Marie Russell - My Blog

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – After the Giants missed the playoffs the past two years with late-season collapses, coach Tom Coughlin implored his team to "finish" this season. Eli Manning made sure they did it in style.
Manning threw three touchdown passes, including a momentum-grabbing 74-yarder to rising star Victor Cruz, and the Giants claimed the final spot in the NFL playoffs, beating the Cowboys 31-14 on Sunday night to win the NFC East.
"We've had a lot of ups and down, but when our team needed it most we responded," said Cruz, who capped his team-record setting season with six catches for 178 yards. "We were able to keep level-headed when we were on the four-game skid."
New York (9-7) won three of its final four games for their 65-year-old coach and earned a wild-card game at home next Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons (10-6).
The Giants, who opened the season 6-2, haven't won a playoff game since beating the-then unbeaten New England Patriots in the Super Bowl in February 2008. However, they seem to be peaking much as they did at the end of that regular season.
Linebacker Mathias Kiwanuka believes the Giants are capable of making another run after dominating an all-or-nothing game that left Cowboys owner Jerry Jones frustrated.
"There is no doubt," Kiwanuka said. "That's what we are setting ourselves up for. We went a roundabout way of doing it, but once you're in, you're in."
The Cowboys (8-8) are out after losing four of their final five games in their first full season under coach Jason Garrett.
"It's extremely painful and it's a damn shame," Jones said. "We have a good team and I thought we would be going to the playoffs, but that didn't happen. We have to be able to take some of the good with the bad and move on. We did a lot of good things this year, but to point to one thing why this happened would be subjective. We're 8-8 and we have to be better than that."
Dallas was its own worst enemy with the season on the line. It missed tackles on all three of the Giants' three first-half touchdowns, failed to recover two fumbles within its grasp in the half and failed to convert on a Tony Romo sneak on fourth-and-1 at the Giants 10 while trailing 21-7.
Romo, who played with a bruised right hand, moved the Cowboys in the second half, but touchdown passes of 34 yards and 6 yards to Laurent Robinson weren't enough to rally Dallas.
"You can't make excuses,' said Romo, who finished 29 of 37 for 289 yards and one interception. "Either you win or you go home. Give them credit for coming in here and being ready. This is not going to sit well with me or anyone else on this team. It should fuel the fire to come back, but right now, it hurts."
The shorter touchdown pass to Robinson got Dallas within a 21-14 with 10:15 to play, but Cruz, the second-year pro from nearby Paterson who has become a fan favorite with a big plays and salsa celebrations, came through again.
Cruz boxed-out cornerback Orlando Scandrick on 44-yard third-down jump-ball catch and caught another for 20 yards to set up a 28-yard Lawrence Tynes' field goal. Manning iced the Giants' second win over Dallas in four weeks with a 4-yard TD pass to Hakeem Nicks with 3:41 to play.
"I knew we were going to fight and keep playing until the end, I feel good about the way we're handling the ups and downs, and it comes down to finishing," Manning said after throwing for 346 yards and no interceptions.
The Giants' defense sacked Romo six times, with Osi Umenyiora making two of them in his return to the lineup for the first time since spraining an ankle late last month. Dallas' final possession ended with Romo being sacked by Justin Tuck and losing a fumble.
"We needed this win," Umenyiora said. "This is the biggest win we've been a part of for a while."
Coming off a 29-14 victory over the rival Jets last week in what might have been the Giants' best game of the season, Coughlin's team put together another outstanding 30 minutes in jumping to a 21-0 halftime lead.

Cruz, who sparked the win over the Jets' with a team-record 99-yard touchdown, made another monster play on the Giants' second offensive series, turning a short pass into points.

He caught a short square out, eluded a tackle by Terence Newman, turned the corner after getting a seal block from Nicks and outraced two defenders down the sideline in front of the Giants' bench for a 7-0 lead.

Bradshaw stretched the lead to 14-0 with a 5-yard run in the second quarter on a play in which safety Abram Elam missed a tackle in the backfield. Bradshaw also scored on a 10-yard pass just before halftime when linebacker Bradie James also missed a tackle.

"The best teams win when games are on the line," Cowboys linebacker Sean Lee said. "We had to do a better job than this. Any time you have a chance to win a championship and you don't get it done, it's devastating."

NOTES: Cruz finished the regular season with five touchdowns of 68 yards or longer and 25 catches of at least 20 yards. ... Cowboys G Kyle Kosier left the game with a knee injury and was replaced by Kevin Kowalski replaced him. ... Cowboys LB DeMarcus Ware had 1 1/2 sacks and finished the season with 19 1/2. ... Lee led the Cowboys with 11 tackles. ... LB Mike Boley had nine for the Giants. ... New York's other sacks were registered by Jason Pierre-Paul (16 1/2), LB Jacquian Williams, Tuck and Chris Canty. ... Dallas was limited to 49 yards rushing on 16 carries.

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WATERLOO, Iowa (Reuters) – Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich pledged on Sunday to stay in the race for the Republican nomination regardless of the results of this week's caucuses in Iowa where he is dropping dramatically in opinion polls.

Gingrich, who was the top candidate in the state only weeks ago, has taken a tumble after a barrage of negative-themed ads funded primarily by groups that support rival Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.

The former speaker of the House of Representatives is now polling around fourth place in Iowa, the first state to hold a nominating contest in the run-up to the November election in which Republicans will try to unseat President Barack Obama.

Asked in a Reuters interview whether coming in fourth or lower on Tuesday would make him consider dropping out, Gingrich said, "No."

Survival alone would be a victory, he said, after the ads dented his momentum and his standing in the national race.

"I think the fact that we have survived 45 percent of all the ads in the state being negative about me is already a victory," Gingrich said in an interview on his campaign bus.

"I think there's a surge in our direction right now and I would say we will do respectably despite all the effort, particularly by Romney, to drive us out of the race."

Gingrich, whose campaign has earned a reputation for disorganization, said he had enough campaign funds to propel him through New Hampshire and on to South Carolina, the next two states that hold nominating contests.

"By the time we get to South Carolina, it will be very clear the gap between a Massachusetts moderate who hides his record behind negative ads and a conservative who's talking about positive ideas," Gingrich said.

MONEY RACE

His campaign raised more than $9 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, putting it in line with similar fundraising by 2008 Republican presidential nominee Senator John McCain four years ago. Gingrich said he did not expect a drop in fundraising after Iowa and predicted Romney would have more trouble attracting donors than he would.

"I think as major donors in this country realize how much Mitt Romney's not going to defend them and not going to protect them and not going to help them, that he will face a lot bigger challenge than I will," Gingrich said.

Gingrich has pledged to make clearer contrasts between himself and Romney, and showed signs of a sharpening attack line, despite his pledge to keep a positive tone.

"It's very hard to be a Massachusetts moderate pretending to be a conservative because people aren't that stupid," he said. "It's very hard to run $3.5 million of negative ads and pretend it's not yours and not have people think you're being dishonest. And I think that all comes across as just disingenuous."

While playing down the effects of a fourth-place or lower finish in Iowa, Gingrich is trying to raise expectations for Romney in New Hampshire, where Romney leads polls.

"If he can't win New Hampshire by a huge margin, there's something really wrong about his position."

Gingrich scoffed at the suggestion a Romney win in Iowa and New Hampshire would mean he had locked up the race.

"I think that's about as dumb as the people who said last summer that I was dead," Gingrich said, referring to speculation


his campaign would end after a staff exodus last year.


"If (Romney) wins Iowa and New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida, then he locks it up. But I think it's very unlikely he's going to win all four."


Romney has run on his success as a manager and a businessman, potentially appealing attributes as the country faces high unemployment and a stagnant economy, but Gingrich said the former governor lacked experience in reforming the U.S. government.


"If you want to manage the decay, I think Mitt would be fine," Gingrich said. "But I think there's no, no experience at all in his background that would suggest to you that Mitt could turn Washington around."


(Reporting By Jeff Mason, Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)

car, china, clouds

CAIRO – The trial of Hosni Mubarak resumed on Monday amid speculation that a recent acquittal of policemen tried for killing Egyptian protesters could be a prelude to the dismissal of charges against the ousted leader.
Mubarak faces charges of complicity in the killing of more than 800 protesters during last year's uprising that toppled his 29-year regime.
The 83-year-old ailing Mubarak was brought by helicopter to the Cairo courthouse from a hospital where he is held in custody. He was then taken into the defendants' cage on a gurney, wearing dark sunglasses and covered by a green blanket.
Another Cairo court on Thursday acquitted five policemen of charges of killing five protesters during the Jan. 25-Feb. 11 uprising in the capital's district of el-Sayedah Zeinab. The court said three of the defendants were not at the site of the killings while the other two fired against protesters in self defense.
The ruling angered families of the victims. Activists demanded that the killers be brought to justice and complained that similar cases are languishing in courts in several Egyptian cities.
On trial with Mubarak are his two sons, Gamal, his one-time heir apparent, and Alaa, along with the ousted leader's former security chief and six top police commanders. The Mubaraks face additional corruption charges in the same case.
The trial began Aug. 3 but has since been bogged down in procedural matters, including a demand by lawyers for the victims that the presiding judge, Ahmed Rifaat, be removed. That request alone took a separate court about three months to rule on.
The acquittal of the police officers in el-Sayedah Zeinab and the relatively long time the Mubarak trial is taking before even starting to deal with the core of the charges against him have led many activists to brand the proceedings a farce, organized by the generals who took over power when the longtime leader was ousted.
The generals are led by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, Mubarak's defense minister for the last 20 years he spent in office.
The activists believe the generals remain beholden to the Mubarak regime, and only placed the former president and his two sons under arrest after mounting pressure by protesters. The Mubaraks were arrested in April, two months after the ouster of the regime. Activists believe this was long enough for the three to conceal evidence of their alleged involvement in either the killings or corruption.

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NEW DELHI – Would the sex, drugs and rock-n-roll fueled TV show "Californication" be worth watching without the sex, drugs and rock-n- roll? What about serial killer series "Dexter" without the gore?
In an effort to attract younger viewers without offending the older ones, Indian TV is now showing some of America's edgiest shows — but cutting out the edge.
As India urbanizes and its middle class grows, a delicate dilemma has hit a media culture long dominated by local TV shows aimed at rural audiences, such as the soap opera "Baalika Vadhu" or "Child Bride," about a girl married off at age 10. While the young and hip audiences that attract advertising dollars want foreign imports, no broadcaster wants to upset conservative viewers or attract government ire.
"This is a very sensitive time for the media in India," said TV critic Shailaja Bajpai. "Many stations are afraid of government banning orders," but at the same time, output needs refreshing to bring in audiences."
So TV channels resort to inconsistent and clumsy self-censorship, snipping scenes that are central to a show's plot with abandon. While they bleep out profanities, they will also cut a reference to the drug "crack" from one part of a show, while letting it slide a few minutes later.
Even more absurd are the imports that have English subtitles to assist those with a shaky grasp of the language. Censors often let the spoken word slide through, but change it or strike it completely from the subtitles. So while a character on "The Big Bang Theory" is allowed to say the word "intimate," the subtitles only showed "int ------."
One incident turned an episode of "Friends" into a legend of unwatchable TV. The show hinged on the gag that two pages in a cookbook got stuck together and the character Rachel mistakenly made a fruit pastry with beef. The station bleeped out the word "beef," a show of sensitivity for Hindus' reverence for cows, leaving viewers to guess why her diners were so disgusted.
It's just as perplexing for the suddenly chaste vampires of HBO's lusty "True Blood" and for the serial killer star of "Dexter," who is constantly changing blood-splattered clothes for no apparent reason on Indian TV. Or for David Duchovny's "Californication" lech Hank Moody, who disappears into a bedroom with a beautiful women and then suddenly appears in a disjointed scene from later in the episode.
Nevertheless, young Indians, who have embraced Levis, McDonalds and MTV, are hungering for Western television.
"I no longer want to watch the stupid shows I watched with my family growing up, I want entertainment and there is very little on Hindi-language television," said Abhinav Mohan, a 22-year-old mass-communication student, who watches the disjointed imports instead. "Though heavily censored, I can still follow them."
Broadcasting the shows, while editing them into confusion, underscores the fine line entertainment companies like the NewsCorp-owned Star and FX are trying to walk to attract urban youth while not angering their more traditional parents.
Bollywood actors only began kissing onscreen in the last decade. As recently as 2007, an arrest warrant was briefly issued for Hollywood star Richard Gere after he kissed the cheek of Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty at an AIDS awareness rally.
"Indian produced movies and TV are very formulaic, you always know what you are going to get," said Rahul Gupta, a media company owner in New Delhi. "Today's youth are more likely to get what they want from Hollywood than Bollywood and TV companies are starting to realize it and hope to cash in."
In an effort to head off government interference, the industry created its own regulatory body in June to deal with complaints. Now, in addition to the odd censoring, viewers must also suffer a banner that repeatedly scrolls across the screen, advising viewers how to complain to the Broadcasting Content Complaints Council. More than 3,000 have.
The complaints range from "scantily and vulgarly dressed women" on MTV's "Grind" to a scene "misguiding children to kill," on the southern Indian family melodrama "Muddu Bidda," or "Cute Girl."
So far, only six channels have been called in for a hearing. Their apologies have been enough to satisfy the council and prevent it from referring the cases to the government, which has the power to ban shows.

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DAVENPORT, Iowa – The Iowa race remarkably fluid, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney faces a suddenly surging Rick Santorum, an unpredictable Ron Paul factor and the challenge of winning over undecided conservatives in a state that spurned him four years ago.
It's the last full day of campaigning before the caucuses that kick off state-by-state voting in the fight to pick a Republican to challenge President Barack Obama next fall.
The trio clustered at the top, as well as the trailing Texas Gov. Rick Perry, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, were fanning out across the Midwestern state to make closing arguments to the chunk of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers who say they haven't decided who to support and still could change their minds.
"I feel very confident. We've got a great ground game," Perry said on NBC as the day began, highlighting the 41 percent of likely voters who say in a recent poll that they could be persuaded to vote for someone else.
It's been a volatile and costly race with at least $12.5 million in advertising — much of it negative — flooding the Iowa airwaves in the run-up to the caucuses as candidates and outside groups aligned with them, called super PACs, worked to influence the outcome of what has been a wide open and unpredictable campaign.
Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, has roughly the same amount of backing in polls as he did in 2008 when he lost the race with 25 percent of the Iowa vote amid skepticism over his Mormon faith and his reversals on some social issues. This year, he has been counting on the GOP conservative base splintering in a multi-candidate field to allow him to win with roughly the same percentage of the vote.
But now, Santorum is challenging him for the lead, and the anti-abortion crusader is looking to unify socially conservative voters behind his candidacy. And that's putting pressure on Romney, who is focusing on turning out his base of support from his last campaign and planned a series of Monday rallies in cities across the eastern part of the state, where he's won before. His day begins here at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds and continues in Dubuque, Cedar Rapids and Des Moines.
In appearances, Romney has consistently pressed his central argument: that only he had the ability to wage a strong enough campaign to beat Obama. Santorum, popular among cultural and religious conservatives, and Paul, a libertarian-leaning candidate, worked to persuade Iowans that they would be able to attract a broad enough coalition of voters in the general election to beat Obama.
On Sunday, Romney engaged with Santorum for the first time since his rival's rise, offering mild criticism. Santorum "has spent his career in the government in Washington," Romney said during a campaign stop in Atlantic.
"I'll let people make their own assessment of our respective records," Romney said. "But I'm a conservative."
Santorum, in turn, worked to counter Romney's central electability argument.
"I'm the candidate that actually was able to win in states, as a conservative, in getting Democrats and independents to vote for us," Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who is surging in the race and is a favorite among cultural conservatives, said in an interview on CNN. "Mitt Romney has no track history of doing that."
Paul, too, worked to counter the suggestion that he's a fringe candidate, calling himself "electable" in a Sunday interview with ABC from his home state. He's looking to stem a recent slide as he's been attacked as out of the mainstream on foreign policy.
The issue of what type of candidate to choose cuts to the heart of why the Iowa race is so volatile; an NBC/Marist poll last week showed nearly even percentages of Iowa caucus-goers want a candidate who shares their values as want a candidate who can beat Obama.
And a Des Moines Register poll released Saturday showed half of likely Iowa caucus-goers viewed Romney as the Republican most likely to win the general election. On that question, he was far ahead of Santorum and of Paul, who was viewed as the least likely to win. But Santorum beat Romney best when asked who relates best to Iowans.
Romney's support was steady in the poll with 24 percent, while Paul was sliding and Santorum rising in a race that will come down to which way on-the-fence Republicans here break. All the others trailed.

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