Chicago sees surge in foreclosure auctions

More than 35,000 homes and small multifamily buildings in the Chicago area completed the foreclosure process last year, the highest number since the housing crisis began, and the vast majority of them became bank-owned.

An increase in foreclosure auctions was expected since lenders shelved many foreclosure cases while state and federal authorities investigated allegations of faulty foreclosure processes. Still, the heightened level of auctions — 35,244 in 2012, compared with 20,281 in 2011 — along with an increase in initial foreclosure filings, shows the local housing market has a long road to recovery, according to the Woodstock Institute.

"There's going to be pain in the housing market in the short term," said Katie Buitrago, senior policy and communications associate at Woodstock. "There's still high levels of filings. Five years into it, there is still work to be done to help people save their homes."

The Chicago-based public policy and research group is expected to release its report on 2012 foreclosure activity Wednesday.

The year-end numbers show that, with few exceptions, all Chicago neighborhoods and suburban communities saw high double-digit percentage gains in auctions last year. Across the six-county area, 91.3 percent of the foreclosed properties were repossessed by lenders. At the same time, notices of initial default sent to homeowners, the first step in the foreclosure process, increased by 2.9 percent last year, to 66,783.

Real estate agents have worried for more than two years about a glut of foreclosed properties — a shadow inventory — that banks would list for sale en masse and cause home values to plunge. That largely has not happened, but the vast number of distressed properties in the market has kept a lid on local home values.

On Tuesday, for instance, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's websites listed 2,415 Cook County homes for sale that the two agencies had repossessed.

Chicago-area home prices, including distressed sales, fell 2.3 percent in December from a year ago, housing analytics firm CoreLogic said Tuesday. Illinois was one of only four states to see home-price depreciation.

The increase in auctions "is a mixed blessing," Buitrago said. "We've been having a lot of trouble in the region with vacant properties that have been languishing for years. The longer they're vacant, the more likely they are to be a destabilizing force in their communities."

Woodstock found that within the city of Chicago, there were 20 communities where more than 1 in 10 owner-occupied one- to four-unit residential buildings and condos went through foreclosure from 2008 to 2012. Five of those neighborhoods are included in the city's 18-month-old Micro-Market Recovery Program, a coordinated effort to stabilize neighborhoods and property values hit hard by foreclosures and vacant buildings.

Also designed to benefit hard-hit areas are the recent establishment of a Cook County Land Bank and legislation waiting for Gov. Pat Quinn's signature that will fast-track the foreclosure process for vacant, abandoned homes while providing financial resources to foreclosure prevention efforts.

mepodmolik@tribune.com

Twitter @mepodmolik

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25-cent gym shoe tax could fund aid for dropouts

SPRINGFIELD—

— Buying a new pair of running shoes in Illinois could cost a quarter more if a measure to tax gym shoes gets traction at the Capitol.

The idea behind the 25-cent shoe tax is to pump more money into programs that help high-school dropouts from low-income homes get jobs in the construction trades or get back on track to attend college.

"There are young people everywhere that are looking for a positive outlet that they might not find otherwise," said Rep. Will Davis, a Homewood Democrat who's sponsoring the shoe tax.

Business groups and shoe store owners aren't keen on the idea, suggesting the new tax will hurt the competitiveness of Illinois sneaker sellers.

"They're already crossing the borders for many things," said Kim Clarke Maisch, Illinois' director of the National Federation of Independent Business. "They're crossing the borders for gambling, for example. We don't need any other reasons for them to travel elsewhere."

The shoe tax proposal is the latest example of attempts in Springfield to raise money for specifically targeted programs. There's not much appetite for big tax hikes after Democrats passed what was billed as a temporary 67 percent increase in the income tax rate two years ago. Money remains tight, so lawmakers are looking to create small pots of cash for programs they support.

Last year, state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, an Olympia Fields Democrat now running for Congress, sponsored a pair of such tax hikes. Strip clubs now pay a tax with proceeds going to fund rape crisis centers. And drivers pay $2 more on license plate fees, with the money going to improve state parks.

Davis said he's picked up on the "creative ways" used last year. He didn't have a specific correlation between shoes and the youth programs, however.

"Athletic shoes are widespread," Davis said. "If you're trying to find an idea that will capture as many resources as possible, this works. Everyone uses them, and just about everybody buys athletic shoes at some point in their lives."

The shoe tax would provide money throughout Illinois for YouthBuild and potentially other similar programs that faced cutbacks in recent years of tight state budgets, Davis said.

There are 16 YouthBuild programs in Illinois. Most students in the programs did not graduate from high school or struggle with reading and writing. Attempts are made to help them get the equivalent of a high school diploma. They often build low-income housing as a way to learn blue-collar skills.

Such programs provide an "alternative to destructive ways of life" and give young people a chance to see there is "something more out there for them," Davis said.

In south suburban Harvey, the YouthBuild program has done work for Habitat for Humanity and emergency response training for handling hazardous waste. The main goal is to help people pursue more prosperous careers through college or apprenticeships, said Kreshina Ingram, the program's manager.

"We're not just looking for them to move up to part-time or temporary positions — or go into fast-food jobs," Ingram said. "We want them to get careers."

Tatyanna Smith said she dropped out of high school in 2010 and was headed down a misguided path of life on the streets. A cousin recommended the program so Smith could study to get the equivalent of a high school degree. Her priorities, Smith said, changed from there.

Since joining last September, Smith said she sees her life more clearly and has "become more mature." Now she wants a career in the construction trades and expects to start working on a house-building project.

As Davis seeks more money for such programs at the Capitol, he might have to tweak his bill as it goes through the legislative process. As written, the bill defines athletic shoes as used "primarily for sports or other forms of physical activity and includes, without limitation, shoes designed for running, walking, basketball, football, tennis or soccer."

That definition may be problematic because it is so broad, said Mandy Rafool, a tax policy expert with the Denver-based National Conference of State Legislatures.

To get the shoe tax through, Davis also will have to overcome opposition from business groups representing shoe store owners.

Dave Zimmer, who is about to open his third Fleet Feet store in Chicago, isn't averse to helping charitable groups. He partners with charities including the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, Access Living, the American Cancer Society and PAWS Chicago, according to the company's website.

But Zimmer said an increase in shoe costs could prompt customers to buy them online at a time when bricks-and-mortar stores are losing business to the Internet.

"I understand what they're trying to accomplish and the good they want to create," Zimmer said. "But I just don't get the correlation between athletic shoes and the programs this tax would fund."

raguerrero2@tribune.com

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Well: Warning Too Late for Some Babies

Six weeks after Jack Mahoney was born prematurely on Feb. 3, 2011, the neonatal staff at WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh, N.C., noticed that his heart rate slowed slightly when he ate. They figured he was having difficulty feeding, and they added a thickener to help.

When Jack was discharged, his parents were given the thickener, SimplyThick, to mix into his formula. Two weeks later, Jack was back in the hospital, with a swollen belly and in inconsolable pain. By then, most of his small intestine had stopped working. He died soon after, at 66 days old.

A month later, the Food and Drug Administration issued a caution that SimplyThick should not be fed to premature infants because it may cause necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, a life-threatening condition that damages intestinal tissue.

---

Catherine Saint Louis speaks about using SimplyThick in premature infants.

---

Experts do not know how the product may be linked to the condition, but Jack is not the only child to die after receiving SimplyThick. An F.D.A. investigation of 84 cases, published in The Journal of Pediatrics in 2012, found a “distinct illness pattern” in 22 instances that suggested a possible link between SimplyThick and NEC. Seven deaths were cited; 14 infants required surgery.

Last September, after more adverse events were reported, the F.D.A. warned that the thickener should not be given to any infants. But the fact that SimplyThick was widely used at all in neonatal intensive care units has spawned a spate of lawsuits and raised questions about regulatory oversight of food additives for infants.

SimplyThick is made from xanthan gum, a widely-used food additive on the F.D.A.’s list of substances “generally recognized as safe.” SimplyThick is classified as a food and the F.D.A. did not assess it for safety.

John Holahan, president of SimplyThick, which is based in St. Louis, acknowledged that the company marketed the product to speech language pathologists who in turn recommended it to infants. The patent touted its effectiveness in breast milk.

However, Mr. Holahan said, “There was no need to conduct studies, as the use of thickeners overall was already well established. In addition, the safety of xanthan gum was already well established.”

Since 2001, SimplyThick has been widely used by adults with swallowing difficulties. A liquid thickened to about the consistency of honey allows the drinker more time to close his airway and prevent aspiration.

Doctors in newborn intensive care units often ask non-physician colleagues like speech pathologists to determine whether an infant has a swallowing problem. And those auxiliary feeding specialists often recommended SimplyThick for neonates with swallowing troubles or acid reflux.

The thickener became popular because it was easy to mix, could be used with breast milk, and maintained its consistency, unlike alternatives like rice cereal.

“It was word of mouth, then neonatologists got used to using it. It became adopted,” said Dr. Steven Abrams, a neonatologist at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. “At any given time, several babies in our nursery — and in any neonatal unit — would be on it.”

But in early 2011, Dr. Benson Silverman, the director of the F.D.A.’s infant formula section, was alerted to an online forum where doctors had reported 15 cases of NEC among infants given SimplyThick. The agency issued its first warning about its use in babies that May. “We can only do something with the information we are provided with,” he said. “If information is not provided, how would we know?”

Most infants who took SimplyThick did not fall ill, and NEC is not uncommon in premature infants. But most who develop NEC do so while still in the hospital. Some premature infants given SimplyThick developed NEC later than usual, a few after they went home, a pattern the F.D.A. found unusually worrisome.

Even now it is not known how the thickener might have contributed to the infant deaths. One possibility is that xanthan gum itself is not suitable for the fragile digestive systems of newborns. The intestines of premature babies are “much more likely to have bacterial overgrowth” than adults’, said Dr. Jeffrey Pietz, the chief of newborn medicine at Children’s Hospital Central California in Madera.

“You try not to put anything in a baby’s intestine that’s not natural.” If you do, he added, “you’ve got to have a good reason.”

A second possibility is that batches of the thickener were contaminated with harmful bacteria. In late May 2011, the F.D.A. inspected the plants that make SimplyThick and found violations at one in Stone Mountain, Ga., including a failure to “thermally process” the product to destroy bacteria of a “public health significance.”

The company, Thermo Pac, voluntarily withdrew certain batches. But it appears some children may have ingested potentially contaminated batches.

The parents of Jaden Santos, a preemie who died of NEC while on SimplyThick, still have unused packets of recalled lots, according to their lawyer, Joe Taraska.

The authors of the F.D.A. report theorized that the infants’ intestinal membranes could have been damaged by bacteria breaking down the xanthan gum into too many toxic byproducts.

Dr. Qing Yang, a neonatologist at Wake Forest University, is a co-author of a case series in the Journal of Perinatology about three premature infants who took SimplyThick, developed NEC and were treated. The paper speculates that NEC was “most likely caused by the stimulation of the immature gut by xanthan gum.”

Dr. Yang said she only belatedly realized “there’s a lack of data” on xanthan gum’s use in preemies. “The lesson I learned is not to be totally dependent on the speech pathologist.”

Julie Mueller’s daughter Addison was born full-term and given SimplyThick after a swallow test showed she was at risk of choking. It was recommended by a speech pathologist at the hospital.

Less than a month later, Addison was dead with multiple holes in her small intestine. “It was a nightmare,” said Ms. Mueller, who has filed a lawsuit against SimplyThick. “I was astounded how a hospital and manufacturer was gearing this toward newborns when they never had to prove it would be safe for them. Basically we just did a research trial for the manufacturer.”

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Deficit hits 5-year low, but cuts drag economy

WASHINGTON -- The federal deficit will drop to less than $1 trillion for the first time in five years, but massive spending cuts that have improved the budget outlook are also slowing the economy, according to a report released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget office.

The nonpartisan arbiter of federal budgets said the combination of new tax revenue from the "fiscal cliff" deal as well as looming cuts that kick in March 1 will push the deficit down to $845 billion for fiscal 2013. Deficits have topped $1 trillion in recent years.

The projections will fuel the coming budget debates, which started Tuesday as President Obama was calling on Congress to steer around the coming budget cuts.

The budget office said the cuts will contribute to an economy that lags in 2013. The unemployment rate likely will remain above 7.5% through the year. It predicted that the gross domestic product will be well below its potential, growing by just 1.4%, more than half a percentage point slower than would happen if the spending cuts were averted.

At the same time, the nation's debt load is expected to fluctuate but ultimately rise to record levels this decade, largely because of increased spending on healthcare and the federal safety net for older Americans with the aging of the baby boom population.

Additionally, the outlook shows how difficult it will be for House Republicans to accomplish their goal of balancing the budget in 10 years with potentially deep austerity measures.

Even though revenue is rising and spending is decreasing, the overall budget outlook remains stark. By the end of the decade, public debt is set to rise to 77% of GDP, a decade of highs on par with debt levels in World War II.

"The projected path of the federal budget remains a significant concern," the CBO wrote.

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Lisa.mascaro@latimes.com

Twitter: @LisaMascaroinDC

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Alabama hostage standoff ends with gunman dead, boy safe

MIDLAND CITY, Ala. -- A man who killed a school bus driver and then held a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground bunker in rural Alabama for nearly a week was killed on Monday and the child was plucked to safety without injury, law enforcement officials said.

FBI agents entered the bunker to rescue the child after fearing that he was in “imminent danger,” said Steve Richardson, special agent in charge in Mobile.

Negotiations with the suspect, identified as 65-year-old Jimmy Lee Dykes, had deteriorated during the previous 24 hours, Richardson said during a televised news conference.

“Mr. Dykes was observed holding a gun,” the FBI agent said.

The rescue of the boy came on the seventh day of a standoff that drew national media coverage and gripped a rural corner of southeast Alabama with dread.

The drama began when Dykes, a retired trucker and veteran of the war in Vietnam, seized the kindergarten student last Tuesday after boarding a school bus and killing its driver with four shots from a 9 mm handgun, local sheriff's department officials said.

Dykes fled with the child, identified only as Ethan, to a homemade bunker on the man's property down a dirt road.

The child was being treated on Monday at a local hospital, but was physically unharmed, Richardson said. The boy is due to celebrate his birthday on Wednesday and, by all accounts, was taken by Dykes at random.

It was not immediately clear how Dykes died.

A local law enforcement source said a stun or flash grenade was detonated as part of the operation to free the boy, but further details were not immediately released.

The hostage-taking came amid heightened concerns about gun violence and school safety across the United States after the December shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school.

Law enforcement officials had offered few insights about Dykes and their negotiations with him ahead of the rescue just after 3 p.m. local time.

Earlier on Monday, Dale County Sheriff Wally Olson said the gunman had a “very complex” story to tell.

“Based on our discussion with Mr. Dykes, he feels like he has a story that's important to him, although it's very complex. And we try to make a safe environment for all for that,” Olson said, without elaborating.

The sheriff's office previously had thanked Dykes for allowing them to deliver medication, coloring books and toys to the boy, who is said to suffer from Asperger's Syndrome and attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder.

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Live action: Twitter grabs Super Bowl spotlight

NEW YORK (AP) — Beyonce’s splashy show, a freak power outage, and —oh, yeah— a captivating game of football combined to generate a record 24.1 million posts on Twitter during Sunday night’s Super Bowl.

That’s up from 13.7 million last year — and that doesn’t even include chatter surrounding the ads.

Twitter said in a late Sunday blog post that about half of the more than 50 national TV spots that aired during the game included a “hashtag,” a word or phrase preceded by a number sign that’s used to organize subjects on the short messaging site. During last year’s game, only one in five ads included one. Brands ranging from Oreo to Tide and Budweiser, meanwhile, captured online buzz by linking the blackout to their brands in humorous tweets.

Super Bowl XLVII, like the London Summer Olympics and the U.S. presidential election, was yet another moment in which Twitter became the platform for millions of people to share quick reactions and participate in a massive, public conversation. Though it’s not as popular as Facebook Inc. or its buttoned-up cousin LinkedIn Corp., Twitter’s surging popularity during big events is a testament to its reach and utility. The question is whether these moments can translate into revenue for the 7-year-old company.

The company makes money by charging advertisers to promote individual tweets, accounts or trends designed to spark a conversation. Research firm eMarketer estimates that Twitter will book advertising revenue of $ 545.2 million this year, up 89 percent from 2012. Next year, worldwide ad revenue is expected to hit $ 807.5 million, a 48 percent increase from 2013.

Tweetable events such as the 34-minute Super Bowl power outage are ripe with marketing potential, provided that brands act quickly.

“It’s really clear right now that Twitter has a lock on real-time conversation on the Internet,” says eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson.

To capitalize on this, Twitter has to show advertisers that it pays to promote their tweets — even though fans are likely to spread the catchiest slogans on their own, free of charge.

That’s what happened with a certain cream-filled cookie on Sunday.

It took Oreo’s marketers roughly 10 minutes after the power went out to tweet a picture of an Oreo cookie in the half-dark with the words: “You can still dunk in the dark.” As of Monday afternoon, the image had been shared on Twitter more than 15,000 times. Tide followed suit with the slogan “we can’t get your blackout. But we can get your stains out” with more limited success. The message was re-tweeted about 1,300 times. Calvin Klein, meanwhile, tweeted a video of a shirtless, chiseled male model doing crunches “since the lights are still out…”

Such “real-time marketing” is still in its infancy, but Williamson expects this to change, as more companies develop the ability to respond to events immediately.”

“To do what Oreo did actually takes a lot of pre-planning,” she says.

Laurie Guzzinati, spokeswoman for Oreo owner Mondelez says the power outage was a natural moment to engage consumers. The cookie’s TV ad had a planned social media component asking people to follow Oreo on Twitter and post photos on Instagram. The company had set up a “social media command center” that included people from Oreo’s brand team, the ad agency 360i and other partners whose job was to follow the Super Bowl and interact with fans on Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere.

Mondelez likely spent the going rate of as much as $ 4 million on its Super Bowl television spot. But Guzzinati says the company didn’t pay Twitter anything for the “dunk in the dark” picture. Still, Twitter says advertisers moved quickly following the outage.

Matt McGee, editor-in-chief of the blog Marketing Land, counted 26 Twitter mentions in the 52 national spots that aired during the game. Facebook, meanwhile, got only four shout-outs, while Google Plus walked away with zero (though Google Inc.’s YouTube scored one mention from Hyundai).

“When it comes to second-screen advertising, it’s Twitter’s world now and there’s no close second place,” McGee wrote in a blog post late Sunday night. “Last year, brands split their focus on Twitter and Facebook with eight mentions each. This year, brands recognize that Twitter is where they need to try to attract the online conversation around one of the world’s biggest events.”

David Berkowitz, vice president of emerging media at 360i, which worked on the Oreo campaign, says Twitter has done a good job tying itself into major television events.

“If you look at (Twitter’s) trending topics any day especially during prime time or major events, they’re heavily fueled by television,” he says. “So TV is responsible for Twitter’s growth in general.”

He thinks Twitter has done a better job than other social media sites like Tumblr and Pinterest in proving it’s the place to be when it comes to talking about big events online.

“A large part of it right now is just showing this is where the conversation is happening and building their brand around that,” he says. “Even with other very successful social media sites, no one is better at conversation than Twitter.”

__

AP Retail Writer Mae Anderson contributed to this story.

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For “Life of Pi,” the secret to its sound is in the silence

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) – Ang Lee‘s “Life of Pi” was a famously difficult movie to pull off, a philosophical and spiritual journey featuring a young protagonist (don’t work with kids) stranded on the open sea (don’t work on water) with his only companion, a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker (don’t work with animals).

Throw in a beloved bestselling book whose devoted fans would be comparing the adaptation to the novel, extensive special effects that included a menagerie of largely CG animals, and Lee’s decision to shoot in 3D for the first time, and only the truest of true believers would have dared suggest that the movie would end up an international hit with grosses approaching $ 450 million, and a critical favorite with 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture and both sound categories.

For Oscar nominated sound mixers Doug Hemphill, Ron Bartlett and Drew Kunin, “Life of Pi” was both a technical challenge and a spiritual journey – as Hemphill termed it, “one of the most beautiful mixing experiences I’ve ever had.” Hemphill and Bartlett spoke to TheWrap about sound, silence and the particular challenges of an impossible movie that turned out to be possible after all.

What was your basic approach to the sound mix on “Life of Pi?”

Doug Hemphill: It was all based on the tacit understanding that the sound reflected Pi’s inner life and the arc of the story. That was our roadmap, but since Ang is incredibly creative, we took chances here and there and went to different places. And the way I always work, I try to stay in the audience. It’s not a technical job to me. It’s a job of feeling emotions and participating in the film and the story, and responding with sound as if I was an audience member. Would I like to have quiet here? Would I like to have some sound that would help tell the story better? It’s just a million choices that are sometimes based on your instincts.

You talked about the quiet, and a lot of the movie takes place in a setting that seems very quiet: the open sea, particularly when it’s calm.

Hemphill: There are so many things going on in the film, and one of them is the Buddhist idea that you can’t have anything until you lose everything. Ang said to me, “Sometimes in film there’s a desire to fill in the quiet spaces with something, and I don’t want to do that.” He wanted to have that quiet, and let people think and absorb, as Pi was doing in the film. It takes confidence to be able to do that.

Ron Bartlett: There were moments in the film where we really went with a more sparse, isolated feel. Out in the middle of the ocean we purposely dialed some things back and didn’t fill the track up with sounds for story reasons. Pi’s abandoned, he’s alone, he’s totally isolated, and we didn’t want to wrap a lot of sound around him.

Hemphill: That’s a maxim that was used throughout “Life of Pi” in the track. It’s like a writer saying, “Let the readers finish the sentence and bring themselves into the story.” Certainly with sound and music, when you hold back a little it can be just right for the story, because it doesn’t crowd the audience.

I spoke to composer Mychael Danna, and he said at first he sometimes found himself trying to put too many ideas into the music. But he had to learn to dial it back, and simplify what he was doing.

Hemphill: The whole film is like that. It’s not a literal movie about including the sounds of everything you see. It’s about what is necessary to tell the story and leave breathing room. Mychael was definitely very conscious of that, and I think he wrote one of the most beautiful scores I’ve heard in a long time. I can’t tell you the effect that score had on us when we were working on it.

Bartlett: The music was really the heart and soul of the film, and it was a dream gig to mix that kind of score. The challenge was to make it the best I could, because I had so much respect for it.

Let’s talk about the sequence in the movie where Pi and Richard Parker find themselves on an island occupied by tens of thousands of meerkats, all of them chattering away.

Hemphill: We were just laughing about that last night. Ang said to Eugene Gearty, who did the sound design, “OK, you’ve got 100,000 meerkats in the movie, Eugene. What are you going to do?” And Eugene knew it had better be good. He was out recording meerkats until he probably became the world’s leading expert in meerkat vocalizations.

Bartlett: He used some great tricks with the sound design to make it feel like a crowd. And there are so many different emotions running through that sequence. Pi is elated, he wakes up with the sound of the water lapping, and now he’s got land and water and food and everything’s great. And then he find that something weird is going on. So many different emotions, all in one sequence.

Was it tricky to find just the right balance in a sequence like that?

Hemphill: Very. Volume changes, revealing things but leaving the audience enough room to dive into the story – all the little adjustments make such a big difference. I’ll give you another example: One of our biggest challenges was when Pi and Richard Parker are in the lifeboat and they’re dying, and the tiger’s head is in his lap, and Pi says, “Can you feel the rain?” We worked hard to get the flat, dead-sounding rain plops, and have that be very sparse and funereal. And with Richard Parker’s vocals, we made a very conscious choice not to have any growls, just labored breathing and wheezing.

As Ang said, Richard Parker has his head on Pi’s lap not because he’s his friend, but because he’s too weak to attack him.

Bartlett: Things were so exposed in the film that you had to have the exact right sound, the right level. Everything was magnified because of the sparseness at times. And then it would go the other direction, like the storm sequence or the shipwreck sequence, where you’re flooded with sounds. It goes from the sparsest raindrops to the hugest storm.

The two storms, though, play very differently onscreen.

Hemphill: Yeah. I’ve worked on a lot of movies with storm sequences, like “Master and Commander,” and the first storm sequence in “Pi” wasn’t a big action setpiece for me. It was about Pi being frightened and alone and separated from his family. So the storm had a real emotional content to me. It wasn’t about, “This is a Ferrari with the pedal to the metal.”

And for the second storm, we changed the paradigm. That storm was about Pi’s epiphany. Even though visually there was a huge storm, sonically it was the music that was telling the story and conveying the emotion. I was tasked with having a certain amount of what you saw in the soundtrack, because you see the storm. But what I chose to do was use filters to take frequencies out that would leave the music room and freedom to play, but still give the audience the sense of a storm under the music.

Bartlett: To rack focus, but respective of sound.

Hemphill: That’s what we do. To the layman I say, “You know how a cameraman racks focus to determine what you’ll be looking at? We do the same with sound.”

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Well: Expressing the Inexpressible

When Kyle Potvin learned she had breast cancer at the age of 41, she tracked the details of her illness and treatment in a journal. But when it came to grappling with issues of mortality, fear and hope, she found that her best outlet was poetry.

How I feared chemo, afraid
It would change me.
It did.
Something dissolved inside me.
Tears began a slow drip;
I cried at the news story
Of a lost boy found in the woods …
At the surprising beauty
Of a bright leaf falling
Like the last strand of hair from my head

Ms. Potvin, now 47 and living in Derry, N.H., recently published “Sound Travels on Water” (Finishing Line Press), a collection of poems about her experience with cancer. And she has organized the Prickly Pear Poetry Project, a series of workshops for cancer patients.

“The creative process can be really healing,” Ms. Potvin said in an interview. “Loss, mortality and even hopefulness were on my mind, and I found that through writing poetry I was able to express some of those concepts in a way that helped me process what I was thinking.”

In April, the National Association for Poetry Therapy, whose members include both medical doctors and therapists, is to hold a conference in Chicago with sessions on using poetry to manage pain and to help adolescents cope with bullying. And this spring, Tasora Books will publish “The Cancer Poetry Project 2,” an anthology of poems written by patients and their loved ones.

Dr. Rafael Campo, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard, says he uses poetry in his practice, offering therapy groups and including poems with the medical forms and educational materials he gives his patients.

“It’s always striking to me how they want to talk about the poems the next time we meet and not the other stuff I give them,” he said. “It’s such a visceral mode of expression. When our bodies betray us in such a profound way, it can be all the more powerful for patients to really use the rhythms of poetry to make sense of what is happening in their bodies.”

On return visits, Dr. Campo’s patients often begin by discussing a poem he gave them — for example, “At the Cancer Clinic,” by Ted Kooser, from his collection “Delights & Shadows” (Copper Canyon Press, 2004), about a nurse holding the door for a slow-moving patient.

How patient she is in the crisp white sails
of her clothes. The sick woman
peers from under her funny knit cap
to watch each foot swing scuffing forward
and take its turn under her weight.
There is no restlessness or impatience
or anger anywhere in sight. Grace
fills the clean mold of this moment
and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

In Ms. Potvin’s case, poems related to her illness were often spurred by mundane moments, like seeing a neighbor out for a nightly walk. Here is “Tumor”:

My neighbor walks
For miles each night.
A mantra drives her, I imagine
As my boys’ chant did
The summer of my own illness:
“Push, Mommy, push.”
Urging me to wind my sore feet
Winch-like on a rented bike
To inch us home.
I couldn’t stop;
Couldn’t leave us
Miles from the end.

Karin Miller, 48, of Minneapolis, turned to poetry 15 years ago when her husband developed testicular cancer at the same time she was pregnant with their first child.

Her husband has since recovered, and Ms. Miller has reviewed thousands of poems by cancer patients and their loved ones to create the “Cancer Poetry Project” anthologies. One poem is “Hymn to a Lost Breast,” by Bonnie Maurer.

Oh let it fly
let it fling
let it flip like a pancake in the air
let it sing: what is the song
of one breast flapping?

Another is “Barn Wish” by Kim Knedler Hewett.

I sit where you can’t see me
Listening to the rustle of papers and pills in the other room,
Wondering if you can hear them.
Let’s go back to the barn, I whisper.
Let’s turn on the TV and watch the Bengals lose.
Let’s eat Bill’s Doughnuts and drink Pepsi.
Anything but this.

Ms. Miller has asked many of her poets to explain why they find poetry healing. “They say it’s the thing that lets them get to the core of how they are feeling,” she said. “It’s the simplicity of poetry, the bare bones of it, that helps them deal with their fears.”

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Have you written a poem about cancer? Please share them with us in the comments section below.

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S&P says US to sue over ratings

Standard & Poor's on Monday said it expects to be the target of a U.S. Department of Justice civil lawsuit over its ratings of mortgage bonds prior to the recent financial crisis.

The lawsuit against the McGraw-Hill Cos unit focuses on its ratings in 2007 of various U.S. collateralized debt obligations (CDO), S&P said.

It would be the first federal enforcement action against a credit rating agency over alleged illegal behavior tied to the financial crisis.

"A DOJ lawsuit would be entirely without factual or legal merit," S&P said in a statement. "The DOJ would be wrong in contending that S&P ratings were motivated by commercial considerations and not issued in good faith."

The Justice Department was not immediately available for comment.

Several state attorneys general are expected to join the case, The Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. The expected charges follow the breakdown of talks between the department and S&P, the newspaper said, citing the people.

In afternoon trading, McGraw-Hill shares were down $2.39, or 4.1 percent, at $55.95.

S&P and its main rivals, Moody's Corp's Moody's Investors Service and Fimalac SA's Fitch Ratings, have long faced criticism from investors, politicians and regulators for assigning high ratings to thousands of subprime and other mortgage securities that quickly turned sour.

The rating agencies are paid by issuers for ratings, a standard industry practice that has nonetheless raised concern about potential conflicts of interest.

In January 2011, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission called the agencies "essential cogs in the wheel of financial destruction" and "key enablers of the financial meltdown."

McGraw-Hill had acknowledged last July that the Justice Department and SEC were probing potential violations by S&P tied to its ratings of structured products, and that it was in talks to try to avert a lawsuit.

The New York-based company had previously disclosed an SEC probe into its ratings of a $1.6 billion CDO known as Delphinus CDO 2007-1. It was not immediately clear whether that CDO is a focus of the potential lawsuits.

Last July, Mizuho Financial Group Inc agreed to a $127.5 million settlement to resolve SEC allegations that a U.S. unit obtained false credit ratings for Delphinus.

In a variety of lawsuits brought by investors, S&P has maintained that its ratings constitute opinions protected by the 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Last August, a Manhattan federal judge refused to dismiss one such case, brought by Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, King County in Washington state, and other investors against S&P, Moody's and Morgan Stanley over losses in Cheyne, a structured investment vehicle.

Cheyne went bankrupt in August 2007. A trial is scheduled to begin on May 6, court records show.

In its statement, S&P said it "deeply regrets" how its CDO ratings failed to anticipate the fast-deteriorating mortgage market conditions, and that it has since spent $400 million to help bolster the quality of its ratings.

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Super Bowl: Ravens lead 21-3 in 2nd

The Baltimore Ravens jumped out to a fast start Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XLVII at the Superdome in New Orleans.

A 27-yard field goal by David Akers on the final play of the half gave the 49ers a little life, but they still trailed the Ravens 21-6 at halftime.

Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco has been on fire, completing 13 of 20 passes for 192 yards and three touchdowns. He has completed passes to seven different receivers.

49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has completed 8 of 13 passes for 139 yards with an interception.

Flacco lofted a pass to Jacoby Jones, and the wide receiver did the rest as the Ravens took a commanding 21-3 lead over 49ers shortly before halftime of Super Bowl XLVIII. Jones made a diving catch, then got up and danced around 49ers defenders to score the Ravens' third touchdown.

The 56-yard touchdown hookup was the longest play of the game so far. It was Flacco's third TD pass of the game and gave him a record-tying 11th of the postseason.

The score made up for the Ravens' inability to convert earlier on a fake field goal.

Safety Ed Reed, who injured his knee early in the game, intercepted Kaepernick with just under seven minutes remaining before half. It was Reed's record-tying nine career postseason interception.

The Ravens took a 7-0 lead in when Flacco hit Anquan Boldin with a 13-yard touchdown in the first quarter.

It was Boldin's fourth touchdown of this year's postseason. He beat both linebacker NaVorro Bowman and safety Donte Whitner.

The 49ers went three-and-out on their first possession and were killed by an illegal formation penalty on the game's first play. It wiped out a 20-yard hook between Kaepernick and tight end Vernon Davis.

The 49ers responded to the Ravens' early touchdown with a score of their own on their second drive, but had to settle for David Akers' 36-yard field goal to make it 7-3. The big play during the drive was Kaepernick's 24-yard pass to Davis. Frank Gore threw the key block to give Kaepernick time to throw. Davis apparently was injured on the play and got medical attention.

Before the field goal, Kaepernick missed Michael Crabtree in the end zone, then got sacked by Paul Kruger on third down.

Ravens safety Ed Reed (left knee) exited the field and went to locker room after the same play during which the 49ers' Davis got banged up. Davis hurt his elbow and is probably to return.

After outside linebacker Courtney Upshawn forced a fumble and ended a 49ers' drive, the Ravens and Flacco responded with yet another touchdown to take a 14-3 lead.

Flacco ended the 10-play, 75-yard drive by firing a ball to tight end Dennis Pitta for a 1-yard score.

It was Flacco's 10th touchdown of the postseason, with no interceptions.

Inactives were announced 90 minutes before kickoff.

The Ravens' inactives: CB Asa Jackson, S Omar Brown, CB Chris Johnson, LB Adrian Hamilton, G/T Ramon Harewood, WR Deonte Thompson, DT Bryan Hall.

For the 49ers, QB Scott Tolzien, S Trenton Robinson, RB Jewel Hampton, LB Cam Johnson, DT Tony Jerod-Eddie, G Joe Looney and nose tackle Ian Williams.

-- 49ers kicker David Akers, who has been struggling since late in the regular season, hit the crossbar on a 60-yard field-goal attempt pregame kicking toward the Baltimore Ravens' endzone. Akers made a pair of 55-yarders and came up short on an earlier 60-yard attempt.

He missed another 60-yard try kicking toward the San Francisco 49ers' endzone.

-- Kaepernick is the fourth quarterback to start a Super Bowl in the same season in which he made his first career start.

The two previous quarterbacks in that position, Tom Brady and Kurt Warner, also won.

--Ravens players made $86,000 apiece in playoff earnings through the AFC championship game. The 49ers had made $64,000 -- San Francisco had a first-round bye, and played two games instead of three for the Ravens. The Super Bowl winner player share was $88,000, with $44,000 per player to the losing team.

-- The 49ers are 5-0 in the Super Bowl before Sunday. The Ravens, also undefeated, were 1-0.

The Ravens lead the all-time series with the 49ers 3-1 and have won the last three meetings

-- 49ers safety Donte Whitner and wide receiver Ted Ginn were also teammates at Cleveland's Glenville high School. Only once before have high school teammates won the Super Bowl; running back Dominic Rhodes and long-snapper Justin Snow did it as Colts teammates who won Super Bowl XLI. They were teammates at Cooper High School in Abilene, Texas.

Tribune News Services contributed

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