Tom Faranda's Folly

Latest Read: Quick Study

OK! This is the new "Murder 101 Mystery", the third following the career of Alison Bergeron. Alison is a wisecracking English Professor at a small Catholic college in the Bronx, with a view of the Hudson. Sounds suspiciously like Mt. St. Vincent's. That in fact is where the author Maggie Barbieri, who goes to my Church, and who I commiserate with, went to college.

Coincidentally, my mother also graduated from there, probably 40+ years before Maggie.

Here are my reviews of the first two books in the series, Latest Read: "Murder 101" , and Latest Read: Extracurricular Activities, which are also posted in an edited form on the Amazon website.

The books are great fun reads and the current one is no exception. They really are "comedy murder mysteries", as we see things from the perspective of Alison's witty mind. Alison (try to imagine Lucille Ball, Nancy Drew, and Zena the Warrior Princess rolled into one) is in love with, among other things, the NY Rangers, martinis, and an NYPD detective. Her penchant for helping people out with her amateur detective work gets her into all sorts of situations.

The murder mystery part involves an illegal immigrant who Alison met while serving a community service sentence (see second book as to how she earned this court-ordered gig) in a soup kitchen. He's found floating in the Hudson, extremely deceased. Alison has great sympathy for the family and decides to involve herself. After all, with two other investigations to her credit, she now has lots of experience. In fact, she no longer faints. 

So lots of fun, and highly recommended. And if you are looking for a great gift any of the "murder 101 mystery" books will do nicely.

New Jersey - the Garden State - has it's troubles

I have lots of friends and clients in New Jersey, my rugby club is based there, I spend lots of time there. And unfortunately this op ed in the Wall Street Journal is very accurate. In a way, it sugar coats things - no mention of the political corruption...

I welcome comments/emails from my New Jersey friends.

William McGurn: New Jersey Is the Perfect Bad Example - WSJ.com

As harmful as this has been for our own prosperity, our example could be invaluable for President-elect Obama. That's especially true given that his team appears to be considering some of the same things that have long been popular in Trenton. For years, the solons in our state capital have operated on the assumption that you can have high taxes everywhere -- on income, on property, on business -- without suffering any consequences.

Well, Gov. Jon Corzine is now dealing with those consequences, and his budgets show it. Earlier this year, he pushed through a budget that was one of the few in New Jersey history to be less than the one that preceded it. With revenues now running $1.2 billion short of what was expected, the next budget will undoubtedly be tougher still.

Not all of Mr. Corzine's choices have been good ones. In fairness, however, he is dealing with huge problems that have been years in the making. In some ways, we are a mini-California. That is to say, where New Jersey was once a national leader in terms of economic growth and job creation, more recently we have become a national laggard.

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Though the state did ultimately emerge from recession in 2003, private-sector job creation since then has been a pale shadow of what we enjoyed after the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s.

Of course, there was one area where jobs did grow. From 2000 to 2007, says the New Jersey Business & Industry Association, the government added 54,800 jobs. To put that in proper perspective, that works out to 93% of all jobs created in New Jersey over those seven years.

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But amid all the debate over jump-starting the economy through public works, we risk losing sight of a larger truth: What governors and citizens alike need most is a growing economy that is creating jobs for the people and sending revenue to the capital. Over the long run, the only way to have a healthy and growing economy is to do exactly what New Jersey has not: Trust the people with their own money, and create an environment where initiative and enterprise are rewarded rather than penalized.

 

More on the President's reading list

As is inevitable, pundits have started to criticize the column Karl Rove wrote a few days ago, about George Bush's wide-ranging reading habits. The reading habits of President Bush

Here's one from the Washington Post's Richard Cohen. And it's awfully odd.

Richard Cohen - George W. Bush as an Avid Reader - washingtonpost.com

In what without a doubt is the most astounding op-ed piece of the year, Karl Rove reveals that his friend and former boss, George W. Bush, has read probably hundreds of books over the course of his presidency. One of them was Albert Camus' "The Stranger," with its unforgettable opening lines: "Mother died today. Or perhaps it was yesterday, I don't know." After reading Rove's Wall Street Journal column, it's clear there's much we all don't know.

Bush's choice of the Camus classic is odd on the face of it. It is a novel about estrangement, about an amoral, irreligious man (Meursault) who never shows emotion. It is a book out of my Gauloise-smoking youth, read in the vain pursuit of women of literary bent, and not something I would think an over-60 president would read. Maybe this is what happens when you have to give up jogging.

India priests serving abroad

This is the third in the NY Times series on foreign priest serving in the U.S. The first is here Good feature on the American Catholic Church's effort to recruit foreign priests and the second here Great article on a Kenyan priest working in Kentucky .

This article is more on the motivation for Indian young men to join the priesthood. As you can imagine the NY Times puts it's own slant on it ... I could be wrong, but I believe that historically the Jesuits have had a big influence on India's Catholicism.

As I mentioned in the first post, we have a very fine priest from India, Father Loyola Amalraj, who earned a Ph.D. at Marquette. He may be returning to India in the coming year.

Divine Recruits - India, an Exporter of Priests, May Keep Them - Series - NYTimes.com

At least 800 Indian priests are working in the United States alone. India, Vietnam and the Philippines are among the leading exporters of priests, according to data compiled by researchers at Catholic University of America in Washington.

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Catholics represent a tiny proportion of the population in India — about 2 percent. But they have played an outsize role in weaving the country’s social safety net, establishing schools, hospitals, old-age homes and other organizations that serve many non-Catholics.

The church here is ancient, with three separate rites, each with its own liturgies and bishops. Here in Kerala, a state in southwest India, Catholics of the Syro-Malabar rite trace their roots to the Apostle Thomas, who according to lore arrived by boat in A.D. 52, made disciples among the ruling Brahmin class and planted seven churches.

About 20 percent of Kerala’s population is Catholic, and being faithful is more than a once-a-week event. Families pray together at home in the evenings, kneeling at shrines in their sitting rooms. Mass attendance in many dioceses is over 80 percent. And the entire community turns out for local festivals on saints days.

Some perspective on the financial meltdown

The Journal yesterday had a superb article on the collapse and bankruptcy of Lehman, the takeover of Merrill by bank of America, and Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs morphing from being Investment Banks to Commercial Banks. All in a couple of weeks in September.

The extensive article reads like a novel, only you know it's in the you-couldn't-make-this-up genre. I am putting the link below, but you probably won't be able to access it unless you subscribe to the online Journal edition.

However, I am excerpting one small quote from the article, just to put the last few month's financial doings in perspective....

The Weekend That Wall Street Died - WSJ.com

At 9 a.m., the chiefs of finance arrived again at the New York Fed for a second day of meetings. By the time Mr. Thain arrived, the Merrill chief had a number of options in his back pocket.

Rolling up to the meetings at around the same time was Goldman's chief, Mr. Blankfein. A Goldman aide, referring to days of meltdowns and meetings, carped to Mr. Blankfein: "I don't think I can take another day of this."

Mr. Blankfein retorted: "You're getting out of a Mercedes to go to the New York Federal Reserve -- you're not getting out of a Higgins boat on Omaha Beach," he said, referring to the World War II experience of a former Goldman head. "So keep things in perspective."

Yes, perspective.

Try this link if the one above doesn't work - The Weekend That Wall Street Died - WSJ.com

Great article on a Kenyan priest working in Kentucky

This is the second of three articles about foreign priests ministering in the U.S. The first article from yesterday's Times is here  Good feature on the American Catholic Church's effort to recruit foreign priests

I thought this was a wonderful article, on a Kenyan who had also served for years in Jamaica. It also gives a clear view of the strengths, as well as the shortcomings of the laity in the U.S. And it has a bittersweet ending, about the death of the priest's brother in Kenya.

Divine Recruits - In America for Job, a Kenyan Priest Finds a Home - Series - NYTimes.com

OAK GROVE, Ky. — The Rev. Chrispin Oneko, hanging up his vestments after leading one of his first Sunday Masses at his new American parish, was feeling content until he discovered several small notes left by his parishioners.

The notes, all anonymous, conveyed the same message: Father, please make your homilies shorter. One said that even five minutes was too long for a mother with children.

At home in Kenya, Father Oneko had preached to rural Africans who walked for hours to get to church and would have been disappointed if the sermons were brief.

“Here the whole Mass is one hour,” he said, a broad smile on his round face. “That was a homework for me, to learn to summarize everything and make the homily 10 minutes, maybe 15. Here, people are on the move very fast.”

Father Oneko is part of a wave of Roman Catholic priests from Africa, Asia and Latin America who have been recruited to fill empty pulpits in parishes across America. They arrive knowing how to celebrate Mass, anoint the sick and baptize babies. But few are prepared for the challenges of being a pastor in America.

Health Update - 6 month lymphoma check up

Wow, this is the first health update I've done since September 1st. I guess that's good!

Today I have my six month CAT scan at Sloan Kettering, and Wednesday I'll see my lymphoma guru, Dr. Andy Zelenetz, also in Manhattan at Sloan. I expect they'll find no trace of any lymphoma; it will be interesting to see how my bloodwork is, especially my red counts.

I feel pretty good. One fly in the ointment is that I've gained about six lbs. since October, despite my five to seven days a week gym regimen. Of course, I eat to much; that's the problem.  

Also, I am just getting over yet another cold/respiratory infection. And I tweeked up my back about 10 days ago in the gym - but it's feeling much better now, and I did lift weights yesterday afternoon.

All in all, I could be a lot worse.

The reading habits of President Bush

The past couple of weeks I've been reflecting on the fact that I've gotten away from reading enough good books, instead reading lots and lots of newspaper articles, magazine articles, features posted on blogs, that sort of thing.  And in my head I've been saying I'll do a better job of reading books of substance next year, hoping to get through twenty, or so.

So I find the volume of reading that Bush has done the last three years quite amazing. I wonder how it compares to the reading list of some of his jerk off knee jerk critics like Olberman on MSNBC, or Keller, the chief editor of the NY Times?

Hit the link to read the whole feature - very interesting.

Karl Rove Says George W. Bush Is a Book Lover - WSJ.com

With only five days left, my lead is insurmountable. The competition can't catch up. And for the third year in a row, I'll triumph. In second place will be the president of the United States. Our contest is not about sports or politics. It's about books.

It all started on New Year's Eve in 2005. President Bush asked what my New Year's resolutions were. I told him that as a regular reader who'd gotten out of the habit, my goal was to read a book a week in 2006. Three days later, we were in the Oval Office when he fixed me in his sights and said, "I'm on my second. Where are you?" Mr. Bush had turned my resolution into a contest.

By coincidence, we were both reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's "Team of Rivals." The president jumped to a slim early lead and remained ahead until March, when I moved decisively in front. The competition soon spun out of control. We kept track not just of books read, but also the number of pages and later the combined size of each book's pages -- its "Total Lateral Area."

We recommended volumes to each other (for example, he encouraged me to read a Mao biography; I suggested a book on Reconstruction's unhappy end). We discussed the books and wrote thank-you notes to some authors.

At year's end, I defeated the president, 110 books to 95. My trophy looks suspiciously like those given out at junior bowling finals. The president lamely insisted he'd lost because he'd been busy as Leader of the Free World.

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To my surprise, the president demanded a rematch in 2007. Though the overall pace slowed, he once more came in second in our two-man race, reading 51 books to my 76. His list was particularly wide-ranging that year, from history ("The Great Upheaval" and "Khrushchev's Cold War"), biographical (Dean Acheson and Andrew Mellon), and current affairs (including "Rogue Regime" and "The Shia Revival"). He read one book meant for young adults, his daughter Jenna's excellent "Ana's Story."

A glutton for punishment, Mr. Bush insisted on another rematch in 2008. But it will be a three-peat for me: as of today, his total is 40 volumes to my 64. His reading this year included a heavy dose of history -- including David Halberstam's "The Coldest Winter," Rick Atkinson's "Day of Battle," Hugh Thomas's "Spanish Civil War," Stephen W. Sears's "Gettysburg" and David King's "Vienna 1814." There's also plenty of biography -- including U.S. Grant's "Personal Memoirs"; Jon Meacham's "American Lion"; James M. McPherson's "Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief" and Jacobo Timerman's "Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number."

Each year, the president also read the Bible from cover to cover, along with a daily devotional.

Darfur Update; a 17 year old decides to do something to help out

This was sent to me by Maria, a friend of mine -

Stoves help keep Darfur's women out of harm's way - CNN.com

People living in the camps are relatively safe, but there is danger for the women and young girls who leave the compounds in search of firewood to cook meals. Firewood in the desert is scarce, and the women often have to walk up to seven hours to gather enough wood to bring back to their camps. Some women have been targeted, sexually assaulted and killed.

Spencer Brodsky, 17, learned about the violence and decided to raise money to purchase fuel-efficient stoves to send to Darfur. The stoves burn 75 percent less firewood.

Brodsky reasons that if he can do something to keep Sudanese women in the camps, this would decrease the likelihood of violence.

"We need to be able to benefit them in any way that we can so they don't have to be out as many times of their compound," he said. Watch Brodsky discuss the project »

Brodsky, who is Jewish, said his elders have compared the genocide in Darfur to the Holocaust. He believes that his peers should not stand for such injustice in their lifetime.

"They always taught about what was happening in that region in that the social injustice that's happening. And how you know how people said during the Holocaust during World War II -- you know this can never happen again."

At $30 per stove, Brodsky has raised enough money to ship 420 stoves to Darfur. Make a donation

Good feature on the American Catholic Church's effort to recruit foreign priests

The NY Times today began what appears to be a series on the recruiting of Third World Catholic priests to serve in American parishes. This article describes efforts to fill vacancies in rural Kentucky. The program is going fairly well.

My own parish has had a number of African priests who've served short stints while going to school at Fordham University. And for the last several years we have been very well served by Father Loyola Amalraj, who earned a PhD. at Marquette and is from India. He may be returning to India in the coming year.

Divine Recruits - Serving U.S. Parishes, Fathers Without Borders - Series - NYTimes.com

“You’re taking a shot in the dark getting these guys,” Father Venters said. “But honestly, other than a few, we have had really, really good results.”

In earlier eras, the Catholic church in the United States depended on foreign priests from places like Ireland, Italy, Germany, Poland and Belgium. But they usually accompanied their immigrant flocks, and ministered to their own people in their native language.

Nowadays, however, the missionary priests have little in common with the Americans who often come to them for advice and solace in times of crisis. In Owensboro, it falls to Father Venters, who grew up on a farm in Illinois and has barely traveled outside the country, to find ways to bridge the often large cultural divides. One foreign priest had never seen a microwave. Another thought the frost on his car one morning was the work of vandals.

“There’s this assumption that a priest is a priest,” said Father Venters, who, as the vicar for clergy, is essentially the bishop’s assistant on personnel issues. “On the church side of it, that’s correct. We are a universal church and the rituals are the same, so he knows how to be a priest. The challenge is, he does not know how to be a priest in the United States.”

To succeed, Father Venters has also had to learn to navigate the immigration system, which has become so restrictive since the Sept. 11 attacks that even priests with invitations to work have trouble getting into the country.

At one point, he sent so many FedEx letters to Nigeria that the Department of Homeland Security suspended his account until he proved he worked for a legitimate church.

Chinchilla "wilding"

As posted here a few days ago Newcomer to Farandaville, we now have a second Chinchilla. Brigid and Joe and Tim decided to introduce the two year old Gloria, to the newcomer, whose name now seems to be Dusty Snowball (Tim insists on the Snowball part) by putting Gloria in the cage with Dusty. This is actually the second time they've done it, but the first time I've seen it. Last night they had a sand bath togther, but Tim and I missed that - we were doing a Midnite Run to Manhattan.

By the by, we're told they're both females ...

 

That's Joe's arm below

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now just to be fair, and so she doesn't feel bad, here are a couple of pictures of our guinea pig, Trinity (I know, three rodents - it's nuts). Trinity got her name from her three-colored muzzle - and we got her on Trinity Sunday.

 

 

Trinity replaced our previous guinea pig, Vindabel, who went to guinea pig heaven (or wherever) quite suddenly in May, 2006. Sad news in farandaville as guinea pig leaves us . one of those true family mini-tragedies. Hit the link to see how she got her name.

Vindabel was really quite beautiful - here she is -

Interesting way the CIA gets Afghan Warlords to cooperate

They supply them with Viagra.

Newsmax.com - CIA Using Viagra to Bribe Afghan Warlords

The CIA has developed a novel incentive to gain cooperation and support in Taliban-plagued Afghanistan - handing out libido-enhancing Viagra pills to targeted village patriarchs, according to a report in the Washington Post.

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“You didn’t hand it out to younger guys, but it could be a silver bullet to make connections to the older ones,” said one retired operative familiar with the drug’s use in Afghanistan.

Not everyone in the deep Afghanistan outback, however, is intimate with the little blue pill. According to the report, this has led to some inspired educational talks with the target - taking pains not to offend their hosts’ religious sensitivities.

But once the ground is broken, the results have been surprising.

Great story about a one-armed basketball player, hoping to get a college hoops scholarship

Coping with adversity - and helping other injured people -

Basketball Prospect Provides Inspiration With What He Doesn’t Have - NYTimes.com

FORK UNION, Va. — Kelli Whitescarver did not see traffic bottle up on Interstate 95 until it was too late. She lost control of her black Ford Explorer, which smashed a guardrail, flipped onto the driver’s side and dragged her left arm on the pavement.

Whitescarver, 21, had been on her way home to Richmond on Nov. 2 after visiting her sister in North Carolina. Instead, she was on her way to the hospital to have her left hand amputated.

During Whitescarver’s three-week stay at the Medical College of Virginia, she was told the amputation would not stop her from maintaining a normal life. But the people who told her that had two hands. Then, through some unusual serendipity, Whitescarver heard about someone who did not.

Kevin Laue, 18, was a 6-foot-10-inch college basketball prospect from California who was born with a left arm that ended at the elbow. He had recently enrolled at Fork Union Military Academy, about 50 miles from Richmond, in hopes of being noticed by an Ivy League team, but not for the reason he was most often noticed.

Whitescarver, whose grandfather was Fork Union’s president from 1968 to 1990, found YouTube clips of Laue playing basketball. He was a one-handed wonder, unfazed by his disability, and he had somehow ended up in this rural Virginia town at just the right time.

“Seeing Kevin gave me hope,” Whitescarver said. “I almost couldn’t believe it.”

Here's another reason to dislike the NY Times if you're from NY - their ownership in the Boston Red Sox

Who knew?

But the Times has the second biggest ownership interest in the Bosox. This is from the Wall Street Journal, and you probably wont be able to access the whole article through the link, since the Journal main website is subscription only. But see the last paragraph of the excerpt about what a mess the Times has made of their ownership in the Boston Globe.

No wonder the Times public shareholders are in revolt; but there's little they can do (except sell their shares - and that would be at a big loss, since the stock is down about 90% in the last five years) since the Sulzberger family controls the voting shares.

I expect that eventually the NY Times will be taken private by the controlling families.

Times Co. Seeks Buyer for Its Stake In Red Sox - WSJ.com

Times Co., which faces a cash shortage accelerated by steep industrywide revenue declines, has been rumored for months to be open to selling noncore assets. Besides its flagship newspaper, Times Co. owns the Boston Globe, About.com and a 17.5% stake in New England Sports Ventures, which owns the Red Sox, their fabled ballpark Fenway Park and most of the cable network that airs the team's games.

Times Co. pushed discussions beyond the exploration phase early last month at a quarterly meeting of NESV's limited partners, at which the company indicated to the partnership its intention to sell. Since then Times Co. has been pursuing potential buyers, according to people familiar with the discussions. Barclays Capital has pegged the value of the investment at about $166 million. A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment.

Times Co. acquired its stake in NESV when it joined John Henry in the hedge-fund billionaire's $700 million purchase of the Red Sox in 2002. The company is the second-largest shareholder behind Mr. Henry, who created NESV. The stake was supposed to shore up the Globe's advertising position in New England by packaging the Globe with New England Sports Network, one of the most powerful television outlets in the region. But it wasn't enough to stop the decline in advertisers and readers.

It is possible the Globe could be packaged with the sports assets in a sale. Jack Connors, a former ad executive in Boston, and former General Electric Chief Executive Jack Welch took a serious look at the Globe two years ago, valuing it at $550 million to $600 million, people close to them said at the time. Times Co. rebuffed the inquiries. The Globe was recently valued by Barclays at $20 million.

When NFL kickers think they're linebackers

If you like football, you'll enjoy this article. And it even explains why the NY Giants punter, Jeff Feagles, is in his 21st season. Hint: he doesn't think like a linebacker -

Inside Some Kickers Beats the Heart of a Linebacker - NYTimes.com

Jay Feely of the Jets, regarded by his peers as the most aggressive and perhaps craziest tackler among today’s kickers, recently notched one against San Francisco. It was his fourth of the season and the 27th of his eight-year career, according to Stats LLC.

Feely and his counterpart on the Arizona Cardinals, Neil Rackers, enjoy tackling so much that they made a friendly wager before their teams played in September over who would make more tackles in the game. Neither was credited with even an assist, although Rackers has six tackles this season to lead all kickers.

In November, Jacksonville punter Adam Podlesh proved the folly of having a kicker channel his inner Ray Lewis when he sustained a season-ending knee injury in his money leg while trying to make a tackle. Podlesh said he had since experienced fleeting thoughts that maybe he should avoid tackling to keep himself healthy. Then again, he doubts he will shy away next season.

“It’s kind of cool getting down there and living the glory days of high school,” said Podlesh, who was a starting linebacker in high school and has been relatively prolific with five tackles the past two seasons.

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Kickers and punters were once tough guys, like Lou Groza and Jerry Kramer, who also played on the offensive line. But the arrival in the 1960s and ’70s of foreign-born soccer-style kickers, few of whom had ever played American football, was soon accompanied by plenty of laughs.

Garo Yepremian of the Dolphins is remembered less for being on the perfect team of 1972 than for a comical attempt to throw a pass in Super Bowl VII.

It did not help when the comic actor Adam Sandler released a song in 1997 called “The Lonesome Kicker,” with the lyrics: “Kickoffs can be so very scary. Especially, if the returner breaks on through. And I’m the only guy on the playing field left to tackle him. I don’t want to get hurt. So I pretend to tie my shoe.”

Before a preseason game against the Chiefs in the 1970s, the returner George Atkinson of the Raiders joked with Kansas City kicker Jan Stenerud, who did not play football until his senior year of college, that he was not a real player because he never tackled anybody. Stenerud tackled Atkinson twice during that game.

Stenerud said an angry John Madden, the Raiders’ coach at the time, was said to have asked this about Atkinson, “How could you get tackled twice by a Norwegian skier?”

For real estate moguls; here's a cool portable house ... and note the low cost!

Go here -

20' Geodesic Dome

NYT columnist Nicholas Kristoff; Is it all right to make a profit while doing good deeds?

I did a post here about the prior Kristoff column NY Times op ed columnist Nick Kristoff on charitable giving where he assailed hsis fellow liberals fro being tightwads with their own money, and here's another good column published Christmas Eve.

The issue: can a businessman make a "hefty profit while doing good works... do we applaud or hiss?"

Op-Ed Columnist - The Sin in Doing Good Deeds - NYTimes.com

A new book, “Uncharitable,” seethes with indignation at public expectations that charities be prudent, nonprofit and saintly. The author, Dan Pallotta, argues that those expectations make them less effective, and he has a point.

Mr. Pallotta’s frustration is intertwined with his own history as the inventor of fund-raisers like AIDSRides and Breast Cancer 3-Days — events that, he says, netted $305 million over nine years for unrestricted use by charities. In the aid world, that’s a breathtaking sum.

But Mr. Pallotta’s company wasn’t a charity, but rather a for-profit company that created charitable events. Critics railed at his $394,500 salary — low for a corporate chief executive, but stratospheric in the aid world — and at the millions of dollars spent on advertising and marketing and other expenses.

“Shame on Pallotta,” declared one critic at the time, accusing him of “greed and unabashed profiteering.” In the aftermath of a wave of criticism, his company collapsed.

One breast cancer charity that parted ways with Mr. Pallotta began producing its own fund-raising walks, but the net sum raised by those walks for breast cancer research plummeted from $71 million to $11 million, he says.

Mr. Pallotta argues powerfully that the aid world is stunted because groups are discouraged from using such standard business tools as advertising, risk-taking, competitive salaries and profits to lure capital.

“We allow people to make huge profits doing any number of things that will hurt the poor, but we want to crucify anyone who wants to make money helping them,” Mr. Pallotta says. “Want to make a million selling violent video games to kids? Go for it. Want to make a million helping cure kids of cancer? You’re labeled a parasite.”

I confess to ambivalence. I deeply admire the other kind of aid workers, those whose passion for their work is evident by the fact that they’ve gone broke doing it. I’m filled with awe when I go to a place like Darfur and see unpaid or underpaid aid workers in groups like Doctors Without Borders, risking their lives to patch up the victims of genocide.

I also worry that if aid groups paid executives as lavishly as Citigroup, they would be managed as badly as Citigroup.

Yet there’s a broad recognition in much of the aid community that a major rethink is necessary, that groups would be more effective if they borrowed more tools from the business world, and that there is too much “gotcha” scrutiny on overhead rather than on what they actually accomplish.

My opinion? Perfectly acceptable to make a profit - indeed get filthy rich - in pursuit of and acomplishing good deeds. Wish I could figure out a way to do it myself. I'd love it if Brigid and I could get paid for ending abortion, third world poverty, banning nuclear arms or the death penalty. Unfortunately ain't gonna happen.

Merry Christmas, We're ....

Mildly amusing

Christmas Day '08

Actually Christmas Eve and Christmas. I was the lector and Tim an altar server at the 10PM Christmas Eve Mass, and after we returned home, we opened the gifts from Brigid's relatives in England and Australia. That has become our custom in recent years - overseas gifts on Christmas Eve and everything else Christmas morning.

Brigid looks very professorial, while the boys get into it

 

Joe loves to build things and he received this small house from Australia, while Tim unravels an England present. The tree in teh background looks a little askew, because it is! Earlier in the evening, I suddenly heard a "swoosh" and when I walked into the room the tree was on it's side. It just fell over of it's own accord. A repair job was done, but it still has a stoop... 

 

... and I eat a delicate French chocolate sent by the DSIL (that's dear sister-in-law) Kate ...

 

Here the boys are the next morning

   

And here I am with my mother as we have our late afternoon dinner

 

Then we were off to my brother Phil and Ann's house, to meet up with their crowd - here's Tim with their youngest, Mark

 

and Gregory with Brigid

 

more Greg

 

The oldest in the family is Luke, and here he is with his Transformer gift from Croton Farandas

 

And checking out Joe

 

And here's Catherine. My mother has eight grandchildren and Catherine is the only granddaughter. So she's one of a kind and gets the following fashion spread!

   

 

 

A candid camera type setup - "How to Freak Out a Taxi Driver"

Pretty funny -

Obama's fitness and workout regime

Barack Obama goes to the gym almost every day. The oddity is that he's also a smoker, and in my experience it's unusual to be a smoker and a gym rat.

An interesting article, although no details of his workout program. Evdently he's planning on installing a full basketball court at the White House.

As Duties Weigh Obama Down, His Faith in Fitness Only Increases - washingtonpost.com

"That's one of the first things you learn working for him: You better make sure he gets his workout," said Jim Cauley, who managed Obama's 2004 U.S. Senate campaign. "If there isn't any time, he's not going to feel his best that day. If he only gets 30 or 40 minutes, he's still not really happy.

"You have to make time for him to exercise, at least an hour or so. You block it out and put it on the schedule, because that's what makes him happy."

Since the election, Obama's daily schedule has revealed an intense focus. Until he went to Hawaii for the holidays, his routine in Chicago was unchanging: breakfast at home with his family before heading to his downtown transition office, where he puts in as many as 10 hours a day. At night, dinner at his Hyde Park home, and more talking to advisers and reading preparatory documents. On some days, he spent as little as five or 10 minutes outdoors.

But every morning around 7:30 he traveled by motorcade to the gym at Regents Park, a luxury apartment complex where his friend Michael Signator owns a condominium on the 18th floor, and where he usually worked out with Reggie Love, a personal aide and a former Duke University basketball player, or with Marvin Nicholson, his travel coordinator.

The members-only gym features a sauna, a whirlpool and a row of machines pressed against a bay of windows overlooking Lake Michigan. Obama, 47, devotes half of his workout to weight lifting and the other half to a cardiovascular rotation that includes a stationary bicycle, elliptical machine and treadmill. Between his warm-up and cool down, he sometimes moves through a dozen different exercises in an hour.

>>>>>>

For the small group of reporters tasked with following Obama's every move, his fitness has become a running joke repeated in the stories they file. They sit at McDonald's while he exercises in Hawaii. They eat calorie-rich scones while he sweats at Regents Park. One reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, filing his report about one of the president-elect's gym trips last month, noted: "While Mr. Obama worked at maintaining his lithe look, your pear-shaped pooler spent quality time at a local coffee shop."

Does it make sense to work out if you have a cold?

A good question. I've had some respiratory infection for about ten days now - in fact I think I've actually had to separate ones, one after the other.

Anyway, here's a feature in the always interesting NY times Fitness and Nutrition section. Hit the link - the whole article is worth reading, beyond the excerpts below.

Personal Best - Have a Cold? There’s No Reason to Skip a Workout, Studies Show - NYTimes.com

At the start of the study, the investigators tested all of the subjects, assessing their lung functions and exercise capacity. Then a cold virus was dropped into the noses of 45 of the subjects, and all caught head colds. Two days later, when their cold symptoms were at their worst, the subjects exercised by running on treadmills at moderate and intense levels. The researchers reported that having a cold had no effect on either lung function or exercise capacity.

“I was surprised their lung function wasn’t impaired,” Dr. Kaminsky said. “I was surprised their overall exercise performance wasn’t impaired, even though they were reporting feeling fatigued.”

He said he also tested the subjects at different points in the exercise sessions, from moderate to intense effort, and found that their colds had no effect on their metabolic responses.

Another question was: Does exercising when you have a cold affect your symptoms and recovery time?

Once again, Dr, Kaminsky and his colleagues infected volunteers with a rhinovirus. This time, the subjects were 34 young men and women who were randomly assigned to a group that would exercise with their colds and 16 others who were assigned to rest.

The group that exercised ran on treadmills for 40 minutes every other day at moderate levels of 70 percent of their maximum heart rates.

Every 12 hours, all the subjects in the study completed questionnaires about their symptoms and physical activity. The researchers collected the subjects’ used facial tissues, weighing them to assess their cold symptoms.

The investigators found no difference in symptoms between the group that exercised and the one that rested. And there was no difference in the time it took to recover from the colds. But when the exercisers assessed their symptoms, Dr. Kaminsky said, “people said they felt O.K. and, in some cases, they actually felt better.”

Happy Christmas - Nollaig Shona Duit

This picture, courtesy of the Irish prolife email newsletter, Lifezine.

Thank the Goddess for National Public Radio (NPR) publicizing "HumanLight: December's Secular Holiday"

You can celebrate "anytime on or around December 23rd

It's all here. Only a few paragraphs long -

HumanLight: December's Secular Holiday : NPR

While others are lighting Hanukkah candles or decorating Christmas trees, atheists and humanists are holding their own December celebrations.

>>>>>>

Because humanists don't have a bible or religious doctrine, there's no right or wrong way to celebrate HumanLight. Gary Brill, who co-founded the holiday, says the parties are usually family occasions. However, some humanists ignore the holiday, saying it feels too much like religion.

Pastor Rick Warren defends his position on marriage

Warren is giving the invocation at Obama's inauguration, and he and Obama are taking a lot of stick for Warren's purported "hating" of gays, because he opposes gay marriage. Obama's good choice of Pastor Rick Warren to give the Inaugural invocation has stirred things up

So here is Warren, defending his position. It's pretty standard Christian stuff, "hate the sin but love the sinner" - although he doesn't use that expression. Warren is perhaps the most popular evangelical minister in the U.S. today - his book The Purpose Driven Life has sold over 20 million copies.

Six and a half minutes long.

UPDATE: For an example of the kind of vitriol that's been poured out on Warren, here's an op ed in the LA Times by whacko leftist Katha Pollitt.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-pollitt22-2008dec22,0,6935483.story

The Nativity, revised

A light look; takes less than four minutes but has something to say

:: RETOONING THE NATIVITY :: Igniter Media Group ::

What Child is this?

Sloppy sentimentality, I know. I got it here -

Conversion Diary: What child is this? - The diary of a former atheist

Caroline Kennedy Entitlement Syndrome

She must feel she's entitled to the NY Senate seat. Maybe she is:  Caroline Kennedy's qualifications to be the Senator from NY include - although it would be nice if she voted in the past  Another qualification for Caroline Kennedy to be Senator

But even the NY Times seems uncomfortable with her attitude. note the last sentence of the excerpt - 

Kennedy Declines to Make Financial Disclosure - NYTimes.com

If she were running for election to the Senate, Ms. Kennedy would have to file a 10-part, publicly available report disclosing her financial assets, credit card debts, mortgages, book deals and the sources of any payments greater than $5,000 in the last three years.

But Ms. Kennedy, who has asked Gov. David A. Paterson to appoint her to succeed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton — and who helped oversee the vetting process for Mr. Obama’s possible running mates — is declining to provide a variety of basic data, including companies she has a stake in and whether she has ever been charged with a crime.

Ms. Kennedy declined on Monday to reply to those and other questions posed by The New York Times about any potential ethical, legal and financial entanglements. Through a spokesman, she said she would not disclose that kind of information unless and until she becomes a senator.

Anyway, here's the Royal Portrait:

Michelle Malkin » Photoshop of the morning: Queen Caroline

NY Times op ed columnist Nick Kristoff on charitable giving

Nicolas Kristoff is an uber-liberal columnist for the NY Times, but unlike most uber-liberals, he doesn't just talk the talk, he walks the walk. He's spoken out and travelled to Darfur, worked to end child slavery, and child prostitution, and campaigned on other human rights issues, especially in Africa.

And he's an honest guy. So honest that this past Sunday he wrote a column castigating self-identifying Liberals for their poor support of charities.

Op-Ed Columnist - Bleeding Heart Tightwads - NYTimes.com

The problem is this: We liberals are personally stingy.

Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates.

Arthur Brooks, the author of a book on donors to charity, “Who Really Cares,” cites data that households headed by conservatives give 30 percent more to charity than households headed by liberals. A study by Google found an even greater disproportion: average annual contributions reported by conservatives were almost double those of liberals.

Other research has reached similar conclusions. The “generosity index” from the Catalogue for Philanthropy typically finds that red states are the most likely to give to nonprofits, while Northeastern states are least likely to do so.

I am familiar with Brooks' work - he's written several columns in a variety of publications - here's a posting I did on one of them Are Americans stingy or generous? - as well as the Massachusetts-based Generosity Index. The Index was established a few years ago to study why people in Massachusetts are so stingy - typically one of the very bottom states in terms of per capita charitable giving. The Generosity Index gets their data from public information at the IRS on charitable giving. The last time I looked, Mississippi was ranked #1 on per capita charitable giving and New Hampshire was #50. Massachusetts was #49. New York was dead, smack in the middle, at #25. Remember, this is per capita giving, based on percentage of income given to charity.

Americans give sums to charity equivalent to 1.67 percent of G.N.P., according to a terrific new book, “Philanthrocapitalism,” by Matthew Bishop and Michael Green. The British are second, with 0.73 percent, while the stingiest people on the list are the French, at 0.14 percent.

(Looking away from politics, there’s evidence that one of the most generous groups in America is gays. Researchers believe that is because they are less likely to have rapacious heirs pushing to keep wealth in the family.)

>>>>>>

It’s true that religion is the essential reason conservatives give more, and religious liberals are as generous as religious conservatives. Among the stingiest of the stingy are secular conservatives.

According to Google’s figures, if donations to all religious organizations are excluded, liberals give slightly more to charity than conservatives do. But Mr. Brooks says that if measuring by the percentage of income given, conservatives are more generous than liberals even to secular causes.

In any case, if conservative donations often end up building extravagant churches, liberal donations frequently sustain art museums, symphonies, schools and universities that cater to the well-off. (It’s great to support the arts and education, but they’re not the same as charity for the needy. And some research suggests that donations to education actually increase inequality because they go mostly to elite institutions attended by the wealthy.)

Conservatives also appear to be more generous than liberals in nonfinancial ways. People in red states are considerably more likely to volunteer for good causes, and conservatives give blood more often. If liberals and moderates gave blood as often as conservatives, Mr. Brooks said, the American blood supply would increase by 45 percent.

So, does Liberalism = "Do as I say, not as I do?"

Well it's certainly true in the case of our Vice-president elect, Joe Biden. Remember "Patriotic duty" to pay high taxes? But not with his money - over the past ten years his total family income was over $2.5 million and his charitbale donations totalled $3690. VP nominee Joe Biden releases ten years of tax returns, showing he gives virtually nothing to charity.

How does he look himself in the mirror?

a quick Italian lesson!

My friend Dennis sent me this -

Here's the deal (it only takes a minute) -

Hit the link below, and then on the first line, type in your first name, and on the second line, our last name.

Skip the email address, and then click on VISUALIZER

Bar da Boa

Giants won last night in OT; get home field thru the playoffs. "Winning cures everything."

Great game. The running game rumbled.

Giants run past Panthers in overtime, clinch NFC's top seed

The humanist quest for communion

Here's an interesting feature on Sunday's Washington Post on self-avowed humanists and their attempt to inculcate communion/community/values in themselves and their children.

Obviously I'm not a secular humanist, but offer this article without editorial comment. I expect WaPo published it because we're in the Christmas season. They also make the opint that the number of people who hold these opinons has doubled in the past few years from  8 to about 16% of the population.

Excerpts below, but of course hit the link for the whole article.

Humanist Parents Seek Communion Outside Church - washingtonpost.com

"It's exciting to know that we could be meeting people who we might perhaps raise children with," said Tony Proctor, 39, who owns a wealth management company and attended the seminar at Harvard University with his wife, Andrea, 35, a stay-at-home mother.

Humanism is both a formal movement and an informal identification of people who promote values of reason, compassion and human dignity. Although most humanists are atheists, atheism is defined by what is absent -- belief in God -- and humanists emphasize a positive philosophy of ethical living for the human good.

The seminar's organizers wanted to reach out to people like the Proctors -- first-time parents scrambling for guidance as they improvise how to raise their daughter without the religion of their childhood.

"I'm often told that when people have kids, they go back to religion," said John Figdor, a humanist master's of divinity student who helped organize the seminar. "Are we really not tending our own people?"

Across the country, religious observance hits a low for people in their mid-20s and steadily increases after that, "in conjunction with marriage and children," said Tom Smith, of the General Social Survey at the University of Chicago, which has polled people about religious affiliation and practice for decades.

Religious congregations are good at supporting parenting, said Gregory Epstein, the humanist chaplain at Harvard who organized the seminar. Although most humanists may not believe in God, he said, they do believe in sharing their lives with others who share their values.

"Why throw the baby out with the bath water?" Epstein asked.

Most Americans are religious and believe in God, but a growing number of people have no religious affiliation. In 1990, 8 percent of respondents in the General Social Survey said they identified with no religion. In 2006, the last year for which statistics are available, the figure had doubled to 16 percent.

Will the financial meltdown change the way top executives get paid?

That's not exactly the title of this article from Sunday's Washington Post, but that's sort of the gist of it.

I have friends (very well-meaning) who believe that pretty much everything should be run on a non-profit basis. I suppose extrapolating from that, they also think that our benevolent government leaders (as long as they're Democrats) should be making all the decisions. This came up in a discussion last Thursday, as a very well-meaning lady friend suggested that the healthcare system (all of it) should be run on a non-profit basis.

Well, healthcare is important. But food is even more important, so based on that logic the whole agricultural system should also be run on a non-profit basis. Etc, etc. ...

But I digress. Here's the WaPo article. It prints out at four pages long.

Executive Pay: Will inflated pay packages get slashed? - washingtonpost.com

If you're angry that so many executives got paid so much for screwing up so spectacularly, you might take solace in the fact that shares they still hold have lost value, too. But if you think executive pay is finally succumbing to the force of gravity -- if you'd like to believe that an epic destruction of investor wealth will fundamentally and permanently change the way chief executives are paid, or that you, dear shareholder, have the power to join forces with others just like you and create a more rational order -- don't bet on it. The nation's financial crisis could change the rules of executive pay, but if history is any guide, you'll have a lot more to complain about in the years ahead.

Through nearly two decades of tinkering, each new twist in executive pay has proved flawed. Incentives meant to reward good management have done just the opposite, and efforts to reform the system have in some respects made matters worse. From the bursting of the dot-com bubble to the collapse of companies like Enron and WorldCom, from the rampant backdating of stock options to the current meltdown of the global financial system, the so-called pay-for-performance movement has led to colossal windfalls, reckless risk-taking and fraud.

At a time when the government is using taxpayer funds to rescue financial titans -- when ordinary Americans are watching their retirement savings evaporate -- announcing that top executives will forgo bonuses has obvious public-relations benefits. But unless a bonus was warranted, it's a hollow gesture. And it does nothing to alter certain underlying realities.

For the most part, executive pay is set by executives. Executives dominate corporate boards, and corporate boards are self-perpetuating. As a practical matter, shareholders have little say in the selection of directors, and once directors are in the compensation boat, they have little incentive to rock it.

If you're a director and you go along with generous chief executive pay, "you get to sit on more boards," said Fabrizio Ferri, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who studies executive compensation.

According to one school of thought, the scale of executive pay, if not the particular form, is unlikely to change substantially unless the balance of boardroom power changes.

There are several ways the crisis could shake things up.

First, short of a revolution in the way corporations are governed, there are efforts afoot to make it harder for executives to profit from mismanagement while investors are left holding the bag.

Some shareholder activists are calling on boards to hold incentive pay hostage to a company's long-term fortunes, and investor anger could put pressure on directors to comply. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees plans to ask shareholders to vote next year on resolutions urging boards to take two steps: stretch out the payment of annual bonuses over multiple years and hold on to a significant portion of equity awards until the executive has been gone from the company for two years.

A flight Brigid missed by one week - The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 - twenty years ago today

Read a bit about it below. I am only posting it, because Brigid had flown back to NY from visiting her family on this flight, one week earlier.

Michelle Malkin » 20 years: The bombing of Pan Am Flight 103

If you are a "Good Samaritan" at an accident in California, you can now be sued

The "Good Samaritan" laws are designed to protect people who act to help or save someone who's been injured in an accident, from potential liability.

Now the California Supreme Court says, well you can be sued if you are givving nonmedical aid! Like pulling a victim from a car, when you are afraid the car might explode.

California! Ughh...

California Supreme Court allows good Samaritans to be sued for nonmedical care - Los Angeles Times

The California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a young woman who pulled a co-worker from a crashed vehicle isn't immune from civil liability because the care she rendered wasn't medical.

The divided high court appeared to signal that rescue efforts are the responsibility of trained professionals. It was also thought to be the first ruling by the court that someone who intervened in an accident in good faith could be sued.

Lisa Torti of Northridge allegedly worsened the injuries suffered by Alexandra Van Horn by yanking her "like a rag doll" from the wrecked car on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

Torti now faces possible liability for injuries suffered by Van Horn, a fellow department store cosmetician who was rendered a paraplegic in the accident that ended a night of Halloween revelry in 2004.

But in a sharp dissent, three of the seven justices said that by making a distinction between medical care and emergency response, the court was placing "an arbitrary and unreasonable limitation" on protections for those trying to help.

In 1980, the Legislature enacted the Health and Safety Code, which provides that "no person who in good faith, and not for compensation, renders emergency care at the scene of an emergency shall be liable for any civil damages resulting from any act or omission."

Although that passage does not use the word "medical" in describing the protected emergency care, it was included in the section of the code that deals with emergency medical services. By placing it there, lawmakers intended to shield "only those persons who in good faith render emergency medical care at the scene of a medical emergency," Justice Carlos R. Moreno wrote for the majority.

The high court cited no previous cases involving good Samaritan actions deemed unprotected by the state code, suggesting the challenge of Torti's rescue effort was the first to narrow the scope of the law.

The three dissenting justices argued, however, that the aim of the legislation was clearly "to encourage persons not to pass by those in need of emergency help, but to show compassion and render the necessary aid."

Justice Marvin R. Baxter said the ruling was "illogical" because it recognizes legal immunity for nonprofessionals administering medical care while denying it for potentially life-saving actions like saving a person from drowning or carrying an injured hiker to safety.

"One who dives into swirling waters to retrieve a drowning swimmer can be sued for incidental injury he or she causes while bringing the victim to shore, but is immune for harm he or she produces while thereafter trying to revive the victim," Baxter wrote for the dissenters. "Here, the result is that defendant Torti has no immunity for her bravery in pulling her injured friend from a crashed vehicle, even if she reasonably believed it might be about to explode."

Madoff fraud closes a major philanthropy

The Pikower Foundation. A major blow to several non-profits, including medical research.

Major foundation falls to Madoff fraud - The Boston Globe

In its 2007 tax return, it said the market value of its investment portfolio was $955 million. The Foundation Center, a nonprofit that tracks philanthropy, ranks the Picower philanthropy as the 71st largest in the United States by assets. It finances medical research at many leading institutions, human rights and child advocacy programs, and arts and cultural operations.

Reading feature article in the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, etc, about the extent of the fraud, the number of institutions and individuals, damaged - it reads like a novel. Except no one could make this stuff up.

The world's first, truly international, multi-billion dollar fraud.

The Rabbi's Advice

This is an old story, but still funny. Sent to me by my humor consultant Ellen.

Abe goes to see his Rabbi. 
"Rabbi, something terrible is happening and I have to talk to you about it." 
The Rabbi asked, "What's wrong, Abe?" 
Abe replied, "My wife is poisoning me." 
The Rabbi was very surprised by this and asks, "How can that be?" 
Abe then pleads, "I'm telling you, I'm certain she's poisoning me, what should I do?" 
The Rabbi then offers, "Tell you what. Let me talk to her, I'll see what I can find out and I'll let you know." 

A week later the Rabbi calls Abe and says, "Well, I spoke to your wife. I spoke to her on the phone for over an hour. And then we had a meeting and conversation in my office for three hours. You want my advice?" 

Abe anxiously says, "Yes." 
"Take the poison," says the Rabbi.

Blagojevich: Not going gently into that good night

“I intend to stay on the job and I will fight this thing every step of the way,” he said in an appearance at the James R. Thompson Center in downtown Chicago. “I will fight, I will fight, I will fight, till I take my very last breath. I have done nothing wrong.”

Uhhh, i guess he's not going to resign?

Blagojevich Denies Any Criminal Wrongdoing - NYTimes.com

Yankees welcome two new pitchers

They'll each pitch about once evry six days. Nice work if you can get it.

The Yankees Welcome $243.5 Million of Pitching - NYTimes.com

After missing the playoffs for the first time since 1993, the Yankees are giving themselves no excuses for their debut season at the new Yankee Stadium. They introduced C. C. Sabathia and A. J. Burnett to the news media and made clear the expectations that come with a combined $243.5 million in salary.

“You’re looking at a very strong rotation,” Manager Joe Girardi said, “and that’s what you have to have to compete in late October.”

>>>>>>

Sabathia threw the most pitches in the majors last season, and Burnett threw the most in the American League. They combined for 35 victories, and neither is yet 32 years old. The Yankees rewarded Sabathia with a seven-year, $161 million deal — a record for a pitcher. Burnett received $82.5 million for five years.

“I’m not going to say money wasn’t an issue,” Burnett said. “I’m not going to lie; of course money had something to do with it. But I have a chance to win five years in a row. Whether you admit you love them or hate them, everybody wants to be a Yankee.”

Another qualification for Caroline Kennedy to be Senator

This is a riot. She frequently doesn't bother to vote.

Records show Caroline Kennedy failed to cast her vote many times since 1988

Newcomer to Farandaville

I've been very busy the last two weeks with end of the year business stuff, and haven't had time to post the interesting stuff going on, like Tim's end of football season awards dinner (but I will!), or Brigid's birthday. 

Well, here's what Brigid decided (a little to my dismay) to get for her birthday, which was on December 12th, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Yup. Another Chinchilla. She started hinting about it - actually more than hinting - five days before her birthday. Then, a very large box showed up in the back seat of the Edge (cage!? #%&*) and I knew that was that.

Why we need another Chinchilla to go with our current Chinchilla, Gloria, or our Guinea Pig Trinity, I will never understand.

So the new Chinchilla has moved in. She is as yet un-named, although Tim is heavily lobbying for "Snowball". Huh? She's light brownish! Brigid suggested "Barley" for a name, but Tim, who seems to think it's his Chinchilla, since joe dotes over Gloria, is emphatic about "Snowball" . For basis of comparison, here's Gloria who is full-grown and over two years old, while the newbie is about ten weeks old.

It's hard to tell from the photos, but Gloria is much bigger. We are going to weigh them both, if I ever remember to bring home the postal scale from my office. And I will do some side by side comparison photos of all three of the rodents.

They each have their own cage, no sharing.

The Pope on political systems: "there is not just one political model..."

This is from Zenit, the Catholic news service:

Pope Says There's No Ideal Political Model

Invites 11 Envoys to Cultivate National "Genius"

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 18, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says there is no ideal political model, and that each country needs to cultivate its own national spirit.

The Pope affirmed this today when he addressed 11 new envoys to the Holy See, representing Malawi, Sweden, Sierra Leone, Iceland, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Belize, Tunisia, Kazakhstan, Bahrain and the Fiji Islands.

In his French-language address, the Holy Father said, "The diversity of where you come from brings me to give thanks to God for his creative love and the multiplicity of his gifts, which never cease to surprise humanity."

"Sometimes diversity makes people afraid," he acknowledged. "That's why we shouldn't be surprised if the human being prefers monotony and uniformity."

Certain political-economic systems, the Pontiff continued "attributing to themselves or claiming pagan or religious origins, have afflicted humanity for too long, trying to make it uniform with demagogy and violence."

"They have reduced and reduce the human being to an unworthy slavery at the service of one ideology or an inhumane and pseudo-scientific economy," he said. "All of us know that there is not just one political model, an ideal that has to be absolutely fulfilled, and that political philosophy develops in time and in its expressions, according as it is polished by human intelligence and the lessons taken from political and economic experience."

The Pope contended that "every people has its genius and also its own 'demons.'"

He expressed his hope that "each people cultivates its genius, enriching itself as much as possible for the good of others, and that it purifies itself of its 'demons,' controlling them to the point of transforming them into positive values and creators of harmony, prosperity and peace to defend the greatness of human dignity."

Obama's good choice of Pastor Rick Warren to give the Inaugural invocation has stirred things up

Rick Warren is a very successful Evangelical minister, the pastor of Saddlebrook Church in Lake Forest, California. It's the fourth largest mega-church in the U.S. Rick Warren - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

He is also the author of the phenomenally successful book, The Purpose Driven Life, The Purpose Driven Life - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia which has sold about 20 million copies and been translated into a bunch of languages.

This past August he and his Church hosted the Civil Forum on the Presidency, with both Barack Obama and John McCain attending and answering questions (separately) asked by Warren. I watched large sections of the Forum, and thought Warren did a better job than any of the moderators at the Presidential debates, drawing out more sustantive answers from McCain and Obama, then any of them did.

So now, Obama has invited Warren to give the Invocation at the Inauguration on January 20th. I think he's an excellent choice and it will be interesting to hear his invocation. But lots of people are unhappy. In the gym this evening I watched Kerry Kennedy, a cousin of Caroline Kennedy, on MSNBC. She said Warren was a bad chioce becauase of his "hatred" of gays. Warren opposes gay marriage, which I guess makes him a hate-monger in the view of some people. He's also pro-life, which will outrage the pro-abortion people, who are a core Obama constituency.

Here's a Washington Post article, if you want to read more.

Obama Defends Invocation by Conservative Pastor | 44 | washingtonpost.com

"During the course of the entire inaugural festivities, there are going to be a wide range of viewpoints that are presented," Obama said. "And that's how it should be, because that's what America is about. Part of the magic of this country is that we are diverse and noisy and opinionated."

Obama has appeared twice at Warren's Saddleback Church in California. The first was a conference in November 2006, when he joined conservative Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) to discuss HIV/AIDS. After antiabortion groups pushed for Obama to be disinvited because he believes in abortion rights, Warren said the church's goal was "to put people together who normally won't even speak to each other."

The president-elect sounded a similar theme today, pointing out that Warren invited him to speak at Saddleback "despite his awareness that I held views that were entirely contrary to his when it came to gay and lesbian rights, when it came to issues like abortion."

Obama added: "That dialogue, I think, is part of what my campaign's been all about: That we're not going to agree on every single issue, but what we have to do is be able to create an atmosphere where we can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans."

Three U.S. Catholic priests recently excommunicated

Fr. Roy Bourgeois, a Maryknoll priest known for his opposition to the School of the Americas (he founded School of the Americas Watch in 1990 School of the Americas Watch ) took part in a Women's Ordination ceremony a few months ago. He was asked by the Vatican to disavow what he had done, and when he didn't he was given an additional 30 days to recant his position. Evidently he was excommunicated after the thirty days elapsed.National Catholic Register  and here Catholic Culture : News Briefs : American Maryknoll priest excommunicated for involvement in women's 'ordination' .

I met Fr. Bourgeois at a small gathering about a dozen years ago and thanked him for his work. So his actions are quite unfortunate. Some people, when they take a "radical' stance, it becomes all about them. And this might be the case with Fr. Bourgeois. Perhaps he's bigger than the Church (in his own mind).

The other excommunications involve two priests in the Diocese of Phoenix, who started their own "Praise and Worship Center". At least one of them was on leave from the Diocese because of 10 indictments on sexual misdemeanor charges over the last decade, while he led the Life Teen program.  Another priestly betrayal.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix

December 15, 2008-The Most Rev. Thomas J. Olmsted, Bishop of Phoenix, has issued a Decree of Excommunication to Reverend Monsignor Dale Fushek and Reverend Mark Dippre.

Fushek and Dippre have incurred the censure of excommunication because they have chosen to be in schism with the Catholic Church by establishing and leading an opposing ecclesial community known to the public as the Praise and Worship Center.  Both priests have consistently refused to comply with explicit directions by Bishop Olmsted to discontinue engaging in public ministry. The excommunications were incurred after repeated offers of reconciliation were ignored.  The decree of excommunication by Bishop Olmsted declares the censure that Fushek and Dippre, as ordained priests, have brought upon themselves.  The purpose of these sanctions is to reconcile both men with the Catholic Church and to preserve the integrity and unity of the Diocese.

As excommunicated priests, Fushek and Dippre cannot participate in the celebration of the sacrifice of the Holy Eucharist or in any other ceremonies of worship.  They are also prohibited from celebrating or receiving any of the sacraments.  In addition, they forfeit the benefits of dignity, office, or any function that they had previously acquired in the Catholic Church.

Two priests excommunicated for involvement in Praise and Worship Center

For one to be excommunicated, a baptized Catholic must knowingly place oneself outside of full communion with the Church, according to canon law. In the cases of Fushek and Dippre, diocesan officials claim that their excommunication was incurred as a result of their involvement in the Praise and Worship Center, in direct defiance of Bishop Olmsted’s requests to discontinue engaging in public ministry. The priests’ ongoing leadership roles within the Mesa-based organization constitutes the support of an opposing worship venue, putting them at odds with the bishop and the pope — also known as schism.

In effect, the excommunication became “automatic” once the two priests engaged in actions against the Church. The bishop’s notice to them, the “Decree of Excommunication,” was the formal declaration of what had already happened by virtue of their schism.

While this particular type of excommunication is in fact a sanction, it is one that is “medicinal” in its purpose. The intention is to make the offenders aware of the danger that their behavior and their actions pose to themselves and the Catholic faithful who may be confused and scandalized by such activity, according to Fr. Chris Fraser, judicial vicar for the Diocese of Phoenix.

“There is special concern when a cleric separates himself from the communion of the Church, either by his teaching or actions,” said Fr. Fraser.

By declaring the excommunication, the bishop hopes to motivate these two priests to come back to the Church and seek reconciliation with the Catholic faithful, according to Fr. Fraser, an expert in Church law. The primary purpose of excommunication is to repair the scandal caused by the teachings and actions of the cleric, to restore justice in the Church and to reform the offender.

Ray Kerrison on Obama and his abortion extremism

Kerrison has more faith in the Bishops than I do.

OBAMA'S HOLY HELL - New York Post

IF President-elect Barack Obama goes through with his campaign pledge to sign into law the Freedom of Choice Act, holy hell is going to break loose.

FOCA may be the most radical social legislation in decades. It seeks to strip every last restraint from abortion - outlawing states' requirements for waiting periods, informed consent or parental consent; preventing health and safety regulation of abortion clinics and abortionists - and even ending restrictions on partial-birth abortion.

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The Catholic Church, for one, won't stand for it. The ranking American prelate to the Holy See, James Cardinal Stafford, denounced Obama's vision as "aggressive, disruptive and apocalyptic."

FOCA means war.

The US bishops have always been united in their moral condemnation of abortion. But they have stopped short of flexing political muscle, evading a head-on confrontation. That may now change.

Obama's commitment to FOCA dominated their discussionsat their annual convention in Baltimore last month. Their president, Francis Cardinal George, warned that FOCA would destroy the freedom of conscience of doctors, nurses and health-care workers. "It would threaten Catholic healthcare institutions and Catholic Charities. It would be an evil law that would divide our country and the church should be intent on opposing evil."

Chicago's Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Paprocki went further. He said flatly that if the Obama administration attempted to force Catholic hospitals to provide abortions, they'd shut them down rather than comply.

"There are grave consequences," he said. "It would not be sufficient to sell them to someone who would perform abortions. That would be a morally unacceptable cooperation in evil."

Obama, the Prince of Peace, gets testy with reporters

Lighten up, Big O!

"I don't want you to waste your question."? Will be an interesting four years.

The SEC and Bernie Madoff

See here The Bernie Madoff fraud where I point out that it's not just the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that failed; but there's no doubt they were shockingly dismal.

The Washington Post has a good analysis -

SEC Ignored Credible Tips About Madoff, Chief Says - washingtonpost.com

The nation's chief securities regulator said yesterday it was "deeply troubling" that his agency had failed to catch perhaps the largest Ponzi scheme in history despite "credible and specific allegations . . . repeatedly brought to the attention of SEC staff" regarding the activities of Bernard L. Madoff.

In making this unusually frank statement, Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox announced he had ordered an internal investigation.

His remarks followed a day of growing demands for the agency to explain how it missed Madoff's alleged $50 billion fraud, including the apparent failure of regulators to spot numerous and massive inconsistencies during an investigation of his company that ended quietly in 2007.

Cox offered the beginnings of answers. He said the agency inappropriately discounted allegations, that staff did not relay concerns to the agency's leadership and that examiners relied on documents volunteered by Madoff rather than seeking subpoenas to obtain critical information. And Cox said the agency's inspector general would investigate whether personal relationships between Madoff's family and SEC staff played a role in the failed oversight.

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The SEC said yesterday that it conducted routine examinations of the company in 1999 and 2004, as well as a previously disclosed examination in 2005 and an investigation that ended in 2007. The 2005 examination found minor problems; the others closed without incident.

Cox said last night that Madoff kept multiple sets of books and falsified documents, allowing him to mislead investors and regulators.

Cox and other commissioners have been angered that they learned information about the case from the news media instead of from agency staff, according to people familiar with the matter. For example, when senior staff members told the commissioners about the relationship between Swanson and Madoff's niece, they said Swanson had not been involved in the 2005 examination. They did not, however, tell the commissioners that Swanson had been involved in previous looks at Madoff, these people said.

A Boston investment professional, Harry Markopolos, started writing letters to regulators in 1999 alleging that Madoff was conducting a Ponzi scheme. Markopolos continued to send letters, including most recently in April. Markopolos said that his charges were detailed and specific, and he said he was still angry that the SEC ignored him.

"They have a lot to answer for," Markopolos said. "They refuse to enforce rules against this industry."

The extent of the alleged fraud has also raised questions about the possible involvement of other people. Cox's statement yesterday mentioned "others who may be involved."

Simply generating monthly account statements for all of his clients would have required an extensive effort on Madoff's part, said Laurie S. Holtz, a forensic accountant who has investigated similar schemes.

"That isn't going to be done by Mr. Madoff sitting at home with a PC," Holtz said. "There's got to be a whole retinue of support to make this happen."

The Bernie Madoff fraud

Holman Jenkins has a column this morning in the Wall Street Journal. He suggests something I have mentioned to several people in the last couple of days - Bernie Madoff's operation probably started as a legitimate firm but then "devolved into a Ponzi scheme only when serious losses hit and he decided not to level with investors but to gamble on a resurrection. The hoped-for rebound, as they frequently do, failed to materialize. His losses grew. ..."

It really is amazing Madof was able to keep the subterfuge going as long as he did. There's plenty of blame to go around, and it's not the SEC only that's at fault.

I've excerpted below, the link, but the op ed is not too long and well worth reading. If you have aol or internet explorer, you may have to click on the link several times (six for me this morning!) before the article opens up.

Holman W. Jenkins Jr.: Put Madoff In Charge of Social Security - WSJ.com

Where was the SEC? Such is the plaint lofted in the wake of the Bernie Madoff scandal.

Huh?

When has the Securities and Exchange Commission ever found a fraud except by reading about it in the newspapers? Anyway, who said the agency was supposed to prevent investors from losing money or relieve them of having to perform due diligence?

Mr. Madoff's many honorable and accomplished clients chose to deal with their man outside the institutional checks that come from, say, a heavily regulated bank or a highly transparent mutual fund, perhaps one whose parent is also publicly traded and doubly subject to the checks of a watchful stock market. That was their choice.

It is common to wax nostalgic for a time when a man's word was his bond, business was done on a handshake, etc. This is poppycock. It has always been a client's job to sort out the dealer who could be trusted from the one who couldn't.

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He may have been casual from the start about what money he used to pay withdrawals. It is almost inconceivable, though, that he could have built a true Ponzi scheme to a height of $50 billion, in which there were never any real assets, just his superhuman 40-year juggling act to ensure new investors were recruited as needed to provide funds to meet withdrawal requests from earlier investors.

If so, he is a genius who should immediately be put in charge of the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.

NY State taxes - up, up, and away

Whew. A huge number of new user and sales taxes, and a rise in old ones. but no rise in the state income tax. So most of these taxes would be considered "regressive" - the hit everyone to the same extent - as opposed to "progressive", with more of the burden on higher earners.

However, no cut in over all state spending. The budget rises by 1%

 Gov. David Paterson unveils dire New York State budget that includes new taxes, layoffs and cuts

Gov. Paterson released a $121 billion slash-and-burn budget Tuesday morning that slams New Yorkers with 88 new fees and taxes - even on their iPods.

Calling the budget the "greatest economic and fiscal challenge of our lifetimes," Paterson acknowledged his spending plan cuts deep.

But he said the pain must be shared to deal with the fallout from the Wall Street collapse.

The budget will cost the city an estimated $650 million in aid.

A mountain climber still going strong at 85

A bit of an eccentric, but I'm impressed. He's still going strong.

Here's his picture, off wikipedia

  

Pushing the Limit - For Climbing Legend at 85, More Peaks to Conquer and Adventures to Seek - NYTimes.com

“He’s been everywhere, he’s done amazing things everywhere,” said Dave Burdick, known as Alpine Dave, a 28-year-old climber from Seattle. “And it’s just this drive he has.”

But in the fullness of time, Beckey’s legacy emerged as something grander than a list of records. That drive, born of a wanderlust once characterized as recklessness, fermented into a sort of sublime seeking. It appeared most vividly in his guidebook prose, a stirring amalgam of technical analysis, historical insight, geographical research and a sense of wonderment.

“If Thoreau and Emerson describe the transcendental American theme, then Beckey — after Ahab, akin to Kerouac — describes the oddly manic drive to scale and map and detail the wilderness in a modern way,” said Steve Costie, executive director of the Mountaineers, which eventually accepted Beckey as a member. “Almost adversarial; never transcendental.”

And here's a link to his wikipedia entry

Fred Beckey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia