Demographics

It could have been a historic teaching moment. Instead, President Obama, the most famous mixed-race person in the world, checked off only one race — black — last year on his census form. And in so doing, he missed an opportunity to articulate a more nuanced racial vision for the increasingly diverse country he heads. The president also bucked a trend. Last month, the Census Bureau announced that the number of Americans who identified themselves as being of more than one race in 2010 grew about 32% over the last decade.

Although we might resist the implication that every aspect of our daily lives is mirrored in one demographic database or other, it's probably true. Cheryl Russell is a Beaufort, S.C., demographer who seems to have her finger on all manner of consumer behavior. She keeps track of not only what we buy but also why we buy it. The former editor of American Demographics magazine now is managing director of New Strategist Publications, which publishes demographic reference tools, primarily for libraries.

It's a bawdy comedy for randy guys starring a nearly naked swimsuit model. Or it's a smart romance for women about finding the perfect man. If you believe Sony's advertising campaign for "Just Go With It," this weekend's Adam Sandler movie might be both of those things. Movie studios sometimes use slightly divergent marketing tactics to attract different demographics to their films, but Sony's double-barreled sales effort for "Just Go With It," a movie about a plastic surgeon who pretends to be miserably married to attract single women, provides a good study in how pitches for the same film can be dramatically distinct depending on who's being courted.

Football gave NBC one last big push in the ratings last week, as the networks begin looking forward to midseason and a new crop of winter shows. NBC's burst came from Saturday's playoff game between the New York Jets and the Indianapolis Colts, which averaged 33.3 million total viewers, according to the Nielsen Co. That was not only the week's No. 1 program but also the biggest Saturday night number in 17 years ? since the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics. As a result, NBC won the week in the crucial 18 to 49 demographic and nearly stole CBS' customary total-viewer crown (the final outcome was CBS' 9.7 million versus NBC's 9.6 million)

Not long ago, I spoke with Dr. David Reuben, a colleague who heads a top-ranked geriatrics program. After touching on current healthcare dilemmas, our conversation moved to the future. Specifically, how to cope as baby boomers sail past birthdays that their grandparents never dreamed of reaching. "What lies ahead when the age wave really hits?" I asked him. "You know, when every state looks like Florida?" "Another Hurricane Katrina," he shot back. "But by then, will we have working dams and dikes?

With 30 bucks and an open mind, you can stay in some prime spots in California — on the Pacific Beach boardwalk in San Diego, for example, or a block from Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica or overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco or across from Union Square. We're talking hostels, once regarded as the province of backpackers and bedbugs, but increasingly go-to places for a growing base of mobile and moneyed travelers. More than 250 hostels are scattered throughout the U.S., including 60 in California, offering a more social and budget-friendly alternative to hotel travel.

It's late on the night before Thanksgiving, and the stretch of Sunset Boulevard through Echo Park, from Mohawk to Douglas Street, is littered with young revelers. Lines form in front of bars, including the Short Stop, the Little Joy, the Gold Room and El Prado; taco trucks and gourmet food trucks idle curbside; and laughter, shouts and the occasional breaking of glass can be heard in the apartments above the street. Ten years ago this bit of road was a no-man's land at night -- at least for the kind of hip party people that now consider the area their stamping ground.

Over the course of three days on a typical weekend of high school football in September, Los Angeles Times reporters spread out over a four-county area to watch 13 games between schools representing a variety of regions and demographics. In most cases, the home team was responsible for providing medical care. Here's a look at the aid available at each of the matchups: Thursday, Sept. 23 San Jacinto Noli Indian vs. Torrance Pacific Lutheran at Daniels Field, San Pedro Noli Indian: Paramedic.

In the mid-1990s, Australia's then-Prime Minister John Howard sought to quash his nation's "perpetual seminar on … national identity" by insisting, as he later said, that his countrymen never really "had any doubt as to what their identity was. " A little more than a decade later, however, there are plenty of signs that Howard overstated the case. Even the casual visitor Down Under can see and hear the muted nature of the nation's identity. Bangladeshi Australian cab drivers are likely to describe their new homeland not in terms of what it is but what it is not: "There's no fighting here.

Among the advantages for those who live in multimillion dollar houses on the hillside in Los Feliz are celebrity neighbors, sweeping views of the downtown skyline, the Griffith Observatory in their backyard and designation by state tax authorities that they are economically disadvantaged. That means tens of thousands of California businesses can claim tax breaks worth up to $37,400 each for hiring some of Los Feliz's rich residents, through a program that provides benefits to companies for hiring welfare recipients, ex-convicts, military veterans and the chronically unemployed.