Ears

Joseph Michael Murphy had the defeated look of a man on a losing streak at the track, because that's precisely what he was. So far on this sunny Sunday afternoon, the ponies just weren't cooperating. In the first race, his best bet of the day, a 7-1 shot named De Bora, had finished a dismal sixth. But Murphy's problems ran deeper than those of a racing-form junkie who smokes too many cigarettes and throws down too much cash at the betting window: He trained De Bora and a slew of other horses here that have rarely seen the light of win, place or show.

Just before noon on a clear fall day, the Newman stage on the 20th Century Fox lot is alive with bright lights, hovering microphones and a full 105-piece orchestra. It's one of the final scoring sessions for "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol," and director Brad Bird and composer Michael Giacchino are listening closely to the music when a man with a snow-white ponytail and baseball cap leans over to whisper in Giacchino's ear. The composer nods and asks the conductor, Tim Simonec, to take it from the top, with a shade less emphasis on the piano.

As a very young child, I imagined bliss as a house built of books, furniture made of softcover titles with wallpaper you could read and vivid color plates standing in for framed artwork. This I know must have come from growing up in a household where books reigned. We lived with them, not the other way around. Not only did they crowd ceiling-whisking shelves, but they also grew in stacks like tall tropical trees, separated into "groves" by genres. This living library was curated by my mother, who built her life on and around books.

Faders look like high-tech stereo ear buds for listening to music. They're not. Their job is to reduce sound, not amplify it. Unlike typical plastic or moldable foam earplugs, which muffle sound by plugging your ear canal, these high-fidelity metal earplugs filter out sound by 12 decibels evenly across the frequency spectrum, so you still get the full crisp range of sound - only toned down. Faders come with three sizes of interchangeable silicone fittings to get the right fit. Now you don't need to choose between enduring deafening noise levels at, say, a rock concert, and looking like a dork with those endemic squishy orange earplugs.

Faders look like high-tech stereo ear buds for listening to music. They're not. Their job is to reduce sound, not amplify it. Unlike typical plastic or moldable foam earplugs, which muffle sound by plugging your ear canal, these high-fidelity metal earplugs filter out sound by 12 decibels evenly across the frequency spectrum, so you still get the full crisp range of sound - only toned down. Faders come with three sizes of interchangeable silicone fittings to get the right fit. Now you don't need to choose between enduring deafening noise levels at, say, a rock concert, and looking like a dork with those endemic squishy orange earplugs.

Sound has long been used as a weapon. The Germans put sirens on Stuka dive bombers in World War II to amplify the terror to unlucky souls below. Jamaican maroons - fugitive slaves - used the abeng horn to unnerve British colonial soldiers. The U.S. Army blasted rock music to torment former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega. And according to the Bible, Joshua brought down the walls of Jericho by having his priests blow rams' horns. Now, the power of loud noise is being harnessed by police departments.

A freak for fitness, I decided the other day to concentrate on what trainers call the "core muscle groups," the very struts of the human body. In my case, the core muscles are the tongue and the schnitzel. The schnitzel is unfamiliar to many folks, but it's a sister muscle to the hamstring. Twisty like ship rope, the schnitzel runs from the back of the tongue to a spot just under my computer desk. I'm typing with it now, in fact. So what I've been doing every morning is to work my core muscles - my tongue and my schnitzel - then replenish my fluids later in the day with that popular new heart medication, a glass or two of red wine.

Conservative talk radio hosts John and Ken showed up at Occupy L.A. for a live broadcast Thursday, setting off a chaotic scene of jostling and shouting. If their aim was to provoke, they succeeded. The hosts, John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, have been mocking the protest on their popular afternoon show on KFI-AM (640). When they entered the encampment of tents surrounding City Hall, accompanied by four security guards dressed in suits, they were quickly flanked by a crowd of several dozen protesters.

Reporting from Arlington, Texas -- Mike Napoli's game-winning double came off left-hander Marc Rzepczynski . But that wasn't the matchup St. Louis wanted. Cardinals Manager Tony La Russa said he wanted hard-throwing right-hander Jason Motte to pitch to Texas' right-hand-hitting catcher, but when he called down to the bullpen, coach Derek Lilliquist misunderstood his instructions. "They heard Rzepczynski and they didn't hear Motte," La Russa said. "And when I called back I said Motte, they heard [ Lance ]