation's capital have picked Dr. Ruth Westheimer to be the honorary secretary of the "Department of Love and Relationships." She'll help announce a new "stimulus plan" for the city's tourism business. Dr. Ruth will be sworn in Thursday.

DEBORAH AMOS, host:




Good morning. I'm Deb Amos.



Move over, Mr. Geithner. There's a new secretary coming to the nation's capital. Today, D.C. will introduce the secretary of love and relationships. And officials have tapped the queen of romance herself, Dr. Ruth, to fill that role. It's all part of D.C.'s month-long stimulus plan to boost tourism. Officials say the effort has been inspired by the Obama's romantic date night. The romance is in time for Valentine's Day. It's MORNING EDITION.

Source:npr.org/

Enjoying a Swedish massage at the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown, Washington, DC

The spa: Housed in the depths of this landmark hotel, the four-room spa is an oasis of serenity next to a busy gym, which, as befits the world’s powerhouse of politics, is open 24 hours a day.

Spa Spy’s symptoms: Ah, those hardy perennials: shoulder tightness, muscle tension and lower back pain that Spa Spy suspects is back-to-work stress.

The prescription: After a consultation with Yannick, my therapist, the signature therapeutic massage (50 minutes, £76) is recommended – a common-or-garden Swedish-technique massage designed to ease chronic pain, fluid retention and muscular fatigue that is pepped up some deep-tissue action and a range of specialist therapeutic techniques.

The procedure: Easing the pain involved some serious pummelling of the shoulder area and tugging of arms from the masseuse interspersed with yelps from Spy; the myofascial release involved some rather unpleasant manipulation of connective tissue. Yannick used her knuckles and elbows to get into the deep tissue and mobilise long tightened muscles, all the while, we discussed the finer details of Washington politics. The neck was lengthened and, finally, the knots untied, the worries wrung out.

The verdict: Executed with highly skilled hands. Spa Spy strolled to a rendezvous in front of the White House feeling lighter, thanks to a change in posture, and definitely taller.

The medical opinion: “Lower back pain is very common, affecting approximately 80 per cent of the population at some point,” writes Dr Max Pemberton. “It is usually the result of poor posture leading to strain on the muscles and ligaments of the back. However, a review of the research on spinal manipulation – massage included – showed that it is no more or less effective than standard medical interventions for back pain, such as encouraging gentle exercise and managing pain with painkillers and anti-inflammatory medication.”

The feelgood factor: Unlike other newly built, cookie-cutter Ritz-Carltons, this one has a boutique feel. Housed inside a former incinerator, with a 130ft chimney that rises above the hotel, it’s more trendy loft conversion than marble palace. But you are well situated for fashionable restaurants and shops, and for a stroll to the White House.

Details: Doubles at the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown (0800 234 000, www.ritzcarlton.com), from £279 a night. Virgin Atlantic (08448 747 747, virginatlantic.com) is offering return flights this month from £379 return.

Source:elegraph.co.uk/

DC Design Working On Tata Nano With Ferrari Pricetag

Starting with the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano, which normally retails from about $2,000 in its home market, Indian vehicle customizer and coachbuilder DC Design has added enough luxury and performance amenities to send that pricetag up to the $220,000 mark.

Whether the modifications to the Nano justify the inflated pricetag is open to interpretation, but you have to at least commend the ambitions of DC Design.

Starting with the basic 10.2-foot hatchback, DC Design removed all the plastic surfaces, small wheels and dashboard before refitting them with much finer materials.

The project is still in the prototype stage but there are plans to inject the car with high-technology products. The basic chassis and floor plan will be retained but other than that everything will be different. Even the Nano's 33-horsepower twin-cylinder engine will be replaced with a more powerful 1.6-liter unit.

DC Design plans to only build around five of the cars each year, with most going to wealthy locals though a few will be heading overseas.

With reports suggesting the diminutive Tata Nano may be heading to the U.S. in the next couple of years, we just hope no one here plans on calling DC Design to order one.

Source:motorauthority.com/

Temple Football Fans Head to DC for Bowl Game

by KYW's Al Novack

A charter bus loaded with about 60 Temple University alumni left the Liacouras Center Tuesday morning bound for Washington, DC to cheer on the Owls as they take on UCLA in the Eagle Bank Bowl.

The spirits were high, many noting this will be only the 3rd bowl game in Temple’s history and the first one since 1979.

Vince Boccollo of Newtown, graduated in 1978 so he missed that 1979 bowl game but, he said, he wouldn’t miss this for anything in the world and he predicted a big win.:

“I feel good. I feel that, you know hopefully Pierce will have a good game. Golden has done a great job, the guys he’s recruited, he’s turned the program around, getting some notoriety. It’s only going to happen again and again and again. I think he’s going to have a good drafts coming up because of this.

The fans on the bus were all predicting victory.

Source:kyw1060.com/

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Hot Pink Success In Intimate Apparel

A handful of women-owned small businesses are redefining undergarments, from shapewear to nipple concealers.





Kerry O'Brien, founder of Her Look



Your back fat is showing.

So are your panty lines and your unsightly "toe scrunch." Also, your cleavage is subpar.

Don't worry, ladies. There's a fix for each of these female troubles, plus others you might not have known you had. The fixes are the brainchildren of a small companies owned by women--many of them accidental entrepreneurs who started out trying to address their own fashion and beauty crises. The solutions are front and center at your favorite boutique or upscale department store, with chic packaging and witty names.

There's the Slim Cognito Shape-Suit, a suck-you-in bodysuit from Spanx. Tip Toes, flower-shaped insoles from Foot Petals, keep little piggies from hanging over the fronts of sky-high sandals. Low Beams, adhesive nipple concealers from Her Look Enterprises, guard against "the glaring side effects of blasts of cold air," the company says. There's even a remedy for humdrum pubic hair: Specially formulated dye in hues including Auburn Betty, Blond Betty and Fun Betty--that would be hot pink.

"Sophisticated women who spent time and lots of money getting their hair color just right, had no solution for coloring the hair down there. They were totally overlooking this crucial beauty area," says the Web site for Betty Beauty, a New York company.

These firms aren't all new. Spanx, the modern girdle maker, has been in business since 2000, Foot Petals since 2001. But now remedial products have reached a critical mass and are big business. Shapewear, the term of art for flab-compressing undergarments, is a $750 million industry, according to NPD Group, a market research firm.

Source:forbes.com/

Avatar merchandising bonanza?

LOS ANGELES -- The Hollywood studio behind Avatar is banking on the film to drive its biggest US product licensing push in years, starting with toy figures and expanding to items from home decor to party goods.



The News Corp.-owned 20th Century Fox is making that gamble even though consumers know virtually nothing about the blue, cat-like characters in Avatar who will be at the heart of the merchandising effort.


Fox has used its Avatar licensing deals, including one with Mattel Inc. for toys, as a way to recoup on what is one of the most expensive films in history, costing at least $237 million to produce, analysts said.


But if the movie, which opened on Friday and tells of a soldier infiltrating an alien race, crashes at box offices, stores may be left with shelves of unpopular Avatar products, literally standing with their tails between their legs.


Howard Roffman, head of licensing for Lucasfilm, the company behind Star Wars, said he would be "very nervous" to launch a retail push now, as Fox has done with Avatar. "The economy is not good, retailers are challenged, licensee companies are challenged, so my hat’s off to people who rise to that and get a program out there," Roffman said.


Last year, the Warner Bros. release Speed Racer bombed at box offices when it was released in May, and analysts say it crippled sales of toys tied to that movie.


But if all succeeds, Fox and its partner companies could turn Avatar into a major merchandising franchise, and perhaps even enter the same universe as the $18-billion retail phenomenon Star Wars, the movie franchise that has long been an inspiration for Avatar director James Cameron.


Is "The Force" with them?


By moving aggressively, Fox stands to avoid what happened to Star Wars when it opened in 1977. Then, no toys were out when parents started clamoring for them and at Christmas, kids received empty boxes with certificates for Star Wars toys.


Fox sees Pandora, the extra-terrestrial globe where Avatar is set, as a rich fictional world that can be mined for retail products.


"In the US market, this is the largest launch that we have had probably in recent memory -- if ever," said Robert Marick, executive vice-president of Fox Licensing.


He declined to give specific sales projections.


For comparison, the recent film G.I. Joe was based on a decades-old brand that consumers already knew, and Hasbro forecast toy sales of $100 million for 2009, said Chris White, analyst with Wedbush Morgan. "Avatar will be a sliver of that, it will be a lot less than G.I. Joe," he said.


Since October, Mattel has been selling Avatar figures with an "i-TAG" that can be held near a computer’s webcam. The computer scans the tag and launches an image of the character moving on-screen, or even fighting with another character.


Last month, News Corp’s HarperCollins published several books on the film, including Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora. JEM Sportswear and Awake Inc. launched T-shirts, sweatshirts and fashion tops.


This month, videogame maker Ubisoft released James Cameron’s Avatar: The Game. Fox hopes to one day launch home products such as bedding, as well as costumes, party goods, toy building sets and other products, Marick said.


Still, some analysts wonder if the strange-looking characters of Avatar will connect with children.


Even Tim Kilpin, general manager of Mattel’s girls, boys and games division, acknowledged that because the movie is new "there’s going to be some ramp-up to awareness."


"We think before too much longer, a lot of people will know these [Avatar] stories and these characters," he said. -- Reuters


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Avatar leads US box office despite storm
LOS ANGELES -- Titanic director James Cameron’s Avatar, a 3D extravaganza hyped as a giant leap in cinematic prowess, ruled the worldwide box office during its first weekend even as North American sales were hit by an enormous snow storm, its distributor said on Sunday.


The film -- one of the most expensive ever made -- earned an estimated $232.2 million from North America and 106 foreign markets, according to News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox, provisionally the ninth-biggest opening of all time.


Moviegoers in the US and Canada chipped in $73 million, far short of enthusiastic forecasts in the $85-million range. Top contributors to the $159.2 million foreign total included Russia ($21 million), France ($19 million) and the U.K. ($14.2 million).


Avatar edged ahead of 2006’s The Da Vinci Code ($232.1 million) among worldwide openings, while the disaster picture 2012 slipped to No. 11 with $230.5 million. If the number is confirmed when final data are issued on Monday, Avatar will set a new opening record for a nonsequel.


The record for a worldwide opening is $394 million, set in July by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The Avatar opening also fell far short of the $275-million opening for The Twilight Saga: New Moon last month.


Blue people wow critics


Avatar garnered almost as much attention for its reported budget of at least $300 million as for its eco-friendly tale of a disabled ex-Marine sent from Earth to infiltrate an alien race of 10-foot-tall blue people in order to save his polluted planet. Inter-species romance ensues between computerized characters representing actors Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana.


It marks Cameron’s first dramatic feature since 1997’s Titanic, the biggest film of all time before accounting for inflation. He spent the intervening years waiting for movie-making technology to catch up with his vision for the followup. Production took two years.


His new film won breathless reviews from critics. "You’ve never experienced anything like it, and neither has anyone else," said the Los Angeles Times.


Despite the buzz, the weekend haul ranks as merely the sixth-biggest of the year in the US and Canada. The 2009 record was set last month by The Twilight Saga: New Moon, with $143 million. The all-time record of $158 million was set last year by The Dark Knight.


A blizzard along the East Coast crippled business for all movies. Holiday-shopping distractions also had an impact. Fox said Avatar sales in New York fell 18% on Saturday from the previous day. The drop was 86% in Baltimore and 75% in Washington DC. But the studio hoped business would rebound as the weather improved.


Fox distribution president Chris Aronson dismissed the industry forecasts, saying the studio had been hoping for an opening in the mid-$60 million range. He said the 163-minute running time reduced the number of daily screenings.


On the other hand, ticket sales for Avatar were inflated by premium pricing for screenings in venues equipped with 3D technology. Such venues accounted for 59% of the total cinema count and 71% of sales, Fox said.


Exit polling for the film was strong across the board, and he was surprised that 62% of moviegoers were aged over 25. Men accounted for 57% of the audience.


Profit, Oscar hopes


The big issues are whether Fox will make money on the picture, and how it will fare at the Academy Awards. Media analyst Rich Greenfield of Pali Capital last week upgraded News Corp. to hold from sell, saying Fox was unlikely to lose "a massive amount of money" on the film.


The rough rule-of-thumb is that the studio and theaters split the gross evenly. Fox is also on the hook for worldwide marketing costs of $150 million, and must share some profits with Cameron. DVD sales will add to the windfall, although critics sayAvatar is best appreciated in a 3D theater environment.


As for the Oscars, for which nominations will be announced on Feb. 2, the film is making some early headway, picking up key Golden Globe and Critics Choice nominations. -- Reuters

Source:bworldonline.com/

Arts Agenda: Museum Weekend

No doubt you'll be shocked to hear it's a slow week in the art galleries this week. There are no openings and many shows are closing in the next week or two, so be sure to check the website or give the gallery a call if you plan to head down to one. Instead, this is a good weekend to see our museum offerings. Remember, December 25 is the one day of the year the Smithsonians are actually closed, and while summer tourist season is over, the holidays tend to bring out the crowds on the surrounding days. Don't let that stop you though, just be prepared and wear layers in case it gets toasty in there. So, what's worth seeing out there?

National Gallery of Art: We're big photography fans around here, so recommended is In the Darkroom: Photographic Processes before the Digital Age and see how images came about before USB cables and Photoshop. And of course, don't forget to plan some time for a little ice skating. (The NGA isn't a Smithsonian, but they're also closed Dec. 25.)

Smithsonian American Art Museum: The 2009 Renwick Craft Invitational exhibit and Graphic Masters II both come to a close in early January, so head over to see those soon. Same goes for 1934: A New Deal for Artists; this exhibit is a visual history of FDR's Public Works of Art Project and how it not only helped the economy but create a new sense of national pride as well.

National Portrait Gallery: In the same building, see a celebration of performing artists and athletes in BRAVO! and Champions. Twentieth Century Americans features the great political and scientific figures who molded the last century's major cultural movements. Be sure to spend some quiet time in the Kogod Courtyard while you're there.

National Museum of African Art: See the wildly media diverse works of Yinka Shonibare MBE. The Nigerian-born British artist creates paintings, mixed-media installations, sculpture and photographs, often expressing themes of race and European culture.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden: Anne Truitt's work in Perception and Reflection closes in early January and exhibits the work created since 1974 of this Washington, D.C. artist. Her artwork features large-scale sculptures melding ideas from minimalism, abstraction, and the Washington Color School.

Anacostia Community Museum: The African Presence in Mexico is on the D.C. leg of its international tour from the National Museum of Mexican Art, and was originally designed for students as a way to reach out to two cultures that historically have stayed quite separate from one other. See also the museum's permanent exhibition, Separate and Unequaled: Black Baseball in the District of Columbia.

Corcoran Gallery of Art: The Corcoran's major John Singer Sargent exhibitions are closing the first week in January. Get away from the inland winter cold with Sargent and the Sea featuring over 80 seascapes. Then see the Corcoran Collection's pieces to finish off your study of this Gilded Age artist. See their web site for holiday hours.

The Phillips Collection: Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens examines "the role of photography in shaping international understanding of African objects as art in the 1920s and 1930s." See it before it closes on Jan 10.

Source:dcist.com/

Project FUNDway rewards aspiring fashion designers - local students to show runway collections

(Rendering by: West Potomac fashion design student Alessandra Degregorio)

On Thursday, December 3, the Greater Washington Fashion Chamber of Commerce (GWFCC) will hold the first-ever Project FUNDway competition for local students aspiring for a career as fashion designers. The three student finalists, Michael Edwards, Samuel Mintah and Adegbemisola Ademisoye, will compete for a $5,000 fashion design scholarship. Taking its cue from the hit reality television show, Project Runway, the finalists will be judged on the design, construction, individuality and quality of a four-piece mini-collection they each created for this competition.

“The mission [of this competition] is to fund a way [for students] to go to school and study fashion,” said Maggy Francois, vice president of education and training for GWFCC and fashion design director for Project Stitch Studio at the West Potomac Academy of Fashion Design. Francois also stated that the students are not only aspiring designers, but also want to be writers and to learn the “business side of fashion,” which is what this contest seeks to teach them.
In addition to putting together a cohesive four-piece collection, the students are also responsible for the production of their own runway show – including searching for models, music selection and purchasing the materials for their garments.
Interested students from Washington, D.C., as part of the submission guidelines, had to present a garment design, write an essay about why they want a career in fashion and submit their grades in school in order to be eligible. Due to overwhelming interest from students in neighboring metro areas, Francois said next year’s competition will be open to students in Maryland and Virginia as well.
In addition to benefiting local students, this event, sponsored in part by the DC City Council and Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development for the District of Columbia Government, seeks to put Washington, DC on the map as a capital city of style by investing in the talent of its residents. Earlier today, the GWFCC released the first-ever report on the state of the DC fashion industry. The Fashion Census Survey Report and the Fashion Action Plan: Identifying the Needs of the Independent Fashion Industry in Washington, D.C.surveyed over 80 local fashion-related businesses and found that Washington, D.C. boasts over 1,900 retail stores and the overall retail industry generated $6 billion in general sales tax revenue for fiscal year 2008.
Download the PDF report here.
Although Washington, D.C. has not traditionally been known for its fashion forwardness, a strong and growing network of designers, merchants and business owners in the fashion sector view these initiatives as a step forward for DC’s burgeoning fashion economy.
Project FUNDways has been garnering considerable local media coverage in advance of the event. Tomorrow at 9:30am on FOX 5 Morning News, the finalists will talk about this contest as an opportunity to support their fashion career goals.
“It’s hard to find scholarships for fashion in this area,” said Francois. “Kids in DC want a fashion program…and want to be visual.”
To learn more about the student finalists and the Project FUNDway contest, visit http://www.gwfcc.org/

Source:examiner.com