Variety Magazine

Margaret Kerry is quite earnest in describing herself as Tinker Bell's alter ego. She is hardly the type to astrally regress to Never Land, or to fannishly emulate a character from a cartoon. If anything, it would be closer to the truth to say that Tinker Bell, instead, was the one to imitate Kerry. Before Peter Pan's glittering sidekick ever fluttered to screen, Kerry had already gone through all her pixie paces.

During the past 31 years, the grocery and hardware stores, pharmacies and fruit stand in Arthur Raskin's Westwood Village neighborhood have given way to trendy frozen-yogurt dispensers, T-shirt vendors and poster shops. "I've seen more businesses come and go than you can shake a stick at," said Raskin, 70, whose newsstand has been a fixture at the corner of Westwood Boulevard and Lindbrook Drive since 1956.

During the past 31 years, the grocery and hardware stores, pharmacies and fruit stand in Arthur Raskin's Westwood Village neighborhood have given way to trendy frozen-yogurt dispensers, T-shirt vendors and poster shops. "I've seen more businesses come and go than you can shake a stick at," said Raskin, 70, whose newsstand has been a fixture at the corner of Westwood Boulevard and Lindbrook Drive since 1956.

During the past 31 years, the grocery and hardware stores, pharmacies and fruit stand in Arthur Raskin's Westwood Village neighborhood have given way to trendy frozen-yogurt dispensers, T-shirt vendors and poster shops. "I've seen more businesses come and go than you can shake a stick at," said Raskin, 70, whose newsstand has been a fixture at the corner of Westwood Boulevard and Lindbrook Drive since 1956.

As Kodiak was dying from a rare form of cancer, Bonnie Weintraub vowed never to forget the black standard poodle with the dark soulful eyes that sensed when she needed companionship, conveyed by a paw on Weintraub's hand, a head on her lap or a wag of the tail. She began memorializing Kodiak shortly after his death in July 1999 at nearly 9 years old.

It all started with a serious question from Groucho Marx. It was 1956, and Col. Barney Oldfield had just won $1,050 on the television game show "You Bet Your Life" when Marx, the show's host, asked how he planned to spend his winnings. "I'm standing there in an Air Force uniform in front of 35 million people--I can't say, 'I'm going to put it in my pocket and run for the hills,' " he said.

In the chambers of Parliament, Japan's leaders are locked in a hair-splitting debate over the country's military destiny, with Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu pushing for a broader interpretation of the postwar "peace" constitution that would allow him to send troops to the Persian Gulf. On the pages of the popular magazine Comic Morning, a more dramatic version of history is being made--or at least made up.

If Peter Dinklage had gotten the part of Mini-Me in 1999's "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me," you can bet he wouldn't be pictured sitting shirtless on the edge of a bed next to a gorgeous topless model in a Variety magazine spread headlined "The New Sexy." And it's doubtful that this month's issue of W would predict that Dinklage "may end up the first dwarf movie heartthrob."

The long-suffering beef industry is bullish about a recent survey that detected a positive shift in consumer attitudes toward red meat. The turnaround is being attributed to a $30-million advertising campaign launched earlier this year by a coalition of livestock trade associations. The ads feature actors James Garner and Cybill Shepherd emphasizing the theme, "Beef. Real Food for Real People."

Four movie houses in San Diego specialize in foreign or "art" films, and San Francisco-based Landmark Theatres owns all of them. It's not exactly a monopoly, since any theater can show the films, but Landmark clearly has the market to itself. "It's astonishing that Landmark has four theaters in a city the size of San Diego," said Allen Gates, owner of La Paloma Theater in Encinitas. "I wouldn't want to compete with them."