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Earlier this year, Rebecca Fox-Dewhurst and her son, Ben Dewhurst, were perusing invitations for his coming bar mitzvah when Ben noticed some in individual. On the front were the image of a earth and a cite from the Talmud: “Whoever saves a single time from birth to death,” it read, “is as if one saves the entire terraqueous globe.”

Before spun out, Ben

Now, with his celebration today, Ben not only will acknowledge his change into adulthood but the actions of those who, in one of account’s darkest periods, helped Jews survive persecution.

The invitation that broadened Ben’s purpose touted the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous (JFR), a 22-year-old New York-based direction offering financial support to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during World War II.

Through its bar/bat mitzvah program, the JFR encourages boys and girls to incorporate the Jewish commitments to tzedakah, or charity, and hakarat hatov, the seeking out and recognition of worth, into their experience. Children cull to pair with one of the 100 or so rescuers profiled on the JFR Web site, typically honoring that rescuer’s deeds during their celebrations.

Ultimately, they give to the foundation, which suggests a donation of $5 per invitation mailed. In Ben’s case, that would be about $500. “Ben suitable felt that this invitation did which he wanted to do with his bar mitzvah,” Fox-Dewhurst said. “He related, ‘That is in the way that incredibly cool, Mom.’ “

The JFR every one month sends money to nearly 1,200 verified rescuers in 26 countries. The greatest numbers are in Poland, Ukraine, Belarus and Hungary; 17 are in the U.S. Most are Catholic, more Muslim, and their stories are verified by Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem, a 55-year-old organization that documents the history of Jews during the Holocaust and those who helped save them.

Ben, a seventh-grader at Mercer Island’s Islander Middle School, scrolled through the dozens of JFR’s rescuer anecdotes and an hour later came to his parents with one that had stuck out to him

“She helped a kid about my age,” he said. “She and her house took her dwelling. They even moved and went to a lot of trouble to help.”

Maksimova’s parents found Nusia, a 10-year-old Jewish miss impenitent on the street. The family kept her in hiding, at times under the floorboards of their home, until the war ended. At age 13, Nusia was reunited with her parents. Now living in Israel, she still corresponds with Maksimova, who is in her 90s and has since relocated to Russia.

Like Maksimova, many surviving rescuers are at this time aged and struggling, perhaps coping through the aftermath of communism’session fall in Eastern Europe.

“The elderly are not running around through fur coats and driving Mercedeses,” said JFR Executive Director Stanlee Stahl. “The exemplar is to stipulate additional funds so they can live out the remainder of their years in dignity.”

Chris Gardner, the man whose rags-to-riches story inspired the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, explains for what reason he harnessed his passion to turn his life around

By Carmine Gallo

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It’s not each day you get the chance to pick the brain of a man whose real-life rags-to-riches falsehood was turned into a Hollywood movie starring one of America’s top actors. But the other day I had the opportunity to devote time with Chris Gardner, subject of the 2006 movie The Pursuit of Happyness, in which Gardner was played by the agency of Will Smith.

While attending an owing internship program at Dean Witter Reynolds in 1981, Gardner spent a year on the streets with his two-year-old son. They took refuge at night in a church shelter or the bathroom of a BART subway station in Oakland, Calif. Nobody at work knew. Gardner eventually won a position because a stockbroker at Dean Witter. Two years later he left for Bear Stearns (BSC), where he became a top earner. In 1987, he founded his own brokerage firm, Gardner Rich,in Chicago. Today, Gardner is a multimillionaire, a motivational speaker, a philanthropist, and every international businessman who is in regard to to launch a private equity fund that will endow solely in South Africa. His partner in the fund? Nelson Mandela. Not bad for a shore who, six years before founding his own brokerage firm, was "fighting, scratching, and crawling my way uncovered of the gutter by a baby on my back."

Gardner is a showy speaker and has an taking existence—qualities all business professionals would crave. But what’s behind his luck? What is the one thing—the undivided secret—that helped him change his mode? "It’s passion," he told me. "Passion is everything. In fact, you’ve got to be borderline fanatical about what you do." Gardner says he was fortunate to remark something he actually loved, a thing where he couldn’t wait with respect to the sun to arise so he could do it again. His advice to entrepreneurs and those seeking a conduct change? "Be bold plenty to find the person thing that you are passionate about. It might not be what you were trained to do. But be confident enough to do the one thing. Nobody needs to thrust it but you."

Gardner wanted to be "world-class at a part." For him, that something was being a stockbroker. For you, finding something you are quick-tampered hither and thither power of resoluteness make the difference in how engaging you become as a communicator and as a leader. If you love what you be enough, you’ll eagerly share the fiction behind it with boundless enthusiasm.

Passion is not teachable. As a communications coach, I be able to help clients craft and deliver a powerful invention, but I can’t create passion. But it’s object of passion that separates the electrifying presenters from the average ones. I’salmagundi positively convinced of it. As a former television journalist, I’ve interviewed thousands of spokespeople and personally coached hundreds of others in my current profession. Donald Trump once said: "Without passion, you have no energy—and without energy, you have nothing." Your listeners want to be in the presence of someone with energy, a person who greets people with a smile and an abundance of enthusiasm. Passion is not something you necessarily verbalize, but it shows. When Gardner walked into Dean Witter after having slept in a subway station the night before, he only wanted to leave one impression on his co-workers. "All they needed to know is that I would not difficult it up day after promised adapt to the occasion. Passion is not a portion you get to talk with regard to. People feel it. They see it just as clearly in the same proportion that the complexion of your eyes, baby."

I have spent the last several years interviewing inspiring leaders, and I can say without hesitation that passion is the No. 1 gentry that sets them apart. In crowd ways, my talk with Gardner reminds me of a conversation I one time had with Starbucks (SBUX) Chairman Howard Schultz. Like Gardner, Schultz used the expression. "passion" throughout our entire dialogue. But extraordinarily, the word "coffee" was rarely spoken. You see, for Schultz, coffee is not his passion. Instead, Schultz says, he is passionate about creating a workplace that "treats people with dignity and particular;" a workplace environment that his father never had the opportunity to experience. The coffee consequence offers the means to help Schultz fulfill his passion. In much the same passage, stock trading and commissions offered Gardner the means to fulfill his warmth of feeling, which was to give his son a part he never had—a father.

Passion is the foundation of effective communication. Dig deep to espy your inmost part purpose, your true passion. Once you connect to it, use it as fuel to build a rapport with your assemblage—recruiters, managers, employees, etc. Your presentations, pitches, speeches, and all forms of traffic communication exist disposed be more engaging than ever. Nearly everyone has room to increase what I call the "passion quotient"—the level of passion you exhibit as a speaker. The higher your passion quotient, the more likely you are to connect with people. Chris Gardner’s passion fueled his determination in the face of overwhelming odds and obstacles. Take the time to imagine where harnessing your passion can take you.

Business Exchange allied topics:EntrepreneurshipStarting a BusinessCareer ChangeManagement IdeasWork-Life Balance

The excellent 2006 Chateauneuf du Papes are now on the shelves. Here are some of the in the highest degree of the vintage, including common that earned 98 points

By Robert Parker

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Châteauneuf du Pape offers enormous diversity in styles. At its best, it’s a wine that has a deep ruby/purple color, a sumptuous texture, abounding body, and can evolve over 10 to 15-plus years. It often smells taste an open-air marketplace in Provence, with the aromas of lavender, fennel, licorice, black truffles, pepper, nutmeg, smoked meats, and ample quantities of sweet black cherries and blackberry fruit. Very appealing in their youth because of the sweetness of their tannins, Châteauneuf du Papes are remarkably flexible with an store of foods. Here are some of the excellent 2006s that are just hitting the marketplace.

89 points 2006 Paul Autard Châteauneuf du Pape

This ocean plum/garnet-hued 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape exhibits lovely berry fruit notes intermixed with scents of underbrush, licorice, roasted herbs, and plums. It is a grateful, soft, beautifully concentrated red that is best consumed over the next seven to eight years. $45

90 points 2006 Bois de Boursan Châteauneuf du Pape

The 2006 vintage is a very strong one for Bois de Boursan, and its regular cuvée of 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape is outstanding. With rich, attractive, gross notes, and plenty of floral and spice chest characteristics interwoven with murky, ripe red and wicked fruits, lavender, and oodles of Provençal typicity, it is full-bodied, obese, and already gorgeous to indulge in a drinking-bout, but promises to expand during the term of at least a decade or more. $35-$42

90 points 2006 Les Cailloux Châteauneuf du Pape

The 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape from Les Cailloux displays the vintage’s distinctive, explosively earthy, spicy, pungent, garigue-dominated essence of Provence-like aromatics. The fruit takes a back seat to the sharp, gross component. This full-bodied, supple-textured effort is already seductive and round. Enjoy it over the nearest 10 to 12 years. $35-$42

90 points 2006 Raymond Usseglio Châteauneuf du Pape Cuvée Girard

Raymond Usseglio’s 2006s are elegant wines. Between his two traditional cuvées, the 2006 Girard—the cuvée imported here to the U.S. by Peter Weygandt—is richer, deeper, with more meat, lavender, and licorice, although the one and the other are highly fine wines. The Girard gets the edge in points because tasting proves there’session besides there. $48

91 points 2006 Domaine Grand Veneur Châteauneuf du Pape

A sleeper of the vintage, the 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape from Grand Veneur is a seductive effort offering plenty of transitory state, tapenade, and spice as well as black cherry and cassis fruit. Deep, full-bodied, rich, chewy, and totally seductive, it be possible to be enjoyed very the nearest decade. $40-$45

91 points 2006 Vieux Donjon Châteauneuf du Pape

Vieux Donjon’s 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape reveals the vintage’s snappish, earthy spiciness longitudinally with notes of forest floor, root vegetables, black cherries, and meat. This rich, medium- to full-bodied effort possesses moderately soft tannin as well as good body, penetration, and richness. It is a strong effort that should maturity nicely for 15-plus years. $55-$60

93 points 2006 Charvin Châteauneuf du Pape

Charvin’s 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape has turned out to be one of the vintage’s top efforts. Lovely sweet notes of glove leather, roasted meats, savor box, ground pepper, kirsch, and raspberries are present in this not high, full-bodied 2006. More evolved than the 2007, with copious concentration, elegance, and a Burgundy grand cru-like complexity considered in the state of well at the same time that freshness, it should be enjoyed over the next 12 to 15-plus years. $65

93 points 2006 Domaine de la Janasse Châteauneuf du Pape

This compact purple-colored 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape, 80% foudre-aged grenache and 20% syrah and mourvèdre old in small barrels, offers a beautiful nosegay of blackberries, roasted meats, sweet herbs, and new saddle leather. Full-bodied and superconcentrated with none hard edges, it should drink beautifully for 12 to 15 years. $45

95 points 2006 Château Beaucastel Châteauneuf du Pape

Beaucastel’s 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape is performing even better from bottle than it did last year. Its dense plum/ruby/purple color is followed by a big, sweet perfume of negro truffles, camphor, earth, incense, new saddle leather, and loads of peppery, blackberry, and herb-infused, meaty, depressing cherry fruit. Deep, full-bodied, and dense, with darling tannin, this explosively rich Châteauneuf is a stronger attempt than the 2005, 2004, or 2003. Anticipated matureness: 2012-2028. $85

98 points 2006 Clos des Papes Châteauneuf du Pape

The 2006 Châteauneuf du Pape is one of the two or three candidates for the wine of the vintage. An extraordinarily huge wine, the 2006 is far higher to the 2005, which was amazing, and while made in a different style, is as great as the 2003, and such legends taken in the character of 1990 and 1978. Fashioned from a minuscule 21 hectoliters per hectare, and tipping the scales at 15.2% natural alcohol, the 2006 boasts a dense ruby/purple color to the rim, in addition to an extraordinary bouquet of melted licorice, spring flowers, raspberries, black currants, spice box, and earth. In the mouth, it is utterly profound—full-bodied and multidimensional with astonishing excellence, length, equilibrium, and intensity. This is a superb vintage according to proprietor Vincent Avril, and he deserves accolades for producing a wine of such incredible extremity and complexity. Think of Clos des Papes as a Châteauneuf du Pape through the entanglement of a top-notch grand cru Burgundy from the Côte de Nuits. $85

Jun Aoki, "the most intellectual maker in Japan," wins Japan’s top scheme prize during his off-kilter Tokyo office building, the SIA Aoyama

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Japanese architect, Jun Aoki.

By Kenji Hall

When Jun Aoki’s new building, SIA Aoyama, opened in Tokyo earlier this year, it wasn’t immediately obvious who the tenants were. Standing 60 meters tall, the smooth all-white tower looked as if it might have being apartments or offices or a hotel. And there was something slightly off-kilter relating to its design: Instead of regular wraparound windows, Aoki had created extensive, square punch-out windows of varying sizes that didn’t seem to line up. From outside, it’s difficult to tell where each level begins and ends. "It looks like an 18-story building, but because each overthrow has 6-meter-high ceilings, it’s only 9," says the 52-year-old Aoki. "I like the gap between appearance and reality."

On Nov. 6 the building earned Jun Aoki & Associates one of this year’sitting 15 Good Design Gold prizes, Japan’s top design award. The prize committee, appointed by the government-funded Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization, praised Aoki for a plot that "breaks away from the typical notion of what an office building should manner similar."

The SIA Aoyama doesn’t jump out at you the way the buildings of Frank Gehry or Zaha Hadid carry into practice. You wouldn’face to face notice it, for instance, if you were a moiety obstruct away on the main thoroughfare that connects Tokyo’s haunch Omotesando and Shibuya districts. And without ceasing a recent weekday afternoon, unkindly anyone walking by the agency of it stopped to look.

That’s fine with Aoki. He didn’t want the monolith to seem moreover extinguished of broad way in a neighborhood of homes and low-slung offices. So he gave the structure rounded corners and chose a white paint that had a splash of purple and gray mixed in and didn’t cast a glare in sunlight. "We musing its proportions should fall somewhere between that of an apartment and office," he says.

The tower is a shift for Aoki, whose six Louis Vuitton shops in Japan, New York, and Hong Kong have won him admiration abroad. His in the first place store towards the luggage maker, in the central Japanese city of Nagoya, set the tone for the others: They have a box-within-a-box appearance that Aoki created by layering glass windows with other materials. But the similarities end there. Another, built in 2002 in Tokyo’s Omotesando district, has a metal interstice curtain covering its glass facade and resembles several pieces of luggage stacked on top of each other. In the swank Roppongi Hills shopping area, he designed a shop where the Louis Vuitton mark is a clever connection of polished steel, glass tubes, and glass windows and resembles a hologram. "Aoki is the most intellectual author in Japan," says Taro Igarashi, an former and a professor at Tohoku University’s graduate control of engineering. "His designs are playful…and there are many hidden tricks to his work."

Aoki seems unfazed by all the attention he’s gotten latterly. A contracted mankind with a mustache and John Lennon glasses, he is disarmingly courteous. And heterogeneous Japan’s older generation of "starchitects" whose unvarying was collarless button-down shirts, Aoki prefers to rough it. He showed up for an interview in abraded jeans, a black long-sleeved shirt and a leather newsboy cap.

Aoki went into business for himself in the early ’90s after spending 17 years laboring with less than former Arata Isozaki. His timing couldn’t have been worse. Japan’sitting economic bubble had just imploded, and businesses and disembark developers were more interested in slashing costs than trying to add to Tokyo’s skyline. The resulting recession had a profound influence on his work, which ranges from homes and offices to a museum, a bridge, and every aquarium. "During the bubble years, a lot of money was spent on buildings that were utterly different," says Aoki.

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The Thanksgiving weekend is the busiest holiday weekend of the year for drivers going over Snoqualmie Pass and those heading southward of Seattle through Olympia.

The state Department of Transportation has released its recommended travel times so motorists can avoid gridlock.

Last year, on the day before Thanksgiving, travel times were doubled between 1 and 8 p.m. southbound on Interstate 5 between Seattle and Federal Way.

This is what the state is recommending:

• Interstate 90, North Bend to Cle Elum. The heaviest eastbound exchange Wednesday choose be between noon and 8 p.m., with particularly heavy traffic predicted on account of 4 p.olio. Westbound. Heavy traffic is expected between 1 and 6 p.housekeeping.

• On Sunday, the heaviest eastbound traffic is expected betwixt 11 a.m. and 5 p.mingle-mangle. Westbound. Expect heavy traffic from 1 to 7 p.m.

• On northbound Interstate 5 southerly of Olympia in succession Wednesday, look for stop and go traffic Wednesday from 1 to 5 p.affray. and heavy traffic beginning at 7 a.m. and continuing to 10 p.mingle-mangle.

Southbound, expect heavy congestion from 11 a.m. till 10 p.m.

On Sunday, northbound traffic will be heaviest betwixt 10 a.m. and 8 p.hotch-potch.; southbound between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m.

There are various Web sites to check on projected Thanksgiving traffic volumes.

For Puget Sound-area highways go to: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Congestion/ThanksgivingDay/2008chartsI90.htm

If you are crossing the border into Canada, you can check the DOT’s Web site, equipped through new cameras, notwithstanding intersection times. The crossing time information is available at www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/border/.

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One teenager is dead and a different wounded following a shooting this afternoon at Westfield Southcenter mall in Tukwila.

Police searched till about 9:30 p.m. because a suspect inside the mall, that was locked down after the shooting. Many shoppers and store employees fled the mall after shots were reported just before 3:45 p.m.

The two victims were transported to Harborview Medical Center. A Harborview spokeswoman confirmed the identity of the dead teen find to one’s mind Daiquin L. Jones, 16. A 15-year-old male child, Jermaine McGowen, remains in serious condition, but his injuries are described as non-life-threatening.

The impinging occurred near the toward the south main entrance of the mall, in a corridor near two restaurants. Police said they possess talked to one eyewitness and are reviewing surveillance tapes.

“We’re getting some pretty good make clear. I’m confident we’ll be able to make an check.” Tukwila police spokesman Mike Murphy uttered at the eleventh hour tonight.

The mistrust is described as a forbidding male in his late teens or early 20s, of medium build, about 5 feet 6 inches tall and 145 pounds. He was believed to be wearing a horrible jumpsuit through red piping.

Police before-mentioned the suspect used a pistol and fired multiple shots. Two people have been detained for questioning but, Murphy uttered, neither is the shooter.

It is unknown what led to the shooting, but, Murphy said, the shooting does not appear to be random. Asked whether the shooting was gang-related, Murphy said, “It’session an angle we’re looking at.”

A multi-agency SWAT team has been brought in to search the beetle. “The odds are going down every minute that we’re going to find him in in that place,” Murphy uttered. About 80 officers are at the mall tonight.

Murphy said officers confined the search to the beat to ensure the shooter wasn’t hiding in the interior of.

People inside the mall during the shooting described a chaotic scene.

Mark Nickels, 51, of Seattle, was adhering the other floor, when he heard the first shot. “Everybody just stopped. Everybody thought something fell. Then a second or two later, there was a second shot, and then everbody scattered. People were running to the (exits) or running to the stores to hide.”

Martin Rosenblum, a jeweler at Fast Fix Jewelry Repair, said he was about to leave the store for a late lunch when he axiom a flood of shoppers “running and screaming, They were declaration ‘Get out. Get out.’ Then the police came and (our stud) said the ‘lock the doors.’”

Chauncey Williams, a soldier from Fort Lewis, said he was coming out of J.C. Penney at the kind of time he saw two men arguing when one pulled a gun and started shooting. He said children were screaming and shoppers were running.

“I’ve got the heebie jeebies. It’s like I’m back in Iraq or something.”

Another shopper said she saw what looked like several teenagers contention, when the same pulled a gun. She said she heard a shot and ran into the Bare Escentuals store.

“I was standing in that place vigilance the restaurant while beneath us there was this loud bang,” said Heraclio Garnica, manager of the Thai Go eating-house in the heavy mallet’session second-level food courtyard.

“I turned my head to see what this colossal bang was total on the point. As soon as I turned I heard a second one, another cudgel,” he said. “There was lots of commotion, and people just started running. We ran for cover as well, inside one of the restaurants.” He then saw security officers running down the escalators to get to the scene.

Garnica said it had been one of the busiest days of the year for the restaurant and the mall had been packed with shoppers up until the shooting. But in the limits of minutes, he said, “the whole mall was just empty.”

Garnica’s stud, restaurant possessor Punya Tip, said everyone was panicked: “People just started screaming and then running,” after the shooting, he said.

The mall parking lot was a mess, witnesses said, as police evacuated people there from inside.

“Everyone’s standing around outside. There’s no movement. Cars are taking up every space and traffic’s not moving,” said a worker at the Olive Garden restaurant, located in the mall parking lot, concisely after the shooting.

Garnica reported he told his workers to leave: “They were regular scared and wanted to go domestic circle,” he said.

Two other canaille inside the mall were hospitalized during the evacuation, one a gravid woman who went into labor, Dave Nelson, prolocutor for Skyway Fire.

Seattle Times cudgel reporters Erik Lacitis, Nick Perry, Eric Pryne and Tan Vinh contributed to this story.