Vision

I'm an 84-year-old man on Social Security with original Medicare and Mutual of Omaha gap insurance. My insurance premium was raised from $262 to $363 a month, a 39% jump. After all my monthly expenses, I have just $240 left. What can I do in the event of another increase in my premiums? If you've had your current Medicare supplement plan for years, it's not surprising that you've seen your costs steadily rise, says Steve Zaleznick, senior Medicare advisor at PlanPrescriber, a Maynard, Mass.-based online provider of Medicare education and plan comparison tools.

Robert Greenberg got tired of hearing from senior engineers that it wasn't possible to build his product idea: a bionic eye that gives sight to the blind. "A lot of the folks straight out of school didn't know any better, so I hired them instead," quipped Greenberg, chief executive of Second Sight Medical Products Inc., a Sylmar biotech company. "They didn't know how hard it was going to be, that it was impossible. And so they tried. " Greenberg can laugh now that he once thought developing the device would take a year and $1 million.

'Vision' No MPAA rating: In German with English subtitles Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes Playing: Laemmle's Royal Theatre, West Los Angeles; Laemmle's Playhouse 7, Pasadena; and Laemmle's Town Center 5, Encino

I couldn't have imagined saying this a few years ago, but I wish Antonio Villaraigosa could run again for mayor of Los Angeles. You can look at broken promises and judge the mayor a flop: too many potholes, and not enough cops. But I think his legacy is bigger than that. And most Angelenos, it seems, agree. More than half the voters surveyed by Times pollsters last week said they view Villaraigosa favorably. FULL COVERAGE: L.A.'s race for mayor That public endorsement shocked local pundits, who consider the mayor all style and no substance.

Beck's vision recently got an infusion of luxury money, and he's used it in service of a good cause: creating a jumbo helping of David Bowie's "Sound and Vision. " Over the last few years, the Los Angeles singer, songwriter and producer has been equally focused on honoring others' work as showcasing his own. Though he recently released a series of new songs via sheet music called “ Song Reader ,” the musician has also offered a series of tributes, including full-album renditions of work by, among others, Alexander “Skip” Spence, the Velvet Underground and New Age superstar Yanni.

Re "Nixon opponent was a liberal titan," Obituary, Oct. 22 The passing of George McGovern serves as a reminder that there once was decency in national politics and that being called a liberal was not an insult. Suffering a staggering 49-state loss in the 1972 presidential election, McGovern conceded defeat with grace and characteristic good humor. Within two years both members of the opposition Republican ticket that defeated McGovern had resigned in disgrace. McGovern was one of the first senators to call for U.S. withdrawal fromVietnam.

Children who play more outdoors are smarter, leaner and stronger than kids more inclined toward indoor activities, and a new study finds they have another advantage: They're less likely to suffer from nearsightedness, in which objects in the distance appear blurry. The study , presented Monday at the American Academy of Ophthamology's  yearly meeting, culled the findings of eight studies that explored the relationship between outdoor time and myopia in more than 10,000 children.

Re "The critics shrugged," Opinion, Aug. 26 Ayn Rand's epic tome, "Atlas Shrugged," is a relentless 1,100-some pages of excruciating reading, a fitting punishment for any libertarian. I've never come across one of them who has actually read the darn thing. They all say they've read it and even sport the bumper stickers with the opening line, "Who is John Galt?," but none of them has been so masochistic as to have actually read it. This actualizes the famous review by Dorothy Parker, who said: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly.

In 1933, four years after a calamitous market crash, Americans were losing hope. But then, on a cold day in March,Franklin D. Rooseveltdelivered his first inaugural address. The new president pulled no punches, laying blame for the country's financial woes squarely on Wall Street speculators - and, by implication, on their benefactors in Washington. "They have no vision," he said, citing a passage from the Bible, "and when there is no vision, the people perish. " Roosevelt, by contrast, clearly articulated a vision that reawakened the hope of a beleaguered nation.

'Bonsai People: The Vision of Muhammad Yunus' No MPAA rating Running time: 1 hour, 19 minutes Playing: At Laemmle's NoHo7, North Hollywood

Re "A Venezuela score card," Opinion, April 19 Former U.S Ambassador to Venezuela Charles Shapiro's predictable assault on Venezuelan democracy failed to mention that about 79% of eligible Venezuelans actually turned out to vote in their presidential election. Compare that with here, the bastion of true democracy. Last year, 55% of registered California voters cast their ballots, while only 20% of registered voters participated in the recent Los Angeles mayoral primary. And these figures are even worse if you were to include the millions of California adults who have never even made the effort to become registered voters.

Every morning at The Times begins with a meeting. Nothing unusual about that until you consider that depth and breadth of our newsroom, Out of all these opinions come hard facts and insightful journalism. A vision that is larger than California, but still uniquely Californian.

Designer, retailer and Hollywood royalty Jennifer Nicholson, who once headlined Los Angeles Fashion Week and showed her collections in New York, has returned to fashion after a nearly five-year hiatus. Her new venture is Pearl Drop, a Venice boutique with a "boho goddess festival vibe," opened just in time to dress customers for this month's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, one of Nicholson's favorite springtime excursions. Located on Lincoln Boulevard in the up-and-coming retail area known as the Linc that's become an alternative to crowded Abbot Kinney, Pearl Drop showcases mostly California-based labels, plus pieces that Nicholson has designed herself under the Pearl Drop label.

Paolo Soleri, an Italian-born architect who created a visionary prototype for a new kind of ecologically sensitive city in the remote Arizona desert four decades ago, only to watch the suburban sprawl he detested begin to creep near it in recent years, has died. He was 93. Soleri died of natural causes Tuesday at his home in Paradise Valley, Ariz., according to an official with the architect's foundation . PHOTOS: Paolo Soleri | 1919-2013 A onetime apprentice at Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West compound on the edge of Scottsdale, Ariz., Soleri founded his own desert settlement, called Arcosanti, in 1970 at a site roughly 70 miles north of downtown Phoenix.

I will always remember the day I woke to the news that more than 2,000 fires were burning in California. I thought I must not have heard correctly. Two thousand fires? How could that be? In the end, the state's brave firefighters, joined by contingents from out of state, won the battle. But not before 11 emergency declarations were issued and more than 400,000 acres burned. Countless lives and livelihoods were ruined. Today, there's a new disaster looming, and although it's not as riveting or dramatic as walls of flames and billowing black smoke, it needs our immediate attention.

T-shirts were once novelty items: Disneyland giveaways for deeply uncool vacationers, concert keepsakes for the young and disheveled, kitschy thrift-store finds for young women with hair in Princess Leia buns. But in the last decade the garments have transcended that reputation, becoming refined wardrobe staples for everyone, everywhere. Arguably this phenomenon started in L.A., with C&C California. The T-shirt company launched in 2002 out of the homes of founders Cheyann Benedict and Claire Stansfield.

Does depth perception develop in humans as a result of nature or nurture? It's a question scientists have wondered about. And a new study comes to a surprising conclusion: Babies acquire binocular vision as a result of viewing the world around them, not merely thanks to genetic programming. "My guess was that it was going to be something in between nature and nurture," said study leader Ilona Kovacs, a psychologist at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary.

Four years ago, GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin -- then a relatively obscure governor of a remote state -- made a barn-burning speech at the Republican National Convention that vastly exceeded the punditry's (admittedly low) expectations. Although things went downhill from there for Palin, it was a clutch performance that helped establish the then-governor of Alaska as a national figure. The expectations will be quite a bit higher for Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the GOP's current nominee for vice president, when he steps up to the microphone Wednesday night.

Tom Clements was memorialized as a man of vision as top state officials, family members and friends said farewell on Monday to the Colorado prisons chief slain last week. “He was a great man, a great leader, a voice of reason and wisdom,” said Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who hired Clements. “Without question, he was one of the finest people I have ever worked with. “His energy was tireless. He was always, always moving forward,” the governor told mourners inside a packed New Life Church in Colorado Springs.

When his band mates reach for a way of describing Gustavo Santaolalla, the Oscar-winning musician and producer, they frequently compare him to rock 'n' roll legends: "the Argentine Bob Dylan," the "South American Brian Wilson," and so on. But if they really want to haul out the big-gauge superlatives, they turn to fútbol . (These are Latin Americans, after all.) "I don't know if you're a soccer fan," says Adrián Sosa, longtime drummer for Bajofondo, the stylistically omnivorous band that he and Santaolalla belong to, "but I compare him all the time with guys like Maradona, like Messi.