Fearful 'end of world' calls, emails flood NASA as Dec. 21 nears

If there's one government agency really looking forward to Dec. 22, it's NASA.

The space agency said it has been flooded with calls and emails from people asking about the purported end of the world — which, as the doomsday myth goes, is apparently set to take place Friday, Dec. 21.

The myth might have originated with the Maya calendar, but in the age of the Internet and social media, it proliferated online, raising questions and concerns among hundreds of people around the world who have turned to NASA for answers.

Dwayne Brown, an agency spokesman, said NASA typically receives about 90 calls or emails per week containing questions from people. In recent weeks, he said, that number has skyrocketed — from 200 to 300 people are contacting NASA per day to ask about the end of the world.

"Who's the first agency you would call?" he said. "You're going to call NASA."

The questions range from myth (Will a rogue planet crash into Earth? Is the sun going to explode? Will there be three days of darkness?) to the macabre (Brown said some people have "embraced it so much" they want to hurt themselves). So, he said, NASA decided to do "everything in our power" to set the facts straight.

That effort included interviews with scientists posted online and a Web page that Brown said has drawn more than 4.6 million views.

It also involved a video titled "Why the World Didn't End Yesterday." Though the title of the video implies a Dec. 22 release date, Brown said NASA posted the four-minute clip last week to help spread its message.

The website addresses several scenarios — the possibility of planetary alignments, total blackouts, polar shifts and "a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction" — but comes to the same conclusion.

In short, NASA says, "the world will not end in 2012."

"Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012," the website says.

The Griffith Observatory will also be trying to debunk doomsday predictions. It announced plans to stay open late Friday evening — until one minute past midnight — to "demonstrate that claims regarding the Maya calendar, planetary alignments, rogue planets, galactic beams, and other related phenomena have no basis in fact."

A few years ago, NASA suspected that it might have to create such a campaign when the idea of the world ending began "festering," Brown said. The apocalyptic action movie "2012," released in 2009, didn't help, he said.

"We kind of look ahead — we're a look-ahead agency — and we said, 'You know what? People are going to probably want to come to us' " for answers, Brown explained. "We're doing all that we can do to let the world know that as far as NASA and science goes, Dec. 21 will be another day."

As for Saturday, when the questions — not the world — end: "I wish it was tomorrow."

kate.mather@latimes.com

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Google to sell part of Motorola for $2.35 billion

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is selling Motorola Mobility‘s TV set-top business for $ 2.35 billion, lightening the load that the Internet search leader took on earlier this year when it completed the biggest acquisition in its history.

The cash-and-stock deal announced late Wednesday will turn over Motorola‘s set-top division to Arris Group Inc., a relatively small provider of high-speed Internet equipment that is looking to become a bigger player in the delivery of video. Investors applauded the move, driving up Arris‘ stock by nearly 17 percent.

Google‘s decision to jettison the set-top boxes comes seven months after the Mountain View, Calif., company took control of Motorola Mobility Holdings in a $ 12.4 billion purchase.

The set-top boxes were never a big allure for Google, although the company is interested in finding ways to pipe its service on to TVs so it can sell more advertising.

Google prized Motorola for its portfolio of more than 17,000 mobile patents. Those form an arsenal that it can use in a fierce battle that has broken out over intellectual property as smartphones and tablet computers have emerged as hot commodities in recent years.

Motorola also makes smartphones and tablets, a manufacturing business that Google will retain, despite lingering concerns on Wall Street about the hardware shrinking Google‘s profit margins and possibly alienating other device makers that use the company’s Android software.

Besides not being a natural fit for Google, Motorola‘s set-top box also has become a potentially expensive liability. Digital video recorder pioneer TiVo Inc. is seeking billions of dollars in damages in a lawsuit alleging that Motorola‘s boxes infringed on its patents. Those claims are scheduled to go to trial next year in federal court in Texas.

Although they declined to provide specifics, Arris Group executives told analysts in a Wednesday conference call that Google still must cover most of the bill for any damages or settlement that TiVo might win.

TiVo already has negotiated about $ 1 billion in combined settlements in other patent-infringement cases it has brought against other companies, including Dish Network Corp., AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications.

The proposed sale of Motorola‘s set-top division calls for Google to receive $ 2.05 billion in cash and $ 300 million worth of Arris stock. If the deal wins regulatory approval, Arris Group expects to take over the division before the end of June.

Google will also pare its expenses, something likely to please investors concerned about Motorola being a drag on the company’s earnings. Arris said about 7,000 people work in Motorola‘s set-top division. Google ended September with about 53,500 employees, including 17,400 who worked on the Motorola side of its operations. More than 20,000 people worked at Motorola Mobility when Google became the owner in late May, but the payroll was slashed as part of an effort to pare the losses that have been piling up within Motorola as its once popular cellphones lost market share to Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics.

But Motorola‘s set-top business had been making money, according to Google, though the company didn’t say how much.

In the past year ending in September, Motorola‘s set-top operations generated $ 3.4 billion in revenue. That makes it twice as big as Arris Group, whose revenue totaled $ 1.3 billion during the same period. Arris Group, which is based Suwanee, Ga., had earned $ 39 million through the nine months of last year after suffering a loss of nearly $ 13 million for all of 2011.

“This represents a great leap forward for Arris,” CEO Bob Stanzione said during Wednesday’s conference call.

Arris’ stock surged $ 2.46 to $ 17 in extended trading Wednesday while Google‘s stock dipped $ 2.61 to $ 717.50.

The other half of the old Motorola Inc., Motorola Solutions Inc., remains an independent company. Based in Schaumburg, Ill., it sells communications equipment to government and corporate customers.

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$66M Kinkade estate dispute secretly settled

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — Thomas Kinkade's widow and girlfriend have reached a settlement after a dispute over the late artist's $66 million estate, their attorneys said Wednesday.

The San Jose Mercury News reports (http://bit.ly/Wq5kti ) that counsel for Nanette Kinkade and his girlfriend Amy Pinto announced the settlement but wouldn't provide further details, leaving it unclear who will inherit Kinkade's San Francisco Bay area mansion and his warehouse of paintings.

In a statement, they said the women kept Kinkade's message of "love, spirituality and optimism" in their amicable resolution.

The dispute went public after the 54-year-old artist died April 6 from an accidental overdose of alcohol and prescription tranquilizers.

Pinto, who began dating Kinkade six months after his marriage of 28 years imploded, claimed Kinkade wrote two notes bequeathing her his mansion and $10 million to establish a museum of his paintings. Her lawyers filed court papers stating that she and Kinkade had planned to marry as soon as his divorce went through.

Nanette Kinkade disputed those claims and sought full control of the estate. She portrayed Pinto in court papers as a gold-digger who is trying to cheat the artist's rightful heirs.

Kinkade, the self-described "Painter of Light," was known for sentimental scenes of country gardens and pastoral landscapes. His work led to a commercial empire of franchised galleries, reproduced artwork and spin-off products that was said to fetch some $100 million each year in sales.

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Recipes for Health: Spiced Roasted Almonds

Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times

Spiced roasted almonds.

Roasted nuts are standard snacks, and almonds are a healthy food. But it is easy to eat too many. I find that if they are a little spicy or hot, delicious as they are, they are not quite as addictive.

 

3 cups (about 400 grams) almonds

2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

Salt to taste

1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon cayenne, or to taste

1 to 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 to 1 teaspoon crumbled dried thyme (optional)

 

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Toss the almonds with olive oil, salt and cayenne, and place on a baking sheet. Roast in the hot oven until they begin to crackle and smell toasty, 15 to 20 minutes. Be careful when you open the oven door because the capsicum in the cayenne is quite volatile, so avoid breathing in, and be careful of your eyes. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. Toss with the thyme.

Yield: 3 cups (about 20 handfuls)

Advance preparation: Keep these in an air tight container in the freezer and they will be good for a couple of weeks.

Nutritional information per 20 grams (about 18 almonds): 119 calories; 10 grams fat; 1 gram saturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 7 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 milligrams cholesterol; 4 grams carbohydrates; 2 grams dietary fiber; 0 milligrams sodium (does not include salt to taste); 4 grams protein

 

​Up Next: Marinated Olives

 

Martha Rose Shulman is the author of “The Very Best of Recipes for Health.”

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UBS to pay $1.5 billion to settle Libor charges

UBS has agreed to pay a fine of $1.5 billion to authorities and plead guilty to a felony count of wire fraud, the most recent developments in a far-reaching probe into how banks manipulated interest rates leading up to the financial crisis.

Two former traders were also charged with conspiracy in a complaint unsealed Wednesday, the first people charged criminally in the Libor scandal.

"We cannot and we will not tolerate misconduct on Wall Street of the kind admitted to by UBS today and by Barclays last June," said Assistant Atty. Gen. Lanny Breuer, head of the criminal division. In June, Barclays was the first bank to settle with authorities, paying $450 million.

The fine was one of the biggest leveled against a financial institution by American and British authorities, just short of the $1.9-billion fine HSBC agreed to pay last week over money laundering allegations.

The charges relate to the ways traders leaned on banks to manipulate the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, to benefit their own trading positions.

Officials said that from 2006 through 2009 UBS traders placed bets on the movement of Libor and manipulated the rate, which is used as a benchmark to set interest rates for many mortgages, credit cards and other consumer lending instruments. The traders profited by knowing which way the Libor would move.

In coming months, the probe probably will expand to include other banks that help determine the Libor, analysts say. But it's the criminal charges that turned some heads on Wall Street on Wednesday.

The plea agreement on wire fraud charges by a UBS subsidiary in Japan, which included a $100-million fine, marks the first time since 2005 that a major financial institution has pleaded guilty to criminal charges, the Justice Department said.

"For a bank to admit to criminality is kind of mind-blowing," said Peter Shapiro, managing director of Swap Financial Group in South Orange, N.J. "Obviously, they didn't do that easily — that was something that must have been a big priority of enforcement agencies."

Enforcement agencies have been feeling some pressure to level blame on financial institutions in the wake of the financial crisis, Shapiro said. No senior financial executives have served jail time for their roles in the financial crisis.

"Both the regulators and enforcement agencies feel somewhat beleaguered by the repeated assertions that they failed to deliver enough heads on a plate as a response to the financial crisis," he said.

U.S. officials also announced criminal charges against two former senior traders for UBS in connection with the scandal. Tom Alexander William Hayes, 33, of Britain, was charged with conspiracy and wire fraud, and Roger Darin, 41, of Switzerland, was charged with conspiracy. Both remain abroad, but the Justice Department will try to extradite them.

"The motivation here was nothing short of sheer greed, and the scheme was nothing short of a shell game, a Wall Street version of three-card monte," said Kevin Perkins, associate director of the FBI, which helped investigate the case.

More criminal charges at other banks could follow, said Anthony Sabino, professor of law at the Tobin College of Business at St. John's University.

"Once you start to round up some accused bad guys, that leads to more people being rounded up," he said. "This is a vast conspiracy among a multitude of banks, which therefore implicates a multitude of individuals."

Much of the activity took place at UBS Japan Securities Co., where Hayes was a senior trader. The Justice Department released internal UBS messages in which Hayes and others talked about their alleged manipulation.

In one from November 2006, Hayes told a UBS employee who submitted rate information for the Libor that he and Darin "skew the Libors a bit" and then said he needed the six-month rate to stay high for three days.

UBS traders were often colorful and emphatic in their pleadings, according to documents released by Britain's Financial Services Authority. One wrote, "I need you to keep it as low as possible.... If you do that, I'll pay you, you know, $50,000, $100,000, whatever you want."

The UBS fine was larger than that leveled on Barclays earlier in the year because UBS' misconduct was "considerably more serious than Barclays' because it was more widespread within the firm," the Financial Services Authority said. At least 45 individuals at UBS were involved in or aware of the rate-fixing practice.

UBS said that it had fully cooperated with authorities and that the interest-rate manipulations were the isolated actions of certain employees.

"Their misconduct does not reflect the values of UBS nor the high ethical standards to which we hold every employee," UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti said in a statement.

Analysts say that there's still potential for significant civil suits against UBS and other banks, which could be more damaging than the fines levied against them. Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, an equity research firm, estimated in July that potential industry damages could reach $35 billion.

Those estimates were validated Wednesday when the Inspector General for the Federal Housing Finance Agency estimated that government-owned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may have lost a combined $3 billion because of reduced interest payments on securities and other holdings. Officials at FHFA, which regulates Fannie and Freddie, have not confirmed the estimate but are evaluating potential issues involved with the Libor manipulation.

There are barriers to further lawsuits — the burden of proof will be high, analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods said. To move forward with civil suits, plaintiffs would have to prove that traders were conspiring, said John C. Coffee, a Columbia Law School expert in corporate fraud.

"But that said, the size of the potential liability is mushrooming," he said.

Times reporter E. Scott Reckard contributed to this report. Semuels reported from Los Angeles and Puzzanghera from Washington.

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Gun lobby's grip on Congress threatened

WASHINGTON — The gun-control debate sharpened Tuesday as President Obama backed an effort to revive the assault weapons ban spearheaded by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is poised to have a powerful new role as the head of the Senate committee overseeing gun laws.

Calls for federal gun restrictions were mounting following last week's shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. — even from lawmakers who had rejected them in the past. The National Rifle Assn. and its allies have successfully kept such efforts at bay for years, but the slayings of 20 children have roiled the politics of gun control and now challenge the gun lobby's hold on Capitol Hill.

The NRA broke its four-day silence Tuesday, saying it "is prepared to offer meaningful contributions to help make sure this never happens again," but offered no details. The group plans to hold a news conference Friday.

The gun lobby faces a newly empowered opponent in Feinstein, a Democrat, who is in line to succeed Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) as chairwoman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, with the power to call hearings and move new legislation.

Feinstein said Tuesday that on the first day of the next Congress she would introduce an updated version of the expired assault weapons ban that she helped pass in 1994. As drafted, the measure would ban the Bushmaster .223 rifle that Adam Lanza used in the Newtown slayings, which also left six school employees dead.

"This is an uphill climb," she said. "Sure, it's tough, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try."

The issue is personal for Feinstein, who became mayor of San Francisco in 1978 after then-Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot to death at City Hall. A pen President Clinton used to sign the assault weapons ban hangs prominently in her Capitol Hill office.

Feinstein has the backing of Obama, who vowed Sunday in Newtown to harness the power of his office to try to prevent future massacres.

The president put little effort into gun legislation during his first four years in the White House, despite several mass shootings — including one in Tucson that left six people dead and 13 wounded. Then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat, was shot in the head and nearly killed.

On Tuesday, spokesman Jay Carney said that Obama was "actively supportive" of Feinstein's effort to reinstate the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, and that he would back support legislation to tighten sales at gun shows.

An NRA spokesman declined to comment on the calls for gun control. But the group released a statement saying it was "shocked, saddened and heartbroken by the news of the horrific and senseless murders in Newtown."

"Out of respect for the families, and as a matter of common decency, we have given time for mourning, prayer and a full investigation of the facts before commenting," the statement continued.

The gun lobby's influence is renowned: It easily swept back efforts to toughen federal gun laws after the 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, as well as the July movie theater massacre in Aurora, Colo., that left 12 dead and dozens wounded. Much of the NRA's power stems from its relentless lobbying and an increasingly polarized House, which is controlled by the group's Republican allies.

Few doubt the NRA will wield substantial influence in the debate, joined by even more vociferous groups, such as Gun Owners of America, which sees the NRA as too willing to compromise.

Michael Hammond, legislative counsel for Gun Owners of America, said his group wouldn't retreat an inch from its opposition to restrictions, including a ban on high-capacity magazines like those used in Newtown.

"I think it's a horrible idea," he said, saying such magazines are valuable in self-defense. Lanza used magazines that held 30 rounds each.

Hammond noted that gun-rights supporters have faced hostile political environments in the past. After the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School that left 12 students, a teacher and two gunmen dead, he said, "things looked very bleak for the 2nd Amendment community." Despite the increase in public support for gun control at the time, his group and others turned back efforts to tighten gun laws.

Still, both allies and opponents say the gun lobby faces a much steeper fight this time. Those calling for tougher gun laws include longtime NRA allies, such as Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), who met Tuesday with Feinstein and spoke with Obama by phone.

Susan Ginsburg, who coordinated firearms policy at the Treasury Department during the Clinton administration, says she believes the Newtown massacre will lead to new gun restrictions.

"I don't think this is going to fade back into invisibility again," she said. "We seem to have turned a corner in which it's just not acceptable for children to be killed like that."

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Cassadee Pope wins Season 3 of 'The Voice'

NEW YORK (AP) — Cassadee Pope, who was country singer Blake Shelton's protege on the third season of NBC's "The Voice," has won the show's competition.

The 23-year-old singer is stepping out into a solo career after performing with a band called Hey Monday. Her victory over Scottish native Terry McDermott and long-bearded Nicholas David was announced at the end of a two-hour show Tuesday.

"The Voice" has grown into a hit for NBC and was the key factor in the network's surprising success this fall.

The show's status was affirmed by the stream of hitmakers who performed on the finale. They included Rihanna, Bruno Mars, the Killers, Smokey Robinson and Peter Frampton.

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Church Officials Call on Filipinos to Campaign Against Birth Control Law

MANILA — After losing a battle to stop the passage of a contentious birth control law, Roman Catholic Church officials on Tuesday dug in and instructed their millions of followers to campaign against the measure in communities, schools and homes.

“Let us intensify the moral spiritual education of our youth and children so that they can stand strong against the threats to their moral fiber,” Archbishop Socrates Villegas said in a statement. “Let us use all the means within our reach to safeguard the health of expectant mothers in our communities.”

The Philippine Congress passed legislation on Monday to help the country’s poorest women gain access to birth control. Each chamber of the national legislature passed its own version of the measure, and minor differences between the two must be reconciled before the measure goes to President Benigno S. Aquino III for his signature.

The measure had been stalled for more than a decade because of determined opposition from the church in this overwhelmingly Catholic country.

Birth control is legal and widely available in the Philippines for people who can afford it, particularly those living in cities. But condoms, birth control pills and other forms of contraception are sometimes kept out of community health centers and clinics by local government and Catholic Church officials.

The measure passed on Monday would stock government health centers, including those in remote areas, with free or subsidized birth control options for the poor. It would also require sex education in public schools and family-planning training for community health officers.

Archbishop Villegas, the vice president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, on Tuesday encouraged Catholics to resist the measure by disseminating information about natural family planning methods and warning people about “the hazardous effects of contraceptive pills on the health of women.”

“Let us conduct our own sex education of our children insuring that sex is always understood as a gift of God,” Archbishop Villegas stated. “Sex must never be taught separate from God and isolated from marriage.”

Bishop Gabriel V. Reyes, chairman of the conference’s Episcopal Commission on Family and Life, said after the vote Monday that “we need to explain to our fellow believers that they ought to refuse contraceptives even when they are being offered these.”

The Philippines has one of the highest birthrates in Asia, but backers of the legislation, including the Aquino administration, have said repeatedly that its purpose is not to limit population growth. Rather, they say, the bill is meant to offer poor families the same reproductive health options that wealthier people in the country enjoy.

Though lacking the numbers needed to defeat the legislation, lawmakers who opposed the measure sought to delay the vote. In one instance, an opposition senator proposed 35 amendments just before a vote was to take place.

Often the debate took bizarre turns, as when a congressman claimed that the birth control measure was a plot by the Philippine Communist Party to take over the government.

In another instance, a male senator requested removal of the phrase “satisfying sex” from a passage in the bill that referred to “safe and satisfying sex.” Several female senators opposed its removal, and the amendment was debated live on television while social media networks crackled with sarcastic commentary. “I am a Filipina,” Senator Miriam Santiago said in response to the amendment. “I am also a married woman, and I insist whoever is married to me should give me safe and satisfying sex, period.”

During a vote on the measure in the House of Representatives, the boxer and congressman Manny Pacquiao linked the birth control measure to his having been knocked unconscious on Dec. 8 by Juan Manuel Marquez during their W.B.O. world welterweight fight in Las Vegas.

“Some thought I was dead,” Mr. Pacquiao said in a speech explaining his vote against the measure. “What happened in Vegas strengthened my already firm belief in the sanctity of life.” He added: “Manny Pacquiao is pro-life. Manny Pacquiao votes no.”

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Instagram draws ire over new user rules

SAN FRANCISCO — When it comes to policy changes, Instagram could have used a filter of its own.

Its usually devoted users threatened to delete their accounts en masse Tuesday if the popular photo-sharing app did not roll back new terms of service that appeared to give the company ownership of their images. Instagram users — about 100 million now — snap the photos on their smartphones, apply digital filters to enhance the photos and then instantly share them with friends.

"Dear @Instagram, why did you think we'd just be OK with your new terms? They are NOT COOL. Signed, The Entire Internet," Jason Pollock, a Los Angeles filmmaker and social media consultant, wrote on Twitter.

Instagram founder Kevin Systrom tried to calm the uproar and reassure users in a blog post Tuesday afternoon.

"Instagram does not claim any ownership rights over your photos," he wrote. "We respect that your photos are your photos. Period."

Instagram's new terms of service announced Monday included a clause stating that Instagram had the right to turn images into advertisements without any approval from or compensation for users starting Jan. 16. — part of Facebook's drive to make money from the service it bought this year for $715 million in cash and stock.

That angered amateur and professional photographers alike — even Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's wedding photographer.

"Pro or not if a company wants to use your photos for advertising they need to TELL you and PAY you," Noah Kalina said on Twitter.

The effort to make money from Instagram users struck a nerve. According to the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, nearly half of Internet users post photos and videos online that they have created themselves.

Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said Instagram quickly realized it had "overplayed its hand." But its mea culpa blog post still contains plenty of loopholes, he said.

"They say they don't have any plans to put your photos in an advertisement, but nevertheless that is the permission they were seeking," Opsahl said. "We will have to see what the language of the terms of service looks like after they revise it."

Jeff Lawrence, a 29-year-old DJ, graphic designer and photographer from Seattle, said he'll decide if he's dumping Instagram after he sees what the company plans to do in black and white.

"Thankfully we are all Internet savvy enough to know that people can say one thing and do another," said Lawrence, an avid Instagram user. "I am going to wait and see if Instagram takes this criticism to heart and changes the terms of service."

The backlash underscored the rising tensions between users of free social media services and the companies that are trying to profit from them. More users are asking for more control over how these companies handle their information.

Clayton Cubitt, 40, a photographer and filmmaker from Brooklyn, N.Y., quickly dubbed the new terms of service a "suicide note" from Instagram.

He urged his fellow Instagram users to revolt against the current policies at social media companies that he described as "you have a free place to post content and in exchange the company sucks the soul out of your life."

"They look at users as a herd to milk," Cubitt said.

His rants may have angered Zuckerberg, but Zuckerberg's sister Arielle Zuckerberg publicly "liked" Cubitt's Instagram snapshot of the most controversial part of Instagram's terms of service.

It's unclear if the Instagram backlash will cause lasting damage to the service.

Hacker collective Anonymous had urged its more than 780,000 Twitter followers to ditch Instagram with the hashtag #BoycottInstagram and posted screen shots from followers who had. The servers of Instaport.me, which helps users download their photos from Instagram, were overloaded Tuesday as Instagram users deleted their accounts and switched to other options such as Hipstamatic and Twitter's new photo service that has filters similar to Instagram. Yahoo said it has seen "strong interest" in its new Flickr app for iPhones.

Many Instagram users said they would give Instagram the benefit of the doubt — for now.

"I am going to rage about it, and get people to rage about it, until we change their policy," Pollock, 31, said in an interview. "There is just something so personal and beautiful about Instagram. Hopefully they don't completely ruin it."

jessica.guynn@latimes.com

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Newport Beach dock renters may withhold holiday love

Marcy Cook embraces the holiday season. The tell? Start with the teddy bears dressed as Santa. More than 1,500 stand sentry around and inside her Newport Beach waterfronthome. Garland and strings of lights threaten to strangle the place like kudzu.

"We decorate a little bit, if you haven't noticed," said Cook, 69. "It's the highlight of the year for us."

Each Christmas, Newport Harbor is ablaze in lights as homeowners go to extraordinary lengths to complement the city's annual Christmas Boat Parade — an indelible tradition that renews itself Wednesday night and continues through Sunday.

But this has been a stressful season here along the tranquil waterfront lined with multimillion-dollar homes.

An increase in city rental fees for residential docks that protrude over public tidelands created a furor when it was approved last week by the City Council.

It also prompted a call to boycott the boat parade and festival of lights by a group calling itself "Stop the Dock Tax."

"It costs us thousands of dollars to voluntarily decorate our homes and boats to bring holiday smiles to nearly 1 million people," organization Chairman Bob McCaffrey wrote to the city. "This year, we are turning off our lights and withdrawing our boats in protest of the massive new dock tax we expect the City Council to levy."

Pete Pallette, a fellow boycott proponent and harbor homeowner, told city leaders the group would call off the boycott only if the council delayed voting on the rent hike. "Otherwise," he vowed, "game on."

In a place where homes come with names and mega-yachts bob in the harbor, it might appear the wealthy are wielding a weapon most often reserved for the masses. A holiday blackout, proponents say, will underscore their displeasure.

Newport's dock fee, which has stood at $100 a year for the last two decades, will now be based on a dock's size. The city says rents will increase to about $250 for a small slip to $3,200 annually for a large dock shared by two homeowners.

"People have been paying $8 a month all these years to access what is public waters," said Newport Beach City Manager Dave Kiff. "That's a pretty good deal. The City Council didn't think the increase it approved was too extreme."

Many did.

They packed council meetings when the hike was discussed, accusing the city of an excessive money grab.

They brushed aside the city's rationale: Statelawmandates cities charge fair market rents for the private use of public lands, and Newport Beach was only now catching up.

And they were unmoved by arguments that the extra revenue will go exclusively to badly needed repairs to a harbor that, despite outward appearances, needs a lot of work.

The city's five-year plan for the harbor calls for $29 million in long-overdue maintenance. Its silt-filled channels haven't been fully dredged since the Great Depression. Ancient, leaky sea walls protecting neighborhoods need to be repaired or replaced.

"We have the makings of a perfect storm like they did on the East Coast" during Superstorm Sandy, said Chris Miller, the city's harbor resources manager. "The sea walls are nearing the end of their useful life."

Even with the rent increases, Newport's dock owners will contribute a tiny fraction of that cost — the rest coming from the federal government and the city's general operating fund.

As dock owners fumed over having to pay more, others recoiled at the proposed boycott of the boat parade, which dates to 1908 when a single gondola led eight canoes illuminated by Japanese lanterns around the harbor. It has now swelled to a decent-sized armada of dozens of boats — some carrying paying customers — that circle past the decorated harbor-front homes.

"The boycott is ridiculous," said Shirley Pepys, whose frontyard on Balboa Island has been taken over by a family of penguins dressed for a Hawaiian luau.

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