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Chris Guerre is an example. To get to his land, you drive down a long lane, past million-dollar homes on multi-acre wooded lots, in the wealthy community of Great Falls, Va., just outside Washington, D.C.

Then, unexpectedly, you come to an old barn, a couple of chicken coops, and two-and-a-half acres of vegetables. During the winter, the vegetables are covered by a kind of blanket to keep them from freezing, but still lets water and sun through.

"We're one of the few farms left in the county, let alone one that grows and picks every week of the year," Guerre says. "Every week, even in winter, I'm growing and picking crops.

Chris Guerre didn't grow up on this farm, or on any farm.

About five years ago, before he arrived at this spot, he ditched what he calls his "career job" to grow and sell food. He and his wife expanded their garden; they started selling vegetables at a farmers' market, and opened their own store selling food grown on other local farms. One day, at the farmers' market, a woman came up to them.

"She approached my wife, and wondered if we might be interested in living on her family's farm. There was room to grow vegetables, or have animals. And we said, 'Yeah!'" recalls Guerre.

It turned out to be this farm. Guerre and his wife moved into the house. They're renting the land, and there's no guarantee that the family that owns this land won't someday decide to sell it to a developer.

But Guerre doesn't seem worried. "They've been just very kind to us, and very encouraging, and helped us get to where we are," he says.

Guerre has built a new chicken coop; fixed roofs and plumbing; turned an old milk room into a wash room for vegetables.

He says, even if they did have to move someday, and leave all this behind, it wouldn't be the end of the world. He's pretty sure he could find land somewhere else. "If you walk a couple of miles in any direction, there's hundreds of acres."

In fact, he says, "Acquiring land is honestly probably the easiest part of doing all this. It's the commitment, the stamina, learning how to do it and doing it every single day: That's the hard part."

If you're ready to do all that, he says, you really can make a living at this. As for finding land, start hanging out with farmers, asking questions and chances are you'll eventually hear about places where you can grow some food and start your own farming business.

The divide between Republicans and Democrats on their views of the scientific theory of evolution is widening, according to a new poll released by Pew's Religion & Public Life Project.

The overall percentage of Americans who say "humans and other living things evolved over time" (60 percent) versus those who believe "humans and other living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time" (33 percent) is about the same as it was in a similar poll four years ago. But the political gap has widened substantially.

In 2009, 54 percent of Republicans said they accepted the theory of evolution as true, compared with 64 percent of Democrats. But in the intervening years, opinions appear to have evolved: In the latest poll, nearly half of Republicans (48 percent) believed in a static view of human and animal origins, while just 30 percent of Democrats expressed that point of view. Independents tracked closely with the breakdown for Democrats.

"The gap is coming from the Republicans, where fewer are now saying that humans have evolved over time," says Cary Funk, a Pew senior researcher who conducted the analysis, according to Reuters.

Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of those surveyed by Pew said they believed that a "supreme being guided evolution for the purpose of creating humans and other life in the form it exists today."

According to Pew:

"A majority of white evangelical Protestants (64%) and half of black Protestants (50%) say that humans have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. But in other large religious groups, a minority holds this view. In fact, nearly eight-in-ten white mainline Protestants (78%) say that humans and other living things have evolved over time. Three-quarters of the religiously unaffiliated (76%) and 68% of white non-Hispanic Catholics say the same. About half of Hispanic Catholics (53%) believe that humans have evolved over time, while 31% reject that idea."

Every time I spend New Year's Eve with my mom, she tells me the same thing: "Be careful with that Champagne, honey. The bubbles go straight to the head. And it won't be pretty tomorrow."

Thanks, Mom. Glad you're looking after me after all these years.

But is she right?

The internet will sure tell you so. Search for "Champagne, bubbles and drunk," and you'll get articles entitled "Why Bubbles Make You More Giggly" and "Fizz in bubbly will get you drunk faster."

But if you dig a little deeper, the scientific evidence is about as thin as the stem on a Reidel Champagne flute.

Among the first researchers to investigate the bubbles was a group in England that published a study looking at how quickly alcohol entered the blood when people drank a bubbly Champagne versus a degassed one. "We found that the blood alcohol levels of the people drinking the gas champagne were higher for the first twenty minutes, suggesting that it had got into the blood stream a lot quicker," the lead researcher on the study, Fran Ridout told The Naked Scientist.

The Salt

The Perfect Champagne Pour: It's A Science, Not An Art

Are we witnessing the twilight of DVD and Blu-ray?

Kinda-sorta. With the emergence of various digital distributions systems — streaming and downloading through your laptop, your cable system, your game console — it's easy to see how these discs will be the next physical media formats to fade away. DVD and Blu-ray could well go the way of CDs and vinyl, becoming a niche boutique market for collectors.

It's not happening quite yet. Plenty of people still prefer the disc to the download. Discs are more reliable, usually offer better sound and image fidelity, and almost always have bonus materials you can't get online. And DVD box sets still make for nice gifts, which is why the market gets flooded every November and December with splashy multi-disc collections.

But what brings us here at this moment is the fact that precisely because box sets seem like a luxury, they're an exceptional use for the exceptionally popular gift card. A lot of you have such things burning holes in your pockets right now, and instead of spending them on more streaming or more doodads, why not spend them on a real treat, in which category these sets now qualify?

So we offer a sampling of current releases on DVD and Blu-ray, across a variety of genres and price points. Each features bonus materials and extras you can't get via downloading and streaming. Listed prices represent the low end of average retail costs, through it pays to shop around, especially with the bigger sets.

If and when these discs finally fade to obsolescence, you can keep them as family artifacts to show the grandkids. You see, Tommy, back when I was a boy we had this thing called the eject button...

Dexter: The Complete Series

DVD/Blu-ray, $225/$250, 33 discs/25 discs)

Showtime's popular and critically drama, which successfully tested the validity of serial killer-as-protagonist, wrapped this fall after a stellar eight-season run. The show's weird mix of crime drama, psychological horror and black comedy made it one of the marquee shows of the era. The set features a replica of Dexter's "blood slide box" for the discs, three hours of exclusive behind-the-scenes extras, plus "Grafix: The Art of Dexter" — a collection of photography and images.

No Pryor Restraint: Life in Concert

(DVD/CD, $75, 2 DVDs and 7 CDs)

Comedy nerds have been waiting a while for this one, a comprehensive collection of stage performances from Richard Pryor, the mad genius generally acknowledged as the best stand-up comic ever. The collection spans audio recordings from Pryor's earliest stand-up gigs to the legendary concert film Live on the Sunset Strip, along with a collection of photos, essays and tributes from fellow comics. You can't get this material packaged together in any other place, and in fact quite a lot of it you can't get to at all otherwise. Highly recommended.

John Cassavetes: Five Films

(Blu-ray, $90, 5 discs)

An original indie film maverick, actor and director John Cassavetes made a series of groundbreaking films through the 1960s and 1970s, usually operating outside the studio system and often financing the films himself. This new Blu-ray reissue of the older DVD box set gathers five of his films — Shadows (1959), Faces (1968), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976 and 1978 versions) and Opening Night (1977). Compiled by the stoic archivists at the Criterion Collection, the package features the usual suite of generous extras — interviews, commentary tracks, still galleries, critical essays and the three-hour documentary on Cassavetes, A Constant Forge.

Nine for IX

(DVD, $30, 4 discs)

Commissioned by the ESPN Films division behind the popular 30 for 30 series, Nine for IX celebrates the 40th anniversary of Title IX with, yes, nine documentaries on women in sports. The collection includes stories on Venus Williams, Katrina Witt and Pat Summitt, plus the acclaimed Let Them Wear Towels, directed by rock star doc makers Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern (Joan Rivers — A Piece of Work). The included bonus disc adds two more films. Thoughtful sports journalism is enjoying something of a renaissance of late, and the Nine for IX films fascinate by framing sports stories in larger cultural contexts. This is a nice option for families with teenage athletes running around.

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The news Tuesday morning from the stranded ship in the Antarctic is that it's looking more and more like icebreakers won't be able to reach the MV Akademik Shokalskiy, so the passengers and some of the crew are preparing to be plucked off the ice by helicopter.

There's fresh video of the intrepid explorers singing and stomping on the ice as they try to flatten out something of a landing pad. It's hoped that a helicopter will arrive from a Chinese icebreaker that's in open water not too far away.

On Tuesday, Israel released another two dozen Palestinian prisoners convicted of violent crimes against Israelis.

It's the third of four groups to be released before their sentences are up, part of a confidence-building deal that helped restart peace negotiations in July.

Palestinian Omar Masoud was a prisoner freed in one of the previous releases. He says that when he agreed to kill an Israeli working in the Gaza Strip, he expected consequences.

"I knew I would go to prison, or get killed and become a martyr, or I'd have to run away abroad," Masoud says. "These are the choices every fighter faces."

Masoud was sentenced to 90 years in an Israeli prison for the 1993 murder of Ian Feinberg. But two months ago, just 20 years into his sentence, Masoud was set free. He was in the second group of Palestinian prisoners Israel agreed to release to restart peace talks. Feinberg's sister, Gila Molcho, found out from a phone call after a family celebration.

"It was my daughter's bat mitzvah Sunday evening [and] we must have gone to sleep about 4 o'clock," Molcho says. "I was woken up by a journalist asking what I think about the fact that my brother's murderer will be let out two days later."

Molcho was dismayed. Other people involved in her brother's murder had been freed in previous political deals, but Masoud was one of the two held directly responsible for his death. Molcho says Feinberg, a lawyer, was Zionistic and politically conservative, but that her brother had business skills he thought could help Gaza at that time.

"He thought that if he could bring work to the Gaza area, he would be improving their quality of life," she says. "So when the guy stormed his office, with a gun on him with a bayonet, he must have had the shock of his life because he believed in people."

Molcho says Masoud is a cold-blooded killer. Masoud says Israeli policies forced him to murder.

"Every fighter has humanity, but when the occupation kills your children, your elderly, your mothers, doesn't allow you to develop your society, your vision becomes clouded," Masoud says. "The Israeli occupation imposed injustice on us and didn't give us room to forgive."

Legitimization Or An Unacceptable Gesture?

Israel's decision to free 104 Palestinian prisoners gave Masoud his life back. He believes it helped legitimize the peace process, too, in the eyes of Palestinians.

"Of course [this] pushes the peace process forward," he says. "It helps the Palestinian position, it stops possible protests in the Palestinian street, and the Palestinian prisoners are reconnected with their people."

But Israeli Gila Molcho feels betrayed. She says the release is a political gesture with no peace guaranteed.

"I honestly believe that Bibi Netanyahu, unfortunately, can be easily bent. And whoever is pushing hardest is the way he bends," she says, using the Israeli prime minister's nickname. "Until the Israelis stand up and say, 'You are selling our blood as a gesture, and that's unacceptable,' there won't be a change."

Netanyahu is also expected to formally announce plans for more Jewish settlements on land the Palestinians claim as part of any future state. He did the same with both previous prisoner releases, easing Israeli anger over the prisoner deal but infuriating Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Gila Molcho fears that newly freed prisoners will return to violence. Omar Masoud, who is almost 40 years old, says he is too old to kill again.

In general, getting a cease-and-desist letter from a big corporation isn't the mark of a good day. But after a brewery owner got a letter from a law firm representing Starbucks, he saw a chance to draw distinctions between the businesses — and to be funny.

The coffee company's bone of contention, Missouri brewer Jeff Britton was told in a Dec. 9 letter from a law firm that guards Starbucks' trademarks, was the use of the name "Frappicino" to describe a stout served at Exit 6 Brewery, a brewpub in a tidy strip mall in Cottleville, northwest of St. Louis.

The name too closely resembled Starbucks' Frappuccino, Britton was told in a letter from Anessa Owen Kramer, an attorney at a law firm that protects Starbucks' trademarks. The similar names might cause customers to "mistakenly believe that Exit 6 or this beer product is affiliated with or licensed by Starbucks Coffee Co., when they are not," Owen Kramer wrote.

Exit 6 was given 14 days to respond to the company's request to remove any sources of potential confusion with the Starbucks brand.

Britton took that time to frame a response in which he informs Starbucks of his efforts to comply, going so far as to cease using the word "Frappuccino." Instead, he uses "The F Word" in his letter, which is addressed to "Ms Owen Kramer" and cc'ed to "Mr Bucks."

"As you probably don't know, Exit 6 is the proud owner of no trademarks including our own name much less than the name 'F Word' and nothing about Exit 6 is incontestable," Britton wrote.

Exit 6 Starbucks letter

When I was first explaining what I wanted this blog to be like in 2008, I shared with some folks at NPR a theory I have had for some time about writing about popular culture. It goes like this: If you think monkeys are fascinating and you want to understand and be of value to them, it's not enough to be an expert on what monkeys should ideally eat. You have to understand what monkeys actually eat.

And the same is true of culture. It's good to know and think about what people ought to watch and read and listen to, ideally; all that is good stuff, and worth talking about, and worth arguing about. But it doesn't change the fact that there's a whole other universe of things that people care about and watch and like or get angry about, and whether they ought to or not, the fact that they do — and they way they do — tells you something about them.

So while it is true, as we've explained, that Monkey See refers in part to the unique place of monkeys at the junction of anthropology and comedy, it is also true that the way monkeys originally made their way into the naming conversation was that deep down, I wanted to call the blog What Monkeys Eat. (With myself as chief monkey, don't get me wrong. It's not a put-down.)

Justin Bieber, Duck Dynasty, Breaking Bad, Gravity, and — yes — even Miley Cyrus twerking are all examples of what monkeys eat. Some good, some bad, some completely baffling. But all things that are making their way into a lot of people's thinking, and provoking all kinds of conversations that we might not have otherwise.

That's my own answer to the age-old question of why anyone writes about pop culture, which recently came up in this piece about important versus unimportant stories. How did we get to the point where we're spending so much time with stories that aren't about "war or peace or anyone's ability to find work," but instead on "fluff"?

The question seems directed less at cultural criticism — why write about television, why write about popular film — than about cultural stories of the moment. Why have conversations about trivial things? Why not limit your conversations to important things?

It's true that diversion and distraction are part of the reason too, no question, as is amusement. Sometimes funny stories are just funny stories, and funny writing about silly things is just funny writing about silly things. But that's not the whole story.

Consider the case of Marco Rubio and the water bottle. In and of itself, that story is, indeed, very silly: A Man Drinks Water. But to me, it seemed like a story about how spontaneity is in such short supply in politics that in highly choreographed settings, even small, meaningless things seem fascinating simply because they are unplanned. The water is not important; the authenticity craving that, once identified, could be transformed into a strategy? That's potentially important. And if you think people are interesting the way a student of monkeys might find monkeys interesting, the way that resonated with people doesn't have to be good or bad; it just is. You've heard of "I think, therefore I am." This is more, "It is, therefore I think about it." This kind of thing is often less like gem-polishing and more like seismology. You feel the vibration, and you analyze it, rather than ignoring it on the basis that nothing broke.

The same is true — even more — of the Duck Dynasty story. There are over 750 comments on a post I wrote about that story, even though the post was really very mild. And in those comments, you will see multiple and profound cultural divides that touch on issues of region, class, religion, race, sexuality, trust, authenticity, and power. Duck Dynasty is not important, but that story exposed that divide and, just as importantly, shows how easy it has become to exploit it.

The utter lack of importance of the underlying subject, in fact, is exactly what tells you how close to the surface and at how high a temperature these conflicts are simmering. In fact, it is often those conversations about seemingly insignificant cultural issues that (for me) sheds light on what makes larger issues of war and peace and the economy so difficult to address.

People absolutely make decisions about where to get information based on who understands and relates to them culturally. People absolutely decide they believe this person or that person based in part on whether they know anything about country music or hip-hop or hunting. It would be crazy to believe that the level of anger and frustration that exploded in discussions about Duck Dynasty begins and ends at Duck Dynasty. We're positively poaching in it, and it's poaching politics, high art, the environment, foreign policy and every other area of public policy. That story and the reactions to it create a sobering snapshot of a lot of people who are really, really, really angry.

The big picture, always, is just that: it's a big picture. To get perspective on a huge, world-shaking issue like climate change or war often requires a view from the sky. And when you read great writing about it, it feels exactly that way: like you're looking at the world from a spy satellite, and huge things suddenly make sense and click together like Legos.

Writing about popular culture is more the view from the ground. It's looking around at the people you both live with and walk past, looking at what they're listening to and reading and thinking about, whether it's what they ought to be thinking about or not.

In short, you don't have to like the resonance of a moment in order to acknowledge it. And how you write about it is always going to matter more than what you're writing about. (Don't believe me? Remember The Story Of Egypt's Revolution In Jurassic Park GIFs?)

It's always going to be possible to write well about small things or badly about big things. It's easy as pie to write dumb, destructive things about war or the economy or hugely critical issues — things that have the capacity to be far more of a scourge and a danger than somebody writing any of the really intelligent pieces that went around about Miley Cyrus twerking. (That, by the way, stoked all kinds of interesting conversations around race, gender, appropriation, tradition ... sometimes a twerk is just a twerk, but sometimes it is emphatically not.)

So no, Justin Bieber is not important. But Justin Bieber is, and for me personally, it matters what's being said, not just what it's being said about.

A year after losing the popular vote for the fifth time in the last six presidential elections, the Republican Party has crafted a series of rules tweaks designed to regain control of — and dramatically shorten — its presidential nominating process.

The subcommittee charged with looking for fixes has approved five proposed changes for review by the Republican National Committee's rules committee at its January meeting. The full RNC would then need to pass the changes by a three-quarters supermajority.

"I think this strikes a good balance," said John Ryder, the RNC's general counsel.

February 2016 would be set aside for the traditional early states: Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. The other states could start as soon as March 1, but could not hold winner-take-all contests before March 15. Larger states that violate either of those rules would lose all but nine of their delegates to the summer nominating convention, not counting their three RNC members who are automatic delegates. Smaller states would lose two-thirds of their delegates, not including the three RNC members.

At the back end of the calendar, state parties would have to submit their slates of convention delegates 45 days prior to the convention, rather than 35 days. With RNC leaders hoping to schedule the convention in late June, rather than late August, this would mean the last primaries and caucuses would have to be set for mid-May — thereby cutting what was a six-month-long process in 2012 down to three-and-a-half months.

The balancing act, Ryder said, was to compress the calendar without giving an insurmountable advantage to a candidate who has "$200 million on day one."

The weeks and months leading up to Iowa and New Hampshire, in particular, would still be the time for low-budget candidates to make their case directly to the voters. Success in those contests could be parlayed into stronger fundraising heading into the first half of March, when the proportional-only mandate would mean that second- and third-place finishers could continue to win significant numbers of delegates.

"It gives a six-week period for a retail candidacy to take hold, if it's going to take hold," Ryder said.

If this thinking sounds familiar, it should. The RNC tried to accomplish similar goals heading into 2012. The four early states were given the month of February. Other states could start holding contests on March 1 if they allocated delegates proportionally, and on April 1 if they awarded all the delegates to the top vote-getter. A state that violated either rule faced a 50-percent loss of delegates.

That plan, though, was thwarted by Florida — which also violated the rules in 2008 — prompting the the official early states to move even earlier. (Iowa held its caucuses on Jan. 3 in both 2008 and 2012.)

In 2012, the new rules were silent on how to deal with states like Florida that violated both calendar and proportionality rules. Only the single, 50-percent penalty ended up being levied, and 100 percent of the remaining delegates went to Mitt Romney, letting him get back on track after losing South Carolina to Newt Gingrich.

The new, harsher penalty appears to have solved the Florida-going-early problem. But whether it maintains a lane for a little known, low-budget candidate remains to be seen.

After the "all-but-nine" delegate penalty was first imposed at the Tampa convention last year, the GOP-controlled Florida legislature passed a law setting the presidential primary on the first Tuesday permitted by party rules that didn't involve a penalty.

In 2016, that Tuesday would be March 1 – the same date that Texas is planning to hold its presidential primary. Which means the first allowable day for contests in the non-"carve-out" states will feature primaries in two of the four largest states. Both have lots of big media markets and are extremely expensive to run in; the two states will, between them, award nearly a quarter of the delegates needed to win the nomination.

In other words, it would be just the sort of day best suited for a candidate with, say, $200 million.

S.V. Dte edits politics and campaign finance coverage for NPR's Washington Desk.

I love Key West, and I go there as often as possible: pina coladas, drag queens, shady hammocks, feral chickens — it's the best. There's just one problem: everyone gets around the island by bike, and I've never learned to ride one. Obviously that had to change.

Why didn't I learn? I really don't remember, and neither did my mom, when I asked her about the one time my parents tried to teach me. "You got on a big bicycle that was so big you couldn't really turn the wheels and got discouraged."

I've tried to learn a few times since then — particularly after I discovered Key West. It's never really worked, though, so this summer I decided to get serious, and take an adult learn-to-ride class from the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.

I was not alone. At least twenty people showed up to the class, and WABA's Dan Hoagland told me there were dozens more on the waiting list.

Hoagland was an effective drill sergeant and cheerleader for us as we wobbled around the parking lot.

"There are three steps to learning to ride a bicycle," he told me. "The first and most important is to find your balance."

That was not as easy as he made it sound. I ended up kicking and pushing, kicking and pushing until I could glide across the parking lot without falling over. The instructors take the pedals off the bikes at first — only when you can glide do you earn your pedals back.

Eventually, I managed to pedal across the lot on my own. Okay, so about five minutes after that I got cocky and fell right on my face. But still. For that brief moment, I was riding a bike. I was ready for Key West.

Like I said, everyone rides bikes here — all the guest houses have ranks of brightly painted beaters out front that you can rent. Last year, I couldn't do it — I was forced to tool around in a little electric golf cart.

Mission Accomplished

In laid-back Key West, most people get around by bike. So NPR's Petra Mayer had to learn.

My holiday break last week took an unexpected detour when a broken bone (not mine) changed our plans for a full family get-together. Thus, I was left with a few days of unanticipated free time on my own, which led me to the obvious conclusion: if I can't be fully relaxed and immersed in holiday joy the entire time, this is the perfect time to clean out my closets.

As I documented in detail, I moved this fall, and have just about reached the point where you've been in a place for a few months and can look around and say what isn't working, where clutter builds up because it doesn't have a home, and which cabinet seemed like it needed to be filled with precisely that set of items, but in fact has rarely been opened. You also are, by then, tired of temporary furniture solutions (the folding table I was using in my little dining space) and tired of looking at the closets that never quiiiiite got organized, so it's time to Do A Bunch Of Things To Your Place That You Were Too Tired To Do Right After Painting The Whole Thing.

As it turns out, the best possible accompaniment to a ten-day stretch of working on your house is home-improvement television, gobbled on demand, forever and ever, day after day. It also turns out that many of the popular home repair and renovation shows on HGTV are Canadian. Specifically, they are Torontonian. In fact, I learned that originally, the Love It Or List It spin-off Love It Or List It Too, which kind of made no sense to me in terms of its need to exist even before I found out that the designer was former Bachelorette Jillian Harris, began in Canada as Love It Or List It Vancouver. And they can't call it that without reminding you that the regular one is secretly Love It Or List It (Toronto), so in the United States, it's really just More Of That One Show.

But that's not all.

Property Brothers, starring twins Drew (realtor) and Jonathan (remodeler) Scott, is also Canadian. So is Income Property, where the host guides people through buying and renovating a place they can rent out. (This means he operates largely in basements, and that means his show is the one that made me happiest about having left my basement apartment, since he makes it appear that all basements are deathtraps full of ants and mold and possibly monsters.)

Also Canadian: the Mike Holmes empire, which has spawned (among others) the wonderfully named show Holmes Makes It Right on HGTV's sister network DIY, which, obviously, I watched until I ran out of it. So, by the way, is Property Virgins, which I don't watch because: that's weird.

So as it turns out, the United States basic-cable television audience is learning all about decorating from watching the gradual renovation of all of Toronto.

(You should also know that almost all of these shows have obviously amped-up faux drama and are accused with varying levels of seriousness of being utterly phony, so they are best taken as stories, not necessarily documentaries.)

As we discussed regarding House Hunters a while back, home fixup shows have a way of making everyone look spoiled rotten from the inside out. Love It Or List It is a show where (allegedly) people have their houses renovated while also looking for new houses, and at the end, they decide whether to stay in their fixed-up house or find a new one. My favorite LIOLI moment was the couple who not only demanded heated floors in the bathroom (the wife discussed the idea of unheated bathroom tile the way you or I might discuss the idea of living in an outhouse), but absolutely freaked out at the idea that plumbing issues might meant they wound up with electric heated floors instead of hot water heated floors. She insisted that these two things are nothing alike, due to the wonderful "ambient" heat that water provides.

Please keep in mind: we are talking about the bathroom floor. Heating the bathroom floor. That is what we are talking about. Heating the bathroom floor. If I recall correctly, they ultimately left their renovated house and its pathetic wrongly heated bathroom floors to some other sucker.

The great thing about watching home improvement TV while working on your own apartment is that you can watch people tear up their basement floors to find serious plumbing issues, and you can think to yourself, "Oh my, what would I do if that happened to me?" And then you can think, "Oh, that's right. I would throw all my stuff out the window, jump out after it, and be gone in five minutes."

On the other hand, the problem comes when you combine different shows. Mike Holmes, for instance, presents himself as a super-competent, super-cautious, super-thorough dude who goes around fixing the problems left behind by quick-hit, low-budget contractors. And it's hard not to think, "He would probably not approve of the work that is done on Thirty Minutes To A Whole New Bathroom or whatever."

As it turns out, this is at the heart of the home-improvement television craziness: aspiration versus anxiety. "Look at that house! That's wonderful! My house, on the other hand, is terrible." Or, "Look at those people! They're jerks who complain about heating their floors! I would never do that, because I am normal."

So when you're in the process of cleaning out your own apartment, you feel empowered to create a beautiful "retreat" for yourself (this is what people say now, at least in Toronto, instead of "bedroom"). That's the aspirational part. Particularly when you live by yourself, it can put your head in a very experimental place, like, "Maybe I'll move the dresser over there! What do you think about that? There are no rules! I am all-powerful!"

But you also feel like your exposed power cords are even worse than you thought they were before, once you've seen a contractor install an entire system designed to hide every cord in the house. That's the anxiety part. That's how they get you: "This looks great! It needs more."

This is the sixth day of Ask Me Another's 12 Days of Xmas series.

With parodies like "Eat It," "Addicted to Spuds," and "Like a Surgeon," "Weird Al" Yankovic's songs were pretty much begging to be made into an Ask Me Another game. In this bonus round from Season One, we pay tribute to our favorite accordion-playing, pop culture-loving, food-punning parodist. House musician Jonathan Coulton makes contestants sing along to Weird Al's songs in the game "Two Tickets to Parodies."

Abortion rights activists are working on a counterattack to the 200 bills that have passed in states across the U.S. since 2010.

In the past three years, Republican-led legislatures have backed bills to regulate abortions and the doctors and clinics that perform them.

Bills to ban abortions at 20 weeks are among the laws that cropped up three years ago and have now passed in about a dozen states. This year, North Dakota pushed to end abortions at around six weeks of pregnancy.

"It really has been a wave of abortion restrictions moving across the country and it has affected providers and women and their families," says Elizabeth Nash, who tracks the laws for the Guttmacher Institute.

About a dozen clinics in Texas stopped providing abortions after a new law passed last summer. At least a dozen other clinics have closed across the country because of laws that say doctors must have admitting privileges at local hospitals, or because of another regulation requiring clinics to become mini surgical centers.

New York Takes A Stand

So abortion rights activists say they're pushing a new legislative strategy. In New York, lawmakers introduced the Women's Equality Act in 2013, backed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

"Why the state of New York?" asked Cuomo. "Because the state of New York has had a long and proud history of being the first one to stand up on issues like this, on issues of inequality."

It includes pay equity for women and strengthens domestic violence laws. Andrea Miller, president of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, says it also codifies Roe vs. Wade, the decision that legalized abortion.

"It says you have this right to make these decisions prior to the 24th week of pregnancy or thereafter if your life or health is at risk," Miller says. "It's quite simply, Roe vs. Wade put in state law to make sure that it's always there."

The bill didn't pass this year, but it will come up again in 2014.

Those who oppose abortion, including the New York State Catholic Conference, oppose the measure. Kathleen Gallagher, the conference's director of pro-life activities, says it's too broadly written.

"In our review, it's an expansion of late-term abortions here in New York, which we don't believe New York needs," Gallagher says.

U.S.

Laws Tightening Abortion Rules Gain Traction In States

Money mattered in Michael Bloomberg's case.

The billionaire's personal fortune (ranked 10th in the nation by Fortune) allowed him to bankroll his three runs for New York City mayor, freeing him to hire people he believed were the best and the brightest, rather than friends of donors.

His philanthropy also backed up the experiments he ran at City Hall — and allowed him to encourage other mayors to take similar tacks.

"It's the first time we've had a foundation specifically interested in mayors and administrations that can be innovative, and put an initiative behind that," says Greg Fischer, the mayor of Louisville, one of several cities that have won grants from Bloomberg Philanthropies.

Bloomberg, who is stepping down Jan. 1, has already announced that he will continue offering both money and technical assistance to mayors around the nation and around the globe.

"One of the places where he's been most influential is his theory of mayors being key agents of change," says Carol Coletta, vice president of community and national initiatives for the Knight Foundation.

It's not only his wealth that has made Bloomberg stand out. Any mayor of New York, the nation's biggest city and its media capital, is certain to receive outsized attention for his efforts.

But Bloomberg has been an exceptionally innovative mayor. And many of the changes he has pursued in his city — in education and transportation, in public health and public spaces — have been imitated and adapted in dozens, if not hundreds, of other cities.

"He's the most influential mayor of the first decade and a half of the 21st century," says Bruce Katz, who directs the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution.

Nanny-State Leader

For all his urban policy initiatives, Bloomberg will always be associated with public health programs.

Many people view his efforts to curb smoking, salt intake and especially supersized sodas as the height of nanny-state arrogance — a local government official overreaching to prevent people from doing harm to themselves. And his effort to spread gun control beyond New York's borders, through his own campaign donations, has suffered several setbacks.

Much of what Bloomberg did in this area, however, is affecting diet and health across the country. His ban on trans fats from bakeries and restaurants was quickly imitated elsewhere. Once places like California got on board, national restaurant chains altered their recipes.

Something similar happened with calorie counts on menus. Seattle, Philadelphia and cities and counties in California followed New York's lead, leading the restaurant industry to push for a uniform federal standard.

"He used his city and his health department to push through some major reforms that are beneficial to New York City and set a tremendous example that people around the country have emulated," says Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group.

In promoting his ideas on the national stage, Bloomberg has been aided by having his former health commissioner, Thomas Frieden, serving as head of the federal Centers for Disease Control — one of several well-placed former Bloomberg staffers in the Obama administration, including HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan.

Armed With A Plan

But Bloomberg concentrated on reshaping his city and others from the ground up. Recognizing that New York was bound to absorb perhaps a million more people over the next generation, Bloomberg crafted long-range plans for New York that have since been widely copied elsewhere.

"It's really important to look not just at the daily work of your city, but what your city should look like in 10 or 20 years," says Fischer, the Louisville mayor.

Bloomberg's exercise wasn't just catnip for the urban planning set but also was readily evident to residents and even to tourists (whose numbers have increased some 40 percent during his time in office).

Many areas of an already crowded city grew more dense, while cars were banned from parts of Times Square. An old freight rail line along the West Side of Manhattan became an enormously popular park known as the High Line — one of many new parks built under Bloomberg.

"He deserves credit for grasping very early that people want to walk to work, bike, have better mass transit," says Nicole Gelinas, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a think tank.

Steering Through Shocks

The primary date for Bloomberg's first run was originally set for Sept. 11, 2001. His predecessor, Rudolph Giuliani, became a national hero for his response to the terrorist attacks that day.

Giuliani had already shown that New York not only was governable but could be made safer. But Bloomberg had to deal with the long aftermath of the attacks. He has since guided New York through other major shocks — the near collapse of Wall Street in 2008 and the effects of Superstorm Sandy last year.

"Just this year, the resilience plan again leads the country," says Armando Carbonell, planning chairman for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. "It wasn't a sort of big, aspirational plan — it was concrete, taking into account climate in looking at air quality, recycling and transportation systems."

What Bloomberg grasped when he took office — a time when many predicted New York and Wall Street would head into decline — was that central cities were becoming much more desirable places to live.

Most cities are trying to turn their downtowns into 24/7 nodes of activity, but Bloomberg came up with ways of doing that which are being adapted all over the country.

Bloomberg also changed the way the city did business with small business and helped recruit universities and other players to boost scientific research and industry in New York.

"He converted the city into a magnet for talent," says Katz, the Brookings scholar. "There was no tech sector in New York, really, but it's now thriving, with huge effects."

The Power Of Policy

Bloomberg has also altered the way mayors run their own offices, with everything from doorless bullpens at city halls to 311 calls linking citizens more easily to government. He made it fashionable for mayors to take over direct control of schools and made it imperative that city administrations take data into account in their decision-making.

Not everyone believes some of Bloomberg's widely touted innovations, such as pedestrian plazas and bike-sharing lanes, answered the most pressing needs of the city. Bloomberg couldn't eradicate New York's own financial problems, with pensions eating up nearly twice as great a share of the city budget as when he took office.

He also conveyed to some the impression that he focused on Manhattan at the expense of other boroughs. It's one reason his successor, Bill de Blasio, found his message of income inequality to be so resonant in a city Bloomberg himself once described as a "luxury product."

Still, Bloomberg has had an enormous effect not only on his own city but also on how mayors everywhere approach their jobs.

"Bloomberg, like Giuliani, fit his moment," Katz says. "The moment for Giuliani was public safety. For Bloomberg, it was resiliency, sustainability and advanced industry — cityness."

For years, there have been hints that adding cinnamon to your diet can help control blood sugar. And a recent spat of studies adds to the evidence that the effect is real.

"Yes, it does work," says Paul Davis, a research nutritionist with the University of California, Davis. He authored a recent meta-analysis published in the Journal of Medicinal Food that concluded that cinnamon lowers fasting blood glucose.

"According to our results, it's a modest effect of about 3 to 5 percent," Davis says. This is about the level of reduction found in the older generation of diabetes drugs, he says.

And that makes the findings of interest not just to the 25 million Americans who already have diabetes, but also to the 80 million other people — nearly 1 in 4 of us — who have elevated fasting blood-glucose levels. Doctors refer to this as pre-diabetes, meaning that blood sugar isn't high enough to meet the cut-off for a diagnosis of diabetes, but it puts these people at a high risk of developing the disease.

There's also a recent meta-analysis concluding that cinnamon can help lower lipid levels, including LDL cholesterol (the unhealthy type) and triglycerides.

What's not well understood is exactly how much cinnamon is optimal, and whether the effect is transient. It's hard to tell from the studies whether it leads to a significant, long-term reduction in blood sugar.

For people who already have diabetes, cinnamon is not an alternative to medication. But for people with pre-diabetes who are interested in using diet to manage their blood sugar, it's one of many strategies worth considering, says diabetes educator Emmy Suhl of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.

"The evidence is still inconclusive," Suhl notes, but cinnamon "is inexpensive," "and it tastes good."

So, is there an ideal variety of cinnamon to be sprinkling into your oatmeal, or blending into your spice rubs and salads?

The Salt

When Is Cinnamon Spice Not So Nice? The Great Danish Debate

As we near the end of 2013, NPR is taking a look at the numbers that tell the story of this year — numbers that, if you really understand them, give insight into the world we're living in, right now. You'll hear the stories behind numbers ranging from zero to 1 trillion.

When it comes to race and film, the number of the year is 11.

I started the count recently at a movie theater just outside of Washington, D.C., where I met Kahlila Liverpool. We were there for a movie and a meal with the D.C. Black Film and Media Club, a local Meetup group that attends group screenings of films featuring black actors and by black directors.

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Federal regulators this month opened a new era in the treatment of a deadly liver virus that infects three to five times more people than HIV. Now the question is: Who will get access to the new drug for hepatitis C, and when?

The drug sofosbuvir (brand name Sovaldi) will cost $1,000 per pill. A typical course of treatment will last 12 weeks and run $84,000, plus the cost of necessary companion drugs. Some patients may need treatment for twice as long.

Hepatitis researchers call the drug a landmark in the treatment of this deadly infection. More than 90 percent of patients who get the new drug can expect to be cured of their hepatitis C infection, with few side effects.

Shots - Health News

FDA Expected To Approve New, Gentler Cure For Hepatitis C

The giant retailer Target continues to feel the fallout from a massive security breach at its stores. The latest revelation: Hackers who stole credit and debit card numbers this holiday season also collected encrypted personal identification numbers.

But Brigitte Clark had no worries as she left a Target in Los Angeles on Saturday morning, her cart full of groceries.

"I feel about as safe as we can be," she says. Things like Target's security breach just happen, she says, but she'll keep shopping.

"I mean, I'm gonna check my accounts, like I always do on a daily basis, which is what everybody should be doing," Clark says. "I have not changed. I have always checked my accounts daily. The hackers are on it, so we have to be on it."

In a statement, Target says the stolen PINs were encrypted, so they're safe. They say the only people that could decrypt the PINs are at Target's external, independent payment processor. Stuart McClure, CEO of computer security company Cylance, isn't buying it.

"To me, that's fantasy," McClure says. "I'm not quite sure what makes them think that."

He says the stolen PIN data can be decrypted by the hackers. They can conduct what's called "brute-force decrypting" if they've got the right tools and the time.

"It just depends on how determined the adversary is, and how committed they are to performing the fraud," he says. "You're probably talking about weeks or months."

McClure does have advice for people who shopped at Target during the dates in question.

"Either change your PIN now or just be hyper-vigilant about your account and all the withdrawals that are coming out of your bank," he says.

Outside the Los Angeles Target, shopper Sam Choi says he feels safe shopping there. He only uses a credit card, which doesn't require a PIN. Choi does think someone should be punished, though.

"Is this Target's fault?" he says. "I mean, somebody in their IT department probably needs to get fired, but that's about it."

Target stock has been down since news of the hack. To keep customers in stores, it instituted a 10-percent sale on all items the weekend before Christmas.

The company's quarterly results should come out in February. Those numbers might offer a clearer view into just how this episode will affect the company's bottom line.

North Dakota and western Canada are producing crude oil faster than it can be shipped to refineries.

Rail car manufacturers can't make new tank cars fast enough, and new pipeline proposals face long delays over environmental concerns. So energy companies are looking for new ways to get the heavy crude to market.

One proposed solution is to ship the oil by barge over the Great Lakes — but it's a controversial one.

Around the Nation

Pipeline On Wheels: Trains Are Winning Big Off U.S. Oil

The chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat is often spoken of as the country's next prime minister. But his critics accuse Narendra Modi of being responsible for a wave of anti-Muslim violence in his state in 2002. The accusation has stuck despite Modi being cleared of wrongdoing in the violence and despite his record as an efficient administrator.

In a long blog post Friday, Modi addressed the criticism.

"I was shaken to the core," he wrote on his website. "'Grief', 'Sadness', 'Misery', 'Pain', 'Anguish', 'Agony' – mere words could not capture the absolute emptiness one felt on witnessing such inhumanity."

But the comments fall short of what many victims of the riots wanted: an apology.

"This is just an attempt to try and burnish his image for the 2014 elections but this is not going to fly," said Manish Tewari, a member of India's ruling Congress Party and the country's information and broadcasting minister. "No expression of remorse changes the reality that thousands [were] ... massacred. There has to be closure, justice."

Zahir Janmohamed was visiting Gujarat when the riots occurred, but managed to return to California. He has since returned to the state, but as he told NPR's Rachel Martin the legacy of the riots still looms.

"I think the first thing that was surprising is how divided the city is," he says. There's a street known as 'The Border' that divides the all-Muslim area where he now lives — "known pejoratively as mini-Pakistan — and then across the border is the Hindu area."

Modi, as NPR's Julie McCarthy has noted, is a controversial figure in Indian politics. The BBC's Sanjoy Majumder spoke to NPR's Here & Now about the emotions Modi evokes among his citizens:

"He's one of India's most controversial politicians, because while he has an incredible reputation as being a very efficient administrator, a leader who is not known to be corrupt, he also has a legacy, which is that in 2002, under his watch as Gujarat chief minister, the state witnessed one of the worst religious riots in Indian history.

"Something like 2,000 people - most of them Muslims, from the minority - were killed. And he's often been accused of not just doing very little, but actually actively fomenting those riots. And that's the reason why, even today, he is seen very much as a divisive politician, someone who, while he has the backing of many people, equally is loathed by many others."

Okinawa's governor has approved a plan to relocate the U.S. Marine base on the Japanese island.

Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima's decision Friday is a reversal of his pledge to move the base out of the Japanese island.

The project would involve land reclamation for a new base that would consolidate the U.S. presence on the island.

"We decided to approve the application for the landfill as we judged it contains all possible steps that could be taken at present to protect the environment," Nakaima said at a news conference in Naha, the prefectural capital.

About half of the 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan are on Okinawa, and residents there have complained about base-related crime, noise and accidents.

Nakaima said that it would take an estimated 9 1/2 years to build the base, and he would continue to work to move the troops off Okinawa entirely.

"My thinking remains it would be fastest to relocate outside [Okinawa] prefecture to a place where there is already an airport," he said.

The Kyodo news agency reports:

"The decision marks a major breakthrough in the stalled relocation of the base after years of political maneuvering due to stiff local opposition to a 1996 bilateral agreement with the United States to return the land to Japan."

Eventually Branstad said "yes," but only if Iowa could take the money on its own terms. The state legislature, which is evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, came up with an alternative: Federal expansion dollars would pay for managed care policies that poor people would select on the HealthCare.gov site.

Unlike in other states, these new Medicaid recipients will pay a premium — $20 a month.

Iowa's plan also provides incentives for people on Medicaid to monitor their health. Branstad calls it having "skin in the game."

Iowa is one of a handful of states that negotiated or are negotiating with the federal government to customize their Medicaid expansion and still get federal funding. Branstad notes that "other states, like Tennessee and Pennsylvania, are looking at our plan."

The federal Department of Health and Human Services' decision to grant Iowa a waiver to try this idea is not surprising, according to Joan Alker, executive director at the Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families, a policy research center. She says that the Obama administration "is willing to bend over backwards to get to 'yes,' " to show Republican governors how much flexibility they have in experimenting with Medicaid expansion in their states.

But "there are some lines they can't and will not cross," Alker says. While Iowa beneficiaries have to pay something for premiums and non-emergency care, recipients "can't be disenrolled if they're unable to pay those premiums," she says. "That's important, because we already have plenty of evidence to suggest that charging premiums to people below [the] poverty [line] will mean that they can't afford them and they're likely to lose their coverage."

Shots - Health News

Medicaid Enrollment Is Brisk Despite HealthCare.gov Troubles

President Obama on Thursday signed the bipartisan budget bill agreed earlier this month, setting the stage for an easing of mandatory spending cuts over the next two years.

The Senate approved the spending measure last week, following its approval in the Republican-dominated House.

The president also signed the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2014.

As The Associated Press reports:

"Obama signed the bill Thursday while vacationing in Hawaii. The deal reduces across-the-board cuts already scheduled to take effect, restoring about $63 billion over two years. It includes a projected $85 billion in other savings."

"It's not the grand bargain that Obama and congressional Republicans once had wanted, but it ends the cycle of fiscal brinkmanship for now, by preventing another government shutdown for nearly two years."

"The bill signing marks one of Obama's last official acts in a year beset by the partial government shutdown, a near-default by the Treasury, a calamitous health care rollout and near-perpetual congressional gridlock."

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The U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, was hit by indirect rocket fire Wednesday morning, officials say. NPR's Sean Carberry reports for our Newscast unit that no one was injured.

"They hit in an open area; they didn't strike any of the embassy buildings. There was no damage to embassy facilities, and there were no causalities," he said.

Embassy officials say they are investigating. Taliban insurgents claimed they fired rockets at the embassy, but they often make claims that turn out to be exaggerated or untrue.

At least six people were killed in attacks elsewhere in Afghanistan on Wednesday, The Associated Press reports. An Afghan official told the news agency a bomb on a bicycle was detonated in front of a restaurant in Logar province. Two of those killed were police officers and four were civilians, AP reports.

If you want to look into the future of commuting, you need only go to the graduate transportation program at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, Calif.

The program's creator, Geoff Wardle, says he started it because he sees a coming tipping point "where all aspects of transportation, whether it's of people or goods, is going to go through some fundamental changes, and we've seen the early signs of that even with the convolutions the automobile industry has been through recently."

In program's design studio, you can see almost every pie-in-the-sky idea about transportation — some as out there as flying cars to hovercraft. Most are more (ahem) down to earth.

Student Russell Singer is working on a project to crowdsource car design — so instead of going to a big car company you could build your own car that fits the needs of you and your exact location.

"But we want to do is get it almost to this level of simplicity, like a Lego car, where you can just kind of plug things together, and you can experiment with the function and the form factor of the vehicle without needing to be an engineer or highly trained transportation designer," Singer says.

The idea is that open source designing could potentially make it easier to come up with breakthroughs of things like fuel efficiency.

Meanwhile, student David Poblano says one of the most important things he's hoping to see in the future the connection between social networking and travel.

"The transportations systems and networks that we look at, they have a certain amount of demand and they kind of track how many people get on to the trains at certain times, but they don't necessarily know all the information about how you get from your home to the bus to the subway station to a taxi," Poblano says.

So right now, Poblano says we're all connected but our transit systems aren't. Think about it: If Facebook knows that you like golf, it'll show you ads for Big Bertha drivers. But if your transportation system knew what percentage of people were going to work on any given day and what direction they were going in, it could change the number signals to divert traffic through less congested streets and add more train cars or buses.

One thing to keep in mind, Wardle says, is that our current transportation is totally unsustainable. For example, 75 percent of commuters drive alone to work. Studies show we're likely to see another peak in the number of vehicles on the road.

"So as well as making life much better for people who commute, making it a much more seamless part of their everyday lives, we have to figure out how to do that in a way that this planet can support, " Wardle says.

That's something that car designers and transportation designers might not have thought of in the past. And student David Day Lee says the biggest problem in transportation isn't really design or infrastructure. It's the way we think.

Think about how much the phone has changed for instance. "This has become the device through which people do business, the device through which people can capture precious moments," Lee says. "And so, in the same way, mobility could be reimagined as a platform around which we can bring about changes."

For these changes to happen, all the students assume that to some degree or another our cars will be driving themselves. And every step toward driverless cars opens up a new realm of possibility for what your commute could be like. It changes everything.

Student Calvin Ku says that he sometimes holds out little hope that commutes can improve. But, he says, solving transportation problems is akin to fighting a disease. "We can't stand in the corner and just crawl into a ball and hope it goes away," Ku says. "And you can see the range of ways of tackling transportation problems in [the graduate design studio], with these people here. If we can collectively work together, I think we can solve these problems."

That's the message from these students of transportation: your commute will definitely get better. It has to.

Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former oil tycoon who was pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday after serving a decade in prison, says he will dedicate the rest of his life working for the release of other political prisoners.

"I would like to devote this time to pay off my debt to people who are worst off," Khodorkovsky said through an interpreter provided by Russia Today, a state-funded, English language news outlet.

During the press conference in Berlin, Khodorkovsky said because it has been only 36 hours since he was released, he had not decided on specifics, but he said he would not return to the business world and does not plan to seek political power.

"I'm not going to fight for power. This is not for me," Khodorkovsky said.

As Scott reported, Khodorkovsky's imprisonment was widely seen as the Kremlin's attempt to silence his opposition. Scott goes on:

"Khodorkovsky was arrested in October 2003, when masked commandos stormed into his jet as it was parked on a runway in Siberia. Two years later, he was convicted of tax evasion and in 2010 found guilty of embezzlement.

"Khodorkovsky, regarded by human rights groups such as Amnesty International as a political prisoner, has been in jail for the past decade. However, the former tycoon only had about eight months left on his original sentence."

This summer, I hit one of life's great milestones: I became a person who posts baby pictures on the Internet. A lot of them.

Our son was born in August, and I have already taken 15,000 pictures of him, hundreds that I want to share with our family and close friends, and a few dozen that I might want to show colleagues and acquaintances. But how?

In theory, we're in a golden age of photo sharing. There are literally dozens of ways to share photos with friends now. But with the new capabilities of the Internet come new and distinctly contemporary problems.

For one, most parents don't want photographs of their children widely available. You want your people to see them but not anyone else. The privacy issues that lurk in our daily lives cry out to be addressed when it comes to children

And second, not everyone uses the same social network. Grandma's on Facebook, your nephew is on Instagram and your colleagues are on Twitter and LinkedIn.

So, what do my wife and I do?

More Tools For Shutterbug Parents

Snapchat: This mobile app has garnered a lot of publicity as a platform for sexting. That's because photos people send to each other using this app disappear (from all phones and the company's servers) within 10 seconds of viewing them. So how do we use it as parents? Well, for the gross stuff. You might want to send your partner a photo of a particularly impressively filled diaper, but you don't need or want that image in your phone's memory. That's the kind of thing Snapchat was made for.

Blurb: Online services are great for storing vast quantities of photographs of your child. But what if you want something curated, more like a keepsake or a photo album of old? Well, Blurb is a print-on-demand publisher with really simple tools that allow you to create beautiful, professional-looking photo books.

The Wirecutter: If, after taking a few snapshots with your phone, you find yourself in need of a camera upgrade, this is the site to find gear recommendations. It's not like other gadget sites, which are overwhelming. Wirecutter provides one recommendation for every product category. So, you're looking for the best point-and-shoot camera? It will say, "Buy this one."

The Grammy nominations are in, and the talk now is of what actors will be chosen for the Academy Awards, but not once have I heard anyone suggest that any of the singers or actors may not be nominated because of some character deficiency.

Likewise, when it comes to awards in theater or television or dance or literature, I don't ever recall any candidate losing out because of a personal flaw.

Only sports applies that peripheral off-the-field standard. Most recently, of course, this has come up with respect to Jameis Winston, the star quarterback of the top-ranked Florida State team.

Click on the audio link above to hear Deford's take on this issue.

In the two-year, $2 trillion budget deal that cleared the Senate last week, one item, worth just one-sixth of 1 percent of that total, was the reason many senators said they voted against it.

That item would produce some $6 billion in savings by shaving a percentage point off annual cost-of-living adjustments, and it would apply only to military pensions. Not all military pensions — just the retirement paid to veterans younger than 62.

Even though the budget compromise spares the Pentagon another round of painful across-the-board spending cuts next month, many of the staunchest military supporters in the Senate opposed it. Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said it's not fair that working-age veterans have their retirement benefits reduced under the deal.

More On The Budget Deal

Economy

The Washington Two-Step: Dancing Back To Normal

At one point, she appeals to Bruce, "But you can change things around later, no? Bruce? With the editing? You can sand down the rough edges." I'll admit, there were points that I found myself wishing that he had.

Frankly, though, these are minor quibbles. The novellas live instead in their contradictions, bringing opposing terms together again and again. Wagner mines this friction for comedy and pain — often both at once. In India, the streets swarm with "Swami Mafiosi." Queenie interrupts a dramatic moment to comment on how well she pulled it off — or, would have pulled it off, had she not interrupted herself. In one devastating scene, Charley discovers divinity at the heart of trauma. And even as he and Queenie tell of their quests for self-abnegation, they become painfully self-aware in the telling.

Religion pervades this book — Roman Catholicism, mysticism, Buddhism, warts and blessings and all. But, for all the dogma, one concept stuck with me: "'Bardo' is Tibetan," Charley explains early on, "it means the limbo or 'in-between.'" It's here — in bardo, of all places — that this book offers the reader its pleasure and challenge. Between religions, between contradictions, and even between their various tellings, these stories grasp at something difficult to put into words.

In the end, our trusty transcriber Bruce finds the tiny thread that binds the two novellas. Wagner, on the other hand, remains content to relish the humor and sadness of that space between.

Read an excerpt of The Empty Chair

As the year winds down, we here at NPR are looking at a few key numbers that explain the big trends of 2013.

Today's number: 1.6 million.

That's 1.6 million acres — about the area of the state of Delaware.

That's how much land was removed this year from the federal Conservation Reserve Program, or CRP, which pays farmers to keep land covered with native grasses or sometimes trees. Most of that land now will produce crops like corn or wheat.

It's a sign of the shifting economic tides that are transforming America's farming landscape.

Ah, the holidays — a time for love and good cheer, for snowflakes that stay on your nose and eyelashes. For full-blown panic attacks in department stores brought on by a particularly perplexing Secret Santa pick.

Fret no more: here at NPR Books, we believe that there's a perfect book out there for everyone on your holiday shopping list. And — lucky you! — we've made it easy to sort through this year's top releases to find just the right read.

Pull up a chair, ding the bell on the counter and say hello to our Book Concierge, an interactive library of highly-recommended books from our critics and staff members. Use the clickable tags to narrow down the pile of potential gift ideas — and in case you get stuck, here are a few tag combinations for those inscrutable, impossible-to-shop-for loved ones in your life.

Your Economist-reading cousin, who thinks books are for frivolous time-wasters
Eye-Opening Reads, Science & Society, Tales from Around the World

Your precocious tween-age niece, who's already daydreaming about potential dissertation topics
Young Adult, Historical Fiction

Your pastry chef uncle, who loves swapping recipes but hasn't finished a book in years
Rather Short, Cookbooks & Food

Your favorite youngster, an adorable dork-in-training
Kids' Books, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Your nosy next-door neighbor, who's always asking inappropriate questions about your love life
Let's Talk About Sex, Love Stories, Realistic Fiction

Your little brother, an aspiring musician who's a total NPR groupie and prone to celebrity worship
NPR Staff Picks, Biography & Memoir, For Art Lovers

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When President Obama announced that the U.S. delegation to the Winter Olympics in Russia would include Billy Jean King, there was no need to explain who she is or the prestige she brings to her county. Billy Jean King won 39 Grand Slam tennis titles, defeated Bobby Riggs in the so-called Battle of the Sexes in 1973, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009.

Lots of great players popularized tennis. But Billy Jean King helped turn Wimbledon and the U.S. Open into heavyweight championships. The daughter of a Long Beach, California fireman, she started playing in the 1950s, when tennis was regarded as a white-collar sport for white people wearing white clothes on country club tennis courts.

But Billy Jean King told the Oakland Tribune in 1967, "I'd like to see tennis get out of its "sissy" image and see some guy yell, "Hit it, ya bum!"

She was married to a man named Lawrence King and hadn't planned to be an activist for gay rights. But by the early 1970s, she began to admit to herself that she was interested in women. Her former secretary filed a lawsuit, asking for a share of her assets because they had been intimate. Billy Jean King says she lost millions of dollars in endorsements, and, she told the Times of London in 2007, the privacy to work out her own sexuality out of public view.

"It was very hard on me because I was outed," she said. "Fifty percent of gay people know who they are by the age of 13, I was in the other 50%."

She said she had tried to speak with her parents about her sexual orientation; but parents in her generation would say, "We're not talking about things like that." And then, she says, there were people who advised her that if her sexual orientation became known, it might destroy the women's professional tennis tour that she had done so much to build.

"I couldn't get a closet deep enough," she said.

So Billy Jean King will join a U.S. delegation to the Olympics with other great athletes, including Caitlin Cahow, the hockey player, and Brian Boitano, the former Olympic skater. Their presence may pointedly remind the host country that athletes Russia would have been proud to win medals for them might feel insulted by the new Russian law making it illegal to have what it calls a "distorted understanding" that gay and heterosexual relations are "socially equivalent."

Billy Jean King is 70. She has seen tennis become a popular sport with boisterous stars, and gay identity evolve from quiet denial to acceptance and pride. Her presence in Russia may remind people that history can move, sometimes with extraordinary speed, and that people can change. Billy Jean King did, and now, she might change others.

Sharon O'Flaherty is riding the bus to Limerick. She's going to see her dying grandmother this Christmas. She hasn't been home in two years.

"I was working for a company for five and a half years," she says. "I got made redundant, and couldn't find a job at an equal level. So the options were immigration, and it was basically take your pick: Europe, Canada, or Australia. So I chose Australia."

The 29-year-old now works as a recruitment manager in Perth.

"I have a mortgage in Limerick, being rented out, that I bought in the recession, and it still has dropped another $50,000," O'Flaherty says. "I'm sitting in negative equity, working in Australia, to pay a mortgage in Ireland. It's not a desirable situation."

It's also not uncommon. Ireland ended its dependence on bailout loans last weekend, the first Eurozone country to do so. As eurocrats in Brussels celebrated the Irish success story, leaders in Dublin declared that unemployment was finally dropping, especially for young people.

But the drop has more to do with the exodus of Irish people in their 20s and 30s.

Piaras MacEinri, a migration expert at University College Cork. says more than 70 percent of people who have left Ireland since 2006 are in their 20s.

"They're just drawing on a very long, embedded tradition that, if things were bad, you just get out, you move on," MacEinri says. "Of course, in a globalized economy, your debts follow you."

The latest exodus came after the property market crashed in 2008. Ireland needed bailout loans — but the loans came with drastic spending cuts.

Stephen Kinsella, a senior lecturer in economics at the University of Limerick, says Ireland is no longer dependent on those loans, but many people are still drowning in mortgage debt and are facing a tight job market.

He says his students realize that — and that's why up to 80 percent of them are planning leave.

"My generation was the only generation that didn't have to emigrate," Kinsella says. "I think it's a sign, a sign of something important in the structure of our economy, that the only time we were able to prevent mass emigration of our youth was during a construction bubble."

The government is encouraging students to go into growing sectors such as technology — people like Chris Kelly, who lost his auto repair shop in the recession.

He's now 30 and majoring in technology management.

"To get any sort of a job now, you need a degree in something," Kelly says. "So I decided to return to education and hopefully sharpen my skills."

Others, like 20-year-old Stephen McGinnis, are sticking with traditional skills like carpentry. He knows he can't get a job in Ireland — the industry has hit rock bottom — but he's heard that Australia is eager to hire Irish woodworkers.

"You go out there, they're looking for people to work in construction work on farms," he says. "It's just what we'll do. It's a job, at the end of the day. If we have to travel halfway across the world, we have to."

Many students on the Limerick campus say they plan to leave for Australia, Canada or even Dubai.

But not Sean O'Mara, a 20-year-old studying music. O'Mara plays songs on his guitar that would make you a little homesick if you were Irish.

Sean is an optimist, and he says that after the pain of the crash, Ireland can only go up.

"Well, I thought about going for a couple of months, but nothing in the long-term really," he says. "I'd like to go abroad to experience it but I don't think I could move away. I don't know, I'm a bit of home-bird. I'd be a bit homesick, you know."

We recorded our show in Memphis, Tenn., this week, where Carla Thomas is a soul legend. Born in Memphis, Thomas scored her first hit single for Stax Records at the age of 18, and had many more, including duets with Otis Redding and other stars.

We've invited her to play a game called "Thomas, meet Thomas." Three questions about other people who are also named Thomas.

The powers that be in Washington are typically, though certainly not always, wrestling with weighty issues.

Recently, they've also been debating height, and whether they prefer a stout, familiar dowager, or a taller, sleeker model.

Building heights, people: We're talking building heights in your nation's capital, where for more than a century the 1910 Building Height Act has kept the city's profile low.

Now, with the city's population expanding and space to build becoming increasingly scarce, discussion has intensified over whether to allow the city to soar higher.

Why Should You Care?

If you're one of the millions of Americans who have visited Washington — more than 16.8 million of you made the trek last year alone, a record — you've encountered a city that still looks a lot like the one envisioned by Maj. Pierre Charles L'Enfant in the late 1700s.

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The Daily Show's Jon Stewart recently ranted against Chicago-style deep-dish pizza.

"Let me explain something. Deep-dish pizza is not only not better than New York pizza — it's not pizza," said Stewart, calling it "tomato soup in a bread bowl. ... I don't know whether to eat it, or throw a coin in it and make a wish."

Some upset Chicagoans made their own wishes — which can't be repeated here.

It's as if the whole city rose up to defend its pizza. But it may not really be Chicago's pizza after all.

Pizano's in the Loop is a pizzeria in the heart of Chicago, and it sells both deep dish and thin crust. During a recent lunch hour, most of the locals were eating ... thin crust.

Allie Mack of GrubHub, the online food ordering company based in Chicago, isn't surprised. She says food ordering data from GrubHub indicate that Chicago residents prefer thin crust.

"Nearly 9 percent of orders are deep-dish or stuffed pizza. So anything that's not a deep-dish pizza is 10 times more popular in the city of Chicago," says Mack. "Think about it: If you were to order pizza every day for 10 days, how could you possibly eat deep-dish pizza more than once? Good luck."

But Darren Tristano, a food industry researcher at Chicago-based Technomics, questions the data, noting that GrubHub's users tend to be younger with less money to spend. And yes, deep dish is more expensive.

And there's this: Not even half of the pizzerias for which GrubHub has data in Chicago offer deep dish on the menu.

GrubHub also doesn't include local deep-dish chains like Giordano's and Lou Malnati's. Those two chains have a combined 20 restaurants in Chicago — and sell three times as much deep dish as thin crust.

But a look at the city's history raises some questions about Chicago's true pizza legacy.

Jon Porter, who runs Chicago Pizza Tours, says Chicago's tavern-style thin-crust pizza was invented long before deep dish.

Porter says tavern-style pizza, the type cut into squares, was developed on the South Side of Chicago to keep working men in taverns. Free pizzas would go out on the bar, and the workmen would snack on it and stay there for an extra hour or two. It made all the difference in how much beer they drank.

"And that's one of the styles that we grew up with. I didn't even really have deep dish until I was almost in high school," Porter says. "So I truly do feel that the thin-crust tavern-style is the true Chicago style."

Marc Malnati, the fourth-generation owner of deep-dish chain Lou Malnati's, doesn't agree. He brokered an on-air truce with Stewart over one of his deep-dish pizzas.

"I think that the deep-dish pizza has been and always will be Chicago's pizza," Malnati says.

It's not every day that three long-serving House members announce their retirements within hours of each other. It's rarer still that two of those seats have a distinct possibility of being filled by a black Republican candidate after next year's election.

But that's what happened Tuesday when Reps. Frank Wolf, R-Va., and Jim Matheson, D-Utah, both said they wouldn't seek re-election in 2014. Their announcements quickly fueled speculation that two prominent conservative African-Americans, Mia Love of Utah and Artur Davis, a recent resident of Virginia and a former Alabama congressman, could be beneficiaries of the newly-open seats.

Republican Rep. Tom Latham also announced Tuesday he's not seeking another term but no likely candidates in his Iowa-based seat are African-American.

Both Love and Davis are seasoned candidates who would represent a step toward fulfilling some of the mission outlined in the Republican National Committee's "autopsy" report earlier this year, which called for diversifying the party and expanding its reach to young, women, and minority voters and candidates.

The GOP can't afford to wait. The 2012 election was none-to-kind to the GOP, with President Obama winning 71 percent of Hispanic vote and capturing more than 90 percent of the African American vote. Black Republican candidates didn't fare well either — Love, former Florida Rep. Allen West and Vernon Parker, a candidate in Arizona's newly-created 9th Congressional District all lost by narrow margins in 2012.

The only African-American Republican to win was then-Rep.Tim Scott of South Carolina, who later won appointment to the state's vacant Senate seat.

Love, who's the mayor of Utah's Sarasota Springs, has the clearer path to victory. A prolific fundraiser, she nearly defeated Matheson in 2012, losing by just 768 votes. In March, Love declared her intention to run again in the state's strongly conservative 4th District.

In Virginia, Davis faces a steeper, though not insurmountable, challenge if he chooses to run. While he hasn't said he's running, Davis has signaled an interest in the seat.

The former Alabama Democratic congressman moved to Virginia and switched his party affiliation after a bitter 2010 Democratic primary defeat in the Alabama governor's race.

Unlike Love, Davis will need to overcome a lack of name recognition within his newly-adopted state and avoid being labeled as carpetbagger or a political opportunist.

The election of either Republican — or both — would make history. Davis would be the first African American Republican to represent Virginia since Reconstruction. Love would be first black female Republican ever elected to Congress.

Way back in the 2004 film Anchorman, Ron Burgundy was a local TV-news host in '70s San Diego. Fast-forward to this year's sequel, and that epic haircut is national news: Set in 1980, Anchorman 2 follows Will Ferrell's vain, shallow character as he graduates to a CNN-style cable news network.

"We felt like we needed to jack up the stakes," director and co-writer Adam McKay tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross. "It was just perfect timing that, in '79, '80 — that's when you saw 24-hour news come about. You saw ESPN, MTV, the whole broadcast media [universe] completely changed. And anytime you say the word 'change,' that's a fun world to throw Ron Burgundy into. You know he's not going to handle change well."

Ferrell and McKay, who co-wrote both Anchorman films, started working together on Saturday Night Live. They've collaborated on the films Talladega Nights and Step Brothers, among others, and co-founded the website Funny or Die. They joined Fresh Air to talk about why the sequel took so long — and the meaning of that mustache.

This post is for everyone who passes right by the poetry section; all the bookish types who haven't read a short story since graduation. We know you're out there — and you're not alone.

I'm talking to you, folks who love literature — novel-devourers, nonfiction lovers, proud wearers-out of library cards — but just not collections. To all of you who never pick up stories or poems for vacation reading.

And to you I say, gently, lovingly, without judgment: You're missing out! The pleasures of a great story or an exquisite poem are their own sort of bliss — at least as intense, as delightful or as heart-wrenching as any sprawling plotline. Forget school connotations. This ain't nutritious lit; it's fun.

But if you're not used to a genre, it's hard to know where to start. So when the NPR Books team created the Books Concierge, we wanted to encourage serendipitous discoveries. Looking for a comic novel might lead you to funny science fiction; memoir lovers could get hooked by a book shelved with the comics; lovers of long form might stumble across a shorter must-read.

And in that spirit, here, pulled straight from our Concierge, are a few suggestions for folks who don't normally read stories or poetry. We think you'll love these books. And after you're done, maybe — just maybe — you might find yourself browsing those shelves a little more often.

"The women of the Senate who led the fight to change how the military deals with sexual assault in its ranks are hailing passage of a comprehensive defense bill that now heads to President Barack Obama for his signature," The Associated Press writes this morning.

According to Military Times, the defense budget bill, which passed by a vote of 84-15 late Thursday:

"Includes about 30 provisions related to sexual assault in the military, including removing the authority of commanders to dismiss a court-martial finding, eliminating the current five-year statute of limitations on rape and sexual assault and establishing minimum sentencing guidelines for sex crimes.

"There also are several provisions aimed at protecting victims of rape and sexual assault, including allowing victims to apply for a transfer to a new unit or a new base and creating a specific criminal charge in the military justice system for retaliating against a victim who comes forward.

"Other adds include a provision to overhaul the military's Article 32 process of pretrial hearings to expand rights of sexual assault victims and to reduce consideration of the military record of the accused as a reason not to press charges."

By a vote of 59-34 the Senate on Friday moved the nomination of Janet Yellen to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve past a key procedural hurdle.

The vote invoked "cloture" — effectively preventing Republicans from filibustering President Obama's nominee.

Next up for Yellen's nomination: A confirmation vote, set for Jan. 6. With the Democratic caucus controlling 55 of the Senate's 100 seats, she's expected to get a majority and then become the first woman to head the central bank.

Yellen, 67, is currently the Fed's vice chairman. As we've written previously, post-confirmation hearing analyses of her recent testimony before the Senate Banking Committee concluded that Fed policy likely wouldn't change much, if at all, should she replace outgoing chairman Ben Bernanke. The central bank is expected to begin gradually reducing the amount of stimulus it's giving the economy, probably as soon as next month.

The Fed's thinking: The economy, which sank into recession in late 2007 and spent the better part of the next 5 years or so either in decline or only growing weakly, has regained some of its strength. That impression was reinforced Friday when the Bureau of Economic Analysis said gross domestic product expanded at a healthy 4.1 percent annual rate in the third quarter.

Bernanke's term expires on Jan. 31.

Among the memorials to Nelson Mandela put up across India is a billboard in Tamil Nadu that features a photo of actor Morgan Freeman, not the iconic anti-apartheid hero from South Africa who died earlier this month.

The businessman who paid for the sign says it will be replaced with one that has the right image.

Perhaps the billboard's designer got confused because Freeman portrayed Mandela in the 2009 movie Invictus.

As you might expect, a photo of the botched billboard has been whipping around Twitter.

Freeman has inadvertently been part of such a mix-up before. At President Obama's inauguration back in January, ABC News' George Stephanopoulos got famously confused. He thought basketball great Bill Russell was the actor.

About Amanda Palmer

Alt-rock icon Amanda Palmer believes we shouldn't fight the fact that digital content is freely shareable — and suggests that artists can and should be directly supported by fans. Known for pushing boundaries in both her art and her lifestyle, Palmer made international headlines when she raised nearly $1.2 million via Kickstarter (she'd asked for $100,000) from nearly 25,000 fans who pre-ordered her album, Theatre Is Evil.

But the former street performer, then Dresden Dolls frontwoman, now solo artist hit a bump the week her world tour kicked off. She revealed plans to crowdsource additional local backup musicians in each tour stop, offering to pay them in hugs, merchandise and beer per her custom. Bitter and angry criticism ensued — she eventually promised to pay her local collaborators in cash. Summing up her business model, in which she views her recorded music as the digital equivalent of street performing, she says: "I firmly believe in music being as free as possible. Unlocked. Shared and spread. In order for artists to survive and create, their audiences need to step up and directly support them."

We've discovered a text that could rank among the geekiest of all cookbooks. It's based on Settlers of Catan, that German civilization-building board game with the cult following.

If you've never played, here's how it works: In the mythical land of Catan, players are settlers attempting to build a community. The board is made up of hexagonal tiles that represent a different terrains: forest, pasture, fields, hills, mountains and desert. The terrains produce natural resources that players can use to build up settlements in between the tiles. There's cards and dice involved. The person who can build the most settlements wins.

It sounds complicated, but the game moves surprisingly fast. And a single play can easily evolve into a tournament that lasts all night.

With all the settling (and trash talking), you're bound to build up an appetite. That's where writer Chris-Rachael Oseland's cookbook comes in.

Conceptually, Wood for Sheep: The Unauthorized Settlers Cookbook is all about recipes that take inspiration from the game. Inside, you'll find dishes like "Settlers of the Cold Salad" and the "Breakfast Taco Map."

The Salt

The Mad World Of 'Mad Men' Food

Time and again, business leaders say the one thing they want out of Washington is more certainty.

But rarely do they get their wish.

In recent years, business owners have found themselves wondering whether their government would default on its debts, shut down national parks, change tax rules, cancel supplier contracts, confirm key leaders at federal agencies or hike interest rates.

Finally on Wednesday, they saw policymakers take two big steps toward a more certain future.

First, the Federal Reserve said it would start to modestly taper its bond-buying stimulus. The changes will start in January — so now you know.

The second move came hours later when the Senate voted 64-36 to complete the first bipartisan budget agreement in years. The $1.01 trillion budget deal resolves many questions about automatic spending cuts and deficit-reduction plans.

That marked "a really big step forward," said John Silvia, chief economist for Wells Fargo Securities.

Congress "lowered uncertainty about fiscal policy and the Fed lowered uncertainty about monetary policy," he said. As a result, "2014 will probably be a better year" for the economy, he added.

Putting a specific dollar figure on the cost of uncertainty isn't easy. But Silvia says there's no question businesses are less likely to hire when they don't know what is coming out of Washington.

"A lot of companies have government contracts," he noted. If they can't predict what's happening with spending cuts or shutdown threats, they can't hire. And all business leaders wonder: "Are you going to change the tax rules? What is the cost of financing? You can never get rid of all uncertainty, but you can reduce it," he said.

Apparently, investors agreed that greater certainty would be a good thing. They sent stock prices soaring, with the Dow Jones industrial average rising nearly 300 points on Wednesday.

Randall Stephenson, the chief executive officer of AT&T and chairman-elect of Business Roundtable, issued a statement saying Congress' approval of the budget should serve as a foundation for more compromises.

"Our leaders can build upon this agreement by moving forward with comprehensive tax reform, lifting the debt ceiling, reforming immigration and passing updated Trade Promotion Authority legislation to advance U.S. trade agreements," he said.

Business Leaders Decry The Economic Cost Of Uncertainty

Time and again, business leaders say the one thing they want out of Washington is more certainty.

But rarely do they get their wish.

In recent years, business owners have found themselves wondering whether their government would default on its debts, shut down national parks, change tax rules, cancel supplier contracts, confirm key leaders at federal agencies or hike interest rates.

Finally on Wednesday, they saw policymakers take two big steps toward a more certain future.

First, the Federal Reserve said it would start to modestly taper its bond-buying stimulus. The changes will start in January — so now you know.

The second move came hours later when the Senate voted 64-36 to complete the first bipartisan budget agreement in years. The $1.01 trillion budget deal resolves many questions about automatic spending cuts and deficit-reduction plans.

That marked "a really big step forward," said John Silvia, chief economist for Wells Fargo Securities.

Congress "lowered uncertainty about fiscal policy and the Fed lowered uncertainty about monetary policy," he said. As a result, "2014 will probably be a better year" for the economy, he added.

Putting a specific dollar figure on the cost of uncertainty isn't easy. But Silvia says there's no question businesses are less likely to hire when they don't know what is coming out of Washington.

"A lot of companies have government contracts," he noted. If they can't predict what's happening with spending cuts or shutdown threats, they can't hire. And all business leaders wonder: "Are you going to change the tax rules? What is the cost of financing? You can never get rid of all uncertainty, but you can reduce it," he said.

Apparently, investors agreed that greater certainty would be a good thing. They sent stock prices soaring, with the Dow Jones industrial average rising nearly 300 points on Wednesday.

Randall Stephenson, the chief executive officer of AT&T and chairman-elect of Business Roundtable, issued a statement saying Congress' approval of the budget should serve as a foundation for more compromises.

"Our leaders can build upon this agreement by moving forward with comprehensive tax reform, lifting the debt ceiling, reforming immigration and passing updated Trade Promotion Authority legislation to advance U.S. trade agreements," he said.

Business Leaders Decry The Economic Cost Of Uncertainty

I feel a little defensive about choosing "selfie" as my Word of the Year for 2013. I've usually been partial to words that encapsulate one of the year's major stories, such as "occupy" or "big data." Or "privacy," which is the word Dictionary.com chose this year. But others go with what I think of as mayfly words — the ones that bubble briefly to the surface in the wake of some fad or fashion.

Over recent years, the people at Oxford Dictionaries have chosen items such as "locovore," "hypermiling," "refudiate," and "unfriend," among others. You'd never know it was a period touched by economic collapse, bitter partisanship, or the growth of the surveillance state. So I wasn't surprised when Oxford announced last month that their choice for the word of the year was "selfie," which beat out "twerk" and "binge-watch." It struck me as a word that wears its ephemerality on its outstretched sleeve — any phenomenon whose most prominent evangelists are Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, Kendall and Kylie, not to mention Justin Bieber — probably isn't a good bet to be around for the long haul.

What changed my mind about the word was the uproar over the photo that the Danish prime minister took with President Obama and David Cameron at the memorial ceremony for Nelson Mandela — and not because it was a selfie, but because it really wasn't. There are people who use "selfie" for any picture you take of yourself as a document or record, even a passport photo. But that isn't why the word was invented. It's natural to want a photo when you find yourself sitting between the president and the British prime minister, or if that doesn't work for you, imagine standing next to the pope or Mariano Rivera. And now that the camera lens has migrated to the front of the smart phone you don't have to look for somebody else to take it for you. But "Selfie" came into existence for the pictures people take of themselves to display on social media sites like Instagram and Tumblr, often in stylized poses or artfully faded effects.

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