Erica blog

Juve's Matri returns to haunt Cagliari

ROME (AFP) – Alessandro Matri returned to haunt his former club Cagliari on Saturday when he scored twice in Juventus's 3-1 win.

The victory ended a run of three straight defeats and eased the pressure on Juve coach Luigi Delneri.

Matri's goals sandwiched a strike from Cagliari's Robert Acquafresca before Luca Toni scored a late clincher.

It was a vital win for Juve as well with champions Inter Milan the visitors to Turin next week.

"It can be more difficult to play against Cagliari than against Inter," said Delneri.

"Who we're playing doesn't change anything for us.

"We have to show that we're a team that knows how to suffer, able to keep its feet on the ground and going forward week after week."

Cagliari coach Roberto Donadoni said it was strange seeing former charge Matri scoring against his team.

"It makes an impression seeing Matri score not for the Cagliari shirt as he was doing until a few days ago but for another shirt," he said.

"For sure, this time Matri didn't make Cagliari happy."

Cagliari goalkeeper Michael Agazzi had a match to forget as he was at fault for all three Juve goals.

On 20 minutes Matri tried his luck from just inside the area, shooting hard towards the near post but although Agazzi looked to have it covered, he let it slip through his grasp.

He then committed an absolute howler, letting a shot from Giorgio Chiellini slip through his fingers before being saved by an offside flag.

If Cagliari had failed to create much in the first half, they were a transformed team after the break.

Just six minutes after the restart, Andrea Cossu found space out on the left and chipped an inswinging cross behind the Juve defence where Acquafresca ran on to acrobatically volley home across Gianluigi Buffon.

The hosts could have had a second on the hour as Cossu cleverly took a quick free-kick, chipping over the napping Juve defence where Daniele Conti ran onto it but could not get a true contact on the ball and sliced it off target.

Matri had another chance but sent a near-post header just past the upright.

Midway through the half, Juve substitute Alessandro Del Piero tried his luck from range but shot too high.

Matri got his second on 75 minutes as he arrived at the back post to volley home Chiellini's cross, although Agazzi's positioning was again suspect.

Cagliari thought they had drawn level late on when Nene headed home a free-kick but it was disallowed for a foul on Toni.

And moments later Toni scored his first goal for the club six minutes from time to put the game to bed, heading home a Del Piero cross from 17 yards out, although again Agazzi's positioning looked questionable.

Udinese continued their bid for a Champions League finish as they beat Sampdoria 2-0 to move to within a point of the top four.

It was their fifth win, alongside two draws, since the turn of the year and only Inter Milan have gained more points than them in 2011.

Striker Antonio Di Natale reached 100 league goals for the club as he notched the second following Alexis Sanchez's opener.

"I've been waiting two weeks for that," said Di Natale.

"We're safe (having reached 40 points) now so we need to get as many points as possible and then see where we are."

For Sampdoria it was a fourth straight defeat in all competitions as the club continues to slide following the departure of strike-pair Antonio Cassano and Giampaolo Pazzini to AC Milan and Inter respectively.

J-Lo at Obama Super Bowl Party

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Actress and music diva Jennifer Lopez will top the bill at US President Barack Obama's annual Super Bowl party on Sunday, as the Green Bay Packers take on the Pittsburgh Steelers for the NFL championship.

J-Lo will be joined by husband Marc Anthony at the White House party, also featuring top officials including Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a senior US official said.

At one point, Obama had high hopes for the big title game, as his beloved Chicago Bears made it to the semi-final stage, but were knocked out by the Packers, the pride of Wisconsin.

Obama will be seeking a piece of the Super Bowl XLV action himself on Sunday, as he will grant a rare interview to Fox television's conservative talk show host Bill O'Reilly as part of the network's build-up to the big game.

Does Egypt prove Bush was right?

New York – George W. Bush said we could launch a wave of democratic reform in the Arab world by standing firm against tyranny. Does the uprising in Egypt vindicate him?

Surprisingly, President Obama's handling of the Egypt revolt hasin Washington. Aover his predecessor's policies, and the specific question of whetherthe waves of popular uprisings in the Middle East vindicate President George W. Bush's "freedom agenda." Is Bush's promotion ofU.S.-fostered democracy in the region just now bearing fruit, or areArabs revolting in spite of Bush's Mideast record?

Obama blew it by ditching the Bush Doctrine: The uprisings sweeping across the Mideast "make it clear that Bush had it right," , and that "the Obama administration's abandonment" of Bush's push for Arab "self-government" is "nothing short of a tragedy." If Obama hadn't "dismissed Bush's 'freedom agenda' as overly ideological," the wave would have started sooner, and spread wider.

Bush set back the democracy movement: "What exactly is the 'it' that George W. Bush supposedly had right?" . The "centerpiece" of his "freedom agenda" was trying to inject democracy into Iraq "through the barrel of a gun," which did more to "sour Middle Easterners on the idea of political change in the name of democracy and freedom" than anything else. A "push" from the U.S. can't make Arab states into "workable liberal democracies."

Bush and Obama mostly talked a good game: Both presidents have actually hit similar rhetorical notes about backing the right of Arabs to a free government, . But when push came to shove, "neither the Bush nor the Obama administrations ever mounted a full-court press for greater democratic freedoms in Egypt" or other Arab regimes. Bush was hampered by his war on terror; Obama by his quest for Arab-Israeli peace.

What about an "Obama Doctrine"?: None of this makes Bush wrong, . In fact, Egypt's uprising only proves that both he and Obama were right to reject the "essentially racist assumption" that Arabs don't long for freedom and self-government like the rest of us. What we need now is "a clear Obama Doctrine" for other Arabs "yearning for liberty," so they can "know before they go into the streets whether the United States will be on their side."

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Companies ready to spend big again at Super Bowl

This Super Bowl is shaping up to be a blowout — for corporate America.

Spending on hotel rooms, dining and entertainment during Super Bowl week is expected to top $200 million, beating the record from 2007 — before the recession made it taboo to throw lavish parties and treat clients to skyboxes. Much of the tab will be put on corporate cards.

Companies have started throwing money around again now that their finances are improving, fears of a double-dip have subsided, and memories of bailouts and mass layoffs are fading. Last quarter, large businesses spent 10 percent more on entertainment — think rounds of golf, New York Yankees games and the opera — than a year earlier, according to American Express. They also spent more for airfare, food, drinks and hotels.

The return of the expense account is welcome news for the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Taxpayers in nearby Arlington, Texas, helped subsidize the construction of the $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium, which was completed in 2009.

"After a big drop-off the past couple of years, companies appear less hesitant to invite their customers to Dallas," says PricewaterhouseCoopers sports and tourism analyst Robert Canton. "You see that in the luxury suites, which completely sold out."

One 15-person partial suite went for $73,000, according to StubHub spokeswoman Joellen Ferrer. Individual tickets to Sunday's game between Green Bay and Pittsburgh are fetching an average of $3,600 on the secondary market, compared with $2,500 for the last three Super Bowls. A surprising 13 percent of ticket buyers have been located in California and New York; that signals a healthy amount of corporate purchasing, Ferrer said.

It doesn't hurt that the Dallas-Fort Worth area is home to two dozen Fortune 500 companies, which are using the game as an opportunity to give key clients a taste of Texas hospitality. Twelve local companies and individuals donated $1 million apiece to the Super Bowl host committee for this year's event, including Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, PepsiCo.'s Frito-Lay division, T. Boone Pickens and engineering firm Fluor. In return, they'll get stadium suites and 50 tickets to dole out to friends and clients, among other perks.

This level of support seemed highly unlikely when Dallas started raising money to host the championship game in 2007.

For a while, "there was a public perception that supporting the Super Bowl might have been a frivolous or not responsible action as people were losing jobs," said host committee president Bill Lively.

This reluctance to be associated with Playboy parties and pricey steak dinners curtailed corporate spending at the NFL's main event the past two years. After topping $190 million in both 2007 and 2008, total visitor spending during Super Bowl week in each of the past two years totaled $150 million, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Longtime sponsors like GM and FedEx pulled their big-game advertisements in 2009, despite a price cut by NBC. That same year, Warrick Dunn, one of the most famous players in Tampa Bay Buccaneers history, canceled his Super Bowl week charity golf event when he couldn't rustle up enough corporate sponsorship.

"Companies were dialing back the lavish entertainment because they were under scrutiny, especially if you took bailout money," said Bill Webster, vice president of brand strategy for Sun Life, which owns the naming rights to the Miami Dolphins' stadium — site of last year's Super Bowl.

Bolstered by the energy sector, the business climate in Texas, like the national economy, has perked up in the past year. By the end of last month, 105 North Texas companies had signed on as financial sponsors of the Super Bowl. Other brands, including Audi and Express, are throwing parties in Dallas and Fort Worth this week. Anheuser-Busch has taken over the Aloft hotel in Dallas, renaming it the Bud Light Hotel, where they'll host four events, including concerts by Ke$ha, Nelly and Dierks Bentley.

Companies "want to be players in this game," Lively said.

Despite unseasonably cold weather and a Midwest blizzard that kept some fans from flying in earlier this week, local businesses are benefiting from the return to profligacy. Dallas limo service Heaven on Wheels brought in extra cars and the fleet still sold out three weeks before the event. Demand from corporate executives, celebrities and professional athletes has been "a lot more than we thought," said chief operating officer Joshua Roman. "For a while, people didn't want to be picked up in a flashy limo or Hummer."

"Corporations are spending like there's no tomorrow," said Asim Sheikh, who manages special events for Zouk nightclub in Dallas. He declined to identify the companies. "They're booking tables for $12,000 to $15,000 so they can sit next to Deion Sanders."

At Pappas Bros. Steakhouse in Dallas, where a 45-ounce steak commemorating the 45th Super Bowl is priced at $130, just under half of business is coming from corporate clients, says spokeswoman Amy Robinson. The restaurant has had several takers of its $1,700 shot of cognac, she said.

The upscale Hotel ZaZa in Dallas, where rooms ranged from $695 to $10,500 a night, has been fielding room requests all week, although it's been booked for months, said Benji Homsey, president of the hotel's management company. To accommodate one corporate executive desperate for a room, the hotel owner gave up his luxury condominium attached to the hotel. After the game, the owner plans to sleep in a safari tent erected on the roof — even with the chilly weather.

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Associated Press Writer Schuyler Dixon in Dallas contributed to this report.

K.H. Moon Rejoins the Drucker Institute Board of Advisors

The Drucker Institute announced that K.H. Moon, the president of the New Paradigm Institute of Korea, has re-joined its Board of Advisors.

Claremont, CA (PRWEB) January 25, 2011 —

The Drucker Institute announced that K.H. Moon, the president of the New Paradigm Institute of Korea, has re-joined its Board of Advisors.

“We are delighted to have Mr. Moon return to the Board,” said Bob Buford, chairman of the Drucker Institute, a campus-wide resource of Claremont Graduate University. “He has a remarkable track record across all three sectors—private, public and social—and in each case, his work has been infused with the Peter Drucker’s principles. As much as anyone in the world, Mr. Moon has turned Peter’s ideas into action.”Moon takes the place of Seung-Woo Nam, the Chairman and CEO of Pulmuone Holdings Co., who had agreed to become a Drucker Institute Board member in 2008 when Moon was elected to serve in Korea’s national parliament.

“While we are thrilled to have Mr. Moon rejoin us, we will certainly miss Mr. Nam,” said Rick Wartzman, the executive director of the Drucker Institute. “He has been an extremely valuable Board member. Our only consolation is in knowing that Mr. Nam will continue to work closely with us as a leader of the Drucker Society of Korea, a part of our global volunteer network.”

Said Mr. Nam: “I appreciate the opportunity to serve as a Board member of such a distinguished institution. Although I am leaving the Board, I will continue to contribute to the Institute’s efforts to keep Peter Drucker’s wisdom alive among management professionals.”

Before his stint in parliament, Moon was the president and CEO of the consumer-products company Yuhan-Kimberly, which under his leadership became widely known for product innovation and a commitment to lifelong learning opportunities for its employees. Moon was heralded, in particular, for the measures he took to avoid laying off workers during the Asian financial crisis of the mid-1990s. In addition, Moon has been an environmental leader, spearheading the planting of tens of millions of trees throughout Korea and across Asia.

At the Drucker Institute, Moon joins an extraordinary group of board members. In addition to Buford, a cable TV pioneer, author and social entrepreneur, they include: John Bachmann, senior partner at the investment firm Edward Jones; John Byrne, the chairman and CEO of C-Change Media Inc. and the former executive editor of BusinessWeek magazine; attorney and entrepreneur Cecily Drucker, daughter of the late Peter Drucker; author and inventor Doris Drucker, wife of the late Peter Drucker; CGU President Deborah Freund; Nobuhiro Iijima, president of Tokyo-based Yamazaki Baking Co.; Jody Greenstone Miller, the CEO of Business Talent Group; C. William Pollard, chairman emeritus of ServiceMaster Co.; Minglo Shao, founder of Bright China Holding Ltd. and head of the Peter F. Drucker Academy, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to teaching Drucker’s principles and practices in China; and Craig Wynett, Chief Innovation Officer at Procter & Gamble Co.

Last year, Moon founded the New Paradigm Institute for Green & Responsible Competitiveness in Seoul to advance environmental sustainability and lifelong learning throughout Korea. The New Paradigm Institute is also working closely with the Drucker Institute to teach the Drucker Management Path, a comprehensive training program, in Korea. In addition, the two organizations are working on bringing to Korea a series of top management speakers who share Peter Drucker’s philosophy about the importance of effective management and responsible leadership.

“This is an exciting time to be coming back to the Institute’s Board,” Moon said. “I am committed to working hard and spreading Peter Drucker’s teachings in Korea because, simply put, there is no better way to make for a healthy society.”

About the Drucker Institute The Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University is a think tank and action tank whose purpose is to better society by stimulating effective management and responsible leadership. It does this, in large part, by advancing the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management.

The Institute acts as a hub for a worldwide network of Drucker Societies: volunteer-driven organizations that are using Drucker’s teachings to bring about positive change in their local communities.

In addition, the Institute maintains a digital archive of Drucker’s papers; undertakes research that builds on Drucker’s writings; offers an annual $100,000 prize for nonprofit innovation; produces curricular material that distills Drucker’s decades of leading-edge thinking, including a management training system called the Drucker Management Path; applies Drucker’s work to current events (through a regular online column in Bloomberg Businessweek by Institute Executive Director Rick Wartzman and through a blog called the Drucker Exchange); and hosts visiting fellows with Drucker-like insights and values.

The Institute is a close affiliate of the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management, which is training the next generation of leaders and managers to do good while they do well.For more on the Drucker Institute, please visit: .

About Claremont Graduate UniversityFounded in 1925, Claremont Graduate University is one of the top graduate schools in the United States. Our nine academic schools conduct leading-edge research and award masters and doctoral degrees in 22 disciplines. Because the world’s problems are not simple nor easily defined, diverse faculty and students research and study across the traditional discipline boundaries to create new and practical solutions for the major problems plaguing our world. A Southern California based graduate school devoted entirely to graduate research and study, CGU boasts a low student-to-faculty ratio.

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Phalana TillerThe Drucker Institute909-607-9212Email Information