Tom Faranda's Folly

Vatican Hospital publishes the "Rights of the Incurable Child"

Good news that they are aiming to have an influence worldwide.

WSJ: "Bring Home Our Hostages"

This is from Tuesday's Journal - the columnist Bill McGurn.

"The world is safer when foreign powers know not to mess with Americans abroad."

When Joshua Holt touched down on U.S. soil this past weekend, it was a good day for America. Mr. Holt had been rotting away in a Caracas prison since 2016 on trumped-up weapons charges. He had been imprisoned after traveling to Venezuela to marry a woman who is now his wife and who had also been jailed.

The good news is that the Holts are free. The better news is their story isn’t the only one with a happy ending, something President Trump alluded to while welcoming the couple to the Oval Office Saturday night.

“So we’ve had 17 prisoners released during the Trump administration,” the president said. “Most people don’t know that. You remember Aya [Hijazi, an Egyptian-American aid worker]. We called the president of Egypt, and he released her. She was there for a long time—three years. And the previous administration was unable to get her out. A fantastic young woman. And she was released.

“As you know, in North Korea, we just had a very great success. We have three wonderful people—Americans—that were released just recently. And they’re now home, safe with their families.

“And you,” he continued, addressing Mr. Holt, “were a tough one, I have to tell you. That was a tough situation. But we’ve had 17 released, and we’re very proud of that record. Very proud. And we have others coming.”

The most comforting news of all? The Holts’ release was accompanied by an official White House announcement confirming that U.S. policy toward Venezuela hasn’t been relaxed. To the contrary, the statement from the office of the press secretary calls on Nicolás Maduro’s regime to hold “free, fair and transparent elections” while denouncing as “illegitimate” the sham May 20 balloting that gave the dictator another term in office. The statement further demands that Venezuela release all political prisoners, which presumably would include five American Citgo executives who were arrested last November and are still being held hostage.

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The 17 who have been brought home include a former Central Intelligence Agency agent arrested and detained in Portugal for the operation that captured radical Egyptian cleric Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr. The list also includes three University of California, Los Angeles basketball players who were arrested and detained for stealing sunglasses in China. Also among the 17 are the three Korean-Americans who were released at the beginning of May during a visit to Pyongyang by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

The Obama administration brought home Americans as well, including some from Iran. But that triumph was tarnished by the de facto ransom payments and the unconscionable decision to allow Tehran to remain silent on what happened to retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who disappeared in Iran in 2007 while on a job for the CIA. Likewise for Mr. Obama’s decision to swap five senior Taliban terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay for the U.S. Army deserter Bowe Bergdahl.

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On May 10 Mr. Trump announced that he will appoint Robert O’Brien to serve as his special envoy for hostage affairs. The office is critical, if only because it provides an institutional check on the natural tendency of time and other vital national interests to make the plight of individual Americans held overseas seem small and secondary by comparison.

Today millions of U.S. citizens live and travel abroad, often in circumstances that make them highly vulnerable targets. The government can’t protect everyone from mistreatment. But the whole word is a safer place when that lonely American languishing in some foreign prison cell has a president whose policy makes clear: We’ve got your back.

The vile attacks on psychologist Jordan Peterson

I should say the wildly popular Jordan Peterson who offers the most basic advice on taking responsibility, being honest, treating people fairly, but in an interesting and angular way which is not from a religious point of view.

So for his troubles, he get attacked by truly dishonest know-nothings in newspapers like

the NY Times - Jordan Peterson, Custodian of the Patriarchy He says there’s a crisis in masculinity. Why won’t women — all these wives and witches — just behave?

and the Guardian UK - Sorry, Jordan Peterson: rage isn’t a great look for a self-help guru

Really despicable stuff - accused of anti-semitism, racism, misogyny - all total BS. Would have been nice if the authors of these screeds had actually read his huge bestseller (which I did read) 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos . After 4 months it's still high up on the amazon sales list - currently #7. Or given the vast # of youtube videos of Peterson, if they'd have given them a serious look. It was my 24 year old, Joe, who put me on to Peterson.

Here's a good article by David French -

Rarely in my life have I read a more hostile or vicious takedown of a public figure than last week’s New York Times profile of Canadian author and psychologist Jordan Peterson. ... Few public figures inspire more vitriol and mockery on Twitter than, you guessed it, Jordan Peterson. And never before have I seen vitriol so out of proportion to the “threat” of the man’s underlying message. I don’t claim to be an expert on everything the man’s said, but I read and reviewed his most recent book, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote for Chaos, and I’ve watched many of his most popular YouTube videos — and the contrast between the actual content of his message and the rage and mockery it elicits never fails to surprise me.

And here - in three minutes -he answers one of the charges against him - that he believes in "enforced monogamy" for women -

 

 

Who is the UK's Tommy Robinson?

UPDATE: He's the founder of something called "The English Defense League". With that first name, he can't be all bad.

Quite a stir in England over this guy - some sort of "United Kingdom First", quasi Tea Party guy It seems.

Robinson was arrested on Friday after being caught filming outside a court

But this video - pretty Orwellian arrest - Breaching the Peace for videoing?

 

Memorial Day in Croton, 2018

An always a well attended and  well executed 11AM ceremony at the "Five Corners" or Veterans Corner a few blocks from our house. A good three hundred plus crowd - pretty good for a little town of 7,000.

The Croton Boy Scouts had placed 317 American flags on veteran's graves in the adjoining cemetery.

 

 

 

Memorial Day - my namesake

I did this research in 2013 and posted it; then repeated it several times in the last few years and decided to post it again today. Above is the insignia of the 29th infantry division and this is the first time I thought to add it. 

Memorial Day research on my namesake

My namesake is Thomas C. Faranda, a cousin (first? second?, not sure) of my dad's.

I was an adult when he mentioned to me that I was named for a cousin who died on D-Day, at the age of 21. Evidently in one of those supposedly amphibious tanks that weren't so amphibious. I think he told me that he was never found.

Anyway, he was a member of the 29th infantry division, and he was killed in action, but not on D-Day.

According to this website The 29th Infantry Division Historical Society, Thomas was born in 1911, lived in New York, and enlisted in 1943. He did not land on D-Day but on July 22, 1944 reported from the Replacement Depot to the 116th infantry regiment, 2nd battalion, H company.

On August 11th he was promoted from private to private first class (PFC).

On August 30th he was killed in action in Brittany. No other details. His death was recorded in the division "morning report". The 29th was trying to take the French City of Brest at that time.

He is buried at the Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial along with 4,409 other young Americans. Evidently in gravesite L-16-3.

That's all the information I've been able to find about Thomas C. Faranda. Killed in France at 33 years of age. There's some historical data online about the 116th infantry regiment. I'll probably have a look at it one of these days.

in reading a little bit about the cemetery, it's mentioned that there are 4,410 buried there, but only 4,408 gravesites. In two instances, two unknowns could not be separated.

War is Hell.

 

My namesake is Thomas C. Faranda, a cousin (first? second?, not sure) of my dad's.

I was an adult when he mentioned to me that I was named for a cousin who died on D-Day, at the age of 21. Evidently in one of those supposedly amphibious tanks that weren't so amphibious. I think he told me that he was never found.

Anyway, he was a member of the 29th infantry division, and he was killed in action, but not on D-Day.

According to this website The 29th Infantry Division Historical Society, Thomas was born in 1911, lived in New York, and enlisted in 1943. He did not land on D-Day but on July 22, 1944 reported from the Replacement Depot to the 116th infantry regiment, 2nd battalion, H company.

On August 11th he was promoted from private to private first class (PFC).

On August 30th he was killed in action in Brittany. No other details. His death was recorded in the division "morning report". The 29th was trying to take the French City of Brest at that time.

He is buried at the Brittany American Cemetery and Memorial along with 4,409 other young Americans. Evidently in gravesite L-16-3.

That's all the information I've been able to find about Thomas C. Faranda. Killed in France at 33 years of age. There's some historical data online about the 116th infantry regiment. I'll probably have a look at it one of these days.

in reading a little bit about the cemetery, it's mentioned that there are 4,410 buried there, but only 4,408 gravesites. In two instances, two unknowns could not be separated.

War is Hell.

For Memorial Day; A 5 line Poem. "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner"

The ball turret is the one on the bottom of the B-17, shown above.  Usually a small man, jammed in. A horribly dangerous place.

A five line poem, written by Randall Jarrell. Below the poem, the explanation -

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

 

Yankees - Judge puts on a defensive show

As the Yankees win and Gleyber Torres sets an American League record by becoming first rookie to hit home runs in four consecutive games. But be patient and check out Judge's two throws - one in the third inning and one in the seventh.

Boston Globe: Starting salaries for Harvard grads

Nice! They won't be working with the poor. Excerpts below; hit the link for the whole story.

More than half of Harvard University’s Class of 2018, which graduated Thursday, expects to earn at least $70,000 per year right out of school, and one-fifth of the undergraduates expect to make $90,000 or more, according to a survey.

About half of Harvard’s graduating class — 704 students — responded to an annual survey conducted by the campus paper, The Harvard Crimson, this month. The survey covered a wide range of topics, including campus life, sex and dating, life after college, and politics.

Harvard grads certainly enjoy loftier starting pay than most: The average college graduate in the United States in 2016, the most recent year for which data were available, earned just over $50,000 after commencement, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

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Meanwhile, the Crimson survey also suggested that Ivy Leaguers are not immune to the gender pay gap. Of the men who responded, 60 percent expect to make at least $70,000, with 28 percent saying they will make $90,000 or more, and 17 percent planning to earn $110,000 or more. Comparatively, only 46 percent of women expect to make at least $70,000, 13 percent expect to earn at least $90,000, and just 5 percent expect salaries topping $110,000. 

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As to where those graduates will be working? The state that attracted the most graduating students — 150 of respondents — was New York, while 135 said they plan to stick around Massachusetts. More than 100 students plan to end up in California. 

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As for politics, Harvard’s liberal reputation seems to be well-deserved. Of the seniors who responded, 89 percent said they voted for Hillary Clinton (who will be honored at Harvard on Friday) in the 2016 presidential election; 3 percent said they voted for Donald Trump. 

 

At last, for athletes: elecrolyte "Recovery" beer

Yes! The product we've all been waiting for... Further proof there is a God. And I've subscribed to their email newsletter.

Brewed with a ‘superfood’ rich in vitamin C, and as much sodium as a sports drink, the FKT Pale Ale targets beer-loving athletes.

“Blackcurrant – a superfood which has four times the amount of vitamin C per serving as an orange – was the perfect option to bring thirst quenching tang, sweet aromas, and cold fighting attributes to our pale ale,” the brand said in a press release. “While there is no substitute for water, the 65 mg of salt per serving in our FKT helps facilitate cell hydration and prevent cramping.”

In addition to fruit and salt, FKT boasts Citra, Azacca, and Magnum hops for all the pale ale nuts.

Trump letter to Kim Jong Un, cancelling June 12th summit

Hopefully only postponed.

Air Force Academy grads "...be ready..." + fascinating stats on the class composition

Defense Secretary Mattis tells Air Force Academy grads "...be ready..."

The 984 graduates at the Air Force Academy on Wednesday got an unedited introduction to the difficult world they now face as new officers. The graduation's keynote speaker, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, told the group they will see battle soon. And they will be expected to win every fight. "Your primary weapons system now is your attitude," Mattis said.  

Here are official Air Force stats on the class of 2018

U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. --

(Editor's note: This report is based on the latest Class of 2018 statistics compiled May 21.)

Here’s the breakdown for the Class of 2018 graduating from the Air Force Academy May 23.

 

-- 1,498 were offered appointments to the Academy

-- There were 942 men (78.1 percent) and 264 women (21.9 percent) in the class

-- There were 323 (26.8 percent) minorities  

-- There were 585 (48.5 percent) cadets who were potentially pilot qualified

-- 1,206 men and women were inducted into the Academy, including 14 international cadets

-- The average high school GPA for the Class of 2018 is 3.85

-- The average SAT score was 633 verbal and 663 math

--The average ACT score was 30 English, 30 reading and 30 science reasoning

Scheduled to Graduate

Scheduled to graduate are 984 cadets, including 13 international cadets.

-- 772 men (78 percent) and 212 women (22 percent)

-- 273 minorities (28 percent) of the class. Seventy-seven cadets are African-American, 105 are Hispanic, 65 are Asian, 13 are Pacific Islanders and 13 are Native-American, not including the international cadets.

-- 711 cadets are not minorities

-- The 13 international cadets are from Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Moldovia, Pakistan, The Republic of Korea, Romania, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates

-- 142 graduates attended the Air Force Academy Preparatory School

-- 45 graduates were previously enlisted Airmen

-- The average cumulative GPA for the graduating class was 3.07

-- The attrition rate is 209 cadets (18 percent)

 -- 54 graduates have brothers or sisters who have graduated from the Academy  

-- 58 graduates are second-generation graduates. Six cadets’ parents are both graduates of the Academy.

Training

417 graduates are scheduled to attend pilot training, 14 are scheduled to attend Combat Systems Operator training, 11 are scheduled to attend Air Battle Manager Training and 69 are scheduled to attend Remotely Piloted Aircraft training.

-- 511 graduates are scheduled to be rated officers entering flying-related career fields

All service academy graduates incur a five-year service commitment and an additional concurrent service commitment depending on the type of training or schooling, including scholarships, they receive.

For example, graduates who attend pilot training incur an active-duty service commitment of 10 years after receiving their pilot’s wings.

 After successfully completing training, combat systems operators, remotely piloted aircraft sensor operators and airborne battle managers incur a six-year commitment.

Graduates completing airborne battle manager training incur two concurrent service commitments -- the five-year service academy graduate commitment and the six-year airborne battle manager commitment.

And Now?

-- 50,698 men and women have graduated the Academy, 44,094 men and 5,823 women

-- 737 graduates have been promoted to the general officers rank, including 10 officers recently selected for promotion to brigadier general

-- 131 of those generals are on active duty

Pediatrician on how to make a baby stop crying instantly. Really.

Almost eight million views in less than two months. If we had known this ...

 

Rugby: A scrum-half try (score)

Georgia (the country not the state) against Ireland (#2 ranked in the world and he makes them look bad!) in the under 20's World Championship. Looks like an Old Blue RFC play, but they'd run it on the goal line with a big dude carrying the ball.

 

Nice - "Royal Wedding Photos"

As mentioned here - Farandaville: Inevitably, at the Royal Wedding ... - wedding created quite a stir at Farandaville.

 

Australian sets new "Seven Summits" speed record

The Seven Summits refer to the highest mountain in each of the seven continents.

Steve Plain became the fastest person to reach the peak of every continent’s tallest mountain this week, finishing the coveted Seven Summits in 117 days.

Plain set off on Project 7 in 4 (seven summits in four months) on Dec. 20, 2017. He followed a planned route that began in Antarctica, actually tagging eight summits. His accomplishment is the harder version of Seven Summits postulated by early climbing pioneers. The route includes both Carstensz Pyramid and Kosciuszko in Australia.

Here are the summits -

In order, he summited the following peaks:

• Vinson (4,892 m), Antarctica
• Aconcagua (6,962 m), South America
• Kilimanjaro (5,895 m), Africa
• Carstensz Pyramid (4,884 m), Australia
• Kosciuszko (2,228 m), Australia
• Elbrus (5,642 m), Europe
• Denali (6,190 m), North America
• Everest (8,848 m), Asia

And this is after recovering from very serious non-climbing related injuries in December, 2014- hit the link for more information.

MSNBC - unusual - gives Trump credit for something - the good economy

Well maybe "The Times they are' a-changin"? And it's commentary by Stephanie Ruhle, a real Trump-hater.

 

Bernie Sanders healthcare plan - as illustrated in England.

Yup. this from the Guardian (UK). The reality - rationed care. There are much better cancer outcomes in the United States compared to Great Britain.

Check out the Guardian. More if you hit the link.

Two-thirds of NHS trusts reported having at least one cancer patient waiting more than six months last year, while almost seven in 10 (69%) trusts said they had a worse longest wait than in 2010. This was reflected in the average longest wait rising to 213 days – 16 days longer than in the year the Conservatives entered government. The official target requires at least 85% of cancer patients to have their first treatment within 62 days of referral by their GP, but this has not been met for 27 months in a row.

Pentocost Sunday; a note from Fr. George Rutler

The Catholic priest / Episcopal convert who is an author and lecturer. He is currently pastor in Manhattan, Church of St. Michael the Archangel.

The poet W.H. Auden once lectured me about the wrongness of modern translations rendering Holy Ghost as Holy Spirit. His frail case was that there are certain drinks, too, that can be called spirits. This made no sense. “Spirit” is a Latinism far older than “Ghost,” which goes back no further than the Old English “gast” and the German “Geist.” As a matter of taste, preference for “Ghost” is as anachronistic as thinking that the Baroque style of chasubles sometimes called the “fiddleback” is much more traditional than the Gothic style.

   The Hebrew word for spirit, “ruach,” sounds like breathing, and pneumatic tires are called that after the Greek word for wind. There is indeed a “variety of spirits,” but to confuse the Holy Spirit with any vague parody is foggy superstition. The apostles mistook Jesus for a ghost when he walked on water, and they only knew that his risen body was not a ghost when he ate fish and honey. A modern form of superstition is the vague emotionalism of those who say that they are spiritual but not religious. The Master will have none of that, for he is Truth: “The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63). 

   Christ told the disciples after the Resurrection that he must leave this world of time and space in order to send the Holy Spirit. There are on record fifteen appearances of the Risen Christ, including three after Pentecost: once seen by Stephen as he was dying, another speaking to Paul on the way to Damascus, and then to John on Patmos. But each appearance was followed by a disappearance enabling the Holy Spirit, as the bond of love between the Father and the Son, to invigorate the Church.

   By what seems a paradox, because the actions intersect time and eternity, Christ goes away so that through his Holy Spirit he can be with us always. This becomes most graphic each day at Mass when the Holy Spirit is invoked upon the bread and wine so that they become Christ’s body and blood. That moment on the Eucharistic altar fulfills the prehistoric instant when God breathed his spirit into Adam and, countless ages before that, when the Spirit of God “moved upon the face of the waters” and began everything.

   None of this is conjecture, because it is a response to actual events: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you” (John 14:26). The Fountain of Youth that explorers in futility tried to find, like pharmacists and cosmetic surgeons today, is a ghostly illusion and a superstitious cipher for life eternal: “You send forth your Spirit, they are created; and you renew the face of the earth” (Psalm 104:30).

Farandaville: Inevitably, at the Royal Wedding ...

Sort of, as Brigid attends on the BBC channel with Regina and Judy. Note the second picture - Brigid on the phone - to England.

If Brigid is happy, we're all happy...

122 years ago the Supreme Court upheld "Separate but Equal" Segregation

The anniversary was yesterday. Thanks to Ed Mechmann, Director of Public Policy for the Archdiocese of NY, for sending this around. Justice - eventually - wins out. 

One hundred twenty-two years ago today the Supreme Court blew a gigantic hole through the Fourteenth Amendment by upholding “separate but equal” segregation, laying the legal foundation for Jim Crow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessy_v._Ferguson  It took sixty years to correct this injustice. The clock is still ticking on Roe v. Wade, but we never give up hope and hard work.

NYT's Nicholas Kristof - an innocent man on California death row?

This is a long article with loads of graphics - virtually impossible to print the whole thing.

But here is the link -

So here’s what sheriff’s deputies did: They threw away the bloody coveralls and arrested a young black man named Kevin Cooper. He is now awaiting execution.

And here is text from Kristof's weekly email which I subscribe to - I'm glad he seems to have gotten over his hate Trump obsession. CNN: NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof says there's more to cover then just bashing Trump

That’s me with a convicted quadruple-murderer, Kevin Cooper, who is awaiting execution at San Quentin Prison in California. I believe Cooper is innocent and was framed by sheriff’s deputies in California, and I even think I know who did commit the murders and why (a man who is free and was not pleased to hear from me).

I’ve spent the last couple of months reporting this case, from reading the trial transcripts to visiting Cooper in San Quentin to interviewing everyone I could reach who is still alive. And I’m not the only one who thinks he was framed: Several federal judges and four law school deans have said the same thing, along with the president of the American Bar Association. And yet he’s awaiting execution.

Most frustrating, Governor Jerry Brown refuses to allow advanced DNA testing of a shirt worn by the murderer, or of blond hairs found in the victims’ hands, or of a hatchet that was a murder weapon — even though the defense is willing to pay for the testing. I find it unconscionable that in a case with so much doubt, Brown blocks the testing that could settle the issue. Earlier, Senator Kamala Harris, when she was attorney general of California, likewise refused to allow this advanced DNA testing for Cooper, apparently to avoid seeming soft on crime.

This is a horrifying story of a home invasion with four people murdered and a eight-year-old boy left for dead with his throat slashed. But this horrible crime was compounded, I argue, when the authorities — under great pressure to solve the murder — then framed an innocent man.

We have a chance to save a man’s life here. I hope you’ll read the piece, share it with friends, and contact Governor Brown’s office to ask him to allow DNA testing. His website also includes an email form to make it very easy.

As you’ll see, the online version of this column (the print version will appear this Sunday) involves lots of fancy graphics that we’ve been working on for more than a month. Special thanks to my colleagues Stuart Thompson and Jessia Ma for making the display unforgettable.

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And again, here’s my piece about what I believe to be a case of an innocent man who was framed for murder and is awaiting execution. Let’s push for DNA testing to find out who did it. I’m hoping that we may be able to save a life.

Yankees now favorites to win the World Series ... sort of favorite

I say sort of because the oddsmakers are simply adjusting the odds to suit the volume of bets coming in.

The change comes after the Yankees started off the month on a tear, winning 10 of their first 12 games in May and 20 of their last 23 in total.

That stretch — along with the high volume of Yankees bets it encouraged — was the catalyst for the odds change.

“When we reopened our odds after the Giancarlo Stanton trade, the New York Yankees were listed as the favorites,” Kevin Bradley, Bovada’s sportsbook manager, told The Post. “They were soon passed by the defending champion Houston Astros as 15.94 percent of all bets were on them and our exposure led us to move them back to the favorites. Now after a league’s best start by the Yankees, combined with the fact that 19.9 percent of all bets in the last 10 days have been on them, we have moved them back into the favorite spot.”

NYT's Paul Krugman - so predictable - he never fails

The guy has always been dishonest (but he's a Times columnist so ...). In fact there used to be a whole internet group called The Krugman Truth Squad, dedicated to correcting his errors. And Daniel Okrent, the very first public Editor/Ombudsman for the NY Times criticized him - but only after he had finished his stint at the Times.

Here's a good take down - and I remember his widely publicized claim after the Trump election that the stock market would never recover.

Reopening of Justin Thyme space; and other information on Croton eateries

Thanks to Maria for sending me the links -

COMING TO THE OLD JUSTIN THYME CAFE: BLACK ROCK KITCHEN & A SPOTLIGHT ON FRATELLI'S TRATTORIA, ETAL--ALSO STATE'S $15 MINIMUM WAGE HURTING RESTAURANTS

And this article was embedded in the above article; but lots of annoying pop-ups.

What's coming, closing and staying put in Croton's restaurant scene

"70 year old double amputee summits Everest."

This has been done before, but never from the south approach. He had previously failed on four earlier attempts.

Xia Boyu, a 70-year-old double-amputee from China, was part of the first commercial squad of climbers to reach the summit of Everest on Sunday. Boyu had waited more than 40 years for this opportunity.

According to The Himalayan Times, he topped out around 7:30 a.m. local time, not long after a group of eight Sherpas finished installing the fixed ropes that provide access to the highest point on the planet. In doing so, Boyu became the first double-amputee to successfully climb Everest from the south side of the mountain.

New Zealander Mark Inglis accomplished the same feat in 2006 from the north side in Tibet.

It took Boyu more than four decades and five attempts to fulfill his dreams of climbing Everest. His first expedition to the mountain came in 1975 and led to the amputation of his legs. He was part of a Chinese team turned back from the summit due to poor weather conditions.

They bivouacked in a tent at 26,200 feet (7,985 meters) for three nights. When one team member took seriously ill, Boyu lent him his sleeping bag. As a result, he contracted severe frostbite, which eventually resulted in the amputation of his legs.

Almost 40 years later, Boyu returned to Everest to attempt the mountain once again, this time from the south side in Nepal. But the 2014 season was cut short when a pillar of ice in the Khumbu Icefall collapsed, killing 16 Sherpas. The Chinese alpinist came back for a third time in 2015, but a massive earthquake rocked Nepal, claiming the lives of hundreds of people and bringing an abrupt end to that season too.

Undaunted by his previous experiences on Everest, Boyu attempted yet another climb in 2016. Unfortunately, that expedition came up short too, with the double-amputee turning back 325 feet (90 meters) below the summit due to high winds.

Fortunately, he put everything together this year to stand atop the mountain at long last.

Tom Wolfe

The great writer. He was 88 and lead an amazing life. The book that most sticks with me (and I rarely read novels) is The Bonfire of the Vanities (not the movie version!) and it's description of the NY social and financial scene in the 1980's. Great writing - it is a timeless classic.  I remember who recommended it to me (Lou Ferraguzzi, my late partner) and who I recommended it to (My Dad, who I thought would hate it, but loved it).

Wolfe always wore a white suit - which meant he must of had horrendous dry cleaning bills ...

"social x-rays" and "lemon tarts".

Here are excerpts from the Wall Street Journal -

Tom Wolfe, Author of ‘Bonfire of the Vanities’ and Best-selling Creator of New Journalism, Dies at 88 The author’s scalding humor and creative language introduced expressions such as ‘Radical Chic’ into the lexicon

Tom Wolfe, the best-selling alchemist of fiction and nonfiction who wrote “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” “The Right Stuff” and countless other novels and works of journalism, died of pneumonia in a New York hospital Monday, said his longtime agent Lynn Nesbit. He was 88 years old.

Mr. Wolfe was a creator of New Journalism, a bracing watershed in immersive reporting and visceral writing that removed the authorial distance and plunged readers into subcultures including the psychedelic enthusiasts in his 1968 work, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.” With “The Right Stuff,” Mr. Wolfe wrote a generation-defining narrative documenting the early years of America’s space program.

In “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” he cast a scorching lens on the mores of New York City’s philanthropists during the flush years of the 1980s. A number of years later, his novel “A Man in Full” examined race relations and swashbuckling property developers in the South.

Mr. Wolfe’s scalding humor and creative language introduced into the lexicon expressions such as “Radical Chic” (when describing Leonard Bernstein mingling with activists in his Manhattan apartment) and “social x-ray” (a term for the Upper East Side hostesses whose anorexic frames masked social ambitions executed with Samson-level strength).

In his fiction, he employed liberal use of onomatopoeia, particularly expressions he made up to capture conversation and sounds. A line in “Bonfire” reads: “They go, “Hehhehheh . . . unnnnhhhh-hunhhh.” No telling detail, of physiognomy or dress, escaped Mr. Wolfe’s unsparing eye. In the same novel, he described one character: “His hair was combed back smoothly over his round skull. He wore an immaculate navy suit, a white shirt, a shepherd’s check necktie, and no raincoat.”

“He is not just an American icon, but he had a huge international literary reputation,” said Ms. Nesbit. “All the same, he was one of the most modest and kindest people I have ever met. I never exchanged a cross word with him in our many years of working together.”

Alexandra Wolfe, his daughter, on Tuesday recalled an event at the New York Public Library where her father and other speakers were asked to describe themselves in seven words. “Two of the words he chose were ‘ace’ ‘dad,’ and I couldn’t agree with him more,” said Ms. Wolfe, a 37-year-old writer for The Wall Street Journal.

*******

In the 2016 interview with her father about his latest work, a treatise on language titled “The Kingdom of Speech,” Ms. Wolfe recalled her father flying home from Boston University, where he had received an honorary degree. Instead of removing his ceremonial gown, the author opted to wear it during the flight, prompting another passenger to ask, “Who are you, a priest?” Mr. Wolfe replied: “No, I’m the pope.” ​

At the time of his death, Mr. Wolfe was collecting notes on his next book. “He never takes vacations, he never stops working,” Ms. Wolfe said Tuesday.

Awesome dude!

Warren Buffett on stock values

The "Sage of Omaha"

CNN: NYT columnist Nicholas Kristof says there's more to cover then just bashing Trump

No one has been more nuts going off on Trump then Kristof - it's so bad I rarely get past the headline of his column (I used to like his writing; even though I disagreed with most of his positions).

But here he makes some good points talking to CNN's Brian Stelter - who also suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome - but without Kristof's intelligence.

Government has collected record taxes this year

How can this be? You mean lowering the tax rate on individuals and cutting back on regulations raises economic activity and thus more taxes are paid? Hey, who knew that (beside Kennedy and Reagan)?

Yup, reality...

The federal government collected a record $2,007,451,000,000 in total taxes through the first seven months of fiscal 2018 (October through April), but still ran a deficit for that period of $385,444,000,000, according to the Monthly Treasury Statement. The record total federal taxes collected during this period also included a record $1,050,601,000,000 in individual income taxes—marking the earliest in any fiscal year that individual income taxes have topped $1 trillion.

Mets: Doesn't go lower then this - batted out of order in the first inning ...

The Three Stooges baseball team!? This is very difficult to do, especially in the first inning. Wat would Casey Stengel say? Two short videos -

 

And then made fun of - imagine that!? Here's one example from ESPN -

John "Jack" Coyne

Ahhh, Jack died suddenly at home this past Wednesday. What a wonderful man. He certainly will be missed in Croton.

Here is information from the head of the Croton Knights of Columbus, and below that a link to a tribute from the Croton Volunteer Fire Department which Jack was a member of for 49 years.

Brothers,

Brother Jack Coyne's funeral information is as follows:

 

Visitation-Monday May 14th, 4-9 pm at Holy Name of Mary Church, Grand Street, Croton.

Funeral Mass- Tuesday 10AM @ HNM Church, Committal Private.

 

The Knights will hold a brief ceremony (including a decade of the Rosary) at the wake which is scheduled to begin at 8:15 PM. Brothers should meet at the church by 8:00 PM (at the latest) in order to take part in that gathering. (Several fire department entities will honor Jack before us, starting at around 7 PM).

Jack always attended a brother's wake and was instrumental with the K of C over the years. It is my hope that the council can honor him as he has honored others.

Please continue to pray for him and his family, especially his widow Peggy and his children John, Diane and Christopher.

http://everythingcroton.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-croton-fire-dept-on-passing-of.html

CBS: How to exercise when you are 62 years old ... Not!

No I wouldn't try this. But good for him... one minute video.

CIA head-designate Gina Haspel fact-checks her Senator critics

Wow. This is at her Senate Committee hearing for her confirmation as CIA Director.

Feinstein should retire.

So should Wyden - What a great line from Haspel referring to after 9/11: "I didn't go sit ... I stepped up..."

NY AG Schneiderman: Ideology v. Behavior

UPDATE: Evidently (according to the original story in The New Yorker) some of the women were urged not to reveal what Schneidermen had done to them to protect the Democratic Party.

This is from the Catholic League - good analysis - and really quite sad.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the resignation of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman:

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer championed women’s rights, even as he paid for prostitutes behind his wife’s back.

New York Congressman Anthony Weiner championed women’s rights, even as he used his 5-year-old son as a “chick magnet” to lure minors while sexting.

New York celebrity Harvey Weinstein championed women’s rights, even as he abused scores of women.

And now we have learned that another champion of women’s rights, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, regularly beat the women whom he dated.

In many ways, Schneiderman is the most interesting of them all. He lived a double life, and it was not limited to his duplicity with women. His behavior frequently belied his ideology.

Ideology:

Schneiderman was a rabid supporter of the #MeToo movement, and brought suit against Harvey Weinstein over his sexual harassment offenses. He was aghast at Weinstein’s behavior. “We have never seen anything as despicable as what we’ve seen right here,” he said. Until now.

Behavior:

He liked his sex rough. He beat his dates until they bled, slapped them across the face, spat on them, called them “whores,” and threatened to kill them. Michelle Manning Barish, one of his four victims (that we know of), said he warned her, “If you ever left me, I’d kill you.”

Ideology:

When he was in the New York state senate, he sponsored a bill making life-threatening strangulation a felony, and made it a misdemeanor to “impede breathing.”

Behavior:

He frequently choked his dates while having sex with them.

Ideology:

He was a big proponent of animal rights. Last year he prosecuted three men on animal cruelty and dogfighting charges on Long Island, noting that three of the dogs had to be euthanized.

Behavior:

Following in the footsteps of his father, who was a former treasurer of NARAL, he was a strident advocate of abortion-on-demand. He also blamed many in the pro-life community for the killing of abortionist Dr. Bernard Slepian, even though they had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Ideology:

He was a radical egalitarian who opposed laws that did not treat all segments of the population equally.

Behavior:

In 2009, he supported a bill that discriminated against Catholics by holding the Catholic Church to a much higher set of standards regarding the sexual abuse of minors than afforded the public schools.

Ideology:

He deplored racism. Here are two of his quotes: “Racism has no home in New York.” “When racists try to intimidate our communities, they need to be condemned and condemned strongly.”

Behavior:

One of his victims, Tanya Selvaratnam, who is from Sri Lanka, said, “Sometimes, he’d tell me to call him Master, and he’d slap me until I did.” He took note of her dark skin, calling her his “brown slave,” demanding that she acknowledge that she was his “property.”

Ideology:

In 2010, he proposed more jail time and stiffer fines for barbershops and bodegas that sell “nutcracker,” a sweet alcoholic drink. Two years later he spoke at the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, condemning alcohol and drug abuse.

Behavior:

According to all of his victims, he was a heavy drinker and drug abuser. One of them said he “would almost always drink two bottles of wine in a night, then bring a bottle of Scotch into the bedroom. He would get plastered five nights out of seven.” He also availed himself of her Xanax.

Ideology:

When he was in the state senate, he sponsored a bill called the Gun Violence Prevention Act; it was a response to the NRA’s efforts against gun control. Just a few weeks ago, he sat down with high school students marking the 19th anniversary of the Columbine massacre.

Behavior:

He mocked anti-gun activists, calling parents and protesters from Sandy Hook Elementary School “losers.”

Ideology:

He worked with the extremists from the Southern Poverty Law Center imploring everyone to “stand up to hate.”

Behavior:

He arranged for a convicted felon, Oscar Lopez Rivera, co-founder of FALN, a terrorist organization, to lead the Puerto Rican Day Parade last year.

Ideology

In 2011, after taking over as state attorney general, he boasted that “no one is above the law.”

Behavior:

After one of his victims complained that he was violating the law against jaywalking by “yanking” her across the street, he replied, “I am the law.”

CONCLUSION:

Schneiderman’s misogyny, violence, alcoholism, racism, and utter hypocrisy make him unusual, but it is a fair question to ask how many other prominent left-wing public figures and activists experience a disconnect between their ideology and their behavior. Too many it seems.

The USA Labor Market: Good news

Why couldn't Obama do this? From yesterday' Wall Street Journal.

"The black and Hispanic jobless rates are at record lows."

Republican politicians pointed to the decline in the overall jobless rate to 3.9% after six months of 4.1%. But this was achieved thanks to a 236,000 decline in the U.S. labor force. That decline balances what happened in February when the rate stayed at 4.1% despite more than 800,000 new entrants to the labor force. A better way to look at the health of the jobs market is the long-term trend, and over the last year there is some notable good news.

The black jobless rate has fallen a remarkable 1.3-percentage points to 6.6% since April 2017. That’s still high compared to the 3.6% rate for whites, but it’s lower than the 6.8% recorded in December, which was the previous low since the government began tracking the data in 1972. The black jobless rate has been below 7% for four of the last five months, which has never previously happened.

The jobless rate for Hispanics has fallen by 0.4-points in a year to 4.8%, matching its record low. The Hispanic rate has now been below 5% for five of the last seven months. Also encouraging is the 0.6-point decline in the jobless rate for workers age 25 or older without a high school diploma—to 5.9% despite a bump up in April. That rate has now been below 6% for five of the last six months.

...

There’s a debate about how many workers continue to sit on the sidelines given the still-low labor participation rate. But the best way to find out is to keep the economy growing and pass welfare reforms to improve the incentives to work.

Wages so far haven’t risen as rapidly as you’d expect, but this may reflect that many new labor-market entrants are coming back at lower wage points. As they spend more time on the job, the pace of wage gains should accelerate. The overall news from April is that faster growth is paying off for all Americans.

 

NY Attorney General Schneiderman: depraved - calling him a creep is an insult to creeps

At least he quickly resigned.

Here's the testimony of one of the four women he hit - really gross -

Ex: Schneiderman called me his ‘brown slave,’ would slap me until I called him ‘Master’

Harvard-educated activist writer Tanya Selvaratnam told the New Yorker magazine that her yearlong affair with Schneiderman “was a fairytale that became a nightmare” — and quickly escalated into violence in the bedroom, even as he begged for threesomes.

“Sometimes, he’d tell me to call him Master, and he’d slap me until I did,” Selvaratnam said.

“He started calling me his ‘brown slave’ and demanding that I repeat that I was ‘his property.’”

Selvaratnam said, “The slaps started after we’d gotten to know each other.

“It was at first as if he were testing me. Then it got stronger and harder. It wasn’t consensual. This wasn’t sexual playacting. This was abusive, demeaning, threatening behavior.”

Harvard-educated so a bright women - why did she stay with him for a year? "A friend finally helped her leave him, Selvaratnam said."

Pope Francis speaks; won't see this on CNN, MSNBC, NY Times ...

"Life must be protected and loved from conception to its natural end"

Hike of the Month Club; Fahnestock, Saturday April 28th

Thanks to Hallie for recommending Fahnestock Park instead of Sugarloaf. Our first hike since November when we did a short one up Turkey Hill. This was more than a mini; car door to car door it was 7.54 miles - a bit longer than I had anticipated. It was the Charcoal Burners/Cabot/Perkins/Fahnestock Trail Loop which includes lots of woods, three ponds and some mild up and down. 

At Jordan Pond, about a mile and a quarter into the hike - very pretty!

Further on - the water in the background is Clove Creek - it was just before we reached here that Jeanne Marie's outer sole on her shoe came loose...

Continuing along, this is what the majority of the hike was like - walking through stately trees as they wait for their leaves to return!

While on the way a second duct tape job on Jeanne Marie's right shoe - the first one came off - I did a better job on this one.

This little wooden bridge was just past the halfway point of the walk -

And now we've reached the west edge of Clove Creek, which we'd seen from the hill earlier -

Then on toward Beaver Pond - more beautiful tree groves!

And here's Beaver Pond. No sign of beavers in the first picture but then check other cut down trees in the further pictures - classic beaver marks -

A big tree down right in the middle and plenty of other downed trees in the surrounding area -

 

The compadres. That's the red hat Brigid's niece June sent me several years ago - lent to Jeanne Marie who had forgotten a hat.

This is the big tree brought down by beaver action in the prior picture, from a closer view obviously. It's over a foot in diameter.

From here it was about a mile and a quarter back to the car, and about a half mile from the end, the sole on Jeanne Marie's other shoe came completely off! She just continued on, walking on the midsole.

Here - at the end - Jeanne Marie holding her sole - will be buying some new hiking shoes...

So - great doing another wonderful hike. Next hike, end of May? Perhaps Storm King!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Former Clintonista Mark Penn writes about the Mueller investigation

Really interesting stuff from a Bill Clinton pollster & advisor - he believes that the "investigation" is completely off the rails. Excerpts below but hit the link for the whole thing.

There is now ample evidence that the footing of this investigation was, at best, questionable and, at worst, corrupt and based on unverified information leaked in an effort to destabilize the presidency. The questions of the special counsel suggest that even considering standing up to such an investigation through constitutional means will be met with possible possible charges by a team that has thought nothing of leading intentionally public raids, bringing charges on unrelated crimes, threatening family members of defendants to secure pleas, and ignoring congressional subpoenas about its own process.

Robert Mueller has plenty of questions for President Trump, and maybe he will get to ask them. Most of them seemed like perjury traps rather than real questions for the president and, surprisingly, they contain very little that wasn’t in the public domain though prior leaks. In other words, the president is not a target because they have nothing implicating him, and so they want to use the interview to create such material.

But the conduct of the investigation by the special counsel and his team has raised a lot of questions as to its foundation, conflicts of interest, fairness and methods. Most of the public, based on the last Harvard Caps-Harris Poll, supports Robert Mueller going forward with his investigation, but I wonder whether that would still be the case if he were required to answer a few questions himself.

When you interviewed for FBI director with President Trump, had you had any conversations with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director James Comey or any other current or former officials of the U.S. government about serving as a special counsel? Didn’t you consider going forward with the interview or being rejected as FBI director to create the appearance of conflict?

When you picked your team, what was going through your mind when you picked zero donors to the Trump campaign and hired many Democratic donors, supporters of the defiant actions of Sally Yates, who at the time was deputy attorney general, and prosecutors who had been overturned for misconduct? What were you thinking in building a team with documented biases?

When you were shown the text messages of FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok, why did you reassign them and not fire them for compromising the investigation with obvious animus and multiple violations of procedure and policy? Why did you conceal from Congress the reasons for their firing for five months and did you discard any of their work as required by the “fruits of a poisonous tree” doctrine?

**********

Did you or members of your team participate directly or indirectly in any leaks to the press about elements of the investigation, and what steps have you taken, if any, to investigate such leaks? Have members of your team been questioned under oath about leaks?

When you raided former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s home at gunpoint, was the scope of your investigation expanded in writing before or only days after you carried out the raid?

********

During the course of the current investigation, many questions have been raised about the Steele dossier and its Russian sources, the leaking of its contents, the covering up through illegal cutouts of the source of funding from the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee. Did you follow up and investigate any of those questions?

When you secretly obtained all of the emails of the transition including possible privileged material, did you have it first reviewed by a “taint team” and did you believe you could evade legal process, while the government official in charge was on vacation, to obtain everything instead of selections of those emails relevant to the investigation?

After a year of investigation, what concrete evidence have you found about collusion with the Russians and Donald Trump to leak the emails of the Democratic National Committee or John Podesta? Did you in fact obtain the Democratic National Committee servers and investigate whether they had been hacked or merely had internal leaks, or did you just rely on the organization’s own security firm?

*******

Congress, but don’t expect Robert Mueller, who even secretly investigated the attorney general, to answer any of them or expect Rod Rosenstein to be asking them, either. At this point, they know that they have no hard evidence of collusion between Donald Trump and the Russians. What they are seeking is to do is what they did to other witnesses and create process crimes around events and contacts that were in no way illegal.

There is now ample evidence that the footing of this investigation was, at best, questionable and, at worst, corrupt and based on unverified information leaked in an effort to destabilize the presidency. The questions of the special counsel suggest that even considering standing up to such an investigation through constitutional means will be met with possible possible charges by a team that has thought nothing of leading intentionally public raids, bringing charges on unrelated crimes, threatening family members of defendants to secure pleas, and ignoring congressional subpoenas about its own process.

It’s enough to drive anyone crazy and, based on my experience in 1998 with a special counsel’s investigation of President Bill Clinton, to create distractions for any president. But, after all, that appears to have been the point of all this in the first place.

Pretty devastating and from a Clinton crony.

Karl Marx 200th birthday today

How many people today even know or understand what a catastrophic disaster his "thoughts" led to? Or what a sleazeball he was?

Here's a good review. Below the link is the entire article -

Under the Soviet Union, a Marxist state, 61 million people were killed; Stalin was responsible for 43 million of them. Under Mao, another Marxist state, 77 million were killed. By contrast, under Hitler, 21 million were killed, including 6 million Jews. Proportionately, Pol Pot beat everyone: in his Marxist state, he killed 2 million Cambodians out of a population of 7 million. Marx’s fans live in a parallel universe. Consider what Jason Barker, a South Korean professor, wrote in the New York Times on April 30. “Social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, owe something of an unspoken debt to Marx through their unapologetic targeting of the ‘eternal truths’ of our age.”

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the legacy of Karl Marx:

May 5th marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. He is being celebrated by those who are horrified by Hitler, which makes their opposition to genocide phony. What Marx bequeathed—his legacy is written in blood—makes Hitler look benign. This is why anyone who condemns Hitler without also condemning his communist counterparts is a fraud. It is not Hitler’s body count that matters to them, it is the cause. As the Marxists are fond of saying, the truth is that which serves the cause.

Marx lived a parasitic existence, squeezing his parents for every dime he could get; he even managed to get an advance on his inheritance. His own pampered life was a far cry from the daily grind of the working class that he championed (how many workers had a maid?) As the great British historian Paul Johnson pointed out, Marx’s knowledge was not gleaned firsthand—there is no evidence that he ever set foot in a factory.

The classless society that Marx predicted would emerge under communism showcased his anthropological and sociological ignorance. Hierarchy and inequality are an essential and irrevocable part of the human condition, which is why no society in the history of the world has lacked either property.

Marx conceded that before the classless society was achieved there must be a “dictatorship of the proletariat.” He even went so far as to say that “In order to establish equality, we must first establish inequality.” But as history shows, the path to the classless society always ends with the dictatorship. Who did Marx say would staff the “dictatorship of the proletariat”? Why people like him—that job would fall to intellectuals.

What would the communist paradise look like? In his famous work, The German Ideology, Marx waxes romantic, explaining how each man would act. Under communism, “nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity…[making] it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have in mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”

Ironically, communism is supposed to follow the advanced capitalist industrial order, yet what Marx described is more like a pre-industrial society. It wouldn’t matter much if his rendering of what happens under communism amounted to nothing more than childlike musings, but unfortunately his prescription was taken seriously. It gave us the Gulag in the Soviet Union and the Laogai, or “Bamboo Gulag,” in China.

There are those who, such as Cardinal Reinhard Marx, an advisor to Pope Francis, deny that there is a line between Marx’s ideas and genocide. They are wrong. The line is direct and ineluctable. As Solzhenitsyn put it, Stalin didn’t pervert Marxism, he perfected it.

R.J. Rummel, a professor emeritus at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, is one of the world’s foremost authorities on genocide. The following data are taken from his work and can be found in my book, Why Catholicism Matters.

Under the Soviet Union, a Marxist state, 61 million people were killed; Stalin was responsible for 43 million of them. Under Mao, another Marxist state, 77 million were killed. By contrast, under Hitler, 21 million were killed, including 6 million Jews. Proportionately, Pol Pot beat everyone: in his Marxist state, he killed 2 million Cambodians out of a population of 7 million.

Marx’s fans live in a parallel universe. Consider what Jason Barker, a South Korean professor, wrote in the New York Times on April 30. “Social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, owe something of an unspoken debt to Marx through their unapologetic targeting of the ‘eternal truths’ of our age.”

Barker is badly educated and the New York Times is just as delinquent for publishing this trash.

Here’s what Marx thought about blacks. He called the German labor leader Ferdinand Lassalle a “Jewish Nigger.” Marx was also a self-hating Jew. He told us who “the real Jew” is. “What is the worldly cult of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly god? Money.”

Invoking the #MeToo crusade also makes Barker look foolish.

Is he aware that after Marx married he impregnated his maid? Lenchen was her name, and his son was called Freddy. Marx never supported his out-of-wedlock son because he didn’t want anyone to know he had one. So he got his colleague, Friedrich Engels, to assume paternity. How do we know this? Because on his deathbed, Engels admitted that Freddy was Marx’s son.

Everything I have written is well documented. Unfortunately, it is almost never discussed in the classroom. We have a whole generation growing up that knows absolutely nothing about the genocide committed in Marx’s name, nor his racism, anti-Semitism, or misogyny.

Not for nothing did Marx’s daughter, Eleanor, write him a letter telling him what a classic phony he was for feigning compassion for the poor. She later committed suicide. That’s another part of his bloody legacy, and it is one that the professoriate will never discuss.

Apple stock hits new high; they thank Warren Buffett

Haha. News got out that his holding Company Berkshire Hathaway recently added 75 million more Apple shares to it's portfolio. I think they are now Apple's biggest shareholder. I posted about Apple's other good news here -  Apple (stock) crushes it

Warren Buffett Buffett buys 75 million Apple shares 2 Hours Ago | 02:56 Apple hit a new all-time high Friday, briefly surpassing its previous high of $183.50 — pushed up by news that Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway bought 75 million shares in the first quarter. The stock is now roughly $20 per share short of a $1 trillion market cap.

I do think the total value of Apple will reach $1 trillion soon.

2018 Major League Baseball payrolls - who is spending how much on their players

Surprising to some - it's not the Yankees. They are in tenth place, while the NY Mets are in fifth place. First and second place goes to the San Francisco Giants (Giants not getting their moneysworth; currently 16-15) and Boston Red Sox.

Here is the whole list.

Opening day payrolls of Major League Baseball teams in 2018 (in million U.S. dollars)

Apple (stock) crushes it

UPDATE: It was up a little bit more today.

Despite the S & P 500 dropping yesterday, Apple stock up 4 and a half %. If you own Apple stock, or think you should, see the two videos below. I think it's likely Apple - now at $176 a share - will approach 200 this year.

I rarely pay attention to Jim Cramer, but i think he's right in this -

And this actually has more information.

Minimum wage rises: "Restaurants closing left and right"

Certainly contributing to killing Croton restaurants; two have closed in the last couple of months. As the man in the video says "A very thin margin business... our margins are paper thin."

 

WSJ: A helpful new algorithm for medical decisions

To provide some data helpful in making determinations on aggressive care or palliative care. The author is a Dean at the Stanford University School of Medicine. A good short article.

The attending physician and I answered questions about the severity of the side effects of these treatments, but we could not answer the one question he most desperately wanted to know: How long have I got left? For all the advancements we’ve made in biomedicine since I was in medical school, answering this kind of question with anything approaching certainty still vexes doctors.

The first patient I saw during my clinical rotations as a medical student was dying from chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). Today, with treatment, the 5-year survival rate for CML is about 90%. But when I was a student, CML was incurable. It was an early and poignant reminder of the limitations of medicine that I have never forgotten.

We didn’t understand cancer like we do now, nor did we have the tools to treat it, which meant there was agonizingly little we could do. With the national hospice and palliative care movements only beginning, our discussions with this man and his wife focused mostly on which chemotherapies might be able to prolong his life.

The attending physician and I answered questions about the severity of the side effects of these treatments, but we could not answer the one question he most desperately wanted to know: How long have I got left?

For all the advancements we’ve made in biomedicine since I was in medical school, answering this kind of question with anything approaching certainty still vexes doctors. It’s a question that informs many others: How long should a dying patient “fight” a terminal illness, and when should that person focus instead on minimizing suffering? Is a day at home more valuable than a week in the hospital? Even a small improvement in our ability to gauge the life expectancy of a seriously ill patient could provide enormous value for them and their families.

A new algorithm developed at Stanford Medicine could help. Analyzing data from hundreds of thousands of anonymized medical records, the model predicts which patients are likely to die in the next 3 to 12 months. In early tests, the algorithm analyzed medical data of patients who had already passed away and correctly predicted their remaining life expectancy in 9 out of 10 cases.

The idea of using algorithms in end-of-life care understandably makes people uneasy, so it’s important to be clear: AI isn’t going to make decisions for patients or for doctors, and it’s not going to deny nor discourage care. If a patient wants to proceed with an aggressive treatment regimen, that choice will of course be honored. What AI can do is give patients information they have never had before that can help them realize their preferences as they near the end of their lives, whether that’s remaining mentally aware, being able to spend time with family, avoiding severe pain, or exhausting every possible avenue to defeat their disease.

Entering palliative care too late can mean more time in the hospital pursuing aggressive treatments that offer little chance of improvement, and precious time lost for families. It can also create a financial burden, as patients continue to undergo expensive, curative treatment. Between 2000 and 2014, the average Medicare spending on a beneficiary who died at some point during the year more than doubled. On the other hand, those who enter palliative care too early risk missing out on treatments that could improve their condition and extend their life.

It’s a delicate balance, and according to data from the National Palliative Care Registry, one that we can improve. Less than 50% of hospital patients who need palliative care actually receive it. Just like that first CML patient I cared for, they may suffer because no one knows when to steer them toward a gentler ending.

I don’t pretend AI is a panacea. An algorithm isn’t going to make decisions for doctors or patients, but it can help inform their choices by providing them with insight they’ve never had before.

I’ve seen incredible success stories over the course of my career, many of them driven by advances in biomedicine and technology. Today, clinicians who treat patients with CML are able to have very different discussions than when I was in medical school. As we work to transform more terminal illnesses into treatable ones, AI can help inform the difficult conversations about diseases that remain incurable. It may seem more like silver lining than technological breakthrough, but in the face of illnesses that take away absolutely everything, it’s incredibly powerful to be able to help those who are terminally ill understand how much time they have left. It empowers them to spend that time doing what brings them joy, and to be with those whom they love.