Elisa Donovan Blogs: The Waste of Talking About Our Waists

With Scarlett on Christmas – Courtesy Elisa Donovan

Thanks for welcoming one of our newest celebrity bloggers, Elisa Donovan!

Best known for her roles as Amber in Clueless and Morgan on Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Donovan currently stars in the ABC Family franchise The Dog Who Saved Christmas. Following that, she will costar in MoniKa, set for release this year.

Donovan, 41, is also a writer and yogi. A recovered anorexic, she assists in counseling and supporting young women struggling with eating disorders.

She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Charlie Bigelow, and their 8-month-old daughter Scarlett Avery.

She can be found on Facebook, as well as Twitter @RedDonovan.

Okay — I want to talk about my body. Don’t worry, this isn’t going to get weird.

I hate to state the obvious, but women’s bodies — especially after they’ve had a baby — still seem to be an obsession of society. It’s a challenge to find a women’s magazine that doesn’t have at least one item about weight loss or body on its cover; or a women’s talk show that doesn’t have at least one feature on the same thing.

Since I had Scarlett, more people have wanted to talk to me about my body than anything else, so I thought I should jump on the bandwagon. (If you’ve read my previous blog, you’ll know how I feel about a bandwagon…)

Having recovered from anorexia many years ago, I’ve made it a way of life not to talk about my body, or your body or anybody else’s body. I learned long ago that at their core, eating disorders and “body image” issues have very little to do with the physical body at all. They’re about control, perfection and the size of our feelings and desires — not the size of our hips. For years, any comments made to me about my body — positive or negative — were twisted into a soup of insanity that only made me feel more fat; further convincing me that my restricted and unhealthy ways were the path to perfection.

It took many years of therapy, determination and love to overcome my disorder. Through my persistence and care, I have come to be grateful for the challenges I once faced. For my recovery brought me not only to the spiritual basis from which I now lead my life, but also gave me great knowledge and insight into the true goals and desires I have for my future.

One of the more literal and quantifiable assets to my recovery is this: I never judge anyone (including myself) by the physical body one walks around in. I am far more concerned with what is going on inside rather than outside. Skinny or fat, tall or short, sculpted or curvy — the body is truly one of the last things I focus on.

When I was anorexic and bulimic, I had a field day listening to what other people ate — creating my own contorted diets and restrictions in comparison. Then I would berate myself when I would inevitably fail at sticking to any of them; a process which inevitably led me back down the dangerous dead-end road of starving.

This is why today, in general, I don’t think that talking about food and body is healthy. I believe putting the focus on feelings, desires and goals is far more useful. So whenever I’m asked what I eat I usually dodge the question, not wanting to give women more reasons to create obsessions with their bodies, food and exercise.

But not even when I was severely anorexic and people would whisper things like, “I just want to give her a sandwich” was my body such a template for commentary, as it has been since I got pregnant and had a baby. So I thought maybe this was the time to break my silence in discussing this directly. I hope that by sharing my personal experience it may help to demystify the process of being healthy and fit.

Of course, every woman’s body is different. Hence, my experience is unique to me. As yours is to you. But it’s my hope that anyone who might be struggling with this can find the places they identify with what I’m writing and be brought some comfort; maybe our dialogue about this will help propel a shift in the collective consciousness.

Collage I made for Scarlett while I was pregnant – Courtesy Elisa Donovan

This stuff is really tough to talk about. See how I’m talking in circles around the subject so far? I’m cagey because, well — everyone goes bananarama-looney-tunes about this issue. We are all hyper-sensitive. And the last thing I want is to contribute to any of the insanity. I’m actually trying to stop the insanity, and bring us back down to earth. So here goes…

Throughout my pregnancy and post, it has been revelatory to discover just how much the body is what everyone — both men and women alike — feel most compelled to focus on. I’m not suggesting that people are instinctively mean-spirited in doing this. In fact, I’m trying to point out that I don’t think most people even realize it.

When someone comments about a woman’s pregnant or post-baby body, they think it is perfectly acceptable to do so. As if simply because a woman is about to have a child, or just had one, that makes her an open target for public discussion and invasion of her privacy.

I once watched a man at a party dig himself an Olympic-sized hole as he compared the bodies of two expectant women standing next to him (one of which was his wife). “You’re SO much bigger,” he said to the other woman. “You must be due really soon.” A bit stunned, the woman replied, “No, not for another three months.” “No way, really? It’s just that you’re so much bigger than her,” he said, pointing to his wife (who was mortified). “Maybe it’s the color of your sweater that’s making you look huge,” he offered, totally unaware of the gigantic gaping pit he had created for himself.

One friend told me that when she was six months pregnant a woman said to her, “You are ENORMOUS!! You look like you’re having twins!!” (She wasn’t.) Another woman, a complete stranger, said to me when I was almost five months, “You must be having a girl — you’re carrying it sort of … everywhere,” as she gesticulated grotesquely around her entire frame.

I’m just asking — in what universe are these appropriate things to say to a person?

Comments from “You barely look pregnant!” to “Oh my God — you’re huge!” to “You barely gained an ounce!” and “She gained a ton!” lead to “How did you lose the baby weight?” “Are you worried about losing the baby weight?” “Don’t worry — you will lose the baby weight!!” — and they all pre-suppose that one’s physical body is the main concern.

I can say with 100 percent honesty: I never worried about my weight when I was pregnant. Not once. Even during those periods where I felt like a water mammal trapped on land laboriously straining to lumber down the sidewalk, I didn’t worry about it. This is not because I have a super-human sized ego and gargantuan self-esteem. It is because of two things:

1) Everything I’ve already stated about my lessons in body image, and 2) I never looked at the scale when the nurse weighed me at each doctor visit. I told her I didn’t want to know what I weighed, unless there was something abnormal or unhealthy about it. I understood it was necessary for the doctor to know my weight, but it was virtually useless for me to know the number. I hadn’t looked at the numbers on a scale in over 15 years, so why should I start now?

Though I was never one of those women that felt AMAZING while pregnant (I did not see unicorns and rainbows all day and feel “sexier than ever!”), I did feel extraordinarily lucky that for the most part (aside from that brutal first trimester), I felt okay. Though much of this could just be chalked up to the luck of the draw, I believe my choices were an equal contributor.

Charlie and Scarlett at SFMOMA – Elisa Donovan

I didn’t change the quality of what I ate (aside from several fierce cravings which I will get to later, I am an organic and non-processed foods person). I didn’t take “eating for two” to mean “overindulge in every sugary, fatty food I can get my hands on for 10 months.” I ate when I was hungry (which was often) and made sure I got the proper vitamins and minerals from the foods I ate. (Roasted chicken was a favorite, I could not get enough of it. And lemon water. I would have swallowed an entire lemon tree if I could have.)

I also practiced vinyasa yoga nearly every day, when I wasn’t working. Especially on the days when I didn’t feel like getting off of the couch — those were the times it actually felt the best. I even practiced the day before I gave birth. (I loved knowing that I was carrying a baby in my belly in yoga, as I moved through the age-old postures and chanted at the opening and close of class.) I walked a lot. These things cleared my head, energized my body and lifted my spirit. They made me feel like an active participant in nourishing this little being, rather than sitting back and letting something just happen TO me.

Just so you don’t think I’m some out-of-touch-granola-hippie — you should also know that during my second trimester, I developed an insatiable desire for chocolate bars. This trimester fortuitously coincided with Halloween. I would send text messages to my girlfriends with photos of mini-Milky Ways, with the title “FUN SIZE!.” (To be clear: I believed I was maximizing the fun by eating three or four of them.) I would text my husband while he was at the office, “Can you bring me home a Snickers? Don’t judge me.”

For anyone that knows me, it was hilarious and a great source of joy for them to see me delight in eating these things. My chocolate bar fetish was soon replaced by a wild rampage in pursuit of anything red velvet. This is a story that requires its own blog altogether — so I will just tell you this: I have tasted every red velvet cupcake in the greater San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles County areas, and was known to drive over the Golden Gate Bridge just to purchase mini-bundt cakes.

After I had Scarlett, people very quickly said they couldn’t believe I had just had a baby. “OHMYGOD I hate you!” some women would even say, as if I had committed some personal crime against them by physically recovering what they considered to be too quickly. I know these sorts of comments were meant to be compliments, and on one level they were very nice to hear. But this didn’t mean I didn’t feel like a cow.

The reality was, I HAD just had a baby. So regardless of what my body looked like, I still felt predominantly crazy and pudgy. Emotionally, I was no different than anyone else who just had a baby, but because my body seemed to come back quicker, people equated that with everything going back to normal. Back to pre-pregnancy.

Let me take a moment to rally on behalf of striking the term “back to pre-pregnancy” from the lexicon we are allowed to use with regard to — well, anything. Because guess what—nothing is the same as it was before. Nothing. So why do we even pretend it is, or strive to make it so? People have told me I look just like I did before having the baby, that “you can’t even tell!.” This is both very kind and very false.

For one thing, my hips will never be the same … simply never be the same! I also think that my face, my boobs, and my everything else are all forever altered. And I don’t mean to say it’s all change for the worse. I think women’s faces change in a really deep and lovely way once they’ve had a baby; there’s an openness and a brightness that, even amidst the exhaustion and insanity of those first couple of months, is beautiful. I wouldn’t take my pre-pregnancy face back for anything … even for the circumference of my pre-pregnancy hips.

Like most women, I didn’t have an expensive trainer barking at me and kicking my ass into squats at 5 a.m. to “lose that pregnancy weight.” I didn’t have a fancy chef cooking me tastily gourmet but calorically feather-light meals; nor did I have full time help to watch my kid so I could run to the gym and yoga and spinning in order to “get my body back.”

But also like most women, I did have the natural workout (which felt like what I imagine prepping for a marathon might feel like) of suddenly being responsible for the survival and well-being of this tiny human. Between that stunning revelation, the sleep deprivation, and the sheer adrenaline required to metabolize both, my body was operating at maximum capacity from the second Scarlett was born.

To me, it felt like the constant actions of carrying her, walking up and down stairs while lifting car seats and strollers around, burned more calories than an hour on the treadmill could ever hope to.

Upside-down reading – a good start – Elisa Donovan

I guess what I’m trying to get at here is this: are we so concerned with what we look like that even a woman who has just given birth is supposed to make her primary focus and primary source of pride be “getting her body back?”

I am not condoning using childbirth as an excuse to not take care of yourself, nor am I suggesting that we completely stop complimenting one another altogether. But I am talking about the danger of body obsession taking over the psyche and trickling out into everything we do, and I am asking if we can find additional ways to support and applaud each other, not just for our physical appearance.

How did we get so far away from what matters, that living up to some ill-conceived standard of physical perfection has become so important? I wonder about how I will instill my beliefs in Scarlett, when there is an epidemic of body obsession surrounding her everywhere she looks.

How will I make sure she understands that an emaciated waistline and injected lips are not what make for a fulfilling and inspired life? Charlie and I can infuse our values in her daily and teach her by our own example what we believe is right; but how do I make sure she knows that our values are better, if the majority of images and words around her defy them?

Rather than focusing on diets and losing dress sizes, wouldn’t our energies be better spent figuring out how to love one another more, and how to enjoy the wealth of opportunities that are afforded us in 2013? Can’t we do better at encouraging curiosity and inner strength? Couldn’t we focus just a little more on cultivating expression and gaining wisdom, rather than on how to lose 20 pounds in 20 minutes?

I’d like Scarlett to know that her mom isn’t a total loon, just because she is not in constant search of the perfect diet. I hope that Scarlett grows up asking me about books and art and achieving goals, and not whether her stomach is too fat for the dress she is wearing.

I realize this may be a tall order. And I know I can not and should not shelter my child from everything the world will reveal to her. But I can strive to make sure she knows what her mom believes: That her brain, her spirit and her heart are far more valuable than the size of her behind.

– Elisa Donovan

More from Elisa’s PEOPLE.com blog series:

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CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West

New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very young or old. The season's first flu case resistant to treatment with Tamiflu was reported Friday.

Eight more children have died from the flu, bringing this season's total pediatric deaths to 37. About 100 children die in an average flu season.

There is still vaccine available although it may be hard to find. The CDC has a website that can help.

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CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

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Fed waits for job market to perk up

LONDON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve's ultra-loose monetary policy is a root cause of the "currency wars" that some see as a looming threat to the world economy, but don't expect the U.S. central bank to signal a shift back to normal any time soon.

The Fed, whose policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday, said just last month that it expects to keep short-term interest rates exceptionally low until the U.S. unemployment rate falls to 6.5 percent, inflation permitting.

That goal is still distant. Figures on Friday are likely to show that the jobless rate was unchanged in January at 7.8 percent, while the economy created 155,000 jobs, the same as in December, according to economists polled by Reuters.

So it would be a huge surprise if the Fed were to do anything other than reaffirm last month's decision to anchor short-term interest rates in a range of zero to 0.25 percent and to keep buying $85 billion of bonds each month to hold down long-term rates.

The only question mark is whether the FOMC vote will be unanimous now that Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, who opposes the current round of bond-buying, has rotated off the panel, said Harm Bandholz, an economist with UniCredit Bank in New York.

Most economists polled by Reuters expect the Fed to keep its open-ended bond-buying program in place well into next year, even though the economic news flow and market confidence are improving markedly.

True, Wednesday's preliminary report on fourth-quarter GDP is likely to show that growth slowed to an annualized rate of 1.2 percent from 3.1 percent in the July-September period.

And the current quarter will also be soft as the expiry of a 2 percent payroll tax cut is dampening consumer spending.

But then Bandholz expects an average growth rate of 2.8 percent over the rest of the year. That would be the strongest three-quarter period of the recovery so far, he said.

"The outlook has improved a lot in the U.S. I've been on the cautious side for the last three years, but this time I'm a bit more bullish," he said.

THE FED BIDES ITS TIME

The recovery in housing would add at least half a percentage point to GDP growth in 2013, while capital spending was likely to revive now that uncertainty over budget talks in Washington had been largely allayed, Bandholz said.

"There's a lot of pent-up demand in the system. I don't think all these investments have been abandoned; they've just been postponed," he said.

At some point, investors' exuberance over the super-easy stance of the world's major central banks will give way to worries that they are about to take away the punch bowl.

Gustavo Reis, an economist with Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York, said concerns about the costs of money-printing were likely to spread but would be offset by uncertainty over the impact on growth of fiscal tightening in the United States and Europe.

"All told, although global activity seems more robust now than at any point in 2012, we expect policymakers to continue to worry predominantly about downside risks," he said in a note.

The bank does not expect the Fed to consider halting asset purchases before 2014, while the latest episode of monetary easing announced by the Bank of Japan is likely to be ‘long-lived and significant'.

Many economists argue that bold monetary action is long overdue in Japan, whose nominal output has not grown in 20 years, saddling the government with a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 220 percent.

But Douglas McWilliams, who heads the Centre for Economics and Business Research, a London consultancy, fears Japan's decision will lead the global economy into unpredictable currency wars.

"It's a bit like if someone's rude to you, you're rude to them back. You get tit-for-tat behavior," McWilliams said.

CURRENCY FRICTION, BUT NO WAR

Olivier Blanchard, the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, last week called talk of currency wars overblown and said countries had to pull the right policy levers to get their economies back on track, with corresponding consequences for exchange rates.

However, McWilliams said the problem was that it was difficult to get countries to agree NOT to wage currency wars.

Tellingly, Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced German concerns last week that Japan might be deliberately seeking to cheapen the yen to give its exporters a competitive edge.

"So we may well find that there is a period of very heavy volatility before the authorities involved try and get some kind of agreement," McWilliams said.

In a relatively quiet week for economic data in the euro zone - money supply figures and confidence surveys from the European Commission are the highlights - the focus is likely to remain squarely on the euro, which has been rising briskly as traders price in the policy shifts that Blanchard had in mind.

While the Fed and the Bank of Japan are expanding their balance sheets, the European Central Bank is starting to soak up some of the emergency cash it lent to banks a year ago.

The central bank said on Friday that banks would repay early 137 billion euros of cheap borrowed money.

"I'm not sure if we have too strong a euro for the moment but certainly we would not want to see a currency war of competitive devaluations which would have a negative effect on the euro," the European Union's top monetary official, Olli Rehn, told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Davos; editing by Jason Neely)

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Egypt’s Morsi Declares State of Emergency

CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's president declared a state of emergency and curfew in three Suez Canal provinces hit hardest by a weekend wave of unrest that left more than 50 dead, using tactics of the ousted regime to get a grip on discontent over his Islamist policies and the slow pace of change.

Angry and almost screaming, Mohammed Morsi vowed in a televised address on Sunday night that he would not hesitate to take even more action to stem the latest eruption of violence across much of the country. But at the same time, he sought to reassure Egyptians that his latest moves would not plunge the country back into authoritarianism.

"There is no going back on freedom, democracy and the supremacy of the law," he said.

The worst violence this weekend was in the Mediterranean coastal city of Port Said, where seven people were killed on Sunday, pushing the toll for two days of clashes to at least 44. The unrest was sparked on Saturday by a court conviction and death sentence for 21 defendants involved in a mass soccer riot in the city's main stadium on Feb. 1, 2012 that left 74 dead.

Most of those sentenced to death were local soccer fans from Port Said, deepening a sense of persecution that Port Said's residents have felt since the stadium disaster, the worst soccer violence ever in Egypt.

At least another 11 died on Friday elsewhere in the country during rallies marking the second anniversary of the anti-Mubarak uprising. Protesters used the occasion to renounce Morsi and his Islamic fundamentalist group, the Muslim Brotherhood, which emerged as the country's most dominant political force after Mubarak's ouster.

The curfew and state of emergency, both in force for 30 days, affect the provinces of Port Said, Ismailiya and Suez. The curfew takes effect Monday from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. every day.

Morsi, in office since June, also invited the nation's political forces to a dialogue starting Monday to resolve the country's latest crisis. A statement issued later by his office said that among those invited were the country's top reform leader, Nobel peace Laureate Mohammed ElBaradei, former Arab League chief Amr Moussa and Hamdeen Sabahi, a leftist politician who finished third in last year's presidential race.

The three are leaders of the National Salvation Front, an umbrella for the main opposition parties.

Khaled Dawoud, the Front's spokesman, said Morsi's invitation was meaningless unless he clearly states what is on the agenda. That, he added, must include amending a disputed constitution hurriedly drafted by the president's Islamist allies and rejected by the opposition.

He also faulted the president for not acknowledging his political responsibility for the latest bout of political violence.

"It is all too little too late," he told The Associated Press.

In many ways, Morsi's decree and his call for a dialogue betrayed his despair in the face of wave after wave of political unrest, violence and man-made disasters that, at times, made the country look like it was about to come unglued.

A relative unknown until his Muslim Brotherhood nominated him to run for president last year, Morsi is widely criticized for having offered no vision for the country's future after nearly 30 years of dictatorship under Mubarak and no coherent policy to tackle seemingly endless problems, from a free falling economy and deeply entrenched social injustices to surging crime and chaos on the streets.

Reform of the judiciary and the police, hated under the old regime for brutality, are also key demands of Morsi's critics.

Morsi did not say what he plans to do to stem the violence in other parts of the country outside those three provinces, but he did say he had instructed the police to deal "firmly and forcefully" with individuals attacking state institutions, using firearms to "terrorize" citizens or blocking roads and railway lines.

There were also clashes Sunday in Cairo and several cities in the Nile Delta region, including the industrial city of Mahallah.

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Twitter launches advertising services in Middle East

DUBAI (Reuters) – Twitter Inc launched advertising services in the Middle East and North Africa on Sunday as the social media firm seeks to exploit a tripling of its regional subscriber base following its widespread use during the Arab Spring protests.

Digital advertising is relatively undeveloped in the region, accounting for an estimated 4 percent of its total advertising spending, but a young, tech-savvy population and rising Internet penetration points to significant potential for growth.

“The two are interconnected – the rapid growth of our user base with the timing of why we want to help brands connect with that audience,” said Shailesh Rao, Twitter vice-president for international operations.

Twitter does not provide a regional breakdown of its more than 200 million users worldwide, but Rao said its MENA subscriber base had tripled in the past 12 months.

The company has recruited Egypt’s Connect Ads, which is ultimately owned by Cairo-listed Orascom Telecom Media and Technology, to launch advertising initially in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

Pepsi and Saudi telecom operator Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) are among its confirmed clients, the company said.

Twitter says the products it promotes typically have an audience response rate of 1 to 3 percent, significantly higher than traditional advertising rate of 0.1 to 0.5 percent.

“Social media advertising is totally different because it relies on what people say. It’s about two-way, not one-way, communication,” said Mohamed El Mehairy, Connect Ads managing director.

(editing by Jane Baird)

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Nicole 'Snooki' Polizzi Explains How She Lost 44 Lbs. After Baby

By Paul Chi

01/27/2013 at 05:30 PM EST

Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi

Kristina Bumphrey/StarTraks

No meatball here!

Just five months after giving birth to son Lorenzo, Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi says she's shed the 44 lbs. she gained during her pregnancy.

"Right now I'm 109 lbs., and I've been working out with a trainer since Halloween," Polizzi, 25, told PEOPLE at Logo's season 5 premiere party for RuPaul's Drag Race in New York on Friday. "I go four times a week, and we do legs, arms and everything. And after every one-hour workout, I do an hour of cardio."

But she's the first to admit earning her post-baby body was hard work.

"It wasn't easy. I'm still working my ass off, but it's all worth it," she says. "I'm now motivated and I want to change my body. It's a good feeling to work out because I feel much better. Plus, my guy Jionni likes it."

As for wedding planning, Polizzi, who got engaged early last year, has no plans to walk down the aisle any time soon.

"We're not ready right now. We need our house first. We're still living in [Jionni's] basement," she said. "We already bought land, but they still have to knock down the trees and build. So it's probably going to take a year and a half to two years. Once we get our house, we'll do all the planning for the wedding and worry about those things later."

Although wedding planning may be in the future, one thing Polizzi can't wait to do is expand her family.

"I want to pop out another baby right now! I'm hoping for twins this time," she said. "It would be cool to have my kids to grow up close in age, so that's my plan. I don't want to wait to have kids."

But for now, Polizzi is taking things one day at a time.

"I'm so happy with everything in my life," she said. "I love being a mom and I love my son. My life is awesome."

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CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West

New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very young or old. The season's first flu case resistant to treatment with Tamiflu was reported Friday.

Eight more children have died from the flu, bringing this season's total pediatric deaths to 37. About 100 children die in an average flu season.

There is still vaccine available although it may be hard to find. The CDC has a website that can help.

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CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

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Wall Street Week Ahead: Bears hibernate as stocks near record highs

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks have been on a tear in January, moving major indexes within striking distance of all-time highs. The bearish case is a difficult one to make right now.

Earnings have exceeded expectations, the housing and labor markets have strengthened, lawmakers in Washington no longer seem to be the roadblock that they were for most of 2012, and money has returned to stock funds again.

The Standard & Poor's 500 Index <.spx> has gained 5.4 percent this year and closed above 1,500 - climbing to the spot where Wall Street strategists expected it to be by mid-year. The Dow Jones industrial average <.dji> is 2.2 percent away from all-time highs reached in October 2007. The Dow ended Friday's session at 13,895.98, its highest close since October 31, 2007.

The S&P has risen for four straight weeks and eight consecutive sessions, the longest streak of days since 2004. On Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 ended at 1,502.96 - its first close above 1,500 in more than five years.

"Once we break above a resistance level at 1,510, we dramatically increase the probability that we break the highs of 2007," said Walter Zimmermann, technical analyst at United-ICAP, in Jersey City, New Jersey. "That may be the start of a rise that could take equities near 1,800 within the next few years."

The most recent Reuters poll of Wall Street strategists estimated the benchmark index would rise to 1,550 by year-end, a target that is 3.1 percent away from current levels. That would put the S&P 500 a stone's throw from the index's all-time intraday high of 1,576.09 reached on October 11, 2007.

The new year has brought a sharp increase in flows into U.S. equity mutual funds, and that has helped stocks rack up four straight weeks of gains, with strength in big- and small-caps alike.

That's not to say there aren't concerns. Economic growth has been steady, but not as strong as many had hoped. The household unemployment rate remains high at 7.8 percent. And more than 75 percent of the stocks in the S&P 500 are above their 26-week highs, suggesting the buying has come too far, too fast.

MUTUAL FUND INVESTORS COME BACK

All 10 S&P 500 industry sectors are higher in 2013, in part because of new money flowing into equity funds. Investors in U.S.-based funds committed $3.66 billion to stock mutual funds in the latest week, the third straight week of big gains for the funds, data from Thomson Reuters' Lipper service showed on Thursday.

Energy shares <.5sp10> lead the way with a gain of 6.6 percent, followed by industrials <.5sp20>, up 6.3 percent. Telecom <.5sp50>, a defensive play that underperforms in periods of growth, is the weakest sector - up 0.1 percent for the year.

More than 350 stocks hit new highs on Friday alone on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones Transportation Average <.djt> recently climbed to an all-time high, with stocks in this sector and other economic bellwethers posting strong gains almost daily.

"If you peel back the onion a little bit, you start to look at companies like Precision Castparts , Honeywell , 3M Co and Illinois Tool Works - these are big, broad-based industrial companies in the U.S. and they are all hitting new highs, and doing very well. That is the real story," said Mike Binger, portfolio manager at Gradient Investments, in Shoreview, Minnesota.

The gains have run across asset sizes as well. The S&P small-cap index <.spcy> has jumped 6.7 percent and the S&P mid-cap index <.mid> has shot up 7.5 percent so far this year.

Exchange-traded funds have seen year-to-date inflows of $15.6 billion, with fairly even flows across the small-, mid- and large-cap categories, according to Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at the ConvergEx Group, in New York.

"Investors aren't really differentiating among asset sizes. They just want broad equity exposure," Colas said.

The market has shown resilience to weak news. On Thursday, the S&P 500 held steady despite a 12 percent slide in shares of Apple after the iPhone and iPad maker's results. The tech giant is heavily weighted in both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 <.ndx> and in the past, its drop has suffocated stocks' broader gains.

JOBS DATA MAY TEST THE RALLY

In the last few days, the ratio of stocks hitting new highs versus those hitting new lows on a daily basis has started to diminish - a potential sign that the rally is narrowing to fewer names - and could be running out of gas.

Investors have also cited sentiment surveys that indicate high levels of bullishness among newsletter writers, a contrarian indicator, and momentum indicators are starting to also suggest the rally has perhaps come too far.

The market's resilience could be tested next week with Friday's release of the January non-farm payrolls report. About 155,000 jobs are seen being added in the month and the unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 7.8 percent.

"Staying over 1,500 sends up a flag of profit taking," said Jerry Harris, president of asset management at Sterne Agee, in Birmingham, Alabama. "Since recent jobless claims have made us optimistic on payrolls, if that doesn't come through, it will be a real risk to the rally."

A number of marquee names will report earnings next week, including bellwether companies such as Caterpillar Inc , Amazon.com Inc , Ford Motor Co and Pfizer Inc .

On a historic basis, valuations remain relatively low - the S&P 500's current price-to-earnings ratio sits at 15.66, which is just a tad above the historic level of 15.

Worries about the U.S. stock market's recent strength do not mean the market is in a bubble. Investors clearly don't feel that way at the moment.

"We're seeing more interest in equities overall, and a lot of flows from bonds into stocks," said Paul Zemsky, who helps oversee $445 billion as the New York-based head of asset allocation at ING Investment Management. "We've been increasing our exposure to risky assets."

For the week, the Dow climbed 1.8 percent, the S&P 500 rose 1.1 percent and the Nasdaq advanced 0.5 percent.

(Reporting by Ryan Vlastelica; Additional reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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The Saturday Profile: Leading the Tunisian Agency That Once Jailed Him

TUNIS — It was the first time Ali Laarayedh had inspected a prison cell, but even then, as the interior minister, his old instincts kicked in.

“I turned around to see who would shut the cell door on me,” he said in his quiet manner.

But no one bolted the door. For Mr. Laarayedh had experienced a profound reversal of fortune, mirroring that of the Islamist political party that he helped found. Jailed numerous times in the Interior Ministry as a political prisoner, he now runs the very security agency that once sent him to death row.

His memory of the cells remains vivid. “Even though they are on the ground floor,” he said, “once you are inside them you have the impression that you have entered a cave.”

Mr. Laarayedh, 57, speaking in his office at a considerable distance above the cells, argued that his grueling prison experiences make him a better minister, sensitive to the abuse of power and the need for not just Tunisia, but all Arab states, to bend their omnipotent secret police to the rule of law.

Others are not convinced of his commitment to the law, at least not in the Western style. Mr. Laarayedh was imprisoned repeatedly, including all the years from 1990 to 2004, for being a founding member of the Renaissance Party, or Ennahda in Arabic, the Islamist political party that dominates Tunisia’s first elected post-revolutionary government.

Many in the opposition suspect that when men like Mr. Laarayedh talk about the rule of law, they mean Shariah, or Islamic law, a Koran-based code that is often at odds with Western standards of justice. The minister has also been widely criticized for the level of violence the police still unleash to squelch protests.

The interior minister is one of at least eight cabinet ministers, about one-third of the total, who spent significant chunks of their adult lives behind bars, often in solitary confinement. Some Tunisians believe that a country struggling with unemployment and political upheaval would be better off run by technocrats rather than veteran prisoners lacking real-world experience.

After one notorious episode on Sept. 14, when the American Embassy was sacked, critics mocked Mr. Laarayedh mercilessly for saying essentially that security forces had protected the embassy’s front door, but unfortunately the marauders entered through the back. Since that melee, which left four people dead, the police have been unable to apprehend Seifallah Ben Hassine, the leader of the puritanical Salafi movement, who is wanted for helping to inspire it.

In the interview, the minister said his forces were overwhelmed that day by a lack of equipment, including armored vehicles needed to protect the police. On the larger issue of governance, he argued that Tunisia was better off in the hands of those who sacrificed for change.

“We have to choose people who can break with the past and put the country on the path to democracy and a state of law,” said Mr. Laarayedh. “If we go back to the old, to the people with experience, nothing will change.”

He prefers not to detail his own imprisonment, saying that political detainees of all stripes had to endure the same terrible physical and mental torture. Many died or lost their minds, he said; as for himself, his physical scars are not visible, so it is better to focus on the revolution. When pressed, however, he revealed some contained anger.

“One of the worst forms of torture is when they leave you all alone,” he said. “When you pound on the iron door, if you are sick or you need something, and you can pound all night and they do not respond. Believe me, that is the worst contempt and the worst violence that I experienced. They take you for a mouse or a fly, or for nothing at all. You do not exist. You are not even worth being beaten. Do you understand? You are not even worth being beaten.”

He can put that behind him, he said, mostly because the revolution succeeded. “I realized all my objectives — a dictator fell, a democracy for which I gave my life was born and Tunisians are masters of their own destiny,” he said.

Mr. Laarayedh said he worried more about the effect his long absences had on his wife, a medical technician, and his three children, as he dedicated his life to political activism.

After obtaining a degree in maritime engineering in 1980, he worked for the government for only a year before going underground. He had odd jobs like teaching math in private schools, and he even got married in 1983 while on the run. His long years in and out of prison began around 1987.

Those years instilled in him the need for Tunisia to reach an equilibrium, he said, for a government able to curb the excesses of both the religious zealots and the liberals. Each camp accuses him of coddling the other.

“I don’t want the state to be hostage to either of these extremist tendencies,” he said.

He denied that the Renaissance Party worked in collusion with the more puritanical Salafis, who have staged a series of violent protests against art galleries and other liberal institutions. “We try to compromise between modernity, with all its values, and our own authenticity, our Arab Muslim identity,” he said, whereas the Salafis create “an antagonism between the present and the past.”

Some activists, particularly women, remain skeptical. Tunisia had perhaps the most progressive Arab gender laws for decades, and they believe that the Renaissance Party is shrinking the public space for women. They had hoped for something different given that while underground, the Islamists had emphasized the universal rights of man.

Olfa el-Alem, a political organizer, noted that despite repeated promises to investigate police violence against demonstrators, no results had been publicized.

“I thought the day they gained their liberty they would let others have their freedom as well,” said Ms. Alem, referring to the Renaissance leaders.

Mr. Laarayedh and other Renaissance leaders suggested that they lack full control over the levers of state. Mr. Laarayedh said Tunisians cannot yet take their nascent democracy for granted.

“This used to be Ben Ali’s desk!” he said, beaming, as he showed a visitor his office. Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, the leader deposed by the January 2011 revolution, was prime minister when he seized the presidency in a bloodless 1987 coup.

Perhaps the best testament to the fact that democracy will emerge from Tunisia’s ferment, Mr. Laarayedh said, is that he now sits at that desk.

“It is a miracle,” he said. “If you want to look for irrefutable evidence that there was a revolution here, it is that someone condemned to death by this very ministry has become the minister.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 26, 2013

An earlier version of this article misidentified the title held by Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali when he seized the presidency in 1987. He was prime minister, not interior minister.

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Smartphone 4Q sales rise 36 pct led by Samsung

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Smartphone shipments rose 36 percent worldwide in the fourth quarter as the sleek devices supplanted personal computers and other gadgets on holiday shopping lists, according to a report released Friday.

The findings from the research firm International Data Corp. are the latest sign of the technology upheaval being wrought by the growing popularity of smartphones that can perform a wide variety of tasks, including surfing the Web and taking high-quality photos.

Companies whose fortunes are tied to the PC industry have been particularly hard hit by the shift to smartphones and tablet computers.

While some smartphone models were in short supply during the holiday season, fourth-quarter PC shipments fell by 6 percent from the previous year, according to another IDC report released earlier this month.

IDC estimates 219 million smartphones were shipped during the final three months of last year. That compares with nearly 161 million in the same 2011 period. Smartphones accounted for about 45 percent of all mobile phone shipments in the fourth quarter, the highest percentage recorded by IDC.

Samsung Electronics Co. retained its bragging rights as the smartphone leader, shipping nearly 64 million devices for a 29 percent share of the global market.

Apple Inc. ranked second with nearly 48 million iPhones shipped during the fourth quarter, translating into a market share of 22 percent.

For all of 2012, IDC estimated nearly 713 million smartphones were shipped worldwide, a 44 percent increase from the previous year. Meanwhile, annual PC shipments fell 3 percent from 2011, IDC said. It was the first annual decline since 2001.

Entering 2012, Apple held a slight edge over Samsung in the smartphone market. But Samsung sprinted past Apple during the year as it introduced an array of models, most of which run on Google Inc.‘s free Android software. Samsung’s top-selling line, the Galaxy, boasts larger display screens than the iPhone and other features.

Apple alleges Samsung’s devices illegally ripped off the iPhone’s innovations. After a high-profile trial in federal court, a jury in San Jose, Calif. sided with some of the patent infringement claims last August and decided Samsung should pay more than $ 1 billion in damages. Samsung has been trying to overturn the verdict.

Lower-priced smartphones from Samsung and other device makers also have hurt Apple, whose slowing iPhone growth has contributed to a $ 250 billion decline in its market value since its stock price peaked in late September.

IDC says Huawei Technologies Ltd.‘s emphasis on less expensive handsets helped it become the third largest smartphone maker with a market share of 5 percent at the end of the fourth quarter.

Gadgets News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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