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CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Weary of being stuck with what they call the false label of America's unhealthiest city, Huntington residents are offering a wary welcome to a celebrity TV chef who hopes to help them shape up.
Jamie Oliver is starring in a reality TV show slated to be broadcast next year on ABC. In his native Britain, Oliver has done shows focused on improving school lunch meals and other dietary matters with an aim toward getting people eating healthier and living better.
Oliver came to Huntington last month and the show is taping in West Virginia's second-largest city throughout the fall. Months before it airs, though, the show has opened still-fresh wounds from an Associated Press story last year that used federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data to proclaim the five-county Huntington metropolitan area the country's fattest and unhealthiest.
"The quick, sexy way to promote the show is, 'We're here to save the fattest town in the world,'" said Doug Sheils, director of marketing and public relations at Cabell Huntington Hospital. "That's going to be a label we can't shake for a long time."
Sheils noted that the AP analysis, which drew the attention of Oliver's production company to the area, was based on data for five counties, including counties in Ohio and Kentucky. But it's Huntington that gets stuck with a designation Sheils says it doesn't deserve.
"One of the ways we improve the health of our community is to recruit outstanding physicians from not only around the country, but around the world," he said. "I'm worried that if we get pinned with that label, it's going to be harder for us to recruit physicians and their families to come here."
Oliver and others working on the show have taken pains to say those fears are understandable but unwarranted.
Those conversations haven't made residents unfriendly to the crew working on the show, according to executive producer Craig Armstrong.
The show, which will finish in Huntington in mid-November, should allay fears of a negative stereotype, Armstrong said.
"I know we're here in one community, but in my mind this is really about America," he said Thursday. "When this show airs, I believe people will fully get it and understand its value."
Those words echoed comments Oliver made at a public meeting held in city hall last month, when the celebrity chef said his aim wasn't to attack anyone.
Shortly after that, though, local media outlets ran stories about comments Oliver made to the British Sky News service in which he said residents he'd met with lacked information about healthy eating and cooking from scratch.
That set off a round of formal and informal meetings around the city, in which residents fretted that they would again be the poster child for problems like obesity and lack of exercise.
Cabell-Huntington Health Department Director Dr. Harry Tweel said he was worried that Oliver's show would focus on the negative and not on the efforts to improve residents' health that came before and after the AP story.
Part of the sensitivity, Tweel said, comes from the perception that people in the region weren't aware of the serious health problems many residents here face.
"People are just anxious about getting a fair shake," he said.
Like others, Tweel is optimistic the show can have benefits for the region by drawing attention to healthier lifestyles.
Obesity and related illnesses like diabetes are so common in West Virginia that the extent of the problem has been easy to ignore, said state Delegate Don Perdue, who represents part of the area covered by the CDC statistics.

"All the years of statistics don't strike home as much as the threat of a national TV audience getting this perception about Huntington," said Perdue, who is chairman of the House of Delegates Health and Human Resources committee.

Even so, Perdue is worried about the show.

"If it's accurate and not positive, that's our fault," the Wayne County Democrat said. "If it's inaccurate and negative, that's their fault."

Until the show airs, though, all residents can do is wait and hope for the best.

"If Jamie's coming into town to help make these positive changes, obviously he has to start with something that's not so positive," said Tyson Compton, president of the Cabell-Huntington Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"We realize it's Hollywood and it's all about hype and hoopla and creating interest, but we hope this can put some of the positive things we've done in the national spotlight," he said.

The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee cast serious doubts on whether Democrats can back a major military expansion in Afghanistan, calling the country’s government “almost useless” and drawing a comparison with Vietnam.
After emerging from a Thursday congressional briefing with National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones, Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) said he has concerns about the cost of the war that President Barack Obama called the “front line of the war on terror.”
Obey, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, described Gen.Stanley McChrystal’s call for more resources “intellectually coherent” but raised doubts about the House’s ability to provide funding.
“I find it interesting that we’re being told the health care bill must be fully paid for,” said Obey, who would be in charge of writing the spending bill to provide more resources for Afghanistan. “I don’t hear any such talk in respect to this adventure in Afghanistan, and I think we need to look at it with a new perspective.”
Obey is part of a growing chorus of Democratic voices who are hesitant to support the war without a clear strategy for the future. Some have questioned the appetite in Congress for a surge and the implications it would have on Democrats’ electoral chances in 2010.
The Wisconsin Democrat also sent a letter to Obama expressing concern an uptick in troops, saying the U.S. could incite “more anti-American sentiment that can become a recruiting tool for the very forces we seek to curtail.”
A member of Congress since 1969, Obey said, “I was here during Vietnam, and the costs kept rising, and so did the commitment and so did the debts.”
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LOS ANGELES – A female UCLA student was hospitalized Thursday after a fellow student slashed her throat in a chemistry lab on campus, authorities said.
The suspect, a male student, was arrested in the same chemistry building shortly after the stabbing.
UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton said the victim and suspect were both 20-year-old seniors taking an organic chemistry class along with other students who were in the undergraduate teaching lab at the time.
The woman underwent surgery for multiple stab wounds at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, and was in stable condition Thursday night, Los Angeles police said.
Cyril Baida, a teaching assistant who was working in a lab across the hall, said he saw the victim stagger out of the lab while another teaching assistant applied pressure to her neck, Baida said.
"The poor girl was completely drenched with blood. She was talking at first but then she started fading away," he said. "We told her she was going to be fine and to keep breathing so she didn't pass out. I told the other TA that he was doing great so he didn't faint either."
Baida said he did not know the victim or the suspect, but was told that they were lab partners or had worked together in a small group on projects in their lab section.
Los Angeles city police and campus police interviewed about 30 witnesses who were in or near the lab and might have seen the attack, Campus Police Assistant Chief Jeff Young said. No names have been released, and the motive is under investigation.
"Her TA — that guy deserves a medal. He had his hands around her wounds and was yelling, 'Call 911,'" said Baida, a 26-year-old biochemistry graduate student. "I called 911 and told him to bring her into our lab. He kept holding her so she wouldn't bleed until the paramedics arrived."
Baida said the organic chemistry lab where the attack took place is a demanding class.
"All my students have taken it and they hate it. Usually people bond during classes like that because they have to study together. I don't think it was so tough that it makes people go crazy," he said. "It's awful, but things like this can happen anywhere."
UCLA Chancellor Gene D. Block said the campus community was shocked by the attack and "wishing for the speedy recovery of the young woman who was injured."

LOS ANGELES – "Project Runway" is strutting to Nintendo's Wii.
Atari Inc. is developing a video game based on the popular reality TV fashion competition. The game, set for release next year, will cast players as aspiring fashion designers tasked with creating designs and outfitting models.
Gamers will then be able to showcase their virtual fashions while walking down a catwalk using the Wii Balance Board controller.
"Project Runway" is airing its sixth season on Lifetime.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – Scripps Networks Interactive Inc. is turning Fine Living into the Cooking Channel and moving the cable network from the hills of Tennessee to New York City's food-oriented Chelsea Market.
Scripps spokeswoman Cindy McConkey says Fine Living employees were told Thursday. The revamped channel will launch in third quarter of 2010.
About 20 jobs will be lost at Scripps' 1,000-employee headquarters in Knoxville, though Scripps hopes to find other positions for those workers locally.
Scripps Networks created Fine Living in 2002. The channel reaches 55 million households but hasn't grown as fast as its Knoxville-based sister networks HGTV and DIY Network, both geared to all things about homes.
In New York, the rebranded Cooking Channel will be paired with Scripps' successful acquisition, The Food Network, in studios the company already owns there.
Noting about a third of Fine Living's programming already is food related, McConkey said, "We see huge upside in the cooking category and expect exponential growth with the rebranding."
The move "is not about the failure of Fine Living," she said. "It is more about an opportunity in the cooking category and to speed up the growth and success of our fifth network."
Scripps' fifth network is the Nashville-based country music channel Great American Country.
The company described the new Cooking Channel as a 24-hour network that "caters to avid food lovers by focusing on food information and instructional cooking programming." Scripps will offer video on demand and interactive Internet to complement the channel.
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Scripps Networks: http://www.scrippsnetworks.com/

MOSCOW – A Moscow court on Tuesday ruled against two lesbians seeking to become Russia's first legally married gay couple.
Irina Fedotova-Fet and Irina Shipitko said the Tverskoi District Court upheld a decision by the city's civil registry that said Russian law defined marriage as between a woman and a man.
"We want recognition of our relationship by society and the state. We are a family already, we live together and share household chores," Shipitko said. "We also would like to have children. That is why we want legal recognition of our union."
Nikolai Alexeyev, a longtime Russian gay rights activist who is serving as the women's lawyer, told reporters that they plan to fight the ruling.
"We understand quite well that it is a long road that must be taken before such unions will be recognized. But I have no doubt this recognition will come," he said.
The two women said they planned to fly to Canada later this month to marry and then return to Russia, in a bid to force authorities to recognize the marriage.
Homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in the 1990s, but many Russians are vehemently opposed to expansion of gay rights or gay-rights demonstrations.

PARIS (AFP) –
Norway takes the number one spot in the annual United Nations human development index released Monday but China has made the biggest strides in improving the well-being of its citizens.

The index compiled by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) ranks 182 countries based on such criteria as life expectancy, literacy, school enrolment and gross domestic product (GDP) per capita.

Norway, Australia and Iceland took the first three spots while Niger ranks at the very bottom, just below Afghanistan.

China moved up seven places on the list to rank as the 92nd most developed country due to improvements in education as well as income levels and life expectancy.

Colombia and Peru rose five spaces to rank 77th and 78th while France -- which was not part of the top 10 last year -- returns to the upper echelons by moving up three places to number 8.

The UNDP said the index highlights the grave disparities between rich and poor countries.

A child born in Niger can expect to live to just over 50, which is 30 years less than a child born in Norway. For every dollar a person earns in Niger, 85 dollars are earned in Norway.

This year's index was based on data from 2007 and does not take into account the impact of the global economic crisis.

"Many countries have experienced setbacks over recent decades, in the face of economic downturns, conflict-related crises and the HIV and AIDS epidemic," said the UN development report's author Jeni Klugman.

"And this was even before the impact of the current global financial crisis was felt."

Afghanistan, which returns to the list for the first time since 1996, is the only Asian country among the bottom ten which also include Sierra Leone in the 180th spot, just below the Central African Republic.

The top ten countries listed on the index are: Norway, Australia, Iceland, Canada, Ireland, the Netherlands, Sweden, France, Switzerland and Japan.

The United States ranks 13th, down one spot from last year.

The UN human development report

NEWARK, N.J. – Rookie defensemen Michael Del Zotto and Matt Gilroy both scored, and the New York Rangers broke out of early power-play woes in a 3-2 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Monday night.
After a season-opening loss at Pittsburgh, the Rangers have won two straight. Del Zotto and Ales Kotalik scored power-play goals in the first period, and Gilroy tallied at even strength in the second for New York, which erased two one-goal deficits. Henrik Lundqvist made 25 saves.
The 19-year-old Del Zotto has scored in consecutive games.
Rob Niedermayer scored his first goal with the Devils, and Travis Zajac added a power-play score in the first, but the Devils dropped to 0-2. Both losses have come at home following the return of coach Jacques Lemaire.
David Clarkson assisted on both goals, and Martin Brodeur stopped 23 shots.
Gilroy, last season's Hobey Baker Award winner as the top NCAA player, took a pass in the right circle and smacked a shot that beat Brodeur between the pads with 2:10 left in the second. Gilroy's first NHL point gave the Rangers their first lead of the night.
New York carried the 3-2 lead into the third, something that seemed unlikely in the opening minutes.
The Devils had several scoring chances right away and took advantage just 1:10 in when Niedermayer took a short pass in the right circle from Jay Pandolfo and fired in a shot.
When Dainius Zubrus crashed into Lundqvist 14 seconds later, Rangers coach John Tortorella used his only timeout. With his players on the ice and hanging over the bench, Tortorella yelled at the club and punctuated his points by punching his open palm.
New York defenseman Michal Rozsival took an interference penalty seconds later, but the Rangers killed off the power play and gained momentum.
After failing on their first nine power-play chances in their opening two games, New York snapped out of its slump on Del Zotto's goal. Vinny Prospal fired a shot from the right side that smacked hard off Brodeur and kicked out left. Del Zotto streaked in from the point and shot the puck into the vacated left side that defenseman Paul Martin had little chance to cover at 6:31.
The Devils ended their power-play drought when Zajac scored off a feed from Clarkson at 10:52. New Jersey went 0-for-5 and the advantage in its 5-2 season-opening loss to Philadelphia, including a 5-on-3 chance for a full 2 minutes.
The Devils failed on their other five power-play opportunities Monday, including a brief two-man advantage early in the third.
New York tied it 2-2 after receiving a fortunate power play. Rangers captain Chris Drury leveled Martin with a dangerous, lunging hit with his knee — sending both players to the ice. Drury was jumped by Johnny Oduya, who delivered several punches.
Drury received a minor penalty for kneeing, but Oduya got 4 minutes for roughing. After the ensuing faceoff, Del Zotto sent a pass to Kotalik for a drive from the left point that beat Brodeur with 3:37 left in the second.
NOTES: There was no dueling between Brodeur and Rangers pest Sean Avery, who missed his third straight game due to a knee injury. He might play Thursday at Washington. ... Devils RW Ilkka Pikkarainen made his NHL debut after being activated from the injured list (flu). ... The Rangers had the NHL's second-worst power-play unit in the NHL last season. ... Lemaire went up against Rangers forward Marian Gaborik for the first time. They spent the past eight seasons with the Minnesota Wild. ... The Rangers were 2 for 6 on the power play.

ROME – Scientists have reproduced the Shroud of Turin — revered as the cloth that covered Jesus in the tomb — and say the experiment proves the relic was man-made, a group of Italian debunkers claimed Monday.
The shroud bears the figure of a crucified man, complete with blood seeping out of nailed hands and feet, and believers say Christ's image was recorded on the linen fibers at the time of his resurrection.
Scientists have reproduced the shroud using materials and methods that were available in the 14th century, the Italian Committee for Checking Claims on the Paranormal said.
The group said in a statement this is further evidence the shroud is a medieval forgery. In 1988, scientists used radiocarbon dating to determine it was made in the 13th or 14th century.
But the dispute continued because experts couldn't explain how the faint brown discoloration was produced, imprinting on the cloth a negative image centuries before the invention of photography.
Many still believe that the shroud "has unexplainable characteristics that cannot be reproduced by human means," lead scientist Luigi Garlaschelli said in the statement. "The result obtained clearly indicates that this could be done with the use of inexpensive materials and with a quite simple procedure."
The research was funded by the debunking group and by an Italian organization of atheists and agnostics, he said.
Garlaschelli, a professor of chemistry at the University of Pavia, said in an interview with La Repubblica daily that his team used a linen woven with the same technique as the shroud and artificially aged by heating it in an oven and washing it with water.
The cloth was then placed on a student, who wore a mask to reproduce the face, and rubbed with red ochre, a well known pigment at the time. The entire process took a week, Repubblica said.
The shroud is first recorded in history around 1360 in the hands of a French knight — a late appearance that is one of the reasons why some scientists are skeptical of its authenticity.
Measuring 13 feet (4 meters) long and three feet (one meter) wide, it has suffered severe damage during the centuries, including from fires.
Owned by the Vatican, it is kept locked in a special protective chamber in Turin's cathedral and is rarely shown. The last public display was in 2000, when more than 1 million people turned up to see it, and the next is scheduled for 2010.
The Catholic Church makes no claims about the relic's authenticity, but says it is a powerful symbol of Christ's suffering.
The shroud has been strongly debated within the scientific community. Some researchers claim that patches used in the Middle Ages to repair the cloth after a fire altered the carbon-dating results.
Another study, by the Hebrew University, concluded that pollen and plant images on the shroud showed it originated in the area around Jerusalem sometime before the eighth century.
Garlaschelli told Repubblica he didn't think his research would convince those who have faith in the shroud's authenticity.
"They won't give up," he said. "Those who believe in it will continue to believe."
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On the Net:

The debunking group (in Italian): http://www.cicap.org/

Shroud Web site of the Turin diocese: http://www.sindone.org/

Melitta Coffee Pods

Coffee may be brewed by several methods: boiled, steeped, or pressured. Brewing coffee by boiling was the earliest method, and Turkish coffee is an example of this method.[55] It is prepared by powdering the beans with a mortar and pestle, then adding the powder to water and bringing it to a boil in a pot called a cezve or, in Greek, a briki. This produces a strong coffee with a layer of foam on the surface.[55]

Machines such as percolators or automatic coffeemakers brew coffee by gravity. In an automatic coffeemaker, hot water drips onto coffee grounds held in a coffee filter made of paper or perforated metal, allowing the water to seep through the ground coffee while absorbing its oils and essences. Gravity causes the liquid to pass into a carafe or pot while the used coffee grounds are retained in the filter.[56] In a percolator, boiling water is forced into a chamber above a filter by pressure created by boiling.

PAGO PAGO, American Samoa – A powerful earthquake with a magnitude of up to 8.3 struck in the South Pacific between Samoa and American Samoa around dawn Tuesday, sending terrified residents fleeing for higher ground as a tsunami swept ashore, flattening at least one village. There were no immediate reports of fatalities.
The quake hit at 6:48 a.m. Tuesday (1748 GMT) midway between the two island groups. In Apia, families reported shaking that lasted for up to three minutes. The U.S. Geological Service, which estimated the magnitude at 8.0, said the quake struck 20 miles (35 kilometers) below the ocean floor, 120 miles (190 kilometers) from American Samoa and 125 miles (200 kilometers) from Samoa, with a 5.6-magnitude aftershock 20 minutes later.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center put the quake's magnitude at 8.3 and issued a general alert for the South Pacific region, from American Samoa to New Zealand. It said there were indications a tsunami wave could be "destructive" along some coastlines. Several hours away from the epicenter, Hawaii was put under a tsunami watch, with five emergency centers opened as a precaution.
New Zealander Graeme Ansell said the beach village of Sau Sau Beach Fale was leveled.
"It was very quick. The whole village has been wiped out," Ansell told National Radio from a hill near Samoa's capital, Apia. "There's not a building standing. We've all clambered up hills, and one of our party has a broken leg. There will be people in a great lot of need 'round here."
A five-foot tsunami wave swept into Pago Pago, capital of American Samoa, shortly after the earthquake, sending sea water surging inland about 100 yards (meters) before receding, leaving some cars and debris stuck in mud. Electricity outages were reported, and telephone lines were jammed.
The staff of the port ran to higher ground, and police soon came by, telling residents to get inland. Several students were seen ransacking a gas station/convenience store.
In Fagatogo, water reached the waterfront town's meeting field and covered portions of the main highway, which also was plagued by rock slides.
In Samoa, the powerful quake jolted people awake.
"It was pretty strong; it was long and lasted at least two minutes," one resident told local radio.
"It's the strongest I have felt, and we ran outside. You could see all the trees and houses were shaking," he said.
Sulili Dusi told New Zealand's National Radio that "everything dropped on the floor and we thought the house was going to go down as well. Thank God, it didn't." Along with neighbors, they fled to high ground.
She said the tsunami hit the south side of the island, and some "cars have been taken." She did not elaborate, but added "we just thank God no life has been taken yet."
Another resident, Dean Phillips, said the southern coast of Upolu island had been struck by the tsunami.
"The police are sending everybody up to high ground," he said.
Local media said they had reports of some landslides in the Solosolo region of the main Samoan island of Upolu and damage to plantations in the countryside outside Apia.
There were no immediate reports of injury or serious damage from local emergency services, but people reported cracks in some homes and items tossed from shelves.
The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu issued a tsunami warning for numerous islands in the Pacific, including the Samoas, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand, French Polynesia and Palmyra Island.

The center posted a tsunami watch for Hawaii, Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands, Solomon Island, Johnston Island, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Wake Island, Midway Island and Pitcairn.

In New Zealand, a tsunami alert was issued by national Civil Defense, and the nation's national emergency center was activated.

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Associated Press writer Keni Lesi contributed to this report from Apia, Samoa.

MADRID – Spanish police say narcotics investigators have found euro4.3 million ($6.3 million) in cash buried in a shanty town on the island of Mallorca.
The National Police say authorities trying to break up a drug ring used heavy construction equipment to rip up the concrete floor of a shack in the city of Palma and found seven boxes with the euros, plus 7.5 kilograms (17 pounds) of jewelry and gems and $8,000.
A police statement issued Tuesday said one of the boxes was buried under a dog house in a patio of the home.
The money and other valuables were unearthed during a series of raids that began Sept. 18 in a shanty town called Son Banya.
Police also seized undisclosed amounts of heroin, cocaine and marijuana.

LONDON – West of Karl Marx and just up the path from Charles Dickens' widow and daughter stands author Audrey Niffenegger, deep in the heart of London's Highgate Cemetery, the setting for her new novel, "Her Fearful Symmetry."
Niffenegger — who was propelled to literary stardom by her best-selling novel "Time Traveler's Wife" — is telling a group of tourists about one of the most colorful characters to end up in the Victorian burial ground, the menagerist George Wombwell, who died in 1850 and now lies in a tomb underneath a giant stone lion.
Niffenegger spent years researching the fabled London cemetery for her book — the final resting place for such luminaries as novelist George Eliot, actor Ralph Richardson, physicist Michael Faraday and poet Christina Rossetti, as well as Marx and a handful of Dickenses.
Now she's so familiar with it that she can guide tourists around with professional ease.
The labyrinth of Egyptian sepulchers, Victorian mausoleums, gravestones and Gothic tombs, perched on a hill above the smoke and filth of London, seems the perfect setting for a ghost story about a woman who dies of cancer and returns to haunt her lover and twin nieces.
But Niffenegger, who has developed a cult following for her lushly romantic tales of love, loss and obsession, originally had a less storied place in mind — a huge graveyard outside her hometown Chicago called Graceland.
"At the time I remember thinking: Graceland's fantastic, but if you're going to have a cemetery what's the great cemetery? And that would be Highgate," she said, recalling the days when the idea for the novel first came to her in 2002.
"I was always interested in the Victorian and Edwardian period, and Highgate is such a beautifully concentrated and unusual Victorian place."
The mythical pull of Highgate — where the spirits of the Victorian age seem to whisper around every corner — lies at the heart of "Her Fearful Symmetry." The book begins with the death of Elspeth Noblin at the age of 44, and the subsequent arrival of her American identical nieces to her apartment.
Noblin writes on her deathbed: "A bad thing about dying is that I've started to feel as though I'm being erased. Another bad thing is that I won't get to find out what happens next."
But Elspeth — who also has an identical twin sister — does get to find out: Her spirit remains in the apartment, which borders the cemetery, hiding in the drawer of a desk, and gradually learns how to haunt.
"The novel is about grief, about couples coming together, coming undone, or who seem to be together but will later come undone ... and there are other couples who are reforming, so it's kind of an exercise in symmetry, doubling, twinning, opposites and dark sides," said the 46-year-old Niffenegger, unmistakable in her flowing red hair, ghostly pallor and brainy glasses.
She said many of the cameos in the novel are sewn from the years she spent researching the cemetery, which opened in 1839, and even volunteering there as a tour guide.
Two of those characters are based on the former chair of the charity that looks after the grounds, Jean Pateman, 88, and her husband, John.
On her tours — as in her book — Niffenegger, takes visitors into the gothic wilderness beyond: tombs, graves, catacombs, and mausoleums, many topped by statues of angels.
To the south of this day's tourist group, at the end of a path that weaves fairytale-like through rain-battered graves, unkempt shrubbery, wild flowers and trees, is the tomb of the pre-Raphaelite Rossetti — whose melancholy verses about love and regret — hold particular resonance for Niffenegger.
"What's great about (Highgate) is it really is like a narrative. It sort of unfolds and you can't see very far ahead so you stop them periodically and let them look around and talk about whatever it is that you are standing in front of."
Niffenegger isn't alone among today's premier novelists to have been inspired by Highgate. Tracy Chevalier — author of "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" — set her 'Falling Angels" in the cemetery and calls it "the perfect setting" for a novel.

"Maybe writers are drawn to it because it provides a complete atmosphere — gothic, overgrown, steeped in death — that you don't have to make up. You can just go there and describe what you see," she said in an email interview.

"You can walk around and be quite alone and hidden. I think novelists like secret places, because we are secretive ourselves."

In "Her Fearful Symmetry," Niffenegger once again returns to her favorite themes of love, loss, and identity.

"They seem to run all through my art, not just these last two books but the artwork that I've worked on for the past 27 years, so it seems to be somehow intrinsic to what I think about. I'm not saying that I could never write about anything else, but they seem to get in there without any great effort on my behalf."

Niffenegger, also a successful artist and author of two acclaimed graphic novels, won't comment on media reports that she signed a US$4.5 million publishing deal for the new book.

She is now working on her third novel. Set in Chicago, it's about a 9-year-old girl with hypertrychosis — excessive body hair — and has the working title "The Chinchilla Girl in Exile."

She is also planning a show at her Chicago gallery a year from now — "and somehow while I'm running around I have to make some drawings," she says.

"Her Fearful Symmetry" publisher Random House declined to disclose the novel's print run.

While "The Time Traveler's Wife" has its soundtrack set firmly in the 1980s British and U.S. punk and rock scene, "Her Fearful Symmetry" has traveled a bit further back in time for its opening quote, from the Beatles song "She Said She Said."

"I originally wanted to use a lyric from "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder, but ended up using just the one Beatles' lyric from the album "Revolver," she explains.

Later, sitting in a local rustic pub a short walk from the cemetery, Niffenegger bursts into the song:

"She said, I know what it's like to be dead ... I know what it is to be sad. And she's just making me feel like I've never been born," she sings.

"It would be terrible spoiler for me to tell you why that's an apt quote," she adds with a twinkle in her eye.

Washington (The Weekly Standard) Vol. 015, Issue 03 - 10/5/2009 –
Unemployment is close to 10 percent. The government is embedded in the auto, banking, housing, and insurance sectors. The president's domestic agenda hangs in the balance. Things aren't rosy on the global front, either. Public opinion has turned against the war in Afghanistan just as a major decision on troop levels must be made. The Iranians are busily working to obtain nuclear weapons. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains as intractable as ever. It's a dangerous world at an uncertain time, and last week the president responded by going on the Late Show with David Letterman.
It's all too apparent: Faced with the choice, President Obama prefers the comforts of celebrity to the duties of leadership. In addition to Letterman, there was his appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno last March and his running commentary in the ESPN broadcast booth during baseball's All-Star game last July. You might imagine a lame-duck president making such media appearances, but not one barely nine months into his term. Obama clearly sees himself as a sort of salesman-in-chief, and considers endless speechifying and interview-giving as the best way to further his agenda. The adoring crowds, raucous applause, and obsequious press coverage that accompany his appearances are cherries on top.So, in order to pressure Congress to act on health care and "call out" all the lying racist nihilist cynics who stand in his way, Obama delivered his major address to a joint session of Congress on September 9. He followed that up with giant Si Se Puede rallies in Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Maryland and a dizzying turn on five Sunday morning news shows. Amazingly, Obama has also found time in September to deliver a speech to the nation's schoolchildren; give major addresses on the financial crisis and climate change; and contribute remarks at Walter Cronkite's funeral. The month isn't even over yet, and the salesman-in-chief already resembles the late pitchman Billy Mays. The public doesn't really seem to mind the president's omnipresence: Obama, as we are routinely informed, enjoys decent job approval ratings and higher personal ones. And, yes, he has every right to use the bully pulpit; presidents of both parties have done so to both useful and annoying ends. Nonetheless, there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of the White House's permanent campaign. Chief among them is that presidential appearances are a lot like the money supply: The greater the quantity, the less each individual piece is worth. The public is slowly but surely tuning Obama out--look at the declining ratings for his four nationally televised press conferences. And a president who's always yukking it up is a president susceptible to gaffes. Obama may have survived his latest PR blitz unscathed, but don't forget his tasteless Special Olympics joke on Leno and his petty swipe at Nancy Reagan last December.What's truly unusual is that the president persists in this media strategy even though it shows no signs of succeeding. Obama's job approval may be decent, but it has fallen quickly and dramatically and now hovers slightly above 50 percent in the Gallup poll. More people continue to disapprove than approve of the president's approach to health care, with significant numbers of seniors and independents turning against him. Last week's NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed that the Republicans have narrowed the Democrats' advantage in the congressional generic ballot to three points, the best number for the GOP since 2004. And Republicans are favored in November's elections in New Jersey and Virginia. Obama isn't in this situation because the public doesn't see enough of him. He's in it because his policies have so far failed to produce economic recovery. He's in it because his big spending gives deficit hawks heartburn. The president and his courtiers could try to deal with such concerns, but instead they devote themselves to the nostalgic task of re-creating the conditions surrounding his storybook presidential campaign. That might satisfy Obama's vanity. But it leaves the rest of us ready to change the channel.--Matthew Continetti