Coptic Church Chooses Pope Who Rejects Politics

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Coptic clergymen at a ceremony on Sunday for choosing a pope.

CAIRO — A blindfolded 6-year-old reached into a glass bowl on Sunday to pick the first new Coptic pope in more than 40 years, a patriarch who promises a new era of integration for Egypt’s Christian minority as it grapples with a wave of sectarian violence, new Islamist domination of politics, and internal pressures for reform.

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

The acting Coptic pope, before a banner of Bishop Tawadros, held up the names of other candidates to show that the selection was fair.

Speaking to the television cameras that surrounded him at his monastery in a desert town, the pope-designate, Bishop Tawadros, indicated that he planned to reverse the explicitly political role of his predecessor, Pope Shenouda III, who died in March. For four decades, Shenouda acted as the Copts’ chief representative in public life, won special favors for his flock by publicly endorsing President Hosni Mubarak, and last year urged in vain that Copts stay away from the protests that ultimately toppled the strongman.

“The most important thing is for the church to go back and live consistently within the spiritual boundaries because this is its main work, spiritual work,” the bishop said, and he promised to begin a process of “rearranging the house from the inside” and “pushing new blood” after his installation later this month as Pope Tawadros II. Interviewed on Coptic television recently, he struck a new tone by including as his priorities “living with our brothers, the Muslims” and “the responsibility of preserving our shared life.”

“Integrating in the society is a fundamental scriptural Christian trait,” Bishop Tawadros said then. “This integration is a must — moderate constructive integration,” he added. “All of us, as Egyptians, have to participate.”

Coptic activists and intellectuals said the turn away from politics signaled a sweeping transformation in the Christian minority’s relationship to the Egyptian state but also addressed a firm demand by the Christian laity to claim a voice in a more democratic Egypt.

“It can’t continue the way it used to be,” said Youssef Sidhom, editor of the Coptic newspaper Watani. “It is not in the interests of the Copts, if they are trying to speak for themselves as full and equal citizens, to have an intermediary speaking for them, and especially if he is a religious authority. I think the church has gotten this message loud and clear.”

In Egypt’s first free elections for Parliament and president, Christians voted overwhelmingly along sectarian lines, seeking to pool their votes around the most secular candidates — only to see their favorites fall under the Islamist tide. After the Muslim Brotherhood’s political party won parliamentary leadership and then the presidency, many Egyptians joked that the group put a candidate up for Coptic pope, too.

In recent interviews, intellectuals and activists, and churchgoers leaving Mass after the selection of the pope, all said they had concluded that Christians would have to build alliances with Muslims who shared their goal of nonsectarian citizenship.

“We are not the Muslim Brotherhood,” said Tarek Samir, a sales manager leaving the cathedral after the selection of Bishop Tawadros. “Politics is a dirty word to us, and we do not think it should be mixed with religion. But there are moderate Muslims who live the same life we do, who go to work with us, who live together with us, and if I am in trouble they will help me.”

Copts, often estimated to make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 80 million people, trace their roots here to centuries before the birth of the Prophet Muhammad. They consider St. Mark their first pope; Tawadros II will be the 118th. In some ways, they are now at the spearhead of a challenge confronting Christian minorities across the region amid the tumult of the Arab Spring. In Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere, Christian minorities had made peace with authoritarian rulers in the hope of protection from the Muslim majorities. But now the old bargains have broken, leaving Christians to fend for themselves.

In Egypt, the revolution last year coincided with by far the deadliest 12 months of sectarian violence in decades, including the bombing of an Alexandria church weeks before the revolt, the destruction of at least three churches in sectarian feuds, and the killing of about two dozen Coptic demonstrators by Egyptian soldiers squashing a protest — the single bloodiest episode of sectarian violence in at least half a century.

Known as the Maspero massacre after a nearby television building, the slaughter elicited attempts by top generals to blame the Copts and scant sympathy from the main Islamist groups, crystallizing Coptic anxieties.

Mayy El Sheikh and Mai Ayyad contributed reporting.

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Apple sells 3 million iPads since Friday

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Falcons remain unbeaten, hold off Cowboys 19-13

ATLANTA (AP) — For the Cowboys, it must have felt as if the Georgia Dome gave the Atlanta Falcons an overwhelming home-field advantage.

For the Falcons, it was the site of another underwhelming narrow victory.

Michael Turner gave Atlanta its first lead with a 3-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter, Matt Bryant kicked four field goals and the Falcons beat the Cowboys 19-13 Sunday night to extend their run as the NFL's only unbeaten team.

File this one behind the other close wins at home — by 6 over Denver, by 2 over Carolina and by 3 over Oakland.

The Falcons are 8-0, even if some of the uninspiring home wins draw more criticism than praise.

"We're not concerned with the doubters," Turner said. "This team's main focus is coming out and getting a win each game."

Turner had 20 carries for 102 yards and Matt Ryan completed 24 of 34 passes for a season-high 342 yards for the Falcons, who took their first lead with 14:16 left in the game.

"There's a reason they're undefeated halfway through the season," Dallas coach Jason Garrett said. "This is a challenging place to play at. I thought we did some good things in the ballgame. They did more good things. We didn't do enough to win this game in all three phases of our football team."

Tony Romo completed 25 of 35 passes for 321 yards for the Cowboys (3-5), who have dropped four of their last five games. They were held to 65 yards rushing, including 39 yards on nine carries by Felix Jones.

The Cowboys trailed 16-6 before Romo tried to put together a comeback. He completed all six of his attempts on a big drive that ended with a 21-yard TD strike to Kevin Ogletree.

The Falcons then worked the clock, holding the ball for 5 minutes, 4 seconds, leaving only 17 seconds after Bryant's 32-yard field goal.

The Cowboys burned all their timeouts as Ryan kept the Falcons' offense on the field in the crucial time-consuming drive. Ryan passed to Jacquizz Rodgers for 31 yards and 11 yards on third-down plays. A defensive holding call against cornerback Orlando Scandrick on another third down prolonged the possession.

Finally, the Cowboys stopped Turner on a third-down run at the Dallas 14.

Romo never attempted a deep pass, though he had only 17 seconds to cover 80 yards. He found Jason Witten for passes of 7 and 11 yards, leaving 9 seconds. He passed to Felix Jones for 8 yards, leaving time for one play from the Cowboys 40.

Romo scrambled before passing to Jones, who was dropped near the Atlanta 22 to end the game.

"I think any time you're in that situation you obviously want to get the ball back with a chance, and it's tough," Romo said. "That's why they're a good football team. They're tough to beat at home. They proved it when they were able to run the clock out at the end."

Roddy White had seven catches for 118 yards and passed Terance Mathis for the most receptions in Falcons history. Julio Jones had five catches for 129 yards.

There also is a new Dallas leader for career receptions. With seven catches for 51 yards, Witten has 754 for his career, passing Michael Irvin's record of 750.

Miles Austin led the Cowboys with seven catches for 76 yards.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said he was "extremely, extremely" disappointed.

"We certainly didn't plan to end up here at 3-5 halfway through the season," Jones said. "We've got some tough ballgames. We've got half our season left."

For three quarters, it was a kicking contest — and a pretty shaky one, too.

Bryant kicked field goals of 45 and 46 yards in the second quarter for Atlanta's only points before Turner's score. Bryant also missed from 43 and 37 yards, wide right each time.

Dan Bailey's field goals from 23 and 32 yards were the Cowboys' only points in the first half. He missed from 54 yards.

Ryan was sacked three times and faced constant pressure.

Ryan's 48-yard pass to Jones set up Bryant's 36-yard field goal in the fourth quarter, pushing the lead to 16-6.

NOTES: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell conducted a fan forum for Falcons season-ticket holders before the game. Goodell attended the Steelers-Giants game in East Rutherford, N.J., earlier Sunday. ... Mathis, who began his career with the Jets, had 573 catches with the Falcons from 1994-2002. White now has 577. ... Cowboys LB DeMarcus Ware had 1½ sacks and a forced fumble. ... Dallas DT Jay Ratliff injured his left leg late in the first half but returned in the second half. ... Falcons DT Peria Jerry left in the second quarter with a knee injury and did not return. ... Playing behind Felix Jones, Lance Dunbar had eight carries for 26 yards, including an 18-yard run.

___

Online: —http://pro32.ap.org/poll and —http://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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Well: Embracing Children for Who They Are

Contrary to what some parents might believe or hope for, children are not born a blank slate. Rather, they come into the world with predetermined abilities, proclivities and temperaments that nurturing parents may be able to foster or modify, but can rarely reverse.

Perhaps no one knows this better than Jeanne and John Schwartz, parents of three children, the youngest of whom — Joseph — is completely different from the other two.

Offered a bin of toys, their daughter, Elizabeth, picked out the Barbies and their son Sam the trucks. But Joseph, like his sister, ignored the trucks and chose the dolls, which he dressed with great care. He begged for pink light-up shoes with rhinestones and, at 3, asked to be “a disco yady” for Halloween.

Joseph loved words and books, but “our attempts to get him into sports, which Sam had loved so much, were frustrating bordering on the disastrous,” Mr. Schwartz, a national correspondent for The New York Times, wrote in a caring and instructive new memoir, “Oddly Normal: One Family’s Struggle to Help Their Teenage Son Come to Terms with his Sexuality” (Gotham Books).

“This is not just a book about raising a gay child,” Mr. Schwartz said in an interview. “It’s about raising children who are different,” both recognizing and adapting to those differences and being advocates for the children who possess them. Citing the novel “The Martian Child,” about an adopted son, he said, “We’ve got to take care of our little Martians.”

Adjust Expectations

The goal of parenting should be to raise children with a healthy self-image and self-esteem, ingredients vital to success in school and life. That means accepting children the way they are born — gay or straight, athletic or cerebral, gentle or tough, highly intelligent or less so, scrawny or chubby, shy or outgoing, good eaters or picky ones.

Of course, to the best of their ability, parents should give children opportunities to learn and enjoy activities that might be outside their natural bent. But, as attested to in many a memoir, forcing children to follow a prescribed formula almost always backfires.

For example, everyone in my family is a jock, with a strong belief in the importance of physical activity. Everyone, that is, except one of my four grandsons. Now 10, he is an intellectual, and has been since age 3, when he learned the entire world’s atlas of animals. He absorbs scientific information like a sponge and retains it. He can tell you about deep-sea creatures, planets and stars, chemical reactions, exotic caterpillars, geological formations — you name it — and he’s a whiz at the computer. But he has no athletic interest or apparent ability. His parents have introduced him to a variety of team and individual sports, but so far none has clicked.

Rather than try to remake him into someone he is not, the challenge for all of us is to appreciate and adapt to his differences, love him for who he is and not disparage him for what he is not. While the other three boys get basketballs, bicycles and tennis rackets as gifts, for his 10th birthday I gave him a huge book on the universe, which became his bedtime reading.

Lives Enriched

One persuasive voice for differences in children and how families must adapt better is Andrew Solomon, author of an ambitious new book, “Far From the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity,” published this month by Scribner. Mr. Solomon, a gay man who has fathered four children, one of whom he is raising with his husband, has explored in depth the challenges and rewards of family diversity.

Mr. Solomon, who has written articles for The Times, interviewed more than 300 families, most of whom have successfully raised children who are deaf, dwarfs, autistic, schizophrenic, transgender, are prodigies or have Down syndrome, as well as those who were conceived in rape or became criminals.

He makes a strong case for accepting one’s children for who they are and, at the same time, helping them become the best they can be. Especially poignant is his account of a family with a high-functioning son with Down syndrome. For years, the boy progressed academically on pace with his peers and was a poster child for what a person with Down syndrome could do. But when the son could go no further, his mother recognized that he needed to be in a group home.

“We had worked so hard to make him the Down syndrome guy who didn’t need it,” the mother told Mr. Solomon. “But I had to look at what was best for him, and not some ideal we had built up for ourselves.”

Most of the parents interviewed found a lot of meaning and many rewards in dealing with a child who was different. “They told me it has given them a so much richer life that they wouldn’t have given it up for all the world,” Mr. Solomon said. “There are many ways to exist in this world and many different ways to be happy.”

As Mr. Schwartz described Joseph: “He’s a delightful guy, a joy. I couldn’t have made that mold. You can’t expect your kids to turn out as you planned, but you can be thrilled by how they turn out.”

He added: “You want your children to achieve and be comfortable with who they are. You should advocate for them and help them develop the skills to advocate for themselves. But parents shouldn’t try to mold their children. When you expect your kids to fit into a mold, especially a mold of your own making, you’ll be disappointed.”

Schools, too, should know how to accommodate children who are different, said Mr. Schwartz, whose book details the struggles his son faced even in a town with great schools.

It’s not just a matter of schools dealing effectively with bullying, he said. “Jeanne and I believe schools can do a lot with the resources they have to embrace differences in kids and recognize when they are unduly stressed,” he said.

Even with accepting and encouraging parents, Joseph Schwartz was unable for years to acknowledge his gay identity, which resulted in serious academic, social and psychological problems. Each of Mr. Solomon’s families also faced identity struggles, and many were helped greatly by finding peers with similar challenges, a task made so much easier by the Internet.

For many parents, he said, raising children who were different was “an occasion for growth that introduced them to social networks they never imagined.”

He said, “It added richness to the lives of those who said they could see a positive side to having a child who was different.”

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A Media Vow of Election Night Restraint Despite Social Media Clamor

This has been the year of the big media gaffe.

NBC News edited a 911 tape of George Zimmerman in a way that implied race as a factor in the Trayvon Martin shooting. CNN and Fox News falsely reported that the Supreme Court had struck down the individual mandate at the heart of the Obama administration’s health care law. ABC News wrongly suggested a link between a mass shooting in Colorado and the Tea Party. Just last week during the storm, CNN repeated a false rumor about flooding at the New York Stock Exchange.

Now the media are gearing up for election night, the finale of the year’s biggest story. It’s a chance to regain some credibility — presuming, of course, that television networks and other news organizations get their state-by-state projections right. They all say they will, still mindful of the mistakes made in 2000, when the networks prematurely called Florida for Al Gore and then George W. Bush.

The same precautions that were put in place after 2000 will be in place again this Tuesday. At NBC, for instance, the statisticians at the “decision desk” that makes projections “are literally sealed off from the rest of us,” said Mark Lukasiewicz, the senior vice president of specials for NBC News.

Different this time will be the level of noise on the Web, where armchair and professional pundits alike will react to the election results in real time. On election night in 2008, a few Web sites, including Slate and Time.com, stated the obvious — that Barack Obama was going to win the presidency — well before the TV networks and major newspapers said so. In large part that’s because the networks and newspapers were waiting for the polls to close on the West Coast.

They will abide by the same principle again on Tuesday night, ruling out any such pronouncement before 11 p.m. Eastern. But more Web sites and individual users will most likely try to call the race early, creating a cacophony on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

A memo on Saturday to employees of The Associated Press, the country’s biggest news wire service, asked them to refrain from adding to the noise by posting to Twitter about other news outlets’ calls. “If A.P. has not called a particular state or race, it’s because we have specifically decided not to, based on the expertise and data we have spent years developing,” the memo read.

In calling a state for Mr. Obama or Mitt Romney, news organizations will consider several data sources, including exit poll results and raw vote totals — “a brain trust of data,” said Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews, the vice president for news for CBS News.

Executives at the major networks said in interviews that they don’t expect to be able to project a winner at 11 p.m. this year, given the closeness of the presidential race in several swing states. “I’m not even going to guess what time it will be,” said Marc Burstein, the senior executive producer for special events at ABC News. He predicted an abundance of caution this year because of the trend of early voting in many states.

For election night ABC is uniquely situated in Times Square, which filled up with supporters of Mr. Obama on election night in 2008. This time, too, “I expect a gigantic crowd,” Mr. Burstein said. NBC is expecting the same at Rockefeller Plaza, which it has re-christened Democracy Plaza with exhibits and video screens, just as it did in 2004 and 2008.

All of the executives interviewed said they would be entirely comfortable making projections after their competitors. “In a close contest, we’ll simply wait,” said Sam Feist, the Washington bureau chief for CNN. And all of them cited the journalism chestnut that it’s better to be right than first. “It’s always lovely when the two coincide,” said Ms. Ciprian-Matthews of CBS, “but everybody here is absolutely on the same page: accuracy comes first.”

Fox News did not respond to an interview request.

CNN, which was criticized for crowding its studio with anchors and analysts in 2008, will have more reporters in the field this time, including a half-dozen in Ohio alone. Reprising what it called “ballot cams” on primary nights, CNN will have crews at “key voting and vote-counting locations” in battleground states, Mr. Feist said.

“We proved during the primaries that doing real reporting on those nights can make a difference,” he said.

No matter the outcome, some partisans will claim that the election is illegitimate, if the election year rhetoric is to be believed. Continuing an effort that started in 2004, networks and other news outlets will ask the public to alert them to voter irregularities and allegations of voter suppression. “We have an entire team working on those stories,” Mr. Lukasiewicz of NBC said.

Dozens of news and opinion Web sites will offer essentially live coverage on election night, some with TV-like newscasts and others with live blogs. But the biggest audiences are still expected to tune to the big three broadcast networks, ABC, CBS and NBC, and the big three cable news networks, Fox News, MSNBC and CNN.

Four years ago, Brian Williams was the anchor on NBC, Charles Gibson on ABC and Katie Couric on CBS. Mr. Williams is back for his second presidential election night as anchor, but Mr. Gibson, who retired three years ago, will not; heading the coverage instead will be the pair that sat alongside him in 2008, Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos. Ms. Couric, now of ABC, will join them from time to time with social media reaction — a role that did not exist on the network’s coverage last time.

On CBS, Scott Pelley will anchor his first presidential election night. It’s also the first time for Rachel Maddow, on MSNBC, and Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly, on Fox News. On PBS, Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff will make up national television’s first two-woman anchor team on election night.

Half a dozen smaller channels will also have hours of live election talk, as will countless local stations — paid for in part by the revenue from innumerable election ads. Discussing the extent of the coverage, Mr. Feist of CNN said, “You cannot find an available high-definition satellite path for Tuesday night in this country. There are none left. The country is at capacity.”

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Benghazi Attack Raises Doubts About U.S. Abilities in Region

Esam Omran Al-Fetori/Reuters

The attack at the American Mission on Sept. 11, seen here, and an annex in Benghazi, Libya, points to a limitation in the capabilities of the American military command responsible for countries swept up in the Arab Spring.

WASHINGTON — About three hours after the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, came under attack, the Pentagon issued an urgent call for an array of quick-reaction forces, including an elite Special Forces team that was on a training mission in Croatia.

The team dropped what it was doing and prepared to move to the Sigonella naval air station in Sicily, a short flight from Benghazi and other hot spots in the region. By the time the unit arrived at the base, however, the surviving Americans at the Benghazi mission had been evacuated to Tripoli, and Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were dead.

The assault, on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has already exposed shortcomings in the Obama administration’s ability to secure diplomatic missions and act on intelligence warnings. But this previously undisclosed episode, described by several American officials, points to a limitation in the capabilities of the American military command responsible for a large swath of countries swept up in the Arab Spring.

At the heart of the issue is the Africa Command, established in 2007, well before the Arab Spring uprisings and before an affiliate of Al Qaeda became a major regional threat. It did not have on hand what every other regional combatant command has: its own force able to respond rapidly to emergencies — a Commanders’ In-Extremis Force, or C.I.F.

To respond to the Benghazi attack, the Africa Command had to borrow the C.I.F. that belongs to the European Command, because its own force is still in training. It also had no AC-130 gunships or armed drones readily available.

As officials in the White House and Pentagon scrambled to respond to the torrent of reports pouring out from Libya — with Mr. Stevens missing and officials worried that he might have been taken hostage — they took the extraordinary step of sending elite Delta Force commandos, with their own helicopters and ground vehicles, from their base at Fort Bragg, N.C., to Sicily. Those troops also arrived too late.

“The fact of the matter is these forces were not in place until after the attacks were over,” a Pentagon spokesman, George Little, said on Friday, referring to a range of special operations soldiers and other personnel. “We did respond. The secretary ordered forces to move. They simply were not able to arrive in time.”

An examination of these tumultuous events undercuts the criticism leveled by some Republicans that the Obama administration did not try to respond militarily to the crisis. The attack was not a running eight-hour firefight as some critics have contended, questioning how an adequate response could not be mustered in that time, but rather two relatively short, intense assaults separated by a lull of four hours. But the administration’s response also shows that the forces in the region had not been adequately reconfigured.

The Africa Command was spun off from the European Command. At the time it was set up, the Pentagon thought it would be devoted mostly to training African troops and building military ties with African nations. Because of African sensitivities about an overt American military presence in the region, the command’s headquarters was established in Stuttgart, Germany.

While the other regional commands, including the Pacific Command and the Central Command, responsible for the Middle East and South Asia, have their own specialized quick-reaction forces, the Africa Command has had an arrangement to borrow the European Command’s force when needed. The Africa Command has been building its own team from scratch, and its nascent strike force was in the process of being formed in the United States on Sept. 11, a senior military official said.

“The conversation about getting them closer to Africa has new energy,” the military official said.

Some Pentagon officials said that it was unrealistic to think a quick-reaction force could have been sent in time even if the African Command had one ready to act on the base in Sicily when the attack unfolded, and asserted that such a small force might not have even been effective or the best means to protect an embassy. But critics say there has been a gap in the command’s quick-reaction capability, which the force would have helped fill.

A spokesman for the command declined to comment on how its capabilities might be improved.

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Google's Android software in 3 out of 4 smartphones

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Barner, No. 2 Oregon beat No. 18 USC 62-51

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Kenjon Barner rushed for a school-record 321 yards and five touchdowns, Marcus Mariota threw four TD passes, and No. 2 Oregon produced another landmark offensive performance in a 62-51 victory over No. 18 Southern California on Saturday night.

Josh Huff caught two touchdowns, and De'Anthony Thomas and Daryl Hawkins also caught scoring passes for the Ducks (9-0, 6-0 Pac-12), who outlasted USC in a back-and-forth second half to extend their winning streak to 12 games since the Trojans (6-3, 4-3) won in Eugene last season.

Oregon's 730 yards and 62 points were the most ever allowed by USC, which began playing football in 1888.

Barner set a rushing record for a USC opponent by the third quarter, topping Curtis Enis' 241 yards for Penn State in 1996, and smashed the school record shortly afterward as the Ducks gradually pulled away in their closest game of the year.

Matt Barkley passed for 484 yards and four touchdowns while hitting Marqise Lee with 12 passes for 157 yards and two touchdowns for the Trojans, who have lost two straight after a 6-1 start.

The preseason No. 1 team hit a defensive nadir not even matched during Pete Carroll's final season in 2009, when several opponents destroyed the Trojans' defense.

Barner has already roared past Barkley in the Heisman Trophy race, and the product of Riverside, Calif., thoroughly entertained his friends and family members at the Coliseum with another dominant ground performance, capped by enthusiastic celebrations of every touchdown.

Mariota also carved up the Trojans for 304 yards passing, going 20 for 23 without an interception and rushing for another 96 yards.

USC's defense harassed Darron Thomas into a sub-par performance in this matchup last season, but the freshman who has replaced him showed absolutely no nerves in the historic stadium while playing against the team expected to be Oregon's biggest obstacle in Pac-12 play.

Oregon, which is likely to move up in the BCS standings after this win and Notre Dame's narrow victory, had won every game this season by at least 17 points. USC's offense did its part, scoring more points and gaining more yards (615) than Oregon had allowed all year.

The Trojans' defense simply couldn't keep up with Oregon's relentless pace and precision. Oregon took a 21-3 lead 12 seconds into the second quarter, but Barkley threw TD passes of 75 yards to Lee and 76 yards to Nelson Agholor in the second quarter.

Robert Woods also caught a scoring pass. The Trojans twice pulled within three points in the second half, but Barner was viciously effective on almost every drive.

Randall Telfer caught a short TD pass with 5:27 to play, and USC narrowly missed recovering an onside kick. Barkley had one more chance to drive, but turned it over on downs with 3 minutes left. Agholor had six catches for 162 yards, and Silas Redd rushed for 92 yards and two TDs.

The Trojans' 38-35 win in Eugene last November was arguably the highlight of Barkley's four-year career, snapping the Ducks' 21-game home winning streak and 19-game conference streak while knocking Oregon out of the national championship race. But USC got off to a fast start at Autzen Stadium in that shocker, and the Ducks were much quicker in the rematch at the Coliseum.

In fact, the Ducks needed just 65 seconds to take the lead, with Thomas' 16-yard TD reception capping a five-play drive while the late-arriving part of the sellout crowd filed into the Coliseum.

Oregon's second 75-yard TD drive of the first quarter required 3:11, but Huff finished it with a 21-yard TD catch.

The Trojans were reeling after Mariota orchestrated an 80-yard drive ending in Barner's 27-yard TD run on the second snap of the second quarter, but Barkley uncorked a 75-yard throw to Lee in stride for a score on the next snap from scrimmage.

Barkley also hit Woods and Agholor for scores in the final minutes before halftime to keep the lead down to 34-24.

The Ducks gained 460 yards in the first half, yet weren't in control. Redd's first TD trimmed the Ducks' lead to three points, but Oregon converted two fourth downs on their next drive, ending in Barner's third TD.

Lee returned the ensuing kickoff 82 yards, setting up Redd's second TD run.

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Opinion: Seeing Things? Hearing Things? Many of Us Do

HALLUCINATIONS are very startling and frightening: you suddenly see, or hear or smell something — something that is not there. Your immediate, bewildered feeling is, what is going on? Where is this coming from? The hallucination is convincingly real, produced by the same neural pathways as actual perception, and yet no one else seems to see it. And then you are forced to the conclusion that something — something unprecedented — is happening in your own brain or mind. Are you going insane, getting dementia, having a stroke?

In other cultures, hallucinations have been regarded as gifts from the gods or the Muses, but in modern times they seem to carry an ominous significance in the public (and also the medical) mind, as portents of severe mental or neurological disorders. Having hallucinations is a fearful secret for many people — millions of people — never to be mentioned, hardly to be acknowledged to oneself, and yet far from uncommon. The vast majority are benign — and, indeed, in many circumstances, perfectly normal. Most of us have experienced them from time to time, during a fever or with the sensory monotony of a desert or empty road, or sometimes, seemingly, out of the blue.

Many of us, as we lie in bed with closed eyes, awaiting sleep, have so-called hypnagogic hallucinations — geometric patterns, or faces, sometimes landscapes. Such patterns or scenes may be almost too faint to notice, or they may be very elaborate, brilliantly colored and rapidly changing — people used to compare them to slide shows.

At the other end of sleep are hypnopompic hallucinations, seen with open eyes, upon first waking. These may be ordinary (an intensification of color perhaps, or someone calling your name) or terrifying (especially if combined with sleep paralysis) — a vast spider, a pterodactyl above the bed, poised to strike.

Hallucinations (of sight, sound, smell or other sensations) can be associated with migraine or seizures, with fever or delirium. In chronic disease hospitals, nursing homes, and I.C.U.’s, hallucinations are often a result of too many medications and interactions between them, compounded by illness, anxiety and unfamiliar surroundings.

But hallucinations can have a positive and comforting role, too — this is especially true with bereavement hallucinations, seeing the face or hearing the voice of one’s deceased spouse, siblings, parents or child — and may play an important part in the mourning process. Such bereavement hallucinations frequently occur in the first year or two of bereavement, when they are most “needed.”

Working in old-age homes for many years, I have been struck by how many elderly people with impaired hearing are prone to auditory and, even more commonly, musical hallucinations — involuntary music in their minds that seems so real that at first they may think it is a neighbor’s stereo.

People with impaired sight, similarly, may start to have strange, visual hallucinations, sometimes just of patterns but often more elaborate visions of complex scenes or ranks of people in exotic dress. Perhaps 20 percent of those losing their vision or hearing may have such hallucinations.

I was called in to see one patient, Rosalie, a blind lady in her 90s, when she started to have visual hallucinations; the staff psychiatrist was also summoned. Rosalie was concerned that she might be having a stroke or getting Alzheimer’s or reacting to some medication. But I was able to reassure her that nothing was amiss neurologically. I explained to her that if the visual parts of the brain are deprived of actual input, they are hungry for stimulation and may concoct images of their own. Rosalie was greatly relieved by this, and delighted to know that there was even a name for her condition: Charles Bonnet syndrome. “Tell the nurses,” she said, drawing herself up in her chair, “that I have Charles Bonnet syndrome!”

Rosalie asked me how many people had C.B.S., and I told her hundreds of thousands, perhaps, in the United States alone. I told her that many people were afraid to mention their hallucinations. I described a recent study of elderly blind patients in the Netherlands which found that only a quarter of people with C.B.S. mentioned it to their doctors — the others were too afraid or too ashamed. It is only when physicians gently inquire (often avoiding the word “hallucination”) that people feel free to admit seeing things that are not there — despite their blindness.

Rosalie was indignant at this, and said, “You must write about it — tell my story!” I do tell her story, at length, in my book on hallucinations, along with the stories of many others. Most of these people have been reluctant to admit to their hallucinations. Often, when they do, they are misdiagnosed or undiagnosed — told that it’s nothing, or that their condition has no explanation.

Misdiagnosis is especially common if people admit to “hearing voices.” In a famous 1973 study by the Stanford psychologist David Rosenhan, eight “pseudopatients” presented themselves at various hospitals across the country, saying that they “heard voices.” All behaved normally otherwise, but were nonetheless determined to be (and treated as) schizophrenic (apart from one, who was given the diagnosis of “manic-depressive psychosis”). In this and follow-up studies, Professor Rosenhan demonstrated convincingly that auditory hallucinations and schizophrenia were synonymous in the medical mind.

WHILE many people with schizophrenia do hear voices at certain times in their lives, the inverse is not true: most people who hear voices (as much as 10 percent of the population) are not mentally ill. For them, hearing voices is a normal mode of experience.

My patients tell me about their hallucinations because I am open to hearing about them, because they know me and trust that I can usually run down the cause of their hallucinations. For the most part, these experiences are unthreatening and, once accommodated, even mildly diverting.

David Stewart, a Charles Bonnet syndrome patient with whom I corresponded, writes of his hallucinations as being “altogether friendly,” and imagines his eyes saying: “Sorry to have let you down. We recognize that blindness is no fun, so we’ve organized this small syndrome, a sort of coda to your sighted life. It’s not much, but it’s the best we can manage.”

Mr. Stewart has been able to take his hallucinations in good humor, since he knows they are not a sign of mental decline or madness. For too many patients, though, the shame, the secrecy, the stigma, persists.

Oliver Sacks is a professor of neurology at the N.Y.U. School of Medicine and the author, most recently, of the forthcoming book “Hallucinations.”

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Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Web Sites

Annie Tritt for The New York Times

Jeffrey G. Katz, the chief executive of Wize Commerce, seen with employees. He says that about 60 percent of the traffic for the company’s Nextag comparison-shopping site comes from Google.

In a geeky fire drill, engineers and outside consultants at Nextag scrambled to see if the problem was its own fault. Maybe some inadvertent change had prompted Google’s algorithm to demote Nextag when a person typed in shopping-related search terms like “kitchen table” or “lawn mower.”

But no, the engineers determined. And traffic from Google’s search engine continued to decline, by half.

Nextag’s response? It doubled its spending on Google paid search advertising in the last five months.

The move was costly but necessary to retain shoppers, Mr. Katz says, because an estimated 60 percent of Nextag’s traffic comes from Google, both from free search and paid search ads, which are ads that are related to search results and appear next to them. “We had to do it,” says Mr. Katz, chief executive of Wize Commerce, owner of Nextag. “We’re living in Google’s world.”

Regulators in the United States and Europe are conducting sweeping inquiries of Google, the dominant Internet search and advertising company. Google rose by technological innovation and business acumen; in the United States, it has 67 percent of the search market and collects 75 percent of search ad dollars. Being big is no crime, but if a powerful company uses market muscle to stifle competition, that is an antitrust violation.

So the government is focusing on life in Google’s world for the sprawling economic ecosystem of Web sites that depend on their ranking in search results. What is it like to live this way, in a giant’s shadow? The experience of its inhabitants is nuanced and complex, a blend of admiration and fear.

The relationship between Google and Web sites, publishers and advertisers often seems lopsided, if not unfair. Yet Google has also provided and nurtured a landscape of opportunity. Its ecosystem generates $80 billion a year in revenue for 1.8 million businesses, Web sites and nonprofit organizations in the United States alone, it estimates.

The government’s scrutiny of Google is the most exhaustive investigation of a major corporation since the pursuit of Microsoft in the late 1990s.

The staff of the Federal Trade Commission has recommended preparing an antitrust suit against Google, according to people briefed on the inquiry, who spoke on the condition they not be identified. But the commissioners must vote to proceed. Even if they do, the government and Google could settle.

Google has drawn the attention of antitrust officials as it has moved aggressively beyond its dominant product — search and search advertising — into fields like online commerce and local reviews. The antitrust issue is whether Google uses its search engine to favor its offerings like Google Shopping and Google Plus Local over rivals.

For policy makers, Google is a tough call.

“What to do with an attractive monopolist, like Google, is a really challenging issue for antitrust,” says Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School and a former senior adviser to the F.T.C. “The goal is to encourage them to stay in power by continuing to innovate instead of excluding competitors.”

SPEAKING at a Google Zeitgeist conference in Arizona last month, Larry Page, the company’s co-founder and chief executive, said he understood the government scrutiny of his company, given Google’s size and reach. “There’s very many decisions we make that really impact a lot of people,” he acknowledged.

The main reason is that Google is continually adjusting its search algorithm — the smart software that determines the relevance, ranking and presentation of search results, typically links to other Web sites.

Google says it makes the changes to improve its service, and has long maintained that its algorithm weeds out low-quality sites and shows the most useful results, whether or not they link to Google products.

“Our first and highest goal has to be to get the user the information they want as quickly and easily as possible,” says Matt Cutts, leader of the Web spam team at Google.

But Google’s algorithm is secret, and changes can leave Web sites scrambling.

Consider Vote-USA.org, a nonprofit group started in 2003. It provides online information for voters to avoid the frustration of arriving at a polling booth and barely recognizing half the names on the ballot. The site posts free sample ballots for federal, state and local elections with candidates’ pictures, biographies and views on issues.

In the 2004 and 2006 elections, users created tens of thousands of sample ballots. By 2008, traffic had fallen sharply, says Ron Kahlow, who runs Vote-USA.org, because “we dropped off the face of the map on Google.”

As founder of a search-engine optimization company and a recipient of grants that Google gives nonprofits to advertise free, Mr. Kahlow knows a thing or two about how to operate in Google’s world. He pored over Google’s guidelines for Web sites, made changes and e-mailed Google. Yet he received no response.

“I lost all donations to support the operation,” he said. “It was very, very painful.”

A breakthrough came through a personal connection. A friend of Mr. Kahlow knew Ed Black, chief executive of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Google. Mr. Black made an inquiry on Mr. Kahlow’s behalf, and a Google engineer investigated.

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