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Meeting in a rare Saturday session, the Senate is debating a $1.1 trillion package that would increase military and scale back financial and environmental regulations.

As The Washington Post notes: "While mostly liberal resistance had kept the bill's fate in doubt in the House, conservative opposition in the Senate is now the focal point. On the right, the resistance was led by those who wanted to use the bill to confront President Obama on his executive actions on immigration."

And, The New York Times says:

"Partisan maneuvering on Friday disrupted what both Democratic and Republican leaders had expected to be a relatively smooth path toward final passage, a late-night twist that is emblematic of the dysfunction plaguing the 113th Congress.

"Though the spending deal is still almost sure to pass, the Senate did not reach an agreement late Friday. Lawmakers are scheduled to being taking votes on nominations Saturday and work through the weekend to address unfinished business."

The government's current spending authority runs out at midnight Saturday, though it's expected that the Senate to extend that deadline until midnight Thursday to give them more time to wrangle over the budget bill.

One of the main sticking points comes from conservative senators led by Ted Cruz of Texas, who are pushing an amendment to cut off funds to the Department of Homeland security for carrying out President Obama's executive action to relax deportations. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has blocked the measure.

federal spending

The spending bill in Congress is not just about money. Tucked inside the bill are provisions to change regulations affecting everything from banking to the environment. One regulatory rollback has those concerned about truck safety especially upset.

The regulation is part of a series of rules that spell out the number of hours that long-haul truck drivers, the ones behind the wheel of the big rigs on the interstates, can be on the road.

Last year, a rule took effect that required those drivers to take two consecutive nights off after every 70 hours they spend behind the wheel.

The trucking industry, which didn't like the requirement in the first place, said it had an unintended consequence: It forced more truckers to take to the road early in the morning, when commuters and school buses are out.

"Those hours are less safe statistically," says Dave Osiecki, vice president of the American Trucking Association. "They're trying to reduce nighttime crashes? They may be causing daytime crashes."

The Two-Way

'Cromnibus' Spending Bill Passes, Just Hours Before Deadline

No one knows yet if that rule caused the number of crashes to increase; the Department of Transportation hasn't compiled accident data for the past year. But Osiecki says truck crashes had been declining before the rule took effect.

He says the regulation has also hurt industry profits.

"You're talking about $1 billion in lost productivity to this industry," Osiecki says.

7 Things You Didn't Know Were In The 'Cromnibus'

So the association and its congressional allies wrote a provision into the spending bill, undoing the rule, at least temporarily.

The Obama administration opposed the change, saying that driver fatigue is a leading factor in large truck crashes, which killed more than 3,500 people in 2012. Safety groups are angry, too.

"It stinks," says Daphne Izer, who founded Parents Against Tired Truckers after her son and three of his friends were killed by a truck driver who had fallen asleep behind the wheel on Maine's turnpike.

"Drivers will be allowed to drive up to 82 hours a week," Izer says. "That's insane. That's twice the normal work week, and drivers don't get paid overtime. It's going to be more death and destruction on our highways."

The provision in the spending bill also calls for a detailed study of the effect of the regulations on truck crashes. The measure only rolls back the new rules until next October, when both sides expect to resume their arguments.

Sir Patrick Stewart has accomplished a lot in his career — he's a star of the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, the captain who revived Star Trek, the star of the X-Men movie franchise, and above all, he's the man who made male pattern baldness sexy.

We've invited Stewart to play a game called "G.I. Joe, G.I. Joe, fighting man from head to toe!" Three questions about G.I. Joe, the Hasbro company action figure first introduced 50 years ago.

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NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

Looking for a stylish sweater for the holidays? Forget cashmere. Instead, go for the light-up, dancing Santa.

This season, holiday shoppers are demanding the ugliest, gaudiest, tackiest sweaters out there. They need them for ugly sweater parties, ugly sweater fun runs — even an ugly sweater party cruise.

All that demand has had an impact on stores large and small. On the national level, Walmart, Kohls and Target all sell vintage-looking sweaters with all the bells and tinsel you could want.

And at Re-Love It consignment in Purcellville, Va., last year, shop owner Michael Oaks had 120 sweaters that quickly sold. This year, he stockpiled more than a thousand for the Christmas rush.

His customers on a recent day included a Southwest flight attendant shopping for the perfect sweater to wear over her uniform — "it's gotta be really, really gaudy," she says — and holiday party-goers who hope to out-tacky their competition.

So far, Oaks has sold 800 sweaters — and he just received an emergency shipment of 200 more.

Share Your Tacky Sweater: #NPRuglysweaters

Do you have the perfect ugly holiday sweater? Can you out-tacky Re-Love It owner Michael Oaks?

Post your photos with the tag #NPRuglysweaters on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook, and we'll pull together some of the highlights for a post Sunday night.

sweater

Christmas

Three months after the Gaza Strip war between Hamas and Israel, reconstruction of destroyed homes and businesses has hardly started. Part of the problem is the lack of clear Palestinian government authority on the ground.

This past spring, the two main Palestinian political factions, Fatah and Hamas, agreed to set aside their bitter rivalry and backed a single government. Fatah, a more secular group that is stronger in the West Bank, is headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The Islamist group Hamas has most of its support in Gaza, and effectively drove the Fatah leadership out of the territory in a violent split that killed hundreds in 2007.

Despite this formal reconciliation, there are still many scores to be settled.

During the Gaza street battles seven years ago, Baha Abu Jarad was a local leader in Fatah's armed brigades. His wife, Jamalat, remembers when Hamas attacked their home.

"When the attack started, Baha was sleeping here on this couch," she says. "There was an explosion in the house and we immediately understood we were being targeted."

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A poster of Baha Abu Jarad, a member of the Fatah movement, who was killed by the rival Hamas faction, according to his family. The small photos show children that were named after Baha. Emily Harris / NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Emily Harris / NPR

A poster of Baha Abu Jarad, a member of the Fatah movement, who was killed by the rival Hamas faction, according to his family. The small photos show children that were named after Baha.

Emily Harris / NPR

The firefight lasted six hours, she said, damaging walls and setting curtains on fire. She was shooting a Kalashnikov out the windows along with her husband and many of his brothers, including Ala'a Abu Jarad.

"At one point a delegation of other militants came and said Hamas doesn't want the family, and doesn't want to scare the kids," he says. "They just wanted Baha in person to turn himself in."

The family refused. Baha Abu Jarad survived that night but was assassinated in a later attack. His wife, Jamalat was 30, with four children.

"He had never been home that much since he was always working with the Palestinian resistance," she says. "But after he was killed, we felt empty and broken. The community expected us to take revenge. My children believed in this too."

Her youngest, Saraj Abu Jarad is now 10. The girl says she refused to stand at school when a classmate's father visited.

"He is a Hamas man, and they killed my father when I was young," she says. "I was the only one who refused to stand."

Anti-Hamas sentiment runs so deep in this pro-Fatah family that one woman won't go to shops owned by Hamas supporters. Arrangements for a marriage, the family said, ended when the would-be groom spotted signs of Hamas in the would-be bride's home.

i i

Members of the Hamas security forces arrest a Fatah supporter during a rally in Gaza City on Aug. 31, 2007. Hamas defeated Fatah in heavy fighting in Gaza in June 2007. Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

itoggle caption Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

Members of the Hamas security forces arrest a Fatah supporter during a rally in Gaza City on Aug. 31, 2007. Hamas defeated Fatah in heavy fighting in Gaza in June 2007.

Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

This doesn't surprise Maher el-Hoily, a Hamas member and teacher of religious law at the Islamic University of Gaza.

"Say there are two neighbors, one Hamas and one Fatah, who both lost sons in the split," he says. "They won't like each other, even if neither had anything to do with killing the others' son. This is wrong. Hatred over political loyalty is a deformed culture."

El-Hoily sits on a joint Fatah-Hamas committee that is supposed to compensate families who lost loved ones during the 2007 fighting. But he says the leadership dispute has paralyzed the work and worries people could get angry again.

"No one has taken revenge yet because they are waiting to see what the political parties and the joint government will do," he says. "There's also been good security in Gaza under Hamas. The danger is that this could start to weaken."

Last month, small bombs exploded simultaneously outside the homes of more than a dozen Fatah leaders in Gaza. They were quick to blame Hamas. In the West Bank, Hamas leaders say Palestinian police, as well as Israeli soldiers, have arrested scores of Hamas leaders recently.

Related NPR Stories

Parallels

'People Are Going To Rebel': Slow Pace Of Rebuilding Frustrates Gazans

The Two-Way

Palestinian Minister Dies In West Bank Protest Against Israel

In Gaza, police haven't been paid for months. Hospital cleaners recently went on strike because they haven't been paid either. In the general population, frustration is high over the slow pace of rebuilding after the war this summer between Hamas and Israel.

After waiting several hours in line this week to buy one bag of cement, Rabiya Garmout blamed the lack of Palestinian leadership.

"It's because of the internal dispute between the two parties. Donors are putting money in the bank, but it's just not getting here because of the split," Garmout says.

International aid officials say that has been a factor holding up the money. Despite long-held grudges, many Gazans say they want real political reuinification.

"Most people want to finish the split between Fatah and Hamas because we are suffering too much," says Dr. Salem el-Hessy, a Fatah supporter. "The leaders, I think they are the problem."

His Fatah uncle was killed during the violence seven years ago. The family accepted $36,000 from Hamas as compensation, then returned the cash in a public ceremony. El-Hessy says that was a gesture of mutual respect the Palestinian leaders would do well to follow.

Gaza Strip

Pope Francis won't meet privately with the Dalai Lama because of a "delicate situation," the Vatican's spokesman said today, in an apparent reference to the Holy See's relations with China.

The Dalai Lama, who is in Rome for a meeting of Nobel Peace Prize winners, had requested a private meeting with the pontiff but said Thursday that the request had been rejected.

"The Vatican administration says it is not possible because it could cause problems," he said.

On Friday, the Vatican's spokesman said the pope won't meet Tibet's spiritual leader "for obvious reasons concerning the delicate situation." He said the pope "holds the Dalai Lama in very high regard," adding Francis wouldn't meet any of the Nobel winners.

The Vatican hasn't had formal relations with China since 1949. The very fact that Beijing had allowed the pontiff to use its airspace in August was seen as a thaw in relations. But the Dalai Lama did meet the current pope's predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, in 2006.

China views the Dalai Lama as a troublemaker. He fled Tibet in 1959 after a failed uprising against China.

China has around 12 million Catholics. Many attend underground churches. There is a branch of the church that is recognized by the government. It is called the Patriotic Association, and it answers to the Communist Party, not the Vatican.

Pope Francis

China

Dalai Lama

Tibet

No cars for the teams seeking Ebola cases. Not enough ambulances to get the sick to the hospital quickly. And no cups for patients to drink from.

That's how bad things have been in a remote Eastern district of Sierra Leone called Kono.

Kono District is a land of towering mountains and muddy diamond mines. It's right next to the region where the Ebola outbreak first started. Still, for a long time, it looked as if the virus was mostly bypassing the place.

Over the summer, there were just a handful of cases, says Winnie Romeril, the World Health Organization's spokeswoman in Sierra Leone. There were a few cases a week in September and October. "And then suddenly in November we noticed a rise in the number of cases," Romeril says.

The actual figures were still fairly low: a few dozen sick people at the district's only hospital. To date the total number of confirmed cases in Kono is just over 120. But the suddenness of the rise was ominous.

"We were analyzing these figures and scratching our heads and thinking well, we need to go see what's going on," she says.

Romeril was in a group of aid workers and government and international organization officials that arrived last Saturday. Their first stop was the hospital. They found it overwhelmed with desperately sick people. Dead bodies were piling up. As for the nurses: "You could see the toll that was taken on the staff. I mean they were, they were some of the most exhausted, depressed looking people I've ever seen," says Romeril.

The only good news was that the staff had enough protective suits, provided by the government in advance. Everything else was lacking — even cups. That's a serious problem because Ebola patients lose a lot of fluid. The key to survival is to drink large quantities of a solution of water mixed with oral re-hydration salts — called ORS for short.

"People who are so weak with the Ebola virus can't even pick up a one-liter bottle," Romeril says. "So you have to put it in a small cup for them to sip out of. And they didn't have small cups. They didn't even have pitchers to make up the ORS."

The staff also hadn't been trained on how to set up isolation zones.

"So they were actually carrying people who had died of Ebola to the morgue and passing the pregnancy ward, for example," she says. "And by the time we left there were already pregnant women dying."

Also among the dead: hospital workers. And it was likely that there were a lot more infected people in the community. But it was hard to say for sure. Michael N'Dolie is an expert on disease surveillance with the World Health Organization. When he arrived in Kono — just a few days before Romeril — he found that the teams who check reports of suspected Ebola patients had no cars or trucks.

"They only have motorbikes," he says. "In fact as I'm talking to you, it's still a challenge. We still do not have one vehicle for them."

Even when the team members do manage to reach homes of sick people, they can't then take the individual to the hospital on a motorbike. So they lose precious days trying to organize ambulance rides.

But what about all the money the international community has been pouring into Sierra Leone? How is it possible that there still aren't enough vehicles, or cups? One reason, says Romeril, is that the hot spots keep shifting from one part of the country to another.

"The resources have been diverted to areas that seemed much more needy at the moment, and then another area gets neglected," she explains. "And so even when a lot of resources have come in there are still more resources that are needed."

Kono, at least, is getting help. The World Health Organization and the government of Sierra Leone are now teaming up with non-governmental aid gropus to mobilize a rapid response. They're sending vehicles. The International Federation of the Red Cross is setting up a proper treatment center that should open within two weeks. So Romeril says there's reason to hope they can stamp out this particular brush fire.

Still, she says, the episode is one more reminder of the need for constant vigilance.

No cars for the teams seeking Ebola cases. Not enough ambulances to get the sick to the hospital quickly. And no cups for patients to drink from.

That's how bad things have been in a remote Eastern district of Sierra Leone called Kono.

Kono District is a land of towering mountains and muddy diamond mines. It's right next to the region where the Ebola outbreak first started. Still, for a long time, it looked as if the virus was mostly bypassing the place.

Over the summer, there were just a handful of cases, says Winnie Romeril, the World Health Organization's spokeswoman in Sierra Leone. There were a few cases a week in September and October. "And then suddenly in November we noticed a rise in the number of cases," Romeril says.

The actual figures were still fairly low: a few dozen sick people at the district's only hospital. To date the total number of confirmed cases in Kono is just over 120. But the suddenness of the rise was ominous.

"We were analyzing these figures and scratching our heads and thinking well, we need to go see what's going on," she says.

Romeril was in a group of aid workers and government and international organization officials that arrived last Saturday. Their first stop was the hospital. They found it overwhelmed with desperately sick people. Dead bodies were piling up. As for the nurses: "You could see the toll that was taken on the staff. I mean they were, they were some of the most exhausted, depressed looking people I've ever seen," says Romeril.

The only good news was that the staff had enough protective suits, provided by the government in advance. Everything else was lacking — even cups. That's a serious problem because Ebola patients lose a lot of fluid. The key to survival is to drink large quantities of a solution of water mixed with oral re-hydration salts — called ORS for short.

"People who are so weak with the Ebola virus can't even pick up a one-liter bottle," Romeril says. "So you have to put it in a small cup for them to sip out of. And they didn't have small cups. They didn't even have pitchers to make up the ORS."

The staff also hadn't been trained on how to set up isolation zones.

"So they were actually carrying people who had died of Ebola to the morgue and passing the pregnancy ward, for example," she says. "And by the time we left there were already pregnant women dying."

Also among the dead: hospital workers. And it was likely that there were a lot more infected people in the community. But it was hard to say for sure. Michael N'Dolie is an expert on disease surveillance with the World Health Organization. When he arrived in Kono — just a few days before Romeril — he found that the teams who check reports of suspected Ebola patients had no cars or trucks.

"They only have motorbikes," he says. "In fact as I'm talking to you, it's still a challenge. We still do not have one vehicle for them."

Even when the team members do manage to reach homes of sick people, they can't then take the individual to the hospital on a motorbike. So they lose precious days trying to organize ambulance rides.

But what about all the money the international community has been pouring into Sierra Leone? How is it possible that there still aren't enough vehicles, or cups? One reason, says Romeril, is that the hot spots keep shifting from one part of the country to another.

"The resources have been diverted to areas that seemed much more needy at the moment, and then another area gets neglected," she explains. "And so even when a lot of resources have come in there are still more resources that are needed."

Kono, at least, is getting help. The World Health Organization and the government of Sierra Leone are now teaming up with non-governmental aid gropus to mobilize a rapid response. They're sending vehicles. The International Federation of the Red Cross is setting up a proper treatment center that should open within two weeks. So Romeril says there's reason to hope they can stamp out this particular brush fire.

Still, she says, the episode is one more reminder of the need for constant vigilance.

'I Feel Antigone Resembles Me. A Lot'

Syrian producer Itab Azzam worked to raise money — mainly from private donors — for the project. "It's actually about women taking control of their lives. Antigone's not a victim."

The women work with writers to incorporate their own experiences into the script. Many lost loved ones and now live in poverty.

"I feel that Antigone resembles me a lot. A lot," says Mona, a 28-year-old mother of two, with wide expressive eyes and a floral headscarf. She lived in Damascus and watched her neighborhood rise up in rebellion.

"We were not born just to listen, just to obey, just to receive orders," says Mona, who only gave one name. "We should be able to stand up for something in our lives."

When men were rounded up by the regime or attacked by rival militias, women sometimes tried to defend them. Mona says many died to protect husbands and sons: "So Antigone reflects the situation of a lot of women in Syria."

Still afraid of the regime, Mona doesn't want her last name used. She's lost everything, and lives in Beirut in a hovel and worries about how to feed her kids.

But asked if charities should spend money on theater when there's so much poverty, she says yes, absolutely.

"Our lives have drastically changed for the better," she says. Their psychological well-being has improved. Several say they feel alive again, more human.

Mona, left, sits next to Syrian playwright Mohammad al-Attar as he gives her some instructions during rehearsal. Dalia Khamissy for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Dalia Khamissy for NPR

Drilling To The Core Of The Tragedy

The first performance was earlier this week. Backstage, the actresses tried to steady their nerves, while also calming down their children. Plus, the project helped the women by paying them for their work as actresses and providing childcare for them during rehearsals.

The lights dim and Mona takes the sparse stage for a monologue weaving her life with Antigone's story. Would the princess have defied the king if she'd had kids? Would it have been different if she'd been a commoner?

"We are not princesses," she says in a clear, light voice with more pathos than self-pity. "No one knows of us and no one would speak of us if we died. Even in death, there are lucky people."

Mona goes on to say she now feels Antigone with her when she's cooking and cleaning, even in her dreams. Sometimes she feels brave and defiant like the tragic heroine, even if at other moments — like when she's harassed on the street by men — she is timorous and silent.

Opening night goes well. The women celebrate. "I want to kiss everyone!" cries Mona.

During the last rehearsal before opening night, a Syrian Palestinian refugee recounts onstage the day she went back to her house in the Yarmouk camp in Syria after it was bombed. The shoes beside her are the ones she was wearing that day she entered the camp. Dalia Khamissy for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Dalia Khamissy for NPR

Out front, the audience is left thinking.

"I'm still a little bit in shock," says James Sadri, an activist on Syria issues. "It was a very emotional play."

Sadri knows all about Syria, but having the refugees in front of him, he says, "there is nothing more powerful than that, than drilling really to the core of your heart and the tragedy of what's happening in Syria."

In the Sophocles play, the king remains in power — but broken and sorrowful.

In the final lines, the chorus says that great words of proud men are always punished in the end.

Alison Meuse contributed to this report.

Syrian refugees

Lebanon

It's been 50 years since New York City's Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened. It was then — and still is — the longest suspension bridge in the country.

In 1964, author Gay Talese published a book about the construction called The Bridge. Here's an excerpt:

"When I first moved to New York in the middle 1950s, I often asked myself: Whose fingerprints are on the bolts and beams of these soaring edifices in this overreaching city? Who are the high-wire walkers, wearing boots and hard hats, earning their living by risking their lives in places where falls are often fatal and where the bridges and skyscrapers are looked upon as sepulchers by the families and the coworkers of the deceased?"

Recently, for StoryCorps, Talese interviewed Bob Walsh, one of the men who built the Verrazano. Walsh, 70, whose family boasts five generations of ironworkers, was 18 when he started working on the bridge.

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Gay Talese under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge while reporting on its construction in the early 1960s. ©Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photo hide caption

itoggle caption ©Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photo

Gay Talese under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge while reporting on its construction in the early 1960s.

©Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photo

"My oldest brother, he was in the business. There was a demand for a lot of apprentices, so my brother asked me if I'd like to work on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. I said, 'Sure, why not?' You know? It was gonna be the biggest bridge in the world at the time," he says.

His father died working on a building in Manhattan, and Walsh himself had a close encounter.

"I would jump from one beam to the other, and they were probably about 5 feet apart, and I didn't make the next beam. And I was fortunate enough that the nets were there, but we lost a fellow out of Local 40, a fellow by the name of McKee. He went through a hole in the catwalk," Walsh says.

Walsh's two sons are also ironworkers. His grandchildren, too. Would the ironworking family ever do something safer that paid more? "Well, it's probably not in our blood," Walsh says.

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Jud Esty-Kendall.

StoryCorps is a national nonprofit that gives people the chance to interview friends and loved ones about their lives. These conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future generations. Learn more, including how to interview someone in your life, at StoryCorps.org.

gay talese

verrazano narrows bridge

New York City

New York

Chris Rock has been on a tear — a widely shared interview with Frank Rich in New York Magazine, a widely shared guest column in The Hollywood Reporter, interviews with Audie Cornish on All Things Considered, Terry Gross on Fresh Air and Jesse Thorn on Bullseye. And those are just a few of the many conversations he's had surrounding the release of his new film, Top Five, which he wrote and directed.

In a lot of those discussions, Rock has had a lot to say about race in Hollywood, race in general, the atmosphere surrounding comedy, the intersection of some of these things with gender and class, and a whole lot of other pretty provocative things. So it might be that I went into the film primed to be more interested in what it had to say about the industry than in its central love story.

Top Five follows a comic movie star, Andre Allen (Rock), as he spends a day being interviewed by Chelsea, a beautiful reporter from The New York Times, played by Rosario Dawson. Early on, they have a fascinating and tense relationship, marked by distrust and the blend of false and real intimacy that develops as she interviews him for her story. Allen is about to marry a Bravo reality star (Gabrielle Union) in a splashy, highly publicized event, and he's simultaneously promoting his first serious film, a drama about a slave rebellion.

The best parts of the film lie in its industry satire: its portrayal of the terrible rote interviews that take place at junkets, its sharp eye for the bad questions asked by lazy entertainment reporters, and little details like the satellite radio engineer — played by straight-up genius Brian Regan — who tries to goad Allen into being more painfully wacky while doing station promos. Rock is great at giving Andre's frustration a genuinely pained edge, alternately funny and not, and that comes both from his performance and from his careful maintenance, as the director, of the balance in the film's tone between goofy comedy and a comedic presentation of some of the same observed and thoughtful criticism he's been offering in the press in recent weeks.

Along the way, there are quite a number of good performers in small roles, including but certainly not limited to Kevin Hart and J.B. Smoove as members of Andre's team, Cedric the Entertainer as a guy he encounters at a particularly bad time, and few folks playing themselves with gusto in cameos. Gabrielle Union is both very funny and oddly sympathetic as a woman whose life has become a gross pageant she now believes it only makes sense to continue making.

What's disappointing is that what begins as an unconventional relationship of uneasy respect between Andre and Chelsea eventually turns, as I kept hoping it wouldn't, into a much more conventional and much less interesting road to possible romance. Her boyfriend is dispensed with by way of a hackneyed plot device, and the two of them then are given a thoroughly implausible reason to fight, and by the end, it felt like the movie Rock cared about more had been abandoned in favor of this story that doesn't have nearly the same tension or attention to detail. Dawson is excellent, particularly in the early scenes: their chemistry is such that just the two of them talking would be a perfectly good movie, like Before Sunrise. But something is gradually lost as she becomes a much more run-of-the-mill love interest with much less to say.

To be clear, Rock doesn't have a special obligation to do social criticism in his movie just because he's been doing it in the press; it's more that the film gets all its energy from satire that's strong in the beginning and loses steam as he goes. And the romance that's ramped up to provide the movie with a direction in its final act is conventional and undercooked.

It's fun to watch Chris Rock; it's just fun. And there are parts of this film where it's fun to watch him in exactly the ways he wants it to be. (I don't happen to think the movie's abundant super-raunchy jokes are as funny as it thinks they are, but opinions on that will vary.) But there is a story here about Andre's tenuous professional and personal situation that I think I wanted to see more than I wanted to see a romance between these particular people. The movie makes for an enjoyable enough day in New York with good company, but by the end, it's lagging.

As the CIA and Senate Intelligence Committee clash over whether so-called enhanced interrogation techniques are considered torture, another question arises: Have depictions of torture on TV and film helped convince us that it works?

Consider this warning that recently greeted viewers of ABC's political soap opera, Scandal:

"The following drama contains adult content. Viewer discretion is advised."

That label was slapped on the episode because of scenes like the moment when trained torturer Huck prepared to ply his trade on colleague (and soon-to-be girlfriend) Quinn Perkins.

"Normally, I'd start with the drill or a scalpel," he told Perkins, who was bound and gagged, looking on in terror. "Peeling off the skin can be beautiful. Or removing fingers, toes; I like the feeling of a toe being separated from a foot. ... I'm so sorry, because I'm going to enjoy this."

Scenes like that have become a regular part of some popular TV shows and movies. People may disagree in real life, but in Hollywood, torture works.

From Kiefer Sutherland as hard-nosed government agent Jack Bauer on Fox's 24, growling this threat to a bad guy: "You probably don't think that I can force this towel down your throat. Trust me, I can."

To Liam Neeson's ex-CIA operative Bryan Mills, shocking a man for information in the movie Taken: "You either give me what I need, or this switch stays on until they turn the power off for lack of payment on the bill."

There's just one problem with these scenes, according to former FBI agent and interrogation expert Joe Navarro: "None of it works," he says. "I've done thousands of interviews, and I can tell you, none of [the TV torture stuff] works."

Navarro spent 25 years in the FBI, with much of that time spent training others in interrogation techniques. He says treating terrorists humanely and empathizing with them works better than abusing them.

But those softer tactics often surprise trainees raised on TV police dramas and spy movies. "Some of the younger guys were I think really surprised when we came in and talked about rapport-building, establishing friendships, sharing food," says Navarro, who recalled one fateful meeting where fellow interrogation experts talked about what some people were doing to interrogate terrorism suspects after Sept. 11, only to realize they had seen similar techniques on fictional TV programs. "They were shocked ... because they had seen so many hundreds of hours of television."

TV Torture Changes Real Interrogation Techniques

Torture's Depiction on TV

Navarro joined a group of interrogation professionals in 2006 who asked producers of 24 to tone down their torture scenes. Another expert who talked to them was Tony Camerino, an Air Force veteran who played a key role in tracking down terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

"What we want to do is more educate," Camerino says. "[We] tell people, look ... some of the real-life situations we can give you would be even more exciting, but they don't involve your protagonist, the person we're supposed to be rooting for, torturing people, and then telling us that that's heroic."

Camerino now works as a writer and technical consultant on CBS's adventure drama Person of Interest.

"Two years ago, I wrote an episode in which a detective was interrogating one of our main characters, accusing him of having committed a murder," the writer says. "Essentially, the approach he used is one we call 'we know all.' "

The scene, from an episode titled "In Extremis," features an Internal Affairs officer telling corrupt officer Lionel Fusco, "You see, when dirty cops want to eliminate DNA from a scene, they use bleach. But bleach stains things. Like the carpet in the trunk on the vehicle that you signed out on the day Stills disappeared."

Camerino explains: "He presented all the evidence that he had to make the subject feel as if it was worthless to resist, because he already knew everything."

Have these efforts to change TV torture had an effect?

Two producers from 24 who met with Navarro and Camerino in 2006 say those talks affected work on their current series, Showtime's Homeland. That program won an award in 2012 from Human Rights First for its depiction of the so-called war on terror.

"They all told us that even, apart from the moral and legal objections, torture is a not a reliable way to produce intelligence," 24 and Homeland producer Howard Gordon said during his acceptance speech. "And over time, their way of thinking became ours and at the very least, we became more sensitive to the 'we're just doing a television show' defense."

Still, the episode of CBS's Person of Interest with Camerino's interrogation scene also featured a guest character threatening to shoot someone to get information.

And the revival of 24 this summer showed Jack Bauer interrogating a suspect by saying this: "I can assure you, full immunity is not on the table. But your hand is," just before using a gun butt to smash the suspect's left hand multiple times.

Sometimes, it seems, the drama of torture is too great to resist; even when producers know how dangerous and damaging it is in the real world.

The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City collects the beautiful and practical — vintage Eames chairs, Jimi Hendrix posters, Victorian bird cages.

The museum, which is housed in the Andrew Carnegie mansion, is reopening after an extensive $81 million, three-year renovation — and the redesign has turned this historic building into one of the most technologically advanced museums in the country.

It reopens on a special anniversary, says Cooper Hewitt Director Caroline Baumann. "On Dec. 12th in 1902, Andrew Carnegie actually arrived with his wife and daughter in a horse-drawn carriage," she says. "So we chose Dec. 12, 2014, for obvious reasons celebrating the new Cooper Hewitt the same date that Andrew Carnegie moved in."

This sprawling 64-room mansion, with its high ceilings and tall windows, was once on the leading edge of home innovation. "The Carnegie home was one of the first houses in New York City to have air conditioning and an early example of heating," Baumann says.

i i

The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum is housed in a historic building in New York City, but the exhibits inside are far from antique — the museum is striving to be at the cutting edge of innovation. Cooper Hewitt hide caption

itoggle caption Cooper Hewitt

The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum is housed in a historic building in New York City, but the exhibits inside are far from antique — the museum is striving to be at the cutting edge of innovation.

Cooper Hewitt

And now, she says, Cooper Hewitt is using this historic mansion to advance museum innovation. In an age of social media, video games, and selfies, visitors are no longer content to be passive recipients of information, she says.

Bauman takes me to a second-floor gallery about the history of wallpaper. At a table with a big touch screen I can sort through hundreds of wallpaper designs — from antique floral French prints to contemporary abstract patterns. If I want to see what it would be like in a room, I tap the design and it's projected on to the walls.

"The idea was that people would better understand the impact of wallpaper by saying, 'Look what this can do to a room,' " she says. Baumann says it could be a great way to inspire someone who was looking to put wallpaper in their own home.

You can also design your own wallpaper here. Baumann draws a few shapes and they replicate across the wall. I add a dot and it looks like a wallpaper of bunny rabbits.

Visitors will use a pen-like object designed by the museum to draw on this table. Each visitor will get one of the objects, which looks like an oversized black crayon, during their visit.

"It's also shaped like a pen because it gives visitors the explicit permission to go and do things," says Seb Chan, the museum's director of digital and emerging media. "It's like 'Hey, we've given you a pen. What do I do with a pen? Oh! I create stuff. Right, obviously I'm here to create stuff.' "

There are other touch screens in the museum where you can make a zigzag or a curlicue, and it brings up objects from the permanent collection that use that shape. Chen draws a circle and it pulls up a pen and ink drawing from 1736 with a trumpet in it.

Chan says most museums have their collections online, but visitors don't know how to begin to search through them. Using random drawings as a way to call up items can help them discover the collection.

i i

The museum hopes new interactive technologies will help attract younger museum-goers — and a new generation of donors. Matt Flynn/Cooper Hewitt hide caption

itoggle caption Matt Flynn/Cooper Hewitt

The museum hopes new interactive technologies will help attract younger museum-goers — and a new generation of donors.

Matt Flynn/Cooper Hewitt

The pen keeps a digital record of your visit. It will have the wallpaper you drew and and, if you tap an X symbol next to a display of, say, a turn of the century chair you find interesting, that will also be part of a personal account you can visit after you leave the museum.

"You can look at more information," Chan says. "You can share it with your friends. It's a memory device."

Many other museums are keeping an eye on Cooper Hewitt. Museums have been experimenting with handing out iPads to visitors and creating special apps with audio tours, but visitors often don't use them, says Nancy Proctor, deputy director of digital experiences at the of the Baltimore Museum of Art.

"What's interesting about the pen is it's about as far away as you can get from an audio tour device," she says. "That's really exciting as an invitation to all of us in the museum field to kind of think outside that audio tour box."

Cooper Hewitt will now also have the ability to learn more about what gets visitors most excited in their collection. She says this is also important to attracting young donors — many of whom want proof that their money is making an impact.

Museums are also struggling to attract younger visitors. According to a survey by the National Endowment for the Arts, museum attendance among young adults age 35 to 45 is declining.

Cooper Hewitt Director Baumann hopes that by making the experience more interactive, that will begin to change. "This renovation, the past three years, was really the lifetime opportunity for Cooper Hewitt to modernize, to renew, to become something new," she says.

The museum opens its doors Friday — though the new technology, including the pen, will continue to roll out over the next few weeks.

touch screens

museum

cooper hewitt

But, after what felt like an endless period of construction that stopped and started several times, the street was finished and is still holding up – that's something that can't be said for many other streets paved in my time here that are again crumbling.

As I walk down to the end of my street, in front of me is a gleaming new four-story shopping center that was built since I moved here. Inside are several dress shops, a small grocery store and a shawarma restaurant. The architectural style can best be described as post-modern, ancient-revival tacky.

Across from the shopping center is an old barbershop I've frequented. It's old school – straight razor shaves and that vibrating silver contraption the barber puts on his hand to give you a head massage.

"The neighborhood is much better thanks to the new construction, road paving, and renovated sidewalks," says 22-year old Hamid, who like many Afghans goes by one name. He's one of the barbers in this shop and says he's had more business thanks to the development.

Around the next corner by a police checkpoint are two new multi-story shopping centers and another under construction. There are new clothing shops here like Women Palace, which sells high end and unexpectedly contemporary women's clothes.

"As a result of all this construction, more wealthy people have moved into the neighborhood," says Mohammed Essa, 23, who owns an older, more traditional shop. "The market area is more crowded than ever."

While the neighborhood has come a long way from the time packs of stray dogs wandered the muddy streets, it's hardly Beverly Hills. There are still plenty of rundown old shops and the paint is already peeling off some of the new buildings, revealing the shoddy construction work underneath.

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Kabul Postcard: Newly Paved Sidewalks, A Lion On The Roof

One of the most striking additions to the neighborhood is the space-age looking Shar-e-Now wedding hall. The wedding hall business continues to boom in Kabul. Even the poorest Afghans will spend lavish sums on a wedding in one of these halls.

This particular one is festooned with such an array of lights that at night is shimmers and sparkles to a point that would make the most ostentatious Vegas casino blush.

And despite falling property values and reduced demand as foreigners and their money leave Kabul, construction continues – all through the night on my street.

One of the most famous restaurants in the city is on my street. Recently it hopped into a new compound across the street. The old lot was demolished and a new structure is going up. Given the depth of the foundation, I'd guess the new building will be five to six stories tall, which happens to be illegal for a residential neighborhood like this. But, the law certainly didn't stand in the way of the other tall buildings that sprung up next to my house.

Afghanistan

In 1995, Glenn Close won her third Tony Award for her role the Broadway musical Sunset Boulevard. Now, after 20-year hiatus, Close is back on Broadway. She's starring alongside John Lithgow in A Delicate Balance, Edward Albee's 1966 Pulitzer Prize-winning play. The story follows Agnes (Close), a suburban matron striving to keep the peace in a household she her husband (Lithgow) share with her sister, who's an alcoholic; their daughter, who's a serial divorcee; and their best friends who have fled their own home in an inexplicable terror.

Close tells NPR's Robert Siegel about the timelessness of Albee's play and getting a nosebleed in the middle of a recent matinee.

Interview Highlights

On playing Agnes as a strong, reserved character rather than an insufferable, snarling one

I think Agnes is kind of the tricky character in the play. She's very much in the middle of everything trying to keep the balance, and she could be written as a control freak, [a] really unpleasant woman. And I've played so many strong, unpleasant women that I thought I didn't want to play her like that. I wanted to find some sort of humanity. And also, I know a lot of those women and they're very strong, you know, interesting women in their own right, and so I wanted to do them justice.

More On Glenn Close

Wisdom Watch

Glenn Close: Mental Illness Shouldn't Be Old News

Movies

Glenn Close Finds Chemistry In Role Of Albert Nobbs

On whether A Delicate Balance is a '60s period piece

I think the only way that it is a period piece is maybe the mention of a topless bathing suit. And we actually got permission to cut one. ... At one point, I [Agnes] was criticizing Claire [Agnes' sister] for her emancipated womanhood. I said, "In this day and age, we just cannot say that." ... That would make it incredibly dated. But I think as far as the words that you hear all through the night — "terror" and "plague" and, you know, "decide" — they're timeless, I think. And certainly in our society today, we know more about plague and terror than we ever have, really. When you look at a play like this, post-9/11, I think it's actually rather extraordinary what Albee was writing about.

On her own experience of the '60s

I graduated from high school in '65, and for five years was on the road with a singing group — [a] rather right-wing singing group, unbeknownst to me ... that was an offshoot of a kind of a cult group, I would say, that I had been in since I was 7. So I had a very skewed view of the '60s.

On whether she plans to do more Broadway theater

I would like very much to not have another — well, I'd be dead — a 20-year hiatus between my next play. ... There's something so elemental about live theater. I mean yesterday in our matinee, I started having a nosebleed just before my entrance. And I thought, "Oh no, what am I gonna do?" And my entrance came and I went on and I had a whole thing of Kleenex. And I realized, you know, like five lines in that ... my nosebleed was not gonna stop, so I made the decision to go down to the footlights and say, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm experiencing a nosebleed. I need to have a couple of minutes." And they just loved it! And John Lithgow went down and said, "Well maybe we can sing some Christmas carols."

The sun has set in Liberia's eastern border town of Ganta, and the red dirt roads are humming with motorbikes and boomboxes.

As Ebola starts to lose ground in the West African country, life is slowly returning to normal. Liberia's nightlife, which stalled after officials declared a state of emergency in early August, is gradually picking up. And the hangouts where Liberians pay a small fee to watch soccer are once again packed with fans.

At Justina's, a club in the center of Ganta, about 30 young men have come to watch the Champions league matches. Real Madrid is beating Ludogorets, and Arsenal just put the ball past Galatasary's keeper.

i i

Cherridon S. Delee runs Justina's video club. He says that Liberians like to root for the Barcelona, Chelsea and Real Madrid soccer teams. John W. Poole/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption John W. Poole/NPR

Cherridon S. Delee runs Justina's video club. He says that Liberians like to root for the Barcelona, Chelsea and Real Madrid soccer teams.

John W. Poole/NPR

Liberians call these places "video clubs." They're kind of like a sports bar, only there's no beer served and no barstools. Young men — and it's almost all men — come here to support their squads.

The dimly lit hall is filled with rows of plastic chairs in front of mounted TVs. People are passionate about soccer here. Plus, since so many are out of work, watching games is a way to pass the time.

When the government announced a state of emergency, "everyone was afraid to come together," says Alberto Fong, who's standing outside Justina's during halftime."Sitting here [in these clubs] is very dangerous so everyone was trying to observe the rules."

That means avoiding human contact, staying away from large gatherings and washing your hands with diluted chlorine before entering public buildings. That's part of the way Liberia was able to cut the weekly number of new Ebola cases from around 400 down to under 100.

Because of this trend, the state of emergency was lifted a month ago. But health officials say complacency could stop the progress. So the government recommends taking precautions.

"My ministry is telling people that if you want to go to video clubs you first need to observe safe measures we have put in place," says Isaac Jackson, Liberia's deputy information minister. "Wash your hands."

i i

At the Arsenal video club, men sit shoulder to shoulder. But some still say it's too dangerous to go in because of Ebola. John W. Poole/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption John W. Poole/NPR

At the Arsenal video club, men sit shoulder to shoulder. But some still say it's too dangerous to go in because of Ebola.

John W. Poole/NPR

After all, Ganta sits right across the border from Guinea, where the outbreak started.

But there's no chlorine bucket in front of this video club. Fortunately, Fong came with his own hand sanitizer. "Just in case I touch someone," he says.

Not everyone is as prepared as Fong, and these sticky, sweaty video clubs are jammed with people.

Goats and Soda

Ebola Cases Are Down, So Should Liberians Stop Worrying?

Goats and Soda

Boredom On The Border Between Liberia And Guinea

Just down the street from Justina's is the Arsenal video club. It's pretty lax inside. Men sit shoulder to shoulder on wooden benches. Most of them seem comfortable — but not everyone wants to go in.

Emmanuel "Good Boy" Gbormie is taking no chances, so he sits outside. "Very, very not safe, it's an interactive environment [and] there's no bucket to wash hands," he says. "So for me personally, I need to protect myself." He

For Gbormie, that's more important than cheering his team on in the video club. He says he'll wait for his friends to come outside and tell him who's won.

ebola

Liberia

Soccer

sports

The parents of 43 students who went missing more than two months ago in Mexico say they don't believe the government's account of what happened to their loved ones and they will continue to protest and demand justice.

The case of the students, who were kidnapped and presumably murdered by corrupt cops working with drug traffickers, has prompted near-daily protests throughout the country and brought one of the most severe crises for President Enrique Pea Nieto.

Officials announced this week that the remains of one of the 43 students had been identified by forensic experts in Austria. The student was identified as Alexander Mora Venancio, a 21-year old-freshman from the rural town of El Pericon in Guerrero state.

According to the government, the students were kidnapped by corrupt police and turned over to drug traffickers who murdered them en mass and burned their bodies. Badly charred remains were discovered in a plastic bag in a river not far from where the students were allegedly murdered. Mexico's attorney general said Tuesday that other remains found alongside Mora's may be too badly charred to identify.

That news doesn't sit well with the relatives of the students, most of whom cling to the hope that their sons are still alive.

I met some of the families in Omeapa, Guerrero. A group of mothers, some wrapped in threadbare shawls, prayed in a small church. Three of the missing students come from Omeapa, a farming village, home to some 100 families.

Natividad de la Cruz Bartolo is mother to one of the three. Her son, Emiliano, would be 23 now. She shows me into their house and into his room.

In the corner sits a small, white plastic table with a baby Jesus on top, two lit candles and several photos of Emiliano. She picks up one wrapped in plastic. It's from his kindergarten class.

De la Cruz says he was so little in kindergarten. Emiliano was born premature.

"I had to feed him with a baby dropper and he almost didn't make it those first two years," she says. Through tears, de la Cruz says her son got stronger, made it through school and into college, where he was going to be a teacher and have a better life.

"We went through so much," she says. "Why, so all this could happen to my son?" De la Cruz says she doesn't believe the government's version of what happened to the students. None of it adds up, she says. How could they burn so many bodies without a trace? She believes Emiliano is still alive.

"We will keep searching, investigating and pressuring until they tell us what happened and until we get justice," says De la Cruz. As we walked back to the town center, she turns to me and says that when Emiliano comes back we are going to celebrate with a big party.

"You'll come back?" she asks.

"Sure," I say. "I'll be there."

missing students

Mexico

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

On Monday, Australia's top literary prize picked a pair of winners in its fiction category. Steven Carroll and Richard Flanagan, who was also this year's Booker Prize winner, split the Prime Minister's Literary Award and its winnings. The decision, while unusual, didn't raise many eyebrows at the time — but the aftermath has.

According to prize rules, the Australian prime minister has the right of "final decision" over the award's selection — a right that current Prime Minister Tony Abbott reportedly exercised. According to The Australian newspaper, Abbott overruled the judges' unanimous selection of Carroll's A World of Other People, deciding that the novel must share the award with Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North. And he waited until the awards dinner to let the judges know.

Unsurprisingly, one of the judges is none too pleased. Poet Les Murray, who served on the fiction panel, has loudly made his grievances known.

"It was nasty the way it was done on the night," he told The Australian. "I was shocked that they went ­behind the scenes and worked a swifty."

He added that most of the judges had little regard for Flanagan's novel, telling the Sydney Morning Herald: "A clear majority of us thought the Flanagan book was superficial, showy and pretentious and we disdained it."

The drama of the decision does not end there. Earlier this year, Flanagan publicly excoriated Abbott's environmental policy, saying that it made him "ashamed to be an Australian." And on the night he was awarded the prize, Flanagan announced he would not be keeping his winnings, donating it instead to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.

It Knows When You've Been Reading: Careful with those e-readers, folks: They can see you. At least, they can see what you're reading — and how much you've read. E-reading platform Kobo has been tracking completion rates for e-books, and the company has released its findings. Fewer than half of British readers who picked up Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch in 2014 have finished it, for example, and romance leads all genres with a mere 62 percent completion rate. The Bookseller has a wrap-up of the results, as well as the lucky books that made Kobo's "most completed" list.

And if you'd like a pep talk to get through the next book you pick up, Juliet Lapidos has one for you over at The Atlantic: Finish that book!

Held In Contempt: A Nigerian court has held former President Olusegun Obasanjo in contempt for defying an order not to publish his memoir, My Watch. Obasanjo had moved ahead with publication, even reportedly making a public presentation of the book Tuesday, despite a court order handed down Dec. 5 due to a pending libel lawsuit. The Nigerian Tribune reports that Obasanjo has less than three weeks to demonstrate cause for why he flouted the court order, and in the meantime, the court has asked that copies of the book be confiscated from store shelves. For his part, Obasanjo has argued that the book had already been published before the order was handed down.

'The Henry Ford Of Books': James Patterson is a one-man industry of words. For more than a decade, Patterson has been the world's best-selling author, averaging more than 10 books a year with the help of a considerable number of co-writers. This year alone, Patterson lapped his fellow writers on Forbes' list of top-earning authors, earning more than the next three writers on the list combined.

In a new profile, Vanity Fair turned to Patterson and his former editor, Michael Pietsch, to sort out the man behind such a prolific and popular output.

"I think that I felt I needed to be this very bright, first-in-his-class kind of kid, for whatever reason, pretty serious. But underneath, it was just a million stories that I was already telling," Patterson says. "And I didn't really make anything of it. I never thought I was going to be a storyteller or a writer, but I was just in the habit."

A Pair O' Poet Laureates: The dwindling number of states still without a post for poet laureate may soon get even smaller. State legislatures in Massachusetts and Ohio are reportedly mulling the idea of adding a position for the state's official poet.

richard flanagan

poet laureate

James Patterson

Tony Abbott

Book News

books

Nazila Fathi covered turbulent events in her native Iran for years as The New York Times correspondent. She learned to navigate the complicated system that tolerates reporting on many topics, but can also toss reporters in jail if they step across a line never explicitly defined by the country's Islamic authorities.

Fathi recalls one editor telling her what journalists could do in Iran: "We have the freedom to say whatever we want to say, but we don't know what happens afterwards."

Five years ago, Fathi was covering the aftermath of Iran's hotly contested 2009 presidential election, when demonstrators flooded the streets to protest a vote they said was rigged in favor of the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The government warned journalists to stop covering the street demonstrations, which often turned violent, yet Fathi continued to file stories for the Times.

But one day, a government source told her that the authorities had given her photo to snipers who were believed to be shooting the protesters. Soon after, intelligence officials appeared on the street outside her apartment.

Fearing arrest, she remained in her apartment until she and her husband, along with their two small children, left for the Tehran airport in the middle of the night and took a flight out of the country.

Fathi has not gone back to Iran and now lives in suburban Washington, D.C. She's written about the challenges of reporting in Iran in a new book, The Lonely War: One Woman's Account Of The Struggle For Modern Iran.

Speaking with NPR's Steve Inskeep, Fathi says she believes that some journalists are arrested not for their reporting, but to serve as a pawn in a complex power struggle. It could involve Iran and a foreign country or it could be an internal feud between two Iranian government agencies, she says.

The Lonely War

One Woman's Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran

by Nazila Fathi

Hardcover, 297 pages | purchase

Purchase Featured Book

TitleThe Lonely WarSubtitleOne Woman's Account of the Struggle for Modern IranAuthorNazila Fathi

Your purchase helps support NPR Programming. How?

Amazon

Independent Booksellers

Politics & Public Affairs

Nonfiction

History & Society

Biography & Memoir

More on this book:

NPR reviews, interviews and more

Here are the highlights of the interview:

Was the government monitoring you because you were a journalist?

Yes, from the beginning. There was a guy, who I call Mr. X in the book, he became my handler. He was the handler of all foreign reporters. Some of my [journalist] friends had very bad experiences with him. I can't say I got along with him, but I found a way to deal with him in a way that he was never mean to me, and I think toward the end, he was even quite respectful.

Where did you meet with Mr. X?

At different places. The first time it was at one of the Intelligence Ministry headquarters. The he started inviting me to meet him at hotel rooms, which was extremely creepy in the beginning. I was terrified.

(Later, Mr. X invited her to an apartment) When I went there, I searched the entire house and I went into the kitchen and I took a knife and I hid it in my pocket. I was so embarrassed when I walked in because I kept thinking, 'How was I going to use that knife.'

I wrote under very tight deadlines, so I just didn't have time to think about him. But when he called and summoned me, he always came with a big file. So there were always questions about the stories I had written.

'Why did you draw this conclusion? Why did you write this?' But the good thing about Mr. X, or at least the way he treated me, was he listened.

Why did you think you had to leave Iran?

It was about two-and-a-half weeks after the (presidential) election in 2009. All reporters received a letter that said the ones who worked out of an office were not allowed to leave their offices. I worked out of home, so I ignored the ban, I kept going out, and of course I was writing my stories under my byline, and I think that embarrassed the regime.

One day I got a call from a (militia) commander ... he said that he had heard they had given my photo to snipers to shoot me if they saw me. I continued covering the story and I sort of ignored what he had said.

But then I was on my way to see a (political) analyst and I noticed there were people right outside my apartment building sitting in a car and as soon as they saw me, I noticed another car behind me and two motorcycles. I went back home and I never left my apartment building until the night that we left the country.

After I left the country, I found out that the Intelligence Ministry and people in the judiciary were quite divided over whether they should arrest me or not. So it had taken them a while to issue an arrest warrant for me.

You've said there's a lot of free expression in Iran but that there are things you can't write about. What's going on there?

I've always wondered, how come this regime, after 35 years despite all its efforts, all the money it has spent, all the repressive measure that it has taken, how come it hasn't been able to raise the ideological generation that it desired.

I don't know. That's my question too. Iran has changed in very important ways and the (1979) revolution has been responsible for it. It was the revolution that drew people who lived on the margins of society, people who were in the rural areas, into the center, because they were the regime's support base. It rewarded them by giving them jobs, but giving them good salaries and they moved up in society. And they are exactly the same people who are calling for change and reform now.

Nazila Fathi covered turbulent events in her native Iran for years as The New York Times correspondent. She learned to navigate the complicated system that tolerates reporting on many topics, but can also toss reporters in jail if they step across a line never explicitly defined by the country's Islamic authorities.

Fathi recalls one editor telling her what journalists could do in Iran: "We have the freedom to say whatever we want to say, but we don't know what happens afterwards."

Five years ago, Fathi was covering the aftermath of Iran's hotly contested 2009 presidential election, when demonstrators flooded the streets to protest a vote they said was rigged in favor of the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The government warned journalists to stop covering the street demonstrations, which often turned violent, yet Fathi continued to file stories for the Times.

But one day, a government source told her that the authorities had given her photo to snipers who were believed to be shooting the protesters. Soon after, intelligence officials appeared on the street outside her apartment.

Fearing arrest, she remained in her apartment until she and her husband, along with their two small children, left for the Tehran airport in the middle of the night and took a flight out of the country.

Fathi has not gone back to Iran and now lives in suburban Washington, D.C. She's written about the challenges of reporting in Iran in a new book, The Lonely War: One Woman's Account Of The Struggle For Modern Iran.

Speaking with NPR's Steve Inskeep, Fathi says she believes that some journalists are arrested not for their reporting, but to serve as a pawn in a complex power struggle. It could involve Iran and a foreign country or it could be an internal feud between two Iranian government agencies, she says.

The Lonely War

One Woman's Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran

by Nazila Fathi

Hardcover, 297 pages | purchase

Purchase Featured Book

TitleThe Lonely WarSubtitleOne Woman's Account of the Struggle for Modern IranAuthorNazila Fathi

Your purchase helps support NPR Programming. How?

Amazon

Independent Booksellers

Politics & Public Affairs

Nonfiction

History & Society

Biography & Memoir

More on this book:

NPR reviews, interviews and more

Here are the highlights of the interview:

Was the government monitoring you because you were a journalist?

Yes, from the beginning. There was a guy, who I call Mr. X in the book, he became my handler. He was the handler of all foreign reporters. Some of my [journalist] friends had very bad experiences with him. I can't say I got along with him, but I found a way to deal with him in a way that he was never mean to me, and I think toward the end, he was even quite respectful.

Where did you meet with Mr. X?

At different places. The first time it was at one of the Intelligence Ministry headquarters. The he started inviting me to meet him at hotel rooms, which was extremely creepy in the beginning. I was terrified.

(Later, Mr. X invited her to an apartment) When I went there, I searched the entire house and I went into the kitchen and I took a knife and I hid it in my pocket. I was so embarrassed when I walked in because I kept thinking, 'How was I going to use that knife.'

I wrote under very tight deadlines, so I just didn't have time to think about him. But when he called and summoned me, he always came with a big file. So there were always questions about the stories I had written.

'Why did you draw this conclusion? Why did you write this?' But the good thing about Mr. X, or at least the way he treated me, was he listened.

Why did you think you had to leave Iran?

It was about two-and-a-half weeks after the (presidential) election in 2009. All reporters received a letter that said the ones who worked out of an office were not allowed to leave their offices. I worked out of home, so I ignored the ban, I kept going out, and of course I was writing my stories under my byline, and I think that embarrassed the regime.

One day I got a call from a (militia) commander ... he said that he had heard they had given my photo to snipers to shoot me if they saw me. I continued covering the story and I sort of ignored what he had said.

But then I was on my way to see a (political) analyst and I noticed there were people right outside my apartment building sitting in a car and as soon as they saw me, I noticed another car behind me and two motorcycles. I went back home and I never left my apartment building until the night that we left the country.

After I left the country, I found out that the Intelligence Ministry and people in the judiciary were quite divided over whether they should arrest me or not. So it had taken them a while to issue an arrest warrant for me.

You've said there's a lot of free expression in Iran but that there are things you can't write about. What's going on there?

I've always wondered, how come this regime, after 35 years despite all its efforts, all the money it has spent, all the repressive measure that it has taken, how come it hasn't been able to raise the ideological generation that it desired.

I don't know. That's my question too. Iran has changed in very important ways and the (1979) revolution has been responsible for it. It was the revolution that drew people who lived on the margins of society, people who were in the rural areas, into the center, because they were the regime's support base. It rewarded them by giving them jobs, but giving them good salaries and they moved up in society. And they are exactly the same people who are calling for change and reform now.

The average American farmer is a white man in his late 50s. Or at least, that's who's in charge of the farm, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

But the number of female-run farms has tripled since the 1970s, to nearly 14 percent in 2012. And if you dig a little deeper, you'll find women are showing up in new roles. But because of the way farm businesses are structured, women's work often isn't included in those USDA counts.

Sondra Pierce and her husband, Matt, have been growing beets, hay and sunflowers in rural Boulder County, Colo., since they graduated high school. The young couple didn't wait long to start a family.

"Soon as I had my son, I would put his car seat in the tractor and he would ride with me," says Sondra.

Outfitting the tractor with a car seat was out of necessity. The farm wasn't paying all the bills. So Sondra's husband took on a full-time job off the farm to make ends meet.

"He would go to work, 9 to 5, and I would do the farm work that needed to get done. And then he would get home and do a lot of the other stuff," she says.

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Sondra Pierce and her husband, Matt Pierce, stand in the middle of one of their sugar beet fields in rural Boulder County, Colo. Luke Runyon/KUNC/Harvest Public Media hide caption

itoggle caption Luke Runyon/KUNC/Harvest Public Media

Sondra Pierce and her husband, Matt Pierce, stand in the middle of one of their sugar beet fields in rural Boulder County, Colo.

Luke Runyon/KUNC/Harvest Public Media

That left Sondra to pick up some of the domestic duties, too. And she's emblematic of a whole segment of female farmers, part of a husband and wife team attempting to keep a multigenerational farm afloat.

In the U.S., married couples run about a third of farms. But because of the way farm operations like the Pierce's are structured, men show up in data more often.

"Technically, I don't own the farm," says Sondra. "I mean, I just work on it. Most of the things we sell are always in his name."

In 2002 the USDA began collecting information — like gender and age — from more people on a family farm, not just from the person in charge. That's led to a broader picture of who does the farming in the U.S. Still, there are limits, and sociologists say expectations about what constitutes women's work on the farm can be slow to change.

"Women have always worked in agriculture, historically. I think a key issue is whether or not it's counted," says Julie Zimmerman, a rural sociologist at the University of Kentucky who studies how women's roles on the farm have changed over time.

"If you see working on your farm as being part of your role, as the spouse or the wife as helping out, then you might not even recognize it as being 'working on the farm,' even if you're doing it all the time," Zimmerman says.

The federal census of agriculture, conducted every five years, shows the percentage of women who farm climbing, slowly. But Zimmerman says that may not be entirely accurate. The picture would be more complete if the census asked more specific questions about who does what kind of work.

Mary Kraft walks through the milking parlor of Badger Creek Dairy outside Fort Morgan, Colo. She and two of her employees whistle at the black and white cows, coaxing them into the stalls.

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Every day Kraft's dairy milks more than 5,000 cows, each sporting a Bluetooth collar that collects data each time the animal is milked. She says as farms have become more high-tech, the skills needed to be a successful farmer have changed. Now, you need to know how to program a milking machine and drive a combine.

"In the past you had to be this big, burly guy with forearms the size of a post in order to turn a tractor, because they didn't have power steering," she says.

Kraft oversees her high-tech dairy from an office on site. Her MBA hangs on the wall by her desk. She calls herself a farmer, but she's also a CFO and a manager of 75 employees.

"It used to be you didn't inherit if you were a girl from a farm family," she says. "And I think [now] people are going, 'I want somebody who's going to carry on the farm. So if it's the young lady... awesome.' "

And when that young woman starts working on the farm, in any capacity, the question will be whether it's counted.

This story comes to us from Harvest Public Media, a reporting collaboration that focuses on agriculture and food production.

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Alan Rusbridger, best known in the U.S. for shepherding the Guardian newspaper through its Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of Edward Snowden's leaks of classified material, will step down as editor in chief of the British newspaper next summer. He said today he will become the chairman of the Scott Trust, which runs the Guardian.

In an email to staff, he wrote: "In February I'll have been editor for 20 years. It's been quite an extraordinary period in the life of the Guardian. In February 1995 newspaper websites were, if they existed at all, exotic things: we were still four years off launching Guardian Unlimited. Since 1999 we've grown to overtake all others to become the most-read serious English language digital newspaper in the world."

The newspaper, in a story about the departure, said:

"During his time at the Guardian, the paper and its editor have received awards for stories from Jonathan Aitken's libel case to Wikileaks and phone hacking. Earlier this year, the Guardian was awarded the highest accolade in US journalism, winning the Pulitzer Prize for public service for its articles on the National Security Agency's surveillance activities based on the leaks of Edward Snowden. It was also named Newspaper of the Year at the UK Press Awards for its reporting on government surveillance."

The Guardian said the process by which a successor will be picked has yet to be announced.

The Scott Trust, where Rusbridger will succeed the current chair, Liz Forgan, was set up in 1936 to ensure the Guardian's future.

The Guardian's decision to publish Snowden's leaks angered the British government, which was embarrassed by some of the revelations in the documents about the extent of its spying activities. Britain does not have an equivalent of the First Amendment, and Rusbridger destroyed the hard drives containing information Snowden provided rather than hand them over to a court. The drives' destruction was overseen by U.K. authorities.

"[I] t was certainly one of the most bizarre experiences in my journalistic career to have editorial people in a basement with power drills, being looked on by men from spying agencies involved in smashing up computers," Rusbridger told NPR at the time. "That's not something I thought I would encounter in my journalistic career."

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Uber is making headlines for all the wrong reasons.

The ridesharing service, which is based in San Francisco, has been expanding around the world, into both the rich countries of the West and low-income countries like India, Colombia and Vietnam. This past week, one of its drivers in New Delhi was accused of raping a 27-year-old female passenger. The episode generated protests on the streets and online — and raised serious questions about how the popular company operates in the developing world. Delhi has responded by banning Uber.

The question in India, raised on placards held by protesters outside the police station where the suspect is being held: "Whose responsibility is it to monitor that car service?" Should Uber police itself or does the local government need to step in?

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Uber has stringent screening for drivers in the U.S, says Daniel Sperling, founding director of Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California Davis. The San Francisco-based company requires both state and federal background checks going back seven years. Even a serious speeding ticket could be a red flag. The screening is often more stringent than that of regular taxi services, whose policies vary from city to city.

But in India, Uber didn't conduct its own background checks. Instead it relied on Delhi's system. And that's where the problems began.

According to newspaper accounts, the driver who reportedly raped his passenger is Shiv Kumar Yadav. He did carry an All India Tourist Permit, which is required for any commercial driver in India. To get the permit, an applicant needs a "driver's badge," issued by the state after a background check for criminal history, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Yet clearly, something went wrong. Yadav had been arrested on rape charges in 2011 but was acquitted. Nonetheless, he did have a criminal record: He was out on bail for three serious criminal cases, according to the New York Times. A tweet sent by Madhur Verma, New Delhi's deputy commissioner of police, stated that in May, the Transport Department issued Yadav's permit based on forged documents.

"In developing countries, the quality of transport regulations in general is lower than in the states — even government regulations, don't always work well," says Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development.

In an article that Kenny wrote for Bloomberg this week, he argues that the real problem in this case is the high rate of sexual assault in India: "25,000 rapes in 2012." These attacks have happened on various modes of public transport, including trains and in traditional Delhi taxis. Two years ago, a medical student was viciously gang raped on a New Delhi bus; the remembrance of this episode has fueled this week's fervor.

For now, public officials in New Delhi have banned Uber and other web-based taxi services, though there is dispute in India over whether the city's decision was motivated by the alleged rape or by the complaints from city taxi services about the competition from Uber.

It's not the first time Uber has been forbidden to operate in a city or country. This issue of Uber driver's operating without a commercial license led to an earlier ban in Frankfurt, Germany and a countrywide taxi strike in Colombia. This week, Thailand and Spain banned Uber, most likely because of concern from cab companies, says Sperling: "My sense is that it's the owners of the cab companies that are economically threatened and not the drivers because the drivers can easily switch over to being Uber drivers and make money on their own."

Despite the questions raised about safety and regulations, the incident in India does point up one way in which Uber is perhaps more accountable than traditional cab companies. Delhi police say the suspect didn't shut off his Uber app until after the incident, and Uber volunteered the GPS tracking data to authorities along with the driver's home address and vehicle info.

"That's a much higher level of knowledge than passengers have when they hail a cab off the street," Kenny wrote in his piece. "That knowledge base and Uber's willingness to cooperate swiftly with authorities are probably a more reliable deterrent to crime than the system of enhanced background checks now being considered by the New Delhi authorities."

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Negotiations over the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill Congress will consider this week included how to handle Washington, D.C.'s bid to legalize marijuana. Some 65 percent of the federal district's voters approved the move via ballot initiative last month.

Even before November's vote, many saw the measure's future as uncertain. Afterwards, several Republicans in Congress said they would move to block it. This week, the referendum's exact status has been a topic of conflicting reports about the shifting debate over the huge spending bill that will likely come up for a vote Thursday.

"This spending bill would prohibit federal and local funds from being used to implement that referendum," NPR's Ailsa Chang reports. "But it doesn't affect current law decriminalizing medical use of marijuana in D.C."

Restrictions on D.C.'s use of funds to regulate and tax marijuana would likely endanger the district's goal of creating a market that a city finance official said would be worth $130 million a year, as member station WAMU reported in October.

The initiative allows D.C. residents to possess up to two ounces of marijuana for their personal use, and to grow up to six marijuana plants.

We'll remind you that despite some elements of home rule in the nation's capital, Congress can review – and overturn — the city's laws. That means a ballot measure in Washington that legalizes pot must face closer scrutiny than those in Oregon and Alaska, where voters also approved legalizing marijuana last month.

From the National Journal:

"House Republicans, particularly Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers and junior appropriator Andy Harris of Maryland, had been vehemently pushing for language in the bill that would block both decriminalization and legalization."

While legalization advocates have criticized Harris and Rogers, they've also complained that Democrats aren't doing enough to defend the D.C. measure.

Calling the push to block the referendum from taking effect "outrageous," Michael Collins of advocacy group the Drug Policy Alliance said, "While we are encouraged by reports that D.C.'s legalization law may survive, Democratic leadership can do much more. We are deeply troubled by reports that the final language will prevent the District from taxing and regulating marijuana."

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Sons of Anarchy is probably the most macho drama on television, featuring a gang of gun-running, porn-making bikers.

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Sagal with her husband, Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter. Frank Micelotta/FX Networks hide caption

itoggle caption Frank Micelotta/FX Networks

Sagal with her husband, Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter.

Frank Micelotta/FX Networks

But the biggest moment of the final season has featured a woman: Gemma Teller (played by Katey Sagal), mother to biker club president Jax Teller. Gemma admitted killing Jax's wife, Tara, and lying about it, which started a gang war.

When Gemma finally came clean, Jax insisted she pay the ultimate price.

"I loved Tara very much," Gemma tries to tell Jax (played by Charlie Hunnam). He isn't interested in her story, and moments later, a shot rings out.

"This is a story about the queen and the prince," says Sons of Anarchy creator and executive producer Kurt Sutter, who cast his wife and former Married with Children star as Gemma. At first, Sutter planned to make Gemma a background player.

"I always had envisioned Gemma as sort of being like the Nancy Marchand character in the Sopranos ... not necessarily the key manipulator," he says, before noting that FX president John Landgraf convinced him to make Gemma a more central character.

Good call. Gemma has become one of the series' most popular characters even while carrying out some of the show's most intense plotlines, from beating one woman in the face with a skateboard to killing her own daughter-in-law with a huge serving fork after a fight in a kitchen.

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Katey Sagal, Holding Court On 'Sons Of Anarchy'

"Nothing gets in the way of me taking care of my family," Gemma tells one woman, a junkie who she handed a syringe full of drugs in hopes she might overdose. "Especially my conscience."

Television

'Sons Of Anarchy' Succeeds As A Soap Opera Geared Toward Guys

Tara Bennett, author of the official series guidebook for Sons of Anarchy, says strong female characters like Gemma helped draw female viewers. The show's season premiere this year topped ratings across TV for both men and women.

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But the show also plays like a soap opera for guys — filled with melodrama, violence, sex and a macho swagger that appeals to male fantasies.

"It's not unlike, in some kind of ways, guys that really kind of watch pro wrestling for the man soap of it all," Bennett says, laughing. "There's these really visceral fights and when justice is served, it's brutal and graphic and violent."

Sutter agrees: "You know, and I say this all the time, my show is pulp fiction. I straddle that line of absurdity a lot of the times. And for me, if I had a complete, accurate retelling of this world, it just would not be a fun show."

Sutter created the show in 2008, imagining a California version of The Sopranos. Fans called it Hamlet on motorcycles, with a young Jax rising to leadership in a gang originally led by his stepfather, who had secretly killed his father.

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Jimmy Smits plays gang leader Nero Padilla. Prashant Gupta/FX Network hide caption

itoggle caption Prashant Gupta/FX Network

Jimmy Smits plays gang leader Nero Padilla.

Prashant Gupta/FX Network

But that changed in 2012 when Sutter added former NYPD Blue star Jimmy Smits as Nero Padilla, a Latino gang leader and new boyfriend for Gemma. Even Smits is surprised he's still around now, citing the show's quality as one reason.

"There's a dynamic that happens with an audience that they like getting a kind of one-two punch," the actor says. "They like being able to know about a world and think they know who the characters are, thinking, 'How is Bobby going to [react]? ... How is Jax — because I know Jax — how [is he] gonna react?' "

Smits' character also helped Sons of Anarchy become more multicultural. Early seasons showed a pretty racist and homophobic biker group; now, one biker has fallen in love with a pre-operative transgender woman, while Latino and black characters are close allies.

"Just as the show has been an equal opportunity offender — every ethnic group gets their little hits — it's been a bastion of inclusiveness on so many different levels," Smits says.

Copies of Bennett's guidebook, which has details on tonight's finale, were sent early to some booksellers. So some fans already know how the series' ride ends.

But Sutter won't dish finale details, saying the show ends pretty much how he planned years ago.

Critics may carp about some aspects of the show's final season — including cameos by stars such as Courtney Love or Glee's Lea Michele that didn't seem particularly memorable or momentous.

But it seems obvious the show is ending on the same terms as it began: humanizing characters who rarely are treated seriously anywhere else and overturning the rules of series television in the process.

"Hopefully, we'll be seen as something original and important," Sutter says, "in terms of putting something different and diverse onscreen that doesn't involve people walking, just walking out to crime scenes or down a hospital corridor."

That may be the best thing you can say about a show that always found the humanity in the biggest outlaws on television.

Leonel Kaplan, an Argentine jazz musician, often has to travel abroad.

Before a recent trip to Europe, he went to a bank in Buenos Aires to change money and then went to get a haircut. Kaplan felt happy and relaxed and took the bus home after what had been an uneventful trip.

That, however, was about to change.

"As I get down from the bus, a motorcycle with two people wearing helmets cuts me off," he recalls. "One gets off and takes out a gun and says to me directly, 'Give me the 500 euros you got in the bank.'"

They knew exactly how much money he had changed. It was, he says, a pretty professional job.

Distrust Of Banks

In the region, Brazil, Venezuela and Honduras have the lock on murders – they are some of the most violent countries in the world. Argentina is still comparatively safe.

But according to an annual United Nations report on crime in Latin America, Argentina's robbery rate is 41 percent higher than even Mexico's, which comes in second.

To understand this unexpected and very specific surge in crime, you have to look at the country's recent economic history.

“ I would never put my money in a bank. Because I know it could disappear. A bank is no more secure than underneath my mattress.

- Leonel Kaplan, Argentine jazz musician

Robberies in Argentina started soaring after the 2001 default — when the country, in effect, declared bankruptcy. And that would seem to be logical: financial crisis equals more poverty and more thefts.

But that's not the whole picture. A number of analysts provide another explanation and it has to do with what Leonel Kaplan told me at the end of our interview.

He says he doesn't have a bank account.

"I would never put my money in a bank. Because I know it could disappear," he says. "A bank is no more secure than underneath my mattress."

People in Argentina don't trust the banks. That means they carry around cash — a lot of it — to pay for what they need, says Alan Ciblis, the chair of the political economy department of the National University of General Sarmiento.

"You can keep it in a safety box that they have in the vaults – that's probably the safest place," he says. "People have it under the mattress."

Ciblis says most people keep their savings these days in cash in a variety of places because of recent experience.

After the 2001 default, banks were locked down and accounts raided, which wiped out the savings of ordinary Argentines. Many people lost a lifetime of accumulated funds.

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The Inflation Factor

There's another reason Argentines don't want to put their money in banks – inflation.

"When inflation begins to creep up and you have some extra pesos and you put it in a certificate of deposit in a bank, but the interest rate is below the inflation rate, then you have negative rates and you're losing money," Ciblis explains.

Let's say inflation is at 40 percent a year in Argentina. The government doesn't provide reliable figures, but that's what most economists estimate is the current annual rate.

The bank, meanwhile, may only be giving you 20 percent interest. That means your money is losing its value.

As a result, most people would rather risk the possibility that a thief get into the house and steal the money hidden in the drawer, than face the near certainty that they will lose money in the banking system these days.

"In my opinion, the lack of trust in the banking system which is part of the Argentine culture now is an influence," says Alberto Binder, who studies crime. "But there are other issues – drug crime is growing."

"Argentina is basically a tranquil country, but that conceit is being used as a kind of opium," he says. "I think if you are a calm country surrounded by troubled ones, that should put you on maximum alert."

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Retirement for baby boomers will look different than it did for their parents — Americans are living longer, health care costs more, fewer people have pensions today and many people facing retirement haven't saved much.

All that makes managing the nest egg you do have even more vital. But many people need and want guidance on what they should do to make sure their retirement savings last.

A good strategy starts with how long you work and when you claim Social Security. Those two go together because most people ignore one of Social Security's best deals: You can greatly boost your payments by waiting longer to claim them.

Waiting On Social Security

Alicia Munnell, who heads the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, says waiting is often worth it — even if you work longer or spend some savings to get there.

"And then [you] get a nice, big, fat Social Security check at 70, which is wonderful money," says Munnell, author of Falling Short: The Coming Retirement Crisis and What to Do About It. "It is inflation-adjusted, and it goes on for as long as you live."

The benefits of waiting are eye-opening. If you're eligible for a $1,300 monthly check at age 62, you'd get about $440 more per month at 66. Wait until 70 and it's $1,000 extra each month.

Living longer adds another twist. Robert Pozen, a senior lecturer at Harvard who once headed Fidelity Investments, says most people can get a pretty good fix on the income they'll draw from Social Security and savings for 10 or 15 years, but it gets more difficult after that.

"For most people, if I said to you, 'Well, you're gonna live for 30 years more,' it's very hard to project," he says. "And I think it's that uncertainty that makes it very complicated to figure out what it is that you need for your retirement income."

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A recent federal tax ruling is changing the calculus for some. Basically, the Treasury Department eliminated the penalty for using tax-sheltered retirement savings to buy what's known as a deferred annuity. You buy it near retirement, but it doesn't start paying until you're 75, 80, even 85.

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Munnell says that adds a late cushion to Social Security and even frees up earlier spending.

"It means that, if you live longer than 85, you're sure you're going to have some income," she says. "It also fixes the period over which you can spend your resources, you can enjoy your money during the 20 years before this deferred annuity kicks in."

Munnell and Pozen both anticipate that the Treasury Department ruling will trigger a new wave of these products — but caution is in order. These annuities come in many different forms, fees can be high and if you die early you may never see a penny.

Home Equity

The final big piece of the nest egg puzzle is your home. Munnell says it's OK for cash-strapped retirees to use it. "I am a big fan of tapping home equity, and you can do that in one of two ways," she says.

The first is to downsize — and not just to a smaller house.

"If you actually get to a cheaper house you can take equity out and use that, or the interest on that, as a source of income. It also dramatically reduces your expenses," she says.

The second way is through a cash-producing reverse mortgage. A disclosure here: Munnell sees such strong future demand for these mortgages that she's invested in a reverse mortgage company herself.

Homeowners considering this should be sure they can also keep up with tax and insurance payments on the home.

John Hixson, an independent financial planner in Lake Charles, La., believes most people with small nest eggs should first wait longer for that bigger Social Security check.

And he's not a fan of annuities. "In the right circumstance it could make sense. But it [should be] a holistic decision, and it should be an unemotional decision," he says.

Resisting Fear

Finally, for anyone feeling pressure to stretch their nest egg, Hixson shares a note of caution: "One thing I would not do, would be to take on undue risk."

Hixson says he sees that temptation often. It's important, he says, for people to make retirement planning decisions based not on fear of outliving their savings, but on a complete picture of their assets, resources and needs.

"Some people get to retirement, they think they don't have enough money, they can't maintain their lifestyle. And their answer is, 'Well, I just need to take more risk so I can earn a higher rate of return.' And that's generally a big mistake," he says.

"I don't recommend that to clients and I just won't do it for a client that wants to do it," Hixson adds. "Because situations like that don't end well."

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