NEW YORK, NY – Dilshodjon Rahmonov from the Manhattan General Office of New York Life Insurance Company was recently named a Lives Protected Champion.  This recognition is attained by agents who in the 4th quarter of 2010 helped protect the most families in their communities with life insurance. Four hundred agents out of more than 11,800 licensed New York Life agents across the country were recognized for assisting the greatest number of policyholders with exceptional life insurance sales productivity.  Mr. Rahmonov, was named the top Lives Protected Champion among “new to the organization” or “new org” agents, who are agents in the business for less than five years.
 
With more than 40 percent of American households reporting they need more life insurance* – the highest level ever reported – the demand for professional agents in local communities across the country has never been greater.
 

The turbulent world of political influence may lack the glitz, glamour and cameras of Sunday's 83rd annual Academy Awards. But the paparazzi may yet be intrigued by a collection of eye-popping, eyebrow-raising political contributions from Hollywood royalty that'd make John Boehner turn a new shade of red and Barack Obama see green.  The 2nd annual OpenSecrets.org Money-in-Politics Oscars return today to bestow awards on Academy Awards nominees who best emblematize the cozy relationship between the cinematic and political elite.

The big six Academy Awards are best picture, best director, best lead actor, best lead actress, best supporting actor and best supporting actress. Of the various individuals up for those awards, 19 of them have contributed to politicians, political parties, political action committees and 527 organizations since the 1990 election cycle, the Center for Responsive Politics finds.

And they aren't very friendly to Republicans.

Of the more than $1.3 million of hard money donated by this particular cast -- contributions to candidates, parties or PACs -- more than $1.24 million benefitted Democrats. Among contributions that had identifiable partisan identification, 99 percent supported the Democratic Party, candidates and PACs.

The ghosts are jamming again. They're playing that hot jazz in the Turkish Embassy's old Sheridan Circle mansion, just as they did in the 1930s and '40s, when the ambassador's boys, Ahmet and Nesuhi Ertegun, were always inviting their favorite musicians over to hang and blow and thump. The informal, integrated gatherings achieved near-mythic status - "Washington's most famous private jam sessions," jazz journalist Bill Gottlieb called them in The Washington Post in 1943 - and then they evaporated into history.

"So many people don't know about it," said Namik Tan, Turkey's current ambassador. He's in the mansion's second-floor music parlor, envisioning Lester Young sitting in the wood-paneled room, coaxing those light, airy notes out of his tenor saxophone. Or maybe it's Benny Carter, making his alto sax sing. And aren't those the cats from Duke Ellington's band - Johnny Hodges, Harry Carney, Barney Bigard - on deck to play?