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The annual tradition of opposing mayors making a Super Bowl bet is taking place once again. This year, Mayors Mike Bloomberg of New York City and Thomas Menino of Boston made it a little more interesting, as the gamblers say, by putting together prize packages for one lucky family in the opposing team’s respective hometown. If the Patriots win, four people get to live it up in New York City, and vice versa if the Giants are victorious.

The problem is that the prizes — how should we put this — suck. They suck as bad as the Super Bowl games used to in the 1980s. A Duck Tour ride? Four tickets to the Phantom of the Opera? As the old joke goes, what’s second prize? Eight tickets? These gifts are the kind that appeal only to the fanny-pack brigade and characters looking for that one last shot at love in whatever holiday rom-com Gary Marshall belches up this year.

Yes, there are appealing things in each package, but the whole thing feels like it was put together by the “Corporate Committee to Show You Things You Probably Already Know About.” The selections don’t capture the unique entrepreneurial places and experiences that make Boston and New York City great — or boost the small businesses that are the core of these cities’ character.

We’ve decided to rectify the situation by letting our imagination run wild and proposing our ideal revamp of the bets. And while we didn’t throw in anything as glamorous as a photo op with the mayor (what’s second prize? Two photos?), we think the winners of our theoretical Super Bowl bet — and local entrepreneurs — would have a whole lot more fun if Bloomberg and Menino took these suggestions to heart.

If the Giants win:

• Congratulations, Giants lovers! We’re putting our winners up in a suite at the Clarendon Square Inn, an 1860s home turned six-story bed and breakfast. Located in the South End, but not “Southie,” the Clarendon offers you a plush bed, a soaking tub for two, a marble fireplace, a tranquil back deck, and rooftop hot tub with city views.
• A tour of Harpoon Brewery where the company motto is “Love Beer. Love Life.” You’ll get to love both while sampling the beermaker’s great UFO Raspberry Hefeweizen and specialty 100 Barrel Series.
• You can walk the Freedom Trail on your own. To get a totally unique perspective on The Hub, we’re setting you up with a Venetian gondola ride on the Charles River, via Boston Gondola Tours. Take in a sunset on one of the authentic private gondolas and we’ll throw in roses, strawberries and an accordion accompaniment.
• After you make it back to land, drinks and appetizers will be feted at the Island Creek Oyster Bar. Owners Jeremy Sewall and Skip Bennett ensure fresh seafood, caught by local fisherman, lands right on your table.
• Dueling dinners are served at Sibling Rivalry, where chef brothers David and Bob Kinkead offer different takes on a common ingredient like the “Fowl” entrees: David’s Crispy Pressed Half Duck and Bob’s Spit-Roasted Half Chicken. Fraternal friction never tasted so good.
• Anyone can take in the world’s great works of art, but few asthetes take time out to ponder the crappy stuff. That’s why you’ll be perusing the walls at MOBA, the Museum of Bad Art. Aficionados can soak in terrible wonders like “Sunday on the Pot With George,” “Sad Baby,” and Da-Vinci-wouldn’t-approve “Mana Lisa.” Afterward, walk down the block to discuss what you’ve seen — or try and forget — over wine and crispy fried lobster legs at Isabella.
• Nothing says you’re a Patriot, the original kind, quite like a Tricorne hat. You can outfit the entire family at Salmagundi, a one-of-a-kind store that stocks some 7,000 lids. If your tastes run a little less Tea Party-ish, husband and wife owners Andria Rapagnola and Jessen Fitzpatrick will find something in their incredible collection to ensure you’re behatted in style.
• Boston and the Irish go together like fish and chips, but the less said about the “authentic” downtown spots the better. We’ll pick up your bar tab as you get your pint on at Plough & Stars, a 42-year-old Cambridge institution with live music, Irish breakfast, a fine selection of whiskey from the Cooley Distillery, and Craic-heads of all walks of life. This is the place to go where you want everyone to know your name.
• For reasons we can’t fathom, Bostonians are loyal to Dunkin’ Donuts. To satiate your pastry craving, we’ll fill your belly with delicacies from Joanne Chang’s Flour and even throw in a sticky buns class to impress the New York foodies back home.
• No better way to wrap up a sporting weekend than with a little exercise. And by little, we mean the beloved New England sport of candlepin bowling. For the uninitiated, the pins are cylindrical (like a candle, get it?) and the balls have a top weight of 2 lb. 7 oz. So bowl a few games on us at the erstwhile Sacco’s Bowl Haven, which opened in 1939 and still has the blue-collar vibe of its bowling heyday. However, today’s pinheads demand better grub, so Flatbread Company took over, overhauled the menu with its gourmet pizza, but smartly left the lanes alone. Pizza and candlepin? What better way to celebrate the fact that the Giants beat the Patriots yet again, and the even more astonishing fact that Eli has more Super Bowl rings than Peyton?

If the Patriots win:

• Congratulations, Pats fans! You’ve just won a stay at the Canal Park Inn, a cozy bed and breakfast in the heart of bustling downtown Manhattan. Located in Tribeca, Canal Park is surrounded by top-flight eateries, and just a stone’s throw from the sunsets-over-the-Statue-of-Liberty at the Hudson River Park. The inn is in a landmarked 1826 canal house where each room is named for a family that lived there in 1850. You’ll be bunking down in the Batby Suite, which includes a private deck, offering an oasis of calm in the sea of action.
• In New York, sweatpants don’t count as clothes you wear in public, so we’re going to outfit your entire family. Since 1938, Paul Stuart has been keeping the men of Gotham well-dressed in clothing only available in its stores. Women can get all trendy in the “Ultimate Closet” at Scoop NYC, and the little ones can do the same at Bundle. As for the teens … we wouldn’t even try. We’ll hand you a wad of cash so you can go shopping alone.
• In recent years, New York City has had an explosion in craft breweries and we’re going to take you on a tri-borough suds tasting extravaganza. You’ll make your way from brewery-to-brewery in a classic 1970s taxi piloted by the Checker Guy. First up, the Pale Ale at the Bronx Brewery, which just opened last August and is already available at some 30-plus watering holes. Next, you’ll hit the Harlem Brewing Company for a Sugar Hill Ale from Jazz Age-loving brewer Celeste Beatty. Final stop, Brooklyn’s Sixpoint Craft Ales, where owner Shane Welch recently introduced the “Spice of Life” series featuring a unique hop strain for every month of the year.
• A visit to New York wouldn’t be complete without a night at the theater, but leave the singing superheroes for the tourist hordes. You’ll be sitting front row for “Magic Bird,” the story of the great basketball rivals premiering in March at the Longacre Theater. Produced by Kirmser Ponturo Group, the same folks behind the recent hit “Lombardi,” “Magic Bird” finally gives Boston sports fans the chance to see the Great White Hope on the Great White Way.
• There is no better way to see the lights of the city than an evening stroll across the Brooklyn Bridge. The 1.1-mile walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan will build up an appetite, which we’ll take care of at the Bridge Cafe. It’s housed in a 1794 wood frame building that’s been a brothel, a speakeasy, a pirate bar, and the rough saloon where Ms. Gallus Mag, a 6-ft. Irish bouncer, would bite the ears off of rapscallions and pickle them for posterity. They aren’t on the menu, but the city’s best soft-shell crabs are.
• New Yorkers will fight to the death over who makes the best pizza, so why not sample the top contenders and decide for yourself? Your guide on this crusty crawl will be Famous Fat Dave, proprietor of the Five Borough Eating Tour.
• Everyone loves cartoons, but few make the connection between Batman and fine art. POW! At the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, you’ll learn why cartoons are to be respected and laugh out loud while doing so. You might even run into New York native son Stan Lee. Afterward, get to doodling on napkins over beers at nearby Fanelli’s Cafe, which goes back to the days when SoHo was actually filled with artists.
• No matter how much money flows through New York, it will always be a draw for the weird and eccentric. That’s why we’re offering a gift certificate to The Evolution Store. Pick up a little something for the mantle back home like a head puzzle, a pigeon skeleton, or the ever-popular freeze dried bat.
• Grandmaster Flash, Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, Biggie Smalls, Jay-Z … New York City is the hip-hop capital of the world and what better way to experience the dope beats and fresh rhymes the city made famous than on a personally curated Hush Tour? Founded in 2000, by hip-hop guru Deborah Harris, the Hush Tours take you to the street corners, housing projects, stoops, ‘hoods and music clubs from which rap evolved. As a bonus, stories are often told by old-school stars of the game like DJ Red Alert, members of the Cold Crush Bros. and Kurtis Blow. You feelin’ it?
• Yankees games are overpriced and Mets games involve the Mets, so we’ll wrap up your sporting weekend with a trip to Coney Island to take in a Brooklyn Cyclones game. Even if you don’t love baseball, it’s hard not to be swept away looking out past the neon center field lights to the Atlantic Ocean. After the last out, head to Luna Park to ride the actual Cyclone, the 85-foot wooden roller coaster that reaches 60 mph, and then dig into the fried clams at Ruby’s, the oldest bar and grill on the Boardwalk. We highly recommend riding the Cyclone first.

WASHINGTON — Alyssa Eisenberg just wanted her multiple sclerosis medication that she uses to allay fatigue and help her concentrate.

A member of Occupy Oakland, she had been caught up in last Saturday’s police kettling and transferred to the Santa Rita jail. Police refused to let her keep her meds, which she takes a few times a day, she said. Once inside, a guard dismissed her distress, she said, telling her, “It doesn’t look like you’re having a medical emergency.”

Eisenberg, 44, who claims she was arrested without warning, spent 18 hours in the Santa Rita jail. Before her release, the guards told her she could get access to her medication only if a nurse observed her for a few hours, she said, adding that they implied that if she took them up on the offer, her release would be delayed a day.

“It was so frustrating trying to understand what was going on,” said Eisenberg, who became disoriented during what had already been a cramped, chaotic ordeal. “That’s the part that stuck with me,” she told The Huffington Post. “That’s because they didn’t give me my medicine.”

In the wake of last Saturday’s police actions, Occupy Oakland and city officials are going through the now familiar routine of all sides expressing outrage. But this time, the investigations won’t end with tracing the last tear gas canister fired and last activist led away in plastic cuffs. The controversy extends to what occurred inside both the Santa Rita jail and the Glenn E. Dyer Detention Facility after Saturday’s arrests. Activists like Eisenberg allege a range of misconduct on the part of jail personnel, from denial of critical treatment to inhumane conditions.

None of the protesters interviewed by Huff Post were part of the unruly events that took place in Oakland that night, including a flag-burning and vandalism to city hall, they said.

Dan Siegel, Mayor Jean Quan’s former adviser who quit her administration over her handling of Occupy Oakland’s eviction in October, said incarcerating the activists violated state law. “What is outrageous is that … people were jailed all weekend instead of cited and released as required by California law,” he wrote in an email to HuffPost.

Some activists were charged with burglary for trying to escape the mass arrest by running inside the nearby YMCA building, Siegel said. “Burglars generally enter to commit theft,” he wrote. “At most, they trespassed. People say they were invited in, so there was no offense at all.”

Rachel Lederman, an Oakland civil rights attorney with the National Lawyers Guild, told HuffPost she’s received reports that some of the activists had been cuffed and left on the police buses for as long as six hours without access to a bathroom. One woman, she said, reported nerve damage in her hand.

Once inside, the activists claimed to have been crammed into shower rooms with no beds, no blankets, no heat and not a single chair, Lederman said.

Quan’s office deferred a request for comment to the Oakland Police Department. The department did not answer the request.

Sgt. J.D. Nelson, the spokesperson for the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, which oversees the Santa Rita and Dyer facilities, did admit to HuffPost that the jail cells were crowded and some services might have been slowed. Santa Rita took in more than 250 protesters, while Dyer received 110.

The arrestees were not denied care, Nelson said. “Everybody that comes in sees a medical staff,” he explained. “Our job and our issue is that people come in and make all kinds of claims. We have to verify those claims before handing out medication. You can’t just take everything at face value.”

If conditions were tough at Santa Rita, Nelson said, it was because police decided to divert more arrestees to that facility after Occupy activists attempted to block the entrance to Dyer.

Sean Keaveny, 32, told HuffPost the sign in his cell listed capacity at seven inmates. As many as 20 were crammed inside, the water fountain did not work and the cell went without toilet paper for as long as 12 hours, he said.

The guards were constantly moving people in and out of cells, one of which contained at least 50 activists, Keaveny said. There was no toilet paper and the only water they had access to was scalding, he said. “We requested water for hours and hours before we gave up.”

“I saw a gentleman with HIV who was asking again and again for his HIV medications,” Keaveny said. Every time a guard would walk by, the man would ask for his meds; eventually, Keaveny and others joined in, he said. At one point, they began kicking against a door to get the guards’ attention, Keaveny said, adding that the man never got his HIV meds.

Noah Zimmerman, 31, remembered hearing activists chanting for some assistance for the activist with HIV. Michael, 21, who did not want his full name used, remembers the HIV-positive man asking for his meds as well.

Sgt. Nelson did not recall a specific issue with an activist who has HIV. “Just because somebody comes in and says they need HIV meds, we’re not just going to start handing out HIV meds,” he said.

Salon reported that there may have been one other HIV-positive activist who was denied medication.

Michael told HuffPost that at one point, women nearby began chanting for a medic since a protester had gone into a diabetic seizure after not getting enough food. “They were screaming for a medic, going ‘medic! medic! medic!’ and banging on the door,” he said. “That happened many times.”

Activist women demanded sanitary napkins for an inmate who had her period, Keaveny recalled. “They were singing the entire time, chanting, banging,” he said. “They slammed and banged and demanded tampons for hours. It took hours for them to get a roll of toilet paper.”

Keaveny was incarcerated until Wednesday at 5 a.m. He claimed that he never had access to a lawyer, had his Miranda rights read, or was given a prisoner ID. “What we endured in Santa Rita is suffered every day by millions of inmates in the United States prison system.”

Activists said they endured similar conditions at Dyer. Courtney Wentz, 31, a preschool teacher who served as a medic on the march before being snared in the mass arrest, said she got placed in a 10-foot-by-10-foot holding cell with more than 20 other inmates. During one inmate count, a guard went around and threw out all the food they had just been given, Wentz said.

Matt Smaldone, 37, said he was placed in a shower room for seven hours. “One guy had a broken wrist,” he said. “He kept asking for assistance. He didn’t get looked at until 8 a.m. They gave him like wrap with an ice pack.” Smaldone said others with injuries were placed in isolation.

The maker of the Lap-Band has announced that it will no longer sell its product to the numerous 1-800-GET-THIN clinics that have saturated Southern California’s weight-loss market, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Five Southland patients have died since 2009 after undergoing Lap-Band surgeries in 1-800-GET-THIN clinics in Beverly Hills and West Hills, according to the Times. Allergan Inc., which is based in Irvine, announced its decision to split from 1-800-GET-THIN amidst state and federal investigations into these deaths.

David E. I. Pyott, CEO of Allergan, made it clear that the decision was because of 1-800-GET-THIN, which he accused last year of having misleading ads, not because of his product. He reiterated today that the Lap-Band is safe and effective, with a mortality rate of 1 in 2,000, the Orange County Register reports.

KCAL 9 spoke with John Faitro (video above), who lost his wife Laura in July 2010 just days after her Lap-Band surgery, and Faitro’s attorney, Alexander Robertson. Robertson said of the two wrongful death lawsuits he is carrying, “Both of those patients were unable to eat or swallow any fluids at all. Finally, they went to the emergency room, and emergency room doctors said in both cases they essentially showed up on death’s door.” He continued that it is criminal negligence to “Not tell patients like John’s wife that they cut her liver three places during the surgery and put her in a wheelchair and sent her home to die.”

1-800-GET-THIN issued this statement in response to Allergan’s announcement:

While we are disappointed by Allergan’s decision, we remain committed to the health and welfare of our patients interested in weight loss solutions. Our surgery centers are staffed with experienced bariatric surgeons, trained by Allergan on the proper procedures for implanting the Lap-Band. Patients interested in weight loss solutions have a range of options, of which the lap band is only one. We will continue to work with our patients to find the best healthcare options for their medical needs.

NEW YORK (AP) — The goody-two-shoes among us say it’s better to give than to receive. That’s not true for the average Facebook user, though.

A new study out Friday found that the average user of the world’s biggest online social network gets more than they give. That means more messages, more “likes” and more comments. Yes, even more “pokes.”

Behind all that is Facebook’s relatively small group of “power users,” who do more than their share of tagging, liking and uploading. The report from the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project comes two days after Facebook filed for a $5 billion initial public offering of stock that could eventually value the company at $100 billion.

Key to that mammoth valuation will be Facebook’s ability to convince advertisers they can make money from the billons of connections and interactions that people partake in on its website and beyond. Though Pew’s findings don’t address the commercial side of people’s activities, they shed important light on how people use the site and what they get out of it.

The study is the product of Pew’s analysis of Facebook users’ activities in November 2010. It consisted of data that Facebook provided to Pew after 269 users gave their permission. Those users were identified through a random telephone survey about broader Internet issues.

The researchers found that about 20 percent to 30 percent of Facebook users fell into the “power user” category, though they tended to specialize in different types of activities on Facebook. Some of them sent a lot of friend requests, while others tagged more photos than the average user. Only 5 percent were power users in every activity that Pew logged.

The way this plays out is that the average user is more “liked” than they click “like” on other’s posts. They receive more friend requests than they send. On average, 63 percent of Facebook users studied received friend requests in the survey month while only 40 percent made a friend request.

The result? It feels good to be on Facebook. It might even feel better than life off Facebook. After all, there’s no dislike button, and friends are unlikely to post harsh comments on your page. Instead, people you might not have seen in years bombard you with positive affirmations day after day, year after year.

“You keep getting all these wonderful positive rewards,” said Keith Hampton, the study’s main author and a Rutgers University professor. “That’s pretty hard to give up.”

Getting more than you are giving, in terms of emotional support, “is kind of what you are looking for,” he added.

This might be the lure of Facebook, the reason it could be worth $100 billion and the reason it has 845 million users who are not leaving even if they’ve been on the site for years. The study found no evidence of “Facebook fatigue,” the idea that people get tired of Facebook after they’ve been on it for a long time.

In fact it was the opposite. The longer someone had been using Facebook, the more frequently they posted status updates, pressed “like” and commented on friends’ content.

“For most people, the longer they are on Facebook, the more they do on Facebook,” Hampton said.

The original phone survey of 2,255 adults was done in October and November of 2010 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points. At the end of that survey, users were asked for consent for Facebook to share data. Twelve percent of the survey participants agreed.

WASHINGTON — Insider trading by members of Congress, their top staff and executive branch officials would be banned by legislation that passed the Senate on Thursday.

Although insider trading is illegal for anyone, some had argued that the STOCK Act, which passed 96 to 3, was needed to close loopholes that let lawmakers and lobbyists profit from “political intelligence.”

“We are entrusted with a profound responsibility to the American people to look out for their best interest, not for our own financial interest,” said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), one of the lead sponsors on a measure that garnered rare bipartisan support, including from Republican senators such as Maine’s Susan Collins and Massachusetts’ Scott Brown.

“Bottom line, members of Congress have to live by the same laws everyone else does,” said Brown. “With approval ratings of Congress at an all-time low, this bill represents an opportunity to build some trust with the American people.”

The three senators who opposed the bill were Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.). The two Republicans both argued that the measure was unnecessary and that the law already bars insider trading.

“Senator Burr voted against cloture on the bill because there are already laws in place to address this critical issue,” said Burr spokesman David Ward. “Members of Congress are elected to serve the people, not make money for themselves, and any Member or staff member who breaks the already existing insider trading laws should be held responsible.”

Bingaman added that the measure will pose problems for many federal workers. “I can’t support a bill that places unreasonable and burdensome reporting requirements on over 300,000 federal workers,” Bingaman said. “It is my hope that this legislation can be improved as the process moves forward.”

The Senate legislation also requires lawmakers and senior staffers to declare within 30 days if they sell a significant financial asset, in theory letting constituents know if a legislator might have had a financial interest in a measure.

A number of attempts to do other things with the bill, including banning earmarks, failed.

One amendment that aimed to make it even harder for lawmakers to profit from inside information also failed. Offered by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), it would have required legislators to divest stock holdings that could create conflicts of interest or to put them in blind trusts.

“Baseball players can’t bet on their games. We should not be able to hold stock in individual companies and then bet on — then vote on issues that affect our holdings,” Brown said.

His colleagues, however, thought that went too far.

“This will be the first time that I’m aware of that in the legislative branch we would require divestment of personal holdings,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), one of the bill’s lead sponsors. “For that reason, I oppose the amendment.”

Lieberman argued that the transparency created by the bill would keep people honest. “Divestment, in my opinion, is a step too far,” he said.

The bill now must be passed by the House, where Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said he would bring it up by the end of the month. It was not clear, however, that it would be the same measure passed by the Senate, meaning the legislation could still be tied up in a struggle between the two chambers. President Obama has said he would sign the Senate version.

After the Senate passed the bill, the president said, “Last week, I called on Congress to pass a bill that makes clear that Members of Congress may not engage in insider trading. No one should be able to trade stocks based on nonpublic information gleaned on Capitol Hill. So I’m pleased the Senate took bipartisan action to pass the STOCK Act. I urge the House of Representatives to pass this bill, and I will sign it right away.”

Lucia Graves contributed to this report.

Michael McAuliff covers politics and Congress for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook.

College graduates and advanced degree holders, once they are unemployed, are as vulnerable as high school dropouts to long-term joblessness, a new study has found.

Thirty five percent of unemployed college graduates and those with advanced degrees have been without a job for more than a year, the same rate as unemployed high school dropouts, according to a Pew Research Center study published Wednesday. In fact, the long-term unemployment rate, for those 25 and older without a job, is nearly the same across all levels of educational attainment, the report says.

“A slowly rising number of job vacancies…hurts people regardless of their educational attainment,” said Gary Burtless, labor economist at the liberal think tank Brookings Institution. Nonetheless, he added: “Relatively speaking, there’s still a payoff to going to college. The college degree still has some vaccination effects against becoming a long-term unemployed person.”

Indeed, getting a college degree is a good bet for avoiding unemployment in the first place. The unemployment rate of college graduates who are at least 25 years old is just 4.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In contrast, 13.8 percent of high school dropouts, 8.7 percent of high school graduates, and 7.7 percent of college dropouts are unemployed.

The percentage of the labor force that faces long-term unemployment is at a record high of 2.8 percent, according to the Pew report. Thirteen million Americans are unemployed, 4 million (or 31 percent) of whom have been unemployed for more than a year.

Republicans and Democrats have clashed frequently over federal unemployment insurance ever since the unemployed first became eligible for 99 weeks of benefits at the end of 2009.

Once Americans are out of work for more than a year, they face a slew of challenges. Even in the most generous states, unemployment insurance benefits do not last longer than 99 weeks. When the long-term unemployed lose government benefits, the anxiety can be crushing.

The long-term unemployed also often face job discrimination, as many employers prefer to hire workers with fresh experience. A number of employers require job applicants to be “currently employed” in order to be considered for a position.

By Anne Harding

By all appearances Sandy was successful and content. At 30 years old, she was in a senior position at a major media company in Boston — and she was a happily married new mom to boot.

But her life was less charmed than it seemed. Sandy (not her real name) had become seriously depressed after the birth of her child. And although she got some relief from antidepressants, the drugs would falter every so often, plunging her into a deep, dark mood.

“It was hard to get up and go to work,” she says. In fact, there were times when Sandy simply couldn’t drag herself into the office and called in sick. She was sick — but she didn’t tell her employers with what.

More from Health.com:

10 Careers With High Rates of Depression
Job Killing You? 8 Types of Work-Related Stress
10 Things to Say (and Not Say) to Someone With Depression

Sandy was afraid that if her colleagues knew about her depression, they would start to view her typical behavior — being outspoken in meetings, say — as a symptom of her illness. “It’s almost like people thinking you have PMS or something, and discounting what you’re saying,” she says.

It’s a valid concern. The stigma surrounding depression is not what it was a generation ago (thanks to greater public awareness and the mainstreaming of antidepressants), but it remains strong enough that most depressed employees would probably hesitate to reveal their condition to bosses and coworkers for fear of being marginalized professionally or being seen as weak. Some workers may even worry about jeopardizing their jobs — especially in the current economic climate.

“I think we’ve come a long way in terms of identifying that depression is an important issue in the workplace,” says Michelle Riba, MD, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. “But for the individual who’s working in an office or another situation, one really needs to think about why any medical condition would be discussed. Not that there’s anything wrong with disclosing, but one has to be really clear about what one hopes to gain.”

The Americans with Disabilities Act prevents employers with 15 or more employees from discriminating against people with serious health problems (including depression), and it requires them to accommodate disabled employees. In order to be protected by the law, however, employees must disclose the nature of their disability to their employers.

The decision whether to inform your employer and colleagues about your depression (or another mental illness) should not be taken lightly. As Dr. Riba suggests, you should have a compelling reason for doing so and should know in advance what you need from your employer to do your job effectively. And you’ll need to come to grips with the lingering stigma of mental illness.

Sandy’s doctor told her that depression is a medical condition just like diabetes — and she agrees, to a point. “If I had diabetes I would probably tell my company,” she says. “But I’ve never told them this.”

Getting help

Like any serious health problem, depression requires professional help. People who are depressed should ask their doctors about therapy, antidepressant medications, and other treatments before they consider raising the issue with their employer, says Dr. Riba, who is also the associate director of the University of Michigan’s depression center.

“The first thing is for people who feel they’re depressed to be evaluated and get good treatment and work with their mental health provider and their primary care provider,” she says. If depressed people aren’t receiving appropriate treatment, Dr. Riba says, they may turn to counterproductive behaviors such as drinking.

Primary care providers aren’t the only source of help. If your company has an employee assistance program—an in-house service designed to help employees cope with personal problems that are affecting their work — you may be able to get counseling and a referral to a mental health specialist without your colleagues knowing about it.

Getting proper treatment is essential, even though it may mean more expensive premiums if at some point you are required to purchase a health-insurance plan on the open market. Due to the national health-care legislation passed in 2009, however, insurance companies won’t be able to deny you coverage for depression or any other preexisting mental health condition beginning in 2014.

Should you disclose your depression?

Clare Miller, the director of the American Psychiatric Foundation’s Partnership for Workplace Mental Health, which helps employers develop effective approaches to mental health, urges people who have been diagnosed with depression to think carefully about what they are trying to accomplish by revealing their condition to their boss or human resources department.

“It’s not an easy, ‘Yes, you should do this’ or ‘No, you shouldn’t.’ I think it really depends,” Miller says. “You want to think through what the purpose of the disclosure would be.”

For instance, disclosure may be in your best interest if you need special accommodations to do your job, such as the option of starting later in the day because you’re on a new medication that makes you sleepy in the morning or taking sick leave if you are having a particularly tough time emotionally.

Disclosure is probably also a good idea if depression if causing your job performance to suffer noticeably, says Miller. “But try to do it early in the game as opposed to waiting until you get a bad performance review,” she adds. (And you should be prepared to provide documentation from your doctor, as many companies will require it.)

The atmosphere at your workplace is another important consideration. Although the stigma related to depression isn’t as bad as it used to be, Miller says, it definitely still exists. “A lot of it is going to depend on the culture at your company,” she says. Some workplaces are more tolerant and progressive than others.

People who disclose their depression to colleagues — or even just one colleague — should be prepared for gossip, says Dr. Riba. “One should assume that if one tells one person, others will find out,” she says.

How depression-friendly is your company?

If you decide to tell your bosses and coworkers about your depression, the good news is that it will likely be easier than it was 10 or 20 years ago.

Employers are increasingly aware that promoting employee mental health is good for business, Miller says. A happy employee is more productive, so it makes sense for employers to help people in need of services to find those services. Major depressive disorder is the leading cause of disability among adults 15 to 44 years old, affecting nearly 7 percent of adults in the U.S. each year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. And depression causes an estimated $23 billion in lost productivity in the U.S. each year.

But that doesn’t mean you should expect your employer to commiserate or bend over backward to help you. Even at the most supportive companies, navigating mental health benefits can be tricky.

PPG Industries, a Pittsburgh-based supplier of coatings, glass, fiberglass, and chemicals that employs 34,000 people, has been recognized by Miller’s group for its commitment to employee mental health. Alberto Colombi, MD, the corporate medical director at PPG, says that an employer’s main responsibility is to destigmatize depression, encourage self-screening, and help connect employees in need with the appropriate resources.

“Rather than be controlling, employers should provide a supportive environment,” Dr. Colombi says. “You want to make sure [employees] know where the door is and how to open the door.”

Under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, which went into effect in 2010, companies with 50-plus employees are prohibited from charging higher co-pays or deductibles for mental-health and substance-abuse services than they do for other medical treatments.

The law only guarantees parity in coverage, however, not integration of physical and mental health care, which is what many patients need, Dr. Colombi says.

For real progress to be made in destigmatizing and treating mental illness, Dr. Colombi says, workplaces — and society as a whole — need to stop thinking of mental health as separate from physical health. “The issue is mental well-being as part of wellness,” he says.

A long way to go

Four years ago, Sandy received a new diagnosis: bipolar II, a form of bipolar disorder with less severe episodes of mania. Her doctor prescribed mood stabilizers, which have helped reduce the bouts of depression she used to suffer about once a year. “I’m very careful,” she adds. “I make sure to see my doctor all the time. I make sure I’m really monitoring this.”

Sandy, now 44, is launching her own business. As part of her preparation, she broached the subject of her depression in a meeting with her business partner — the first time she had ever revealed her illness in a professional setting. “If we’re going to be partners here, I feel that you should know this about me,” Sandy told him.

Her partner took the news in stride and appreciated her candor. But that doesn’t mean Sandy will be quick to reveal her condition if her employment situation changes. If she ever does go back to working for someone else, she wouldn’t come clean about her history of depression. “It’s kind of sad that you can’t,” she says. “But it’s just the way it is.”

By Joseph Menn

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – At least a half-dozen major U.S. companies whose computers have been infiltrated by cyber criminals or international spies have not admitted to the incidents despite new guidance from securities regulators urging such disclosures.

Top U.S. cybersecurity officials believe corporate hacking is widespread, and the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a lengthy “guidance” document on October 13 outlining how and when publicly traded companies should report hacking incidents and cybersecurity risk.

But with one full quarter having elapsed since the SEC request, some major companies that are known to have had significant digital security breaches have said nothing about the incidents in their regulatory filings.

Defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp, for example, said last May that it had fended off a “significant and tenacious” cyber attack on its networks. But Lockheed’s most recent 10-Q quarterly filing, like its filing for the period that included the attack, does not even list hacking as a generic risk, let alone state that it has been targeted.

A Reuters review of more than 2,000 filings since the SEC guidance found some companies, including Internet infrastructure company VeriSign Inc and credit card and debit card transaction processor VeriFone Systems Inc, revealed significant new information about hacking incidents.

Yet the vast majority of companies addressing the issue only used new boilerplate language to describe a general risk. Some hacking victims did not even do that.

“It’s completely confusing to me why companies aren’t reporting cyber risks” if only to avoid SEC enforcement or private lawsuits, said Jacob Olcott, former counsel for the Senate Commerce committee. The chair of that committee, John D. Rockefeller, urged the SEC to act last year.

Stewart Baker, a corporate attorney and former assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said the SEC guidance was detailed enough that companies that know they have been hacked will “have to work pretty hard not to disclose something about the scope and risk of the intrusion.”

Otherwise, “this is an opportunity for enforcement that practically hands the case to the SEC on a platter,” Baker said.

Lockheed spokesman Chris Williams said hacking was covered under the company’s most recent annual securities filing, which has as one of many risk factors “security threats, including threats to our information technology infrastructure, attempts to gain access to our proprietary or classified information, threats to physical security of our facilities and employees, and terrorist acts.”

Williams said the May attack had “no material effect on our business.”

Mantech International Corp, CACI International Inc and other defense and technology firms that have been reported by security researchers as hacking victims were likewise silent in their most recent filings. Neither Mantech nor CACI responded to interview requests.

“It’s common knowledge” that most large defense contractors have been penetrated, said Olcott.

Sikorsky Aircraft, mindful of a strict New Hampshire law warning individuals at risk of identity theft, wrote to that state’s attorney general in August that hackers had gotten into its system and could have accessed Social Security numbers of 55 employees who lived in the state.

Sikorsky said the employee data likely was not the hackers’ target, which suggests that they might have been after designs or other trade secrets. But Sikorsky parent United Technologies Corp did not mention the May intrusion in subsequent SEC filings.

“Like other companies, our businesses are subject to (information technology) security attacks at times. We monitor systems and cooperate closely with the government when appropriate,” said United Technologies spokesman John Moran.

DEARTH OF CONFESSIONS

Melissa Hathaway, a former intelligence official who led U.S. President Barack Obama’s initial cybersecurity policy review and helped push the SEC to enact a disclosure policy, said she was “surprised” at the dearth of new confessions.

“The SEC division of corporate finance has an obligation to ask these companies why they didn’t disclose,” she said. “We need to have transparency on the state of the situation, and we need to have a national conversation regarding the near-term impact of economic espionage and the long-term health of the nation.”

The SEC declined to comment. The agency’s guidance officially clarifies previous policy instead of establishing a new rule, a process that takes longer and requires a vote of the commissioners. A person close to the agency said it expects fuller disclosures in annual 10-K filings that will begin appearing in volume this month.

Cybersecurity has been an increasing concern in Washington, and Obama asked during his State of the Union speech for action on legislative proposals. Security experts believe hackers are frequently targeting valuable digital information including strategic plans, blueprints and secret formulas.

But security experts in and out of government have complained for years that most companies don’t disclose even very successful hacking attacks, because they never find out about them or simply don’t want to spook investors, customers or business partners.

The U.S. National Counterintelligence Executive, in a landmark November report that openly accused China of sponsoring military and economic cyber espionage, said that it is hard for companies to estimate the impact of losses that might not be apparent for years.

One Pentagon contractor that did go into some detail recently about the threat was Northrop Grumman Corp, which warned: “Cybersecurity attacks in particular are evolving and include, but are not limited to, malicious software, attempts to gain unauthorized access to data, and other electronic security breaches that could lead to disruptions in mission critical systems, unauthorized release of confidential or otherwise protected information and corruption of data. These events could damage our reputation and lead to financial losses from remedial actions, loss of business or potential liability.”

A few technology companies gave even more specific warnings, including Juniper Networks Inc, which makes gear for routing Internet traffic, and chip-maker Intel Corp. Intel had been one of the few to disclose a successful breach in the past, along with Google Inc, which has complained of attacks originating in China.

In a November filing, Intel repeated that hackers had gotten inside and warned that “the theft or unauthorized use or publication of our trade secrets and other confidential business information as a result of such an incident could adversely affect our competitive position and reduce marketplace acceptance of our products.”

Some companies asserted that they had not been hacked, or at least averred that they had not been subject to a “material” or “catastrophic” intrusion.

Others confessed to breaches for the first time, including VeriSign and VeriFone Systems, which said it had experienced “security breaches or fraudulent activities related to unauthorized access to sensitive customer information.”

The company did not respond to requests for elaboration. Point-of-sale terminals including VeriFone’s models are popular targets for criminal hackers, who can tamper with them in order to record passwords and card numbers.

VeriFone has been reported as a supplier of machines to Michaels Stores Inc, a retail chain of hobbyist stores that had to replace more than 7,000 terminals last year after discovering tampering in 20 states.

Two other companies said they disclosed breaches because of the SEC guidance. Tumi Holdings, the luggage maker that is pursuing an initial public offering, said in a stock prospectus that security systems in some of its retail stores had been compromised in the past.

In an interview, Tumi Chief Financial Officer Michael Mardy said there had been no theft of a database or other massive breach. Instead, he said there had been occasions where store employees had conspired with outsiders on a small scale, for example by giving refunds to people who had not made purchases.

“We felt it was necessary to list as a risk factor because it actually is a risk factor,” Mardy said.

University of Phoenix parent Apollo Group Inc, which in the past had noted attempted breaches, for the first time said some attempts had succeeded.

“We are facing an increasing number of threats to our computer systems of unauthorized access, computer hackers, computer viruses, malicious code, organized cyber attacks and other system disruptions and security breaches, and from time to time we experience such disruptions and breaches,” it wrote in a 10-Q.

Apollo spokesman Rick Castellano declined to say how extensive the breaches had been. “Cybersecurity is an area of growing area of concern for all companies”, Castellano said. “We devote significant resources to manage any potential threat.”

(Reporting By Joseph Menn)

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Eleven people who were arrested during the weekend’s turbulent Occupy Oakland protests were ordered Tuesday to stay away from the plaza outside Oakland City Hall that serves as the movement’s main staging area, and city officials said they hoped the move would quell future disturbances.

Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said two judges granted her office’s request for the stay-away orders during the demonstrators’ arraignments. Four men facing felony charges, such as assault on a police officer and drug possession, were directed to keep away from both Frank Ogawa Plaza and the Oakland Convention Center.

Seven protesters charged with misdemeanors such as vandalism, battery on a police officer and resisting arrest may not go within 300 feet of the plaza. Prosecutors hope to secure a similar order against an eighth person whose arraignment was postponed for a week, O’Malley said.

“While we respect every citizen’s right to protest peacefully, we will not tolerate individuals who come to Oakland with an organized strategy to riot, clash with police officers, vandalize property and wreak havoc upon the city,” she said.

The dozen people already charged were among more than 400 people arrested Saturday when a midday march to protest economic inequality devolved into a clash between some rock-throwing protesters and police who responded with tear gas. City Hall was broken into, vandalized and an American flag taken from there burned.

O’Malley says her office is reviewing police reports with an eye toward charging and seeking stay-away orders for additional protesters.

The mass arrests came more than two months after a series of highly publicized clashes between Oakland police and demonstrators associated with the city’s offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement. In November, officers disbanded the tent city that Occupy Oakland supporters erected in the City Hall plaza, but local activists have continued holding biweekly planning meetings there.

After surveying the damage from Saturday’s melee, Mayor Jean Quan said she wants a court order to keep Occupy protesters who have been arrested several times out of Oakland, saying repeated demonstrations have cost the financially troubled city about $5 million.

Two and a half years ago, I co-founded Stroome, a collaborative online video editing and publishing platform and 2010 Knight News Challenge winner. There are a lot of uncertainties in the startup game. But one thing is for sure: When it comes to presenting your product to potential investors, customers and partners, you’re always on stage.

We first unveiled our platform at USC Annenberg’s pioneering Program for Online Communities in the fall of 2009. Nearly three years — and probably a hundred presentations later — we’re still showing off our wares.

Recently, I was asked by Jason Nazar, founder of Docstoc and a big supporter of the L.A. entrepreneurial community, if I had any tips for startups regarding making a memorable — strike that — making a killer presentation.

A short, 3-minute video response can be found at the bottom of this post, but I thought I’d share some key takeaways with you here:

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

Every startup starts with a vision. You need to sell that vision. But before you even think about climbing on stage, you need to remember who you’re talking to is just as important as what you’re talking about. In other words, you need to know your audience.

If you’re talking to investors, for example, talk about the investment. How big is the market? What percentage do you plan to capture? How long will it take to become profitable? How much money will it take to get there? How do you plan to spend that money? And perhaps the most anticipated question of all for any investor: “When will I get my money back?”

Market assessment, product placement and ROI — that’s what’s on the mind of any Angel or VC during an investor pitch. Make sure you speak to those issues.

If it’s a demo, show the product; don’t talk about it. The focus of a product demonstration is different from an investor pitch. And so is the audience. A good way to structure a demo of your product is to address these three questions: 1) What’s the market like now; 2) What does your product do (this is where you show the product if you have a prototype); and 3) How will the market/consumer behavior change (presumably for the better) when your product goes live?

Let’s face it– product demos are much sexier than investor pitches. They’re also better attended. Investors, potential business partners, future employees, unsuspecting customers, the press — all are typically in attendance. Which brings us to point two…

SPEAK IN BITE-SIZE CHUNKS

The easier it is for your presentation to be digested by your audience, the better. So you need to condense your message to as few words as possible. And if you plan to use slides, put those words — and only those words — on your slides.

People tend to read the slides, not listen to you anyway. So why not give them a “tweetable” moment, and get the focus back on you. How, you ask? Limit the text on your slides to 140 characters. That’s right, actually write the tweet on the slide.

Think about it. You’ve just killed two birds with one stone. You’ve given the people in the room your pitch in a way they can remember it, and you’ve gotten them to push it out across the social web for you.

TELL A STORY THROUGH A NARRATIVE

I’ve talked about this in a previous post entitled “Lessons for Digital Entrepreneurs from the Entertainment Industry,” but it’s worth repeating. When you’re presenting, all you are really doing is telling a story. And stories are composed of three parts: a beginning, a middle and an end.

The beginning is the setup. This is where you talk about the marketplace pain and how your product plans to assuage it.

The middle is the solution. This is where you actually show off your product in a demo. But be careful. Many presenters tend to get sidetracked here talking about the nuances of the product. Your audience is more interested in what problem your product is going to solve, not the nuts-and-bolts mechanics of how it works.

The end is your salvo. This is your final parting shot, your big finish. This is where you want to talk about the upcoming launch, make the financial “ask,” wow your audience with your long-term vision.

Of course, every good story needs a villain. And if you have one — maybe it’s a competitor, a really big problem in the marketplace that has yet to be addressed, a previously insurmountable technical obstacle you’ve overcome — my advice is to play it up. Don’t skirt the big obstacles before you.

You’re David; they’re Goliath. So tell your audience how you’re going to slay the giant. Whether it’s a special tool set you’ve created, or a unique knowledge of the market that gives you an unfair advantage, you are the one who will solve this problem and save the day. Because at the end of the day, you are the hero of your story.

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE

Don’t fall into the trap that just because you know more than anyone else in the room about your business that you can wing it when you get up there. That’s a recipe for disaster.

Even the most gifted actors have to know their lines. It’s out of that constraint that confidence and comfort emerge. It’s what makes their performance seem so natural and effortless. Knowing your “lines” can make you come off the same way. But the only way that’s going to happen is if you practice.

DON’T RELY ON TECHNOLOGY

It will fail.

A FINAL THOUGHT

Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you with a hanging dongle (sorry, PC aficionados — that’s a Mac joke). Giving a killer presentation is within your grasp.

Just remember these five things and you’ll knock ‘em dead every time: 1) Know your audience; 2) have a compelling story; 3) tell that story succinctly; 4) tell it with the confidence that comes from practice; and 5) don’t rely on bells and whistles.

Because in the end, you are the presentation, not what’s on the screen behind you.

This article is the fifth of 10 video segments in which digital entrepreneur Tom Grasty talks about his experience building an Internet startup, and is part of a larger initiative sponsored by Docstoc.videos, which features advice from small business owners who offer their views on how to launch a new business or grow your existing one altogether.