Tom Faranda's Folly

Through the Lemon Squeezer

No, not a torture instrument. Rather a very interesting rock formation on the Appalachian Trail, going through Harriman State Park, across the Hudson River in Orange County.

And last Wednesday - a week ago -an intrepid party of five made a five plus mile trek through the Lemon Squeezer. The five were Brigid and I, Maria Abonnel, Karen Riner, and Kathy Americo.

Right, Tom Faranda and four women in the woods. Like going to heaven. But I digress.

The route we took on the Appalachian Trail (AT) closely approximates the first 5.5 miles of AT ever blazed.  It was laid down in 1923, and a few modifications have been made since then. For example the trail now goes around the north side of Island Pond; as recently as the late 1990's it went around the south side.

To avoid having to re-trace our steps, we planted cars at both ends of the route. Everything went according to plan, although unfortunately the day was pretty overcast, with a little drizzle at times.

The walk was not difficult, with the exception of a bit of unelegant scrambling at the Lemon Squeezer. There's lots of interesting stuff. For example, here is Maria, Tom, Brigid and Kathy, photographed by Karen, in front of the now flooded entrance tot he Greenwood Iron Mine, a mine that supplied the iron to make the Union Parrot cannons in the Civil War. The Parrot brothers owned the company and no doubt made big money supplying the North with their artillery.

Here's a little better view of the entrance. It's not much to show now, for what must have been a huge operation in the 1860's. There's the bare trace of a road into the mine, and large piles of tailings (useless rock left by the miners) all around the mine. They're big rock piles, but I would have completely missed that it was the scrap from mining if Kathy hadn't pointed it out!

Every so often on the Trail, you come across these oddball kind of street signs on the AT. Pretty amusing. That's Tom and Brigid, again photo by Karen.

Here's a close-up of the signs. The Long Path crosses the AT at this point. You can't tell because the Long Path signs are sideways in this picture, but we were 51.8 miles from the GW Bridge if we went south on the Long Trail, and 291.6 miles from Altamont, NY if we'd gone north. The distance tothe northern end of the AT is at the bottom of the top sign (763 miles) and the distance to the south end is on the bottom sign (1,365 miles). A small bit of insight into our wonderful world!

Find the creature!

After three plus miles we came to the Lemon Squeezer - a very cool rock formation. You can scramble and squeeze through it, or follow a sign that says "Easy Way" around it. The Easy Way would have been no fun so we went into scramble mode. Here's a bunch of photos!

Right in the middle of this, we met the only other hiker we saw going the other direction - his name was Michael, and he had previously "through hiked" the AT. In other words, gone from one end to the other, all 2,100 plus miles. Took him 6 months. I guess he was just out for a short hike when we met him.

So that was the Lemon Squeezer! Very cool. We still had a bit over two miles to go, and it was through climax forest with big, big, hardwood trees, and around Island Pond. This next picture makes me think of scenes from "Lord of the Rings."

And here's the Fantastic Four. All in one piece, near the end. Not sure when, but we'll probably do another trek at some point before the winter sets in ... !!

The new Yankee manager

Joe Girardi would have been my choice also. The Steinbrenner's don't communicate with me, but did pick the best man. Note last paragraph in the following article, which I have excerpted below the link.

Girardi Takes First Step Toward a New Legacy - New York Times

“I understand the expectations, and I think that’s the advantage of being a player in New York,” Girardi said. “You understand what’s expected, and I expect it as well.” Then Girardi added the sentence that the Steinbrenner family probably most wanted to hear: “I expect to be playing in the Fall Classic next October.”

Nice work if you can get it

Even A-Rod will be jealous...

FT.com / Companies / Financial services - Merrill’s departing chief to get $160m

Mr O’Neal, 55, who spent his childhood in segregated rural Alabama and became the first African American to head a Wall Street bank, said Merrill Lynch had provided him with “opportunities that I never could have imagined growing up”.

The "Don't Tase me, bro" student not charged criminally

Remember the who caused a scuffle at a John Kerry event, and then got tasered by the police? Tom Faranda's Folly: Free speech in Florida? Student gets roughed up by police at Kerry event . And it turned out he was a bit of a jerk?  Tom Faranda's Folly: Looks like the "perp" in the Florida story is a jerk

Here's the latest:

My Way News - Lawyer: No Charges for Tasered Student

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - A University of Florida student who was shocked with a Taser after persistently questioning Sen. John Kerry won't face criminal charges and has apologized for his actions, his attorney said Tuesday.

Andrew Meyer, 21, yelled "Don't Tase me, bro!" as he scuffled with officers during the on-campus speech last month. In letters to the university, its president and the campus police department, he apologized, attorney Robert Griscti said.

"I made the decision to supersede the rules, and for that I apologize," Meyer wrote. "I should have acted calmer and obeyed the directives of the officers. If I had, none of the subsequent issues would ever have arisen."

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"I am a far more reasoned individual than I was a short while ago, and the reasoned response of the university has helped me a great deal," Meyer wrote.

A self-proclaimed "Liberal Democrat" mother writes about her son joining the Army

Like any Mom, this lady is deeply, deeply, concerned for her son. But she also reveals the deep-seated anti-military prejudice that animates so many so-called "Liberals." Rochelle Read is a newspaper editor, and she writes "this is definitely not the way things were supposed to turn out."

Portrait of a son at war, through a mother’s eyes

When I tell people that Evan has joined the Army, their reactions are almost always the same: their faces freeze, they pause way too long, and then they say, "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry for you." I hang my head and look mournful, accepting their sympathy for the worry that lives in me. But as it dawns on them that Evan wasn't drafted, as Vietnam still clings to my generation, their expressions become quizzical, then disbelieving. I know what they're thinking: Why in the world would any kid in his right mind choose to enlist when we're in the middle of a war? I begin telling them the story, desperate to assure them it wasn't arrogant patriotism or murderous blood lust that convinced him to join. What finally hooked him was a recruiter's comment that if he thought the country's role in Iraq was so screwed up, he should try to fix it.

Boston fans put a good gloat on

Meanwhile, A-Rod opts out of his Yankees contract ... and Yankees will not negotiate.

Red Sox Now 'Franchise of Champions' - AOL Sports

Hey there, Yankee Fan. Where have you been keeping yourself? Cat got your tongue?

Stop that whimpering. Don't use language like that with me, young man. Sit up straight and look on the bright side. You didn't win with A-Rod, so how much will you miss the guy? I'll bet you get a new manager any day now.

So what if you haven't won a World Series in seven years and the Steinbrenner sons look like they're going to re-open the Bronx Zoo? You've won plenty. The Red Sox will be years in catching up.

The truth is it may be awhile before you win another one, and there's no reason to think the Red Sox won't win again next season.

And then there's this:

Washington Redskins vs. New England Patriots--Sunday, October 28, 2007 - AOL Sports

New England beats Washington 52-7 to stay unbeaten

Well, we will see. To paraphrase, "He who gloats last, gloats best."

Darfur update: Talks not exactly going great

The partially boycotted talks began today in Libya. Sounds like the start was almost farcical.

Talks on Darfur Open With Partial Boycott by Rebels - washingtonpost.com

Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi hosted the U.N.- and African Union-backed conference just four years after the United Nations lifted sanctions against his country for alleged acts of terror.

Libya's agreement to hold the talks in Gaddafi's home town of Sirte on the country's scrubby coast, and the participation of other Mideast envoys, had signaled increasing Arab involvement in efforts to end the violence in Darfur.

But Gaddafi's opening remarks only underscored the sense that the talks were getting off to a troubled start. The best thing that foreign peacemakers and peacekeeping troops could do for Darfur was stay out of it, Gaddafi told an audience that included envoys from the United States, European Union, China and more than 10 other countries and blocs.

"I would have preferred that this conference be the last attempt by the international community to settle this conflict and let the people of Sudan settle it themselves," Gaddafi said in a slow, sonorous 48-minute monologue that went through two shifts of interpreters. While he spoke, the U.N. envoy for Darfur, Jan Eliasson, on the dais next to Gaddafi, stared at his watch and then wrenched it around and around on his wrist.

"I always say, 'Leave this problem to its own people,' " Gaddafi said. "We have nothing to do with this. It's none of our business."

Uhhhh, so why'd you host the conference?

Here's another article from the Washington Post

From the Bush to a Chandeliered Hotel, a Rebel Takes Talks in Stride - washingtonpost.com

SIRTE, Libya, Oct. 28 -- Until 17 days ago, rebel Abdul Majid Dosa was living in the bush of the warring Darfur region of western Sudan. Dosa, 51, would stub out his last cigarette of the day at sunset, he said, so that Sudanese government warplanes wouldn't see the glow.

His bed was a stretch of arid ground. No tents -- "they make us a gift to the bombs," Dosa said. Each night, he would curl up to sleep aside his rebel comrades-in-arms, Kalashnikov and pistol by his side.

Then, one day, Dosa's cellphone rang: It was the United Nations, he recalled, inviting him to a new round of Darfur peace talks.

So Dosa, a self-described coordinator, legal consultant and gunman for an armed group calling itself the National Reformation and Development Program, flew to N'Djamena, the capital of neighboring Chad. He put on one of the two or three suits his rebel movement keeps on hand there for peace talks. The United Nations put the lanky rebel on another plane to Sirte, Libya, where Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi is hosting peace talks between the Sudanese government and Darfur rebels, chaired by the United Nations and the African Union.

On Sunday, Dosa stood under the glimmering crystal chandeliers of a marble-and-gilt convention hall, site of the talks.

The rebels' communal brown suit jacket hung off his skeletal frame. His oversize pant legs pooled around his white gym socks. A Lebanese reporter held a giant fuzzy microphone in his face. Two weeks removed from the bush, Dosa was doing a TV stand-up, fighting not to blink under the camera lights as he spoke about the rebel cause.

Doesn't sound promising.

Darfur Update: Peace talks going off the tracks before they begin

From the Washington Post:

Darfur Rebels Balk At Talks in Libya - washingtonpost.com

SIRTE, Libya, Oct. 27 -- Mediators from around the world struggled late Friday to salvage talks to end the four-year conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan after at least one leading rebel group pulled out on the eve of negotiations.

A dozen other armed blocs in Darfur's splintered rebel movement have threatened a boycott as well, saying rebels need to resolve feuds among themselves before talking to their chief enemy, the Sudanese government.

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...it remained unclear whether rebels would take part in enough numbers to give Sudan's envoys a credible counterpart on the other side of the negotiating table when the talks open Saturday. Mediators began to lose hope that the talks would start with both sides signing a cease-fire agreement.

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Rebels have given various reasons for boycotting: that they need more time to unify their negotiating platform, that they do not trust Libya, that they do not trust the Sudanese government, and, in some cases, that they do not trust one another.

As of Saturday morning, at least one key rebel group was sticking to its boycott: the Justice and Equality Movement, which was one of the first groups to take up arms.

One key rebel leader, Abdul Wahid al-Nur, the founder of the Sudan Liberation Movement, said that he did not recognize most of the other rebel leaders as legitimate and that any peace agreement would be meaningless unless security was established in Darfur first.

"I am not going to Libya, never," al-Nur said by phone from Paris, where he lives in exile. "I'm working for a real peace. The difference between us and the international community is that they are starting from the second step -- conflict resolution. We want to start from the first step -- security. Without security, the whole process will collapse."

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Other analysts have said that paradoxically, the world attention on Darfur has created another problem: a plethora of would-be peacemakers, all of whom have different ideas for how to resolve the crisis. Those vying for a role include the U.N. envoy, the African Union envoy, the U.S. envoy, the Eritrean government, the Egyptian government and now Libya.

"There is a problem of having so many international stakeholders on board," said Alex de Waal, a researcher on African issues who has written extensively about Darfur. "It's become international public property -- every single international organization is going to have some representative there, and getting the whole process to change direction is like turning around an oil tanker. It's not going to happen."

A very worthwhile op ed in the Wall Street Journal on cancer treatment

The weekend Journal has this very fine article -

Why We'll Never Cure Cancer - WSJ.com - Your odds of survival depend heavily on your physician

You may not be able to access the article through the link - it may be in the subscriber-only section. If you can't, I have posted the entire article in the post continuation -just hit the link below -

Here's an excerpt -

Recently the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Cancer Society trumpeted a 2% annual decline in cancer mortality rates as proof that the progress we are making in cancer research is benefiting patients. I think they're celebrating the glass being 1/50th full.

To be sure, scientists have made tremendous scientific advances in prevention, early detection and management of cancer. But these organizations should decry the inability of the health-care system to deliver these advances to the patients who need them.

The article goes on to give examples, such as colon, breast, and prostate cancer. It's written by a Sloan Kettering physician.

Croton's annual "Harry Chapin Run Against Hunger", run last Sunday - and my interview with the winner

Right, I interviewed Conor McGee, a fellow who didn't even know about the race until the night before, and then showed up and wiped out the field. More about that at the end. (I had fun doing this posting, which is why it's taken me five days to get it online.)

The Harry Chapin run was again a really nice day. I posted about it last year Tom Faranda's Folly: Sunday's Harry Chapin run and wrote this:

My town, Croton on Hudson, holds the Harry Chapin Memorial Run against Hunger every year around this time. It's held in Croton possibly because his record agent lived here.Welcome to

Harry Chapin Harry Chapin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia was an entertainer and singer ("Cat's in the the Cradle," "Taxi") from Long Island who was involved in raising money to combat hunger worldwide. He died in a car accident in 1981.

This year, Joe decided to run in the first race, which is a one mile "fun run." He finished second in the Open Division (not affiliated with any of the Croton schools) and ended up with a nice trophy. Lots of kids and adults do the "fun run" mile. Since Joe had raced the day before, and has a heavy practice on Monday's, he decided to do the easy run.

Here's the start of the one miler -

And here is Phil and Rose Rizzuto (Phil has the beard!) bringing up the rear of the "fun run" at an, uhhh, steady pace -

Here's Joe in the home stretch, as he catches up to and then passes a younger boy. While second in the open division, overall he came about 12th, and was beaten by some fast, younger boys (and one old guy!). But still, he beat a couple of hundred others.

Now the main event is a 10K (6.21 miles), and here are two girls warming up. Kathleen Gagnon, a good friend of ours, waves as she runs with her friend, Caroline Spring.

Here are the runners getting ready - the overall winner (and the second place finisher also) are in this picture

They're off! The ultimate winner is just to the left and behind the young blonde boy on the right.

The winner of the women's bracket is in this picture - Sophia Spring. She's right behind the lady putting her hands up and is looking right at me as I snapped the picture. Sophia finished 21st overall, and when she ran by me at the end of the race, she looked absolutely like she was out for a stroll. Her father told me later that she had just completed a four mile training run before coming over for the start of the race! Sophia is a freshman at Middlebury College and is on their cross country team.

Here come Kathleen and Caroline, heading to the finish. They look good for two young women finishing a 6+ mile run. Caroline is Sophia's sister.

#197 is Pat Costa, a nurse at Sloan Kettering who I've gotten to know. Pat finished first in her division - finished the race in around 51 minutes

This is Gabrielle Rizzutto, whose parents are pictured in the "fun run".

The overall winner of the race was fast, very fast. I was about 300 yards from the finish line, at Five Corners (Croton people will know the terrain), where the runners make a turn and head for the line. I could see this lone runner coming down from the library, and he was motoring. Zoomed past me, even though no other runners were in sight. The second place guy came by about three minutes later, also with no competition around him.

About the time I took the picture of Gabi (Gabrielle), I runner came joggin up the sidewalk and past me. A few minutes later he came walking back down the sidewalk, and I asked him "Didn't you run past me on the road about 20 minutes ago?" He laughed and I got to chatting with him.

Turns out the race winner was an Irishman named Conor McGee. He is a very serious runner (he's done a 2:35 marathon) and only found out about the Harry Chapin race one night earlier. He wasn't able to get to a race he'd planned on doing in Connecticut, so he jumped on the internet to find a substitute, and decided to come up with his fiance to run in Croton.

We discussed important issues like the failure of the Irish National Rugby team in the World Cup, and his pending marriage in one week. And I introduced him to a few people who came wandering by - here he is with my neighbor Sue Kane and one of her sons. Sue had run in the race.

Conor won the race with a time of 33:51, while the second place runner came in around 36:40. So he blew the field away.  That's him at the starting line, in the red racing flats (why not green racing flats?)

And here he is a bit over an hour later, looking like he could do another 10K!

I asked Conor about the race, and he said he reckoned he could have done better if he knew the course. He'd had no chance to look it over, and when he asked someone local about it, he was told that it was an easy run after getting to the dam - no more hills. He said he should have realized he wasn't talking to a runner! When he looked back as he started to pull away from the other leaders, he thought to himself, "Do they know something I don't know?" But as it turned out, he simply had too much gas for everyone else.

When you think about his time - a five and a half minute mile pace the whole way - well that's cooking.

Conor is Irish, and I have to give the Irish their due - remember Brigid was born in Cork!

Today Franz Jagerstatter was beatified

Who is Jagerstatter? A heroic figure. Here's a post about him. The book the author mentions - "In Solitary Witness - is one of the dryest books I've ever read. BUT it's redeemed by having Jagerstatter's surviving correspondence in an appendix at the back.

The full article is long; you need to print it out.

FIRST THINGS: On the Square » Blog Archive » Franz Jägerstätter: Martyr and Model

Executed in 1943 for refusing to serve in Hitler’s army, Jägerstätter was once known only to his relatives and neighbors—many of whom considered him mad. Born out of wedlock in 1907 in the tiny village of St. Radegund, his natural father was killed in the Great War. His mother eventually married a farmer named Jägerstätter, who adopted him. A Catholic from birth, Franz didn’t always follow church teaching. Rumor has it that he lived something of a wild life—possibly even fathering an illegitimate child—before reclaiming his faith and marrying.

In 1956, the American sociologist Gordon Zahn, then researching a book in Germany on another subject, came across Jägerstätter’s story. Transfixed, he thought it worthy of a serious biography and visited Austria to write it. After recovering Jägerstätter’s papers and interviewing surviving relatives and friends—including two priests who served as his spiritual counselors—Zahn published In Solitary Witness: The Life and Death of Franz Jägerstätter (1964).

The book has since been translated into various languages, and it had a significant impact on the Church’s support for conscientious objectors. As the biography reveals, Franz Jägerstätter was the unlikeliest of heroes. He was “a relatively untutored man from a remote and isolated rural village,” writes Zahn. Moreover, he was “a married man with a wife and children for whom he was responsible and whose future welfare he was morally bound to consider.”

Going Organic the Easy(ier) Way

Here's a feature from Today's Health section of the NY Times. It seems to me that there's no health downside to going organic (and I could be completely wrong about that!), with it just being a matter of cost and convenience. Why wouldn't eliminating pesticides, etc, from your food be a good thing?

Five Easy Ways to Go Organic - Well - Tara Parker-Pope - Health - New York Times Blog

Also, I did find Parker-Pope's point #4 rather amusing - as pointed out by James Taranto on opinionjournal! Remember the heartless Reagan administration, attacked for trying to define Ketchup as a school lunch vegetable?

4. Ketchup: For some families, ketchup accounts for a large part of the household vegetable intake. About 75 percent of tomato consumption is in the form of processed tomatoes, including juice, tomato paste and ketchup. Notably, recent research has shown organic ketchup has about double the antioxidants of conventional ketchup.

So she has corrected her own NY Times, which said the following in an editorial on November 16, 1981:

Somebody is still trying to sabotage the Reagan Administration from within. It's probably the person the President accused of creating the impression of heartless foolishness by defining ketchup as a school-lunch vegetable. Instead of firing the culprit, they must have transferred him/her to Personnel. How else explain the move . . .

Nice feature on BEER

Cask beer, or craft beer, to be exact. trend started in Great Britain in the 70's - the "campaign for Real Ale".

The Power in the Cask: Old Ways, New Beer - New York Times

While the American market for craft brews and specialty imports has risen 13 percent this year, Mr. Hodson said, in New York the rise in 2007 has been much higher, partly because the beer culture in New York has lagged behind that in the rest of the country and is now catching up.

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Because cask ales are naturally carbonated and best served at cellar temperature — about 55 degrees — they have often been described as warm and flat. But as you get to know them, it can become hard to imagine drinking beer any other way. The softness of the bubbles and the gently cool temperature permit nuances that would otherwise be undetectable.

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Cask beer is treated differently. It goes, naturally, into casks, or firkins, if you want the British word for a container of 9 imperial gallons (around 11 U.S. gallons). Firkins used to be wooden, but now are generally made of metal. A small dose of sugar is added to produce a secondary fermentation, just as Champagne or certain other beers are refermented in bottles. Brewers may also add more hops and a fining material, like isinglass, to help settle the yeast and clarify the beer.

Cask ales must be treated with considerable care. They have to be kept cool and handled gingerly, and when it’s time to tap the kegs, they require an experienced, or at least educated, hand. In fact, the biggest obstacle to a wider distribution of cask beers is a lack of training.

Women have taken over just about everything

As one of my friends told me awhile back, "pretty soon the only jobs for men will be collecting garbage and the 82nd airborne." Who can argue?

For the first time, women rule in space

Breaking new ground in the history of space exploration, women are at the helm of the International Space Station and the space shuttle at the same time, as they orbit the Earth.

Pamela Melroy, a 46-year-old retired US Air Force colonel, was in the commander's seat when shuttle Discovery blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Tuesday.

She is only the second woman in the shuttle program's 26-year history to command the spacecraft, which is scheduled to dock with the ISS on Thursday for the most complex construction mission yet on the orbiting laboratory.

Corporate Welfare alive and well

Why do "Rich Corporations" give money to Democrats who attack them, as the Dems talk about "Reforming the System"?

Because it's a payoff!

Great piece in the Wall Street Journal today.

The Corporate Welfare Congress - WSJ.com

Perhaps you've heard that this is the Congress for "the little guy," the "forgotten" middle class, the working stiff. If that was the plan, it isn't working. On present trends, the 110th Congress will go down as one of the biggest blowouts in corporate welfare history.

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The handouts for the rich that have a good chance of passing include the most expensive farm bill ever; a rise in the mortgage limits on loans that can be securitized by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (see related article); some $2 billion in loan guarantees to ethanol producers; and expansions in flood and terrorism insurance to benefit home builders, mortgage banks, and real estate developers.

Many of the 40 largest existing corporate welfare are set to get a raise, including the Commerce Department's $116 million manufacturing extension program, the $100 million Advanced Technology Program (which funds R&D for the likes of IBM, General Electric and Xerox), and the $200 million Agriculture Market Access Program, which underwrites foreign advertising for the likes of Pillsbury and Dole. ...

Here are just two examples the Journal lists - hit the link above for the full article -

Big Sugar. The farm bill requires the USDA to buy up domestic sugar equal to the amount that is imported from Mexico under Nafta, which is a disguised form of trade protection. This sweet deal is like requiring the Transportation Department to purchase a Ford and GM car for every Nissan and Toyota imported into the U.S. The taxpayer cost: $1.4 billion.

Corporate pork. There are 13,000 earmarks in this year's appropriations bills, including hundreds that benefit narrow business groups. Such as: $500,000 to build a baseball stadium for the Cincinnati Reds minor league team in Billings, Montana; $150,000 for the Troy, Michigan Chamber of Commerce; $500,000 for the Arkansas World Trade Center; $4 million for a rail bridge for CSX railroad.

The editorial ends:

If you want to know how good liberals can tolerate such largesse for the rich, keep in mind that in Washington quids often come with a quo. The latest FEC fundraising reports indicate that industry lobbyists have shifted their allegiance from Republicans and are now funneling cash to Democrats they expect to hold their majority. Roll Call newspaper, which covers Congress, reports that in the first half of 2007 business lobbyists gave "all or most of their cash to Democratic candidates and party committees."

They're getting their money's worth.

How to market YOUR Church!

Here's a mildly amusing article on the selling of your "product" - your Church - to potential congregants:

A Congregation of Customers OpinionJournal - Leisure & Arts

Sociologists have long noted that religiously tolerant societies actually inspire greater religious allegiance than societies in which piety is imposed by government fiat. But "Shopping for God" adds a twist: "In a highly competitive market, suppliers have to stay on their toes. . . . Coke sells more going up against Pepsi. McDonald's needs Burger King. When markets are supplying interchangeable products, selling can become frantic. Brand war! The complacent get killed." The "complacent" are the mainline churches, according to Mr. Twitchell; they have basically dropped out of the competition. The evangelical churches, by contrast, are competing wildly and thriving even if, like Coke and Pepsi, they are offering similar "products."

But what is it about the evangelical "product" that makes it so desirable? Any number of scholars have noted that, in recent years, it has been the churches that demand the most of people--tithing, bowing to firm doctrines, observing strict rules of conduct--that have grown the fastest. There seems to be something in our nature that requires from religion not just feel-good spirituality but strong moral direction. We are willing to make sacrifices to live by the dictates of a religiously grounded truth.

Mr. Twitchell manages to reduce this profound idea to the dictates of basic consumer theory. Sacrifice, he says--not least, tithing--signifies value. The more you sacrifice, the more you visibly value the product for which you are giving something up, and the more you show other people that you value it, too. "Why do true believers sometimes puncture themselves, walk on their knees until they bleed, fast until they are skeletal or join a monastery and go mum?" Mr. Twitchell asks. "Brand allegiance."

Unhinged Congressman apologizes

Congressman Stark, who made some bizarro comments Tom Faranda's Folly: Congressman Unhinged on the House floor last week during the debate over SCHIP, has apologized.

Breitbart.tv » Rep. Pete Stark Apologizes for Bush Insult as Censure Vote Falls Short

Here's commentary on the apology off James Taranto's column on opinionjournal:

Rep. Fortney Hillman Stark Jr. has apologized for his obnoxious comment about President Bush last week, which we noted Friday (with a follow-up yesterday). Breitbart.tv has the video, which includes one Bartlett-worthy quote:

"I hope that with this apology I will become as insignificant as I should be."

We hope so too, but just to be sure, it might help if he were to resign, move out of state, and change his name.

The weekend in sports at the Faranda house

As it's been for a few weeks, we had both Cross Country for Joe, and football for Tim, on Saturday.

Joe had a relay race, in which Fordham Prep had six teams running. As are most of the Cross Country races, it was at Van Cortlandt Park. Joe ran the lead leg for the "D" squad - the first leg was the longest, starting across "the flats", with the other four teammates running a loop without "the flats."

Here's the start, at the southwest corner of the Park. The four Fordham runners are all the lead runners for the "C, D, E, and F" squads. There was a total of about thirty squads in this relay. Joe is the furthest maroon shirt on the right.

They're off!

And here's Joe's hand-off of the baton to F.J. Ellis, who also attended St. Augustine's with Joe. He runs the second leg, with three runners to go after him.

F.J. had the fastest time in his squad, not counting Joe, whose lead leg was about three tenths of a mile longer.

This is Greg Cunningham, another boy who went to St. Augustine's. He ran the second leg of the "B" squad. He's just been handed the baton.

And here he is at the end of his loop, giving it over...

Tim and Brigid both came down to watch the meet. Here's Tim hanging out in Joe's hoodie

Saturday night Tom, Brigid and Tim were off to Pelham for Tim's football game. Tim's team won handily, 24-7. Difficult to get good pictures because of the poor lighting, but here are a couple.

This one is blurred, but it gives you an idea ofthe size of the guy who was on defense against Tim, when Ossining had the ball. Tim is in the three point stance, and his defender is the middle of the three players in blue and gold. He's a lot bigger and looks like he should be fast, but he only beat Tim once!

On the Pelham goalline.

Postgame, the coach discusses the win -

Brigid loves this stuff!

Tim is one busy guy right now. Preseason basketball practice has begun, and between the two sports, the only day he doesn't have a practice or football game is on Sunday. He does seem to be keeping up his grades.

New York Times editorial: taxes are too low

As sensible as the guest op ed on the Times pages that is in the prior post, here's a nutso editorial from today's paper. The theme might be called "Future prosperity through higher taxes."

A Dearth of Taxes - New York Times

According to a report from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, a think tank run by the industrialized countries, the taxes collected last year by federal, state and local governments in the United States amounted to 28.2 percent of gross domestic product. That rate was one of the lowest among wealthy countries — about five percentage points of G.D.P. lower than Canada’s, and more than eight points lower than New Zealand’s. And Danes, Germans and Slovaks paid more in taxes, as a share of their economies.

Right. While the unemployment rate in mainly agricultural New Zealand is under 4%, the German rate is over 9%. And the Canadian rate is around 6.5%. U.S. unemployment rate is around 4.6%.

A few families are carrying the water for the rest of us

Here's a thoughtful NY Times op ed from over the weekend. It's certainly true that a fraction of our fellow countrymen are making huge sacrifices for the rest of us. Where's the shared sacrifice?

Party Here, Sacrifice Over There - New York Times

Young investment bankers spend their impressive bonuses on clubs in Manhattan and many seem uninterested in the soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a Princeton graduate and a former financial analyst, I was once a part of this world, and I like returning to it, putting the Spartan life of Tal Afar and Anbar Province behind me. But even as I enjoy time with the friends who have welcomed me home, my thoughts wander back to other friends who continue to fight as the city parties on.

Serious problems with the war in Iraq are well chronicled, but I am struck by one that does not seem to trouble the country’s leadership, even though it is profoundly corrosive to our common good: the disparity between the lives of the few who are fighting and being killed, and the many who have been asked for nothing more than to continue shopping.

Supplementation to combat fatigue

Awhile ago I wrote about a book I read by a somewhat controversial Dr., Andrew Weil.Tom Faranda's Folly: Latest Read: Spontaneous Healing

Weil has a website and sends out an email which usually isn't too interesting. However over the weekend he wrote about supplements that may help to keep the ol' energy level up. He had mentioned them in his book. If you're interested:

Five Supplements for Fatigue

1. Magnesium and calcium. Oral magnesium supplementation has been shown to improve symptoms of fatigue in persons with low magnesium levels.
2. Eleuthero (Eleutherococcus senticosus). Studies show that eleuthero can help enhance mental activity as well as physical endurance.
3. Coenzyme Q10. This vital nutrient is involved in cellular energy production throughout the body.
4. Ashwaganda, an Ayurvedic herb prized for its ability to help the body deal with stress.
5. Cordyceps, a traditional Chinese medicinal mushroom that may help fight fatigue and boost energy levels.

Weil is somewhat controversial in medical circles, but definitely not a quack. And as one of my Dr.'s at Slaon Kettering said "3,000 years of Chinese traditional medicine can't be all wrong."

Here's a politician with a big future

Bobby Jindal, 36 years old, wins the Louisiana governorship.

Jindal Wins Louisiana Race, Becomes First Indian American Governor - washingtonpost.com

Jindal, 36, was making his second attempt to become Louisiana's first nonwhite governor since Reconstruction. The last one was P.B.S. Pinchback, a black Republican who served briefly between 1872 and 1873, at a time when many white voters were disenfranchised.

Jindal, whose given name is Piyush, is the American-born son of Indian immigrants; his parents moved from New Delhi to Baton Rouge so his mother could take graduate classes at Louisiana State University.

But the son charted a new course in the new country.

When he was 4, he decided to call himself Bobby -- after the youngest son on the "Brady Bunch" television show. In high school, he gave up Hinduism and became a Christian; and during his first year at Brown University, he was baptized as a Roman Catholic. His wife, Supriya, is also a Catholic convert.

On the campaign trail, his origins often aroused curiosity and comment. But Jindal sometimes deflected related questions.

"People want to make everything about race," he said during one of the debates. "The only colors that matter here are red, white and blue."

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Especially with targeted audiences, Jindal could speak to the Republican base. He professed his opposition to abortion, signaled a willingness to consider the teaching of intelligent design, and discussed the need to cut taxes.

In television ads and other, broader appeals, Jindal focused on his competence and integrity.

"We've got a government that's out of control," he said in his stump speech. "We've got a government that spends our money without any regard. We're in the top five in having the most crooked politicians in America. We're going to change that."

Wayne Parent, a political science professor at LSU and author of the 2006 book "Inside the Carnival: Unmasking Louisiana Politics," said Jindal has benefited from a weak field of contenders and the perception of his intelligence.

"He projects himself as competent and ethical. That seems to resonate," he said.

Fine article on stem cell research

There's an excellent article/interview on MercatorNet (a website based in Australia and New Zealand) on adult stem cell research vs. embryological stem cell research. The interview is with an American physician and researcher. I left a comment on the website about my own autologous stem cell transplant.

MercatorNet - Adult stem cells still trump embryonic

Martin Evans, last week awarded the Nobel prize for medicine, is rethinking his retirement plans. The discovery of embryonic stem cells in mice was groundbreaking, but creating "knock-out" mice to isolate and identify particular genes earned him and his colleagues the career-crowning prize. When the beaming "father" of stem cell research proclaims, "We will have the therapeutic medicine without the embryos. And it’s not a matter of if, but when," one wonders why he seems not to acknowledge that there are already existing stem cell cures and therapies for an impressive number of conditions, including sickle cell anaemia, and various cancers... without the embryos.

The interview portion of the article is with Dr. Alan Moy, CEO of Cellular Engineering Technologies (CET)

MercatorNet: Dr Moy, what led you to step out of the safe world of government funded research at the University of Iowa and to add exponentially to your work load as a private-practice physician and CEO of an emerging bio-tech company, to found the JP2SRI?

Moy: Part was circumstance and the other was identified need for JP2SRI.

My company, CET, had developed the methods to isolate just about all of the major adult stem cells and stem cells from placenta and cord blood. These stem cells are approved for pre-clinical research and not for clinical use. Clinical research is outside the scope of CET. A company like CET is looking at short-term investments and clinical adult stem cell research requires a long-term horizon.

Adult stem cell research is not conducted by many scientists because scientists do not have access to adult stem cells because it requires significant resources (recruiting patients, collect tissues, storage, processing and growing stem cells). This is a daunting task which is a barrier for scientists. So CET provides that work so that scientists can work on adult stem cell research.

Presently JP2SRI works to advance adult stem cell research by providing select researchers with adult stem cells at no charge from CET. These scientists that we collaborate with do not perform embryonic stem cell research.

MercatorNet: Virtually everyone has heard of stem cells, but few are aware of the very basic distinction between embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells sources...

Moy: Adult stem cells offer these advantages: no ethical controversy, none to minimal risk of immune rejection, and reduced cost and time to harvest and grow up an initial stem cell line from adult tissue than from embryonic sources. They have some potential disadvantages: restricted ability to become more diverse tissue cells, and -– although an advantage in terms of genetic stability, they have a restricted lifespan in culture. Stem cells derived from human embryos offer these advantages: they can be maintained in culture for a long time and they have wide diversity. But, they have their problems: genetic instability, rejection potential, ethical controversy, difficult to culture and expensive and laborious, and they form tumours.

MercatorNet: Autologous stem cell therapies have taken off like a rocket, producing results impacting a wide range of diseases. Cardiology has been notably affected by adult stem cell therapies -– surgeons are promising new, living heart valves for children with heart defects. A recent news item featured a story about a child with an otherwise hopeless blood disorder, infantile osteopetrosisa, treated successfully with T-cells from his father. Why the hype over embryonic stem cells? Will it ever lead to real cures?

Moy: It's a big leap for embryonic scientists to promise that embryonic stem cells will lead to cures. There are too many scientific, ethical and business hurdles that have to be overcome for embryonic stem cells to be considered a therapy that will be adopted by industry. You have to clone to overcome rejection and cloning has never been accomplished in humans or primates. In addition, you have to overcome to tumour formation.

The bottom line is that they are over-excited by a behaviour observed in a Petri dish, and several more steps have to be proven before embryonic stem cells can be considered promising.

Embryonic stem cells are not well designed for large scale production, unlike adult stem cells -- so there are significant cost and manufacturing constraints. There are major ethical hurdles that prevent them from being adopted by the public. If you somehow could clone and eliminate the tumour risk, 70 per cent of the public is against cloning. This restricts the market for such companies to jump into such commercial activities. Finally, cloning is not a solution for treating a genetic disorder like juvenile diabetes.

MercatorNet: So why the focus on funding embryonic stem cell research?

Moy: Because the media and the most vocal scientists talk up embryonic stem cell research. This has nothing to do with reality.

Joe Torre side of the story

So Joe Torre will not be back as Yankee manager. Too bad.

Torre: Yanks' Offer Was an Insult

RYE BROOK, N.Y. (AP) - Joe Torre had a hunch it would come to this.

And when the New York Yankees offered him a one-year contract with a hefty paycut, performance-based bonuses and no room to negotiate he was insulted and figured he had no choice but to walk away.

"The fact that somebody is reducing your salary is just telling me they're not satisfied with what you're doing," Torre said Friday at a news conference. "There really was no negotiation involved. I was hoping there would be, but there wasn't.

"If somebody wants you to do a job, if it takes them two weeks to figure out, yeah, we want to do this, should do this, yeah, you're a little suspicious."

His voice trembling at times, Torre admitted he was uncomfortable and nervous talking about himself. He said his 12 years with the Yankees were the best time of his professional life—but he hasn't ruled out managing elsewhere.

Rupert Murdoch has big plans for the Wall Street Journal

The purchase of the Journal by Murdoch's Newscorp. Company will be finalized in December

Murdoch outlines drastic plans for WSJ | | Guardian Unlimited Business

Rupert Murdoch has laid out drastic plans to shake up the Wall Street Journal and launch an assault on the mainstream American newspaper industry.

Mr Murdoch, who is set to complete his turbulent $5bn (£2.5bn) takeover of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones later this year, last night said he wanted to move the newspaper beyond its financial roots and target mainstream competitors such as the New York Times.

"We have a lot of plans and a lot of ideas that need to be refined," he told a conference in San Francisco. "But I want to improve it in every way: in what it does now in finance to start with, but I also want to add more national and international news."

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But with the deal almost complete – it is set to go through by December - Mr Murdoch said he planned to fit the Wall Street Journal in with News Corporation's other properties, including newspapers around the world and the Fox TV network.

He said he had progressive plans for the Fox Business Network, a dedicated US news channel for businesses which launched this week, and attacked competitors such as CNBC as "half dead".

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Mr Murdoch added that he was happy to hand over decisions over online business to lieutenants who understood the web. "The internet culture is different," he said. "We treat ourselves as trainees."

The New Cardinals. Why so few from the developing countries?

John Allen has a really good column today -

Global South underrepresented in college of cardinals | National Catholic Reporter Conversation Cafe

... After these new cardinals join the church's most exclusive club in a Nov. 24 consistory, 60 of 121 electors will be European. Adding the cardinals from the United States and Canada, the total for the global North rises to 76 electors out of 121, meaning 63 percent.

To put this into a sound bite, two-thirds of the cardinals come from the global North, while two-thirds of the Catholic people live in the South.

Such disparities do not go unnoticed. The pope's announcement was made at roughly 11:30 a.m. Rome time, and within a half-hour I had an e-mail from La Tercera, a newspaper in Santiago, Chile, asking for a reaction to the following question: "Two-thirds of the nominees are from Western Europe or the U.S. Why?"

Why indeed? At least three reasons suggest themselves.

First, for all the efforts of the Vatican to deny that Benedict XVI is "Eurocentric," it's clear that the pope's core personal concern is with the fate of Christianity in the ultra-secularized milieu of Western Europe, which he has termed a "dictatorship of relativism." If one believes, as Benedict obviously does, that when Europe sneezes the rest of the world catches cold, then it makes sense to allocate limited appointments here.

Second, historically speaking, there's never been any pretense that the College of Cardinals should reflect the broader church. Originally, cardinals were the most important local clergy in Rome, responsible for running large Roman parishes, administering charitable programs, and advising the pope. It was only in the 12th century that popes even began to appoint cardinals who lived outside Rome. The first cardinals born in either Latin America or Africa to actually serve there were not named until the 20th century, and serious efforts to internationalize the College of Cardinals did not begin until the era of Pope Paul VI in the 1960s.

Third, Benedict XVI is a man of tradition, which means he feels bound to honor the custom that a whole litany of positions in the Vatican must be held by cardinals. Of the 18 new cardinal-electors Benedict named on Wednesday, the first seven were Vatican officials. Given that Europeans, especially Italians, are always over-represented in such positions, they're also over-represented among the cardinals.

Not good. It appears that the selection of Cardinals is based more on the material affluence of particular countries, rather then representing the "People of God."

Only four hours left to get your bid in!

MORE - Bidding ended at a price of $2,100,100. With Limbaugh matching the price, that means $4,200,2000 will go to the Charity below.

UPDATE - Kafkaesque! At noontime -  Breitbart.tv » On Senate Floor Harry Reid Thanks Rush For Auction

Whew! The bid for the letter attacking Rush Limbaugh - signed by 41 Senators - has gone over 2 million dollars on ebay. That's as of 8:30 this morning. Bidding ends at 1 o'clock today.

Original Harry Reid/Rush Limbaugh Smear Letter - (eBay item 260170172469 end time Oct-19-07 10:00:00 PDT)

All proceeds of the sale - plus Limbaugh will match the purchase price - will go here:

Marine Corp -- Law Enforcement Foundation MissionFish: Nonprofit Homepage

Congressman Unhinged

UPDATE: Congressman Stark says he won't apologize, but he "supports the troops."

This is Pete Stark from California, during the S-CHIP debate. As an aside, Stark is a self-proclaimed atheist; I believe the only one in either branch of Congress.

YouTube - Rep. Pete Stark's Unbelievable Comments

The text:

“I yield myself two minutes. Madam speaker, I, first of all, I’m just amazed that they can’t figure out — the Republicans are worried that they can’t pay for insuring an additional 10 million children. They sure don’t care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you going to get that money? Are you going to tell us lies like you’re telling us today? Is that how you’re going to fund the war? You don’t have money to fund the war on children. But you’re going to spend it to blow up innocent people if he can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the President’s amusement.”

Here's Michelle Malkin's take on Stark - she also uses the term "Unhinged" - as she reviews some of his past antics.

Michelle Malkin » Stark raving mad: Diary of an unhinged Democrat

Deborah Kerr - one of my all-time favorite actresses

I didn't know she was originally from Scotland.

Kerr had great range as an actress - she was comfortable playing a nun (Black Narcissus, Heaven Knows Mr. Allison), or an alcoholic sex-starved wife (From Here to Eternity). And she was memorable opposite Yul Brynner (The King and I). Just a wonderful talent.

Deborah Kerr Is Dead at 86 - New York Times

She could be virginal, ethereal, gossamer and fragile, or earthy, spicy and suggestive, and sometimes she managed to display all her skills at the same time.

Miss Kerr made “From Here to Eternity” even though Harry Cohn, chief of Columbia Pictures in that era, had wanted Joan Crawford in the part and had to be persuaded to accept Miss Kerr. She regarded the role as the high point in her climb to stardom in the United States, and it yielded her second Academy Award nomination.

Another high point came in 1956, when she was given the film role that Gertrude Lawrence had played on the stage in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I.” She played opposite Yul Brynner, who recreated his stage performance as the strutting king in the film.

The benefits of the family meal

Like the prior posting, this article is from yesterdays Health section of the NY Times. And a very good article.

The Family Meal Is What Counts, TV On or Off - New York Times

Families who watched TV at dinner ate just about as healthfully as families who dined without it. The biggest factor wasn’t whether the TV was on or off, but whether the family was eating the meal together.

“Obviously, we want people eating family meals, and we want them to turn the TV off,” said Shira Feldman, public health specialist at the university’s School of Public Health and lead author of the research. “But just the act of eating together is on some level very beneficial, even if the TV is on.”

The research, published this month in The Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, is the latest testament to the power of the family meal. While many parents worry about what their kids are eating — vegetables versus junk — a voluminous body of research suggests that the best strategy for improving a child’s diet is simply putting food on the table and sitting down together to eat it.

The importance of the family meal has been shown mainly in studies from the University of Minnesota, Harvard and Rutgers that have looked at family eating habits of nearly 40,000 middle-school students and teenagers. The research has shown that those who regularly have meals with their parents eat more fruits, vegetables and calcium-rich foods, ingest more vitamins and nutrients, and consume less junk food. Some of the research has shown that kids who regularly sit down to a family meal are at lower risk for behaviors like smoking and drug and alcohol use.

An in-depth feature on diabetes

In yesterday's NY Times Health section.

My brother Paul, who died two years ago at the age of 47, had juvenile diabetes, as well as congenital kidney disease. A tough combination.

This is not an easy article; goes into new ideas on causes of diabetes (mostly type 2, adult onset) in some detail.

In Diabetes, a Complex of Causes - New York Times

New research suggests that a hormone from the skeleton, of all places, may influence how the body handles sugar. Mounting evidence also demonstrates that signals from the immune system, the brain and the gut play critical roles in controlling glucose and lipid metabolism. (The findings are mainly relevant to Type 2 diabetes, the more common kind, which comes on in adulthood.)

Focusing on the cross-talk between more different organs, cells and molecules represents a “very important change in our paradigm” for understanding how the body handles glucose, said Dr. C. Ronald Kahn, a diabetes researcher and professor at Harvard Medical School.

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... Another recent suspect in glucose regulation is the immune system. In 2003, researchers from two laboratories found that fat tissue from obese mice contained an abnormally large number of macrophages, immune cells that contribute to inflammation. The finding piqued the curiosity of researchers. “I remember reading the paper and thinking: ‘Wow, look at all those macrophages. What are they doing?’” said Dr. Jerrold M. Olefsky of the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine.

Scientists have long suspected that inflammation was somehow related to insulin resistance, which precedes nearly all cases of Type 2 diabetes. In the early 1900s, diabetics were sometimes given high doses of aspirin, which is an anti-inflammatory, Dr. Olefsky said.

Only in the past few years has research into the relationship of obesity, inflammation and insulin resistance become “really hot,” said Dr. Alan R. Saltiel, director of the Life Sciences Institute at the University of Michigan.

Can a Republican win an election by just being against Hillary?

Here's an interesting column in the Washington Post. Myerson writes on politics and is a pretty conventional liberal Democrat. Ideologically he's about like Paul Krugman of the NY Times, but without the nastiness, smugness, and dishonesty of Krugman.

His point here is, you can't win an election just by being against someone. You know, "where's the Beef?"

Harold Meyerson - Republicans at a Loss - washingtonpost.com

In fact, with the honorable exception of long-shot candidate Mike Huckabee, the Republican field seems content with an economic program that comes down to opposing whatever Hillary Clinton proposes. Rudy Giuliani, campaigning hard to convince the Republican base to overlook his heresies on such cultural hot buttons as abortion rights, seeks to win over the faithful by claiming the mantle of Hillary-Basher Club Champion. A tax credit for parents struggling to pay their children's college tuition? Matching funds for 401(k)s? Baby bonds? Crazy notions all, not because of their substance -- Rudy can't be bothered with their substance -- but because they were proposed by -- get this -- Hillary! The GOP crowds roar.

As a road map to governance, this is both dim and skimpy. President Giuliani, Romney, McCain or Thompson can reliably be counted on to be against whatever Clinton is for. Beyond that, if we total up their domestic and economic policy proposals, they intend to do almost nothing at all.

Half of New Jerseyites want to move out of state

Not exactly a ringing endorsement...

Poll: Half of New Jerseyans want out

TRENTON, N.J., Oct. 17 (UPI) -- About half of New Jersey residents wish they were living somewhere else, with most citing high living costs as the reason, a newspaper poll found.

Just over half of those who said they want to move expect to follow through on it, Gannet News Service reported.

Will Torre be back as the Yanks Manager? Wow, it gets complicated

Chcek out the behind the scenes maneuvering.

Yankees Meet; Torre Dangles - New York Times

Steinbrenner has said nothing since the playoff loss, even in the form of a Rubenstein statement. The organization has made it clear that the Steinbrenner sons are crucial in the decision. At 77, Steinbrenner is slowing down, and his sons are finally taking a serious interest in the family business.

Hank Steinbrenner, 50, had such minimal involvement with the team that he was not even listed in the 2006 media guide. He is now second in command, with Hal, but his years away have given him no relationship with Torre.

While praising Torre last week, Hank Steinbrenner added ominously, “Nothing lasts forever.” His brother, Hal, 38, knows Torre better, largely through Steve Swindal, his former brother-in-law, who was once considered the heir to Steinbrenner’s empire.

Because Hal Steinbrenner and Swindal, now deposed, were close, Hal’s support for Torre is considered stronger than Hank’s.

Cashman supported Torre publicly last October but has not done so this time. The two have had a strong working relationship, but Torre irked Cashman this season by speaking openly about the restrictions on reliever Joba Chamberlain. Torre’s handling of the bullpen also became a sore point with Cashman and others in the front office.

Even so, if Torre were removed, the Yankees would have to convince themselves that they have a better candidate. Steinbrenner’s affection for Mattingly is well known, and Mattingly may be the only candidate with the star power that would fit with the Yankees’ strategy of strengthening their brand.

While a newspaper report yesterday said that Mattingly had told a Steinbrenner family member that he was not ready for the job, his agent, Ray Schulte, denied that.

“He feels like he’s ready to take the next step,” Schulte said. “He’s got a lot of confidence, and he credits Joe for giving him baseball knowledge he’s been able to absorb the last few years. He’d love to have Joe around 24/7. He’s been a mentor to Donnie, and Donnie appreciates the fact that Joe took him under his wing. He wants Joe to be happy, and the bottom line is he wants what’s best for the organization.”

Torre, 67, made $19.2 million over the last three seasons in a deal brokered by Swindal. He could return for far less and still be the majors’ highest-paid manager. While it is unknown how he would react to a pay cut, he said this season that he still enjoyed being the manager.

Darfur Update - more bad news

In Southern Darfur, Signs of Another Massacre - New York Times

NAIROBI, Kenya, Oct. 16 — African Union and United Nations officials are looking into reports of a new massacre in Darfur, in which witnesses said Sudanese government troops and their allied militias had killed more than 30 civilians, slitting the throats of several men praying at a mosque and shooting a 5-year-old boy in the back as he tried to run away.

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Ayoub Jalal, a mechanic, said his father was praying at a mosque when soldiers burst in. “They dragged my father and the others out of the mosque and slashed their throats,” said Mr. Jalal, who was interviewed by telephone.

Both the United Nations and the African Union said that dozens of civilians had been killed and that witnesses had consistently identified the attackers as government soldiers and allied gunmen. However, neither entity said it could independently verify who was responsible.

The Sudanese government denied any involvement, but witnesses said uniformed troops methodically mowed down anyone who tried to escape, including a group of fleeing children.

“The youngest child, a 5-year-old boy, I knew well,” said Sultan Marko Niaw, a tribal elder, who also spoke by phone. He said the boy’s name was Guran Avium, adding, “A soldier had shot him in the back.”

The viciousness of the attack, as described by the witnesses and corroborated by aid organizations working in the area, seemed reminiscent of the early days of the conflict in Darfur, when government troops and allied militias slaughtered thousands of civilians, according to human rights groups. But Muhagiriya may be symptomatic of a larger problem happening now as many of Darfur’s armed groups — rebels, Arab militias and even the Sudanese military — rush to seize territory before a major peace conference later this month.

More Evidence that the New York Times Just Makes Things Up

A long time ago, when I was a senior at Stepinac High School, I took the school's inaugural course in Advanced Placement European History. I should point out that all the bright guys took a science course in senior year, called "Electronics". Guys who weren't too sharp, but liked to read, took one of the AP history courses.

But I digress.

The point is, the AP European History teacher was a pretty sharp priest, with a dry sense of humor, who is now the Archdiocese of NY official historian. And he used to always urge us to read the NY Times, but with the caveat "Just don't believe everything you read in it."

Never truer words then in the past few years. And here's yet another example, exposed by the NYT Public editor, who serves as the "readers' representative." He is referring to Debra Solomon, a pompous, smarmy, features writer whose weekly column in the Sunday NY Times Magazine is purportedly an interview with some trendy-type person.

Questions and Answers, in No Particular Order - New York Times

There you stand, sipping white wine, as Solomon and a famous author or politician or media personality trade zippy repartee. Her sharp, challenging questions elicit pithy, surprising answers — a disloyal comment about an employer, a confession to a Diet Coke habit, what’s in Jack Black’s iPod.

That is the illusion of Solomon’s column. The reality is something else: the 700 or so words each week are boiled down from interviews that sometimes last more than an hour and run 10,000 words. Though presented in a way that suggests a verbatim transcript, the order of the interview is sometimes altered, and the wording of questions is changed — for clarity or context, editors say. At least three interviews have been conducted by e-mail because the subjects couldn’t speak English or had other speech difficulties. And, Solomon told me, “Very early on, I might have inserted a question retroactively, so the interview would flow better,” a practice she said she no longer uses.

“Questions For” came under fire recently when a reporter for New York Press, a free alternative weekly, interviewed two high-profile journalists — Amy Dickinson, the advice columnist who followed Ann Landers at The Chicago Tribune, and Ira Glass, creator of the public radio program “This American Life” — who said their published interviews with Solomon contained questions she never asked.

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Last year, The Times Magazine published an angry letter from NBC’s Tim Russert, who said that the portrayal of his interview with her was “misleading, callous and hurtful.”

Russert, the author of two books about his father, told me that the interview had been presented as an opportunity to talk about his mom on Mother’s Day. Instead, the interview, headlined, “All About My Father,” featured a seemingly insensitive Russert dodging Solomon’s questions about his mother. “I talked at great length about my mother,” he said, but none of it appeared in the published interview. Russert said that Solomon combined questions and took “an answer and transposed it to another question.”

Gerald Marzorati, the editor of the magazine, said, “We examined his complaint and found it more or less justified.” Russert had talked about his mother, Marzorati said, and Solomon made it appear that he had not. Solomon said, “I made a mistake not putting in what he said about his mother.”

Afterward, Marzorati said, a new policy was put in place, requiring that Solomon give the tapes of her interviews to her editor or a magazine researcher, in case a subject raised an objection. It was then, Solomon said, that she also stopped inserting retroactive questions.

Several other examples are given by Clark Hoyt, the Public editor. And then there's this, at the end of his column:

In an interview with Columbia Journalism Review in 2005, Solomon said: “Feel free to mix the pieces of this interview around, which is what I do.”

“Is there a general protocol on that?” her questioner asked.

“There’s no Q. and A. protocol,” Solomon replied. “You can write the manual.” Solomon told me she was joking.

In fact, there is a protocol, and “Questions For” isn’t living up to it. The Times’s Manual of Style and Usage says that readers have a right to assume that every word in quotation marks is what was actually said. “Questions For” does not use quotations marks but is presented as a transcript. The manual also says ellipses should be used to signal omissions in transcripts, and that “The Times does not ‘clean up’ quotations.”

Marzorati told me, “this is an entertainment, not a newsmaker interview on ‘Meet the Press.’” But that does not relieve it of the obligation to live up to The Times’s standards or offer an explanation when it deviates from them.

I think editors made a mistake by not publishing an editor’s note with Russert’s letter, acknowledging error and explaining the reforms. Now, I believe, if they want to preserve the illusion of a conversation, they should publish with each column a brief description of the editing standards: the order of questions may be changed, information may be added for clarity, and the transcript has been boiled down without indicating where material has been removed.

If such a disclaimer destroys the illusion, maybe “Questions For” needs to be rethought.

Yeah, maybe. But the attitude that you can spin things to fit your own vision and goal pervades the NY Times Company.

Additional sayings that will make you feel smart

Again from my friend Laurie in VT. (She also contributed these yesterday: Tom Faranda's Folly: Monday morning humor attempt )

"That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a Jackass, and I'm just the one to do it."

- Congressional candidate in Texas

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."

- Al Gore

"The word 'genius' isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."

- Joe Theisman, former NFL football quarterback, and current sports analyst

No blood for oil?

Here's a quote from opinionjournal.com:

"What if we told you one of the presidential candidates accepted the last rationale--blood for oil!--but rejected arguments for war based on concerns about human rights or nuclear proliferation? Based on the media stereotypes, you'd probably think Dick Cheney had thrown his hat in."

Actually, it's Hillary Clinton:  The Associated Press: Clinton Talks About Iran

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton advocated talks to settle differences with Iran but said Saturday that Tehran would invite U.S. action if it were to disrupt oil supplies.

"I will make it very clear to the Iranians that there are very serious consequences attached to their actions," Clinton said. The presidential candidate spoke at a town hall meeting with 300 people at a high school in a Democratic stronghold in early voting South Carolina.

The New York senator, responding to a question, said blocking oil shipments "would be devastating to the world economy."

If the U.S. took military action as a result, she said, "I would hope that the world would see that was an action of last resort, not first resort. Because we need the world to agree with us about the threat that Iran poses to everyone."

What would Moveon.org think of this? ... Or Code Pink? ... Or Cindy Sheehan? ... Probably wouldn't bother them at all - Hillary is a Democrat and she's their girl!

Cancer death rates continue to drop

Courier News Online - Cancer death rates are dropping faster than ever

A turning point came in 2002, scientists conclude Monday in the annual “Report to the Nation” on cancer. Between 2002 and 2004, death rates dropped by an average of 2.1 percent a year.

That might not sound like much, but between 1993 and 2001, deaths rates dropped on average 1.1 percent a year.

>>>>>>>>>>>

Among the report’s other findings:

— Cancer mortality is improving faster among men, with drops in death rates of 2.6 percent a year compared with 1.8 percent a year for women.

— Lung cancer explains much of the gender difference. Male death rates are dropping about 2 percent a year while female death rates finally are holding steady after years of increases. Smoking rates fell for men before they did for women, so men reaped the benefits sooner.

— Overall, the rate of new cancer diagnoses is inching down about one-half a percent a year.

— New breast cancer diagnoses are dropping about 3.5 percent a year, a previously reported decline due either to women shunning postmenopausal hormone therapy or to fewer getting mammograms.

Led Zeppelin goes digital

Uh oh! I may have to get myself an iPod!

Led Zeppelin - Robert Plant - Digital Music - New York Times

It’s been a long time, but Led Zeppelin, one of the last superstar acts to refrain from selling its music online, is finally offering its catalog to digital-music fans.

The shift by Led Zeppelin, whose reunion concert in London next month has already incited a frenzy for tickets, highlights the clout of digital sales in the music market as mass merchants reduce the shelf space devoted to compact discs. Under a series of new agreements expected to be announced today, the band will make its songs available first as ringtones and similar mobile features starting this week in an exclusive deal with Verizon Wireless. Digital downloads of songs from the band’s eight studio albums and other recordings are expected to be available through Verizon and digital-music services, including iTunes, on Nov. 13.

Led Zeppelin’s decision to sell its music online coincides with the end of a fierce bidding war over the rights to administer the band’s catalog of songs, which includes the classics “Stairway to Heaven” and “Rock and Roll.” Under a separate deal the band is to receive an estimated $60 million in exchange for extending its ties to its longtime music publisher, Warner/Chappell Music, for at least 10 years, said three people briefed on the agreement, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to discuss it.

The deals come as the group, which disbanded in 1980 after the death of its drummer, John Bonham, is back in the limelight. The three surviving members — Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones — are performing in concert together next month for the first time in 19 years as part of a memorial tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, the co-founder of Atlantic Records, which released the band’s albums. (Mr. Bonham’s son, Jason, will play drums.)

The Nov. 26 concert, which is to benefit Mr. Ertegun’s educational charity, also coincides with the release of an expansive two-disc hits collection. ...

Here's my posting from a month ago, about the band that put the "heavy" in "metal."

Tom Faranda's Folly: Led Zeppelin to do Tribute Concert

Monday morning humor attempt

These come from my VT. correspondent, Laurie. The first picture is of Mariah Carey (not Laurie), author of first quote. Reading these will make anyone feel quite smart.

"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all overthe world, I can't help but cry.

I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies, and death and stuff."

- Mariah Carey

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the President.

- Hillary Clinton, commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents

"I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix."

- Dan Quayle

Medal of Honor being awarded to Navy SEAL killed in Afghanistan

Lt. Michael Murphy, raised on Long Island

Navy SEAL to receive Medal of Honor - Los Angeles Times

Ambushed by insurgents, Murphy's four-man SEAL team engaged in a fierce firefight and was in danger of being overrun.

Although he was wounded, Murphy risked his life to save fellow SEALs and then maneuvered into an open position to send out an emergency call and to continue firing at the enemy. While making the call, he was hit again.

Only one of the SEALs on the team survived. Eight other SEALs and eight soldiers aboard a MH-47 Chinook helicopter sent to rescue Murphy's team also were killed when the craft was brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade.

The incident was the worst single-day loss of life for Navy Special Warfare personnel since World War II.

Maureen Dowd's GREATEST COLUMN EVER

Because the "Perky Redhead" decided to let Stephen Colbert write it.

A Mock Columnist, Amok - New York Times

He was sneering that Times columns make good “kindling.” He was ranting that after you throw away the paper, “it takes over a hundred years for the lies to biodegrade.” He was observing, approvingly, that “Dick Cheney’s fondest pipe dream is driving a bulldozer into The New York Times while drinking crude oil out of Keith Olbermann’s skull.”

I called Colbert with a dare: if he thought it was so easy to be a Times Op-Ed pundit, he should try it. He came right over. In a moment of weakness, I had staged a coup d’moi. I just hope he leaves at some point. He’s typing and drinking and threatening to “shave Paul Krugman with a broken bottle.”

Wall Street Journal Editorial: Not Nobel Winners

In the weekend edition Friday and published online today. Of course not everyone will get the point.

Not Nobel Winners OpinionJournal - Featured Article

In Olso yesterday, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded to the Burmese monks whose defiance against, and brutalization at the hands of, the country's military junta in recent weeks captured the attention of the Free World.

The prize was also not awarded to Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara and other Zimbabwe opposition leaders who were arrested and in some cases beaten by police earlier this year while protesting peacefully against dictator Robert Mugabe.

Or to Father Nguyen Van Ly, a Catholic priest in Vietnam arrested this year and sentenced to eight years in prison for helping the pro-democracy group Block 8406.

Or to Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Uyyouni, co-founders of the League of Demanders of Women's Right to Drive Cars in Saudi Arabia, who are waging a modest struggle with grand ambitions to secure basic rights for women in that Muslim country.

Or to Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, who has fought tirelessly to end the violence wrought by left-wing terrorists and drug lords in his country.

Or to Garry Kasparov and the several hundred Russians who were arrested in April, and are continually harassed, for resisting President Vladimir Putin's slide toward authoritarian rule.

Or to the people of Iraq, who bravely work to rebuild and reunite their country amid constant threats to themselves and their families from terrorists who deliberately target civilians.

Or to Presidents Viktor Yushchenko and Mikheil Saakashvili who, despite the efforts of the Kremlin to undermine their young states, stayed true to the spirit of the peaceful "color" revolutions they led in Ukraine and Georgia and showed that democracy can put down deep roots in Russia's backyard.

Or to Britain's Tony Blair, Ireland's Bertie Ahern and the voters of Northern Ireland, who in March were able to set aside decades of hatred to establish joint Catholic-Protestant rule in Northern Ireland.

Or to thousands of Chinese bloggers who run the risk of arrest by trying to bring uncensored information to their countrymen.

Or to scholar and activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, jailed presidential candidate Ayman Nour and other democracy campaigners in Egypt.

Or, posthumously, to lawmakers Walid Eido, Pierre Gemayel, Antoine Ghanem, Rafik Hariri, George Hawi and Gibran Tueni; journalist Samir Kassir; and other Lebanese citizens who've been assassinated since 2005 for their efforts to free their country from Syrian control.

Or to the Reverend Phillip Buck; Pastor Chun Ki Won and his organization, Durihana; Tim Peters and his Helping Hands Korea; and Liberty in North Korea, who help North Korean refugees escape to safety in free nations.

These men and women put their own lives and livelihoods at risk by working to rid the world of violence and oppression. Let us hope they survive the coming year so that the Nobel Prize Committee might consider them for the 2008 award.

How are men and women different

Here's one way - from Ellen - again!

Today is the 90th anniversary of the "Miracle of the Sun"

October 13th, 1917 - the final apparition at Fatima, with an astonishing visual occurence in the sky, as promised by the "Lady of the Rosary."  Tens of thousands of people witnessed the event, and it was reported in the Portugese newspapers.

The Vatican accepted the occurence as miraculous in 1930. Skeptics have suggested that it was due to anything from dust storms in the Sahara to UFOs. Go here for some other hypothesis (no one suggests anymore that it was a mass halluciantion - the common skeptical explanation when I was growing up) and eyewitness accounts.

The Miracle of the Sun - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And the wikipedia article on Our Lady of Fatima is quite good.

Our Lady of Fatima - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Journal News - local Gannett daily of Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam counties, had an article yesterday about various services being held today to commemorate it.

Hundreds of local Catholics to recite rosary in public rallies

It was on Oct. 13, 1917, that three shepherd children from Fatima are believed to have received a sixth and final vision of Mary - a series of apparitions that have gripped the Roman Catholic world ever since.

To commemorate the anniversary, close to 2,500 Catholic groups across the country, including more than a dozen in the Lower Hudson Valley, plan to hold public rosary rallies tomorrow.

Their goals are simple and precise: to recite the rosary and pray for world peace and a more moral culture, as believers say Mary requested 90 years ago.

Global Warming Update #23: Gore gets the gold

Or rather a million and a half dollars, along with his sharing of the Nobel Peace Prize. The money will be donated to charity.

My Way News - Al Gore, UN Panel Share Nobel for Peace

OSLO, Norway (AP) - Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change jointly won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize Friday for their efforts to spread awareness of man-made climate change and to lay the foundations for fighting it.

Gore, who won an Academy Award earlier this year for his film on global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth," had been widely tipped to win the prize.

He said that global warming was not a political issue but a worldwide crisis.

"We face a true planetary emergency. ... It is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity," he said. "It is also our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level."

Coincidentally, here's another article on the errors in Gore's movie (which I posted about yesterday here  Tom Faranda's Folly: Global Warming Update #22: UK Judge says Gore film filled with errors: schools must provide "guidance" i... ) :

U.K. Judge Rules Gore's Climate Film Has 9 Errors - washingtonpost.com

Cold remedies for infants getting the hook

The manufacturers say their concern is that they are being used in higher then recommended doses.

Infant Cold Medications Pulled From Drugstores - washingtonpost.com

The hearing is part of a broad evaluation of the products the agency launched in light of doubts about their effectiveness and mounting evidence the medications can cause serious complications, including severe hallucinations and agitation, seizures, high blood pressure, and heart and breathing problems that can be fatal in rare cases.

The companies maintain that the products are safe and effective when used properly but said they acted because of the risk of complications when misused, with most complications apparently occurring in children younger than 2.

"These medicines are -- and always have been -- safe at the recommended doses," said Linda A. Suydam, president of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, the industry group that announced the withdrawal. "These voluntary actions are being taken out of an abundance of caution."

The companies withdrawing the products -- McNeil Consumer Healthcare, Novartis Consumer Health and Wyeth -- represent at least 95 percent of the market, the association said.

Critics of the products welcomed the move but called for the FDA to take further action, saying the products pose a hazard even when used at the proper doses.

Microsoft 1.0 for blondes

From my humor consultant, Ellen

Rich financial guys; "carried interest", and politics

Wow! There's an ugly mix.

What is "carried interest"? It's a technical term for the performance fees that investment managers, especially running hedge funds, take. Generally it's 20% of the profit of the partnership. No profit, and all they get is a 1 or 2 percent management fee. Good performance, and they can make huge, huge incomes - in the multi-millions if they are running a lot of money and have a big year.

The idea, of course, is to give the managers big incentives to make money for everyone in the fund or partnership.

Carried interest is the technical term for the profits to the managers, and currently they are not taxed as ordinary income - they are taxed as capital gains, at the much lower 15% maximum rate.

Some people think this is fine, and others think that it isn't; I am of two minds about the whole thing.

Here's the point - there have been a few articles lately about how certain Wall Street types have "seen the light" - former supporters of Bush and Republicans now supporting Democrats.

Now many Democrats in Congress were very much in favor of changing the tax treatment of carried interest - taxing it as income and not as capital gains.  But suddenly, they've "seen the light", and maybe it's not such a good idea!

What happened? The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal both recently editorialized about it -

Cutting Them a Break - washingtonpost.com

DEMOCRATS like to boast that they are the party that worries about the middle class while Republicans lavish tax goodies on the rich. So a juicy tax break enjoyed by a select group of the wealthiest Americans would seem to be a natural target for Democratic lawmakers. The break, known as "carried interest," allows managers of hedge funds and private-equity firms to pay a 15 percent tax rate on a large portion of their compensation, not the 35 percent top rate for ordinary income.

Eliminating this loophole could bring in several billion dollars a year. But congressional Democrats, it turns out, are too busy to get around to closing it. As reported by The Post's Jeffrey H. Birnbaum, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has quietly passed the word to those opposing the change that they can relax: Nothing will get through the Senate this year.

Of course, Mr. Reid's office says, this has nothing to do with the army of lobbyists that the industry has deployed to protect its cushy deal. Of course, it has nothing to do with the industry's generous campaign contributions to Democratic candidates and committees, which have been dramatically stepped up since the carried-interest fight began.

Reid's Tax Hedge - WSJ.com

This is a little awkward for a party that has made income inequality a campaign staple. But the turnabout isn't so mysterious in an election season when Wall Street moneymen have made more than $6 million in political donations, with most going to Democrats, especially a certain Senator from New York. Hillary Clinton's main Presidential competitors, Barack Obama and John Edwards, were particularly dismayed yesterday at the bill's demise, as it happens. Though she'd endorsed the idea in the past, Mrs. Clinton was mum.

Not to say we're sorry to see the issue die, even if it is destined to return. The tax hike, which would raise the rates on "carried interest" to 35% from 15%, is hardly what fragile credit markets need. New York Democrat Charles Schumer also exercised a bit of political jujitsu to finish it off. Mr. Schumer proposed his own bill this week that would have raised the tax rate not just on private equity but also on other "partnerships" that pay the 15% rate, such as real estate and oil and gas.

Leaving aside the merits of raising the tax rate, which as I said I have ambiguous feelings about (FULL DISCLOSURE - unfortunately I don't reap the benefits of carried interest), it is amusing to see politicians principles dissolve so easily when lobbyists and new-found supporters pull out their checkbooks.

Amusing but no surprise.