Tom Faranda's Folly

Bob Dylan offers some thoughts

At first I thought "He's 67!!". Then I said, "yeah that's about right..."

Fan Fare » Blog Archive » Bob Dylan peeved about iPods, Johnny Cash’s comeback | Blogs |

In a Rolling Stone magazine cover story, the 67-year-old troubadour rails against modern technology like cell phones, iPods and video games. The man who wrote “The Times They Are A-Changin’” almost 46 years ago evidently thinks the times have changed a little too much.

My mother turns 83

Jeanne Faranda was born on April 29, 1926 to Elizabeth and Ivan Post. She was an only child - an older sister had only lived for a week. 

My mother has been ill for about the last three weeks with some sort of repiratory illness and Brigid has been going to see her three times a day to help her with some respiratory therapy. We were quite concerned and then in the last five days Grandma has bounced back nicely.

My mother has an apartment at The Pines in Ossining. She usually is at our house about twice a week, including Sunday's going to church with us. Since the boys hadn't seen her since Easter, we went over for her birthday. Brigid had already deliverd four dozen cup cakes for The Pines residents (The Pines is an independent living facility - you are on your own except for communal breakfast and dinner and some opportunities for community activities).

Here are some pictures:

 

 

Here is a nice series, as Joe goes through the birthday cars with Grandma

 

 

 

 

 

And here Brigid appears to be doing a magic trick - making the wire rise ...

 

Hopefully, we'll get back to having my mother up, at least on Sundays. 

Two amusing short commentaries about Senator Specter's party switch.

While I could care less about his party switch here are two items I found amusing -

Specter's Switcheroo - WSJ.com

In his 1970 book "From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor," advertising legend Jerry Della Femina tells the story of trying to see Philadelphia District Attorney Arlen Specter:

"'Are you crazy?' his people said. 'Nobody gets to meet Arlen Spector [misspelling in original]. We can't even see him.' 'All right,' I said, 'what's Arlen Specter for?' 'Arlen Specter is for getting elected.' 'All right,' I said. 'What is Arlen Specter against?' 'Arlen Spector is against losing.'"

That more or less sums up the Pennsylvania Senator's announcement yesterday that he will quit the GOP and seek re-election next year as a Democrat.

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... Republicans shouldn't follow South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint and welcome Mr. Specter's defection as an ideological cleansing. "I would rather have 30 Republicans in the Senate who really believe in principles of limited government, free markets, free people, than to have 60 that don't have a set of beliefs," Mr. DeMint said yesterday.

We believe in all of those things, but 30 Senate votes merely gets you the same fate as the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, without the glory.

Haha!

Then there's this in the Washington Post -

Good News for Republicans! - PostPartisan - Quick takes from The Post's opinion writers

I wonder if today’s Arlen Specter party switch, this time to the president’s party, won’t end up being bad for President Obama and the Democrats. With the likely seating of Al Franken from Minnesota, Democrats will have 60 seats in the Senate, giving Obama unambiguous governing majorities in both bodies. He’ll be responsible for everything. GOP obstructionism will go away as an issue, and Democratic defections will become the constant worry and story line. This will make it easier for GOP candidates in 2010 to ask to be elected to help restore some checks and balance in Washington -- and, meanwhile, Specter’s party change won’t likely have made much difference in getting key legislation passed or not.

Three for Thursday on healthcare

Here are three articles in the past month -

I posted a few times about the Massachusetts Plan - for example Massachusetts mandates health coverage and here  NY Times editorial on the "Massachusetts Model for Health Care" .

Unfortunately the Massachusetts Plan is not working as hoped. The problem is financing:

Massachusetts's Health-Care Program Offers a Preview of Barack Obama's Universal Health-Care Plan - WSJ.com

Praise Mitt Romney. Three years ago, the former Massachusetts Governor had the inadvertent good sense to create the "universal" health-care program that the White House and Congress now want to inflict on the entire country. It is proving to be instructive, as Mr. Romney's foresight previews what President Obama, Max Baucus, Ted Kennedy and Pete Stark are cooking up for everyone else.

In Massachusetts's latest crisis, Governor Deval Patrick and his Democratic colleagues are starting to move down the path that government health plans always follow when spending collides with reality -- i.e., price controls. As costs continue to rise, the inevitable results are coverage restrictions and waiting periods. It was only a matter of time.

They're trying to manage the huge costs of the subsidized middle-class insurance program that is gradually swallowing the state budget. The program provides low- or no-cost coverage to about 165,000 residents, or three-fifths of the newly insured, and is budgeted at $880 million for 2010, a 7.3% single-year increase that is likely to be optimistic. The state's overall costs on health programs have increased by 42% (!) since 2006.

And then there's the problem of what happens when you get unrealistic cost controls. For some reason, physicians think they should get paid for their time. This is a growing problem ...

Finding a Doctor Who Accepts Medicare Isn’t Easy - NYTimes.com

Many people, just as they become eligible for Medicare, discover that the insurance rug has been pulled out from under them. Some doctors — often internists but also gastroenterologists, gynecologists, psychiatrists and other specialists — are no longer accepting Medicare, either because they have opted out of the insurance system or they are not accepting new patients with Medicare coverage. The doctors’ reasons: reimbursement rates are too low and paperwork too much of a hassle.

Here's what former-physician-turned-Washington-Post columnist Charles Krauthammer thinks we are heading for -

Charles Krauthammer - Obama: The Grand Strategy - washingtonpost.com

The hard part is Medicare and Medicaid. In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing.

Why do you think the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical "comparative effectiveness research"? It is the perfect setup for rationing. Once you establish what is "best practice" for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you've laid the premise for funding some and denying others.

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The more acute thinkers on the left can see rationing coming, provoking Slate blogger Mickey Kaus to warn of the political danger. "Isn't it an epic mistake to try to sell Democratic health care reform on this basis? Possible sales pitch: 'Our plan will deny you unnecessary treatments!' . . . Is that really why the middle class will sign on to a revolutionary multitrillion-dollar shift in spending -- so the government can decide their life or health 'is not worth the price'?"

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WSJ editorial this morning on the Obama first 100 days - "The Liberal Hour"

A good editorial which I - mostly - agree with. It touches on Foreign policy but is mainly about the economy. Excerpt below, but hit the link and read the whole thing -

The Liberal Hour - WSJ.com

Dick Cheney is often critical of President Obama, but on one issue we suspect the former Vice President has a grudging admiration: In a mere 100 days, the Democrat has silenced eight years of criticism about the Imperial Presidency. It is once again the liberal hour in American politics, and the media and political classes now see energy in the executive as a national asset.

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On the home front, there can no longer be any such doubts. Mr. Obama talks the language of pragmatism, but his program has revealed a man of the left. He clearly views the financial crisis and the liberal majorities in Congress as a rare chance to advance the power of the state in American life. The only two comparable moments in the last century were 1965, which gave us the Great Society, and 1933, which bequeathed the New Deal. Mr. Obama's goals are at least as ambitious, resuming the march toward the European welfare state that was stopped by what Democrats like to call the Reagan detour.

His main method here is to make the federal government the guarantor of middle-class security. He wants to make a college education a new entitlement, regardless of the cost. He wants state-financed health-care available to all, even if it means jamming a $1 trillion bill through the Senate with 51 votes. And he wants a cap-and-trade tax that would punish the main current sources of U.S. energy and hand Washington a vast new source of revenue.

Oh, and by the way, he also wants to fix the financial system, run the auto industry, and build a nationwide, high-speed rail network.

>>>>>>

Mr. Obama is more popular than his policies, and sooner or later the twain shall meet. For now, we are living in another era of unchecked liberal government. The reckoning will come when Americans discover how much it costs.

 

Busy past weekend at Farandaville

Very busy.

Between attending a breakfast honoring a friend of mine, Ed Riely - doing lots of little league baseball both days with Tim, and going to a Communion Breakfast honoring St. Augustine's pastor Msgr Hillary Franco, we were running around. 

And my mother is having her troubles. She has some sort of respiratory infection and Brigid and I (mostly Brigid) are seeing her three times a day to do some inhalation therapy. My mother hits 83 on Wednesday. 

Anyway Brigid and I made a presentation to Ed at the Northern Westchester and Putnam Center of Life Breakfast, honoring his 42 years (!) of prolife efforts - going back to his senior year at Manhattan College. I read a bit of a tribute to Ed and Brigid then read the emails his four children had sent - all of them are out of the area, with his oldest boy Beau, in Afghanistan.

 

Here's Ed, with his wife Pat, and in between them is Mike Anderson. Mike knows all four of their children.

 

Brigid reading (Captain, U.S. Army) Jim Riely's email

 

And here is Brigid with our friend and neighbor Sue Konig, who was also attending -

 

Then, it was on to Tim's baseball. Unfortunately, the Croton FD lost by a lot to a little. Tim batted clean-up, but only got up twice - a K and a walk.

He played most of the game at first base - in the second picture he's just ended the inning by stepping on the bag - the runner is OUT!

  

 

 

After the game, Tim and I had a short break and then returned to help out at the Challenger's Game, between the Yankees and the Mets.

 

 

So that was Saturday.

More action on Sunday, as we went to 10AM Mass at St. Augustine's and the following communino breakfast. It was to honor the pastor, Msgr. Hilary Franco on the 54th anniversary of his ordination. After over 25 years working in Rome, he has been the pastor of St. Augustine's for the last 15 years. He's now battling cancer, and as he said at Mass, he may not be thre for his next anniversary - "It's in the hands of God" (And also Columbia Presbyterian, where his chemotherapy will go on another month).

 

 

Lastly, more baseball with a late afternoon game, again with Tim's team coming out on the wrong end of the score. 

Here he is on first, having just been hit in the butt while batting, and looking good on the mound - pretty big pitcher, eh? -  but only looking good, not pitching effectively (However, I think he can be a good pitcher - maybe I'm biased?).

 

 

Game three of the season was last night, and another loss, so off to an 0-3 start.

Things can only get better.
 

Hypocrisy and demonization - or - It depends on who's Ox is gored

I have excerpted this from opinionjournal.com's James Taranto daily column, which is a commentary on this article Harvard Law professor, abortion foe declines Notre Dame award - The Boston Globe . You don't need to read the article, just the commentary below:

"Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon, one of the most prominent Catholic conservative intellectuals in the United States, announced yesterday that she would refuse a prestigious award from the University of Notre Dame rather than appear on the same platform on which President Obama is being awarded an honorary degree," the Boston Globe reports.

The Globe notes that not all Catholics are unhappy with Notre Dame's plan to give the president an honorary degree:

"There are some well-meaning people who think Notre Dame has given away its Catholic identity, because they have been caught up in the gamesmanship of American higher education, bringing in a star commencement speaker even if that means sacrificing their values, and that accounts for some of this," said the Rev. Kenneth Himes, chairman of theology department at Boston College. "But one also has to say that there is a political game going on here, and part of that is that you demonize the people who disagree with you, you question their integrity, you challenge their character, and you brand these people as moral poison. Some people have simply reduced Catholicism to the abortion issue, and, consequently, they have simply launched a crusade to bar anything from Catholic institutions that smacks of any sort of open conversation."

Now read this 2006 Associated Press dispatch:

Nearly 100 faculty members at Boston College have signed a letter objecting to the college's decision to award Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice an honorary degree.

The letter entitled "Condoleezza Rice Does Not Deserve a Boston College Honorary Degree," was written by the Rev. Kenneth Himes. . . .

"On the levels of both moral principle and practical moral judgment, Secretary Rice's approach to international affairs is in fundamental conflict with Boston College's commitment to the values of the Catholic and Jesuit traditions and is inconsistent with the humanistic values that inspire the university's work," the letter said.

Himes, it seems, is an expert on demonization.

The interrogation memo Judge defends himself

A tough call. And easy to second guess. I've posted elsewhere about this

Official Defends Signing Interrogation Memos - NYTimes.com

Judge Bybee said he was issuing a statement following reports that he had regrets over his role in the memorandums, including an article in The Washington Post on Saturday to that effect. Given the widespread criticism of the memorandums, he said he would have done some things differently, like clarifying and sharpening the analysis of some of his answers to help the public better understand the basis for his conclusions.

But he said: “The central question for lawyers was a narrow one; locate, under the statutory definition, the thin line between harsh treatment of a high-ranking Al Qaeda terrorist that is not torture and harsh treatment that is. I believed at the time, and continue to believe today, that the conclusions were legally correct.”

The cable news race: FOX beats CNN and MSNBC combined

A clean-out, including in the key demographics. Thei morning show FOX and Friends, has been 31 for 90 months.

April Ratings: FNC Beats CNN and MSNBC Combined - mediabistro.com: TVNewser

FNC had the top 11 cable news programs in Total Viewers and 12 of the top 15 in the demo. FNC is the #2 network in Total Viewers on all of cable.

From 9amET on, every program grew by more than 60% in the demo. (Note - Demo is the age 25-54 demographic).

Notre Dame President Fr. Jenkins runs an ad

Thanks to my friend Antoniette for pointing this out to me.

Laetare Recipient Wanted

URGENT!!! Laetare Award recipient needed ASAP!!! Christian preferred, agnostic case-by-case. If interested call Fr. John at 574-631-5000 by May 17th.

A commentary on Mary Ann Glendon's declining Notre Dame award

I posted about this yesterday. Mary Ann Glendon declines Notre Dame Award And here's Glendon's bio Mary Ann Glendon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This commentary by Fr. Raymond de Souza nails the whole issue. Well worth hitting the link and reading the entire essay (takes about ten minutes).

Glendon Declines ND Honor: National Catholic Register

Father Jenkins’s intervention on the pro-choice, pro-Obama side would appear to be simply selling out truth for prestige. Worse still, it might be seen as part of a 25-year attempt to present the pro-choice position as a valid option for Catholics. How to justify inviting President Obama when President Clinton had not come?

Father Jenkins thought he had figured it out; Mary Ann Glendon would get the Laetare Medal. Glendon was deserving of the medal, far more deserving in fact than most who had already achieved it. There was no doubt about that. This year would be perfect. She would be on stage with her former student at Harvard, Barack Obama, and she would give Notre Dame cover. See how broad-minded Notre Dame is? Both points of view on stage at the same time! Glendon has now reminded Father Jenkins and Notre Dame that it is not broad-minded at all to give succor to both sides of a debate on matters of fundamental justice.

It reflects poorly on Father Jenkins that he would use so distinguished a person as Glendon in a shabby bit of manipulation. Yet his failure is now complete. He has managed to turn a commencement into a national controversy, earned the rebuke of dozens of bishops, including his own, in the most blunt terms imaginable. He attempted justifications and rationalizations unworthy of a university president, pretending that the plain meaning of the bishops’ policy could be read to the exactly opposite effect. Now that the Laetare Medal has been refused, the debacle is complete. Notre Dame is being shunned. Make no mistake — this is Father Jenkins’s doing. Glendon made it clear in her letter that, aside from the invitation to President Obama himself, Notre Dame’s clumsy efforts at spin control were also a major factor in her decision.

>>>>>>

In her life of extraordinary accomplishments, the witness given by Glendon by not going to Notre Dame next month is something of a crowning achievement. It matters a great deal that a celebrated laywoman is rejecting this honor. Notre Dame long ago learned how to disregard the advice, admonishment and even the explicit will of the American bishops. For this they paid no apparent price, as there were always those who were willing to take what Notre Dame was offering, including successive presidents of the United States.

Now someone has finally said No. And not just someone, but a woman who has ennobled everything she has lent her name to. It will be noticed on May 17 that someone thought some things more important than Notre Dame’s honors; that someone thought some things more important than basking in the glow of a popular president; that someone thought 25 years of deliberate confusion, evasion, equivocation and deception from Notre Dame on abortion politics was enough.

Glendon will not collect her Laetare Medal. In not doing so, she has proved worthy of the honor; please God, her courageous decision will make Notre Dame more worthy of the honors it seeks to give.

The book Mr. Chavez gave to the President

this op ed from the Wall Street Journal is the weekly column written by Mary Anastasia O'Grady, entitled "The Americas". it's usally about South and Central America, very occasionally about Canada.

O'Grady: The Idiot's Bible - WSJ.com

Americans seemed to be curious about Mr. Chávez's reading tastes. But in Latin America, "Open Veins" is a well-known rant by Uruguayan Marxist Eduardo Galeano. And it also has another distinction that Mr. Chávez may be less inclined to publicize: It is widely regarded in free-market circles as "the idiot's bible."

The book was tagged with that moniker in the 1996 best seller, "The Manual of the Perfect Latin American Idiot." Penned by three Latin American journalists -- Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Carlos Alberto Montaner and Alvaro Vargas Llosa -- the "manual" is a witty assault on the populist, militarist, caudillo mentality that has dominated the region for hundreds of years.

>>>>>>

The Galeano book was not a present to Mr. Obama, though it was hyped as such. After all it was in Spanish, a language Mr. Obama does not read -- and Cuban and Venezuelan military intelligence surely would have advised Mr. Chávez of that fact. Its purpose was instead a way for the resentful Venezuelan to shove his anticapitalist, anti-American prejudices in Mr. Obama's face before rows of television cameras.

Yet, unwittingly, Mr. Chávez's gag gift served another purpose. If there has been any doubt about how he has run his oil-rich country into the ground during a decade of booming petroleum prices, the mystery is now solved. ...

Is this really worth a front page article in the NY Times?

Page 1, under the fold. 100 atheists hold a meeting in Charleston.

God Bless 'em, if it wasn't for God there'd be no atheists.

But really, on January 22nd 100,000 plus people were at the annual March for Life in Washington, and the NY Times provided NO COVERAGE. None, nada, zip. (The Washington Post, on the other hand, always provides fair and balanced coverage of the March. The Post does not usually allow their editorial bias to cloud their news coverage, unlike the NYT.)

But sour grapes never gets you anywhere.

Here's the NYT article, which is interesting enough. But front page?

More Atheists Shout It From the Rooftops - NYTimes.com

More than ever, America’s atheists are linking up and speaking out — even here in South Carolina, home to Bob Jones University, blue laws and a legislature that last year unanimously approved a Christian license plate embossed with a cross, a stained glass window and the words “I Believe” (a move blocked by a judge and now headed for trial).

They are connecting on the Internet, holding meet-ups in bars, advertising on billboards and buses, volunteering at food pantries and picking up roadside trash, earning atheist groups recognition on adopt-a-highway signs.

They liken their strategy to that of the gay-rights movement, which lifted off when closeted members of a scorned minority decided to go public.

“It’s not about carrying banners or protesting,” said Herb Silverman, a math professor at the College of Charleston who founded the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry, which has about 150 members on the coast of the Carolinas. “The most important thing is coming out of the closet.”

Polls show that the ranks of atheists are growing. The American Religious Identification Survey, a major study released last month, found that those who claimed “no religion” were the only demographic group that grew in all 50 states in the last 18 years.

Mary Ann Glendon declines Notre Dame Award

UPDATE: Great commentary by Fr. Raymond De Souza Glendon Declines ND Honor: National Catholic Register

The Laetare Medal . Supposedly the leading Catholic Award. Martin Sheen was given it last year.

Glendon feels she is being manipulated by the University as a balance to their awarding of an honorary law degree to the President -

I love it.

LifeNet: News Flash: Mary Ann Glendon declines Laetare Medal from Notre Dame

Andrew Lloyd Webber on soaking the rich in Great Britain

A few day ago, I posted this Great Britain raising the top personal income tax rate to 50% .

Now, English compposer and playwright Andrew Lloyd Webber  Andrew Lloyd Webber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (he's now Baron Lloyd-Webber, a reward for his prolific work)   points out how ridiculous and counter-productive this is.

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER: The last thing this country needs is a pirate raid on the wealthy (and don't lynch me because I'm a rich...

The opinion polls have uttered. The country loves the new 50 per cent top rate of income tax. Soak the rich. Smash the bankers. So Government spin doctors are in second heaven. The Conservatives' silence redefines a tomb. And I suppose there'd be quite a turnout for the public flogging of Sir Fred the Shred.

But before you book your tickets, hold hard. And before you lynch me as a rich b*****d flying a kite for my own cause, let me beg you to believe that I am not.

I believe that this new top rate of tax could be the final nail in the coffin of Britain plc.

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Here's the truth. The proposed top rate of income tax is not 50 per cent. It is 50 per cent plus 1.5 per cent national insurance paid by employees plus 13.3 per cent paid by employers. That's not 50 per cent. Two years from now, Britain will have the highest tax rate on earned income of any developed country.

I write this article because I fear the inevitable exodus of the talent that can dig us out of the hole we find ourselves in. It is inevitable, given that other countries are bidding for entrepreneurs. The Government must modify its proposals.

I give you this example. I have altered the details of the family I write about for obvious reasons. But the essentials are true.

Last Thursday I met with a thirtysomething guy. I absolutely depend on him in a highly technical area of theatrical production. For legal reasons he has to employ himself through his own company. Under the new tax regime, he will have to pay 13.3 per cent to employ himself before he pays himself anything. And then he will have to pay 51.5 per cent on what's left.

This is a guy at the cutting edge of his profession who works all over the world. He is in demand in every major territory where entertainment is produced. He has a young wife and two children. Last Thursday he told me that he and his wife had decided that the UK was no longer where they wanted to live.

His wife thinks the State education system is inadequate. And she fears that a bankrupt Britain will increasingly be a worse place in which to live as the horror of our present financial mess hits us all in the solar plexus.

He says that he is young enough to set up shop somewhere else. The new tax rates were the final straw. These talented young people know they will make it impossible for them to educate their kids privately in the UK.

Of course, under Obamanomics we could be facing the same situation. Only people won't flee the country (where would they go?), they just won't work as hard.

For constipation relief - read this

An analysis of the President's "hipness".

For Obama, hipness is what it is

Saturday's Westchester County anti-tax rally

I didn't go to this rally, but I know a few people who did. I guess there were a lot of attendees - hit the link for a picture.

The question is: how much County government do we need? Not much, in my view. Currently it's a swollen bureaucracy with make-work and political payoffs.

Anyway, it turns out that Dave Spano, the son of County Executive Andy Spano, is planning to run in a primary (Democratic) against his father! His platform is: abolish the County Executive position aa well as other county positions, and cut taxes.

Anti-tax rally aims angst at Westchester County government | lohud.com | The Journal News

For Melanie and Matt Kolby, who brought their 2-year-old boy, taxes - including city, county, schools and other districts - for their White Plains home have nearly doubled in five years to $11,000.

"We're being hit on every level," Melanie Kolby said. "In Westchester County, you need a lot of money to just get by. ... Our school taxes keep going up, 7, 8, 9 percent. There's no end in sight.

"They should be cutting spending. God forbid, they cut spending on the government side."

Former CIA Director Porter Gross speaks out; denounces "politics before security"

A Washington Post op ed yesterday. He's surprised taht some politicians would put political gain ahead of national security? That they would, in fact lie?

In the op ed he is discussing his time as a member of the House (before he was CIA director)

Porter J. Goss - Security Before Politics - washingtonpost.com

Today, I am slack-jawed to read that members claim to have not understood that the techniques on which they were briefed were to actually be employed; or that specific techniques such as "waterboarding" were never mentioned. It must be hard for most Americans of common sense to imagine how a member of Congress can forget being told about the interrogations of Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. In that case, though, perhaps it is not amnesia but political expedience.

Let me be clear. It is my recollection that:

-- The chairs and the ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, known as the Gang of Four, were briefed that the CIA was holding and interrogating high-value terrorists.

-- We understood what the CIA was doing.

-- We gave the CIA our bipartisan support.

-- We gave the CIA funding to carry out its activities.

-- On a bipartisan basis, we asked if the CIA needed more support from Congress to carry out its mission against al-Qaeda.

I do not recall a single objection from my colleagues.

Capitalism "threatens life on the planet"

Declaration from the following countries: Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela. a somewhat boring long declaration -

The Declaration of Cumaná: Capitalism 'threatens life on the planet' | rabble.ca

1. Capitalism is leading humanity and the planet to extinction. What we are experiencing is a global economic crisis of a systemic and structural nature, not another cyclic crisis. Those who think that with a taxpayer money injection and some regulatory measures this crisis will end are wrong. The financial system is in crisis because it trades bonds with six times the real value of the assets and services produced and rendered in the world, this is not a “system regulation failure”, but a integrating part of the capitalist system that speculates with all assets and values with a view to obtain the maximum profit possible. Until now, the economic crisis has generated over 100 million additional hungry persons and has slashed over 50 million jobs, and these figures show an upward trend.

2. Capitalism has caused the environmental crisis, by submitting the necessary conditions for life in the planet, to the predominance of market and profit. Each year we consume one third more of what the planet is able to regenerate. With this squandering binge of the capitalist system, we are going to need two planets Earth by the year 2030.

3. The global economic crisis, climate change, the food crisis and the energy crisis are the result of the decay of capitalism, which threatens to end life and the planet. To avert this outcome, it is necessary to develop and model an alternative to the capitalist system. A system based on:

Yawn. Hit the link and read the whole thing to find our what their prescribed alternative is.

A Wedding Celebration with Paul and Doreen

Mostly because of work pressures, AND because it takes some real time to do a posting with lots of pictures (as opposed to almost no time to post an article or column), this post on my friends Doreen and Paul Novotny's daughter's wedding is overdue.

Their daughter Allison married Matt Gorman on April 4th.

Here's a nice picture of Ali laying down the law to Matt, quite early in their marriage

 

The next two pictures illustrate a little inside joke, which only a few will understand.

 

  

Now for some context - I met Paul at the end of my sophomore year at Stepinac High School. We both went to Fairfield University. So I've known him since 1967 (whew!).

Allison also went to Fairfield (as did her younger sister Marisa) and she teaches English in middle school in Norwalk, CT (as does her sister!). They both sang in the Fairfield Glee Club, and they both are quite pretty (comes from mother's side). Most importantly, they are both very fine young women. 

The wedding ceremony was very interesting, since it was an interfaith service (Ali Catholic, Matt Jewish) with a rabbi and a priest.

This is supposed to be one of those cool, soft focus photos, but actually it's just out of focus.

 

And here's the ceremony - rabbi on the left, priest in white.

 

The whole thing was extremely tasteful and well done. Joe and Tim were at the ceremony and then I took them back to the hotel, where they had a good time ordering room service and a movie (PG-13!).

 

And then - it was a fantastic reception - five plus hours of eating and drinking, with short rests to catch our breath. About 250 people. At the Fountainhead in New Rochelle, where the wedding was also held.

 

 

 

 

Matt, uhhh, quite enjoying himself ...

This bears some explaining. I told Marisa it looked like she's been working out, and she said something like "I'm glad someone's noticed"! So I had her pose with our friend Karen Riner, who is a personal trainer and our sometime hiking buddy. They both look pretty damn good ... 

 

A thorn between two roses - or vice versa.

 

Here's Marisa, putting on some sort of actressing performance, for her grandma, to the left

 

 

Dennis, another Fairfield alumnus, with his best feature, Denice. Dennis is actually a smooth dancer. ...

 

The guy to Paul's left looks like he might be the hotel detective. Actually it's Paul's partner, Ken Dee (radiology).

 

Matt's parents, Joann and Marty

 

Karen and Mike. I met Mike as a freshman at Stepinac (at the Annex) in 1965 (double whew)!

 

Dennis and Denice

 

I'm not sure what this is about, but I am going to do another post entitled Girls Gone (Mildly) Wild with all the good pictures we have of women dancing. 

 

As my friend and business associate Judy Anderson likes to say, "Tom, it's all about you."

 

Brigid took this really nice picture of Paul with his brother, Charlie and Mom, Evelyn. Paul's Dad, also Charlie couldn't make the wedding because of illness, but is making a nice recovery.

Back at the hotel around 1:30am:remnants of the room service, and Joe's hands on the Xbox controller. Boys were OK with it.

 

And next day, a nice breakfast in the morning, with the guests who'd stayed over.

We had a super time and were thrilled to be able to celebrate with Allison and Matt.

Good feature article on the eminent 85 year old scientist Freeman Dyson

One of the top original thinkers of the 20th century. But why is he know a "heretic"? Because he doesn't think Global Warming is a big threat. In fact he makes the point that it's a bit of a religious culty thing.

This is a fairly long feature from the March 29th NY Times Sunday magazine section. If you print it out, it takes around 15 minutes to read. It's quite enjoyable to read, as it talks about dyson's life as a creative scientist.

Good stuff.

The Civil Heretic - Freeman Dyson - Profile - NYTimes.com

FOR MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson has quietly resided in Prince­ton, N.J., on the wooded former farmland that is home to his employer, the Institute for Advanced Study, this country’s most rarefied community of scholars. Lately, however, since coming “out of the closet as far as global warming is concerned,” as Dyson sometimes puts it, there has been noise all around him. Chat rooms, Web threads, editors’ letter boxes and Dyson’s own e-mail queue resonate with a thermal current of invective in which Dyson has discovered himself variously described as “a pompous twit,” “a blowhard,” “a cesspool of misinformation,” “an old coot riding into the sunset” and, perhaps inevitably, “a mad scientist.” Dyson had proposed that whatever inflammations the climate was experiencing might be a good thing because carbon dioxide helps plants of all kinds grow. Then he added the caveat that if CO2 levels soared too high, they could be soothed by the mass cultivation of specially bred “carbon-eating trees,” whereupon the University of Chicago law professor Eric Posner looked through the thick grove of honorary degrees Dyson has been awarded — there are 21 from universities like Georgetown, Princeton and Oxford — and suggested that “perhaps trees can also be designed so that they can give directions to lost hikers.” Dyson’s son, George, a technology historian, says his father’s views have cooled friendships, while many others have concluded that time has cost Dyson something else. There is the suspicion that, at age 85, a great scientist of the 20th century is no longer just far out, he is far gone — out of his beautiful mind.

But in the considered opinion of the neurologist Oliver Sacks, Dyson’s friend and fellow English expatriate, this is far from the case. “His mind is still so open and flexible,” Sacks says. Which makes Dyson something far more formidable than just the latest peevish right-wing climate-change denier. Dyson is a scientist whose intelligence is revered by other scientists — William Press, former deputy director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and now a professor of computer science at the University of Texas, calls him “infinitely smart.”

Go here for the letters written in response to the article.

LETTERS; The Civil Heretic - New York Times

Got friends? You'll live longer and live better

Good, short piece in the NY Times Health section

Well - What Are Friends For? A Longer Life - NYTimes.com

Researchers are only now starting to pay attention to the importance of friendship and social networks in overall health. A 10-year Australian study found that older people with a large circle of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the study period than those with fewer friends. ... And last year, Harvard researchers reported that strong social ties could promote brain health as we age.

“In general, the role of friendship in our lives isn’t terribly well appreciated,” said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. “There is just scads of stuff on families and marriage, but very little on friendship. It baffles me. Friendship has a bigger impact on our psychological well-being than family relationships.”

Archbishop Chaput of Denver instrumental in repeal of the death penalty in Colorado

I am a big admirer of Archbishop Chaput. Here's a review of his last book - Tom Faranda's Folly: Latest Read: Render Unto Caesar

and here's the death penalty story:

The Catholic Key Blog: Archbishop Chaput Credited for Death Penalty Vote

The Colorado House yesterday voted 33-32 to repeal the state's death penalty. The measure now goes to the Senate. An interesting bit of drama occurred on the floor during the vote and only the Durango Herald has picked up on it, my emphases:

Debate lasted only a few minutes Tuesday, apparently because most of the 65 representatives had made up their minds. All except Ed Vigil.

The freshman Democrat from Fort Garland sat still as the House's electronic board tallied the vote - a 32-32 tie.

Vigil, a former district attorney's investigator, thinks the death penalty is a useful tool. In a 2007 case, Jose Luis Rubi-Nava confessed to killing his girlfriend in Douglas County by dragging her behind his car. The threat of the death penalty secured Rubi-Nava's plea, Vigil said.

"As soon as the death penalty became part of the equation, he pled guilty and got a life sentence," he said.

But Vigil also was thinking about moral appeals he had heard, including from Archbishop Charles Chaput, the senior Roman Catholic clergyman in Colorado.

Vigil bit his lip and ran a hand back through his hair. Other House members stood up and looked his way as a silent minute dragged by. At last, he reached across the desk and pushed the green button for "yes."

The death penalty repeal passed 33-32.

The Administration and national security

Two Wall Street Journal editorials from the last two days are at the end of this posting.

I posted twice recently about the revelations in the Red Cross reports of the treatment of "high value" terrorist prisoners. Report on CIA treatment of "high value" prisoners: "Inhumane" and here Torture and the Bush Administration .

To quote myself, I said: "No excuses. A stain on the Bush Administration. "Only" 14 prisoners is irrelevant."

It turns out - at least according to the recently released internal memos - that the treatment wasn't as bad as made out to be by the interviews of the prisoners (the interviews in the Red Cross report). In fact, I notice that the Washington Post and NY Times have started using the term "harsh interrogations" rather than torture. I still think they (harsh interrogations, torture, whatever) shouldn't have been carried out, but admit to being more ambivalent.

But releasing the memos, and the now open threats to prosecute Bush Administration officials who gave legal opinions on the interrogation techniques, is a colossal blunder by the Administration.

Here are the two editorials - hit the links for the complete texts.

Obama and the CIA - WSJ.com

One major concern here is what Mr. Obama's decision to release these memos says about his own political leadership. He claims that one of his goals as President is to restore more comity to our politics, especially concerning national security. He also knows he needs a CIA willing to take risks to keep the country safe. Yet Mr. Obama seems more than willing to indulge the revenge fantasies of the left, as long as its potential victims served a different President. And while he is willing to release classified documents about interrogation techniques, Mr. Obama refuses to release documents that more fully discuss their results.

All of this might appease the President's MoveOn.org base, but he can't expect to satisfy them without also weakening American intelligence capabilities. The risk-averse CIA that so grievously failed in the run-up to 9/11 was a product of a spy culture that still remembered the Church Committee of the 1970s and the Iran-Contra recriminations of the 1980s. Mr. Obama needs to stop this score-settling now, and he can start by promptly releasing the documents that reveal what the CIA learned from its interrogations.

And here's yesterday's editorial -

Presidential Poison - WSJ.com

By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret.

Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama's victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But at least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.

Proper training and athletic success

From yesterday's NY Times Finess section - a good, short feature

Personal Best - Proper Training Is a Critical Element to Athletic Success - NYTimes.com

Mr. Gordon found that training, if done right, is the ultimate performance enhancer, with effects that can dwarf those of illegal drugs, like the blood-boosting drug EPO, as well as legal stimulants like caffeine. Still, it seems, too few amateur athletes take it seriously and fewer still do it right. Exercise physiologists and coaches say most people who want to run, swim, cycle or row faster or improve in almost any sport do not appreciate what can be accomplished with training nor how to do it.

>>>>>>

There are training programs everywhere — in magazines, books, on the Internet. But eventually, exercise physiologists say, most people need guidance from a group with experienced coaches, like the one Mr. Gordon joined, or from personal coaches.

Great Britain raising the top personal income tax rate to 50%

Incomes above 150,000 pounds (at current exchenage rates that's about $217,000) will be taxed at 50%.

Of course that's stupid and unproductive, BUT it's also about the top rate of a NY City couple filing jointly, and making over $200,000 (if you're single it's $164,000), when you add in NY State and NY City taxes.

A great disincentive for some of our most productive citizens to work hard.

The Welfare State run amock.

Govt hikes top income tax rate to 50%

The General Motors mess

Here's a good op ed (Holman Jenkins) in the Wall Street Journal. "The King" is, of course, President Obama.

Jenkins: GM Is Becoming a Royal Debacle - WSJ.com

His current bailout strategy amounts to asking thousands of bondholders and GM retirees to buy stock in a GM that the king's own policies mean they'd be loony to buy. Add the fact that passenger cars and trucks in the U.S. are a trivial source of greenhouse gases in any case -- they could all become carbonless and it would be irrelevant in the face of China's and India's coal use. King Barack has only been on his throne for three months. His policies already have devolved into savage incoherence.

But let's face it, the king is also somewhat lacking in the lion-heartedness department.

He's on record saying that the only sensible way to reduce fossil-fuel dependence is to put a price on it, as with cap and trade. Then why not have the courage of his convictions and do away with the proven ineffectualness and perversity of trying to regulate automotive fuel mileage directly?

He could release GM, Chrysler and Ford to make those cars, and only those cars, consumers would reward with profits (including fuel-efficient cars they might suddenly find desirable if Mr. Obama moves ahead with plans to tax carbon emissions).

He wouldn't be foolishly trying to rewrite GM's labor contracts and splitting negotiating hairs with its lenders. GM -- along with Chrysler and Ford -- might not avoid a trip through the bankruptcy courts. But either way, they'd be better able to meet their obligations to creditors, including UAW retirees, if allowed to focus on making cars the public actually wants to buy.

Who needs pirates when you've got lots of lawyers?

Been meaning to post this front page Wall Street Journal article from last week.

Lawyers Set to Profit on Lehman - WSJ.com

New York-based Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP earlier this week asked a federal bankruptcy judge in New York to sign off on a $55.1 million payment for its work representing Lehman.

That marks the biggest quarterly fee request made by lawyers representing a bankrupt company, according to Lynn LoPucki, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who runs a bankruptcy-fee database. ...

Corporate ambulance chasing

An amusing Washington Post editorial on the administration's effort to cut the budget deficit

It's amusing, but they also list five changes to cut government expenditures, all of which make sense.

Obama's $100 Million in Cuts Won't Make Much Difference - washingtonpost.com

Next year's budget deficit will be $1.4 trillion. The new reductions would generate savings equal to 0.007 percent of that -- something like trying to deal with a $5,000 credit card debt by forgoing a pack of gum.

Canadian National Post newspaper on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano

Not too clever. Think about the field day the U.S. media would have if Dan Quayle had said something like this. ...

The border for dummies

In an interview broadcast Monday on the CBC, Ms. Napolitano attempted to justify her call for stricter border security on the premise that "suspected or known terrorists" have entered the U. S. across the Canadian border, including the perpetrators of the 9/11 attack.

All the 9/11 terrorists, of course, entered the United States directly from overseas. The notion that some arrived via Canada is a myth that briefly popped up in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and was then quickly debunked.

Informed of her error, Ms. Napolitano blustered: "I can't talk to that. I can talk about the future. And here's the future. The future is we have borders."

Just what does that mean, exactly?

Nice work if you can get it

Not exactly in the St. Francis tradition ...

New Riverside Church pastor Rev. Brad Braxton's $600K compensation prompts parishioners' suit

Braxton was selected in a vote of the congregation last fall and is to be officially installed Sunday.

A group of church dissidents claims the members were never told about the lavish package.

Those dissidents filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court last week to stop Braxton's installation, revealing a growing divide among the church's 1,500 members.

The Wall Street-like package, the dissidents say, is outrageous for a man of the cloth - especially when you consider Riverside's long history of advocating social justice.

The Catholic Bishops on the new NIH "guidelines" for dissecting and killing living human embryos

This is a PR from the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops. The subsatanive point is the second paragraph.

USCCB News Release

09-087
April 21, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For first time, federal tax dollars will be used
to encourage destruction of living embryonic human beings

“Suffering patients and their families deserve better,” says Cardinal Rigali

CARDINAL RIGALI CRITICIZES DRAFT NIH GUIDELINES FOR DESTRUCTIVE STEM CELL RESEARCH

WASHINGTON—Cardinal Justin Rigali, Chairman of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, reacted today to new draft guidelines for human embryonic stem cell research issued late last week by the National Institutes of Health. The text of his statement follows:

New draft guidelines for federally funded stem cell research involving the destruction of human embryos, released Friday by the National Institutes of Health, mark a new chapter in divorcing biomedical research from its necessary ethical foundation. Without unconditional respect for the life of each and every member of the human race, research involving human subjects does not represent true progress. It becomes another way for some human beings to use and mistreat others for their own goals. Suffering patients and their families deserve better, through increased support for promising and ethically sound stem cell research and treatments that harm no one.

In most respects these draft guidelines reflect the policy approved but never implemented by the Clinton administration in 2000. However, the Clinton policy was limited to embryos that had been frozen, to ensure that parents had time to consider the decision to donate them for research; the new guidelines are broader in allowing destruction of newly created embryos that were never frozen, increasing the prospects for a rushed and biased consent process.

Despite supporters’ constant claim that this agenda involves only embryos that “would otherwise be discarded,” the guidelines provide that the option of donating embryonic children for destructive research will be offered to parents alongside all other options,
including those allowing the embryos to live. For the first time, federal tax dollars will be used to encourage destruction of living embryonic human beings for stem cell research – including human beings who otherwise would have survived and been born.

It is noteworthy that, despite calls for an even broader policy by some in Congress and the research community, the draft guidelines do not allow federally funded stem cell research using embryos specially created for research purposes by in vitro fertilization or cloning. We can hope that the NIH and Congress will continue to respect this ethical norm, and will realize that the alleged “need” for violating it is more implausible than ever due to advances in reprogramming adult cells to act like embryonic stem cells. However, congressional supporters of destructive human embryo research have already said they will pursue a more extreme policy. The Catholic bishops of the United States will be writing to Congress and the Administration about the need to restore and maintain barriers against the mistreatment of human life in the name of science, and we urge other concerned citizens to do the same.

---

And here is a related story, hot off the British presses - Fertility expert: 'I can clone a human being' - Science, News - The Independent

Gallup survey: What do people fear more, Big Business or Big Government?

Go here for the results -

Big Gov't. Still Viewed as Greater Threat Than Big Business

Bob Hope's Greatest movie line

With thanks to Antoinette for reminding me of this one ...

Will (the new) Yankee Stadium be a mecca for home run hitters?

interesting article yesterday. Even though the dimensions of the new Staium are the same as the old Stadium, there are other factors ...

Homers Odyssey: News tries to solve new Yankee Stadium's quandry

The first four games at the Yankees' new cathedral saw 20 home runs hit by the Yankees and Indians, a total matched in just four of 84 seasons at the old park.

According to a Yankees official, engineers performed a wind study during construction of the new ballpark that showed there would be no noticeable difference between the two fields, so this weekend's numbers clearly caught the team by surprise. The team is planning another study, but it remains to be seen whether the results will clear things up.

Former Junk Bond King Michael Milken (remember him?) on the capital markets

I know lots of people could care less about this - there eyeballs gloss over - but here's a good op ed from the WSJ if you are interested.

By the way the "Capital Market" simply refers to how a government or business raises money, either by borrowing (the bond market) or selling an ownership or equity interest (the stock market). Many people think there's more money invested in stocks then in bonds, but they are wrong - the loanership (bond) market is much bigger.

Why Capital Structure Matters - WSJ.com

The current recession started in real estate, just as in 1974. Back then, many real-estate investment trusts lost as much as 90% of their value in less than a year because they were too highly leveraged and too dependent on commercial paper at a time when interest rates were doubling. This time around it was a combination of excessive leverage in real-estate-related financial instruments, a serious lowering of underwriting standards, and ratings that bore little relationship to reality. The experience of both periods highlights two fallacies that seem to recur in 20-year cycles: that any loan to real estate is a good loan, and that property values always rise. Fact: Over the past 120 years, home prices have declined about 40% of the time.

History isn't a sine wave of endlessly repeated patterns. It's more like a helix that brings similar events around in a different orbit. But what we see today does echo the 1970s, as companies use the capital markets to push out debt maturities and pay off loans. That gives them breathing room and provides hope that history will repeat itself in a strong economic recovery.

It doesn't matter whether a company is big or small. Capital structure matters. It always has and always will.

Alternatives fuels and government mandates/mismanagement - Subtitle: A Cautionary Tale for Environmentalists

Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel had just a great column this past Friday. How the best intentions, and government regulations and incentives, can produce chaos.

It's the "law of unintended consequences" at work. If you are interested in energy policy and the environment, this column is a must read.

Alternative Fuel Folly - WSJ.com

Every so often Washington throws out a controversy that brilliantly illustrates everything wrong with Washington. Consider the brewing outrage over "black liquor."

This is the tale of how a supposedly innocuous federal subsidy to encourage "alternative energy" has, in a few short years, ballooned into a huge taxpayer liability and a potential trade dispute, even as it has distorted markets and led to greater fossil-fuel use.

"Bigger, Stronger, Faster" the movie trailer

The American Way? See Arnold Schwarzenegger and Henry Waxman in the same movie!

Here's an interview with the movie director, as he talks about interviewing Congessman Henry Waxman -

BETH ACCOMANDO: Were you surprised by people like Congressman Waxman who seemed so ill-prepared for the interview?

CHRIS BELL: It's weird because I'm not a journalist and I wasn't a documentary filmmaker when I started this journey so I was super nervous because I had never interviewed a congressman before and when I asked him why are steroids illegal and he turns to his assistant and says, "Are they illegal?" And I thought oh my god this is the guy who called the baseball hearings and he doesn't even know what he's talking about. That's really interesting to me because we really uncovered how we don't always have the facts when we are making the laws in this country. So I question in the movie why steroids became illegal in the first place. So I wanted to explore both the myths of steroids and the bad side effects of steroids and the possible positive medical applications as well.

Does nasal irrigation help if you have nasal/allergy/sinus problems?

Something like 40% of the population has nasal and sinus issues. And that includes me. But my experience with nasal irrigation, using one of those squirt bottles, not the neti pot mentioned here, has helped me.  

As my ENT Dr. lady said, it's like you're waterboarding yourself.

Exactly.

Here's a brief article.

Really? - The Claim - Nasal Irrigation Can Ease Allergy Symptoms - Question - NYTimes.com

... several recent studies have found that nasal irrigation can reduce symptoms of allergies and other nasal problems.

U.S. Bishops welcome change in U.S. policy towards Cuba

This is from the Catholic news agency ZENIT. Note also the second part of the statment on immigration.

WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 20, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The bishops of the United States weighed in regarding some of President Barack Obama's recent activities, welcoming the change he made to the nation's policy on Cuba and urging him to discuss the roots of the migration situation with Mexico's president.

In a letter from Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, New York, chairman of the prelates' Committee on International Justice and Peace, the bishops noted that their council has "for many years called for relaxing the sanctions against Cuba."

"These policies have largely failed to promote greater freedom, democracy and respect for human rights in Cuba," Bishop Hubbard wrote in the April 15 letter. "At the same time, our nation's counterproductive policies have unnecessarily alienated many in the hemisphere. Improving the lives of the Cuban people and encouraging human rights in Cuba will best be advanced through more rather than less contact between the Cuban and American people."

Obama granted Cuban Americans the right to freely travel to Cuba and send money to relatives there, and eased restrictions on U.S. telecommunications companies, all with the reported aim of furthering change in Cuba.

Migration

Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, Utah, chairman of the prelates' Committee on Migration, expressed the bishops' concern about the immigration situation of Mexico and the United States, prior to Obama's Thursday visit to President Felipe Calderón, where immigration was one of the main topics.

Bishop Wester noted in a news release that day that both nations benefit from the current reality, while those who are exploited are the immigrants themselves.

The United States, he said, "receives the benefit of [immigrants'] toil and taxes without having to worry about protecting their rights, either in the courtroom or the workplace. When convenient, they are made political scapegoats and attacked -- both rhetorically and through worksite raids."

But Mexico gains as well, Bishop Wester noted, pointing to the $20 billion in remittances per year, without the need to resolve the situation of those Mexicans at the lowest ends of the economic scale.

"What is left is a 'go north' policy which exposes Mexican citizens to the ravages of human smugglers, corrupt law enforcement officials, and potential death in the desert," lamented Bishop Wester. "The losers in this globalization game are the migrants themselves, who have no political power and are unable to defend themselves from inevitable abuse and exploitation, in a system which preys upon their desperation and expropriates their work ethic."

Easter Day at the Gagnons, '09

 The last several Easter Sunday's we've hung out at Chez Gagnon. Here is Easter, 2008. Tom Faranda's Folly: Easter Day at the Gagnon's

There's an Easter egg hunt, much eating and drinking, and then an optional walk up Gagnon Peak, or whatever they call the hill in the woods that's about a 40 minute walk to the top.

Here are a few pictures, without much commentary. I took all of these - but I'm going to do another post with the pix that Brigid took. I am also going to do a separate post of the walk up the hill.

The Easter egg hunters have gotten quite a bit bigger, since the first year we had Easter @ Gagnons!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeanne Marie and Damian. Brigid said "doesn't it look like they were just married?' Hmmm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Will post some pictures by Brigid, as well as the walk up the hill, later this week.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tags Tom and Brigid as "right wing extremists"

I read the nine page DHS report that got so much publicity last week.

It was assinine, but then, these people are interested in suppressing us. With Brigid and I each having  been arrested four times for prolife non-violent civil disobedience (and with Brigid having 17 days of jailtime to her credit) we are the types who make the "extremist" list.

The fact that I've been arrested eight times protesting our nuclear weapons and WMD's doesn't matter. For that I was, in the words of one Judge in Manhattan, practicing "Gandhi-like civil disobedience". I got "ACD'd" (adjourned contemplating dismissal) for that one, and with a smile.

Do the same thing at an abortion "clinic" and it's a federal offence (FOCA), with a $10,000 fine and six months in jail for the first offence. Justice is blind? How about that for a political crime?

But I digress. Here's a very good analysis of the DHS report by a right wing extremist lawyer on the right wing extremist website, National Review Online. Excerpts below the link; the whole article is not very long.

DHS Wants to Know What You’re Thinking by Andrew C. McCarthy on National Review Online

For eight years, we’ve been treated to hysterical rhetoric from Democrats, including Barack Obama, about the scourge of “domestic spying.” Now that the Obama administration is openly calling for domestic spying — the real thing, not the smear used against President Bush — they’re suddenly silent.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), in coordination with the FBI, has issued an intelligence assessment on what it calls “Rightwing Extremism.” It is appalling. The nakedly political document announces itself as a “federal effort to influence domestic public opinion.” It proceeds, in what it acknowledges is the absence of any “specific information that domestic rightwing terrorists are currently planning acts of violence,” to speculate that “rightwing” political views might “drive” such violence — violence, it further surmises, that might be abetted by military veterans returning home after putting their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan. And for good measure, in violation of both FBI guidelines and congressional statutes, the Obama administration promises scrutiny of ordinary Americans’ political views, speech, and assembly.

The word “rightwing” appears repeatedly in the assessment, which was issued by the same DHS component (the “Extremism and Radicalization Branch”) that, a year ago, suggested purging the terms “jihadist” and “Islamofascist” from our lexicon for fear of insulting moderate Muslims.

>>>>>>

In short, the government uses the term as a caricature of the Right: noxious, non-conservative views thoughtlessly labeled “rightwing extremism” to smear actual conservative values as a purported societal threat. As the report absurdly elaborates:

Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.

Nike's "natural running" training camp commercial

In fact, very, very natural. Don't know if this will sell them any additional shoes ...

Second anniversary of Senator Reid: "This war is lost" comment

Think about it. This guy is the head of the U.S. Senate.

Bad economy? Look for freebies!

The Washington Post had an amusing - and somewhat insightful - article yesterday.

A Golden Age for Cheapskates - washingtonpost.com

The recession has emboldened a certain kind of consumer: The mooch. With dwindling retirement savings, a higher cost of living and wobbly job market, they don't just want discounts on items they used to pay full price for without a second thought. They want freebies -- meals, magazine subscriptions, toiletries, you name it. They scour the Internet, make clever use of coupons or simply take advantage of struggling shops and restaurants that are increasingly giving away free things to lure customers.

"One of the things that makes us feel smart is getting something for free," said Matt Wallaert, a behavioral psychologist at JustThrive.com, a free online personal financial advisory service for people in their 20s and 30s. "During a recession, frugal is not a bad word. It's a good word. This is something that people are supposed to be doing. So people think, 'I've got to get on board.' They're searching for free more than ever because it's a symbol of financial savviness."

Businesses are heeding the call. For instance, in February, all McDonald's in the Washington area gave away medium-sized hot or iced coffee from 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. -- with no purchase necessary. As tough times force people to make tough choices, restaurants know customers are weighing options more carefully.

Opening Day for Croton Baseball

Yesterday was the big Opening Day Parade and ceremony. This is traditional in Croton. There are usually official games played on Opening Day, but the league decided this year they would just be pre-season (exhibition) games, not counted in the standings. 

The big news from Farandaville is that in the last inning of Tim's game, he hit a towering three run homer over the left field fence at Dobbs Field. And it was a SHOT - right off the bat you knew it was going over the fence. A "tape measure job" as one of the Dad's said.   

It's interesting, because earlier in the day Tim told me he didn't think he could hit it out at Dobbs Field. He routinely hits it over the fence at the Duck Pond Field (apologies to all those who don't live in Croton and don't know what fields I'm writing about) when he practices with his friends there. But the fence is much closer and the field is not used by the "major league" component of the Little League. 

Anyway, he jacked it out, and later told me the pitch was "slow and right down the middle."

Unfortunately Brigid had left a few minutes earlier, so only I was there to see it. It was a moon shot. I know he's strong, but I didn't think he had that much in him.

I didn't have my camera at the game (just pre-season, right?) but here are a few from the parade and ceremonies. 

Of course there has to be a couple of fire trucks - and the car is backing up in the direction of the parade.

The big guy mugging right in the middle is Fran Genarelli, who does a tremendous amount of volunteer work in our Church and in Croton. 

 

Here is Tim's team - Croton Fire Department. The guy in the jeans is the manager, Tom Vasta. Tim is wearing #14 this year.

 

Here's our neighbor Joe Konig - the tall fellow wearing glasses - not sunglasses. I've blogged about his mother Sue a few times. his team is the Croton Police.

 

Parade ends at Dobbs Field for the awarding of trophies for some of last year's all-star teams, as well as the ceremonial "first pitch". 

 

 

 

 

Last picture, as Tim and his teammates wait for the awards to begin, and look through the event program. It may not come out in the picture, but look at the size of Tim's hands. He has no trouble throwing a baseball.

Cable TV news ratings

With stuff like this CNN deserves last place Objective reporting from CNN

These are the April 15th ratings

FOXNEWS 3,390,000
MSNBC 1,210,000
CNN 1,070,000
CNN HEADLINE 909,000


FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,980,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 3,239,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 2,947,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,740,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 2,401,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 2,185,000
COMEDY DAILY SHOW 1,777,000
MSNBC OLBERMANN 1,499,000
COMEDY COLBERT 1,446,000
CNNHN GRACE 1,336,000
CNN KING 1,292,000
MSNBC MADDOW 1,149,000
CNN COOPER 1,021,000

and here are the ratings for Thursday evening, the 16th.

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,897,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 3,138,000
FOXNEWS GRETA 2,639,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,233,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,979,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 1,866,000
CNN COOPER 1,277,000
CNN KING 1,260,000
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Sarah Palin speaks out

To a crowd of 3,000 in Indiana last week. Of course the Farandas are big Palin fans.

Click here: Sarah Palin speech in Indiana

The governor's 30-minute speech was folksy and full of digressions, but also surprisingly confessional, and she went into some detail about initially panicking after learning, 13 weeks into her pregnancy, that her son would be born with Down syndrome: "That blew me away, it rocked my world… It was a time I asked myself, was I going to walk the walk?"

 

She was on a trip out of state at the time, she said, and "just for a fleeting moment I thought, 'No one knows me here; no one would ever know.' ... My amniocentesis came back and then I understood why some people would think they could change their circumstances, just take care of it. Todd didn't even know" the results of the prenatal testing yet, so "no one would know."

"Plus, I was old," she continued. "And I thought, 'Very funny, God. My name's Sarah, but my husband's not Abraham, he's Todd.'"

 

At 44, she said, she had a hard time imagining changing diapers again, not to mention "putting down the BlackBerry and picking up the breast pump."

 

Though it was unclear from her remarks how seriously she considered terminating the pregnancy, she assured the audience that "we went through some things a year ago that's helped me understand a woman and a girl's temptation to make this go away."

Here's the Washington Post coverage -

Palin Says She Considered Having an Abortion - washingtonpost.com

Palin's frankness was greeted warmly by attendees of the banquet, and the executive director of the National Right to Life Committee said yesterday that it could bind her even more tightly to those who oppose abortion.

"I think every one of us, every human being, has had it go through their mind, the possibility of an act they know is wrong -- and then rejected," David O'Steen said.

Palin's speech underscores, he said, "that she is very forthright, very honest. It also shows she's a person who, when tried and tempted, will make the right decisions."

Kim Lehman of Iowa Right to Life, an influential player in the state's first-in-the-nation Republican caucuses, said she was impressed by Palin's remarks. "She was tested, tried and chose life. It goes to show her character."

A little buck-up for the Knights of Columbus (K of C)

The captain of the Bainbridge - the shipped that freed Captain Richard Phillips is a fourth degree Knight.

Cmdr. Francis X. Castellano

Newsworthy Dads

Very interesting op ed on intelligence and raising I.Q.

Nicholas Kristoff frequently has interesting op eds in the NYT. This is very good. I may have to get the book he references.

Op-Ed Columnist - How to Raise Our I.Q. - NYTimes.com

If intelligence were deeply encoded in our genes, that would lead to the depressing conclusion that neither schooling nor antipoverty programs can accomplish much. Yet while this view of I.Q. as overwhelmingly inherited has been widely held, the evidence is growing that it is, at a practical level, profoundly wrong. Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has just demolished this view in a superb new book, “Intelligence and How to Get It,” which also offers terrific advice for addressing poverty and inequality in America.

>>>>>>

Intelligence does seem to be highly inherited in middle-class households, and that’s the reason for the findings of the twins studies: very few impoverished kids were included in those studies. But Eric Turkheimer of the University of Virginia has conducted further research demonstrating that in poor and chaotic households, I.Q. is minimally the result of genetics — because everybody is held back.

“Bad environments suppress children’s I.Q.’s,” Professor Turkheimer said.

One gauge of that is that when poor children are adopted into upper-middle-class households, their I.Q.’s rise by 12 to 18 points, depending on the study. For example, a French study showed that children from poor households adopted into upper-middle-class homes averaged an I.Q. of 107 by one test and 111 by another. Their siblings who were not adopted averaged 95 on both tests.

The best book I've ever read on intelligence is "The Triarchic Mind" by Yale pyschologist Robert Sternberg. you can pick up a second hand copy of amazon very inexpensively.