Sony Teases ‘The Future’ of PlayStation in Short #PlayStation2013 Video

Sony‘s CEO, Kazuo Hirai, said he would let Microsoft “make the first move” when it came to releasing a next-generation game console, according to IGN’s Daniel Krupa. But now the official PlayStation blog is teasing viewers with a video entitled “See the Future,” with the #PlayStation2013 Twitter hashtag.

Whatever the future is, it’s apparently got something to do with Feb. 20, the date mentioned in the video. But when it gets here, what will it be like?

PlayStation2013 probably isn’t the actual name

Previous rumors have suggested the next PlayStation console won’t be called the PlayStation 4, because the number 4 is associated with death in Japanese culture. If Sony’s willing to break with its numbering scheme because of tradition, it may be unlikely to tag the actual new PlayStation console itself with the number 13, which is regarded as unlucky in the United States.

Much more powerful hardware

This one’s a given. Unlike in the PC and tablet gaming world, where hardware is regularly updated and improvements tend to be incremental, video game consoles tend to wait years to update before leaping ahead — if you don’t count the two smaller redesigns the PS3 has had over the years while keeping the same performance, anyway, or the introduction of the PlayStation Move controller.

The PlayStation 3‘s big performance draw was its ability to play games on an HDTV, with an upgrade to graphics realism to match. A report by Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett last year suggests that the new PlayStation console may be able to play 3D games (on a 3D HDTV, that is) in 1080p resolution, or regular games in 4096×2160. The latter would basically require a TV as sharp as Apple’s Retina Display.

Far fewer games?

The same report, however, suggests that — as Sony eventually did with the PlayStation 3 — the “PlayStation 4″ may not be able to play any games from the previous generation of consoles.

The PlayStation 3 debuted with the ability to run PlayStation 2 games, but this required it to have both of the PS2′s processor chips inside it. This console-within-a-console design helped push the PS3′s launch price up to $ 599, and Sony soon dropped one of the chips before abandoning them completely. Today’s PlayStation 3 consoles can only play the handful of PS2 games that have been re-released digitally (and are bought separately) on the PlayStation Network.

No place like Home

If the new PlayStation console can’t run PS3 games, that may mean the end of PlayStation Home, Sony’s virtual world and social gaming platform in the style of Second Life (but with Facebook-style games). IGN’s Andrew Goldfarb notes that Sony recently filed a trademark on “BigFest,” however, which it describes as an “online player networking” service in similar terms as PlayStation Home.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Linux/Open Source News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Why is Beckham sitting on the bench for nothing?

PARIS (AP) — David Beckham has won league championships in three countries on two continents, earns millions of dollars in endorsements and his name is practically synonymous with celebrity itself. He has his own cologne, for goodness sake. So why is he even bothering to sit on the bench for the Paris Saint-Germain football club?

His royal highness of football doesn't need the money — and he's said he'll donate his PSG salary to charity — but he does need to start thinking about life after the game. At 37, Beckham is practically a dinosaur for the sport, and he acknowledged in his welcoming press conference on Thursday that he probably won't be in the team's starting lineup.

Instead, Beckham may be beginning to put in place a plan for life after the final whistle. Ellis Cashmore, a sociologist who writes about sports and media culture at Staffordshire University, said that prolonged exposure is always useful to celebrities building empires. In that way, the deal with PSG does double work: It keeps his name in lights for longer and also garners extra attention for the charitable contribution.

"When he does stop playing, which is going to be quite soon, his overall brand appeal will inevitably decline because we will inevitably forget about this guy," he said. "I think he's probably thinking, I want to stay in the shop window for a bit longer."

But Cashmore also cautioned against being too cynical in assessing Beckham's motives: "The guy is an athlete. He wants to do what he loves to do."

Bruno Satin, an independent players' agent who was with IMG for a decade, also said that the move to PSG — even if it's to sit on the bench — is a step up for Beckham.

"For him, to be on the PSG team, it's a higher level than being on the Los Angeles Galaxy," he said. "For the world of football, for real football, the Los Angeles Galaxy is nothing on the map of football."

Some wondered if Beckham was trying to avoid the notoriously sticky fingers of the French state with his plans to donate his salary.

But Sandra Hodzic, a tax lawyer with Salans, said the deduction an individual can take on such contributions is limited. Instead, it would be smarter for PSG to directly donate the salary — and take a big tax break in the process.

Doing so would have an added benefit for the club: UEFA, the governing body for European football, mandates that clubs break even. The donation could allow PSG to essentially write off Beckham's entire salary — a huge help for a team notorious for mega-contracts.

Beckham, meanwhile, would be better off trying to avoid becoming a French tax resident at all. So far, Hodzic said, he is making all the right moves: His family is staying in London, he plans to live only part-time in the country for less than six months, and his primary source of income —whether or not he donates his salary — isn't being earned in France.

Beckham's agent did not return calls for comment on specifics of the contract.

Still, the charitable contribution has raised the question about what Beckham is getting out of the deal. For one, he likely is still getting a cut of rights to his image. Jerseys with his name on them were already selling out at the PSG store on the Champs-Elysees on Friday.

Cashmore, who wrote a book called "Beckham," calls him a "marketing phenomenon" and estimates that about 70 percent of Beckham's income comes from endorsement deals — with Adidas, for instance. That makes salary almost irrelevant — especially for a man estimated by the Sunday Times Rich List to be worth 160 million pounds ($253 million).

But the football feeds the endorsements, Cashmore says.

"It makes an awful lot of business sense to perpetuate, to prolong his active competitive football career," he said, especially with a team that's doing fairly well this year. "It makes an awful lot of sense for him to showcase himself because it will generate more income from his various other sponsorship and licensing activities."

But certainly this move, as any at this late-stage in his playing career, is being made with an eye on what will come next. Cashmore said that when Beckham signed with the L.A. Galaxy, there was an understanding that he would eventually become an ambassador for American soccer. That plan clearly fell by the wayside — perhaps because Major League Soccer decided it was just too expensive to keep on the star after his presence on American soil failed to generate more interest in the game.

It's possible, Cashmore said, that Beckham is looking for a similar deal after his stint at PSG, which is Qatari-owned. The tiny, wealthy nation is hosting the World Cup in 2022, and Beckham's contract with PSG will establish a relationship with it; from there, a role as, say, an ambassador for the tournament would seem more natural.

"For his after-career conversion, it's important to have links with major actors in the world of sports," said Satin. And Qatar is certainly one. It has poured money into PSG, drawing major names like striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic. It also funds the satellite network Al Jazeera, which could provide Beckham with a platform. And then there's the World Cup.

In the end, though, Satin said the clue to Beckham's thinking may be as simple as the eternal draw of Paris.

"PSG has become a glamorous club, a pretty nice club in a beautiful city," said Bruno Satin, an agent. "It's just two hours on the Eurostar (train) from London."

____

AP Sports Writer Rob Harris contributed to this report from London.

____

Follow Sarah DiLorenzo at http://www.twitter.com/sdilorenzo

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Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Lafayette, Ga. He was 90.

The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap wore out.”

“He lived a full life,” his son said. “He didn’t leave anything in the tank.”

Dr. Sams grew up on a farm in the rural Piedmont area of Georgia, seven mud-road miles from the nearest town. He was a boy during the Depression; books meant escape and discovery. He read “Robinson Crusoe,” then Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. One of his English professors at Mercer University, in Macon, suggested he consider a career in writing, but he chose another route to examining the human condition: medical school.

When he was 58 — after he had served in World War II, started a medical practice with his wife, raised his four children and stopped devoting so much of his mornings to preparing lessons for Sunday school at the Methodist church — he began writing “Run With the Horsemen,” a novel based on his youth. It was published in 1982.

“In the beginning was the land,” the book begins. “Shortly thereafter was the father.”

In The New York Times Book Review, the novelist Robert Miner wrote, “Mr. Sams’s approach to his hero’s experiences is nicely signaled in these two opening sentences.”

He added: “I couldn’t help associating the gentility, good-humored common sense and pace of this novel with my image of a country doctor spinning yarns. The writing is elegant, reflective and amused. Mr. Sams is a storyteller sure of his audience, in no particular hurry, and gifted with perfect timing.”

Dr. Sams modeled the lead character in “Run With the Horsemen,” Porter Osborne Jr., on himself, and featured him in two more novels, “The Whisper of the River” and “When All the World Was Young,” which followed him into World War II.

Dr. Sams also wrote thinly disguised stories about his life as a physician. In “Epiphany,” he captures the friendship that develops between a literary-minded doctor frustrated by bureaucracy and a patient angry over past racism and injustice.

Ferrol Sams Jr. was born Sept. 26, 1922, in Woolsey, Ga. He received a bachelor’s degree from Mercer in 1942 and his medical degree from Emory University in 1949. In his addition to his namesake, survivors include his wife, Dr. Helen Fletcher Sams; his sons Jim and Fletcher; a daughter, Ellen Nichol; eight grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Some critics tired of what they called the “folksiness” in Dr. Sams’s books. But he did not write for the critics, he said. In an interview with the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, Dr. Sams was asked what audience he wrote for. Himself, he said.

“If you lose your sense of awe, or if you lose your sense of the ridiculous, you’ve fallen into a terrible pit,” he added. “The only thing that’s worse is never to have had either.”

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California farmers eager for immigration reform

At Chandler Farms, just outside of Selma in the San Joaquin Valley, about three dozen workers are needed each season to pick acres of delicate peaches, plums, nectarines and citrus.

In recent years, however, owners Carol and Bill Chandler have struggled to find laborers as immigration from Mexico has slowed to a near standstill.

"When the crops are ripe, we need a reliable labor force," she said. "That's what we're worried about going forward."

The Chandlers are among the state's farmers who welcomed a move this week by Congress to make immigration reform a legislative priority this year.

But the promised changes may not be enough to solve their chronic labor problems, which have been exacerbated by deportations, a stronger Mexican economy and, in good times, the lure of construction jobs.

On Monday, a group of Republican and Democratic senators unveiled a blueprint that aims to grant legal status to an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.

President Obama also joined the fray Tuesday, urging Congress to move legislation along quickly this year.

Immigration reform has been a rallying cry among farm groups in California and around the country for years.

According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, roughly half of all hired crop farmworkers are in the country illegally. Of all workers, 7 of 10 are from Mexico, a country that has provided a steady supply of farm laborers to California since the middle of the last century.

With immigration reform back on the table this year, California farm groups are fiercely lobbying to make sure proposed legislation includes provisions for their workers.

There have been false starts in the past, including efforts by former President George W. Bush, who sought to create a guest worker program and overhaul immigration laws during his administration.

But the latest push to tackle the highly politicized issue is "one of the best signs we've seen in a long time," said Ken Barbic, senior director of government affairs for Western Growers in Irvine, a trade group that represents farmers in California and Arizona.

If Congress passes legislation, "the folks who are currently working here with false documents, it takes them out of the shadows," Barbic said.

Barbic added that immigration reform would remove legal liabilities for employers who hire illegal immigrants.

Diego Olagaray, 51, who grows 750 acres of wine grapes in Lodi, just north of Stockton, said that granting legal status to the state's agricultural workers ensures that both farm hands and employers would be able to breathe a little easier.

"Some of these workers go back to Mexico on a regular basis," Olagaray said. When they travel, "they're fearful of something happening to them. With amnesty, it'll make them feel more comfortable. They'll also feel that they're part of society.… And it will make it easier for employers as well."

Olagaray said that if immigration isn't resolved soon, labor shortages will become more pronounced. Last spring, he said he had trouble filling his usual crew to work on his vineyard, and other growers saw ripe crops languish in the fields.

Still, any policy effort may do little to solve the labor shortage for California farmers, said Edward Taylor, a professor of agriculture and resource economics at UC Davis.

Such shortages predate the recession. During boom times, contractors persuaded many workers in the fields to work in construction jobs, according to farmers and Taylor, who recently co-wrote a study that examined the decline in the number of farmworkers from Mexico.

A key finding in Taylor's study was that more immigrants were staying home to work on Mexico's farms. They were taking advantage of a strengthening Mexican economy and a growing middle class that ramped up agricultural production.

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Edward Koch dies at 88; outspoken mayor led New York City comeback

Edward I. Koch, a Greenwich Village lawyer who became mayor of New York in the late 1970s and led the city out of one of its worst financial crises by stabilizing the budget and restoring its swagger, has died. He was 88.

Koch died early Friday of congestive heart failure in a Manhattan hospital, his friend and spokesman, George Arzt said. Koch had been hospitalized Monday, a day before a documentary about him, "Koch," premiered in New York City. He had complained of trouble breathing and other ailments, and it was the latest of several hospitalizations for the former mayor in recent months.

For most of his adult life, Koch had lived alone in an apartment off Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. It's where he departed the morning he rode a public bus to City Hall to be sworn in as the 105th mayor and where he returned 12 years later, at age 65, after a disastrous fourth run to keep the job he clearly relished and worked hard at. Voters had finally tired of his infatuation with himself and his racially divisive rhetoric; but far from retiring, Koch spent the rest of his life out of public office but never out of public view.

He juggled almost a dozen jobs including law partner, columnist, author, radio show host, playwright, movie reviewer, public speaker and appeared relentlessly in the media, a shtick-artist with one of the most recognizable New York accents in the world. When he wasn't bellowing at opponents on political round tables, he was hawking everything from diet aids to soft drinks in advertisements and popping up in screen cameos playing always himself, the quintessential New Yorker, alongside Carrie and the girls in episodes of "Sex in the City" or with Big Bird in "The Muppets Take Manhattan."

He was pivotal in a September 2011 upset that put a Republican into the heavily Democratic congressional district that had been held by Rep. Anthony Weiner, who had been forced to resign in a "sexting" scandal. Koch helped catapult Republican Bob Turner to an unlikely victory in the special election to replace Weiner after he endorsed Turner to show his anger with President Obama's Middle East policy. "Ed Koch was enough to turn this around," Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said after Turner's win.

For his 86th birthday, New York's current mayor, Michael Bloomberg, renamed the Queensboro Bridge linking Manhattan to Koch's home borough of Queens after him, saying the bridge – now officially known as the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge -- was like Koch: "a resilient, hard-working New York City icon."

"He was a great mayor, a great man, and a great friend," Bloomberg said in a statement Friday after Koch's death. "In elected office and as a private citizen, he was our most tireless, fearless, and guileless civic crusader. Through his tough, determined leadership and responsible fiscal stewardship, Ed helped lift the city out of its darkest days and set it on course for an incredible comeback."

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo echoed the sentiment. "No New Yorker has -- or likely ever will -- voice their love for New York City in such a passionate and outspoken manner than Ed Koch," said Cuomo. "New York City would not be the place it is today without Ed Koch's leadership over three terms at City Hall."

City flags were ordered flown at half-staff.

"He was the epitome of New York--loud, funny, opinionated, smart," said Arzt, a former reporter who became Koch's spokesman in City Hall and had lunch with him every Saturday after he left, along with 10 other alumni of the administration. "Ed was very much a straight shooter, a champion of the middle class, a moderate Democrat akin to a Harry Truman. He defied categories."

In fact, Koch loved to enrage liberals by doing and saying the unthinkable--endorsing Republican politicians (John Lindsay, Rudolph Giuliani, George W. Bush) and their beliefs (the death penalty). But Koch also held fast to many liberal values. A civil libertarian, Koch made one of his first executive orders when he became mayor to add sexual preference to a citywide ban on job discrimination.

He not only never shied away from controversy, he invited it; unlike successors Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, he enjoyed confrontation. He once wrestled an egg-throwing heckler to the floor before the police could move in.

Altogether Koch wrote (mostly co-authored) 15 books, including eight autobiographies, two children's books and multiple mystery novels starring himself as the detective. He also regularly reviewed movies and restaurants, and at last count had more than 6,200 followers on Twitter (@mayoredkoch).

Really, Koch would opine to whomever, whenever, never mincing words: Movie tickets were too expensive; the United Nations, after an anti-Israel vote, was "made up of gangsters, cutthroats and piranhas"; a Puerto Rican mayoral rival was a "poverty pimp"; Sarah Palin was likable "but she scares the hell out of me." He never lost interest in his absolutely favorite subject—himself. "How'm I doin'?" was his trademark question.

The only topics that remained off limits were his heroic service as an infantryman in World War II—he was awarded two battle stars—and his sexuality. A lifelong bachelor, Koch refused to delve into rumors of his homosexuality. "I ran in a total of 24 elections and won 21," he once told the New York Times. "I will not be a coward and say I am straight or I'm gay, because it's no one's business. I got where I am today not because of sexuality or gender but because people thought I was the best at what I did...."

In recent years, though Koch appeared to mellow, seeking reconciliation with many of his former rivals, he refused to yield when it came to standards for public service. As recently as the summer of 2010, at age 85, he ginned up a campaign called "New York Uprising" to reform state government. Despite a history of heart disease that left him with two pacemakers and a degenerative spinal disorder that caused the once-strapping 6-foot-1 former mayor to be stooped in old age, he embarked in a rented Jeep on a campaign-style press tour around upstate New York to shame reluctant legislators in their home districts to signing a pledge to "clean up Albany."

"I didn't willingly take this on," he told reporters. "I was waiting for someone else to do it.... It's only after six months or a year of going to every breakfast, lunch and dinner, where all they talked about is the dysfunctional Legislature ... I'm thinking somebody is going to stand up and challenge this in some form. But nobody did. So I said to myself, 'Well, if nobody will, I will.' "

This was shortly after Koch, ever the showman, revealed he'd finalized plans for his funeral and penned his gravestone epitaph about his love of his religion, Judaism, his city and his country.

In 2011, when the Queensboro Bridge was renamed, the former mayor enthused: "It's not a beautiful bridge. It's a workhorse bridge. It's craggy and shaggy, and I'm craggy and shaggy." He also hinted that he wouldn't mind if Newark Airport was renamed for him: E.I.K, he said, "kind of rhymes with J.F.K."

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How I learned to stop worrying and love Twitter

Is anything more uniquely American than our free-wheeling, 140-character missives?

Twitter is dead, you guys. Writers used to send pithy tweets across cyberspace, borne on the golden wings of Hermes. Now, as T.S. Eliot would say, “Our dried voices, when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless.” Twitter is so uncool, that even if we resurrected the spirits of Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix and got them to tweet never-before-heard song lyrics from the grave, they would have like, 20 followers, tops. And most of them would be spambots. Do you know what else is dead? Rock and roll. When I put on the Dead Weather or Jay-Z, my parents inform me that music used to be all about free love and sharing ideas and now, “Will you turn off that crap you’re hurting my ears.” There is no cool left for me. I must survive on the vapors of Lady Gaga‘s strange perfume and the shiny white veneer of Kim Kardashian‘s teeth. But it’s okay, it’s not like I can tell the difference.

Hi. I’m a twenty-something journalist. And unlike my colleague Matt K. Lewis, I like Twitter.

SEE MORE: Introducing Vine: Twitter’s 6-second video-sharing app

Now, I can see where Matt is coming from. The popularity of Twitter used to befuddle me. When I was in college, I had a private account (rookie mistake) and only followed my friends. My feed read something like an episode of Girls, except with more substance-abuse problems. Twitter did seem kinda like high school, and, as Matt says, was more prison than vision (although to this day, I love a good nonsensical midnight Twitter ramble. And Horse E-Books.) But a couple years later, once I was a working journalist, I started following an increasingly diverse set of people. And another cool thing happened: The Arab Spring. Citizen activists in countries like Egypt, Libya, and Yemen successfully organized revolutionary protests through the social network, and all of a sudden, I stopped viewing Twitter as a place where people just talked about their hangovers. 

Since then, I have been tasked with tweeting from the official accounts of several media organizations — I’m kind of a professional tweeter. By the end of today, I (and my colleagues) will have written and sent out about 70 tweets for Mother Jones — tweets that are (hopefully) informative, spelled correctly, promote our content, match the tone of the publication, and don’t accidentally include cat gifs or naked pictures. If anything should make one despise Twitter, it’s being required to tweet all day long. But instead, it’s only made me more fond of the damn thing.

SEE MORE: 10 famous first tweets from the Pope, Barack Obama, the Dalai Lama, and more

Every day, I get to hear from people, REAL LIVE PEOPLE, who are exercising their free speech rights about something my colleagues and I wrote with our free speech rights. How cool is that? What could be more American than a bunch of strangers conversing in real time about whether the Boy Scouts can constitutionally ban gay members, that great Local Natives album that just came out, and who is really the communist here? (Okay, fine. It’s me.) 

Another point in Twitter’s favor: Go to Facebook or (God forbid) the homepages of various news organizations, and you’re never going to easily or quickly find as many live updates of Hurricane Sandy, the Sandy Hook school shooting, or the 2012 presidential election as you would on Twitter. It’s the go-to place for lightning-quick, easily searchable information. (By contrast, if you need a live update of which color mason jars you should have at your wedding someday, Pinterest has so got you covered.)  

SEE MORE: Why I love Twitter

And unlike journalists exhausted by the troll-y nature of the beast, I like the free-wheeling accessibility of Twitter. The quality of my interactions are mostly positive, probably because I tend to only follow people I would be interested in speaking with in the real world. And just like the real world, sometimes some crazy guy who smells like whiskey and is probably on PCP will try to flash me on the Metro. But that just makes it kind of exciting, right? 

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Clydesdale star of Super Bowl ad is newborn foal

BOONVILLE, Mo. (AP) — For decades, Anheuser-Busch has used its famous Clydesdales in Super Bowl ads for Budweiser. The latest star is barely two weeks old.

A foal born Jan. 16 at Anheuser-Busch's Warm Springs Ranch near the mid-Missouri town of Boonville is featured in an ad that will appear in Sunday's game between the NFC champion San Francisco 49ers and AFC champion Baltimore Ravens.

The 60-second ad chronicles the bond a Clydesdale foal shares with his trainer. The foal was just a week old when the ad was filmed.

It marks the 23rd Super Bowl ad featuring the Clydesdales.

Budweiser recently launched its first-ever Twitter account, using the occasion to tweet the first photo of the newborn.

Watch the video here: http://bit.ly/WD8oEz

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The New Old Age: Caregiving, Laced With Humor

“My grandmother, she’s not a normal person. She’s like a character when she speaks. Every day she’s playing like she’s an actress.”

These are words of love, and they come from Sacha Goldberger, a French photographer who has turned his grandmother, 93-year-old Frederika Goldberger, into a minor European celebrity.

In the photos, you can see the qualities grandson and grandmother have in common: a wicked sense of humor, an utter lack of pretension and a keen taste for theatricality and the absurd.

This isn’t an ordinary caregiving relationship, not by a long shot. But Sacha, 44 years old and unmarried, is deeply devoted to this spirited older relation who has played the role of Mamika (“my little grandmother,” translated from her native Hungarian) in two of his books and a photography exhibition currently underway in Paris.

As for Frederika, “I like everything that my grandson does,” she said in a recent Skype conversation from her apartment, which also serves as Sacha’s office. “I hate not to do anything. Here, with my grandson, I have the feeling I am doing something.”

Their unusual collaboration began after Frederika retired from her career as a textile consultant at age 80 and fell into a funk.

“I was very depressed because I lived for working,” she told me in our Skype conversation.

Sacha had long dreamed of creating what he calls a “Woody Allen-like Web site with a French Jewish humor” and he had an inspiration. What if he took one of the pillars of that type of humor, a French man’s relationship with his mother and grandmother, and asked Frederika to play along with some oddball ideas?

This Budapest-born baroness, whose family had owned the largest textile factory in Hungary before World War II, was a natural in front of the camera, assuming a straight-faced, imperturbable comic attitude whether donning a motorcycle helmet and goggles, polishing her fingernails with a gherkin, wearing giant flippers on the beach, lighting up a banana, or dressed up as a Christmas tree with a golden star on her head. (All these photos and more appear in “Mamika: My Mighty Little Grandmother,” published in the United States last year.)

“It was like a game for us, deciding what crazy thing we were going to do next, how we were going to keep people from being bored,” said Sacha, who traces his close relationship with his grandmother to age 14, when she taught him how to drive and often picked him up at school. “Making pictures was a very good excuse to spend time together.”

“He thought it was very funny to put a costume on me,” said Frederika. “And I liked it.”

People responded enthusiastically, and before long Sacha had cooked up what ended up becoming the most popular character role for Frederika: Super Mamika, outfitted in a body-hugging costume, tights, a motorcycle helmet and a flowing cape.

His grandmother was a super hero of sorts, because she had helped save 10 people from the Nazis during World War II, said Sacha. He also traced inspiration to Stan Lee, a Jewish artist who created the X-Men, The Hulk and the Fantastic Four for Marvel comics. “I wanted to ask what happens to these super heroes when they get old in these photographs with my grandmother.”

Lest this seem a bit trivial to readers of this blog, consider this passage from Sacha’s introduction to “Mamika: My Might Little Grandmother”:

In a society where youth is the supreme value; where wrinkles have to be camouflaged; where old people are hidden as soon as they become cumbersome, where, for lack of time or desire, it is easier to put our elders in hospices rather than take care of them, I wanted to show that happiness in aging was also possible.

In our Skype conversation, Sacha confessed to anxiety about losing his grandmother, and said, “I always was very worried about what would happen if my grandmother disappeared. Because she is exceptional.”

“I am not normal,” Frederika piped up at his side, her face deeply wrinkled, her short hair beautifully coiffed, seemingly very satisfied with herself.

“So, making these pictures to me is the best thing that could happen,” Sacha continued, “because now my grandma is immortal and it seems everyone knows her. I am giving to everybody in the world a bit of my grandma.”

This wonderful expression of caring and creativity has expanded my view of intergenerational relations in this new old age. What about you?

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Chevron 4Q profit hits record as refining surges

Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. energy company, said fourth-quarter profit increased 41% to a record $7.25 billion as it reported stronger refining results and a gain from an Australian natural gas field swap.

Net income rose to $3.70 a share from $2.58, or $5.12 billion, a year earlier, the San Ramon, California-based company said in a statement today. Chevron was expected to report per- share profit of $3.06, based on the average of 19 analysts' estimate compiled by Bloomberg. Sales fell 3% to $56.3 billion.

Chevron's refining segment returned to profit from a loss a year earlier as rising supplies from U.S. shale formations lowered crude input costs and processing margins climbed 46%. Chevron also benefited as crude prices rose in international energy markets. About 75% of the company's crude is pumped from non-U.S. wells.

Chevron Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John S. Watson plans to spend $36.7 billion this year to explore for oil, build gas export terminals and upgrade oil refineries. The company expects to reach output equivalent to 3.3 million barrels a day in 2017.

"Strong cash flows allowed us to invest aggressively in our major capital projects and to acquire several important, new resource opportunities,'' Watson said. "We also raised the dividend on our common shares for the 25th consecutive year and continued our share repurchase program."

Chevron rose 0.1% to $115.29 at 9:49 a.m. in New York.

Results from oil and gas production included a gain from the exchange of a stake in the Browse gas fields in Australia for Royal Dutch Shell Plc's interests in the Clio and Acme fields. The swap agreement also included a $450 million cash payment to Chevron. The gain contributed about $1.4 billion, or 72 cents a share, to profit, based on Bloomberg calculations.

The company's refining and marketing business reported a $925 million profit after posting a $61 million loss during the final three months of 2011.

Oil and gas production rose 1% to the equivalent of 2.67 million barrels a day from 2.64 million a year earlier. Crude output, which accounts for about two-thirds of Chevron's production, fell 1.2% to 1.8 million barrels a day from 1.82 million, the company said.

Chevron processed 1.62 million barrels of crude and other feedstock a day at its plants around the world during the October-to-December period, a 3.3 percent increase from 1.57 million a year earlier, according to the statement. Processing rates at the company's U.S. refineries dropped 8% to 702,000 barrels a day from 763,000 a year earlier due to the lingering impact of an August fire that shut a crude unit at a California facility.

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Hagel counters critics as confirmation hearing begins

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel sparred with Sen. John McCain over whether the surge during the Iraq war was worthwhile.

WASHINGTON -- Making his first public comments after his nomination to lead the Pentagon, former Sen. Chuck Hagel said Thursday he stood by his record but also urged senators to look beyond controversial votes and statements he has made, which critics have seized on.

Appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his confirmation hearing as defense secretary, Hagel sought to rebut critics who contend he may not push hard enough to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, declaring himself "fully committed to the president's goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon."

"My policy is one of prevention and not one of containment, and the president has made clear that is the policy of our government," Hagel said.

The hearing is Hagel’s first chance to explain his views since his selection last month ignited fierce opposition from several former Republican colleagues and pro-Israel groups. They contend Hagel was not tough enough on Iran during his two terms as a GOP senator from Nebraska, and warn that he might not push for a U.S. attack on Iran if one is needed.

PHOTOS: President Obama's second inauguration

[Updated, 8:32 a.m. Jan. 31: In a sharp exchange, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized Hagel's opposition to the George W. Bush administration's decision to send more troops to Iraq in 2007.

"The question is, were you right or were you wrong?" McCain said.

"I'm not going to give you a yes or no answer," Hagel said. "I think it's far more complicated than that."

The nominee said his opposition to the so-called surge was rooted in his opposition to the decision to invade Iraq in the first place.

He said he would leave the question of whether he was correct about the surge to the "judgment of history."

McCain responded: "I think history has already made a judgment about the surge, and you are on the wrong side of it."

Hagel acknowledged that he also disagreed with President Obama's decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan in 2009.]

PHOTOS: President Obama’s past

Hagel has already met privately with dozens of senators and won over key Democratic support, most notably Charles E. Schumer of New York. Hagel used his opening statement before the committee to publicly defend himself, saying he was "proud" of his record.

He noted that in two terms in the Senate, he'd cast thousands of votes and given hundreds of interviews and speeches.

"As you all know, I am on the record on many issues. But no one individual vote, no one individual quote, no one individual statement defines me, my beliefs or my record," he said. "My overall worldview has never changed: that America has and must maintain the strongest military in the world; that we must lead the international community to confront threats and challenges together -- and take advantage of opportunities together --  and that we must use all tools of American power to protect our citizens and our interests."

Hagel offered a broad overview of his views on the issues that would be most pressing at the Pentagon, all in line with Obama administration policy.

On Afghanistan, he said U.S. forces' role should be limited to counter-terrorism and the training of Afghan forces.

He also said he would "keep up the pressure" on militant groups in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa. But his opening statement did not refer to the controversial campaign of drone strikes that is the core of the administration's counter-terrorism effort.

Though Hagel appears likely to win confirmation, he faces tough questioning, even from lawmakers who have announced they intend to vote for him. Sen Carl Levin (D-Mich.) referred to what he called Hagel's "troubling" statements about Israel, his calls for direct talks with the militant group Hamas, and his calls for not isolating Iran.

"While there is value in communicating with our adversaries, the formulation used by Sen. Hagel seemed to imply a willingness to talk to Iran on some issues that I believe most of us would view as non-negotiable," Levin said.

Even more critical was Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), the committee's new ranking Republican, who said that "too often, it seems he is willing to subscribe to a worldview that is predicated on appeasing our adversaries while shunning our friends."

Asked about his votes against some bills imposing sanctions against Iran, Hagel acknowledged that he has long opposed unilateral sanctions but had supported other legislation targeting Iran.

"We were in a different place with Iran at the time," Hagel said. "It was never a question of did I disagree with the objective" of denying Iran a nuclear weapon.

Hagel was introduced by two other former senators, both former chairmen of the Armed Services Committee: Democrat Sam Nunn of Georgia and Republican John Warner of Virginia.

The confirmation of Hagel may be the most difficult of the slate of new Obama appointments for his second-term Cabinet, though John Brennan, the president's choice to lead the CIA, may also face resistance. John Kerry is set to be sworn in as secretary of State after a 94-3 confirmation vote Tuesday.

Just one Republican, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, has publicly stated his support for Hagel. Democrats have, though, begun to coalesce around his nomination, with Levin saying earlier this week that his colleagues were "leaning strongly" in his favor.

Outside groups have been mobilizing against Hagel, however. The group Americans for a Strong Defense, led by former Mitt Romney campaign aides, launched television advertisements in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Louisiana and North Carolina, all states represented by Democratic senators facing reelection in 2014.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday declined to rule out the possibility that Republicans would require a 60-vote threshold for confirming Hagel.

"Sen. Hagel hasn't had his hearing yet, and I think it's too early to predict the conditions under which his nomination will be considered," McConnell said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has said he would block Hagel’s nomination from coming to a vote unless the current Pentagon chief, Leon E. Panetta, agrees to testify about the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate compound in Benghazi, Libya. A White House official downplayed the possibility that Hagel’s nomination could be blocked, saying negotiations were underway to let Panetta testify.

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michael.memoli@latimes.com

david.cloud@latimes.com

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