Shareholders raise surveillance concerns at AT&T, Verizon [ BeritaTerkini ]

<p><cite class="byline vcard">By <span class="fn">Ross Kerber and Sinead Carew</span> | <span class="provider org">Reuters</span> – </cite></p> <div class="yom-mod yom-art-content" id="mediaarticlebody"> <div class="bd"> <p class="first">By Ross Kerber and Sinead Carew</p> <p>BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Shareholders of telecom giants AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc are seeking more details related to their sharing of customer information with governments, showing investors starting to push back over the role of communications companies in spying operations.</p> <p>Activists including Trillium Asset Management of Boston and the $ 161 billion (£99.99 billion) New York State Common Retirement Fund have filed proposals for the spring shareholder meetings of AT&T and Verizon, representatives said.</p> <p>Both resolutions call on the companies to report semi-annually on “metrics and discussion regarding requests for customer information by U.S. and foreign governments.”</p> <p>As carriers of massive amounts of voice and data traffic, the telecommunications companies have been at the centre of controversies over the use of their data by U.S. intelligence agencies. Just on Monday the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a ruling that gave the government access to Verizon records of millions of telephone calls.</p> <p>A worry is the close ties could hurt the companies’ business, said Trillium Senior Vice President Jonas Kron.</p> <p>“From an investor perspective, this is one of those issues where there’s an overlap of interests” among privacy advocates and business groups, Kron said. He cited surveys that spying fears could cut tens of billions of dollars from the sales of cloud computing services.</p> <p>New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, sole trustee of the state retirement fund, the prime sponsor of the resolution at AT&T, said “Customer trust is critical for any business, but nowhere is it more so than for those corporations that handle our personal data and communications.”</p> <p>AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said that “As standard practice we look carefully at all shareholder proposals but at this point in the process we do not expect to comment on them.”</p> <p>Verizon spokesman Bob Varettoni declined to comment on the shareholder proposal it received except to say the company is evaluating it.</p> <p>Customers in growth markets like China have historically mistrusted U.S. technology corporations. Those fears have been stoked by disclosures from former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.</p> <p>For instance, Cisco Systems Inc last week blamed what some analysts call “the Snowden effect” in part for dismal quarterly revenue. Others have questioned the financial impact of the revelations, however.</p> <p>In response many technology companies have pushed for — or at least aimed to be seen pushing for — transparency in their dealings with U.S. intelligence agencies.</p> <p>Companies including Google Inc, Microsoft Corp, Twitter Inc, Facebook Inc, Apple Inc and Yahoo! Inc have published “transparency reports” showing government data requests. Some have in addition gone to court seeking to disclose more details.</p> <p>But the two big telecommunications companies have not responded as aggressively to the data requests, the shareholder activists note in their resolutions.</p> <p>Specifically, the resolutions cite press reports of the intelligence agencies’ involvement with the companies, and the resulting criticism from figures like Brazil’s president Dilma Rousseff, who called U.S. monitoring activities “a breach of international law.”</p> <p>The resolutions call on AT&T and Verizon to publish semi-annual reports, subject to current laws, “providing metrics and discussion regarding requests for customer information by U.S. and foreign governments, at reasonable cost and omitting proprietary information.”</p> <p>Trillium has $ 1.3 billion under management and calls itself the oldest independent investment adviser focused on sustainable and responsible investing. Trillium and other activists have used shareholder proposals in the past to air out arcane issues such as several “network neutrality” measures it brought at AT&T and Verizon since 2012. One at Verizon in the spring won support from 24 percent of shareholders.</p> <p>Even when such measures don’t pass, activists see them as a way to call attention to issues.</p> <p>“Often the utility of such resolutions is to generate conversation with and among management, particularly if the company has refused to engage in other ways,” said Christine Bader, a lecturer on human rights and business at Columbia University. She is also affiliated with the Global Network Initiative, a privacy-advocacy group that counts some of the technology companies as participants.</p> <p>Filers of the AT&T proposal include the New York State fund, Trillium, the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California, and Arjuna Capital, according to a statement from Open MIC, a non-profit organization in New York that works with investors on media issues and helped organize the resolutions.</p> <p>Filers of the Verizon proposal include Trillium, the ACLU chapter, the Park Foundation, and Clean Yield Asset Management, the activists said.</p> <p>(Reporting By Ross Kerber; editing by Andrew Hay)</p> <p></p> </div> </div> //<!--[CDATA[ jQuery(".gmframe").load(function (){jQuery(this).remove();}); //]]--> <br><br>

Shareholders raise surveillance concerns at AT&T, Verizon [ BeritaTerkini ]

By Ross Kerber and Sinead Carew | Reuters  –  By Ross Kerber and Sinead Carew BOSTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Shareholders of telecom g...

Read more »

New York City Hospitals to Tie Doctors’ Performance Pay to Quality Measures - NYTimes.com

<base href="data:"><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><nyt_text style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div id="articleBody"><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In a bold experiment in performance pay, complaints from patients at New York City's public hospitals and other measures of their care — like how long before they are discharged and how they fare afterward — will be reflected in doctors' paychecks under a plan being negotiated by the physicians and their hospitals.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The proposal represents a broad national push away from the traditional model of rewarding doctors for the volume of services they order, a system that has been criticized for promoting unnecessary treatment. In the wake of changes laid out in the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/supreme_court/affordable_care_act/index.html" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Affordable Care Act</a>, public and private hospitals are already preparing to have their income tied partly to patient outcomes and cost containment, but the city's plan extends that financial incentive to the front line, the doctors directly responsible for treatment. It also shows how the new law could change longstanding relationships, giving more power to some of the poorest and most vulnerable patients over doctors who run their care.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"I would expect that we're going to see this become more and more prevalent in compensation arrangements," said Alan Aviles, president of the city's <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/hhc/html/home/home.shtml" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Health and Hospitals Corporation</a>, which runs the city's 11 public hospitals and is the country's largest public health system, handling more than 1 million emergency room visits a year.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The corporation's plan would make doctors' raises dependent on their performance on quality measures. The details are being negotiated with the doctors' union, but both sides expect to reach an agreement that incorporates the idea.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Still, doctors are hesitant, saying they could be penalized for conditions they cannot control, including how clean the hospital floors are, the attentiveness of nurses and the availability of beds.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">And it is unclear whether performance incentives work in the medical world; studies of similar programs in other countries indicate that doctors learn to manipulate the system.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"The consequences in a complex system like a hospital for giving an incentive for one little piece of behavior are virtually impossible to foresee," said Dr. David U. Himmelstein, professor of public health at the City University of New York and a visiting professor at Harvard Medical School, who has reviewed the literature on performance incentives. "There are ways of gaming it without even outright lying that distort the meaning of the measure."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Over the next few years, the federal government will financially reward or penalize hospitals based on how they perform on benchmarks that are believed to be correlated with better patient outcomes. By aligning doctors' pay to the same benchmarks, city hospitals hope to perform well enough to qualify for federal bonuses.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Under the proposal, bonuses of up to $59 million over the next three years would be distributed to about 3,300 doctors, and would be given to physicians as a group at each hospital, rather than as individuals, so that even the worst doctor would benefit. They would amount to up to 2.5 percent of salaries, which range from about $140,000 for entry-level primary-care physicians to $400,000 for experienced specialists.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Dr. Bruce Siegel, president of the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems and a former head of the hospitals corporation, called the plan "unprecedented for American public hospitals, in terms of scale, in terms of moving us into a new model."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Los Angeles County, which has the nation's second-largest public health system after New York, does not have anything similar, said Dr. Anish Mahajan, director of system planning for the <a href="http://www.ladhs.org/wps/portal/" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 153); text-decoration: none; ">Los Angeles County Department of Health Services</a>. "What an intriguing idea," Dr. Mahajan said. "That's something we would hold out as a potential thing we do in the future."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Administrators at several private New York hospitals said they were considering incorporating the federal benchmarks into their salary structures, but have not yet done so on a significant scale.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The public hospital system has come up with 13 performance indicators. Among them are how well patients say their doctors communicate with them, how many patients with heart failure and pneumonia are readmitted within 30 days, how quickly emergency room patients go from triage to beds, whether doctors get to the operating room on time and how quickly patients are discharged.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Union officials said they were still fighting for wage increases, in addition to performance bonuses. The union has also proposed expanding the indicators to 20, including measures that would give doctors bonuses for going to community meetings, giving lectures, getting training during work hours, screening patients for obesity and counseling them to stop smoking. It has also proposed excluding some patients — like developmentally disabled patients, homeless people and those who have no place to go — from incentives aimed at reducing the time patients spend in the hospital.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">A union official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to upset negotiations, said doctors considered the proposal demeaning. "To say we'll stick a carrot in front of you and therefore you're going to be a better doctor is a little disingenuous," he said.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">In a written statement, Dr. Barry Liebowitz, the president of the union, the Doctors Council S.E.I.U., said it supported performance incentives in theory, if they "will improve patient care." But he called for a team approach and hinted that the union would demand more doctors and support staff.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">The traditional physician incentive payments, tied to the income they generate for hospitals, have been roundly blamed in recent years for driving up costs. (The hospitals corporation had not used these incentives but, in some cases, had required doctors' groups to meet minimums for billing.) Studies have found that they can lead to excessive testing and "upcoding," or diagnosing ailments as worse than they really are, to justify more patient treatment and higher payments. Mr. Aviles said the corporation's plan would not tie payment to the volume or intensity of care.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">But Dr. Himmelstein said there were still hazards in the city's plan. He said that when primary-care doctors in England were offered bonuses based on quality measures, they met virtually all of them in the first year, suggesting either that quality improved or — the more likely explanation, in his view — "they learned very quickly to teach to the test."</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">"I think the most interesting finding is, things that were not measured, in a few studies, appeared to have gotten a bit worse," Dr. Himmelstein said. For instance, patients were not as likely to stick with the same doctor, possibly because they were encouraged to see whichever doctor was available — speed was one quality measure — rather than the doctor who might know them best. In another example, while the doctors reported that they had controlled blood pressure in virtually all their patients, a random survey showed no downward trend in blood pressure or strokes.</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">There could have been any number of ways of outsmarting the system, he said: "If you take blood pressures three times and report the lowest, is that lying or merely tipping the numbers in your favor?"</p><p itemprop="articleBody" style="color: black; font-size: 1.2em; margin: 0px 0px 1em; line-height: 24px; ">Dr. Himmelstein also said doctors could try to avoid the sickest and poorest patients, who tend to have the worst outcomes and be the least satisfied. But physicians within the public hospital system have little ability to choose their patients, Mr. Aviles said. He added that he did not expect the doctors to act so cynically because, "in the main, physicians are here because they are attracted to that very mission of serving everybody equally."</p><nyt_correction_bottom><div class="articleCorrection" style="margin-bottom: 2.8em; "></div></nyt_correction_bottom><nyt_update_bottom></nyt_update_bottom></div></nyt_text><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); display: inline !important; float: none; "></span></div><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/12/nyregion/new-york-city-hospitals-to-tie-doctors-performance-pay-to-quality-measures.html?&pagewanted=print">http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/12/nyregion/new-york-city-hospitals-to-tie-doctors-performance-pay-to-quality-measures.html?&pagewanted=print</a><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; color: black; text-align: left; "><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div>

New York City Hospitals to Tie Doctors’ Performance Pay to Quality Measures - NYTimes.com

In a bold experiment in performance pay, complaints from patients at New York City's public hospitals and other measures of their care —...

Read more »

After the storm ... the cold (BLOG)

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT4xxIdDrr4qaU-UlxbM7ccq1-XVpokV0jEJKXqP7xnHUVS9J7swJFosd1bzxB9Hnbr9UwIBsmHHCAMOt5uNU75INZ1jcnvI6pYExDGLOKmai7FblZ962b4ei8GfVQweUJccDCMh-ZVoE/s1600/img_0825.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT4xxIdDrr4qaU-UlxbM7ccq1-XVpokV0jEJKXqP7xnHUVS9J7swJFosd1bzxB9Hnbr9UwIBsmHHCAMOt5uNU75INZ1jcnvI6pYExDGLOKmai7FblZ962b4ei8GfVQweUJccDCMh-ZVoE/s1600/img_0825.jpg" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">(CNN)</strong> -- If you thought the snow was bad, just wait for the cold and ice.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph2" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Don't put your tongue on a flagpole today," Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said Friday, advice that may prove useful over the long term.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph3" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"We're going to see a warmup, and then we're going to see another cold snap," he said. "This may be something that we're dealing with for the next 60 days or so.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph7" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">The combination of cold and wind gusts exceeding 30 mph was expected to lower wind chill temperatures to near zero in the nation's capital and to 45 below in northern Maine.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph8" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">And another storm is forming that will bring blizzard conditions to the northern Plains on Friday night and Saturday, it said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph9" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">In the Northeast, the heavy snow that upended routines for about a third of the nation's residents had tapered off by noon, but snow drifts were complicating the cleanup, in some cases requiring replowing of streets that had already been cleaned.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph10" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">New York was draped Friday in a near-10-inch layer of white, but that didn't faze some residents.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph11" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"A lot of people are walking, and some were even running in Central Park," said CNN iReporter Matthew Burke, who<a href="http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1072120" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">snapped a photograph</a> of the entrance to the park at Fifth Avenue and 72nd Street.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph12" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"It's freezing," he said. "I had three layers on, and I was still cold."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph13" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">The snowfall abated early Friday in the nation's capital and was expected to stop in the afternoon in Boston, which got nearly 15 inches.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph14" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">North of Boston, residents of Topsfield, Massachusetts, were inundated with nearly 2 feet of snow.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph15" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Approximately 100 million people in 22 states were in the path of the storm.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph16" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/05/us/winter-weather-tracker/index.html" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Track the storm: Radar, temperatures</a></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph17" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Weather knocks out flights</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph18" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Across the country, the weather forced many to change their travel plans.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph19" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://flightaware.com/live/cancelled/today#stats" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">FlightAware.com</a>, which tracks cancellations due to weather and mechanical problems, said that more than 2,300 flights had been canceled for Friday within, into or out of the United States. That's after more than 2,600 U.S. flights were canceled Thursday.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph20" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Flights resumed by late Friday morning in much of New England, though delays were common, and ticket holders were urged to check with their airlines.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph21" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Barb Plooster had planned to fly Friday from Erie, Pennsylvania, to Grand Rapids, Michigan, but her flight was canceled. She told <a href="http://www.erietvnews.com/story/24351996/winter-weather-impacting-travel-on-road-in-air" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">CNN affiliate WICU</a> that she was on the phone with United Airlines for five hours trying to find a way to get home but has concluded that she will have to wait until Monday. "We got a warm place to stay, get to visit the kids, the grandkids, so it's OK," she said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph22" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Here's a breakdown of what to expect where:</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph23" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">New York and Long Island</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph24" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">A winter storm warning was to remain in effect across the five boroughs until 1 p.m., with wind gusts dropping wind chills to as low as 15 below, the mayor's office said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph25" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Friday's high was predicted to be 18 degrees, and the temperature was expected to go below zero by nightfall, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph26" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">He urged anyone who might see a homeless person to call 311, "and an outreach team will go out immediately to help that individual."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph27" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">And de Blasio cautioned residents whose homes and apartments are not warm to call the city rather than trying to improvise their own solutions.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph28" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">But the newly sworn-in mayor -- who shoveled in front of his home in Brooklyn on Friday morning before handing off the duty to his 16-year-old son, Dante -- praised his team for their work.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph29" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"I'd give everyone an A" for effort and effectiveness, he said, but noted that their work was not over.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph30" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"Ask again in a few hours," he said. "This is an hour-to-hour thing."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph31" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/cvplive/cvpstream2.html" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Watch live radar</a></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph32" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">New York had gotten nearly 10 inches of snow by the time it abated late Friday morning, de Blasio said. "It's hard to drive out there," he said. "If you do not need to travel today, please stay home."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph33" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Sanitation workers were on 12-hour shifts to clear the city's 6,200 miles of roadways, he said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph34" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Long Island will be under a blizzard warning until 1 p.m. Friday, with wind chills as low as 10 below zero and sustained winds of at least 35 mph.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph35" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Flight operations resumed late Friday morning at John F. Kennedy International Airport; they were continuing -- despite hundreds of cancellations -- at LaGuardia Airport and Newark Liberty International Airport.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph36" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Temperatures in the single digits were predicted for Saturday morning.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph37" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">New York City public schools were closed Friday.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph38" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Upstate, the capital of Albany could get buried under 14 inches of snow, with wind chills of 15 to 25 below zero, the National Weather Service said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph39" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">The weather had its fans. In Rochester, New York, CNN iReporter Blake Sampson, 29, <a href="http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1072184" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">took a picture from his apartment window</a>. "I grew up in Minnesota, so I'm used to it," he said. "I like how quiet things get when there is a fresh blanket of snow."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph40" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Massachusetts</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph41" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">That blanket covered Boston, which expected to see 10 to 18 inches of snow and temperatures as low as 6 degrees below zero by Friday night.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph42" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">But limited flights were continuing into and out of Boston's Logan Airport.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph43" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">The state's emergency management agency predicted up to 2 feet of snow on parts of the North Shore, South Shore and Cape Cod.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph44" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Students in scores of school districts were told to stay home Friday.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph45" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">"I guess Mother Nature wanted to give me one more gift," Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said Thursday, one of his last days in the office he has held since 1993.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph46" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Blizzard warnings were in effect for parts of nearby Essex and Plymouth counties -- including the communities of Gloucester, Brockton and Plymouth -- as well as Cape Cod.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph47" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">The state warned that midday high tides could produce "significant flooding" along the coast. The towns of Scituate and Duxbury requested voluntary evacuations of certain low-lying areas.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph48" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Connecticut and Delaware</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph49" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Wind chills in parts of Connecticut were expected to range from -5 to -20 degrees Friday, and the National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings for most of the state through Friday morning.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph50" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Malloy, the Connecticut governor, urged residents to take it slow and give themselves extra time for their commutes Friday. He said he expects delays but not cancellations in public transit.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph51" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Delaware said state offices were closed for all but "essential employees."</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph52" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">Chicago and points beyond</strong></div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph53" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">In the Windy City, wind chills Friday will creep down to minus 12, with more snow possible over the weekend.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph54" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">The arctic blast was expected to be the coldest in 17 years, with temperatures predicted to drop below zero Sunday evening and not return to positive digits until Wednesday.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph55" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Though snow in Chicago in the winter is a common event, it "can still wreak havoc on daily routines," city emergency director Gary Schenkel said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph56" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">Next week could be no better for some U.S. residents.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph57" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">The new shot of colder air that will start to move into the northern Midwest by Saturday will dive south Monday and Tuesday, carrying zero-degree cold as far south as Nashville. "That's the coldest air we've seen that far south in several years," CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen said.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph58" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">The cold air will kick off a new storm Sunday into Monday that could affect a number of NFL playoff games this weekend. In Wisconsin, the Green Bay Packers will give a cold welcome to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, <a href="http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1909122-nfl-playoffs-2014-how-cold-inclement-weather-will-impact-the-postseason?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial" style="border: 0px; color: #004276; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">when temperatures could bottom out at -17</a>.</div><div class="cnn_storypgraphtxt cnn_storypgraph59" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: arial; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; padding: 0px 24px 19px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">The U.S. weather had international implications, too: All meetings were canceled Friday at the United Nations headquarters complex on New York's East Side.</div><a href="" name="em1" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span><a href="" name="em2" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span><a href="" name="em3" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span><a href="" name="em4" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Utkal, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"></span><br /><div class="cnn_strycbftrtxt" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #999999; font-family: arial; font-size: 11px; line-height: 14px; padding: 4px 24px 37px 186px; vertical-align: baseline;">CNN meteorologists Dave Hennen and Sherri Pugh and CNN's Lateef Mungin, Jareen Imam, Kristin Hamill, Chuck Johnston, Ashley Fantz, Greg Botelho and AnneClaire Stapleton contributed to this report.</div></div>

After the storm ... the cold (BLOG)

(CNN)  -- If you thought the snow was bad, just wait for the cold and ice. "Don't put your tongue on a flagpole today," Connec...

Read more »

Virgin Atlantic, Delta Unveil First Combined Summer Schedule [ BeritaTerkini ]

<p><br> For the first time since Delta Air Lines bought 49 percent of Virgin Atlantic Airways, the two airlines released a joint summer schedule of flights. The new schedule is designed to maximize the combined slots and resources of both airlines.</p> <p><br> The new schedule starts on March 30, just three days before Delta moves its arrival and departure terminal to Virgin Atlantic’s in Heathrow Terminal 3. This includes its London to New York-JFK, London to Boston and new London to Seattle services. The two airlines will co-locate on all New York and Boston flights to London Heathrow.</p> <p><br> The move will allow for easier connections and a more seamless experience for customers flying with Virgin and Delta, including access to Virgin Atlantic’s Clubhouse for all business class passengers.</p> <p><br> “We already co-locate together at New York’s JFK airport and moving some of Delta’s key business flights to join Virgin Atlantic at Heathrow’s Terminal 3 will enhance convenience, and reduce connection times,” said Craig Kreeger, Virgin Atlantic’s CEO.</p> <p><br> Delta, in co-operation with Virgin Atlantic, also will operate a second daily service between Heathrow and Detroit’s Metropolitan Airport beginning June 2. The service will feature early morning arrivals in London. This additional flight will complement Delta’s previously announced new West Coast route between Seattle and Heathrow, which will launch on March 30.</p> <p><br> Virgin Atlantic is moving its VS1 Heathrow to Newark service from a late afternoon departure to a morning departure. This flight will appeal to business travelers by allowing for ‘same-day meetings’ to be held in the New Jersey area, while an earlier departure on the return flight means passengers can be in central London for the start of the working day.</p> <p><br> Altogether, the two airlines will fly nine daily flights between Heathrow and New York with departures every 30 minutes during the early evening peak and then hourly until 10.30 p.m. from JFK to Heathrow and a spread of seven daily flights from Heathrow to JFK, including two late afternoon and early evening departures. It also includes two departures to and from Newark.</p> <p><br> Virgin Atlantic has also retimed its Heathrow to Boston service to depart two hours later in the afternoon. This offers more flexibility for the two airlines’ customers with Delta’s Heathrow to Boston service departing in the morning. Virgin Atlantic’s evening departure from Boston will also move two hours later, giving greater schedule choice to travelers. In September Delta and Virgin Atlantic welcomed the decision by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to approve the carriers’ joint venture by granting antitrust immunity on routes between North America and the U.K.</p> //<!--[CDATA[ jQuery(".gmframe").load(function (){jQuery(this).remove();}); //]]--> <br><br>

Virgin Atlantic, Delta Unveil First Combined Summer Schedule [ BeritaTerkini ]

For the first time since Delta Air Lines bought 49 percent of Virgin Atlantic Airways, the two airlines released a joint summer schedule o...

Read more »

Blessing# Mom gives birth on New York street corner (See Photo)

<div class="postInfo"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.ynaija.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/birth26n-4-web.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="birth26n-4-web" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-250744" src="http://www.ynaija.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/birth26n-4-web.jpg" /></a></div></div>Pregnant mom, Polly McCourt had always wanted a natural birth for her third child and she got exactly her wish.<br />McCourt was in her apartment when she realised she was in labour, rushed down to the building’s doorman who helped her outside to hail a cab.<br />But it was not fast enough as her little daughter arrived before the cab did.<br />Daily News<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/miracle-68th-street-baby-born-upper-east-side-corner-arrives-safely-article-1.1701556?utm_content=buffer31a23&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#ixzz2uNOG3xhh" target="_blank"> reports</a>:<br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><blockquote><em>Mom and baby were then rushed to Lenox Hill Hospital, where they were found to be in good health. Ila weighed in at 7 pounds, 6 ounces.</em><br /><em>Speaking from her hospital bed Tuesday, the relieved mom recalled her tumultuous day.</em><br /><em>She had been volunteering for the spring fundraiser at P.S. 267, where her two older children attend school, when she realized she wasn’t feeling well. She sent 6-year-old son Conor to the playground with a friend, called the babysitter to take care of 4-year-old daughter Adele, and rushed home around 3 p.m. to call her obstetrician — who told her to get to the hospital immediately.</em><br /><div><em><img alt="Ila Isabelle McCourt is doing fine despite her dramatic entrance into the world, doctors at Lenox Hill Hospital said." height="265" src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1701550.1393367364%21/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/birth26n-6-web.jpg" width="400" /></em><br /><h4 itemprop="copyrightHolder"><em>ENID ALVAREZ/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS</em></h4><h4 itemprop="description"><em>Ila Isabelle McCourt is doing fine despite her dramatic entrance into the world, doctors at Lenox Hill Hospital said.</em></h4></div><em>“I was starting to feel worse and worse, and I thought, ‘Oh, this is not good,’” McCourt, 39, said.</em><br /><em>“I went downstairs to get a taxi and my water broke, right in the front foyer of the building.”</em><br /><div><em><img alt="Doorman Anton Rudovic helped Polly McCourt, 39, give birth to baby girl Ila Isabelle on the corner of E. 68th St. and 3rd Ave." height="265" src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1701549.1393367363%21/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/birth26n-7-web.jpg" width="400" /></em><br /><h4 itemprop="copyrightHolder"><em>ENID ALVAREZ/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS</em></h4><h4 itemprop="description"><em>Doorman Anton Rudovic helped Polly McCourt, 39, give birth to baby girl Ila Isabelle on the corner of E. 68th St. and 3rd Ave.</em></h4></div><em>“Anton knew that I was in trouble, so he walked me to the corner of the street to try to get a taxi. And then I went, ‘Oh no. She’s going to come out.’</em><br /><div></div><em>“She just came out. I thought I had longer!”</em><br /><em>Rudovic helped McCourt sit down on the street in front of the HSBC bank, as onlookers started to gather.</em><br /><div><em><img alt="Paramedics help Polly McCourt into an ambulance after she gave birth to her daughter outside her home on the Upper East Side." height="353" src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1701551.1393367365%21/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/birth26n-5-web.jpg" width="640" /></em><br /><h4 itemprop="copyrightHolder"><em>MYFOXNY.COM</em></h4><h4 itemprop="description"><em>Paramedics help Polly McCourt into an ambulance after she gave birth to her daughter outside her home on the Upper East Side.</em></h4></div><em>“Anton propped me up with his legs, and by that time, she was already out,” McCourt said.</em><br /><em>Dad Cian McCourt, 40, was stuck in the Lincoln Tunnel when he got the call, and arrived on the scene three minutes after his daughter.</em><br /><div><em><img alt="Ila Isabelle McCourt was named after Isabelle, a Good Samaritan who gave McCourt the coat off her back as she waited for an ambulance." height="640" src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1701553.1393367368%21/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/birth26n-2-web.jpg" width="426" /></em><br /><h4 itemprop="copyrightHolder"><em>ENID ALVAREZ/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS</em></h4><h4 itemprop="description"><em>Ila Isabelle McCourt was named after Isabelle, a Good Samaritan who gave McCourt the coat off her back as she waited for an ambulance.</em></h4></div><em>“I saw a crowd on the corner, and I feared the worst,” he said.</em><br /><em>He found his wife and daughter surrounded by Good Samaritans who stopped to help, even giving the shirts off their backs to keep Polly and Ila warm until the ambulance arrived 10 minutes later.</em><br /><em>“There were about 40 or 50 people there, I think,” Polly said. “There were a lot of people who gave their sweaters. I want to thank them.”</em><br /><div><em><img alt="Polly McCourt, 39, gives birth to baby girl Ila outside an Upper East Side HSBC bank." height="640" src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1701554.1393367369%21/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/birth26n-3-web.jpg" width="480" /></em><br /><h4 itemprop="copyrightHolder"><em>@MATTCGUARD VIA TWITTER</em></h4><h4 itemprop="description"><em>Polly McCourt, 39, gives birth to baby girl Ila outside an Upper East Side HSBC bank.</em></h4></div><em>One woman, Isabelle, even gave her coat.</em><br /><em>“She had to go home without a coat on,” Polly said. “She gave my husband her phone number and he lost it in the commotion.”</em><br /><div><em><img alt="Polly McCourt and baby girl Ila are both doing fine after their dramatic ordeal." height="640" src="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1701555.1393367370%21/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/birth26n-1-web.jpg" width="426" /></em><br /><h4 itemprop="copyrightHolder"><em>ENID ALVAREZ/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS</em></h4><h4 itemprop="description"><em>Polly McCourt and baby girl Ila are both doing fine after their dramatic ordeal.</em></h4></div><em>The McCourts chose their daughter’s middle name in honor of that stranger’s kindness.</em><br /><em>“We want to be able to contact her and say thanks,” Polly McCourt said.</em><br /><em>Hero doorman Rudovic was back at his post Tuesday, and said helping little Ila arrive safely was all in a day’s work.</em><br /><em>“I did my job. (Polly) needed to be rushed to go to the hospital. She said, ‘the baby’s coming! I need to lie down.’ And that was it. It was so fast — one, two, three.</em><br /><em>“Mom and baby were fine, that’s the most important thing.”</em></blockquote>

Blessing# Mom gives birth on New York street corner (See Photo)

Pregnant mom, Polly McCourt had always wanted a natural birth for her third child and she got exactly her wish. McCourt was in her apartment...

Read more »

New York City could replace iconic horse carriages with retro-styled electric cars (BLOG)

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGbov35HuzzThwSVQx4FgHCm6NQ5dH6oXWcpj0VBQxfPpvs4kdApz1ruADECbTlo5izykX9ONUWzdO_rv8XwpA7icEWKVMpNd4kJUAtsqHFZB8Zc-y9gO9qtzr9mnGB9UrYEPPQTv8uC4/s1600/NYC-Horse-Carriage-Ban-537x402.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGbov35HuzzThwSVQx4FgHCm6NQ5dH6oXWcpj0VBQxfPpvs4kdApz1ruADECbTlo5izykX9ONUWzdO_rv8XwpA7icEWKVMpNd4kJUAtsqHFZB8Zc-y9gO9qtzr9mnGB9UrYEPPQTv8uC4/s320/NYC-Horse-Carriage-Ban-537x402.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="pgh-paragraph" id="paragraph0" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 15px;">New York's new Mayor, Bill de Blasio, wants to remove horse-drawn carriages from the city. In a <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/53946273/ns/local_news-new_york_ny/t/de-blasio-end-carriage-rides/#.UsPaSvQW3xD" style="color: #fb4834; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">news conference held before he took office</a>, de Blasio said that he planned to "get rid of the horse carriages, period," calling them "inhumane" and "not appropriate for the year 2014."<a href="http://www.nyclass.org/petition" style="color: #fb4834; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> A petition signed by more than 4,500 people</a> called for the horses to be replaced by electric replicas of vintage cars, something de Blasio called "a cleaner, safer, wiser, more humane alternative that will be very appealing to tourists."</div><div class="pgh-paragraph" id="paragraph1" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 15px;"><q class="center" style="color: #fa4b2a; display: block; font-family: ff-din-web-condensed, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 38px; font-style: italic; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 38px; margin: 25px auto; padding: 5px; quotes: none; text-transform: uppercase; width: 500px;">MAYOR DE BLASIO WILL WORK WITH CURRENT CARRIAGE DRIVERS TO SET THEM UP WITH NEW VEHICLES</q></div><div class="pgh-paragraph" id="paragraph2" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 15px;"><img alt="Electric-carriage" class="photo" src="http://cdn2.sbnation.com/assets/3792575/electric-carriage.png" style="border: 0px;" /><small style="font-size: 11px;"><em>A model of a proposed electric carriage to replace the horses designed by Jason Wenig of <a href="http://www.thecreativeworkshop.com/" style="color: #fb4834; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Creative Workshop</a>. (<a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/electric-gatsby-era-car-replace-horse-carriages-article-1.1329268" style="color: #fb4834; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">NY Daily News</a>)</em></small></div><div class="pgh-paragraph" id="paragraph3" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 15px;">Mayor de Blasio will, according to <i><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/12/31/horse-drawn-carriages-may-soon-end-in-nyc/4263615/" style="color: #fb4834; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">USA Today</a>, </i>work with current carriage drivers to set them up with new vehicles, but the move still has drawn fire from their ranks. <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bill-de-blasio-won-horse-controversial-carriages-article-1.1561981" style="color: #fb4834; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><i>The NY Daily News</i> quotes</a> driver Christina Hansen, who says the horses that lead carriages around the city's Central Park and other tourist spots are taken care of and treated humanely. Carriage driver Steven Malone also defended the practice, saying that New York's working horses lead "exceedingly great lives," and that some had up to six months of vacation time.</div><div class="pgh-paragraph" id="paragraph4" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 23px; margin-bottom: 15px;">Desirable schedules or not, de Blasio seems set on his course: at the news conference, the new Mayor said he was going to "quickly and aggressively move to make horse carriages no longer a part of the landscape" in New York. "It's over," de Blasio said, "so, just watch us do it."</div></div>

New York City could replace iconic horse carriages with retro-styled electric cars (BLOG)

New York's new Mayor, Bill de Blasio, wants to remove horse-drawn carriages from the city. In a  news conference held before he took off...

Read more »

CAGNEY

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7hBinierhsqYFARwAtvWEBbudTRXLwCZQQAPrCv6IIYnTqsnldUTCqqRLR-AyR8YL37UeXWwquTa0DXcxnmnP6mOYwDEYq36d5bIx4MjjHHYEO1CuxESvudINT8WO5pyjKC79cA4PZ7I/s1600/Cagney_by_Claroscureaux.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7hBinierhsqYFARwAtvWEBbudTRXLwCZQQAPrCv6IIYnTqsnldUTCqqRLR-AyR8YL37UeXWwquTa0DXcxnmnP6mOYwDEYq36d5bIx4MjjHHYEO1CuxESvudINT8WO5pyjKC79cA4PZ7I/s400/Cagney_by_Claroscureaux.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Cagney, color by <a href="http://claroscureauxdeux.blogspot.com/"><span style="color: #cc0000;">Claroscureaux</span></a></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">"...every time I see him work, looks to me like a bunch of firecrackers going off all at once."</span><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Will Rogers </span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;">During an era when impressionists, those perform<span style="font-size: small;">ers whose gift it is to mimic the very famous, were a staple on television, Cagney w<span style="font-size: small;">as an essential in every repertoire. Cagney. An electric and singular presence, he is among the handful of Hollywood legends i<span style="font-size: small;">nstantly identifiable by just <span style="font-size: small;">one name. His film career began in 1930 and came to an end in 1981, but he is as revered by film buffs today as he was treasured by audiences throughout his active years. <span style="font-size: small;">This tribute is my contribution to The Movie P<span style="font-size: small;">rojector's Cagney Blogathon. <a href="http://themovieprojector.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html"><span style="color: red;"><b>Click here</b></span></a> for links to participating blogs.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></i></span><br /><a name='more'></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">James Francis Cagney came into the world in July 1<span style="font-size: small;">899, the second of seven children, two of wh<span style="font-size: small;">om died in infancy, born to Irish-American James and Carrie Cagney on New York's Lower East Side. The elder James Cagney was a bookkeeper-turned-bartender, a charmer and a drinker who liked to play the horses and didn't hold many steady jobs. His titian-haired wife was a gritty matriarch, the linchpin who held the Cagney clan together and inspired her children to succeed. James died at age 41 in the devastating Spanish flu <span style="font-size: small;">pandemic of 1918. Not long after, Carrie gave birth to their only surviving daughter, Jeanne. The four Cagney boys were used to working at odd jobs and contributing to the household "kitty," but <span style="font-size: small;">now the family's survival depended on them.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVk7hA2BnVXHtDzo3uWP9CjYCAGAjhRfGMmfg1aMV2Cvp8wq5EzGkBeBy47_j4pZNLHMtvDQ9pKxc8Nm1cG-8GqhreyJKapgX2a3L0Q5nW55irMR_FBV40_YzuEUCj_hh_x6FiggIkTlg/s1600/NYC-Lower-East-Side.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVk7hA2BnVXHtDzo3uWP9CjYCAGAjhRfGMmfg1aMV2Cvp8wq5EzGkBeBy47_j4pZNLHMtvDQ9pKxc8Nm1cG-8GqhreyJKapgX2a3L0Q5nW55irMR_FBV40_YzuEUCj_hh_x6FiggIkTlg/s400/NYC-Lower-East-Side.jpg" width="328" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The Lower East Side, early 20th Century</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Jim<span style="font-size: small;">, known in the neighborhood as "Red," took his first regular part-time job at 14 as a copyboy with the New York Sun. At 15, with his brothers Harry and Ed, he worked part-time for the New York Public <span style="font-size: small;">Library. But he always had other small jobs on the side so he could better "feed the kitty." He never joined a neighborhood gang, but he was a street fighter, a tenacious one, and was good enough that he began training to become a pro. His mother, a staunch believer in education as the only sensible way out of poverty, put a stop to this plan the moment <span style="font-size: small;">he mentioned it to her.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Through the years, Carrie regularly sent her boys to neighborhood settlement houses for lectures and classes. Jim developed an interest in ecology through a talk he'd attended; this passion remained with him all his life. When oldest brother Harry was studying to become a doctor, Carrie decided it would be a good idea for him to learn something about public speaking and persuaded him to join the dramatics club at the Lenox Hill Settlement House. When Harry became ill just before a performance, Jim stepped in for him. It was his first turn as an actor. He relished the approval of</span></span></span> the audience and later recalled that 'little Jim' suddenly didn't feel quite so little.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cagney had <span style="font-size: small;">learned a po<span style="font-size: small;">pular<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> dance called The Peabody at Lenox Hill and when a friend tipped him to an opening for a dancer at $<span style="font-size: small;">35 a week in vaudeville, he took what he knew of dancing to the audition an<span style="font-size: small;">d was hired. The show was called <i>Every Sailor</i> and, to young Cagney's surprise, he would be performing in a dress. He later wrote, "And that is how I began to learn dancing - as a chorus girl." A quick study, he watched the other dancers and practiced what he saw. Af<span style="font-size: small;">ter the revue closed he toiled briefly as a runner for a Wall Street brokerage house and was grateful when he got a job as a chorus boy in the 1920 musical <i>Pitter P<span style="font-size: small;">atter</span></i><span style="font-size: small;">. Eventually he was offered a spot as a specialty dancer in the show and for the next few years w<span style="font-size: small;">o<span style="font-size: small;">rked in vaudeville performing specialty routines. One of the acts Cagney joined for a time was a "3-act" known as Park<span style="font-size: small;">, Rand & Leach. He took the pl<span style="font-size: small;">ace of Archie Leach (later Cary Grant) who was moving on. Park<span style="font-size: small;">, Rand & Cagney didn't last long either.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbr9N-Te2tQtG7jDIKkee35wuMWjSoEa55mHr1p3HjYUsJNq2js27HdwWQsTluVpZI6bWK4BbHKT3G4B4ol8ZGAlsHTI8FEW0t5eIj_0TyNJTbcRg40R_GOkvvwWxmIHrzU3Y67DiHwDc/s1600/Penny_Arcade2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbr9N-Te2tQtG7jDIKkee35wuMWjSoEa55mHr1p3HjYUsJNq2js27HdwWQsTluVpZI6bWK4BbHKT3G4B4ol8ZGAlsHTI8FEW0t5eIj_0TyNJTbcRg40R_GOkvvwWxmIHrzU3Y67DiHwDc/s320/Penny_Arcade2.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Cagney and Joan Blondell onstage, <i>Penny Arcade</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In 1925 Cagney won the role of "Little Red," one of two leads in Maxwell Anderson's new drama, <i>Outside Looking In</i>. The play co-starred Charles Bickford and opened at the Greenwich Village Theatre. Receiving good reviews, the show moved uptown where it ran for four months. Of Cagney's first performance on the legitimate stage, critic Robert Benchley cited his 10-minutes of silence during a kangaroo-court scene as "something that many a more established actor might watch with profit." When <i>Outside Looking In</i> closed, it was back to vaudeville for Cagney, but from 1928 - 1929 he worked steadily on Broadway. Then, in early 1930 he was cast, with Joan Blondell, in a new show, <i>Penny Arcade</i>. Though its Broadway run ended in just three weeks, Al Jolson happened to catch it and bought the movie rights. When he sold the rights to Warner Brothers, he recommended <a href="http://twentyfourframes.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/the-films-of-james-cagney-and-joan-blondell/"><b><span style="color: red;">Cagney and Blondell</span></b></a> to Jack Warner and they were cast in their original roles. A crime story about bootlegging, murder and a frame-up, the film - re-titled <i>Sinners' Holiday </i>(1930) - launched Cagney's film career. A New York Times critic reviewed the film positively, observing that "the most impressive acting is done by James Cagney..."</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The picture that made Cagney a star was his fourth for Wa<span style="font-size: small;">rners, </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="color: red;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.classicmoviesnippets.blogspot.com/2013/04/james-cagney-blogathon-public-enemy-1931.html"><span style="color: red;"><b>The Public Enemy</b></span></a></span></span></span></i></span></i></span></b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><b><i><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></i></b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">(1931)</span></span>. <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Esquire</i>'s Dwight McDonald would write that Cagney's heartless and brutal thug, Tom Powers, made Humphrey Bogart look like a "conscience-stricken Hamlet." Though the actor always regarded his Hollywood career as transitory, Cagney would never have to look back after the break-out success of <i>The Public Enemy</i>. He received star billing thereafter.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8bDasIcrI7j_yG_gvNMRCabNwzy7ay2CdZKH9SH3Qw7uIYyExlV6ysWxPxEkvkjFb8cFPSww5BhQg2tWOawMdhruQisowOqVkluGllfrPeMqGKMR9TQk010jJUDZSuz-MoOouA7dLwts/s1600/Public_Enemy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8bDasIcrI7j_yG_gvNMRCabNwzy7ay2CdZKH9SH3Qw7uIYyExlV6ysWxPxEkvkjFb8cFPSww5BhQg2tWOawMdhruQisowOqVkluGllfrPeMqGKMR9TQk010jJUDZSuz-MoOouA7dLwts/s320/Public_Enemy.jpg" width="262" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Cagney and Jean Harlow, <i>The Public Enemy </i>(1931)</span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cagney's memories of <i>The Public Enemy </i>included <span style="font-size: small;">the on-the-set hazards of making gangster films before the use of prop ammunition<span style="font-size: small;">. Real bullets were routinely used and he had a close call in a scene involving machine-gun fire. Dodging bullets wouldn't be Cagney's only grievance with Hollywood. He'd become a headliner in less than a year, but his contract didn't mirror his popularity at the box office. Early on he vocally objected to the low pay and unholy hours the studio imposed. He called it a "factory ap<span style="font-size: small;">pr<span style="font-size: small;">oach." When the Screen Actors Guild was founded in 1933, Cagney joined and was elected to its board of directors. He later served a term as SAG president.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">With the help of his youngest brother Bill, who he had enlisted as his business manager (Harry and Ed had both become doctors), he doggedly battled Warners. Jack Warner referred to him as <span style="font-size: small;">"the professional again<span style="font-size: small;">ster<span style="font-size: small;">." Production head Hal Wallis called him "our house rebel."</span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">During a contentious separation from Warners in 1936, Cagney traveled east with a friend and spent <span style="font-size: small;">time on Martha's Vineyard. Years earlier, as a boy, he had fallen in love with the countryside while visiting relatives who lived in rural <span style="font-size: small;">New York. Now he could afford to buy a country property of his own. The Vineyard seemed the ideal location - he would own a farm surrounded by the sea. He purchased a 100-year-old farm<span style="font-size: small;">house on 100 acres that was only accessible by dir<span style="font-size: small;">t road for $7,500; annual taxes totaled just $39. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b><span style="color: red;"><i><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.mvmagazine.com/article.php?29665"><span style="color: red;"><b>Cagney's Chilmark Farm</b></span></a></span></span></span></i></span></i></span></b></span></b></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: red;"><b>  </b></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">became a much-loved retreat</span></span></span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">where he could enjoy a tranquility his life in Hollywood lacked. The stand-offish Vineyard locals came to know and <span style="font-size: small;">admire him and would call him, with sincerity, a good neighbor.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvwisnoqoMVT0ww9dAlDjGwnC4YDEpLJsZRBIAuJbeIXtTD7WaySqBRFTNXTO29TOSeUkqhqyrW0ShskoK32JvijMuUyQun_4uNNOMuQYFxoonQWf_iBm1RNup9A7lXddlWdUOZmlUYJk/s1600/Boys_Club.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvwisnoqoMVT0ww9dAlDjGwnC4YDEpLJsZRBIAuJbeIXtTD7WaySqBRFTNXTO29TOSeUkqhqyrW0ShskoK32JvijMuUyQun_4uNNOMuQYFxoonQWf_iBm1RNup9A7lXddlWdUOZmlUYJk/s400/Boys_Club.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Irish Mafia, l -r, seated: Tracy, O'Brien, McHugh, Cagney; standing: Overman</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">In Hollywood, Cagney concocted another form of respite. With a close-knit band of actor friends, he started The Boys Club. An industry columnist nicknamed the informal group "The Irish <span style="font-size: small;">Mafia." Its core members were Cagney, P<span style="font-size: small;">at O'Brien, Frank McHugh, Spencer Tracy, Lynne Overman, Ralph Be<span style="font-size: small;">llamy and Frank Morgan. They sometimes talked shop but, according to <span style="font-size: small;">McHugh, their <span style="font-size: small;">nights out were more concerned with stimulating conversation and laughs tha<span style="font-size: small;">n the movie business.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Cagney began work on <a href="http://1001moviesblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/angels-with-dirty-faces-1938-12.html"><span style="color: red;"><b><i>Angels with Dirty Faces</i></b></span></a> (1938) after his latest problems with Warners had been ironed out.  </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">For this film, a crime thriller about childhood friends whose lives go in different directions, the studio afforded a generous budget. A tenement set covered four city blocks and street scenes included authentic push carts and hurdy-gurdies. E<span style="font-size: small;">ven Cagney was impressed, "...when the studio put its heart into doing a thing, they went all the way.<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">" This time out Cagney refused to work with live bullets. Though director Michael Curtiz assured him he was safe, the actor insisted on a process shot f<span style="font-size: small;">or a shoot-out scene. It was a good thing he stood his ground. The machine-gun fire, supplied by the same gunner who had worked on <i>The Public Enemy</i>, hit precisely where Cagney would've been standing<span style="font-size: small;"> in the shot.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlWeeH3o6VoElyXmqFV5ji5p0myuFLUGlC9AY6diznjqwgZ4O_GpTwtbprBBZS-mxLBLFJrnqR3QMfvJaMfWrQ_N_km1QmqXcFY731jDHkjvgv0kbWadYt0dzcJ1q31uVp1xOjRsD72p0/s1600/angels.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlWeeH3o6VoElyXmqFV5ji5p0myuFLUGlC9AY6diznjqwgZ4O_GpTwtbprBBZS-mxLBLFJrnqR3QMfvJaMfWrQ_N_km1QmqXcFY731jDHkjvgv0kbWadYt0dzcJ1q31uVp1xOjRsD72p0/s400/angels.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Angels with Dirty Faces </span></i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">(1938), Cagney surrounded by The Dead End Kids</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">For the role of archetypal gangster Rocky Sullivan, Cagney based his portrayal in part on a local character he'd seen on the streets as a kid. He was "a hophead and a pimp" who stood on a corner all day, hitching up his pants, pulling at his necktie, moving his shoulders, snapping his fingers and smacking his hands together. The mannerisms with which Cagney endowed <span style="font-size: small;">Sullivan would provide the material for a legion of impressionists years l<span style="font-size: small;">ater. An exact replica of Sing Sing's death cell and corridor to the electric cha<span style="font-size: small;">i<span style="font-size: small;">r w<span style="font-size: small;">ere created for the film. A<span style="font-size: small;">s Rocky Sullivan walked fr<span style="font-size: small;">om the cell to his fate, James Cagney was thinking of the neighborhood boy he knew best in his youth, Peter Hessling, known as "Bootah." In his autobiography, the actor wrote he would always remember July 21, 1927. On that night he was performing on Broadway, Jack Demp<span style="font-size: small;">sey KO'ed Jack Sharkey, and Bootah went to the electric chair at Sing Sing. "I wept when I heard about<span style="font-size: small;"> him,<span style="font-size: small;">" he recalled. <span style="font-size: small;">The irony that <span style="font-size: small;">art was imitating his life - with a twist<span style="font-size: small;"> -</span> in <i>Angels with Dirty Faces </i>was not lost on him. </span>Cagney received his first Best Actor nomin<span style="font-size: small;">ation from the Academy <span style="font-size: small;">for his performance and was named Best Actor by the New York Film Critics Circle.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLnQzVzPpQi8snuwI3YdL9vWwGMKONNOiiuyD-h_Z3Xn5mKd_DfLlzyzawdA9BzAI96t_xGuVb33YoIlqlcOWT72sBDYDkJnZNCl4dFOpcrflD6hQFZ3LXrUpdXYo02O6vXTh4N-T66T4/s1600/Cagney_Chilmark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLnQzVzPpQi8snuwI3YdL9vWwGMKONNOiiuyD-h_Z3Xn5mKd_DfLlzyzawdA9BzAI96t_xGuVb33YoIlqlcOWT72sBDYDkJnZNCl4dFOpcrflD6hQFZ3LXrUpdXYo02O6vXTh4N-T66T4/s400/Cagney_Chilmark.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Cagney's Chilmark property, Martha's Vineyard, photo by David Welch</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">By the time he marked his first decade in Hollywood, Cagney was on<span style="font-size: small;"> his way to becoming a wealthy man. Not only did he have a more lucrative deal with Warners, but he had also begun buying real estate. His properties would include a small island at the tip of Southern California's Balboa Island, acreage in the desert town of Twentynine Palms, California, his home on 10 acres in Beverly Hills, the Martha's <span style="font-size: small;">Vineyard estate, a farm in Northridge, California, and the vast Verney Farm in Dutchess County, New York.  Also at this time, his entire family - mother<span style="font-size: small;">, sister and all three brothers - rel<span style="font-size: small;">ocated to Los Angeles. </span></span>His wife, Willie (aka/"<span style="font-size: small;">my Bill")</span>, a dancer he'd met on <i>Pitter Patter</i> in 1920 and married in 1922, didn't mix with the Cagney clan, but Jim was nevertheless thrilled to have everyone close at hand. In 1940 Jim and Willie adopted a son, Jim<span style="font-size: small;">, Jr., and in 1941 <span style="font-size: small;">they adopted a baby girl known as Casey.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div></div><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB7oFL8lObqCQa1YDW3j2ktB0xdaSpHwGsuXSQ6ZZhisFR0thBpPCuPcYNdtC0ok-O323h7sla0GpeQozoZVWsroBLQMoU9yaF3aGBSIKdO7xgJMc_g9owxY2HNqMECxJf1GTN_VAP5aQ/s1600/yankee-doodle-dandy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB7oFL8lObqCQa1YDW3j2ktB0xdaSpHwGsuXSQ6ZZhisFR0thBpPCuPcYNdtC0ok-O323h7sla0GpeQozoZVWsroBLQMoU9yaF3aGBSIKdO7xgJMc_g9owxY2HNqMECxJf1GTN_VAP5aQ/s320/yankee-doodle-dandy.jpg" width="278" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Yankee Doodle Dandy </span></i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">(1942)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Because of his ongoing disputes with Warner Brothers and his progressive politics, Cagney had been tagged a "radical." The Dies Committee (1938 - 1944) was the first incarnation of HUAC and in 1940 when the LA County District Attorney named Cagney as a person with an interest in the Communist Party</span>, the actor met the accusation head-on. First he called a press conference and passionately denied the charge. Next he met with Rep. Martin Dies, head of the Congressional committee, and stated his case in person. Dies effectively put the matter to rest. <i><a href="http://www.classicfilmboy.com/2013/04/james-cagney-blogathon-yankee-doodle.html"><span style="color: red;"><b>Yankee Doodle Dandy</b></span></a> </i>(1942) began making its way toward production soon afterward. The role of Broadway's legendary and multifaceted George M. Cohan was a perfect fit for Cagney, who said of himself, "once a song-and -dance man, always a song-and-dance man" and neatly described his own style as "flash, with always a dash of the eccentric and a bit of humor." The film lifted his career to another peak; his performance earned him an Academy Award and his second Best Actor award from the New York Film Critics. <i>Yankee Doodle Dandy</i>, released in the early days of World War II, also cemented his reputation as a good and patriotic American.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">On behalf of the war effort, Cagney took part in many war bond drives, traveled with the USO and gave the U.S. Army access to his Vineyard property for use in its maneuvers. Also during the war years, Jim and his brother Bill established Cagney Productions. The company produced three features before it was absorbed into Warner Brothers as a production unit.</span><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWaJioRfO_d41KtDZm_nXd3367DM5nXT1mPlER5m6wSmqhJ-stxO4jD5JLQ8X3nhZ0DRkzzhnv2E2mSbdLx_DWvvUA8L68iEZlU7O6lBAJyyVc0RmSbW6PegpseNmlm51XypE16Tk83Y0/s1600/WhiteHeat_1949_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWaJioRfO_d41KtDZm_nXd3367DM5nXT1mPlER5m6wSmqhJ-stxO4jD5JLQ8X3nhZ0DRkzzhnv2E2mSbdLx_DWvvUA8L68iEZlU7O6lBAJyyVc0RmSbW6PegpseNmlm51XypE16Tk83Y0/s400/WhiteHeat_1949_01.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">White Heat </span></i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">(1949)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">John McCabe's 1997 biography, <i>Cagney</i>, opens with a disturbing domestic scene. Young Jim sits in the kitchen closely watching his father across the dining table. The elder Cagney starts rocking from side to side and then begins a "low keening" that will build to a wail. These episodes were called "Dad's fits" and would portend Cagney's Cody Jarrett in <i><a href="http://themovieprojector.blogspot.com/2013/04/white-heat-1949.html"><b><span style="color: red;">White Heat</span></b></a> </i>(1949). The actor considered it "a good picture in a number of ways." The original script had been typical formula, what he called "the old knock-down-drag-'em-out," so, as he he often did, he set about making improvements. He suggested to the writers that the story be modeled on Ma Barker and her boys and that Jarrett be psychotic. This, Cagney reasoned, would be a natural set-up to his character's climactic demise. It was also his notion that Jarrett be a mama's boy and proposed a scene with Cody sitting on his mother's lap. "Let's see if we can get away with this," he said to director Raoul Walsh. They did. Virginia Mayo, who played Cagney's mistress, remembered of working with him that, "he always gave to you more than you gave to him" and was astonished that he wasn't Oscar-nominated for his performance.</span><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEXPug_10djM8EI1NPmgll9c0bJNmcqjldst7pdwlM-xBjb3xF-fqhiFZa72JAG64yrHcfIQwx8wTYdPIs4v4zgHirK8a24dElJ9Z-yCRH0Fm9RTjtLTwQomvxrzhrGuetu6YJMKIC51A/s1600/love-me-or-leave-me-day-cagney.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEXPug_10djM8EI1NPmgll9c0bJNmcqjldst7pdwlM-xBjb3xF-fqhiFZa72JAG64yrHcfIQwx8wTYdPIs4v4zgHirK8a24dElJ9Z-yCRH0Fm9RTjtLTwQomvxrzhrGuetu6YJMKIC51A/s320/love-me-or-leave-me-day-cagney.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Doris Day and Cagney, <i>Love Me or Leave Me </i>(1955)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Cagney would receive his final Academy Award nomination for <i><a href="http://lecinemadreams.blogspot.com/2013/04/love-me-or-leave-me-1955.html"><b><span style="color: red;">Love Me or Leave Me</span></b></a> </i>(1955), the film that revealed Doris Day's dramatic potential, and most of his later film performances were well received. The making of Billy Wilder's <i><a href="http://filmsworthwatching.blogspot.com/2013/04/one-two-three-1961-directed-by-billy.html"><span style="color: red;"><b>One, Two, Three</b></span></a> </i>(1961) was a frustrating, unhappy experience for Cagney and during filming he decided to retire when the picture wrapped. For the next 20 years he would spend most of his time on his working farm in New York and on Martha's Vineyard. His cherished pastimes included raising Morgan horses, sailing and painting.</span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIYnB7nWe2pVK_ZSF8Js7m3NXff_eumRnWuoPXoXsCymDvUaPkIaJHLeuTtaavGq8M4piLm57WsXv776OKa3WJLozRdOk90hqqiRdocC2VvJOedcFPWkTAbPXwsYN6It3uTR6Fbzd99zc/s1600/ragtime.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIYnB7nWe2pVK_ZSF8Js7m3NXff_eumRnWuoPXoXsCymDvUaPkIaJHLeuTtaavGq8M4piLm57WsXv776OKa3WJLozRdOk90hqqiRdocC2VvJOedcFPWkTAbPXwsYN6It3uTR6Fbzd99zc/s320/ragtime.jpg" width="202" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Ragtime</span></i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> (1981)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In 1974 he became the first actor to receive the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award. He was accorded Kennedy Center honors in 1980, and in 1981 returned to the screen for a high-profile cameo role in <i>Ragtime</i>, Milos Forman's film adaptation of E. L. Doctorow's best-seller. In 1984 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. </span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Of Cagney, Orson Welles said, "He always played right at the top of his bent, but he was always <i>true</i>. Sure, acting <i>can</i> be too <i>broad</i>. Broad is wide - spread out. Cagney was <i>focused</i>. Christ, like a laser beam! Cagney was one of the biggest actors in the whole history of the screen. Force, style, truth, and control - he had everything. He pulled no punches. God, how he projected! And yet nobody could call Cagney a ham. He didn't bother about reducing himself to fit the scale of the camera; he was much too busy doing his job."</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Elia Kazan, who'd had a small role in <i><a href="http://thegirlwiththewhiteparasol.blogspot.com/2013/04/movie-review-city-for-conquest.html"><span style="color: red;"><b>City for Conquest</b></span></a> </i>(1940), recalled Cagney as "a completely honest actor." Kazan erroneously assumed that Cagney had fully worked out his performance in advance, at home, and marveled that "what he did always seemed spontaneous."</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Late in life Cagney looked back on working with a young actor who went through intense preparation before every scene. When a scene had to be re-shot, Cagney viewed the second take. "There I realized what the difficulty was...he was doing it for <i>himself</i>, not the audience. He was psyching himself up to <i>be</i> the character, instead of just understanding the character and playing it for the audience." Cagney's philosophy on acting was simply stated and often quoted, "You walk in, plant yourself squarely on both feet, look the other fella in the eye and tell the truth." Those who worked with him would doubtless agree that is exactly what he did.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">James Cagney died at Verney Farm in 1986 at age 86. His pallbearers included a former heavyweight champion (Floyd Patterson), a ballet legend (Mikhail Baryshnikov), an Academy Award winning film director (Milos Forman), movie producer A.C. Lyles, and one of his closest long-time friends, actor Ralph Bellamy. He was eulogized by the President of the United States and his New York Times obituary mourned the passing of the "Master of Pugnacious Grace."</span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">CAGNEY ACCEPTING THE <span style="font-size: x-small;">AFI'<span style="font-size: x-small;">s <span style="font-size: x-small;">LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD IN 1974</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/XXxZCrM04uI" width="420"></iframe> <br /><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Cagney's AFI ceremony was said to be "the most star-studded <span style="font-size: x-small;">gathering in Hollywood history" and that "if a bomb had been dropped on the assemblage, Hollywood would have been wiped out."</span></span> </span></div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIlCJeGekFXgw4gCbcuEG4ZcnxwBYrn3yaqHUxZzmpYjv4GDrXsfjig9mPItgH2mogKljSma9qbUcJjBrbjExR97SZd5IRDkPauu0lIKD7eYfRLwtTmsDSyD5K_cZbUSvCgBlSGWJbeRI/s1600/art_2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIlCJeGekFXgw4gCbcuEG4ZcnxwBYrn3yaqHUxZzmpYjv4GDrXsfjig9mPItgH2mogKljSma9qbUcJjBrbjExR97SZd5IRDkPauu0lIKD7eYfRLwtTmsDSyD5K_cZbUSvCgBlSGWJbeRI/s1600/art_2.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Still life paintings by James Cagney</span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><u>Notes</u>:</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Cagney by Cagney</i> by James Cagney, Doubleday (1976)</span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Cagney</i> by John McCabe, Knopf (1997)</span><br /><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd2IJAqF_wB2pUhih7XA8c2AuT9bb3dQpIim0XQzLy61SRcahuqOPLy5RVoDfI5GdOHg_-KXceylzl96dzNmWX6COoKTuEYib97pWGulP7SdjD6UeitiXRqyPGTIRncEIjIHr8MzqKM_k/s1600/CIMBA+Performer+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd2IJAqF_wB2pUhih7XA8c2AuT9bb3dQpIim0XQzLy61SRcahuqOPLy5RVoDfI5GdOHg_-KXceylzl96dzNmWX6COoKTuEYib97pWGulP7SdjD6UeitiXRqyPGTIRncEIjIHr8MzqKM_k/s320/CIMBA+Performer+2013.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> <i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Classic Movie Blog Association honored this post with</span></i></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i> the 2013 CiMBA Award for Best Profile of a Performer</i></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></div>

Angels With Dirty Faces Cagney Blogathon James Cagney The Lady Eve (author) The Movie Projector The Public Enemy White Heat Yankee Doodle Dandy CAGNEY

Cagney, color by Claroscureaux "...every time I see him work, looks to me like a bunch of firecrackers going off all at once." Wil...

Read more »