Tom Faranda's Folly

Rituxin therapy started today

As scheduled, I had my appointment with Dr. Caron at the Sloan Kettering satellite office in Westcheseter, and then the first of four weekly rituxin treatments. Probably as an effect of the shot of neulasta I had about two weeks ago, my white blood count was up to 4.4. Normal range is 4.5 to 10.5, but it's certainly an improvement on my 1.9 or 2.0 past readings.

On the other hand, my red blood cell count was a little low!It was 3.69. Normal range is 4.0 to 6.0. This may be due to the neulasta - it stimulates the bone marrow to produce white cells, cutting into it's rbc production. My weight is steady at 155.

The rituxin treatment takes about 2 and a half hours. It is given by IV through my medi-port. They give you a couple of meds to make you dopey. It doesn't always have that effect on me, but it did this time. Fell asleep while taking the IV and then needed a nap at home. In the past I've always gone to the gym after receiving rituxin, but decided to pass on the gym this evening.

Had a nice chat with Dr. Caron about our kids. He has twin boys who will be 12 in September. I told him about Joe's summer experience at Fordham Prep and he was interested. He also laughed when I told him that a couple of weeks ago I'd said to Brigid "You know, if given the choice between going through puberty again, or having another stem cell transplant, I'd take the transplant."

The Times on how health has improved in the past 150 years

Here's a very interesting feature in the New York Times. They have started series a entitled "The New Age" on how most people's health has improved by leaps and bounds just over the past several generations.

So Big and Healthy Grandpa Wouldn’t Even Know You - New York Times (See my note on the prior post regarding accessing NY Times articles on their website.)

New research from around the world has begun to reveal a picture of humans today that is so different from what it was in the past that scientists say they are startled. Over the past 100 years, says one researcher, Robert W. Fogel of the University of Chicago, humans in the industrialized world have undergone “a form of evolution that is unique not only to humankind, but unique among the 7,000 or so generations of humans who have ever inhabited the earth.”

The difference does not involve changes in genes, as far as is known, but changes in the human form. It shows up in several ways, from those that are well known and almost taken for granted, like greater heights and longer lives, to ones that are emerging only from comparisons of health records.

The biggest surprise emerging from the new studies is that many chronic ailments like heart disease, lung disease and arthritis are occurring an average of 10 to 25 years later than they used to. There is also less disability among older people today, according to a federal study that directly measures it. And that is not just because medical treatments like cataract surgery keep people functioning. Human bodies are simply not breaking down the way they did before.

Even the human mind seems improved. The average I.Q. has been increasing for decades, and at least one study found that a person’s chances of having dementia in old age appeared to have fallen in recent years.

The proposed reasons are as unexpected as the changes themselves. Improved medical care is only part of the explanation; studies suggest that the effects seem to have been set in motion by events early in life, even in the womb, that show up in middle and old age.

NY Times on men who won't work

The Times is running a periodic series on the effect of the women's movement. Evidently one of the effects is that a lot of men in their prime have just stopped working!

Men Not Working, and Not Wanting Just Any Job - New York Times  (As always, you need to register to access NYT articles online. Registration is free and easy. More importantly, free access to NYT articles is only for one week. After that you have to pay. Anyone who comes across this article after a week and wants the text can email me or leave a comment. I have archived a copy of the text and can email it to you.)

For a significant percentage of men, once they get laid off, that's it. And of course men not pursing jobs are not counted on the rolls of the unemployed.

So instead of heading to work, Mr. Beggerow, now 53, fills his days with diversions: playing the piano, reading histories and biographies, writing unpublished Western potboilers in the Louis L’Amour style — all activities once relegated to spare time. He often stays up late and sleeps until 11 a.m.

“I have come to realize that my free time is worth a lot to me,” he said. To make ends meet, he has tapped the equity in his home through a $30,000 second mortgage, and he is drawing down the family’s savings, at the rate of $7,500 a year. About $60,000 is left. His wife’s income helps them scrape by. “If things really get tight,” Mr. Beggerow said, “I might have to take a low-wage job, but I don’t want to do that.”

Millions of men like Mr. Beggerow — men in the prime of their lives, between 30 and 55 — have dropped out of regular work. They are turning down jobs they think beneath them or are unable to find work for which they are qualified, even as an expanding economy offers opportunities to work.

About 13 percent of American men in this age group are not working, up from 5 percent in the late 1960’s. The difference represents 4 million men who would be working today if the employment rate had remained where it was in the 1950’s and 60’s.

Rituxin therapy starts tomorrow

Tomorrow morning I will be seeing Dr. Caron, and then have my 3 hour or so IV Rituxin treatment. This will be at the Sloan Kettering satellite office in Sleepy Hollow - next to Phelps hospital.

The interesting thing will be: how's my white blood count. I had the shot of Neulasta two weeks ago, so there may still be some residual effect from it, raising my cell count.

I am currently on no meds whatsoever. The prescription for the antibiotic Mepron ran out a few days ago, at the end of the six month post-chemotherapy mark. The antibiotic was for prophylactic reasons only, so I don't think they will want to renew it.

Gym is going well. I only went five days this week, rather then six, because of work pressure.

The Yankees do a deal

The Yankees gave up four minor league prospects to get right fielder Bobby Abreu, and a back-of-the rotation pitcher (Cory Lidle) from Philadelphia.Major League Baseball : News : Major League Baseball News

Abreu is a two time all-star, and he puts Gary Sheffield's future with the Yanks in some doubt. Of course Sheffield will probably end up in the Hall of Fame, but he is 38 and on injured reserve right now.

Yanks are one game behind Boston in the A.L. East.

The most prestigious careers

AOL featured a Wall Street Journal article today, focusing on which jobs the public views as prestigious, and which jobs they don't. Good news if your a firefighter or doctor. Bad news for real estate brokers, stockbrokers, or business executives. AOL Jobs - Articles- firefighters-doctors-viewed-as-most - AOL Find a Job

When read a list of different occupations, 63% of respondents to the telephone poll said they feel firefighters have "very great" prestige, while 58% said doctors do. Other professions that were seen as having very great prestige included: nurses (55%), scientists (54%), teachers (52%) and military officers (51%).

The occupations seen by the fewest people as having very great prestige were: real-estate brokers (6%), stockbrokers (11%), business executives (11%), actors (12%), union leaders (12%) and journalists (12%).

Actors were seen by the largest percentage of people (37%) as having "hardly any prestige at all," followed by real-estate brokers at 32%.

Harris Interactive has been asking about the prestige of different professions and occupations since 1977. Over the course of that time, teaching is the only occupation that has seen an increase in prestige, rising 23 percentage points to 52% since 1977.

Lawyers have seen the greatest decrease in very great prestige, down 15 percentage points to 21%.

Evidently webloggers weren't on the list.

The real long term solution to the Mideast crisis

This is from Fr. Tom Euteneuer, president of Human Life International (HLI).     Spirit & Life

We must never lose confidence in the power of holiness over evil. Communism as a system was dismantled without a shot being fired, and much of it had to do with the holiness of a man like John Paul II and the durable Catholic faith of his brethren in Poland. Likewise, in 1982 there was a “miraculous” cease fire between the warring factions during the siege of Beirut because a small Albanian nun named Mother Theresa decided that 37 handicapped children needed to be rescued from war. When she marched onto the battlefield that day, all the guns went silent. There are more examples, but I’m sure you get the point. The durable solution for terrorism is spiritual. This evil must be cast out.

A Washington Post reporter on keeping secrets

Back about two and a half weeks ago, I went to the Anti-NY Times Rally outside their offices on 42nd St. The rally was to protest their revealing a secret (and totally legal) program to track the finances of terrorists and terror organizations, right on their front page.Tom Faranda's Folly: At the (Anti) NY Times rally

By the way, this particular posting elicited quite a lot of responses, which I think I'll post about in the near future, when I have more time.

In the meanwhile, here is an feature article in last Friday's Washington Post. It's written by Michael J. Berlin, a reporter who in 1979 became aware (as did many other Western reporters and news organizations) that the Canadian Embassy in Tehran was sheltering American diplomats, after the Iranians took over the U.S. embassy and took 55 hostages. A Secret the Media Kept

I was living in the Cayman Islands at the time and have clear memories of the hostage situation. It was one of the things which cost Jimmy Carter a second term in the White House.

Did any news reporter or organization rat out the Americans? Nope. Eventually they were smuggled out of the country and the Canadian ambassador got a ticker tape parade up Broadway.

A little excerpt:

Do I regret not getting my scoop on the hostage story? Not a bit. Over the years, I've run into dozens of reporters who had a piece of the story before it broke, including those who covered the State Department for The Washington Post, and they all felt the same way.

The Canada-hostage story proves that reporters and news organizations can be trusted, en masse, to make the right call on security information they uncover. And neither Iranian officials nor Iranian news media got wind of it.

Do I think that a thousand reporters could be trusted today to make the same call that we did in 1979? I wonder. Even back then, there was the fear that some rogue reporter would ignore the pleas and go with the story. In today's journalism world, I fear that some blogger or counterculture ideologue using journalism as a political tool rather than as a mechanism for dispensing straight information, would make the wrong call. I hope I'm wrong about that.

Some "counterculture ideologue"?  Yeah Sulzberger and Keller the publisher and editor of the NY Times. And who can doubt that the NYT is "using journalism as a political tool"?

Joe Faranda "Best Overall"

Joe finished his HAP (High Achievement Progam) five week summer stint at Fordham Prep today. As I previously mentioned, this was a program for boys entering the eighth grade, with academics in the morning and sports in the afternoon. They had a very nice graduation ceremony this morning.

The  240 boys were in fifteen groups of about 16  boys, and Joe won the "Best Overall Student Award" for his group.  We are very pleased about this, and think it is a great confidence-booster for Joe.

He also did a good job in the sports programs, at least holding his own in track and field, soccer, baseball, touch football, etc. He's not usually inclined toward any sports, so this was also good for his confidence.

In fact the second week he came home and said "We played baseball today." When I asked him how he did, he said "Well I didn't strike out." An accomplishment, since the only baseball he plays is when I can talk him into going for a catch with Tim and I (about twice every baseball season!)

Here is Joe (wearing his "Best Overall" medal) along with Austin Hall and Greg Cunningham, the two boys who car-pooled with us to get them down to the Bronx campus. The car poooling was an elaborate production, involving Dads, Moms, and short hop train rides!

My birthday today

That's right. I'm 48 again. As always, the rule of thumb is to "subtract seven years". So while chronologically I may have been born in 1951, I am 48.

We had a nice little outdoor breakfast, with Tim brewing tea, and taking this picture. Note the straws with parasols, a Tim innovation.

And here I am with Tim.

And we're having a little luncheon at the office.

Health update

I am going to call Dr. Caron tomorrow at the Sleepy Hollow branch of Sloan Kettering to make sure I am scheduled for the rituxin therapy starting this coming Monday. I am scheduled to see him, but I want to make sure they are also expecting me for the three hour IV. I'm sure I wont speak with him, but his nurse should be able to confirm the scheduling.

Meanwhile my fitness is getting better. I did my little strength test Sunday, and a somewhat to my surprise, improved on a month ago. The test is here if you're interested.Tom Faranda's Folly: Health update and results of my fitness test  Anyway, rather than do five sets of three reps on the bench, as per June 18th, I was able to do 5-5-4-4-3. A good improvement.  Maybe I'll be back to five sets of five in another four or five weeks.

Mrs. Moses takes charge

This is from my friend Thea MaGinnis

Teenager in the house! Joe Faranda turns 13

My oldest boy Joe is having his birthday today. "Why it seems like only yesterday that we got him."

Indeed. Joe's start with us was a bit shaky. The social worker bringing him over from his foster care family in Queens to join us in Manhattan had her car hit hard in the side on the trip over. Joe had to be taken to the Hospital for Special Surgery to be sure he didn't have glass slivers in his eyes (He didn't). He also arrived with a massive mess in his diaper.

So it was an auspicious start as a Faranda for five week old Joe.

But now Joe is a star (says the proud Dad). In fact he's just finishing the five week summer "High Achievement Program" at Fordham Prep, and is being given the award for overall achievement in his particular group of 17 boys.

We're hoping this will help expand his vocabulary beyond the "Uh, Yea, uhuh, whatever" stage he has been in the last six months or so. Joe is 4' 11", tall for a 13 year old by Faranda standards, but still leaving him at the front of the line at school.

And he doesn't like having his picture taken. Here are the best efforts today.

He'll love having this one posted!

He is a dreamy guy.

Our weekend in Boston

I am just getting to the July 14-16 weekend, because I only just put the pictures on the computer. We rendezvoused at the Back Bay Hilton with two other couples Friday night - Mike and Karen Riner and Paul and Doreen Novotny. Paul and Doreen organized the weekend, including picking out the restaurants (Mexican Friday night and French Saturday).

Here they are, as we headed to our French meal Saturday:

Saturday during the day was spent doing the "Red Trolley" tour, which includes a boat ride into the harbor.  Here's a picture of our Trolley, as it is reflected in the windows of the John Hancock building (the city's tallest building) in the center of Boston.

All big city harbors are interesting, and Boston is no exception. Here's a shot from the tour ferry of "Old Ironsides", all decked out with pendants. The naval ship to the right is the "Cassin Young" a destroyer from World War II now on permanant exhibit (maintained by the National Park Service!). It survived two kamikaze hits, which killed 23 crew members.

In the Faneuil Hall - Quincy Market area, there were a number of street artists. One of them is an "escape artist" who put himself in a straight jacket and then had two onlookers tie him up.  While working his way out of his predicament he spotted Karen Riner and took a liking to her - much to Mike and the crowd's amusement:

Afterwards, lunch in the Ned Devine Pub in Quincy Market:

In the late afternoon, early evening Brigid and I met up with friends from the Boston suburbs, Mary and Kevin Blake. Mary Blake used to be Mary Kelliher, and she used to work for me. Mary moved down from Boston for a variety of reasons, but after six weeks she left my part-time job and entered a convent! Must have been the work environment. Anyway, luckily for Kevin she left the convent.

We met at the hotel and went to  - you guessed it - a pub near the Hilton.

Sunday Brigid and I went to Church next door to the hotel (St. Cecilia's) and then decided to stick around Boston for a few hours. The Riner's and Novotny's took off and we headed over to Charlestown. The Bunker Hill memorial was closed, so we went to the Navy Yard and eventually did a tour of the Cassin Young (We'd been on the Constitution - Old Ironsides - a few years ago). The tour was quite interesting, although ending on a somber note as the Park Service guide showed where non-white seaman slept - there was segregation in the Navy in World War II.

Here's where the second Kamikaze hit. 22 men were killed and the small plaque is a commemorative. By the way, the ship is named for a naval captain who was killed in a sea battle off Guadalcanal. He had prevously been given the medal of honor for saving his ship - which was tied up next to the Arizona - at Pearl Harbor.

Boston is an excellent place to visit. Bear in mind they are nuts about sports. If you say "I'm from New York" you immediately get the reply "You're not a Yankee fan, are you?" The diplomatic response is "I don't really folllow baseball." Tom Faranda's Folly: A little humor from Boston

 

Science, politics, and stem cells

Most people have some type of political agenda - or perhaps values agenda is a better description. And this is no less true for scientists. And frequently it colors their judgement and purported objectivity.

Here is an excellent article on science, politics and embryo stem cell research (FULL DISCLOSURE: I helped design the referenced web journal) LifeNet: Science magazine and stem cell dishonesty

I'm sure some of the same thing applies to the science of global warming (both pro and con).

9/11 conspiracy theorists

One of the few weblogs I look at is Althouse, written by a University of Wisconsin law professor, Ann Althouse.

The University of Wisconsin is a very fine school, which recently has gained a bit of noteriety for allowing a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist (And he is wild-eyed, as well as being smug and pompous - I saw him on cable news a few days ago while in the gym.) named Kevin Barrett to teach a course on Islam. The course will, among other things, teach Barrett's theory that 9/11 was an "inside job", planned and brought about by the U.S. government. here's an article about the guy  The Capital Times

Barrett has recently emerged from obscurity to gain worldwide attention for his belief that some top U.S. government officials orchestrated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He works to punch holes in the government's official version of the attacks from the second floor of the Lone Rock cabin.

Here he runs the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth. Members of his alliance have various opinions about this nation's level of complicity in the attacks, but all say they want a review more thorough than the one the 9/11 Commission provided in 2004, Barrett said.

Barrett, a UW lecturer on Islam, personally believes the World Trade Center towers were brought down by a controlled demolition.

He also believes that the story of the hijacked plane that hit the Pentagon is "preposterous."

"Their agenda goes way beyond Iraq. They want 50 years of war at least," Barrett said of the U.S. government, sitting barefoot in a soft chair in the cabin. The government wants to gain power over the Middle East and Central Asia, he said. "They'll be able to use the psychological impact of 9/11 for another 50 years."

UW, citing "academic freedom" has decided he is free to teach this stuff.

And it turns out that Daniel Ellsbergh (remember him? The Pentagon Papers in 1971?) feels the same way. Here's his take on things: Flares into Darkness: Daniel Ellsberg Supports 9/11 Denialists

Interviewer Jack Blood: "I’m gonna take a risk here in asking you this Daniel, in all due respect, have you had a chance to look at this information coming from America’s leading scholars, business’, engineers, etc. who have taken a look now at 9-11 and are now not only questioning what might have happened on 9-11, but really being very direct…."

Daniel Ellsberg: "I have looked at a lot of that and I tell ya, without going into it all, which would take a lot of time, I find some of it very implausible and other parts of it, quite solid. There is no question in my mind, that there is enough evidence to justify a very comprehensive and hard hitting investigation of the kind we have not seen. With subpoenas, general questioning of people, releasing a lot of documents. There’s no question that very serious questions have been raised about how much they knew before hand and how much involvement there may have been. Is the administration capable, humanly, psychologically, of engineering such a provocation? Yes. I would say that."

Here's his complete interview. Pentagon Papers Author Daniel Ellsberg Says Government May Have Carried Out 9/11

There are always a few nut jobs around, and I suppose this sort of thing was inevitable. It's in the same class as Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor ahead of time, and Johnson had Kennedy killed.

The latest on Darfur and the Sudan

Here's an editorial in this morning's Washington Post. Sudan's Long Slide  Not good.

It's hard to believe that conditions in Sudan, the scene of this century's first genocide, could get any worse. But if the north-south peace deal unravels, a new wave of massacres could begin, with the government falling back on its habitual tactic of arming local militias and unleashing them on civilians. Mr. Bush, who has pledged repeatedly to do everything possible to end Sudan's suffering, must not let this disaster happen. He must ensure that a senior member of his foreign policy team takes on the Sudan portfolio. And he must insist that Sudan's government live up to its commitments under last year's north-south peace deal and that it drop its objections to the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur.

The new trend in memorial and funeral services

The NY Times has been running some off-beat features the last several days (things like women who get involved with their contractors and run off with them - that sort of thing) and here's another one. The latest in cutting edge funeral services. I am using the AOL feature link, hoping it wil be available online for free longer than the one week if I linked directly to the NYT. -- its-my-funeral-and-ill-serve-ice-cream - AOL Money & Finance

It's actually pretty interesting article with some insights into how some people think nowadays.

The planning for most funerals still falls to the nation’s 22,000 funeral homes, which bury more than 2 million Americans each year, at a price tag of $13 billion. But some families are beginning to think outside the box-provider, said Mark Duffey of Houston, who last year began what he calls the first nationwide funeral concierge service. For $995 or a monthly subscription fee, his company, Everest Funeral Package, has helped several hundred families plan their final rites, providing concierge services that range from writing obituaries to negotiating prices with undertakers.

“Baby boomers are all about being in control,” said Mr. Duffey, who started his company after running a chain of funeral homes. “This generation wants to control everything, from the food to the words to the order of the service. And this is one area where consumers feel out of control.”

What's it like to be evacuated from Lebanon?

Mixed views. Here's an interesting article from the Houston Chronicle Chron.com | Mixed reactions among Americans evacuated from Lebanon

The evacuation got under way two days after the first Europeans fled the Lebanese capital on ships, and thousands more Europeans continued to stream out by sea Wednesday.

Some Americans in Lebanon harshly criticized Washington for seeming to respond slowly to the fighting. Israeli jets have attacked targets in the Beirut area nearly every day for the past week, while gunners for Hezbollah shot missiles into northern Israel and its militiamen engaged in firefights with Israeli soldiers.

U.S. officials, however, said that extra time was needed for planning and coordinating such a large evacuation. Others said they also wanted to make sure the evacuees were taken out in a certain level of comfort.

Some of the arriving evacuees seemed almost relaxed after their ordeal. A few even managed to enjoy the chance to ride on a well-equipped cruise ship, said Nabil el-Hage, of Weston, Mass., who was traveling with his daughter, Beatrice, when the fighting started.

"We had a private cabin, and I took a nice shower," he said. "They had sandwiches and mixed drinks. I had a piña colada. Some people were swimming in the pools."

The criticism of the U.S. evacuation was unfair, he said. "They took an extra day, but it was worth it. It was very well-organized."

He said the vessels used in the U.S. evacuation were an obvious target for Hezbollah.

"They had to get the security right," he said of the U.S. officials. "There were Marines all over the place (in the port of Beirut, where the evacuation began). They did a really good job."

Two-toned lobster

Short story including a pretty cool picture.Maine lobsterman pulls up rare lobster - Boston.com

USN&WR annual hospital rankings

Here's a piece on "the best hospitals" from US News and World Report "annual honor roll".  Don't know how they make these determinations. WebMD with AOL Health - 14 Hospitals Ranked Best in U.S.

They did separate rankings for "specialty hospitals". A total of 16 specialties. Here's the ranking for Cancer:

Cancer:

1. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York)
2. University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (Houston)
3. Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore, Md.)

Health update - word from the Lymphoma Guru

After last Thursday's debacle of going for my appointment at Sloan Kettering and never seeing Dr. Zelenetz, Tom Faranda's Folly: Health update - Dr's appointment but unable to see the Doc I was finally able to speak with his nurse today. ("Nurse Nancy" - she was off Friday and Monday). Here's the drill from Dr. Zelenetz:

I'm going to get a white blood cell booster shot tomorrow at the Sloan satellite office in Sleepy Hollow. Then on the 31st I will see Dr. Caron in Sleepy Hollow and begin my once a week for four weeks Rituxin treatment. This will be the end of my anti-lymphoma therapy. Then in three months I will see Dr. Zelenetz, complete with scans - presumably a CAT scan.

Dr. Z is not concerned about the low white blood count and feels no need for a bone marrow biopsy. Evidently this is fairly typical coming off my type of chemotherapy.

As I've mentioned in the past, Dr. Zelenetz is pretty conservative about these things, so if he's not concerned about my white cell counts, I'm not concerned.

The Washington Post on the middle east

WaPo had a sensible editorial this morning A War With Extremists

SOMEWHAT remarkably, the world leaders gathered in St. Petersburg managed to grasp the most important point about the current Middle East crisis: It "results from efforts by extremist forces to destabilize the region and to frustrate the aspirations of the Palestinian, Israeli and Lebanese people for democracy and peace." In other words, the current warfare in Lebanon, Gaza and Israel stems not from Israel's occupation of Arab lands or its holding of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners, but from a blatant bid by Iran and Syria and their allies in Hamas and Hezbollah to stop the creation of a democratic Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza and the parallel consolidation of a democracy in Lebanon.

It follows that the only satisfactory outcome to the conflict would be a decisive defeat for those extremist forces. Should Hamas and Hezbollah fail militarily, Arab democrats and those who favor the creation of a peaceful Palestine alongside Israel would see the removal of their largest obstacle, while the pernicious influence of Iran and Syria in the region would be curtailed.

Letter to Washington Post writer on stem cell research

The Washington Post had an article on Saturday (which I only just got around to reading) on stem cell research. Clash Over Stem Cell Research Heats Up

The gist of the article is a claim that opponents of embryo stem cell research, are exaggerating the benefits of adult stem cell therapies. The article points to a letter to Science magazine where three researchers conclude that most of the footnoted documentation of one scientist opposed to embryo research, is wrong. Here is one of their examples of wrong footnote documentation.

Similarly, a published report that Prentice cites as evidence that adult stem cells can help patients with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma does not address the medical value of those cells but rather describes the best way to isolate cells from lymphoma patients and grow them in laboratory dishes, the letter said.

I sent the author of the Post article, Rick Weiss (Who I don't know and can't recall seeing any of his other work) the following email:

Dear Rick,

      I just read your bylined article entitled "Clash over stem cell research heats up".

      Regardless of what was in the footnotes of Mr. Prentice's documentation, I can assure you that stem cell therapies are indeed a proven treatment for lymphoma.

      This past January I received an autologous (my own cells) stem cell transplant after receiving high dose chemotherapy for my mantle cell lymphoma. This was done at Memorial Sloan Kettering hospital in New York, where they have a unit (a whole floor) entirely devoted to stem cell and bone marrow transplants. They have been doing this for at least twenty years.

      It seems to me that the critics of Prentice are being more than a little disingenuous, since I am sure they are familiar with this type of therapy.

Tom

A return email indicated Weiss is away until the end of July.

A little humor from Boston

Just got back this evening from a weekend in Boston. An excellent time. Had a good laugh over this t-shirt we spotted at a kiosk outside the Boston Aquarium.

That's Johnny Damon, as he looked back when he played for the Red Sox. Of course now he's a clean-shaven Yankee, patrolling center field.

If you can't quite make out the wording under his picture it says:

TALKS LIKE JUDAS      THROWS LIKE MARY                                                                                                       

Off to Boston this weekend

We are about to head up to Boston for the weekend. The Novotny's and Riner's will be joining us and I am hoping to see people like Mary and Kevin Blake, and John McCarthy.

Nothing further on my erstwhile appointment with Dr. Zelenetz yesterday. Spoke to their office twice this AM and they are going to get back to me with a re-schedule. They did fax me my blood work and my white cell count is still low - 1.9.

Health update - Dr's appointment but unable to see the Doc

Went to Sloan this afternoon as scheduled, arriving at 4:50 for the appointment with Dr. Zelenetz. I'd called and was told they were running a little late, so come in at 5:00 rather then 4:45.

Had bloodwork and my vital signs were taken - all done by 5:15. At 5:45 the receptionist said "it would be at least an hour" so why not go downstairs and get some food. Which we did.

At 7:15 we started talking to the new receptionist and she said it would be "at least another hour."

So at 7:30, with no end of waiting in sight, we made the decision to leave and re-schedule.

Can't blame the doctor, or the receptionist - but - terrible communications. It also turns out that his office had scheduled me for rituxin therapy in the city at 11:45 this morning. And that was never communicated to me. And of course all my out-patient therapies are done at the Sleepy Hollow facility.

The scheduling team is to blame - the receptionist told me the scheduler is no longer in the hospital employ.

So tomorrow bright and early I will be calling Dr. Zelenetz' nurse to try and get this straightened out. But it's going to be very tough to see him in the next week or two as his office hours are reduced.

A big screw-up, and further proof that even with a great facility like Sloan Kettering, you have to be your own advocate. But I knew that already Tom Faranda's Folly: On being your own advocate and didn't need the proof.

Latest Read: Before the Legend - The Rise of Bob Marley

A caribbean motif tonite (see prior post).

I got wind of this book when an excerpt was published in - of all places - the Wall Street Journal. It turns out the author, Christopher John Farley, is an editor at the Journal, which probably explains how it ended up being excerpted there.

If you don't know, Bob Marley is really the great popularizer of Reggae in Europe and the U.S., going back to the late 70's and early 80's. He was the rage when I lived in Jamaica from 1977 to 1979. His album Exodus was a hit at the time.

Marley died in 1982 of brain cancer, at the age of 37. The cancer may have been induced by the vast volume of ganja (that's marijuana) he ingested in the form of giant spliffs in the prior 15 or 20 years.

Since his death, his fame has absolutely grown and grown. The album Legend, kind of a "Bob Marley and the Wailers" greatest hits album is one of the all time bestsellers worldwide. And Exodus was named the "album of the century" by Time Magazine.

Brigid and I are fans of Marley. In fact in April 2005, while visiting Jamaica, we stopped in the tiny village of Nine Miles to see where Marley was born. We were on our way from Runaway Bay on the north coast to the town of Mandeville where we had met and been married in 1979.

There's a museum and a kind of shrine there, where he is buried. We didn't go in but simply had a look in the gift shop and chatted to the museum "guides."

Here are a couple of pictures:

So now you have the background as to why on June 23rd I gave Brigid this book for our 27th anniversary . And one of my motivations for giving it was to read it myself.

In fact, the book is very good, very enjoyable. It takes you from Marley's birth in 1945, discusses his family, the fact that his mother was black but his father was mostly white, his life as a poor boy in Kingston, and his musical aspirations. The author Farley was born in Kingston himself but raised in upstate NY and attended Harvard. He interviewed all the major people who are still living and knew Marley well. And there is an extensive bibliography.

There's a whole heap of stuff about Jamaican culture, about the influence of slavery on the culture, and the author paints a nuanced picture of life in Jamaica in the 50's and 60's.

Marley was very much a man of his culture. A sincere Rastafarian, married at 21, at least seven children by four different women. Able to survive by his wits in a culture where many of the artists and producers carried guns as a matter of course.

Marley spent a good deal of time in the U.S. In fact he was a member of the UAW! He worked for several years in Delaware in a car parts factory. This all before the big breakthrough in 1972, when he produced through Island Records (through Chris Blackwell. Island Records was a British label.) his first big album, Catch a Fire.   

So the book is a fine looking glass into Jamaica, it's culture, and the group, Bob Marley and the Wailers. By the way, there were a number of people who moved in and out of the Wailers, but the two who were there the whole time were Peter Tosh (shot dead in his own house in 1987) and Bunny Wailer who is still making music in Jamaica.

The book inspired me to get an early album of the Wailers. A collection of ten of their early songs, the Millenium Edition. Good, but a rough album, in the sense that the songs were all produced in Jamaica, without exactly "state of the art" production facilities. And they lack the rock influence, which was probably crucial to driving their popularity overseas. 

The King Kong of hammerhead sharks

Has been caught. This story WFTV.com - News - Record Hammerhead Shark Was Pregnant immediately reminded me of my (true) hammerhead story.

Brigid and I were on a north coast of Grand Cayman (shortly before we left the island, in 1981) diving in 95 feet of water with Bob Osterwyk, Paul Sleep, and a lady friend of Bob's whose name escapes me. And this eight or nine foot hammerhead swims by, about 50 feet away. You could see the gills working, and the eye on the end of the head.

An incredible sight.

I wasn't worried at all, UNTIL I turned around and looked at the dive leader, Paul Sleep. Paul had done over 2,000 dives around the world, was a first class BSAC diver (one of only a few hundred in the world) and was clinging to the coral trying to look the size of a gnat. I figured "If Paul's nervous, I should be too."

Anyway the hammerhead kept going east along the drop off, and we kept going west.

Our heads were spinning for days.

Meeting with Dr. Zelenetz, my lymphoma Doc, tomorrow

Tomorrow, Thursday, late in the afternoon, I will be seeing Dr. Zelenetz for the first time since I was "returned" to him by the transplant unit. Here's hoping my white blood cell count is headed toward normal and everything checks out well.

I do feel fine!

Here's a good article on emailing large files

The Wall Street Journal has a very good technology editor, Walter Mossberg. He's very practical and writes for people like me - a little bit of technical knowledge (like I know how to turn on the computer and set the clock on a VCR), but not much more then that.

Here's an article that was on aol from the Journal  AOL News - An Easier Way to Send Large Email Attachments

This week, we tested a new, free, application called Pando that aims to solve this problem without requiring you to use an intermediary Web site. Pando lets you email huge attachments -- up to one gigabyte each -- to anyone, without breaching email size limits, or clogging anyone's inbox. It comes in versions for both Windows and Macintosh computers, available for downloading at www.pando.com.

It sounded fishy to us, too, but Pando, from Pando Networks Inc., performed really well in our tests -- even in its current "beta," or trial, stage. It's simple, fast, and effective, and it solves the large-attachment problem.

Dell laptop goes up in smoke

Here are the pictures of the dell computer that exploded in flames at some sort of business conference in Japan.  Dell laptop explodes at Japanese conference

I've had two dell laptops and neither has exploded (yet). I'm glad this one wasn't on anyone's lap!

At the (Anti) NY Times rally

Late Monday afternoon I went into Manhattan to the Anti- NY Times rally that a few groups had organized. The rally of course was to protest the Times revealing a secret intelligence program designed to uncover financial transactions among terrorists and their supporters, mostly in Europe and the Middle East. A completely legal program. And splashed all over the front page of the Times. I have previously written about this issue: Tom Faranda's Folly: Should the NY Times help Al Queda?

I'm very glad I went! The crowd was about 200 people, as demonstrators were coming and going - perhaps a total of 350 people turned up. There was a good sound system on the back of a pick-up truck, directly across the street from the main entrance to the Times (43rd. street between Seventh and Eighth Ave). Lots of noise and plenty of good posters. Among the notables who spoke while I was there was Roy Innis, head of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality), Debra Burlingame, whose brother was the pilot of the plane hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon, and the (Former?) radio personality Barry Farber.

I hung out with my good friend Theresa Bonopartis, whose son is a marine. She took a picture of me with the "t-shirt of the day" on, and it's here, on the author Michelle Malkin's website Michelle Malkin (just scroll down a bit.)

Here are a few pictures I took:

The guy in stripes is holding a Bill Keller mask (executive editor of the NYT), the strong suggestion being that Keller (referred to as "Killer" for most of the demonstration) should be in jail.

I loved this sign - Sulzberger is the publisher and is worth about three and a half billion $$$$'s.

There were two Osama imposters there, to thank the Times

Debra Burlingame

Roy Innis. He had a great line "this demonstration is against arrogance."

Here's a sign that says it all. After 9/11 the NY Times columnist Tom Friedman made the point that we were in for a long struggle. He said "Think about it. The terrorists hate us, more than they love their own lives or their own families." And he was 1,000% right. What other motivation is there to pilot planes into buildings except total hate?

Well the Times publisher and editors feelings are somewhat akin to that. They despise Bush - he's a Republican, a "cowboy", a conservative, against experimenting on embryos, against gay marriage, has a southern drawl, etc, etc, etc. He's just not in their class. So to them, what's a little sedition and betrayal, if it hurts Bush? 

Here I am (Theresa took this)

And here I am with the t-shirt. I asked the lady walking around with the shirts "How much?" And she said  "They're free if you wear it."

My 12 year old son Joe was thinking of coming to the rally - he went with me to the Darfur Rally a couple of months ago - but bailed at the last minute. He was tired (highly social past weekend!) and didn't feel 100%. In a way I'm glad, as it freed me up to wander around. There were about six pro- NY Times demonstrators there; crazies from a group calling themselves the  "NY Metro Alliance of Anarchists" (not making this up). They made themselves obnoxious as I walked around on their side of the street. I know from experience that there's several things you can count on from this type of crazy - they are impossible to have a rational discussion with, they'll scream obscenities, and they'll call everyone a "racist." That's their whole playbook.

But this is the Big Apple and it takes all kinds.

Quick health update

Had great sessions all this past week in the gym. However my weight does seem to be creeping up! Not what I'd like.

I will be seeing Dr. Zelenetz for my first post-stem cell transplant appointment on Thursday. I have been turned back over to the lymphoma department at Sloan Kettering, from the transplant unit. Two things will be of interst to us: (1) Whether my white blood cell count has started back up and (2) Dr. Z's thoughts on my intermediate and long term outlook. Of course, on #2, he's likely to be very circumspect.

Washington Post editorial on immigration reform

I liked this editorial, Enforcement-Plus Is Critical since I am in favor of comprehensive immigration reform, rather then "let's secure the borders and then reform the system", which seems to be favored by most Republicans. 

Here are the key paragraphs:

The danger, though, is that "enforcement-first" will devolve into "enforcement-only," which would be both inhumane and impractical. So Mr. Bush, if he is exploring a compromise, should insist that enforcement and a path to citizenship remain part of one legislative package. The path to citizenship should be generous enough, and free enough of bureaucratic requirements, to be meaningful to most immigrants who have followed every other law since arriving here (including paying taxes). The comprehensive package should include a healthy enough increase in legal immigration to meet the needs of a growing U.S. economy, on both the high-tech and low-wage ends.

Most important, the delay in implementing these measures can't be inde finite -- and can't depend on conditions that will never be met. The legalization part of the package could wait for a year or two while the administration beefs up border patrols and workplace inspections. But it can't depend on some promise of decreased immigration that can never be met or measured.

NY Times on the economy

The NY Times had an article today, on what they view as a kind of surprising and mysterious rise in tax revenues.Surprising Jump in Tax Revenues Is Curbing Deficit - New York Times

Of course if you accept the premise of so-called supply side economics - that lowering taxes leaves more money in the economy, increases economic activity and expands the tax base, it's no surprise at all. Increased economic activity, and expanded tax base means more taxes paid. Duh.

This sticks in the craw of the Times (and other opponents of the current administration), who don't like any successes under the Bush regime. Note last sentence of following excerpt:

An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year, even though spending has climbed sharply because of the war in Iraq and the cost of hurricane relief.

On Tuesday, White House officials are expected to announce that the tax receipts will be about $250 billion above last year's levels and that the deficit will be about $100 billion less than what they projected six months ago. The rising tide in tax payments has been building for months, but the increased scale is surprising even seasoned budget analysts and making it easier for both the administration and Congress to finesse the big run-up in spending over the past year.

Tax revenues are climbing twice as fast as the administration predicted in February, so fast that the budget deficit could actually decline this year. ...

Congressional analysts say the surprise windfall could shrink the deficit this year to $300 billion, from $318 billion in 2005 and an all-time high of $412 billion in 2004.

Republicans are already arguing that the revenue jump proves that their tax cuts, especially the 2003 tax cut on stock dividends, would spur the economy and ultimately increase revenues....

"The fact is that revenues are way below what the administration said they would be a few years ago," said Thomas S. Kahn, staff director for Democrats on the House Budget Committee. "The long-term prognosis is still very, very bleak, and the administration doesn't have any kind of long-term plan."

Only bad news satisfies these people. Even good news is "bleak."

The Times article will be available for free online only for the next week. I have archived a copy in my email for anyone who wants to read the full article after the week is up. Just email me or leave a comment.

Some rugby results

The big international tournament in the southern hemisphere - the Tri-Nations tournament - has begun. This is a tournament or league competition between Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand.

The first match was played this past Saturday between New Zealand and Australia, with New Zealand winning 32-12. The win was built on the All Blacks forward domination, and great defense.

Here's some video highlights.AllBlacks.com Video

Unfortunate news about Pavarotti

Luciano Pavarotti, perhaps the world's most famous opera singer, has had surgery for pancreatic cancer. Pavarotti Battling Pancreatic Cancer The five year survival rate for this type of cancer is low.

"Fortunately, the mass was able to be completely removed at surgery," the singer's manager, Terri Robson, said in a statement from her London office. "Mr. Pavarotti is recovering well, and his physicians are encouraged by the physical and emotional resilience of their patient."

Pavarotti, 70, had intended the 2005-06 season to be a "Worldwide Farewell Tour," but he was forced to cancel eight concerts in April and another five in June, citing what was described as "complications from back surgery." (He had been scheduled to sing in Washington at Verizon Center on June 21.) The latest round of concerts would have taken him to Great Britain and, in September, he was slated to sing in Finland, Norway, Austria, Switzerland and Portugal. ...

Even well past his 60th birthday, he retained the most sheerly beautiful tenor voice since that of the late Jussi Bjoerling, who died in 1960. And on those occasions when Pavarotti threw himself wholeheartedly into a role -- knowing every note, thinking about the music, attending all the rehearsals, working closely and sympathetically with his colleagues, shepherding his resources for the long haul -- there was nobody else like him. And only Pavarotti had that sound -- that honeyed, lambent, never-to-be-forgotten sound .

Latest Read: Modern Physics and Ancient Faith

This book was published in 2003. The author is Stephen Barr, a physicist at the University of Delaware, who has written widely on the confluence of religious belief with modern scientific insights, especially from quantum mechanics and relativity theory.

I finished reading this book on the fourth of July, and Barr is very good. It is a defense of religious belief, with Barr holding the position that the scientific discoveries of last century strengthen the position of the theist, while blowing holes in the philosophical materialist. It is divided into five sections, with the first section presenting the materialist position as anti-religious mythology.

The second section is about "The Beginning", discussing the Big Bang and the "standard model" of the cosmos. He also touches on other models for the universe, which are not widely held, but always possible.

Part three asks the question "Is the Universe Designed" and leans very heavily on the order found in nature and the universe, as well as the fact that the universe can be described so elegantly with mathematical structures.

The fourth and fifth sections are "Man's Place in the Cosmos" and "What is Man?", including chapters with titles like "Is the Human Mind just a Computer?" I found these not as well presented as the first three sections, but only because the first three sections were so outstanding.

The very last chapter is titled "Is a Pattern Emerging?" and Indeed there is one. Barr makes a convincing case that it is the materialist, who 100 years ago was proclaiming with authority that science proved the materialist creed, now forced more and more into irrationality in defending a pure materialist position.

There are three appendixes, the last one devoted to explaining the very difficult Godel's Theorem - I am told the theorem is one of the great achievements of 20th century mathematics. I'm sure if I re-read this appendix two or three more times, I'll start to twig on to it!

For other opinions on this book(one of which is a three sentence review with the title "There is still no reason to believe in a god!!), go here:Amazon.com: Reviews for Modern Physics and Ancient Faith: Books: Stephen M. Barr

Higher speed limits, but safer highways

The Wall Street Journal this morning had commentary pointing out that the repeal of the 55 mph speed limit in 1995 did not result in more highway deaths. OpinionJournal - Featured Article

On the contrary, driving in the U.S. is safer than ever. Seems counter-intuitive, but these are the facts.

Two environmental articles

Unlike the dangers of Global Warming, the evidence for which is (in my opinion) sketchy, here is a REAL problem caused by carbon dioxide being poured into the atmosphere and then absorbed by the oceans. The article was published in the July 5th Washington Post. Growing Acidity of Oceans May Kill Corals

A coalition of federal and university scientists is to issue a report today describing how carbon dioxide emissions are, in the words of a press release from the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "dramatically altering ocean chemistry and threatening corals and other marine organisms that secrete skeletal structures."

The Wall Street Journal also had a recent good piece on the environment, entitled "Don't Believe the Hype" OpinionJournal - Extra, written by a professor of atmospheric science at MIT. The article subtitle is "Al Gore is wrong. there is no 'consensus' on global warming."

A general characteristic of Mr. Gore's approach is to assiduously ignore the fact that the earth and its climate are dynamic; they are always changing even without any external forcing. To treat all change as something to fear is bad enough; to do so in order to exploit that fear is much worse. Regardless, these items are clearly not issues over which debate is ended--at least not in terms of the actual science.

Evangelical magazine interviews Catholic intellectual

Here is a really interesting interview with Professor Robert George of Princeton University, published in the leading evangelical magazine, Christianity Today.The Phone Book Test - Christianity Today Magazine

What's your reading of our culture right now?
I've argued in my book The Clash of Orthodoxies that the contemporary moment is marked by profound cultural division. We have a clash of two worldviews. On the one side are those who maintain traditional Judeo-Christian principles, such as the principle of the sanctity of human life, the principle that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, the principle that sex is integral to marriage but that sex ought not to be engaged in outside of marriage, and so forth.

On the other side of the cultural divide are people who have abandoned those principles in favor of some alternative ideology. Often it celebrates personal autonomy and freedom from traditional moral constraints, mixed with certain utilitarian elements. Sometimes it manifests itself in radical forms of feminism or quasi-pantheistic forms of environmentalism.

This division runs between elite and popular opinion. If I may borrow a concept from William F. Buckley Jr., consider what the results would be if we were to ask 800 members of the Princeton faculty about their views on abortion or homosexuality or other issues of that sort, and then make the same inquiry of the first 800 people in the Trenton, New Jersey, phone book.

What can those of us in the Judeo-Christian tradition learn from the secular orthodoxy?
Its promoters are our opponents. One might even say, at the risk of misleading, that they are our enemies. And if we do use the term enemies, it has to be holding fully in mind Christ's command that we love our enemies. We are seeking their conversion of heart, a change of mind. I'm not necessarily speaking about religious conversion. I'm talking about persuading people to adopt a better understanding of justice and the common good. The means that we use must be pure. They must be truthful; they must not be manipulative. We must employ just means in the pursuit of just ends.

I think there is a perception, particularly in minority communities and most especially in the black community, that conservatives are not their friends and that liberals, while they may be widely off-base on some moral and religious questions, nevertheless are more trustworthy when it comes to issues such as decent wages, housing, nondiscrimination, and a societal safety net. That perception needs to be addressed.

The fourth of July

My father spent WW II in New Guinea and the Philippines, while my uncle (at 18 years old) served on an aircraft carrier. As a bonus my Dad also got re-called for the Korean War, spending 18 months there. He didn't see me until I was over a year old.

The following was posted on Michelle Malkin's website.

From Zell Miller's RNC speech in 2004:

Never in the history of the world has any soldier sacrificed more for the freedom and liberty of total strangers than the American soldier.

And, our soldiers don't just give freedom abroad, they preserve it for us here at home.

For it has been said so truthfully that it is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom he abuses to burn that flag.

Annual summer jaunt to the northern Faranda compound!

At the beginning of the summer my Uncle Bud (real name Anthony, but everyone calls him Bud or Buddy) and Aunt Ardis, along with my cousin Dorothy (Dorie) and her husband Keith, throw a big bash on their property in Gaylordsville, CT. Gaylordsville is about 35 minutes north of Danbury, just off Rte 7. This year the party was this past Saturday, July 1st, spilling over to Sunday if you stayed over (we did).

The property is big - not Kennedy or Bush-sized but still big - with a large yard between the two houses, a good-sized stream going around most of the compound, lots of woods, and another clearing at the "back", near the stream.

It's always well-attended by Faranda's and Bartow's (Keith's family), although not everyone gets there every year. I missed last year as I was in Sloan Kettering being treated for my "nephrotic syndrome" which ultimately led to my five months of chemotherapy for my lymphoma. My brother Paul was up from Texas last summer, and he was delighted to see everyone, which was good since he died a couple of months later, in early September.

Uncle Bud was my Dad's younger brother and only sibling. He and Aunt Ardis have five children; in order, Tim, Donna, Dorothy, Ken and Andy. My Uncle has always qualified as a genuine "character". He loves to tell the story of his getting a letter from my Dad during World War II, where my father writes (from either New Guinea or the Philippines, where he served in the Signal Corps) "I know you've joined the Navy, just stay away from those aircraft carriers." And of course Uncle Bud is sitting on his aircraft carrier as he reads the letter!

Tim has two daughters (Amy and Michelle) and a son (Matt), while Dorie has two sons (Nate and Brendan). So while Uncle Bud outpaced my Dad in the children department (five to four), the southern branch is ahead in granchildren (so far), seven to five.

The northern, Uncle Bud branch also has something else going for it - unlike the southern branch they actually have some real talent. They are very good musicians (as is Keith) and in fact there is a music shed and stage which Keith built in the clearing at the back, near the stream. Also, Uncle Bud and my cousin Donna are very accomplished artists. It's safe to say that, beyond being good talkers, the southern Faranda's are way behind the north in the talent department.

So there was lots of food, lots of beer, lots of music, and lots of catching up, going on Saturday.

Here's Uncle Bud, master of all he surveys!

My mother, Jeanne in the foreground, and Aunt Ardis doing her Sophia Lauren in sunglassses impression

My cousin Tim, who is a year younger than me, along with his namesake, my son Tim. My cousin is down about 25 lbs. right now, as he recovers from thyroid surgery, and waits for his tracheostomy to close.

Two more cousins, Dorothy (Dorie) and Ken

Here's my brother Jim with his two sons, Paul and Anthony. My brother Phil and his family were unable to get to the party this year.

The guy on right - cup in left hand, wearing a bandana - is Dorie's husband Keith, who seems to do all the work at these parties. One of his brother's is just to his right, along with other members of the Bartow clan. That's my son Joe looking on in the background and my nephew Tony is in the foreground with his back to me. The photographer's name is Christine.

Here's another picture of Joe, who is not too keen on being photographed -

And here is Tim. He's in the clearing in the back, watching the musicians jam - and eating!

Part of the stream that runs along the compound. taken from a bridge Keith built over the stream.

A whole bunch of people stay over for this party! Here's a partial view Sunday morning in the back clearing. There were a total of 15 tents. The wooden building is the music shed - you can't quite see the wooden stage in front of it.

Another angle in the back clearing Sunday morning.

All the tents were in the back clearing - except ours!  As I told Dorie when we arrived, I really didn't want to listen to musicians jamming at 4 AM. So we were next to the front house, about 80 yards from the music. Could still hear it pretty clearly. The property is next to a golf driving range, and there aren't too many other houses nearby, but I presume they have to pay off the neighbors with beer, or tenderloin, or something. The music is looouud.

That's Brigid next to the tent (just to confirm that she was with us) as we break camp Sunday morning. The rain fly is off the tent, which is an LL Bean model and a snap to put up.

And last photo - a recent painting of the stream by Uncle Bud. He is having an exhibition at the New Milford Library, starting in a week. Of course a digital photo on a website doesn't do it justice!

I did miss out on getting pictures of my youngest cousin, Andy, or of my cousin Donna and her husband Jan. Will have to do better next year.

NYT reveals secret colonial plan. Editor claims "public interest" requires publication

I loved this. It was on Donald Luskin's website The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid and he got it Via PowerLine

More on the NY Times exposing legal intelligence efforts

(NOTE - I posted something on this issue a few days ago. It's right here.Tom Faranda's Folly: Should the NY Times help Al Queda?)

The Wall St. Journal had an excellent editorial on June 30th about the NY Times decision to expose a totally legal U.S. intelligence operation aimed at thwarting terrorist financing. OpinionJournal - Featured Article 

They also explain their own decision to  publish the information and claim that ".. the facts are that the Times's decision was notably different from the Journal's."

Numerous government officials of both parties asked the Times not to publish, but they did anyway. The Times arrogance is breathtaking.

Some excerpts from the Journal editorial:

Mr. Fratto went on to ask the Times not to publish such a story on grounds that it would damage this useful terror-tracking method.

Sometime later, Secretary John Snow invited Times Executive Editor Bill Keller to his Treasury office to deliver the same message. Later still, Mr. Fratto says, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, the leaders of the 9/11 Commission, made the same request of Mr. Keller. Democratic Congressman John Murtha and Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte also urged the newspaper not to publish the story.

The Times decided to publish anyway,...

The problem with the Times is that millions of Americans no longer believe that its editors would make those calculations in anything close to good faith. We certainly don't. On issue after issue, it has become clear that the Times believes the U.S. is not really at war, and in any case the Bush Administration lacks the legitimacy to wage it.

So, for example, it promulgates a double standard on "leaks," deploring them in the case of Valerie Plame and demanding a special counsel when the leaker was presumably someone in the White House and the journalist a conservative columnist. But then it hails as heroic and public-spirited the leak to the Times itself that revealed the National Security Agency's al Qaeda wiretaps.

Mr. Keller's open letter explaining his decision to expose the Treasury program all but admits that he did so because he doesn't agree with, or believe, the Bush Administration. "Since September 11, 2001, our government has launched broad and secret anti-terror monitoring programs without seeking authorizing legislation and without fully briefing the Congress," he writes, and "some officials who have been involved in these programs have spoken to the Times about their discomfort over the legality of the government's actions and over the adequacy of oversight." ...

In all of this, Mr. Sulzberger and the Times are reminiscent of a publisher from an earlier era, Colonel Robert McCormick of the Chicago Tribune. In the 1930s and into World War II, the Tribune was implacable in its opposition to FDR and his conduct of the war. During the war itself, his newspaper also exposed secrets, including one story after the victory at Midway in 1942 that essentially disclosed that the U.S. had broken Japanese codes. The government considered, but decided against, prosecuting McCormick's paper under the Espionage Act of 1917.

That was a wise decision, and not only because it would have drawn more attention to the Tribune "scoop." Once a government starts indicting reporters for publishing stories, there will be no drawing any lines against such prosecutions, and we will be well down the road to an Official Secrets Act that will let government dictate coverage.

The publisher of the NY Times responded to the Journal editorial. Read it here. Sulzberger Responds to 'WSJ' Editorial Slamming the 'NYT'

Darfur update

The Wahsington Post had an editorial yesterday on the Darfur situation. Not good.Backtracking in Darfur

THIS YEAR, Sudan's government declared that it would allow United Nations peacekeepers into the western region of Darfur once a peace deal had been concluded. Then a peace deal was signed in May, and the government reversed itself. President Omar Hassan al-Bashir recently swore that "there will not be any international military intervention in Darfur as long as I am in power."

"We will not accept colonial forces coming into the country," he continued, attributing U.S. pressure for intervention to "Jewish organizations." Meanwhile, Mr. Bashir has some interesting organizations on his side. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al-Qaeda, recently accused the United Nations of preparing to occupy Sudan and divide it.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan was due to meet Mr. Bashir this weekend. But his chances of persuading the president to change his mind seem negligible.