Condé Nast has published the May 25, 2009 issue of The New Yorker. Featured in this magazine are articles on Obama’s options in Pakistan, Dodge Landesman, Ari Emanuel and learning-disorder awareness, Todd Palin and Alaska Benefisheries, and Baselworld trade show.

Comment

In Search of Success
Obama’s options in Pakistan.
In 2007, a Guantánamo military commission reviewed prisoner No. 008, also known as Abdullah Gulam Rasoul, a designated enemy combatant who had been held without legal rights for about six years. Rasoul told his captors that he had “never been America’s enemy and I never intend to be.” Guantánamo’s quasi-jurists transferred him to Afghanistan’s government, which set him free. This spring, under the name Mullah Abdullah Zakir, he has resurfaced as one of the most vicious and effective Taliban commanders in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand Province, where thousands of recently deployed U.S. troops are now arriving to join the battle.

The Talk of the Town

Dodge City
The youngest City Council member in history?
Talk story about Dodge Landesman, an eighteen-year-old candidate for City Council.

Fish Out of Water
Todd Palin at Alaska House.
A couple of Fridays ago, when the weather was warm and office workers all over the city were streaming up the avenues at lunchtime, a group of Alaskans gathered at Alaska House, on Mercer Street, for a buffet lunch celebrating a program called Alaska Benefisheries. The program works like this: Every spring, salmon across the Pacific are seized with an urge to swim to Alaska, to spawn in the tributaries of the rivers where they were born. But, before they get there, most are caught by fishermen and sold to restaurants all over the world. What’s not sold is canned and shipped to countries that have food shortages—Bolivia, Laos, Cambodia, among others.

Hug It Out
Ari Emanuel and learning-disorder awareness.
The shtick of successful, confident people insisting that they were losers back in high school can be unconvincing, but the talent agent Ari Emanuel—a winner, if not a born one, who, after the merger of Endeavor and William Morris, will become co-C.E.O. of the second-largest shop in Hollywood—had it pretty tough

The Privileged Few
Now boarding—everybody but you.

On and Off the Avenue

Face Value
What makes the watch business tick.
About luxury wristwatches and the Baselworld trade show. Held over eight spring days for the past thirty-seven years in Basel, Switzerland, Baselworld is the largest watch trade show in the cosmos.

Shouts & Murmors

Book Club
by Ann Hodgman

The Sporting Scene

One-Stop Shopping
The great college lacrosse tryout.
In early summer, high-school rising seniors from all over the United States play lacrosse for three days on the vast campus of the University of Maryland, at College Park.

 
No More Mr. Nice Guy
The stealth activism of John Roberts.
When John G. Roberts, Jr., emerges from behind the red curtains and takes his place in the middle of the Supreme Court bench, he usually wears a pair of reading glasses, which he peers over to see the lawyers arguing before him. It’s an old-fashioned look for the Chief Justice of the United States, who is fifty-four, but, even with the glasses, there’s no mistaking that Roberts is the youngest person on the Court. (John Paul Stevens, the senior Associate Justice, who sits to Roberts’s right, is thirty-five years older.) Roberts’s face is unlined, his shoulders are broad and athletic, and only a few wisps of gray hair mark him as changed in any way from the judge who charmed the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearing, in 2005.

The Sixth Extinction?
The earth’s species in peril.
Describes how graduate student Karen Lips observed the mysterious disappearance of large numbers of local golden frogs, in the nineteen-nineties, at several locations in Panama and Costa Rica. Whatever was killing Lips’s frogs moved east, like a wave, across Panama. Of the many species that have existed on earth, more than ninety-nine per cent have disappeared. Yet extinction has been a much contested concept.

“Ava’s Apartment”
by Jonathan Lethem

The movies of Victor Fleming.

Briefly Noted: “The First Tycoon”; “The Age of the Unthinkable”; “The Way Home”; “All the Living.”

“Mental.”
by Nancy Franklin

An all-black “Death of a Salesman,” “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson.”
by John Lahr

Venice and the birth of opera.
by Alex Ross
 
The portraits of Alice Neel.
by Peter Schjeldahl

The Guggenheim at fifty.
by Paul Goldberger

“Angels & Demons,” “Summer Hours.”
by David Denby
 
“Hummingbird”
by Robert Gibb

“1934”
by Philip Levine

The work of Wallace Shawn.
by Hilton Als

Leonard Freed, at the Silverstein gallery.
by Vince Aletti

Bar Breton
by Mike Peed

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Good Housekeeping has released their June 2009 issue. Featured in this month’s magazine are articles on giving up diet pills, coping with job loss, finding the perfect swimsuit, and saving $10,000 this year.

“I’m Done with Diet Pills!
Meet five women who gave up the gimmicks — and lost 412 pounds.

Burn fat! Suppress your appetite! If only it were as simple as the sellers of quick-weight-loss products would have us believe. These five women all hoped that dropping pounds would be easy — and all turned to diet pills. What they learned: Even if pills seemed to work, it wasn’t for long, and often the price was miserable side effects. In time, they each found a sound weight-loss program based on nutritionally balanced menus and, in most cases, exercise as well. And when they did, a funny thing happened: They finally lost the weight that had plagued them. Here, their inspiring stories.

• Annie Bennett lost 75 pounds with a heart-healthy diet
• Cheyenne Luken lost 100 pounds by joining LA Weight Loss
• Sarah Napier lost 76 pounds with Jenny Craig
• Donna Burke lost 100 pounds by trying NutriSystem
• Kimberly Daur lost 61 pounds by joining Jenny Craig

Coping with Job Loss
If you or a loved one has lost a job, there’s tough emotional terrain ahead. Here, how to navigate it.

Judy Lederman knew that sales were slow — very slow — at the department-store chain where she worked as a public relations manager. But that didn’t make it any less of a shock when she was summoned to corporate headquarters in New York City one day last spring and told her position was being eliminated. Lederman, a 49-year-old single mother from Scarsdale, NY, had always been the employee who got superlative reviews, so she believed she would be safe if any cuts were made. She remembers her supervisor tearfully apologizing after delivering the news. “I didn’t know how to respond,” says Lederman. “Should I have tried to make her feel better? Should I have said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about me. My daughter and I may be homeless, but it’ll be OK’?” she recalls with gallows humor.

As she left the building, Lederman tried to focus on everything she had to do: Consult a lawyer. Update her work portfolio. Schedule doctors’ appointments for herself and her 16-year-old while they still had health insurance. “My mind was spinning like a disc in a broken CD drive,” she says. Out of habit, she began dialing her work voice mail and then realized, “Wait, I’ve been fired. Why check voice mail?”

Lederman is far from alone. With more than 4.4 million American jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007, and the unemployment rate at its highest level in 26 years, chances are you or someone you know has faced a job loss. And even if you are still employed, you’ve probably wondered, at least in passing, “Am I next?”

Although layoffs may now be common, they haven’t become any easier to deal with. “Losing your job is like identity theft: Your sense of who you are can vanish,” says Debbie Mandel, author of Addicted to Stress: A Woman’s 7-Step Program to Reclaim Joy and Spontaneity in Life. And your feelings in response to that loss, whether it’s yours or that of someone you care about, can be surprising and tumultuous — and can hit you deeper than you ever anticipated. Here, experts and women who have been there share how you can get through this tough, uncertain time.

Find Your Perfect Swimsuit
Tempted to cover up at the beach this summer? Don’t — check out these comfortable, confidence-inspiring swimsuits that flatter every shape and size.

Save $10,000 This Year
Find out how to benefit from the new tax laws.

Despite all the talk about the benefits of the new administration’s economic initiatives, you may be left wondering, “But what’s in it for me?” The answer: probably some much-needed cash.

Between the February stimulus (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) and President Obama’s foreclosure-prevention program (Making Home Affordable), it’s the rare taxpayer who will wind up empty-handed. “There’s something for everyone, and quite a lot for some people,” says Brenda Schafer, an analyst with the Tax Institute at H&R Block.

Here are specifics on new incentives that’ll put more money in your pocket:

• Buy a Home — Save Up to $8,000
• Keep on Working — Save $400
• Refinance a Mortgage — Save About $200 a Month
• Buy a New Car — Save $200+
• Help Your House Go Green — Save $1,500+
• Pay for College — Save $2,500
• Modify a Mortgage — Save About $400 a Month, Plus $5,000

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Bird Talk has published it’s June 2009 issue! Featured in this magazine are articles on making a bird themed planter, making your parrot behave as a team, sound proofing your home with plants, love-birds, and Spinifex pigeons.

Editor’s Note
My name is Tori. That’s T-O-R-I, and it is not short for Victoria.

You may be wondering why I am writing this month’s editorial note. Laura has been locked out of her office, after my clever ploy of distracting her with the sweet potato fiasco in Jessica’s cubicle. You see, I had to take over this editor’s note. It was about all these human-specific articles, with tips for keeping the cage clean and how to soundproof with plants. Ahem, might I point out this is BIRD TALK magazine, not HUMAN SPEAK magazine? I am on the cover, and I declare those articles as useless as wax paper. I cannot chew wax paper; therefore, it has no use to me, or any reason to be at the bottom of my cage.

First off, keeping the cage clean? Are you mad? I work diligently, day-after-day, to make my cage as messy as possible. That is my job as a bird. Also, my job is to be noisy, so why would you soundproof me with plants? And I can’t even chew on those plants? What use is a plant if you can’t tear it up?

As for the memo to African greys, Parker and Pepper … I have one for you: Eat your memo, and tuck it into your rump feathers. That is what paper is for, dear cousins (twice removed). Your compliance will be noted by the amount of shredded paper that you leave at the bottom of your cage.

After the editors rejected my article ideas — “Chew This!” and “Why Peach Faces Rule!” as well as my cover blurbs “Scream Louder!” and “Tips & Tricks For Destroying Your Cage (and getting a new one to replace it)” — I couldn’t take it anymore. I would like to point out that not only am I the cover bird, I also grace the table of contents and one of the main articles. How could you not see how my articles would have made this issue pop?

Bird Fairy Gardens
Make a bird-themed planter.
The latest landscaping craze is fairy gardens; decorative planters that have a theme. You can buy fairy houses and miniature accessories and create cute, miniature-themed worlds among your plants. Using little bird mementoes and flair, you can make your own little bird-themed container plant. They are fun to have as décor for your front porch, or create one for your bird-loving friend as a one-of-a-kind gift.

Save It For Later
Cook once, serve all week.
Not too long ago, I was a commitment-phoebe when it came to cooking; the less ingredients the better and the less time, even better. One commonality made me re-think my kitchen routine: having picky eaters; both kids and parrots. I’ve seen my fare share of meals gone to waste, totally ignored or flung across the room. That’s why, once I found recipes that worked, I bought more tupperware and ZipLock bags. Now I set aside one or two days a week to cook the pasta dish the kids love and the rice-and-bean medley the birds run down to their food bowls for. I have birdie bread and muffin mixes to thank for family-fun baking sessions; the boys mix it and I bake it. Two half-hour sessions a week give the flock a bit of crumble yum daily for the entire week.

It’s A Team Effort
A well-behaved parrot is everyone’s responsibility.

One of the biggest challenges that parrot owners contend with is getting everyone in the house on the same page. Consistency and agreement are critical to any training plan. Just ask any teenager who has played their mom off their dad to extend their curfew. A united front is critical for behavioral success.

The challenge with parrots is that they are long-lived, extremely observant and very smart. Fortunately, all of these wonderful attributes also contribute to the solution. You don’t have to outwit your parrot, you simply need to understand that every interaction with it is a training session. Everyone must agree what you are trying to teach the parrot and how you are going to do it.

Sound Advice
Sound proof your home with plants.
Tessa, our lovebird, always happily chatters away in her cage and I love the sounds of her boundless energy and endless joy. But some days, especially when I am at work on the computer, I’ve often thought I should have a tiny caution sign with a silhouette of a person holding a finger to the mouth that reads, “Quiet Please: People at Work!” Instead of a sign though, I have found a better way of reducing noise level in a room — I use houseplants!

Clean That Cage
Tips & tricks for keeping the cage clean.
We’ve all been there (or are going to be there). Flung food on the cage bars, poop in those impossibly hard-to-reach places and the dog wolfing the scattered bird seed and pellets as if it’s buffet night with the family. Certainly after a long, long day at work, cleaning the cage is the last thing on our minds. So we put off cleaning until we have free time, and then wonder, three weeks, later what that smell is emitting from the bird cage. (Is that corn? Dog, you were supposed to eat that!)

The Three Faces Of Lovebirds
Peach-faced, Fischer’s and masked lovebirds show off their unique feats.
A half-shredded palm leaf toy, a pile of feathers and a layer of paper strips are all bundled up in the corner of the cage, and standing atop the mess is a peach-faced lovebird, nibbling a paper strip in her beak. She’s building a nest: an elaborate pad to which she’s been carry strips of paper and palm to all day.

Not Your Average Pigeon
The spinifex pigeon looks & acts like a quail.
Spinifex pigeons (Geophaps plumifera) are widespread and locally common in the arid interior of north-central Australia, where the white-bellied G. p. plumifera and G. p. leucogaster are found, and in central-western Australia, which is the range of the isolated red-bellied G. p. ferruginea. Although named because of an apparent close association with Triodia and Plectrachne spinifex grasses, the birds are not confined to areas with spinifex groundcover, nor are they found in all places where these drought-resistant grasses grown.

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The Connecticut Magazine has released their May 2009 issue. Featured in this month’s magazine are 50 Connecticut dishes you should try before you die, Angels & Demons, teeth whitening, mini face-lifts, brow lifts, hair restoration, fractional laser resurfacing, and a home decorating and remodeling guide.

50 Dishes To Try Before You Die
Although Connecticut is a veritable paradise of gastronomical delights, there are certain signature dishes that anyone who considers themself a true resident should try at least once. Here are 50 to get your started.

Happy Days
From his memorable turns as Opie Taylor and Richie Cunningham to his latest directorial effort Angels & Demons, Academy Award winner Ron Howard has enjoyed a long and successful Hollywood career while maintaining that “aw shucks” charm.

Change You Can See and Feel
We look at the latest trends in teeth whitening, mini face-lifts, brow lifts, hair restoration, fractional laser resurfacing and more. Looking better doesn’t have to take weeks anymore!

Special Section: Home Decorating & Remodeling Guide
Looking to make some changes to your house or yard? Let us inspire you with a trio of recent makeovers, then help you get it done with our comprehensive list of products and services.

Columns And Departments

Lary Bloom’s Notebook
The high-profile divorce case of United Technologies chairman George David and his Swedish countess wife has provided all the lurid fireworks anyone could desire.

First
Sorting out the sources for state budget deficit projections, playing brain games with Charles van Doren and exploring the new Connecticut Science Center. Plus, spring fashion trends, My Little Red Book and more.

This Month
The monthly assortment of plays, shows, exhibitions, fairs and events as well as a chat with always-perverse director John Waters and a visit to Two Boots in Bridgeport.

Travel/Ski Towns in Summer
We journey to four renowned ski towns that offer as much to do in the summer as they do in the winter.

The Connecticut Table
Top-of-the-line dining at Winvian in Morris and The Study at Yale in New Haven. Plus, a recipe from the new Barcelona cookbook, Table Talk and the state’s most comprehensive dining guide.

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EatingWell has released their May/June 2009 issue. Featured in this month’s magazine are articles on making seasonal, farm-fresh produce the center of your diet, grilling healthy, 5 healthy and quick weeknight meals, High fructose corn syrup, HFCS, and kitchen tips.

Eatingwell in Season
If you could do just one thing for your health, says this doctor, it would be to make seasonal, farm-fresh produce the center of your diet.

On a sunny Friday, Preston Maring, M.D., the associate physician-in-chief at Kaiser Permanente’s Oakland hospital, leaves his office to go food shopping. Just downstairs, on the sidewalk in front of the hospital, a farmers’ market is in full swing. Roberto Rodriguez is arranging flats of organic strawberries so fragrant you can smell them from 10 feet away. In the stall next door, stalks of rhubarb and artichokes are piled high near bouquets of garden roses. On a table, paper bags are overflowing with a potpourri of market produce and flowers. “Pick-of-the-market bags,” Maring explains. “If you are too busy to shop, you can just reserve one of these.” Everywhere, people are smiling and saying, “Hey, Preston!”

If it seems as if Dr. Maring, a tall, graying man, knows everyone at this farmers’ market it’s because he does: he started it. In 2003, Maring helped to get this market off the ground and then persuaded Kaiser to start farmers’ markets at 30 other hospitals. Says Maring: “If we can just get people to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, we can really impact people’s health.”

He also set about revamping the hospital food system by getting the health-care company to buy more fresh produce from local farms. In 2006, Kaiser Permanente purchased only 25 of the 250 tons of produce served in 20 Northern California hospitals from local farms. In three years, that amount has risen to 74 tons. The Kaiser project now serves as a model for hospitals around the country and is part of a worldwide initiative to make health care more sustainable, called Health Care Without Harm.

Healthy In A Hurry
Enjoy succulent beef tenderloin, roast chicken and more without ever turning on your oven.

Does anything inspire more “oohs” and “ahs” than golden, juicy cuts of meat hot off a grill? Hardly. We wanted in on this game, so, never ones to be shy, we bought a testosterone-doped grill that arrived at our house in Connecticut on a flatbed truck and had to be off-loaded with a forklift.

For a time, we lived in grill bliss: seared steaks, jerk-rubbed pork chops, oohs and ahs aplenty.

Then we realized we were going to have to haul that behemoth in and out of the garage at the beginning and end of every grill season. Getting it indoors last winter was no problem. It was all downstairs. Yeah, somebody’s back bore the brunt of it, but two Advil and the job was done.

For months, we missed the grill fare, but summer comes inevitably, even in New England. And then came the epic struggle. Upstairs to the deck, six steps that might as well be six flights—the two of us struggling under the grill like the middle-aged oafs we are, the dog barking, the rail bulging as the thing knocked against it.

What we’ll do to get back to those oohs and ahs. Yes, we’re now ensconced in the usual fare from the grate: chicken and chops, caramelized right over the heat. But to bring out the best in the grill—and the most admiration from an audience—we like to break out the big cuts of meat: the pork loins, the legs of lamb. Cut into a crispy, brown turkey breast and get ready for your big bow!

5 Budget Friendly Weeknight Meals
The other day I heard my mother-in-law, who was visiting, yell at some corporate bigwig on the evening news to “Give us our money back!” Like many of us, she’s thinking about her finances these days. Eating at home more often is one easy way to cut costs. But by how much? We started calculating the price tag for recipes in EatingWell a couple of months ago. It turns out that eating healthfully at home can be pretty affordable compared with going out. And we’re not talking about converting to a strict beans-and-rice diet every night of the week. We’ve even included New York steak and wild Alaskan salmon in this lineup of weeknight meals and they all come in at $4.50 or less a serving—a fraction of what they would cost in a restaurant.

These meals are so affordable, in part, for the same reason that they’re so good for you: we don’t overdo it on meat. Eating less meat or even vegetarian meals occasionally is healthy. When we include meat or fish in our recipes, we recommend a reasonable-size portion of 3 to 4 ounces per serving. That may seem small if you’re used to plate-size porterhouse steaks, but we promise that these recipes won’t leave you hungry. We make sure they also include plenty of whole grains, veggies, fruit and flavor. Besides the New York steak (on kebabs with potatoes and peppers) and the salmon (with a spicy red pepper sauce and grilled zucchini) we’ve also got a pizza topped with arugula and fresh tomatoes, huevos rancheros with green salsa and oven-fried fish-and chips. I definitely can’t fix the stock market for my mother-in-law. But I can offer these five recipes as a personal financial stimulus plan that’s both tasty and healthful.

Nutrition Watch

What’s So Bad About High Fructose Corn Syrup
“It’s natural, nutritionally the same as table sugar and has the same number of calories,” say ads for high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). Others call the sweetener “a growing health hazard,” “naturally evil,” and worse. For now, the naysayers seem to be winning: the number of foods flaunting “No HFCS” labels is rising steadily. Even Snapple and Pepsi recently launched new beverages sans HFCS. But what’s the truth about HFCS? Here’s what we found when we looked at the science.

Is HFCS the main culprit in the obesity epidemic?
The theory sounded logical in 2004, when an article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition proposed it. The study’s authors—including Barry Popkin, Ph.D., director of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill’s Interdisciplinary Obesity Center—pointed out that from 1970 to 1990 Americans’ intake of HFCS increased by more than 1,000 percent. The researchers also noted that, during that same time, the proportion of Americans who were overweight or obese increased from about half to two-thirds.

Singling out HFCS turned out to be unjustified, Popkin now admits. “Dozens of human studies on HFCS and energy intake and weight change show that our hypothesis was wrong.” The American Medical Association came to a similar conclusion last June, when it announced: “High-fructose corn syrup does not appear to contribute more to obesity than other caloric sweeteners.”

Kitchen Tips & Techniques

How to Make Fruit Jams, Butters and Chutneys
Freeze or Can Ripe Summer Fruit for the Best of the Season All Year Long.

Can’t get enough of ripe summer fruit? Preserve it for the rest of the year in a batch of fruit butter, jam or chutney. Think of these recipes as basic guidelines that leave you plenty of room to experiment. Just prepare the fruit as directed and let your imagination run wild. Try chutney, a spicy-sweet-sour condiment made with fresh and dried fruit, sugar, vinegar and chiles. Serve it alongside simple roasted meat or pan-seared tofu steaks. Fruit butter and jam are similar; both are sweetened fruit spreads, but fruit butters are made by cooking down the fruit mixture until thick and sticky instead of adding pectin to set the mixture as you do with a jam. Both are delicious spread on whole-grain toast or stirred into plain yogurt. These recipes work with any fruit in any season. Give jars of peach chutney as a summer party favor or wrap up homemade apple butter for the winter holidays. Whether you have a marathon picking session at your local berry farm or stop by a farmstand for a flat of cherries, spend a little time in your kitchen preserving the best of summer.

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American Angler has published it’s May 2009 issue! Featured in this issue are several articles on cutthroats trout. Struggling for survival in a tiny portion of its native range, the fish that fed American explorers is trying to make a comeback.

Mountain Marvels
The state fish of both Montana and Idaho is actually misnamed, for westslope cutthroat occur on both sides of the continental divide. Although it can be difficult to identify the subspecies by sight, anglers can often recognize one of these gorgeous fish by the distinctive pattern of spots. Small, irregularly shaped spots are sparse on the back and head, and they become more numerous as you move toward the tail, with the belly and sides often spot-free. The average size is 6 to 16 inches, and an 18-incher is a trophy.

Return of the Native
The three main causes of its decline are habitat loss, the introduction of non-native species, and hybridization with other subspecies of cutthroats. The widespread stocking in the northern Rockies has been a disaster for the westslope cutthroat: brook trout outcompete the westslopes for food in small headwater streams, and larger species—rainbows, browns, and northern pike, for example—prey on the native cutts.

By the late 1950s, the cutthroats were confined to headwater streams that were protected by downstream barriers such as waterfalls or dams. Recent decades have witnessed a concerted conservation effort to save the westslope cutt and restore it to many waters from which it has disappeared. Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks is in the process of using rotenone to remove non-native species and reintroducing westslope cutts to 21 high mountain lakes.

Take It to the Bank
When it comes to stillwater success, we have much to  learn from our brothers across the pond.

In nearly 30 years as a fly-fishing instructor and guide, I’ve received many requests from clients for advice on strategies and techniques for fishing still water for trout. Whether you’re wading in the shallows or casting from the bank or a dock, there’s no doubt that fishing lakes can be daunting, if not downright intimidating to stream anglers who are used to reading currents and seams. When, at age 16, I made my first visit to 40,000-acre Lough Mask on the western coast of Ireland, I felt like curling up into the fetal position.

The Scottish, English, Irish, and Welsh have taken stillwater fly fishing to an art form still rarely seen on these shores. The UK is a crowded place, and as huge reservoirs were built to supply towns and cities with fresh water, those reservoirs were also used for recreational activities, such as boating, bird watching, and fly fishing. The reservoirs are close to the cities, and many farmers and landowners saw an opportunity to cater to fly fishermen. Thousands of stillwater fisheries—some developed as clubs and some created for pay-as-you-fish—were opened across the UK and in Ireland. Some fly fishermen I know in the UK have more than 50 years in the sport, and they have never fished in moving water.

For many fly fishermen, these fisheries have given them access to fish that they otherwise would not have because the fishing rights of many rivers are privately held and a day’s angling can be cost-prohibitive. In North America we are spoiled because we still have countless places to fish; all you need is a valid fishing license. One up for the colonies. The downside for us is that we haven’t concentrated nearly so much on developing stillwater tactics and techniques, and it’s high time we started catching up.

Season Opener
Northeast anglers anxiously anticipate the revival of inshore waters and some of the year’s most enjoyable fly fishing.

Outside of taking a destination fishing trip, most northeastern anglers bide the long off-season by reading, tying flies, attending to gear, or otherwise engrossed in productive off-the-water activities. The unique coastal action that suddenly materializes in late April and up to May and runs through June is a welcome starting point to the season, bringing out boyish enthusiasm in even the saltiest anglers after four or five months of daydreaming.

In spring, a multitude of perennial prey spawning activities yields rich feeding opportunities for northbound migratory game fish, including stripers, bluefish, hickory shad, and weakfish, as well as stripers emerging from wintering areas within New England coastal rivers. These breeding phenomena ignite shallow estuarine environments, which are often bordered by fertile salt marshes. Coastal bays, salt ponds, and river mouths warm quickly with intensifying sunlight. They are nutrient-rich and sustain abundant forage, meaning that fly-rodders at all levels enjoy perhaps the easiest fishing the sea has to offer in these pristine waters.

Weather plays an important role in the quality and timing of spring fishing—both seasonally and day-to-day—as water temperatures are a key factor influencing both predator and prey behavior. Lengthening spring days warm the surface and stimulate activity within shallow bottom sediments, producing ideal conditions for spawning prey and their young. But an “early” or “late spring” can accelerate or delay the start by as much as three weeks. Once things get going, fishing is generally consistent through the end of June when spawning events conclude and many game fish depart for deeper, cooler ocean waters.

Working the Line
Use mends to make your flies dart, skip, or rise, adding fish-tempting action to your presentations.

For many anglers, a fellow guide once argued, “mending is a simple concept poorly understood.” Most fly-fishing professionals will agree that even some of those clients who know how to mend don’t necessarily understand why it’s such an important part of a proper presentation. The reason for this, of course, is that mastering the mend requires the angler to conceptualize how the behavior of his line on the surface—which he can see—affects the drift of his fly, which, if it’s a nymph or a streamer, he often can’t see. The day it all makes sense represents a great leap forward in the development of a fly fisherman.
 
But once you’ve learned to use line mends to render your drifts lifeless, it’s time to think about using these same concepts to give patterns life—to activate the presentation. Rather than counteracting the effects of current on your line, you can instead use this tension to make a streamer dart erratically without pulling it out of a good lie, make a nymph rise in the water column, or work flies into spaces that you could never cast to. Using the current and your line to work the fly means you can keep it in the strike zone longer, fishing slower, or make multiple presentations within the same drift.

Adding Life
Since we’re talking about imparting action to flies, this technique is most useful when you’re fishing streamers. One of the simplest ways to move your fly using mends is to cast quartering downstream and then start making short, sharp downstream mends very quickly. This has the effect of causing your fly to dart up and across the current as the line swings. Especially if you’re using a pattern with a lot of marabou or other soft fibers, this darting motion will cause the pattern to pulse in a lifelike manner rather than simply move across the current stiffly—as in the traditional Atlantic salmon or steelhead swing. And since you’re not stripping line, the fly doesn’t get pulled out of the strike zone as quickly.

Googling the Backcountry
Online mapping technology can help you find new, untapped waters and offers a way to create detailed fishing journals.

This blows,” and other bitter thoughts run through your mind as you’re faced with a familiar scene: There’s not one open parking spot at your favorite put-in. Looking up and down the river, you can see other anglers fanned out like the crowd at a parade, shoulder to shoulder in places. Worm-dunkers with coolers are setting up their lawn chairs at the foot of the ramp, and the canoe hatch is starting just upriver. You’ve got to get out of this place, but how do you find quality water where you can fish unmolested without a boat?

What you need is a way to take advantage of all the public land out there, all those waters flowing unfished on the way-back forty of a remote tract of national forest or BLM property. But the problem is obvious: You don’t have time to search hundreds of acres of public land just to find two or three good fishing spots. What you need is a shortcut. You need Google Earth.

What Does It Get Me?
No matter where you live, within a couple hours’ drive are some big chunks of public land. Chances are, these big areas contain lots of fishable water, but there’s a problem: How do you find the good water without wasting tons of time and wearing out your hiking boots? Sure, you could hike every square foot of a watershed, but there’s a better way to refine your search.

There are lots of reasons you might want to fish on public land, as opposed to, say, a well-known tailwater. First of all, there’s the privacy. Nothing beats a remote forest creek for solitude; you won’t see any canoes or party floats here. Second, the fishing can be great. Obscure species, such as Southern-strain brookies and Apache trout, are obvious targets, but many public properties hold lots of bigger fish, too. Rainbows and browns alike make spawning runs out of lakes into tributary streams all over the country. These lake-run fish can easily cross the five-pound mark, and many of them have never seen a fly. Enthusiastic fisheries managers planted steelhead and even salmon in many out-of-the-way locations back in the anything-goes 1960s. Some of those fish hold on, too. For obvious reasons, nobody’s going to lead you by the hand to such excellent fishing, so if you want in, you need to stake your own claim.

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The July 2009 issue of Family Tree Magazine has been released! Featured in this issue are articles on guide to special censuses, reverse genealogy, genealogy programs, tracing slave ancestors, and mining genealogical treasures at reunions.

Guide to Special Censuses
There’s more to the census than those every-10-years counts. These “extra” censuses of select populations may have just the ancestor answers you need.

Switching Gears
Think tracing your tree back in time is the only way to go? Think again. We got some unconventional researchers to share their reverse genealogy secrets.

Meeting Your Match
Longing for the perfect mate to help you record, organize and share your genealogy findings? Don’t make a blind date—our beginner’s guide to genealogy software explains how to find the right program for you.

Tracing Slave Ancestors
Don’t stop your family history search at the Emancipation Proclamation. Use these techniques to discover African-American roots obscured by slavery.

Reunion Riches
Gold-digging at a family get-together is generally frowned upon. But mining for genealogical treasures can build a priceless family legacy.

Columns & Departments

Branching Out
What’s new in discovering, preserving and celebrating your family history:
• the Norway Project
• genealogy news roundup
• the Cologne, Germany, city archive’s collapse

Web Guides
Learn to master family history Web sites: Whether you’re a beginner or a power user, our pullout guides show you how to make the most of popular online destinations, with how-to advice, navigation hints, screen-by-screen search techniques and cheat sheets of quick links and shortcuts.

The Toolkit
Reviews and roundups of the latest, greatest family history resources:
• Web site building tips
• quick guide to online family and local history books
• Irish Family History Foundation Web site
• review of RootsMagic 4 software for Windows
• The Book Report

Out on a Limb
Here today, gone tomorrow?

Preserving Memories
Tips for saving vintage toys.

Everything’s Relative
Tales from the lighter side of family history.

Photo Detective
Pinpointing places in pictures.

Uprooted
Test your genealogy IQ on Walt Disney’s family tree.

Taste of Home has released the April/May 2009 issue of Healthy Cooking. Featured in this magazine are articles on beating diabetes, 4 contest winning recipes with 7g of fat or less, using a rainbow palette to pick healthy food, Caroline Shively, salad dressing recipes, and stretching to stay fit.

Eat to Beat Diabetes
Nowadays, the idea of enjoying a little sugar isn’t so hard to swallow

A new day has dawned for those with diabetes, and the future is filled with sweet possibilities. That’s because sugar is no longer considered the culprit it used to be.

Doctors once solely blamed sugar for increasing glucose and wreaking havoc on the body. Studies later revealed that sugar has the same effect on blood glucose as other carbohydrates.

Today, experts recommend monitoring the total amount of carbs in a meal plan as opposed to focusing on sugar alone.

This means that most diabetics may include a sensible amount of sugar in their diet … and that’s sweet news.

By the Numbers
Contest-winning recipes with 7 g of fat or less

You liked them so much, we’ve pleased to give you even more main-dish recipes with 7 g of fat or less! As a bonus, all these recipes are previous contest winners! Do you have a recipe that’s good enough to win?

• Sausage Pasta Stew
• Three Bean Casserole
• Stir-Fried Veggies With Pasta
• Tangy Meat Sauce

Color it Healthy
A rainbow’s palette provides the perfect guide to help pick foods that boost your health.

Did you enjoy the colorful recipes from pages 38-52 in our April/May 2009 issue? Read on for even more health info and 10 bonus recipes!

Purple
From vitamins and fiber to powerful antioxidants that may help keep cancer at bay, vibrant violets are some of the best good-for-you foods around. We focused on eggplant and plums in the bonus recipes.

Red
Red foods such as tomatoes may help prevent breast and prostate cancer and heart disease. Strawberries contain powerful antioxidants, which may protect brain cells and boost our immune system.

Green
Gorgeous greens vary in flavor from mild to sweet to peppery and offer many health benefits. You’ll find fiber and vitamins in green produce, as well as antioxidants that promote vision and reduce the risk of some cancers. Brussels sprouts and kale are two healthy choices.

Yellow/Orange
Yellow and orange foods pack a hefty dose of antioxidants! From vitamin C to beta-carotene, orange and yellow fruits and veggies keep your eyes perky and your immune system healthy. Try these recipes featuring carrots and pineapple.

My Healthy Life
Fox News correspondent Caroline Shively shares her cooking secrets

This issue, we got to know a little about one of our readers, Caroline Shively of Fox News. Turns out she reads our magazine and enjoys cooking from it!

So what did we learn from her? When Caroline’s not on the go covering national headlines, she’s busy cooking, spending time with her husband and trying to stay fit. Try her bonus recipe and read more of our interview. And learn even more about her on the Fox News site.

Healthy Salad Dressing Recipes
Zesty salad dressings to help you use your calories wisely

Salads can be deceptive – while the vegetables are healthy, the dressing and other toppings can blow a day’s worth of calories in one sitting if you aren’t careful.

These delicious dressings will add extra flavor to your salads while helping you stay on your diet.

Stretching to Stay Fit
This reader has an easy and affordable way to “reach” toward his fitness goal every day.

Looking for a simple way to integrate fitness into your day? Trying to improve or expand an existing workout? It’s not too much of a stretch to say that the solution is stretching!

Not only is stretching simple and economical, but it increases your flexibility and agility and helps keep you feeling your best.

Seemingly passive activities like sitting on the couch watching television can cause unused muscles and tendons to tighten. So, if your idea of stretching is reaching for the TV remote control, it might be time to loosen up those muscles…and do some stretching exercises!

It’s well-documented that stretching reduces the risk of injury and improves workouts, but stretching can enhance your daily life, too. Stretching primes your body for everything from golfing and snow shoveling to shopping at the mall and playing with the kids.

Stretching every day also reduces stress, improves your posture and can even help ease back pain. Plus, stretching doesn’t involve expensive equipment…and there’s always time to sneak in a stretch or two—no matter where you are.

A Tour of the Healthy Heart
What is the healthy heart? It’s the heart that most people are born with—a powerful, four-chambered miracle of efficiency about the size of a clenched fist.

A healthy adult heart pumps five quarts of blood through 60,000 miles of flexible, smooth tubing every minute. Arteries carry blood away from the heart, bringing oxygen and nutrients to every part of the body, including the heart muscle. On the return trip through the veins, the blood carries very little oxygen.

For the healthy heart, “tired blood” flowing into the right side of the heart is an easy problem to solve. The heart pumps the blood into the lungs, where waste such as carbon dioxide is discharged. After loading up with oxygen, the blood flows back to the left side of the heart, which—once again—pumps it to every tissue in the body.

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Hearst Communications has published the June 2009 issue of Harper’s Bazaar. Featured in this months magazine are an interview with Sandra Bullock, a bride’s quest to find the perfect non-white wedding dress, and a look at what’s going to be chic this fall.

Sandra Bullock: Myth & Reality
She spent her 20s worrying and her 30s working nonstop. Now in her 40s, the actress is living life her way.

On a clear afternoon in the desert, Sandra Bullock was having a near-perfect Saturday. She and her husband of almost four years, Jesse James, 40, were riding dirt bikes across a dry lake bed, taking in the view of the mountains and the desolate beauty of the landscape.

“Then on Monday, my publicist says, ‘Oh. My. God. There are pictures of you everywhere.’ And I said, ‘From what? We just went on this little trip!'” says Bullock, who is sitting on the floor in a West Hollywood photo studio where she spent the day shooting promos for her latest film, The Proposal. (Chairs don’t seem capable of containing her. The energy and gestures are so big that she may be safer on the floor.) It seems that an amateur paparazzo snapped her during a pit stop on the way to the middle of nowhere, and the rare candid shot of the star taken outside of her adopted hometown of Austin made its way to the Internet. “I panicked. We were in the desert, no place to pee. So I peed outside. [I thought] on the cover of the tabloids, there’s going to be a picture of me peeing by a cactus. And yes, I did it. I’ll do it again.”

For people who love Bullock, 44, there are a couple reasons why this story proves their affections haven’t been squandered. For one thing, the same woman who wore a Dior gown with grace to the Golden Globes a few months ago and is consistently listed as one of the most powerful females in Hollywood also enjoys riding dirt bikes. And for another, she thinks it’s all fairly hysterical.

“Right now, I’m kind of getting into my childhood,” says Bullock, by way of explanation. “I didn’t have a teenage or early-20s experience that was free and without worry. I missed the screw-everything, have-a-good-time phase. I was worried that if I didn’t stay on track and work, work, work, I was never going to accomplish anything. Now I’m trying to have fun and have the freedom to do nothing.”

The Bride Wore Blue
One woman’s journey to find the perfect wedding dress in any shade other than snowy white.

I have never once imagined myself in a wedding dress. Not when I was little and liked to take my parents’ quilted wedding album off its shelf and admire, on its thick board pages, the photos of my dark-haired father and my mother with a ring of daisies on her head. And not when I grew old enough to see my own friends swathe themselves in yards of lace and satin and taffeta in subtly differing shades of cream and ivory and bone.

And not even once in the months after my boyfriend and I decided we should get married ourselves. “You’ll see,” everyone says. “It all feels different when the time comes.”

Well, the time came and went, and at no moment did I long to wear anything specifically bridal. Which is not to say I didn’t love being a bride, in the sense that getting married makes one a bride. I just never at any moment imagined myself in white.

A Trend-by-Trend Look at Fall
The runways were ablaze with color, pattern, and pop. Here’s a glimpse of some of the most memorable looks, from bold animal prints and unique ethnic motifs to timeless standbys like the classic white shirt and the ever-chic camel coat. Don’t miss out on all of the best trends that will not only make you feel good, but look it, too.

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HOW magazine has published a special issue on designer’s guide to creativity. HOW’s June issue is packed full of inspiration and techniques for keeping your most valuable asset—your creativity—in perfect shape. This special Creativity Issue dives deep into the issue that both challenges and enthralls designers, with tips, inspiration and eye candy to fuel your best ideas.

Daily Deadlines
Learn how a commitment to producing a piece of work every day helped five designers dip into their deep wells of creativity. Perhaps you’ll be inspired to join the art-a-day movement.

Java Jolts of Creativity
Your team’s brainstorm sessions suck. Collaboration is a chore. You’re mired in the same-old same-old. Sound familiar? We’ve got a host of idea-generating exercises guaranteed to bring fresh thinking—and even fun—to your group’s creative process.

Write More Good
As project budgets shrink, are you forced to write text to go along with your layout? Do you cringe when you read the sales copy your clients provide? Here are 4 simple strategies for developing your own writing skills so you can draft headlines with flair and edit the marketing mumbo jumbo out of your clients’ copy.

Print It Yourself
Printing by hand is all the rage in design, and you can tap into the trend with our step-by-step instructions for 3 cool projects you can do yourself. It’s the perfect excuse to walk away from your computer and get ink on your fingers.

Go Metro: Design Maps the Route to Cool
Even if you don’t live in Los Angeles, you’ve seen this group’s stellar work in all the major design annuals. Meet the in-house designers at L.A.’s Metropolitan Transit Authority, who are putting a creative spin on government projects.

Columns

Be a Smarter Manager
When you opened your design studio, you didn’t realize that employee issues would be so challenging. Get 3 strategies for resolving your staff problems.

Selling Your Services
If you’re an in-house designer, you have to market your group just like a design firm. Here are 6 ways to sell your department to your corporate clients.

Welcome to Moosylvania
See how a design studio in the St. Louis area transformed a vacant church into a drool- worthy workspace.

10 Hot Tips for a Cold Economy
From choosing the right paper to picking the most efficient print format, learn how to maximize a lean production budget.

Project-Management Tools
Our veteran technology columnist evaluated 4 popular project-management applications to help you identify the right tool for your firm.

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