Sculptor Gormley wants us to get inside his head

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s foremost living sculptor Antony Gormley wants us to get inside his head with his latest work “Model”, a 100-tonne steel maze of cubes and squares, dark corners and splashes of light on show at the White Cube gallery in London.

The giant grey-black work, based on a human form lying down, is entered via the right “foot”, and combines the fun of an adventure playground with the unnerving quality of a labyrinth often plunged into darkness.

For the first time, the Turner Prize-winning artist who has always been preoccupied with the human form allows us to get inside, and draws parallels between the body and the architectural spaces we inhabit.

“I think we dwell first in this borrowed bit of the material world that we call the body,” Gormley told Reuters, standing beside the imposing structure made up of interlocking blocks.

“It has its own life that is unknowable. But the second place we dwell is the body of architecture, the built environment,” he added.

“We’re the most extraordinary species that decided to structure our habitat according to very, very abstract principles of horizontal and vertical planes.”

Model has plenty of surprises. The more nimble visitor can crawl through its left “arm”, which is a passage around three feet high, or clamber on to a roof bathed in light.

“There are places that you wouldn’t necessarily know are there,” Gormley said. As if to prove his point, he disappeared into a large raised “aperture” invisible in the darkness.

Sound also plays a part, with the resonance of voices and rumble of footsteps giving clues to the size of each space.

PLAYGROUND

The artist said he encouraged people to explore the work rather than just look, unlike most sculptures which are strictly off-limits.

“Psychological architecture suddenly starts to reverberate with human life,” he explained, adding that the sense of unease when entering the dark spaces was part of its appeal.

“I think creepiness is good,” he said in the pitch-black “head”. “I think it’s necessary to get under people’s skin. You don’t want them to easily ingest or accept something.”

Several times he referred to the Seagram murals of American painter Mark Rothko, works that inspired him as an artist and which he had in mind while making Model.

“Their surfaces give you this idea of space, or an invitation, they seat you at a threshold and allow you to dream of what exists beyond that threshold,” he said.

“You could say this is the literal version of that.”

Gormley, born in 1950, won the Turner Prize in 1994 and is probably best known for his 20-metre high public “Angel of the North” sculpture located near Newcastle in northern England.

He would not say what price the White Cube gallery had put on Model, and the gallery itself could not immediately provide a figure when asked, but Gormley has become one of the most sought-after British artists at auction.

A life-size iron maquette for Angel of the North fetched 3.4 million pounds ($ 5.4 million) at an auction at Christie’s in October last year.

Early critical reaction to Model was mixed.

“We think of the pyramids, of tombs in lightless spaces,” wrote Michael Glover in the Independent. “We have entered this space hoping for a visceral response of some kind, but it never quite happens.”

Model is on display at White Cube, Bermondsey, until February 10, 2013.

(This story has fixed typos in paragraph six)

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)

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Well: Ignoring the Science on Mammograms

Last week The New England Journal of Medicine published a study with the potential to change both medical practice and public consciousness about mammograms.

Published on Thanksgiving Day, the research examined more than 30 years of United States health statistics to determine, through observation, if screening mammography has reduced breast cancer deaths. The researchers found that, as expected, the introduction of mammogram screening led to an increase in the number of breast cancers detected at an early stage.

But importantly, the number of cancers diagnosed at the advanced stage was essentially unchanged. If mammograms were really finding deadly cancers sooner (as suggested by the rise in early detection), then cases of advanced cancer should have been reduced in kind. But that didn’t happen. In other words, the researchers concluded, mammograms didn’t work.

This is a bold claim for an observational study. There are countless reasons why conclusions from such studies are commonly fraught with error. What if, for instance, the lion’s share of advanced cancers occurred among women without access to screening mammograms—a fact often not available in health statistics? Or what if mammography successfully prevented a major increase in advanced cancers, leaving the health statistics unchanged?

Hippocrates, the father of medicine, called experience “delusive.” He recognized that uncontrolled observations may lead to faulty conclusions. For centuries the flawed logic of observational data seemed to validate bloodletting, an unhelpful and often harmful therapy. But most who were bled eventually improved—no thanks to the bloodletting—an observation that led medical authorities to believe in the practice.

Fortunately, we have learned something about bad logic. Today we seek studies designed to neutralize illusions. By enrolling people in a study and assigning them randomly to treatments, for instance, groups tend to be evenly balanced in every way except one: the treatment. Controlled studies led to the discovery that bloodletting is harmful rather than helpful, and randomized trials of screening mammography would therefore be a worthy gold standard to answer once and for all the question of whether the test saves lives.

It may be surprising, therefore, to learn that numerous trials of mammography have indeed randomly assigned nearly 600,000 women to undergo either regular mammography screening or no screening. The results of more than a decade of follow-up on such studies, published more than 10 years ago, show that women in the mammogram group were just as likely to die as women in the no-mammogram group. The women having mammograms were, however, more likely to be treated for cancer and have surgeries like a mastectomy. (Some of the studies include trials from Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, and this major review of the data.)

In other words, mammograms increased diagnoses and surgeries, but didn’t save lives—exactly what the researchers behind last week’s observational study concluded.

It is affirming to see this newest study. But it raises an awkward question: why would a major medical journal publish an observational study about the effects of screening mammography years after randomized trials have answered the question? Perhaps it is because many doctors and patients continue to ignore the science on mammograms.

For years now, doctors like myself have known that screening mammography doesn’t save lives, or else saves so few that the harms far outweigh the benefits. Neither I nor my colleagues have a crystal ball, and we are not smarter than others who have looked at this issue. We simply read the results of the many mammography trials that have been conducted over the years. But the trial results were unpopular and did not fit with a broadly accepted ideology—early detection—which has, ironically, failed (ovarian, prostate cancer) as often as it has succeeded (cervical cancer, perhaps colon cancer).

More bluntly, the trial results threatened a mammogram economy, a marketplace sustained by invasive therapies to vanquish microscopic clumps of questionable threat, and by an endless parade of procedures and pictures to investigate the falsely positive results that more than half of women endure. And inexplicably, since the publication of these trial results challenging the value of screening mammograms, hundreds of millions of public dollars have been dedicated to ensuring mammogram access, and the test has become a war cry for cancer advocacy. Why? Because experience deludes: radiologists diagnose, surgeons cut, pathologists examine, oncologists treat, and women survive.

Medical authorities, physician and patient groups, and ‘experts’ everywhere ignore science, and instead repeat history. Wishful conviction over scientific rigor; delusion over truth; form over substance.

It is normally troubling to see an observational study posing questions asked and answered by higher science. But in this case the research may help society to emerge from a fog that has clouded not just the approach to data on screening mammography, but also the approach to health care in the United States. In a system drowning in costs, and at enormous expense, we have systematically ignored virtually identical data challenging the effectiveness of cardiac stents, robot surgeries, prostate cancer screening, back operations, countless prescription medicines, and more.

When Thomas Jefferson described his vision for the institution that would become the University of Virginia, he said:

This place will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth, wherever it may lead.

As we begin down the arduous path of health care reform, requisite to economic success, the question for policymakers and health care authorities is this: Are we ready to stop ignoring science? If so, the road may be smoother than we imagined for there is, and has been, much truth to follow.

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Dr. David Newman is an emergency room physician in New York City and author of the book, “Hippocrates Shadow: Secrets from the House of Medicine.“

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Chicago housing recovery lags other cities

A sale is pending on this home in San Francisco. The National Association of Realtors reported a decline in sales in September. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images / October 19, 2012)

By Mary Ellen Podmolik




Tribune staff reporter

8:25 a.m. CST, November 27, 2012

The Chicago area's housing recovery continues to lag behind other metropolitan areas, according to a widely watched monthly index of home prices released Tuesday.

The S&P/Case-Shiller home price index found that area home prices in September fell 0.6 percent from August and were down 1.5 percent on an annualized basis. Chicago and New York City were the cities among the 20 studied where pricing was worse than their year-ago comparisons.

September's reading was the first monthly decrease for the Chicago area's home price index after five months of gains. Despite the slip in the overall market, area condo prices continued to recover, rising .9 percent in September from August, marking the six consecutive month of improvement.

Historically, condo prices remain at their spring 2001 level while the overall market's pricing is similar to its fall 2001 levels.

All combined, the 20 cities included in the home price index in September recorded a monthly gain of 0.3 percent in September. Year-over-year, prices rose 3 percent. On a quarterly basis, the national composite rose 3.6 percent in the third quarter compared with 2011's third quarter.

mepodmolik@tribune.com | Twitter @mepodmolik

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Durbin urges progressives to deal on 'fiscal cliff'

WASHINGTON – A top Democrat pressured fellow progressives Tuesday to support – rather than fight – a far-reaching budget deal that includes cuts to entitlement programs to avert the coming fiscal cliff.

“We cant be so naive to believe that just taxing the rich will solve our problems,” said Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate. “Put everything on the table. Repeat. Everything on the table.”

The assistant majority leader’s speech at the influential Center for American Progress comes at a pivotal moment in budget talks between the White House and Congress. Progressive and labor groups have warned President Obama against cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other government programs and to instead focus on raising tax revenue in the administration’s negotiations with congressional Republicans .

The White House and Capitol Hill are working to prevent the combination of automatic tax hikes and deep spending cuts coming at year’s end – what economists have warned would be a $500-billion hit to the economy that could spark another recession.

QUIZ: How much do you know about the 'fiscal cliff'?

Durbin, a top progressive, has long angled for a broad deficit-reduction deal after having served on the White House’s nonpartisan fiscal commission that devised $4 trillion in new taxes and spending cuts to curb the nation’s debt load. Experts say such a large package is needed to stop record deficits and improve the nation’s fiscal outlook.

In remarks that strayed from his prepared comments, Durbin told the story of a labor leader who questioned his interest in serving on that 2010 panel, asking, “What is a nice progressive like you doing in a place like that?”

Durbin responded by saying it was better to have a seat at the table, a position he reiterated as he tries to prevent a schism among Democrats’ traditional allies while talks continue toward the year-end deadline.

“Progressives cannot afford to stand on the sidelines in this fiscal debate and deny the obvious,” Durbin said.

Already, a coalition of liberal groups is running ads warning Obama against striking a deal with Republicans that would slash at social safety net programs while allowing tax breaks for wealthier households to continue.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tuesday that negotiations over Social Security should occur separately from deficit negotiations.

"We should address the drivers of the deficit," he told reporters, "and Social Security is not currently a driver of the deficit."

[For the Record, 12:01 p.m. PST  Nov. 27: This post has been updated to include the latest reaction from the White House.]

Follow Politics Now on Twitter and Facebook

lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

Twitter: @LisaMascaroinDC

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Google Breaks All Android App Reviews, Threatens Android Fans’ Safety

“A Google User” is now the number one Android game and app reviewer on Google Play, Android’s version of Apple’s App Store. That’s because every single one of the millions of existing reviews, possibly including yours, has had its author replaced with this nameless, faceless person.

Screenshots taken by Jeremiah Rice of the Android Police blog show this prolific (but completely generic) author has taken over the Google Play store. Meanwhile, if you visit the store on your Android smartphone or tablet you won’t see a name attached to most reviews at all; just the review’s title, and the device that the game or app was run on.

Believe it or not, this is all intentional. It’s the start of a new Google policy … one which may threaten some Android fans’ safety or privacy.

​Google+, whether you like it or not

Google now requires you to have a Google+ (pronounced “Google Plus”) account in order to leave reviews on Google Play, the Chrome Web Store, and Google Maps. No reason for the switchover is given in the pop-up which explains this; you simply click “Continue” if you want your reviews tied to your Google+ account, and if you don’t want them linked you don’t write them at all. If you don’t have a Google+ account, you have to sign up for one before you can write a review.

​Why Google is Plus-ifying everything

Google’s success as a company is determined by how many ads it sells. Google’s share of the ad market is being eaten into by Facebook, which has essentially “walled off” a huge part of people’s day-to-day lives in a place Google can’t index or sell any ads on. For better or for worse, Google’s execs feel that what they need to do to compete is copy Facebook, in the form of Google+.

Why? Because if everyone is “Plusing” things instead of “Liking” them, and if everything people do shows up on Google+ instead of Facebook, then now Google (instead of Facebook) knows what you’re doing online and where you’re doing it — and that gives it a much better position from which to display and sell ads.

​Why this is a problem for many

Besides the obvious privacy concerns (although Google offers limited tools to manage how much it tracks you), Google+’s “real names” policy is dangerous to anyone whose safety is jeopardized by attaching their given name to their online activities. This includes women who are victims of stalking, minors who are victims of abuse, transgender persons in transition, and dissidents in repressive political or religious regimes. By requiring a Google+ account to use more and more of its services, Google is forcing these people to choose between excluding themselves and running the risk of having ​all​ of their Google services terminated for a “real name” policy violation, including their personal Gmail accounts.

Google+ policy allows for pseudonymous accounts, if you’re widely known by that pseudonym online. Everyone’s Google+ page, however, has a button to report what anyone feels is a suspicious name, which puts marginalized persons like those listed above at the mercy of every “troll” who comes by.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.
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Disney Channel to debut ‘Sofia the First’ Jan. 11

NEW YORK (AP) — Disney says its animated children‘s series “Sofia the First” will premiere Jan. 11 on the Disney Channel and Disney Junior networks.

Created for kids ages 2 to 7, “Sofia the First” is about a young girl who becomes a princess and learns that honesty, loyalty and compassion are what makes a person royal.

Sofia is voiced by “Modern Family” actress Ariel Winter, and her mother is played by “Grey’s Anatomy” star Sara Ramirez.

Last week’s premiere of the “Sofia the First” animated movie drew a total audience of more than 5 million viewers. It was the year’s top-rated cable TV telecast among kids ages 2 to 5.

In the series’ debut episode, Sofia strives to become the first princess to earn a spot on her school’s flying derby team.

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Amid Hurricane Sandy, a Race to Get a Liver Transplant

It was the best possible news, at the worst possible time.

The phone call from the hospital brought the message that Dolores and Vin Dreeland had long hoped for, ever since their daughter Natalia, 4, had been put on the waiting list for a liver transplant. The time had come.

They bundled her into the car for the 50-mile trip from their home in Long Valley, N.J., to NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in Manhattan. But it soon seemed that this chance to save Natalia’s life might be just out of reach.

The date was Sunday, Oct. 28, and Hurricane Sandy, the worst storm to hit the East Coast in decades, was bearing down on New York. Airports and bridges would soon close, but the donated organ was in Nevada, five hours away. The time window in which a plane carrying the liver would be able to land in the region was rapidly closing.

In a hospital room, Natalia watched cartoons. Her parents watched the clock, and the weather. “Our anxiety was through the roof,” Mrs. Dreeland said. “It just made your stomach into knots.”

The Dreelands, who are in their 60s, became Natalia’s foster parents in 2008 when she was 7 months old, and adopted her just before she turned 2. They have another adopted daughter, Dorothy Jane, who is 17.

Natalia is a “smart little cookie” who loves school and dressing up Alice, her favorite doll, her mother said. At age 3, Natalia used the word “discombobulated” correctly, Mr. Dreeland said.

Natalia’s health problems date back several years. Her gallbladder was taken out in 2010, and about half her liver was removed in 2011. The underlying problem was a rare disease, Langerhans cell histiocytosis. It causes a tremendous overgrowth of a type of cell in the immune system and can damage organs. Drugs can sometimes keep it in check, but they did not work for Natalia.

In her case, the disease struck the bile ducts, which led to progressive liver damage. “She would have eventually gone into liver failure,” said Dr. Nadia Ovchinsky, a pediatric liver transplant specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian. “And she demonstrated some signs of early liver failure.”

The only hope was a transplant.

Dr. Tomoaki Kato, Natalia’s surgeon, knew that the liver in Nevada was a perfect match for Natalia in the two criteria that matter most: blood type and size. The deceased donor was 2 years old, and though Natalia is nearly 5, she is small for her age. Scar tissue from her previous operations would have made it very difficult to fit a larger organ into her abdomen.

Though Dr. Kato had considered transplanting part of an adult liver into Natalia, a complete organ from a child would be far better for her. But healthy organs from small children do not often become available, Dr. Kato said. This was a rare opportunity, and he was determined to seize it.

But as the day wore on, the odds for Natalia grew slimmer. The operation in Nevada to remove the liver was delayed several times.

At many hospitals, surgery to remove donor organs is done at the end of the day, after all regularly scheduled operations. The Nevada hospital had a busy surgical schedule that day, made worse by a trauma case that took priority.

At the hospital in New York, Tod Brown, an organ procurement coordinator, had alerted a charter air carrier that a flight from Nevada might be needed. That company in turn contacted West Coast carriers to pick up the donated liver and fly it to New York.

Initially, two carriers agreed, but then backed out. Several other charter companies also declined.

Mr. Brown told Dr. Kato that they might have to decline the organ. Dr. Kato, soft-spoken but relentless, said, “Find somebody who can fly.”

Dr. Kato used to work in Miami, where pilots found ways to bypass hurricanes to deliver organs. Even during Hurricane Katrina, his hospital performed transplants.

“I asked the transplant coordinators to just keep pushing,” he said.

Mr. Brown said, “Dr. Kato knew he was going to get that organ, one way or another.”

As the trajectory of the storm became clearer, one of the West Coast charter companies agreed to attempt the flight. The plan was to land at the airport in Teterboro, N.J. The backup was Newark airport, and the second backup was Albany, from where an ambulance would finish the trip.

The timing was critical: organs deteriorate outside the body, and ideally a liver should be transplanted within 12 hours of being removed.

Early Monday, as the storm whirled offshore, the plane landed at Teterboro. Soon a nurse rushed to tell the Dreelands that she had just seen an ambulance with lights and sirens screech up to the hospital. Someone had jumped out carrying a container.

At about 5 a.m., the couple kissed Natalia and saw her wheeled off to the operating room.

Three weeks later, she is back home, on the mend. The complicated regimen of drugs that transplant patients need is tough on a child, but she is getting through it, her father said.

Recently, Mr. Dreeland said, he found himself weeping uncontrollably during a church service for the family of the child who had died. “Their child gave my child life,” he said.

Though only time will tell, because the histiocytosis appeared limited to Natalia’s bile ducts and had not affected other organs, her doctors say there is a good chance that the transplant has cured her.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 27, 2012

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misspelled the surname of the family whose daughter received a liver transplant. As the article correctly noted elsewhere, it is Dreeland, not Vreeland.

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Obama taps Walter as new SEC chief

WASHINGTON -- President Obama on Monday designated Elisse Walter as chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, but it's unclear if the Democratic commissioner will be the permanent replacement for outgoing Mary Schapiro.

Walter, who has served on the SEC since July 2008, will take over the reins of the agency after Schapiro steps down on Dec. 14. Schapiro announced her resignation Monday.

Obama thanked Schapiro for her "steadfast leadership." 

"When Mary agreed to serve nearly four years ago, she was fully aware of the difficulties facing the SEC and our economy as a whole," Obama said in a written statement.

"But she accepted the challenge, and today, the SEC is stronger and our financial system is safer and better able to serve the American people – thanks in large part to Mary's hard work," he said.

Obama can designate a current commissioner as chairman. But he must nominate a permanent replacement, who then has to be confirmed by the Senate.

After Schapiro departs next month, the SEC will have two Democrats and two Republicans, making it difficult to pass any controversial measures.

The White House did not indicate if Walter was among those being considered for the nomination.

Walter served as chairwoman for a short period in January 2009 after the departure of former Chairman Christopher Cox, before Schapiro was sworn in.

Walter, a former executive at the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and the National Assn. of Securities Dealers, has been mentioned as a permanent replacement for Schapiro.

Obama said he was "confident that Elisse's years of experience will serve her well in her new position."

ALSO:

SEC chief Mary Schapiro to step down

Warren Buffett says tax hikes won't stop wealthy from investing

New faces likely for key U.S. economic posts, starting at Treasury

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2 gang members shot at funeral

Two reputed gang members were shot at a funeral in the Park Manor neighborhood on the South Side this afternoon, police said, with a minister at the services tweeting afterward, "This is Crazy."

The two men were shot outside St. Columbanus Church in the 300 block of East 71st Street shortly before 12:30 p.m., across the street from the A.A. Rayner & Sons Funeral Home, police said.

They were taken in critical condition to Stroger, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Will Knight. Both victims are convicted felons and known gang members, police said.

The shooting occurred after the funeral, according to the minister who was presiding, the Rev. Corey Brooks.

"I just preached a funeral and gunfire has broke out and I believe people have been shot," Brooks tweeted. "Please pray I believe people have been hit it is Chaos about 500 people here. This is Crazy!!

"Please pray for Chicago," he added in a later tweet. "This is horrible."

Please pray I believe people have been hit it is Chaos about 500 people here. This is Crazy!!

— Corey Brooks (@CoreyBBrooks) November 26, 2012

Brooks said later, in an interview with the Tribune, that about 500 people attended the funeral, including about 50 children. The church was so crowded, people were standing in the back.

Brooks had finished the eulogy and the man's family and friends had gone out the front door of the church when shots rang out.

"That's when all the gunfire broke out and it was just crazy," said Brooks. "People were hollering and screaming and kids running everywhere. By the time we got back around to the front, you got these guys who have been shot."

Brooks said he usually accompanies families out of the church after funerals, but had left by a side door for a radio interview.

"I do know that the shooters were at that funeral," he said. "From what everyone is saying, those guys came out of the funeral and waited."

He said a witness told him one of the men raised his hand as he was shot.  "One of the guy's whole hand got shot off because he raised his hand to stop the shot and it shot his hand off," Brooks said.

 Brooks believes the men who were shot were targeted. "It's not a random [shooting], you can mark that one off. If someone shoots at a funeral and somebody gets hit, more than one, it's direct, it's specific. . .This is more a hit: These are guys that I want and I want to get them. So it was a target."

Brooks is the pastor who spent weeks on the rooftop of an abandoned motel last winter in an effort to get it torn down to make way for a community center in the Woodlawn neighborhood.

"It says that things are definitely out of control," Brooks said. "There was a time with a lot of gangbangers, older guys, where things were off limits, weddings, funerals. Church was off limits. Now we are living at a day and time where these younger criminals have no regard for life or for street rules. That means things have gotten to a level where someone has to step in and do some drastic things to change it."

One witness said she saw someone firing at two people outside the church.

Deborah Echols-Moore said there were several hundred mourners in the sanctuary of the church when she heard gunshots. “We thought it was someone banging on the seats,” but soon realized it was gunshots, Echols-Moore said.

People panicked and made a rush to get out of the church. "A lady fell on me.”

The funeral was for James Holman, 32, who was shot last week at an apartment building in the Washington Park neighborhood on the South Side.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Beyonce documentary premiering on HBO in February

NEW YORK (AP) — Beyonce is getting personal.

HBO announced Monday that a documentary about the Grammy-winning singer will debut Feb. 16, 2013. Beyonce is directing the film, which will include footage she shot herself with her laptop.

The network said the documentary will include “video that provides raw, unprecedented access to the private entertainment icon and high-voltage performances.” It will also feature home videos of her family and of the singer as a new mother and owner of her company, Parkwood Entertainment.

Beyonce said in a statement the untitled project was “personal” to her. She is married to Jay-Z. They had their first child, daughter Blue Ivy Carter, in January.

The 31-year-old will perform at the 2013 Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 3, 13 days before the documentary airs.

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