Stanley A

Stanley A. Dashew, an inventor and entrepreneur who helped revolutionize the credit card industry, died of natural causes Thursday in Los Angeles, according to a family spokesman. He was 96. Dashew held 40 patents in fields as diverse as credit card processing, mining, mass transit, medical equipment and offshore oil transportation. He also was an avid sailor, writer and photographer who late in life wrote for the Christian Science Monitor and the Huffington Post. At 94, he distilled his insights about life and business in a book, "You Can Do It: Inspiration and Lessons from an Inventor, Entrepreneur, and Sailor.

Stanley Kauffmann, who died Wednesday at 97, will be remembered for his intellectually rigorous, neatly manicured film reviews -- the meditative yin to Pauline Kael's ecstatic yang. But as a drama critic, I'm especially grateful for his equally acute body of drama criticism, which is a tonic to read in this age of trumped-up enthusiasms and attention-grabbing pans. “Persons of the Drama,” one of Kauffmann's collections of theater criticism, can usually be found in a pile on my desk with anthologies of theater reviews by his friends and colleagues Robert Brustein, Gordon Rogoff and the late Richard Gilman, all of whom taught at the Yale School of Drama and helped (directly and indirectly)

Afghanistan's security forces will need U.S. support for another 15 to 20 years, President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday in the latest in a series of indications that U.S. involvement there is likely to last far into the future. Also Tuesday, the top U.S. and allied commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, told lawmakers in Washington that the U.S. needed to signal a long-term commitment in Afghanistan in order to reverse the momentum of the Taliban-led insurgency, a commitment that he said must continue even after combat forces begin to draw down in 2011.

Stanley A. Dashew, an inventor and entrepreneur who helped revolutionize the credit card industry, died of natural causes Thursday in Los Angeles, according to a family spokesman. He was 96. Dashew held 40 patents in fields as diverse as credit card processing, mining, mass transit, medical equipment and offshore oil transportation. He also was an avid sailor, writer and photographer who late in life wrote for the Christian Science Monitor and the Huffington Post. At 94, he distilled his insights about life and business in a book, "You Can Do It: Inspiration and Lessons from an Inventor, Entrepreneur, and Sailor.

The peaks of the Hindu Kush mountains create a stunning backdrop for the U.S. military's Kabul headquarters, but Maj. Gen. Michael T. Flynn rarely notices. Sheltering Taliban fighters and American combat outposts, the mountains symbolize the old way of fighting. Flynn was sent here to help define a new strategy for the war. In a teleconference center at the military complex, Flynn sat before a microphone, pressing his case for more Predator drones, intelligence analysts and satellites to peer beyond those peaks.

Stanley A. Cain, 92, assistant secretary of the Department of the Interior during the Johnson Administration. A pioneer in botanical research, Cain served as president of the Ecological Society of America and helped make conservation a national concern. Cain also was one of the designers of the UC Santa Cruz campus, demanding that no redwood tree be cut without administration approval. Born in Jefferson County, Ind.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said goodbye to the Army on Friday in a poignant ceremony that paid tribute to his three decades of military service and barely mentioned his firing by President Obama for insubordination. It was McChrystal who alluded most directly to his own precipitous fall, standing at the podium and looking out at formations of soldiers and former comrades. "Service in this business is tough and often dangerous, and it extracts a price for participation, and that price can be high," McChrystal said.

Stanley Kauffmann, who died Wednesday at 97, will be remembered for his intellectually rigorous, neatly manicured film reviews -- the meditative yin to Pauline Kael's ecstatic yang. But as a drama critic, I'm especially grateful for his equally acute body of drama criticism, which is a tonic to read in this age of trumped-up enthusiasms and attention-grabbing pans. “Persons of the Drama,” one of Kauffmann's collections of theater criticism, can usually be found in a pile on my desk with anthologies of theater reviews by his friends and colleagues Robert Brustein, Gordon Rogoff and the late Richard Gilman, all of whom taught at the Yale School of Drama and helped (directly and indirectly)

While gang wars raged on the streets of Los Angeles, a little noticed though violent series of attacks broke out among members of the Crips gang imprisoned on San Quentin's Death Row, prison officials say. The battle reached its height last October when Tiequon A. Cox, who was in the Rolling 60s faction of the Crips in Los Angeles, stabbed and wounded Stanley (Tookie) Williams, a body builder who helped found the gang 20 years ago. Williams has denied any continuing role in Crip activity on or off the row. And Colleen E. Butler, Cox's attorney, noted that in prison, "what appears to be the case is not always what happened."

An advocacy group for low- income housing accused Morgan Stanley of discriminating against minority borrowers seeking mortgages. The National Community Reinvestment Coalition said it filed a civil rights complaint asking the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether Morgan Stanley used the practice of redlining when considering mortgage applicants.

MONTREAL -- If the names of players and teams that have won the Stanley Cup were perfectly aligned on its barrel, if the task of etching those names for posterity were left to a heartless machine, the Cup would still be distinctive but it would be too perfect, more likely to be admired from afar than embraced. If neat rows of letters marched around the bands of a spotlessly gleaming trophy, eager hands might be hesitant to touch it and trace names that are both strange and familiar.

Clay Stanley's 80-mph jump serve is one of the most potent weapons in international volleyball. And as a right-side hitter, he may be the best in the world. But when U.S. national team Coach Alan Knipe is asked what Stanley brings to the court, the first thing he mentions is "the stare. " "He has the ability to look right through his teammates," Knipe says. And more often than not, Knipe says, those teammates get the message. "It's time to go," Knipe says. "The guys respond to him because they know he's their leader.

The gig: A 95-year-old sailor, inventor and entrepreneur, Stanley A. Dashew is probably best known for his invention of credit card embossing and imprinting machines in the 1950s that helped give birth to the plastic credit card industry. He has also invented other devices in such fields as shipping, mining and marine recreation. He personally holds 14 U.S. patents. Dashew and his late wife, Rita, were world travelers who supported efforts to strengthen international ties and promote peace.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal said goodbye to the Army on Friday in a poignant ceremony that paid tribute to his three decades of military service and barely mentioned his firing by President Obama for insubordination. It was McChrystal who alluded most directly to his own precipitous fall, standing at the podium and looking out at formations of soldiers and former comrades. "Service in this business is tough and often dangerous, and it extracts a price for participation, and that price can be high," McChrystal said.

It can be a split-second decision, or one that plays out over long and agonizing hours: to kill or not to kill. "Rules of engagement" is the dry, legalistic term for the visceral battlefield calculus of when and whether to use deadly force to counter threat, real or perceived. Across Afghanistan, these rules serve as the marching orders that govern Western troops' daily encounters with Taliban fighters and color dealings with Afghan civilians. U.S. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who on Sunday formally took command of Western forces here, must decide in the coming weeks or months whether to recalibrate the stringent rules of engagement laid down last summer by his predecessor, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who recently resigned over remarks that laid bare a dysfunctional civilian-military relationship.

In a new magazine profile, the top commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and his advisors appear to ridicule Vice President Joe Biden and are portrayed as dismissive of civilian oversight of the war. The article, in Rolling Stone, said McChrystal's staff frequently derided top civilian leaders, including special envoy Richard C. Holbrooke and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry. The detailed report on the top command in Afghanistan could worsen tensions with the White House, which in the past has felt boxed in by military commanders anxious to get more troops for the war. The article said that only Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton received good reviews from McChrystal's inner circle.

Roy Rogers, the "King of the Cowboys" who sang, smiled and occasionally shot his way into the hearts of multitudes of Little Buckaroos, died Monday. He was 86. Rogers died of congestive heart failure in his Apple Valley home near Victorville, with his wife and co-star Dale Evans and other family members at his side. He had undergone heart surgery in 1977 and 1990 and had been somewhat frail in recent years.

MONTREAL -- If the names of players and teams that have won the Stanley Cup were perfectly aligned on its barrel, if the task of etching those names for posterity were left to a heartless machine, the Cup would still be distinctive but it would be too perfect, more likely to be admired from afar than embraced. If neat rows of letters marched around the bands of a spotlessly gleaming trophy, eager hands might be hesitant to touch it and trace names that are both strange and familiar.

It is tempting to compare Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal's criticism of Obama administration officials to Gen. Douglas MacArthur's defiance of President Truman during the Korean War. But something important has changed over the last 60 years. Although MacArthur challenged Truman, the larger officer corps was then thoroughly committed to principles of civilian control. But today, McChrystal's actions are symptomatic of a broader politicization of the military command. During the early 20th century, strict nonpartisanship was the professional norm.

A U.S. military investigation has harshly criticized a Nevada-based Air Force drone crew and American ground commanders in Afghanistan for misidentifying civilians as insurgents during a U.S. Army Special Forces operation in Oruzgan province in February, resulting in the deaths of as many as 23 civilians. Six U.S. officers will be punished and a sweeping review of counterinsurgency training will be undertaken, U.S. Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Saturday.