Buh-bye New Line Cinema; another AOL merger casualty

Saturday March 1st, 2008
5 a.m. EST

Woke up early this morning intending to go over some old email, do final edits on a ton of posts that've been in Draft form for weeks, waiting for some final fact-checking, and delete a ton of ideas that weren't so good in hindsight.

But I've been suddenly jolted out of my slumber by this big news in Hollywood, courtesy of my daily LA Times Top of The Times email, which arrived a few minutes ago while I was online: Warner Bros. is absorbing New Line Cinema.

My favorite part of the story is actually the beginning of this great quote by Harold Vogel, a media analyst for Vogel Capital Management, which I've highlighted in its entirety below in red.
It actually sounds like a perfect ad lib drinking game at a party by some friends I have in LA who are in 'the industry.'

Each player starts with the predicate at the beginning of Mr. Vogel's comment, then heaps layer upon outrageous layer of more industry jargon and complexity onto it, based on their own personal experience: "People start out with high hopes for these indie studios, but..."

I especially like the fact that the writer portions out some of the blame for this inevitable corporate move on the actual crummy work product -some godawful movies- by some of the highest paid actors in Hollywood.
Sadly, that list even includes longtime SBH favorite Reese Witherspoon, in Rendition, the first film she's ever made that I didn't see -or want to see. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804522/

Despite all the snappy trailers for it that seemed to be run on every single one of my favorite TV programs the week before it opened, I just couldn't buy the predicate.

From my point of view, it seemed that the film was targeted to people who wanted to believe their own worst fears about our country, along with all the anti-Blair Laborites currently living on the East and Left Coast.

The kind of people who will claim they're independent-minded, but who, upon closer inspection, generally tend to be just high-minded about maintaining their own political bias and comfortable position in life, as well as seeing and reading media images that reinforce their core beliefs.

In other words, the sort of people who still harbor desires to bring back the outmoded and discredited Fairness Doctrine, a failed policy which history has shown never resulted in the expansion of different voices and points of view, but their exact opposite, due to the cowardice of the broadcasting industry.

Well, I'm just not one of those kind of Adams Morgan/Brookline/Bev Hills Democrats. I'm a DLC Democrat who had no problems at all in voting against an unqualified and thoroughly mediocre candidate like John Kerry, for reasons I've previously explained here, http://southbeachhoosier.blogspot.com/2007/04/observations-on-french-presidential.html , nor will I have any problem in voting against Barack Obama in November, if he's the party's nominee.

Anyone who knows me knows that I've been an ardent fan of Reese Witherspoon since the first time I heard Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel's glowing reviews of her work in their review of The Man in the Moon in 1991, on their TV film review show, Siskel & Ebert & the Movies, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102388/

I've seen that particular film of hers, co-starring Sam Waterston, excellent as her concerned father, at least 8-10 times by now, just on Bravo Cable., besides when it first opened.

Like certain films that first showcase young talented actors, like Scarlett Johansson seven years ago in An American Rhapsody, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0221799/ , I always find something new in it to recommend it to others, just as I did at the time it came out.

(Coincidentally, both films were seen at the Foundry Theatre in Georgetown, long a favorite haunt in Washington, since it was cheap, ran foreign films, and was only blocks from South Beach Hoosier's favorite weekend hangout in Washington, his spot being right near the east entrance to the Sequoia Restaurant, near the dock -the best people-watching spot in DC. http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=%22Washington+Harbour%22 )

But as much as I love Reese -I mean I saw Vanity Fair twice!- I'm afraid I simply don't ever buy the notion of her -or Ashley Judd- in the role of "victim," or, as the wife of a man who's really innocent but who's being railroaded. That's just a no-sale for me. And it doesn't look like I'm alone in that sentiment.

This factual, nuanced and well-balanced article by Claudia Eller is exactly the sort of business story I wish that I and other South Florida residents could read once in a while in the business section of the Miami Herald, but won't. Their ingrained boosterish editorial policy simply won't allow it. _______________________________________

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-newline29feb29,0,5541851.story?track=ntothtml
Los Angeles Times

New Line Cinema to merge into Warner Bros.
The studio behind 'The Lord of the Rings' and other popular movie franchises will become a significantly smaller version of itself.
By Claudia Eller, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
February 29, 2008

Roll the credits on New Line Cinema, the 40-year-old studio behind such iconic movie franchises as "The Lord of the Rings," "Austin Powers" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street."

The company will lay off hundreds of employees between its Los Angeles and New York facilities and be merged into its corporate sibling, Warner Bros.

The consolidation marks the end of the line for the once scrappy producer that prided itself on taking creative risks that other studios wouldn't. But in recent years New Line strayed from its street-smart roots with a slew of costly flops that ended its role as a big-time player in the volatile movie business.

In a sign of retrenchment that is increasingly prevalent in Hollywood, the company will now focus on making fewer movies limited to the kind of smaller, low-cost "genre" horror and comedy pictures upon which it built its name.

New Line becomes the latest free-standing Hollywood studio to abandon its ambitions as a full-fledged company in a market in which bloated overhead and soaring production and marketing costs have squeezed profits amid flat movie attendance and sagging DVD sales.

It comes just as the studio is to release today what could be one of its most promising comedies in a long time, the basketball spoof "Semi-Pro" starring Will Ferrell.

Over the last three years, DreamWorks SKG, the once highflying live-action studio founded by Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg, was sold to Viacom Inc. and scaled back as part of the media company's Paramount Pictures. At the same time, Harvey and Bob Weinstein's Miramax Films became a much smaller unit of owner Walt Disney Co. after the brothers were forced out. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was gobbled up by a consortium of investors including Sony Pictures, Comcast Corp. and two major private equity firms.

"People start out with high hopes for these indie studios," media analyst Harold Vogel said.
"But ultimately they encounter rising costs and difficulties in managing the businesses. At some point, the cash flow and balance sheets fall short of their ambitions."

The consolidation of New Line is the first corporate maneuver by Time Warner Inc.'s recently named Chief Executive Jeffrey Bewkes to rein in costs at the New York media giant, whose stock price has stagnated since its merger with America Online eight years ago. Bewkes is under pressure from shareholders to boost profitability at Time Warner, which owns cable channels such as CNN and HBO; cable systems that are the largest in Southern California; and publishing operations that include Time, Sports Illustrated and People magazines.

In a conference call with media analysts this month, Bewkes announced plans to immediately eliminate 100 jobs at Time Warner's corporate headquarters, split AOL into two parts, possibly reduce its 84% ownership of Time Warner Cable and target New Line for "near-term cost cuts.

"That was an understatement. As a part of Warner Bros., New Line's staff of 600 will be vastly scaled back and the company will no longer greenlight, market or distribute its own movies. Although New Line executives will continue to oversee the development and production of its own films, final say on all matters rests with Warner Bros. President Alan Horn. New Line will make only half the 12 to 14 pictures a year it did previously, which will now be distributed worldwide by Warner Bros.

Bewkes will meet today with New Line's New York employees and address its Los Angeles staff via satellite at the Pacific Design Center.

"Between the cost savings and the revenue enhancements, we believe we can at least double the earnings of New Line," Bewkes said in an interview. He added that those gains would more than offset "substantial restructuring charges" that Time Warner would incur as a result of New Line's consolidation and would benefit earnings as soon as next year.

"This is a no-brainer move," said Richard Greenfield, an analyst with Pali Research. "There's no reason to have two separate infrastructures.

"New Line's diminished star is a huge blow for New Line founder, Bob Shaye, 68, and his longtime top lieutenant, co-Chairman and co-Chief Executive Michael Lynne, 66, both of whom learned Thursday that they would leave the company.

No successor was named. In recent weeks, the pair, whose contracts expire at the end of the year, made a last-ditch attempt to stay, presenting Time Warner management with a plan that would have ensured their continued employment.

In an e-mail to employees, Shaye said their departure was a "painful decision, because we love New Line and the people who work here have been like our second families."

Shaye, who founded New Line in his Greenwich Village apartment in 1967 by peddling "Reefer Madness" to college campuses, continued to reign over the company even after he sold it to media magnate Ted Turner in 1994. Two years later the company was swept up in Time Warner's purchase of Turner's cable empire. Over the next 12 years, Shaye continued to run New Line as a fiefdom.

But his and Lynne's relationship with their corporate parent grew strained as New Line began making costlier mainstream movies in the mid-1990s, including Warren Beatty's "Town and Country," "Little Nicky" with Adam Sandler and "The Island of Dr. Moreau," starring Marlon Brando. Such misfires prompted Time Warner to exercise more scrutiny.

In 1997, Time Warner considered selling New Line but was resisted by Shaye's ally Turner, who as vice chairman and a major shareholder held a lot of sway.

A couple of years later, Shaye made an audacious bet that changed the course of New Line's fortunes -- at least temporarily. He committed hundreds of millions of dollars to making three "Lord of the Rings" movies after New Zealand director Peter Jackson's idea to bring the literary classic to the screen was rejected by other major studios.

The first "Rings" movie grossed $871 million worldwide, followed by a two sequels that amassed more than $2 billion in ticket sales. That was a tough act to follow.

Although all studios have ups and downs, New Line's poor track record in recent years added to the pressures on Shaye and Lynne.

Since the last "Rings" film in 2003, the studio has had some hits -- "The Wedding Crashers," "Elf" and last year's "Hairspray." But the hits were outnumbered by flops such as "The Last Mimzy," a family sci-fi fantasy directed by Shaye himself; "Rendition," a thriller with Reese Witherspoon; and "The Number 23," a dark thriller starring Jim Carrey.

Its biggest miscalculation came in December with a failed attempt to launch a new movie franchise based on Philip Pullman's literary trilogy "His Dark Materials."

New Line spent at least $180 million to produce and tens of millions more to market the first film, "The Golden Compass," which only managed $70 million in domestic ticket sales.

Although the movie grossed more than $250 million overseas, New Line had sold off the foreign rights to offset its high budget. But that longtime practice of the company to hedge its bets runs counter to Warner's strategy to retain worldwide distribution rights.

"International revenues are becoming more important and it doesn't make sense to give up foreign rights, where a lot of the upside is," Bewkes said.

The Burbank studio will now also be able to exploit New Line's valuable library of about 500 titles, including "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," David Fincher's thriller "Seven," and the Jim Carrey comedies "The Mask" and "Dumb and Dumber."

But the jewel in the crown is a planned adaptation of "The Hobbit," J.R.R. Tolkien's predecessor novel to the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. The project was in abeyance until New Line and Jackson settled a lawsuit in December over the accounting of the first film's income. That paves the way for Jackson to co-executive produce "The Hobbit," which MGM will co-finance and release internationally.

But New Line's legal troubles are far from over. Tolkien's trust is suing the studio for allegedly cheating it out of at least $150 million in profit from the franchise.

On a more promising note, New Line has several potential hits in the wings, including a movie version of HBO's popular series "Sex and the City," a screen adaptation of Cornelia Funke's fantasy novel "Inkheart" and "Journey 3-D," based on Jules Verne's classic "Journey to the Center of the Earth," starring Brendan Fraser.

What place is this LA Times sub-header describing? HB?

Was going thru my daily cache of email this afternoon while watching the IU-Coppin State basketball game on the Big Ten Network, and my eye caught this intriguing sub-heading on a Robyn Dixon story in the daily Los Angeles Times email I receive full of stories from all sections of the newspaper.
"Everywhere you travel in ... there is evidence of decline and absurdities that would be comical if they weren't so tragic."

All I could think of after seeing that interesting turn of phrase was that it could very well be the sub-heading on my topper at my other blog, HallandaleBeachBlog.
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

Almost as if I were an archaeologist going through ruins of an ancient city, since it pretty well describes the town to a veritable "T." Is it Hallandale Beach or ?
See for yourself.

http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fg-journey22dec22,0,7193858.story?coll=la-tot-topstories&track=ntothtml

Makeover of Washington D.C.'s Penn Quarter Long in Coming

Not mentioned in this otherwise positive story by Theo Milonopoulos in the Los Angeles Times on the myriad changes taking place in what was once a dreary and unsafe -at night- part of the nation's capital, is the tranformative effect on people's life of having a consistently good if-not-always-great Metro system.
It's the sole reason I was able to live in Arlington County, as close to Georgetown as I did, for almost 14 years, with never a thought to live farther out in the suburbs, and paid as much as I did for my place .

It gives people working in that part of D.C. the freedom to stay after work and socialize and have a life and be able to do things that don't revolve around parking, bars and restaurants, like the events at the Verizon Center.
Oddly, to me at least, the writer never specifically mentions the hearty pioneer role played by, of all actors, yes- the Hard Rock Cafe, in keeping a candle in the window.

For years, other than Ford's Theatre on that same block, there was nowhere to go at night where by day you had constant activity generated by neighbors like the FBI and the Federal Election Commission.

Frankly, having walked from near Capitol Hill or the National Gallery of Art over towards
the Metro Center area at night only a couple of thousand times, once I was in that general area, having turned off Pennsylvania Avenue, THE only consistent lighting on the side of that block of Ford's Theatre, the FEC, the FBI and The Hard Rock, was that provided by the McDonald's.

And that McDonald's was only there because unlike the geniuses in the Florida Marlins marketing office -as well as Jeffrey Loria and David Samson, who put the Marlins lone team store on Calle Ocho, instead of having it located in areas where their actual customers live and shop, like Pembroke Lakes Mall, Dadeland, Sawgrass or even a small ground floor store on Brickell Avenue towards the Greenberg Traurig building- they'd done their research and knew exactly how many people were in the area at any time of day.

More particularly, they knew the large number of chartered/tourists buses deposited there during the day for tours of the FBI and the House Where Lincoln Died.
Especially kids and their teachers/parents/chaperones.
Kids riding on buses for hours being dropped in front of a McDonald's is the retail equivalent of a ca$h-flow "Perfect Storm."


(More next week on the Marlins self-sabotaging marketing and stadium problems next week, replete with some facts and figueres and thoughts you haven't read elsewhere, which I've been keeping under wraps 'till after the season was over.

If you want to do some advanced reading on this subject which butress the points I've already written and kept in Draft for a few months, carefully read the Herald's recent story on the lack of any general interest bookstore within the city limits of the city of Miami, and why that is so.)


Not mentioned, for reasons that seem rather obvious to me, is the extent to which many of the then-existing bad probelms were compunded by the few actions the city did take.
That these plans and strategies often seemed poorly-thought out at first, or lacked what would seem like anything resembling an appropriate level of follow-up scrutiny or a self-correcting mechanism, like a sunshine provision, so that if they were judged unsuccessful, they'd be left in place permanently, only made public policy types me who actually knew the area shake our heads in dismay.

Not unlike South Florida, where there's always been an argument that methods and strategies that work successfully elsewhere either can't be tried, or are ruled out of consideration here immeditaely because of some sort of some crazy non-existant 'South Florida exceptionalism,' there was an element in D.C. that wanted to be seen succeeeding without asking for the the help of those who had already knew and had learned the lessons, and seen them replicated successfully elsewhere.

Here's the situation: by the early '90's, despite the election of a new mayor -Sharon Pratt Kelly-elected in large part to regain control of the city from the sort of corrupt, criminal and mendacious elements that held sway over lots of neighborhoods, is the extent to which the DC Public Library branch there had become an encampment for the homeless and drug dealers, which was never more apparent than when you walked thru the restroom door.
The stench would knock you out.
People walked around like zombies.


At night, because the city trusted engineers more than they did common sense, they foolishly
blocked off an existing east-west street that funneled traffic thru the heart of the city.
Their intent was to make the area near the DC library branch more pedestrian-friendly, but because they did so without considering what the corresponding effect would be on local businesses and their employees, not to mention, tourists, the safety situation became markedly worse, because police cars could no longer cruise by regularly.
The city essentially 'gave up' on the block.

_____________________________________________________
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pennquarter22nov22,0,2767878.story?coll=la-tot-national&track=ntothtml


Los Angeles Times
No end in sight with D.C.'s makeover boom
The once-blighted Penn Quarter is revitalized so rapidly that the city is under pressure to keep capitalizing on the area.
By Theo Milonopoulos, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 22, 2007


WASHINGTON — As secretary of State in the late 1700s, Thomas Jefferson laid out the initial design, including "public walks" for the area between the Capitol and what is now known as the White House. The capital's first city planner, Pierre L'Enfant, envisioned a grand boulevard, home to academies and lecture halls to enlighten and entertain, connecting the legislative and executive branches of the government.

Instead, Pennsylvania Avenue and the blocks just north of it became lined with boardinghouses and hotels where members of Congress resided. The open-air Center Market sold foodstuffs, manufactured goods and even slaves. Gambling establishments and music halls, not lecture halls, were the most popular forms of entertainment.

And like many center-city areas across the country, this one fell on hard times over the years. As fewer shoppers ventured downtown, preferring modern suburban malls closer to home, the city's most prestigious department stores, Garfinckel's and Woodward & Lothrop, closed their doors. By the mid-1990s, panhandlers and prostitutes roamed Jefferson's "public walks," and Ford's Theatre, the site of President Lincoln's assassination, was surrounded by blocks of boarded-up buildings and graffiti-covered storefronts.

"It was dreary," said Anthony A. Williams, Washington's mayor from 1999 through 2006. "I thought it was embarrassing that the nation's capital, within blocks of the White House, had drifted into despair."

Now this once-blighted area, rechristened Penn Quarter, has been transformed into a thriving business district with high-end residential developments, a vibrant night life and the third-most lucrative downtown office market in the country. But this urban renaissance has revitalized the area so quickly that the city and developers are under pressure to continue capitalizing on downtown's high-priced commercial market while meeting the growing demands of residents for an affordable and livable environment.

The 138 blocks of the Downtown DC Business Improvement District, which includes Penn Quarter, have nearly 100 restaurants, along with boutiques, galleries, museums and theaters. Among its attractions are the restored Old Patent Office Building, which houses the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian's American art collection; the new Harman Center for the Arts, which marries the classical Shakespeare Theatre Co. with a 21st century performance space; and the popular International Spy Museum, which explores the history and tradecraft of intelligence and is headed by a 36-year veteran of the CIA.

"It's a vibrant, inviting and bright place," said Richard H. Bradley, executive director of the Downtown DC BID.

That wasn't the case 10 years ago, said Miles E. Groves, director of the Downtown Neighborhood Assn. The bustle of business during the day drifted into desolation at dusk, as drug dealers and prostitutes took over the streets. "It was a place where you didn't want to be at night," Groves said.

As mayor, Williams sought to reverse this downward spiral through the Downtown Action Agenda, a public-private partnership. Its goal was to build off the district's economic boom to invigorate a strong residential, retail and entertainment destination.

The Downtown DC BID worked with the city and developers, using tax abatements, bonds and land subsidies to encourage investment in residential projects as a means of supplementing the already strong office market, said Gerry Widdicombe, the group's economic development director.

Anchoring this development was the MCI Center, a $200-million sports and entertainment facility that opened in 1997. Now known as the Verizon Center, and home to the NBA's Wizards and the NHL's Capitals, the building will have welcomed over 24 million patrons when it celebrates its 10th anniversary next month.

"We used to sit around and wait for federal handouts . . . until we finally started to do what other cities do: Invest in themselves," Widdicombe said.

From 1996 to 2006, according to the BID, that investment totaled $8.2 billion -- for 16.9 million square feet of new and renovated office space and 3,308 residential units. Jobs in the area grew to 177,000 in 2006, from 120,000 a decade earlier. For fiscal 2007 alone, the area generated $740 million in local taxes and other revenue.

But the rapid growth of the office market has outpaced the ability of the city and the developers to deliver some essential residential services, Groves said. There has been no comprehensive survey of the area's demographics since the 2000 census, which Groves said ignored the dramatic downtown population boom and prevented the city from getting a clear picture of the downtown living environment.

"We have a mixed-use environment that is more focused on commercial development than on the fact people live here," Groves said -- noting, for example, that there is no full-service grocery store. In addition, he said, the area's growing popularity has pushed out many of the small shops and galleries that had been enticed by cheap rents."

It makes it very difficult for the small and independent folks to survive," Groves said.

The city and the developers are working to iron out conflicts between commercial occupants and residents over such issues as better street lighting and time restrictions on construction and trash collection, Widdicombe said. BID employees provide some extra sanitation and street services, and plans are in place for a Safeway as a part of CityVista, a new complex of retail shops, condominiums and rental apartments.

Bradley said that 20% of the residences at CityVista will be classified as "affordable housing" for low-income individuals, with rentals below the market rate. The price of new one- and two-bedroom condominiums averaged about $350,000 to $650,000 in 2006, according to the BID. Shopping remains an issue, said Karen M. Sibert, the BID's communications director. Even though several national stores, including Banana Republic, Barnes & Noble and Bed Bath & Beyond have opened downtown, the area still lacks a centralized shopping district.

Rather than having stores disjointedly dotting the ground floors of office buildings, Sibert said, the BID hopes to create several contiguous blocks of retail to help restore downtown's shopping core.

Three large retailers -- clothiers H&M and Zara and furniture store West Elm -- have taken ground-floor space in the restored Woodward & Lothrop building on F Street, the heart of the city's traditional retail area.

The BID celebrated its 10th anniversary last week with a gala at the Harman Center. These days there are few vacant properties ripe for redevelopment in Penn Quarter, but Bradley said he did not see the renewal slowing down.

"We are now a very different kind of place a decade later," he said.


theo.milonopoulos@latimes.com

Dingo ate her baby: adidas gets killed in Calif. court on kangaroo shoes; Hoosier soccer news

Just for the record, so I don't off on a tangent on this whole shameful adidas shoe story, growing-up in the '70's, playing soccer for my North Miami Beach Optimist team, I always played with Puma soccer shoes myself, since I much preferred their snug fit to competing brands that my friends and teammates always swore by that were looser amd which they made tight by wrapping crazy amounts of tape around.
Unfortunately, they also took a long time to break in, and I can recall a few games, and one in particular out near Hialeah against Palm Springs North Optimist, always a very good squad, where I was slipping and sliding like crazy on what I think was some newly-cut grass.
I was like Dick Anderson on PolyTurf at the Orange Bowl against the Jets in 1971, where his sure hands failed him as he slipped while returning a punt and essentially fumbled away the game.
Yes, back in the pre-cable days of South Florida when syndicated German Bundesliga games and highlights were telecast every weekend -with Tony Charles doing play-by-play-
on local Miami PBS affiliate, Channel 2, WPBT, located in North Miami, not too far away from me in NMB.

As someone who's actually on the mailing list for the adidas email newsletter, and who has followed the sports marketing industry for a long time, I'll leave it to you to figure out the eventual market implication$ for adidas product sales in the largest state after being trounced in Sacramento after reading this excellent article by Maura Dolan of the LA Times.
Though I could be mistaken, I think my IU friend, track star Cyndie Brown was either working for or racing for adidas in the late 1980's, when she won the 1987 Pittsburgh Marathon, and we really thought she had a great a chance of making the Olympic team going to Seoul the following year, since the U.S. Olympic marathon qualifier was the same exact course in Pittsburgh, in what was to be the inaugural for the Women's Marathon as an Olympic sport.

(Even adidas pitchman and ESPN object of hype David Beckham has to backpedal after not being able to morally justify it. Have you seen this story on the ESPN family of networks? I haven't, and I recently got Direct TV.)
Then, to have the incredibly bad luck to have the decision handed down the same week that out-of-control Michael Vick imploded as a result of his chronic lack of hubris?
The guy who, in my opinion, will eventually be found out to have financed an underground railroad throughout the South for dog fighting so that he wouldn't get caught himself?

According to many accounts, Vick reportedly thought nothing of betting up to as much as $30K on individual dog fights, yet gives Virginia Tech $10K after campus shooting to show his solidarity. Draw your own conclusions.
Imagine how many times that simple fact will be repeated on sports talk radio over the next few months!

Following this sick story of a marketing company being blind to bad PR, is a positive one about some Hoosier soccer players who learned some valuable lessons while in Brazil, the land of Dolphin nemesis Tom Brady's latest girlfriend du jour, the ever popular supermodel Giselle Bundchen, who celebrated her birthday last Friday.
What do you get for the woman who has everything on her birthday when your ex-girlfriend, Bridget Moynahan -one of my longtime favorites- http://www.slate.com/id/2171055/
is due to deliver your first child?
After admiring her from a distance for years, I actually saw her in person in 2002 in Arlington near the Marine Memorial filming that so-so CIA film, The Recruit, with Al Pacino and Colin Farrell, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0292506/
____________________________________________
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-adidas24jul24,1,750784.story?ctrack=1&cset=true
From the Los Angeles Times
Adidas' use of kangaroo hide is illegal, California justices say
By Maura Dolan, Times Staff Writer
July 24, 2007

SAN FRANCISCO — Soccer shoes and other athletic footwear made with prized kangaroo skin are banned under a state law that was upheld Monday by the California Supreme Court.

The court unanimously decided that a 36-year-old ban on the import and sale of products made from various wildlife species, including kangaroo, was not preempted by federal wildlife law.

The case was brought by an animal protection group against Adidas, which sells soccer, rugby and baseball shoes made with the hide of kangaroo species that state law protects. Adidas argued that federal law, which permits the import and sale of kangaroo skin, takes precedence over state law.

A lawyer for Adidas said the shoes at issue would continue to be sold in California until other legal issues in the case are resolved. He said the case eventually could reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

Animal rights groups hailed the decision for giving states the right to protect species even after the federal government decided that they were no longer in peril.

Bending to pressure, soccer star David Beckham, who debuted last weekend with the Los Angeles Galaxy, has announced that he will no longer wear shoes made with kangaroo hide, according to published reports.

"The precedent is major across the country, especially with the number of species losing federal protection," said Jonathan Lovvorn, vice president of litigation for the Humane Society. "It is critically important in terms of a state's ability to protect species."

Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown praised the ruling for protecting the state's autonomy.

"The significance is not just kangaroos and shoes but the authority of the state to protect species by banning products," Brown said. "It reaffirms that California has the authority and autonomy as a state to do this kind of work."

In ruling against Adidas, the court said the federal government's decision to withdraw protection for the kangaroo "leaves the field open for states to act as they individually see fit."

"The Commonwealth of Australia is free to manage its indigenous wildlife populations in any manner it sees fit, subject to international treaty obligations," Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar wrote for the court. "Likewise, California is free to regulate within its own borders unless federal law or the United States Constitution requires otherwise."

The ban, however, could still be repealed by the state Legislature or struck down on other legal grounds as the case proceeds. The state Senate voted in May to end the ban on importing and selling kangaroo parts, and that bill is now in the Assembly. Since 2003, the first year the bill was introduced, Adidas America has spent $435,693 lobbying the Legislature, state filings show.
Lauren Ornelas, campaign director for Viva! Vegetarians International Voice for Animals, said the ruling may help defeat Adidas' effort to end the ban.

"We would like to see these shoes taken off the shelves in California, and see Adidas really put its money and mind into using synthetic material," said Ornelas, whose group filed the lawsuit against Adidas. "Using wildlife for shoes is not acceptable."

Orly Degani, who represented Viva! in the case, said the selling of products containing kangaroo is illegal and the ban can be enforced.

"What [Adidas] is doing is illegal," she said. The Humane Society said the state's Fish and Game Department may be asked to enforce the ban.

In removing the red, eastern grey and western grey kangaroos from the U.S. Endangered Species List in 1995, federal government officials declared that they had become "abundant." In 2005, the population of the three species, whose hides are used in footwear, was just under 25 million.

Adidas Promotional Retail Operations Inc. had argued that the state ban was preempted by federal law. In addition to Adidas, the defendants were Sport Chalet and Offside Soccer.

Andrea Corso, a spokeswoman for Adidas Group, which makes athletic shoes and apparel, said other shoemakers also use kangaroo hide, which she said players prize for the feel.

She said Adidas makes 10 styles of shoes from kangaroo hide, but less than 1% of the company's footwear contains the skin of the marsupial.

"A lot of soccer players strongly prefer it," Corso said.

Beckham, whose wife, Victoria, is a vegetarian, said he reached his decision against wearing the shoes after viewing graphic videos of the killing of baby kangaroos in Australia, news reports said.

Despite Beckham's position, the Galaxy has sided with Adidas in trying to have the ban overturned. The team has said that California soccer players will be at a disadvantage if they cannot wear the lighter, softer shoes.

In addition to banning the sale of products made of kangaroo, the state law also protects the polar bear, leopard, ocelot, tiger, cheetah, jaguar, sable antelope, wolf, zebra, whale, cobra, python, sea turtle, colobus monkey, vicuna, sea otter, free-roaming feral horse, dolphin, porpoise, Spanish lynx and elephant. The law was intended to prevent the extinction of wildlife the state Legislature found were threatened.

The Australian government permits the commercial use of kangaroos and exports their leather and meat, subject to government regulation, the state high court said. "The Australian government still considers some species threatened or endangered, but not the species at issue here," Werdegar wrote.

Martin L. Fineman, who represented Adidas before the court, said that although Adidas lost this challenge, the shoemaker had a strong case that the ban violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution and that Viva! lacked legal standing to file the lawsuit.

California's law banning the import of the animal parts "is a plain attempt to regulate foreign commerce," Fineman said.

UCLA Law Professor Taimie Bryant, who has been following the kangaroo case and the legislation, said the most important part of Monday's ruling was "the emphasis on the state's ability to provide more protection for species that have been historically at risk of extinction.

"So at one hand we have the California Supreme Court emphasizing how important it is for states to make these kinds of decisions, and then you have the Legislature taking away that authority to regulate and protect species," she said.

The court ruled in Viva! vs. Adidas.

maura.dolan@latimes.com
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
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Meanwhile, in some more positive soccer news, despite their loss in the Pan American Games, two Hoosier soccer players gained valuable experience.

http://iuhoosiers.cstv.com/sports/m-soccer/spec-rel/072107aab.html

U.S. Eliminated From Pan American Games
Mexico scores twice in final 15 minutes for victory
July 21, 2007

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Mexico used a man advantage to score a pair of goals in the final 15 minutes for a 2-0 win over the U.S. at the Pan American games on Saturday at Estádio do Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The loss eliminates the Americans from the tournament.
Hoosier sophomore Kevin Alston (Silver Spring, Md.) started his third-consecutive match at the games, while redshirt freshman Daniel Kelly (Hendersonville, Tenn./Hendersonville) came in off the bench in the second half.
The two teams were in a scoreless battle until American Jalil Anibaba picked up his second yellow card of the match in the 72nd minute, giving Mexico a man advantage. They wasted no time, scoring their first goal off the foot of Rodolfo del Real in the 75th minute. Just three minutes later, Mexico made it 2-0 with a score from Enrique Alejandro Esqueda.
The U.S. continued to push the ball to the net but were dealt a blow in the 80th minute when Danny Barrera picked up his second yellow of the match, leaving the team with just eight field players.
With the victory, Mexico advances to the semifinals where it will face Jamaica on July 24.
The U.S. ends the tournament with a 1-2-0 record.