Not all decisions need send you running for the nearest copy of Navigating Your Health Benefits for Dummies (yes, there is one). The flexible spending account is simple: If your employer offers one–and most large firms do–you should seriously consider using it. An FSA lets you put away pretax dollars to pay out-of-pocket medical expenses ranging from surgery to over-the-counter sinus spray. The money is pulled from your paycheck into an account from which you are reimbursed.

Homelands seek bright side of grey matter

The Arab world has suffered heavily from the emigration of its educated young men and women to the West. Many Arab professionals who moved to the United States, United Kingdom and other European countries in the Sixties and Seventies to pursue higher education have become prominent figures in their host countries and contribute to their success — while their native countries lag behind. The biggest wave of emigration from Arab countries occurred in the second half of the 20th century and continues at an alarming rate in some of them. Arab countries are among the top victims of the brain-drain, according to international statistics. While China, India and African and Latin American nations also suffer from it, they are trying hard to get their migrant intelligentsia to return. However, there is no unified pattern or system that explains how the problem evolved in the Arab world or why educated Arabs emigrate.

'Shining City' illuminates despair of existential crisis

Some of us come out the other side of that as deeper people. Some of us get stuck for life in its morass.

That's pretty much what "Shining City," Conor McPherson's extraordinary Irish drama and the first of this astonishing writer's truly great plays, is all about. And it's a measure of McPherson's ear for the delicacy of the human condition that this also is a wry, funny, humanistic and compassionate story. At the Goodman Theatre on Sunday night, this 100-minute yarn pulled in the audience as if they were hearing a tall tale told over a pint and a bag of crisps. And then by shockingly undermining the few certainties upon which we think we still can cling in this brutally relativist world, McPherson then smacks you right in the gut.

I've seen and reviewed "Shining City" three times -- London, New York and now Chicago.

Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate in South Carolina

And it is important for us to make sure that they are not just going to the wealthy. They should be going to folks who are making $75,000 a year or less, and they should be going to folks who only pay payroll tax, but typically are not paying income tax. If we do that, then not only can we stimulate the economy, those are the folks who are most likely to spend money right away.

OBAMA: Well, I think that we are going to have to get some immediate money. What I do is I say, for a typical family, $500 for a tax rebate per family. But also, for senior citizens, get a supplement to their Social Security check, because they get that every month. We know exactly how to do it.

Sharapova v Henin promises to be a sight for sore eyes

Rafael Nadal remarked last week that he kept falling asleep during the afternoon in his hotel room. It was a feeling many others experienced here yesterday after Saturday's night match between Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis did not finish until 4.34am, with the Australian thankfully the winner. But there was no trace of the sandman in the Spaniard's eyes as he ripped into Paul-Henri Mathieu under the Rod Laver Arena floodlights, Nadal reaching his second successive Australian Open quarter-final when the Frenchman had to quit at 6-4, 3-0 down after 50 minutes. Nadal now plays Jarkko Nieminen of Finland, another left-hander.

Something like mild hysteria broke out in certain sections of the Melbourne Park tennis centre when Mathieu's injuredleft calf made it impossible for him to continue.

Recipient E-mail

There are few things worse from a technophile's point of view than plunking down your hard earned cash on a new gadget only to find out later that it doesn't operate as promised or expected. Things get worse when you try and get the issue fixed and the manufacturer doesn't acknowledge the issue at all.

The website claims that the HTC TyTn II, HTC Touch Dual, HTC Touch Cruise, HTC Wings, HTC Titan, HTC Vogue, HTC Libra, and HTC Iris as well as all the other names these phones go by are affected with the same problem.

Local Briefs

Townsend tied for fourth in the team standings.Bighorns Squirt Team wins twoThe Bighorn Squirt Team, sponsored by Bob's Valley Market, Mountain View Eyecare and Morrison and Thresher Law Firm, PLLC, hosted the Bozeman 1 Team last weekend at the Helena Ice Arena.