8-10-10

-8-10-10—After a dispute with a passenger who stood to fetch his luggage too soon on a full flight, [Jet Blue flight attendant Slater] got on the intercom, let loose a string of invective, pulled the lever that activates the emergency-evacuation chute and slid down, ... On his way out the door, he paused to grab a beer from the beverage cart. Then he ran to the employee parking lot and drove off...”—NYT A1

--A federal jury on Monday [in Arkansas] convicted a physician of conspiring to detonate a car bomb that badly injured the state medical board chairman. ... Prosecutors said the bombing was in retaliation after the board sanctioned Dr. Mann for overprescribing pain medication. NYT A11

8-7-2010

8-7-2010—Greenspan calls for repeal of all the Bush tax cuts—NYTB1

--Those who served in military since September 2001 face unemployment rate of 11.8%
--WSJA4

—Afghan guards staged a fake rocket attack in June on the site where a South Korean military base was under construction, in an apparent ruse to get more danger pay NYT A6

--In [the] 25 to 34 year old [group with a college degree] the US ranks [12th] behind Canada, South Korea, Russia, Japan, New Zealand, Ireland, Norway, Israel, France Belgium and Australia. That’s beyond pathetic.—Herbert NYT A15

8-4-2010

-8-04-2010—The last three men nominated to the Supreme Court have all been married, and, among them, have seven children. The last three women—Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Harriet Myers (who withdrew)—have all been single without children.—Leonhardt,NYT B1
--In a major push into the battered US commercial real-estate market, China’s $300 billion sovereign-wealth fund is in advanced talk with Harvard University’s endowment to buy its stakes in half a dozen US focused real estate funds for about $500 million... WSJ C1

update July/August 2010

--8-2-2010—“the mediocrity of Harvard undergraduate teaching is an open secret of the Ivy League.”—Hacker, HIGHER EDUCATION? Cited WSJ A11

--8-1-2010—Last February ... as a freak winter storm paralyzed much of the East Coast, relatives of Senator James M. Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who is a skeptic of climate change, came to Washington and erected an igloo.—NYT WK4

7,31,8,1/2010--...studios are cutting back on standard Hollywood fare like romantic comedies because foreign movie-goers often don’t find American jokes all that funny. WSJ A1

7-31-2010—It’s your choice, Mr. President ... To paraphrase the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., they can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.—Blow, NYT A15
7-31-2010—“[the corporate bosses] threw out far more workers and hours than they lost output, said Professor Sum. “Here’s what happened: At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008, you see corporate profits begin to really take off, and they give by the time you get to the first quart of 2010 by $572 billion. And over that same time period, wage and salary payments go down by $122 billion.” That kind of disconnect, said Mr. Sum, had never been seen before in all the decades since World War II.—Herbert, NYT A15

the notes are coming due

Reuters) - The United States should alter policy to take account of China's role as a major player on the world stage if it wants to avoid friction and instability, a major state newspaper said on Thursday.

The commentary in ruling Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily followed the latest spat in Sino-U.S. ties, over what China views as unwarranted U.S. interference in a territorial dispute in the South China Sea.

While senior officials, including U.S. President Barack Obama, say they welcome a prosperous, flourishing China, good words must be backed up by actions, the newspaper said.

"If the United States cannot find a way of recognizing and accepting China's entrance on the world stage as a big player, relations will swerve up and down like a roller coaster," it said.

socialism or barbarism

7-29-2010--A recent report from the Congressional Research Service finds that the war on terror, including Afghanistan and Iraq, has been, by far, the costliest war in American history aside from World War II. It adjusted costs of all previous wars for inflation. ... it is President Obama who is now requesting 6.1 percent more in military spending than the peak of military spending under Mr. Bush....Under Mr. Obama, we are now spending more money on the military, after adjusting for inflation, than in the peak of the cold war, Vietnam War or Korean War. Our battle fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined, according to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The intelligence apparatus is so bloated that, according to The Washington Post, the number of people with “top secret” clearance is 1.5 times the population of the District of Columbia. Meanwhile, a sobering report from the College Board says that the United States, which used to lead the world in the proportion of young people with college degrees, has dropped to 12th. ... For the cost of just one soldier in Afghanistan for one year, we could start about 20 schools there. ...Mr. Mortenson lamented to me that for the cost of just 246 soldiers posted for one year, America could pay for a higher education plan for all Afghanistan. ...Faced with constant demands for more, Mr. Gates in May asked: “Is it a dire threat that by 2020 the United States will have only 20 times more advanced stealth fighters than China?” –Kristof, NYT
--FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress on Wednesday that he does not know how many of his agents cheated on an important exam on the bureau’s policies ... that raised questions about whether the FBI knows its own rules for conducting surveillance on Americans.—SBT A4
--A new climate report confirms the Earth has been warming, with the past decade the hottest on record. WSJ A1
--Insured Americans are using fewer medical services, raising questions whether patients are consuming less health care as they pick ukp a greater share of the costs. WSJ A1

7-28-2010

Things are so bad that Robert Blackwill, who was on W.’s national security team, wrote in Politico that the Obama administration should just admit failure and turn over the Pashtun South to the Taliban since it will inevitably control it anyway. He said that the administration doesn’t appreciate the extent to which this is a Pashtun nationalist uprising.
Dowd, NYT 7-28-2010

7-27-2010

7-27-2010—DHB, which specialized in making body armor used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, paid for more than $6 million in personal expenses on the behalf of [CEO David] Brooks, covering items as expensive as luxury cars....Also included where university textbooks for his daughter, pornographic videos for his son, plastic surgery for his wife, a burial plot for his mother, prostitutes for his employees, and, for him, a $100,000 gem-encrusted American-flag belt buckle. –NYT A1,3 privatization promotes patriotism, family values, & military victory!]

--Now, Representative Zach Wamp, following the lead of Texas governor Rick Perry, wants to revisit the Civil War. “I hope that the American people will go to the ballot box in 2010 and 2012 so that states are not forces to consider separation from this government.”[dude, we’re sorry we beat you crackerbillies! Separate, PUH-LEAZ, SEPARATE!! NOW!!!]

aint no cure for the summertime blues

7-27-2010--“Super Sad” takes place in the near future, and Mr. Shteyngart has extrapolated every toxic development already at large in America to farcical extremes. The United States is at war in Venezuela, and its national debt has soared to the point where the Chinese are threatening to pull the plug. There are National Guard checkpoints around New York, and riots in the city’s parks. Books are regarded as a distasteful, papery-smelling anachronism by young people who know only how to text-scan for data, and privacy has become a relic of the past. Everyone carries around a device called an äppärät, which can live-stream its owner’s thoughts and conversations, and broadcast their “hotness” quotient to others. People are obsessed with their health — Lenny works as a Life Lovers Outreach Coordinator (Grade G) for a firm that specializes in life extension — and shopping is the favorite pastime of anyone with money. –NYT
7-26-2010—A six-year archive of classified military documents made public on Sunday offers an unvarnished, ground-level picture of the war in Afghanistan that is in many respects more grim than the official portrayal.NYT A1[pentagon papers redux]
7-25-2010—A federal investigation has accused dozens of military officials and defense contractors, including some with top level security clearances, of buying and downloading child pornography on private or government computers.NYT A16 [pentagon porno]
7-26-2010--Chile’s president abruptly rejected calls on Sunday from the Roman Catholic Church to pardon dozens of imprisoned military officials convicted of human rights violations during the era known as Chile’s dirty war. NYTA7 [hey, they forgive pederasts, why not fascists?!!]
7-25-2010—So Jeb Bush is running for president. I don’t know about the rest of the country, but thank God, ladies and gentlemen, the comedy recession is over—David Letterman—NYTWK2
--7-24/25/2010—In February 2003, [the CEO of Calpers] was sent a letter making a number of predictions. It said a housing bubble would soon deflate and wreak havoc on average consumers. It urged Calpers to resist risky investments in a push for higher returns. ... The prescient letter ... was from the leader of a small highway patrol union in California. WSJ B4 [these union goons do nothing but diss free enterprise]
7-24-2010—[Yu Keping travelled] across 30 states on a Greyhound bus.] He said he saw the chasm between the grotesquely rich and the abjectly poor, the lack of respect for the elderly, and the apathy on Election Day... He said he was mugged twice, once by a man who put a knife to his back in a public restroom in Indianapolis. NYT A5 [hoosiers educate commie Chinese dude]
7-24-2010—The Shirley Sherrod story tells us [that] the Obama administration, which runs from race issues the way thoroughbreds bolt from the starting gate, did not offer this woman fair or respectful treatment before firing and publicly humiliating her.... There is no way we’ll overcome those divisions if people who should know better keep bowing before and kowtowing to the toxic agenda of those on the right whose overriding goal is to foment hostility and hate. NYT A15 [The person who released the Sherrod tapes] ...Mr. Breitbart is the person who last fall released the Acorn tapes to Fox News. NYT 7-26-2010, p B2
--7-22-2010, LRB—The impoverishment of Iraq—not to mention the exclusion of its oil from the global market to the benefit of oil prices—was not a means to an end: it was the end. P. 9
--It is said that the analysts of the fighting in World War Two, concerned at the apparent reluctance to participate or even fire their weapons of so many of the Western armies’ combat soldiers, tried to figure out what characteristics marked the born warrior.... The only feature they could find which seemed to have strong predictive power was that effective fighters had a strong sense of humor. And that is one of the really distinguishing features of Old Norse poetry, legend, and saga: grim gallows humor. It is always a bad sign in a saga when some one cracks a joke. Ibid., 27 [ blondes do have more fun...]

7-19/20-2010

7-20-2010—“You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap around women for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know guys like that ain’t got not manhood left anyway, so it’s a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.”—Gen. Mattis NYT A10
--E-Books top hardcovers at Amazon.----NYT B1
--China Top US in Energy—WSJ A1
7-19-2010—This was particularly pronounced among the private colleges in the study. For minority applicants, the lower a family’s socioeconomic position, the more likely the student was to be admitted. For whites, though, it was the reverse. An upper-middle-class white applicant was three times more likely to be admitted than a lower-class white with similar qualifications. Douthat, NYT A19

7-17-2010

--Tweet less, kiss more--NYT A19

--"Increasing executive compensation results in executives behaving meanly toward those lower down the hierachy."--WSJ,B4

--Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue.--WSJ, A1,A6

July is the hottest month

--“A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to take it off you.”—Francois Sagan. NYT E6-7-15-2010

--“I’m into fetish mostly...,” said Olga Podolskaya, 41, a psychologist. Though the [annual Moscow sex shop] exhibition lacked the extravagance of similar events she had attended in Berlin, she said things were improving.—NYT E7-7-15-2010

--Consider also the emerging field of teledildonics, in which one can have sex with a real person over the Web through attachments that provide different types of stimulation.—Paul Bloom, HOW PLEASURE WORKS (2010) p. 88-89.

world cup day

--You can see it in every pass. How Spain plays is how Barcelona plays. They can hardly be beaten—Joachim Loew, German coach. NYT 7-11-2010, S6
--Johan Cruyff, the great Dutch player of the 1970s who also played for and coached Barcelona, said he is supporting Spain in Sunday’s final “Spain, a replica of Barca, is the best publicity for football,” Cruyff wrote in his Thursday column in Barcelona’s El Periodico deCatalunya. “Who am I supporting?” I am Dutch but I support the football that Spain is playing.” NYT 7-10-2010, B10
--People wearing Catalan flags are seen traveling in a subway car after a demonstration Saturday in Barcelona. More than a million people gathered Saturday in Barcelona to demand greater regional autonomy for Catalonia and protest a recent court ruling forbidding the region from calling itself a nation.—SBT, -11-2010
--When people work on social justice issues, they don’t win much and wind up dropping out. To laugh at oneself from the beginning is essential.—Father Callahan—NYT-7-11-2010
--
FURTHER READING
Twain’s opposition to incipient imperialism and American military intervention in Cuba and the Philippines, for example, were well known even in his own time. But the uncensored autobiography makes it clear that those feelings ran very deep and includes remarks that, if made today in the context of Iraq or Afghanistan, would probably lead the right wing to question the patriotism of this most American of American writers.
In a passage removed by Paine, Twain excoriates “the iniquitous Cuban-Spanish War” and Gen. Leonard Wood’s “mephitic record” as governor general in Havana. In writing about an attack on a tribal group in the Philippines, Twain refers to American troops as “our uniformed assassins” and describes their killing of “six hundred helpless and weaponless savages” as “a long and happy picnic with nothing to do but sit in comfort and fire the Golden Rule into those people down there and imagine letters to write home to the admiring families, and pile glory upon glory.”
He is similarly unsparing about the plutocrats and Wall Street luminaries of his day, who he argued had destroyed the innate generosity of Americans and replaced it with greed and selfishness. “The world believes that the elder Rockefeller is worth a billion dollars,” Twain observes. “He pays taxes on two million and a half.” –NYT 7-10-2010 A3

7-11-2010 World Cup Day

--You can see it in every pass. How Spain plays is how Barcelona plays. They can hardly be beaten—Joachim Loew, German coach. NYT 7-11-2010, S6
--Johan Cruyff, the great Dutch player of the 1970s who also played for and coached Barcelona, said he is supporting Spain in Sunday’s final “Spain, a replica of Barca, is the best publicity for football,” Cruyff wrote in his Thursday column in Barcelona’s El Periodico deCatalunya. “Who am I supporting?” I am Dutch but I support the football that Spain is playing.” NYT 7-10-2010, B10
--People wearing Catalan flags are seen traveling in a subway car after a demonstration Saturday in Barcelona. More than a million people gathered Saturday in Barcelona to demand greater regional autonomy for Catalonia and protest a recent court ruling forbidding the region from calling itself a nation.—SBT, -11-2010
--When people work on social justice issues, they don’t win much and wind up dropping out. To laugh at oneself from the beginning is essential.—Father Callahan—NYT-7-11-2010
--
FURTHER READING
Twain’s opposition to incipient imperialism and American military intervention in Cuba and the Philippines, for example, were well known even in his own time. But the uncensored autobiography makes it clear that those feelings ran very deep and includes remarks that, if made today in the context of Iraq or Afghanistan, would probably lead the right wing to question the patriotism of this most American of American writers.
In a passage removed by Paine, Twain excoriates “the iniquitous Cuban-Spanish War” and Gen. Leonard Wood’s “mephitic record” as governor general in Havana. In writing about an attack on a tribal group in the Philippines, Twain refers to American troops as “our uniformed assassins” and describes their killing of “six hundred helpless and weaponless savages” as “a long and happy picnic with nothing to do but sit in comfort and fire the Golden Rule into those people down there and imagine letters to write home to the admiring families, and pile glory upon glory.”
He is similarly unsparing about the plutocrats and Wall Street luminaries of his day, who he argued had destroyed the innate generosity of Americans and replaced it with greed and selfishness. “The world believes that the elder Rockefeller is worth a billion dollars,” Twain observes. “He pays taxes on two million and a half.” –NYT 7-10-2010 A3

Sense of Discontinuity for a Bosnian Immigrant
“I have always hated German teams,” said [Aleksandar] Hemon, who grew up in Sarajevo, then a part of Yugoslavia, where antipathy for all things German was practically part of the school curriculum. “The way the Germans play conformed to all the stereotypes — the occupiers, the aggressors. To hate Germany was to love art.
“But Germany has changed, Europe has changed and I have changed. This is the first German team that I don’t hate. But I still can’t support them. I am rooting for Spain.”
….
When Spain took a 1-0 lead over Germany late in the second half, a slimmed-down and very athletic Mr. Hemon was on his feet, cheering, in his Andersonville apartment. Mr. Hemon’s cable package does not include ESPN, so he was watching on Univision, which broadcasts in Spanish, a language he doesn’t speak. It doesn’t matter — soccer is a language unto itself.
“In some ways, soccer is like literature,” he said. “It provides access to a country. Nobody reads books just from their own country.”
he talked about Glenn Beck, the Fox News commentator, who has suggested that a love of soccer is somehow un-American.
“It’s symptomatic the way right-wingers are so invested in the idea that soccer doesn’t matter,” Mr. Hemon said. “Their image of America is obsolete, but they cling to it anyway.”
fff
A Dutch Great Helped Transform Spain’s Game
By JEFFREY MARCUS
JOHANNESBURG — Catalonia did not play in the World Cup here. It has never participated in the tournament and, because it is not a recognized member of FIFA, it quite possibly never will.
But Catalonia, a province in northeast Spain, is the capital of the world’s most exciting and inventive style of soccer, one that will be on display Sunday when the Netherlands and Spain meet in the World Cup final.
Catalonia Coach Johan Cruyff’s influence can be seen in the Netherlands, the team he led to the 1974 World Cup final, and Spain, where he played and coached at F.C. Barcelona, and now lives.
“I am Dutch,” Cruyff said last week to El Periódico in Spain, where he lives. “But I will always defend the football Spain play.”
That is an easy transition for him because the soccer Spain plays is downright Dutch, and it can trace its roots to Cruyff. At the height of his playing career in 1973, Cruyff joined Barcelona and played there five years, winning the Spanish championship and the Spanish cup. He had even greater success when he coached Barcelona from 1988 to 1996, winning four league titles and the 1992 European Cup.
He also helped establish methods used at the club’s acclaimed youth academy, La Masia, where a third of the current Spanish team learned a style of play that was neither Spanish nor Dutch, but which is internationally appealing and very effective.
“Certainly our style is very similar to Barcelona,” Spain midfielder Xavi, who plays for Barcelona, said Saturday. “The profile of the team and what we’re trying to achieve is very similar.”
In addition to Xavi, other Spain players who have come through the Barcelona system are Carles Puyol, Andrés Iniesta, Gerard Piqué, Sergio Busquets, Pedro and Víctor Valdés. Many of them have also donned the Catalonia jersey for exhibitions.
“But it is not only Barça,” Xavi said. “We want everyone in Spain to feel great about the football we’re playing.”
Indeed, in a country where regional pride has a deep-rooted and often fractious history, the team has made its Catalan style appeal to all of Spain, relying on key players from Galicia, Asturias and Castilla.
“Our style of football is inspiring people, surprising people,” said Iker Casillas, the Spanish goalkeeper and team captain.
The Spanish style is based on the Dutch system of “total football,” developed at the Amsterdam club Ajax, where Cruyff learned the game. It requires every player on the field to be a playmaker, as a dribbler or passer, depending on what the situation requires.
Open sections of the field were not gaps to be traversed with long passes or frantic runs forward; rather, they were areas to mount an organized, well-fortified attack with keen passing and combination play. That is the sort of play Spain has used here to dominate possession on its way to the final after losing to Switzerland, 1-0, in its opening match.
“I think Spain is the country playing the best football in the past few years,” Netherlands Coach Bert van Marwijk said Saturday. “I’ve been the coach of the national squad for two years now, and during that time, it has crossed my mind that I would love to play Spain, and now it is happening.”
He added: “Both teams have their own style, and they do resemble each other. Right now, Spain has executed better.”
That is a generous assessment.
The Netherlands has scored 12 goals this tournament — some from long-range shots, others off headers close in — by six different players. All but two of Spain’s seven goals have come off the feet of forward David Villa.
Cruyff is ambivalent about the final, so tied is he to the Netherlands, the country of his birth, and Spain, his adoptive home.
“It is Spain’s game to lose,” he told El Periódico. “But I will take intense joy if they win it.”
While Cruyff’s influence is evident in the way Spain plays, it motivates the Netherlands.
“Those teams of 1974 and 1978 are an inspiration to us,” van Marwijk said last week. “I was thinking about the ’74 and ’78 teams during the game against Uruguay, and at the end of the game, and have talked many times about those teams.”
In 1974, and four years later, when the Netherlands again lost in the final, to host Argentina, the Dutch played scintillating soccer. Cruyff’s dashes through the midfield were the highlight of the 1974 World Cup campaign, when the Netherlands lost in the final to host West Germany.
Cruyff’s Oranje rolled through the World Cup undefeated until the final, scoring 14 goals and conceding only one. This team, powered by the midfield dynamo Wesley Sneijder (five goals) and wing Arjen Robben (two goals), had to defeat Braziland Uruguay on the road to the final — just like the Dutch team a generation ago.
“I don’t only think about the past and the thing we did not achieve,” van Marwijk said. “No Dutch player has ever become world champion, so that’s quite special and extraordinary.”
“Of course,” he added, “you want to win the final, that’s the only thing that counts.”

July 10, 2010
For Final, South Africans Put Past Aside
By JERÉ LONGMAN
JOHANNESBURG — Given that the Dutch are former colonial masters and their descendants instigated the harsh racial policies of apartheid, one might think that many South Africans, blacks especially, would not cheer for the Netherlands against Spain on Sunday in the World Cup final.
In truth, many will not, but mostly for reasons involving the aesthetics of soccer, not a half-century of state-mandated oppression of blacks.
“Loads of us favor Spain, but it is because they have a flair, a quality,” said Lucas Radebe, a black South African who was captain of World Cup teams in 1998 and 2002. “This is all about football. History is history.”
On the other hand, many black and mixed-race South Africans are rooting for the Netherlands, along with white Afrikaners, who are of Dutch descent. Radebe said that 16 years after the fall of apartheid, this represented a sign of progress, a recognition of deep historical and cultural connections, and a confirmation of Nelson Mandela’s belief in the healing power of sports.
In 1995, a year after being voted president, Mandela famously wore the jersey of the Springboks, the national rugby team largely supported by whites and resented by blacks, as South Africa won the world rugby championship here.
“We forgive and forget,” Radebe said. “You’ve got to live in the world and you want to do it in peace. Mandela said we had to tolerate each other. Somebody has to give in so we can make our way forward. Sport has the power to unite people and change individuals.”
As could be expected, many Afrikaners are supporting the Dutch, who are seeking their first World Cup title. Historical links between South Africa and the Netherlands extend to 1652, when the Dutch East India Company established a supply station for ships rounding the Cape of Good Hope.
“Definitely, we’re supporting the Dutch; our roots are there,” said Cherie Smith, 52, a teacher. Her daughter, Sarah Jane, a model, has painted her fingernails orange, the Dutch color, bought an orange shirt to wear and even an orange wig.
“She’s a redhead, so orange is not her color, but she really feels a connection,” Smith said.
Generally, people here do not view former colonial powers solely through the prism of the past. Many South Africans supported England, another former colonial overlord, earlier in the World Cup and are devoted television watchers of the popular English Premier League.
Many black South Africans also rooted for the Netherlands in its semifinal match against Uruguay, mostly because Uruguay had earlier defeated South Africa and ousted Ghana — the continent’s final hope in the tournament — after a controversial play in which a Uruguayan player illicitly used his hand to block a shot from going into the goal.
A soccer connection has existed between the Netherlands and South Africa for more than half a century. The first black South African soccer player to play professionally in Europe was Steve Mokone, who joined the Dutch team Heracles in the late 1950s, a decade after apartheid had been codified in 1948.
In 1999, a Cape Town team in South Africa’s Premier League took the name of Ajax and began operating in a joint venture with the renowned and powerful Amsterdam club.
An important symbolic gesture against apartheid occurred in 1987, when Ruud Gullit, the Dutch star, was named European player of the year and dedicated his award to Mandela, who was still imprisoned at the time.
Gullit met Mandela after his release, and told The Times of London in 2007 that Mandela said to him: “Ruud, I have lots of friends now. When I was on the inside, you were one of the few.”
Such a gesture by Gullit further endeared the Dutch to many black South Africans, said Radebe, the retired captain.
“Players like him made a difference for people of color, in fighting racism, in making it to the highest level of the game,” he said.
While the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa supported apartheid, anti-apartheid activism sprang up in the Netherlands diplomatically and among nongovernmental organizations, historians said. This is precisely why he was rooting for the Netherlands on Sunday, said Themba Ngcobo, 50, a black business owner from Johannesburg.
“I will cheer the Dutch because they contributed a lot to the democratizing and developing of this country,” Ngcobo said. “We understand the past, but we look at the present.”
The Dutch influence in South Africa is particularly resonant around Cape Town. Cape Dutch architecture features rounded gables, thatched roofs and whitewashed walls. Choral singing in so-called Malay choirs features 18th- and 19th-century Dutch songs sung by mixed-race, or colored, people, many of whom are descendants of slaves brought to South Africa centuries ago by the Dutch from Indonesia, India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).
Afrikaans, one of 11 official languages in South Africa, is an offshoot of Dutch that is believed to have emerged in colonial times as a way for masters and slaves to communicate.
Among the 18.5 percent of white and mixed-race people, Afrikaans remains the primary language, according to Peter Alegi, an associate professor of history at Michigan State University who is a visiting Fulbright scholar at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa.
Yet Alegi added: “At school, my two daughters learn Afrikaans, but none of their schoolmates knew that it came from the old Dutch. How much awareness there is of the Dutch connection here is an open question to me.”
Another factor may blunt any enmity that black South Africans might have for the Dutch team, Alegi said.
“Many of the Dutch players are of Caribbean or African diaspora connection,” he said. “People look at the Dutch team and they seem to be diverse racially and ethnically. It might be hard to associate that with a white supremacist past.”
Sean Bvurero, 18, who is black, said he had long supported the Dutch because he liked their players, especially wing Arjen Robben. His friend Thandi Mpungose, also 18, said he was rooting for Spain, but added, “It has nothing to do with the past.”
Thilda Dikeledi, 23, a grocery clerk in the Morningside section of Johannesburg who is black, said she would support the Netherlands because the team played confidently and with passion.
“The past doesn’t mean anything,” Dikeledi said. “Football is football. In the end, this is a game.”

7-6-2010

7-6-2010--Mr. Steele, whose tenure as chairman has been marked by a string of controversial statements, made this latest gaffe at an appearance in Connecticut on Thursday. He questioned the military strategy in Afghanistan as he delivered a broader critique of Mr. Obama, but he misstated the history of the conflict, which President George W. Bush started nine years ago in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
“This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in,” Mr. Steele said. “It was the president who was trying to be cute by half by flipping a script demonizing Iraq, while saying the battle really should be Afghanistan. Well, if he’s such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan?”
Representative Ron Paul of Texas, a former Republican presidential candidate and a leading figure among Tea Party activists, congratulated Mr. Steele on his remarks. In a statement on Sunday, he called Afghanistan “Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama’s war.”
“The American people are sick and tired of spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year, draining our economy and straining our military,” Mr. Paul said. “Michael Steele has it right, and Republicans should stick by him.”

July 4 weekend 2010

--July 3, 2010--Iraq war defies a US timetable; deadline doesn't mean combat will cease.--NYT A1
--July 4, 2010--There are no snakes in Ireland but there is whiskey so they don't need snakes as they can see them even if they ain't there.--Clarence Darrow--NYTWK 5
--[California] officials say computer system can't reset [state workers'] wages to federal minimum.--SBT A7
--Study: Too many parking lots threaten Great Lakes--SBT 3
--In 2003, Bechtel was awarded more than $2 billion in contracts by the federal government as part of [Iraq reconstruction] effort. NYTM 12

6-22-2010

Pick one:
(a)they are trying out for the French soccer team
(b) they are trying out for executive positions at BP
(c)this war’s another real winner...

6-22-2010--An angry President Obama summoned his top commander in Afghanistan to Washington on Tuesday after a magazine article portrayed the general and his staff as openly contemptuous of some senior members of the Obama administration. ... the article seems destined to raise questions about General McChrystal’s judgment, and to spark debate over the wisdom of Mr. Obama’s strategy, at a time when violence in Afghanistan is rising sharply and when several central planks of the strategy appear to be stalled. Two important American allies, the Dutch and Canadians, have announced plans to pull their combat troops out of the country.
In a statement, General McChrystal apologized for his remarks. NYT

ides of June 2010

6-15-2010—setbacks cloud plans to get out of Afghanistan—NYT A1
6-14-2010—US discovers mineral riches in Afghanistan; NYT A1
6-12-2010—Karzai is said to doubt West can defeat Taliban—NYT A1

6-15-2010—BP focused on cost, not risk, in well work, lawmakers say;;. WSJ A1
September 2001--On September 16, [2001, Frank] Rich’s NEW YORK TIMES colleague economist Paul Krugman observed that our U.S. airport security personnel are paid and trained about as much as hamburger flippers. By contrast, European bag screeners receive about $15/hour, plus benefits, plus extensive training. In Europe, airport security is considered law enforcement and the airports or governments pay their airport security personal. “In the United States, however, airport security is paid for the airlines; not surprisingly, they spend as little as possible.” In 1996 “a government advisory committee on airline security recommended spending $1 billion per year—about $2 per passenger—on improvements,” but rejected the idea of a special airport tax. Krugman concludes: “I hope we bring the perpetrators of last week’s attack to justice. But I also hope that once the rage has died down, Americans will be willing to learn one of the key lessons of last week’s horror: there are some things on which the government must spend money, and not all of them involve soldiers. If we refuse to learn that lesson, if we continue to nickel-and-dime crucial public services, we may find—-as we did last week-—that we have nickel-and-dimed ourselves to death.” [Bachmann, SIMULATING SEX p.190]

6-25-2010—Ninty-two percent of Rwandans pay $2 a year for basic [health] coverage ... A Rwandan found it “absurd” that an American he met had no insurance.” NYT D1, D6
6-12/13-2010--...a local church [in Lakeland Florida] stocked a [school] resource room with $5000 worth of supplies. It now caters spaghetti dinners at evening school events, buys sneakers for poor students, and sends in math and English tutors. The principal is delighted. So are the church pastors. “We have inroads into the public schools that we have not had before,” says Pastor Dave McClamma. “By befriending the students, we have the opportunity to viist

6-10/9-2010

6-10-2010—Senate voices concerns over China Debt holdings--WSJ A6 [better late than never..?...]
--The US is badly lagging in basic research on new forms of energy, deepening the nation’s dependence on dirty fuels and crippling its international competitiveness, a diverse group of business executives warn in a study to be released Thursday.-- --NYT B3 [better late than
never..?...]
--Barcelona stands for ... the collective spirit of sharing the ball through fluent, rhythmic passing and movement... NYT B13 [more than a club]
--And while it is fun to trash new-style Democrats for their Ivy League ways, let us also remember that, should you happen to study economics at one of those Ivy League colleges, you will likely imbibe a kind of free-market orthodoxy that would not be out of place in a Wall Street Boardroom. The people now flocking to the Democratic Party might eat artisanal foods and zealously sort containers for easy recycling, but they also know that regulation causes more problems than it fixes and that sophisticated people don’t use Thirties-style phrases like ‘Economic royalists.”—Frank, WSJ A13
--6-9-2010—Legacy for one billionaire: death, but no taxes—NYT A1
--Keeping Politics Safe for the Rich, USCt cuts off matching funds to state candidates in Arizona A16, A20
--The government and university researchers confirmed Tuesday that plumes of oil were spreading far below the ocean surface from the leaking well in the Gulf of Mexc io, raising fresh concern about the potential impact of the spill on sea life. NYT A14
1970—What have they done?/What have they done to the earth?/ What have they done to our fair sister?/ Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her,/Cut her with knives in the sight of the dawn/ Tied her with fences and dragged her down...—The Doors

6-6-2010

6-6-2010-Growing Obesity increases perils of childbearing; linking to higher risk of deaths, birth defects, and Caesareans.NYT A1
--Rises in Suicides of Middle Aged is continuing A14
--Jennifer Wilkerson’s preparations for a post-petroleum world include growing her own food and stockpiling sup-lies against any shortages. NYT A19
--If you’re prepared, you don’t need to take time outs. John Wooden SBT A1
--[Obama’s] most conspicuous flaw is his unshakeable confidence in the collective management brilliance of the best and the brightest he selected for his White House team — “his abiding faith in the judgment of experts,” as Joshua Green of The Atlantic has put it....Obama has yet to find a sensible middle course between blind faith in his own Ivy League kind and his predecessor’s go-with-the-gut bravado. –Rich, NYT

5-30-2010

5-30-2010—There has never been a challenge that the American people, with as little interference as possible by the federal government, cannot handle. La. Gov. Bobby Jindal, March 24, 2009
--Add another entry to the list of worries for the global economy and financial markets: labor unrest in China. Rapidly rising industrial wages are beginning to allow China’s workers to share in their country’s rising prosperity. The question is whether these gains can be maintained and even increased without disrupting supply lines to companies around the world, and without discouraging much future investment by Chinese and global companies alike. The biggest eye-opener for multinationals in China recently has been a nine-day-old strike at a sprawling Honda transmission factory here in Foshan, about 100 miles northwest of Hong Kong. The strike, which has forced Honda to suspend production at all four of its joint venture assembly plants in China, has shown that Chinese authorities are willing to tolerate work stoppages at least temporarily, even at high-tech operations on which many other factories depend. Chinese policy makers are trying to let wages rise to create the foundations of an economy driven by domestic demand, without derailing the export machine that has produced the world’s strongest economic growth over the last three decades. Even before the strike, manufacturers and buyers of low-cost products were already actively seeking alternatives to China, like Vietnam and Cambodia, said Richard Vuylsteke, the president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. –NYT 9

5-26-2010

5-26-2010—[GOP candidate for SC governor] Nikki Haley, has been hit by charges, leveled b one of her supporters, that she had an “inappropriate physical relationship” with him three years ago. NYT A12

--After 30 years in which the godlike, self-regulating market became a bipartisan article of faith, we have no suffered through a cataclysmic series of market failures, each disaster abetted by business-friendly regulators whose complacency was ensured by the same rotten ideology—if not simply purchased out right y the business interests. It’s as if the invisible hand was trying to slap some sense into us.—Thomas Frank WSJA15

5-19-2010

5-19-2010—American deaths in Afghanistan surpass 1000—NYT A11
--In papers filed well before the [Rekers rent-boy] scandal broke, [GOP Attorney General Bill McCollum, appealing the overturning of Florida’s anti-gay parent law] denounced the court’s “wholesale disregard” of testimony by Dr. Rekers ... stressing Dr. Rekers’ qualifications and stating that “the trial court entirely discredited him based on his religion.” NYT A15
—[Fort Wayne Congressman Souder said] he was “focused upon .. renewing my walk with my Lord.” NYT A14

5-17-2010

5-17-2010--British troops who have fought in Iraq or Afghanistan suffer far lower rates of post-traumatic stress than Americans do, according to the most rigorous psychiatric study of Britain’s military so far. While estimated rates of the condition in troops returning to the United States range from 10 to 15 percent, the new study found a rate of just 4 percent among Britons — even though they and the Americans have seen equal amounts of combat in recent years. ... Another big difference between the two countries is national health care. In Britain, returning soldiers are covered free for life; in the United States, they are entitled to five years of free care from the Department of Veterans Affairs, though service-related injuries are covered for life. “I’ve brought this up with American military commanders; why not switch to nationalized health care?” Dr. Wessely said. “Went over like a cup of cold spit.” –NYT A10 [no faggoty socialism for OUR troops...]
--Right-wing extremism may be the same as it ever was, but it clearly has more adherents now than it did a couple of years ago. Why? It may have a lot to do with a troubled economy. True, that’s not how it was supposed to work. When the economy plunged into crisis, many observers — myself included — expected a political shift to the left. After all, the crisis made nonsense of the right’s markets-know-best, regulation-is-always-bad dogma. In retrospect, however, this was naïve: voters tend to react with their guts, not in response to analytical arguments — and in bad times, the gut reaction of many voters is to move right. That’s the message of a recent paper by the economists Markus Brückner and Hans Peter Grüner, who find a striking correlation between economic performance and political extremism in advanced nations: in both America and Europe, periods of low economic growth tend to be associated with a rising vote for right-wing and nationalist political parties. The rise of the Tea Party, in other words, was exactly what we should have expected in the wake of the economic crisis. –Krugman [d’oh...]
-That spring was supposed to bring a flowery conclusion to their [B.U., class of 1970] four years of academe. But President Richard M. Nixon had invaded Cambodia. National Guardsmen had gunned down students at Kent State, killing four and wounding nine. Young men still faced the draft. And this campus, like many across the country, was in turmoil, with strikes, sit-ins, building takeovers and fire-bombings. The situation became so incendiary that, for safety’s sake, university officials called off final exams, canceled graduation and sent students packing. This weekend, on what would have been the 40th anniversary of that ceremony, the university sought to make amends with a proper graduation. ... “This is not an apology,” Robert A. Brown, the president of the university, said in an interview beforehand. “We did exactly the right thing by calling off exams. It’s an opportunity to reach out to this cadre of alums and say, ‘Come, be with us.’ ” ... The ice-breaking social event was an extensive slide show of photographs taken by Peter Simon, a member of the class and brother of Carly Simon. “Forty years ago I probably never would have gone to graduation because I was such a hippie,” Mr. Simon said to chuc kles and applause. But now, he said, “time has mellowed me.” Mr. Simon said that when he speaks about his photography around the country, students frequently say to him, “God, I wish I’d been alive and been part of your generation because it’s really boring now.” He said he responds by saying: “But you have all this texting! You have cellphones!” “And they say they’d give all that stuff away for the kind of experiences we had,” he said. “And I have to say, I agree.” --NYT A16 [NEVER let it be...]

5-14-2010

--5-14-2010--[Defending itself in US Court] the Holy See will argue that it has no jurisdction over bishops' conduct WSJ A3 [and if you believe this, the Resurrection is EASY...]

--[A former Eton pupil recalls seeing] Eton head up two lists: the highest number of old boys as MPs, and the highest number in jail, compaired with other schools. WSJ A16 [as if there was a difference]

--After 40 years, the US war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds and thousands of lives and for what? .. Even US drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn';t worked. SBT A4 [the market always wins]

catchup, May 12, 2010

5-12-2010-A majority in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll says Afghanistan is not worth the cost. NYT, A23
--New analysis of a student’s audio recording from the shootings in which four students were killed at Kent State University in 1970 shows that Ohio Natoinal Guard troops received orders to fire into a crowd of unarmed students... NYT A18
--Four Nerds and a Cry to Arms Against Facebook. ... The Diaspora* group was inspired to begin their project after hearing a talk by Eben Moglen, a law professor at Columbia University, who described the centralized social network as “spying for free.” –NYT A19
--5-10-2010—Had the calculation been done correctly, Anthem would have needed an average increase in the individual market of only 15%, not the 25% it proposed. NYT A20
--NYRB, May 27, 2010 pp. 53, 56. Mark Lilla: Anarchistic like the Sixties, selfish like the Eighties, contradicting neither, [a new strain of populism] is estranged, aimless, and as juvenile as our new century. It appeals to petulant individuals convinced that they can do everything themselves if they are only left alone, and that others are conspiring to keep them from doing just that. ... They don’t want the rule of the people ... they want to be people without rules.
2003—There were what, 3000 dead? Historically, that’s insignificant. As a US example, 50,000 died at the Battle of Gettysburg. What is significant, as my old profs said, is they struck at the heart of the Empire. In previous conflicts—Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War—the Empire managed to keep the barbarians outside its gates, its borders. In that sense people may look back on 9/11-and I stresss MAY—as the beginning of the great barbarian invasion.—Barbarian Invasions.
413 AD. “So long as it lasts,” they say, “so long as [our country] enjoys material prosperity, and the glory of victorious war, or, better, the security of peace, why should we worry? What concerns us is that we should get richer all the time, to have enough for extravagant spending every day, enough to keep our inferiors in their place. It is all right if the poor serve the rich, so as to get enough to eat and to enjoy a lazy life under their patronage; while the rich make use of the poor to ensure a crowd of hangers-on to minister to their pride... Augustine Bk II. Ch. 20

5-6-2010

5-6-2010—In his and Dr. Reich’s view, Neanderthals interbred only with non-Africans, the people who left Africa, which would mean that non-Africans drew from a second gene pool not available to Africans.—NYT A9
--The Journal also found that the safety record of US offshore drilling compares unfavorably, in terms of death and serious accidents, t other major oil-producing countries. –WSJ A4

sit down in safe chair before reading

5-5-2010—Amount of spill could escalate, company admits—NYT a1
--A bill that would require speedier disclosure of stock trades by lawmakers has languished for years on Capitol Hill... WSJ A6
--[the new dean of Harvard business school] co-authored a 2008 Harvard Business Review article that ... argued for a code of ethics—an oath of sorts—like the ones doctors and lawyers must take. Students at the school later took up the cause and launched a voluntary MBA Oarth. WSJ B9

May 4

5-4-2010—40th anniversary of Kent State killings
--Halliburton was providing a number of services on the [BP oil] rig, including cementing, which is a method of aping the well to control pressure from the oil and gas beneath.—NYT A1 [hey, they were great in Iraq...?..]
-- Only about 6.7 percent of Swedish-Americans live in poverty. ...When two economists calculated Swedish poverty rates according to the American standard, they found that 6.7 percent of the Swedes in Sweden were living in poverty. ... There are certain high-trust regions where highly educated people congregate, producing positive feedback loops of good culture and good human capital programs. This mostly happens in the northeastern states like New Jersey and Connecticut. There are other regions with low social trust, low education levels and negative feedback loops. This mostly happens in southern states like Arkansas and West Virginia.-- David Brooks, NYT A25

catching up, May 3, 2010

5-3-2010--To the wide array of programs offered by evangelical megachurches like Westside, the group adds what Ms. Renaud says is something long overdue. While churches have addressed pornography use among the men in their congregations and among the clergy, a group for women who say they are addicted to pornography is new territory, she said. –NYT [or they can work for the SEC or GOP]
5-3-2010—[Warren Buffet’s long time partner] placed the lame on lax or dysfunctional government regulations WSJ C1 [d’oh]
5-1/2-20100--...as the oil approached the shore this week Mr. Crozier was rethinking his position [that industry had embraced environmental protection in recent years]. WSJ A5 [d’oh...]
--5-2-2010—Bloomberg names ex-mayor of Indianapolis ... to No. 2 post—NYT A13 [hoosier bails out NYC]
4-30-2010—US report on Afghan war finds few gains in 6 months—NYT A16 [d’oh...]
--NYRB, May 13, 2010—And one more thing: Greece has a long history of default—in fact, the nation has been in arrears on its debt for half its modern history. P.11
--IBID—If politicians were painters, with FDR as Titian and Churchill has Rubens ...Bill Clinton might aspire to to heights of Salvador Dali (and believe himself complimented bythe comparison). P. 21
IBID—The flight of Iraquis since the 2003 invasion ranks as the largest human displacement in the Middle Est since 1948. P. 26
NYRB, April 8, 2010--...the Mediocre University at New York City the kind of place where people paid vast sums so their spawn could take hard drugs in suitable company, draw from life on their laptops, do radical things with viedo cameras and caulk...—p.16
--IBID. ..television preferences ... are now the best predictor of a voter’s political preferences. P. 20
--IBID. We—the left, academics, teachers—have abandoned politics to those for whom actual political power is far more interesting than its metaphorical implications. P. 27
--...the Irish and Germans continued to be social outsiders until the last years of the nineteenth century when a new wave of immigrants, originating in Italy and Eastern Europe, arrived to raise anxieties about the purity of the American. Having settled in, and looking more American than the newcomers, the Germans and the Irish became, Painter writes, “the second enlargement of American whiteness to become constituent parts of the American. P. 74

go figure

4-27-2010—Democrats Deny Buffet on a Key Provision. WSJ A4
--Senate Democrats agreed Monday to cut a provision from their derivatives bill that was sought by Warran Buffet—Ibid.
--I tell all my patients: Chocolate is a vegetable. Dr. Beatrice Golmb WSJ D1
--People who eat more chocolate are more likely to be depressed than people who eat less chocolate, a new study has found.—WSJ D3

weekend update

4-25-2010—“She [GOP Gov. of AZ] felt that the majority of Arizona fall on the side of, Let’s solve the [immigration] problem and not worry about the Constitution.”—[former AZ Att.Gen.,GOP]—NYT A15
--Not your daughter’s jeans: hot doesn’t have to come in flashes.—Bloomingdale Nordstrom Ad, NYT ST9
--So to a contemporary writer like the Soviet-born Andreï Makine, who found political asylum here in 1987, French promises assimilation and a link to the great literary tradition of Zola and Proust. He recounted the story of how, 20-odd years ago, his first manuscripts, which he wrote in French, were rejected by French publishers because it was presumed that he couldn’t write French well enough as a foreigner.
Then he invented the name of a translator, resubmitted the same works as if they were translations from Russian, and they won awards. He added that when his novel “Dreams of My Russian Summers” became a runaway best seller and received the Prix Goncourt, publishing houses in Germany and Serbia wanted to translate the book from its “original” Russian manuscript, so Mr. Makine spent two “sleepless weeks,” he said, belatedly producing one.—NYT AR 21
--4-24-2010—Chinese Military seeks to extend its naval power.NYT A1 [you read it here first]
--Rating Agencies Shared Data and Wall St. Seized Advantage NYT A1 [luv these markets!]
--4-24/25-2010—The bishop of Bruges, Belgium, on Friday became the third European bishop in three days to offer his resignation, after admitting he sexually abused a child 25 years ago. WSJ A6 [hey, he seized his advantage...]
--Ibid. The Army filed formal charges against Lt.Col. Terry Lakin, a military physician who refused to deploy to Afghanistan because he believes President Crack Obama hasn’t proven he was born in the US.—WSJ A5 [military medicine is to medicine as military music is to music...]
--Ibid.—Thirty five people at the [SEC] were found to have looked at porn over the past five years [so now we know why the SEC didn’t catch all the inside informationsharing...]

4-22-2010

4-22-2010--...a “South Park” episode last week ... depicted the founders of various religions, including Moses, Jesus and Buddha, but declined to show the Prophet Muhammad, instead representing him as wearing a bear costume.—NYT C2
--“After much soul searching—and, by the way, it was nowhere to be found—I have decided to do another season of ‘Curb [Your Enthusiasm}’—Larry David, NYT C2
--10/1—Odds that Erin Nordegren will publicly announce her support for Europe in this fall’s Ryder’s Cup. Ms. Nordegren’s husband, Tiger Woods, usually plays for the US.—WSJ D8
--LRB 28 Jan. 2010, p. 3—Today, the high speed growth of the PNC is transforming Western attitudes once again, attracting excitement and enthusiasm in business and media alike, with a wave of fashion and fascination recalling the chinoiserie of rococo Europe.—Perry Anderson

4-20-2010

4-20-2010- The SEC decided to sue Goldman Sachs Group Inc over the objections of two Republican commissioners [in a 3 to 2 vote]—WSJ A1
4-20-2010—Drug prices jumped last year, ahead of federal health overhaul. WSJ B1
--4-20-2010—Defending champion FC Barcelona is the heavy favorite heading into Tuesday’s first leg of Champions League semifinal matches for a simple reason: It has an absurd number of great players.—WSJD8

4-15-2010

4-15-2010—The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45. NYT A1
--America’s future math teachers, on average, earned a C on a new test comparing their skills with their counterparts in 15 other countries NYT A15
--With cars as meth labs, evidence litters road. Elkhart Ind.—NYT A1

weekend update

4-10-2010—[Michelle] Bachmann’s fame has increased by leaps and bounds despite the fact that she, um, makes stuff up.—NYT A17 [Midwestern girls]
--4-10/11-2010[Danish truck driver union rep] argues that the right to tip a cold one at work is as sacred as other rights enjoyed by Copenhagen-based Carlsberg workers, such as a year’s sick leave at full pay, an average annual salary of $59,000 and two free crates of beer monthly.—WSJ A1 [workers of the world unite]
4/11/2010----BOSS: Say the user needs to lube the product ten times a day with the wax from a bear’s ear; and say the warranty is voided if the device isn’t properly maintained. DILBERT: Is that legal? BOSS: It’s better than legal. We’re using the law to keep justice away!
--After taking the hallucinogen, Dr. Martin put on an eye mask and headphones, and lay on a couch listening to classical music as he contemplated the universe.
“All of a sudden, everything familiar started evaporating,” he recalled. “Imagine you fall off a boat out in the open ocean, and you turn around, and the boat is gone. And then the water’s gone. And then you’re gone.”
Today, more than a year later, Dr. Martin credits that six-hour experience with helping him overcome his depression and profoundly transforming his relationships with his daughter and friends. He ranks it among the most meaningful events of his life, which makes him a fairly typical member of a growing club of experimental subjects. NYT A1 [you read it first in EXTREME PROUST sec. 46]

4-9-2010

4-9-2010—Major US banks have masked their risk levels in the past five quarters by temporarily lowering their debt just before reporting it to the public, New York Fed data show. WSJ A1
--A South African boy discovered the first known fossils of a pre-human species, raising more questions about the course of human evolution. ..[Bernard Wood, Geo.Wash.U.:] “I think these fossils are evidence that the tree of human evolutionary history had lots of twigs, all but one of which became extinct.”—WSJ, A1, A3 [cmon, give us a little time...]
--“We were fighting what was an obvious, difficult, never-ending, and probably impossible struggle to shoot arrows at this on-coming juggernaut of what was a corporate machine that was going to sweep us away and turn this whole culture into nothing more than a karaoke playground.”—Malcolm McLaren, manager of the Sex Pistols, dead at 64. WSJWSJ W3

4-8-2010

4-8-2010—The president of Kyrgyzstan was forced to flee the capital, Bishkek, on Wednesday after bloody protests erupted across the country over his repressive rule, a backlash that could pose a threat to the American military supply line into nearby Afghanistan. … [the] opposition leaders were angered last spring when Obama administration officials courted Mr. Bakiyev — who they admitted was an autocrat — in an ultimately successful attempt to retain rights to the military base, Manas, used to supply troops in Afghanistan. President Obama even sent him a letter of praise. …The American attitude toward Mr. Bakiyev ruffled opposition politicians in Kyrgyzstan, who said it was shameful for the United States to stand for democratic values in the developing world while maintaining an alliance with him. The Kyrgyz president’s son, Maksim, had been scheduled to be in Washington on Thursday for talks with administration officials. The opposition views the younger Mr. Bakiyev as a vicious henchman for his father, and was infuriated that he was granted an audience. The State Department said late on Wednesday that it had canceled the meetings. NYT A1

--Therefore I cannot refrain from speaking about the city of this world, a city which aims at domination, which holds nations in enslavement, but is itself dominated by that very lust of domination.—St. Augustine [don’t ferget, kids, Rome was sacked 1600 years ago this August!]

4-7-2010

4-7-2010—The priest protested he was sleepwalking. Three days later, the archbishop sent the priest to a rehab place in New Mexico; e ended up as a Notre Dame professor. –Dowd NYT A27

4-1-2010

4-1-2010—CEOs see pay fall again. WSJ A1
--Hedge fund pay roars back. NYT B1
--The man chosen by Gov. Charlie Crist to lead the Republican Party of Florida is under criminal investigation after a new audit showed that he may have steered $200,000 in party money to a company he owned. NYT A16

3-29-2010

3-29-2009—[The basketball coach of Butler] is a believer in statistical analysis, which after heavily influencing baseball is making its way into basketball. NYT D2
--Yet despite thronging primary races across the US, true tea-party candidates have stumbled at the polls. WSJ A1
--Jesus Christ, Benedict said in his homily, guides the faithful “towards the courage that doesn’t let us be intimidated by the chatting of dominant opinions, towards patience that supports others. WSJ A19 [yeh, these butt fucked little boys do nothing but chatter, and we need to support the pedophiles—rah rah Jesus!!]
--The secret of survival is a defective imagination. The inability of mortals to imagine things as they truly are is what allows them to live, since one momentary, unresisted glimpse of the world’s totality of suffering would annihilate them on the spot, like a whiff of the most lethal sewer gas.” John Banville, quoted at 18 LRB 11 March 2010
--In today’s money, the entire cost of the Apollo program was spent in 540 days of the war in Iraq. 14 LRB 25 Feb. 2010

weekend update--PS

3-27-2010—The Legion of Christ, a Catholic religious order whose late founder was revealed to have molested young seminarians, formally apologized to his victims.—A1
--Homophobia is the norm throughout Africa.—NYT A4
--Research suggests that women from countries with healthier populations prefer more feminine looking men. WSJ W1
--Even the optics [of Obamacare] must be irritating. A woman (Nancy Pelosi) pushed the health care bill through the House. The bill’s most visible and vocal proponents were a gay man (Barney Frank) and a Jew (Anthony Weiner). And the black man in the White House signed the bill into law. It’s enough to make a good old boy go crazy. ... A Quinnipiac Universitiy poll released on Wednesday took a look at the Tea Party members ... they were disproportionately white, evangelical Christian and “less educated ... than the average Joe and Jane Six-Pac k.” NYT A17

weekend update

3-28-2010—The sin-crazed [Cardinal Ratzinger] was so consumed with sexual mores—issuing constant instructions on chastity, contraception, abortion—that he didn’t make time for curbing sexual abuse by priests who were supposed to pray with, not prey on, their young charges. –NYT, Dowd
--In the long run, the project of measuring “intelligence” probably did more than eugenics to stigmatize and hold back the nonwhite.—NYT BK, 9.
--Two lower courts have ruled that 2007 Texas law, which imposes a $5per-visit on people who visit the state’s roughly 170 strip clubs, is unconstitutional.—WSJA3
--“Whose career do you admire?” Craig Ferguson: Let’s see. I guess, the early death of Albert Camus was tragic. But I liked the act that he played goalkeeper and was also a troubled existentialist. ... “Which are you more accomplished at, sports or philosophy?” CF: Oh, existentialism, no doubt. When I see a ball coming towards me I wonder if it’s really a ball. WSJ W2
--But for the moment [with the passage of Obamacare] our federal overlords have ruled. We better start adjusting to our new status as Europeans. --Ind. Gov. Mitch Daniels WSJ A19 [oh Mitch, we wish!!]
--If Republicans don’t want America to follow Britain and Canada down the road to socialized medicine... –Phil Gramm Ibid. [please, GOP just follow your leaders to hell...]
--Do we want to go the way of Western Europe?—La. Gov. Jindal Ibid. [see above; go back to India, pal...]

of war and peace

3-25-2010—As little as 30,000 years ago, it now appears, there were five human species in the world –NYT—[four down, one to go]

--Democratic lawmakers have received death threats and been the victims of vandalism because of their votes in favor of the health care bill... NYT A16

--It is now [for the people of the USA] to demonstrate to the world, that those who can fairly carry an election, can also suppress a rebellion—that ballots are the rightful, and peaceful, successors of bullets; and that when ballots have fairly, and constitutionally, decided, there can be no successful appeal, back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal, except to ballots themselves, at succeeding elections. Such will be the great lesson of peace; teaching men that what they cannot take by an election, neither can they take it by war—teaching all, the folly of being the beginners of a war.—Lincoln, July 4, 1861

--March 24, 2010—NYT, on page A16
College Breaks a Tradition of Silence Before Games
By SUSAN SAULNY
GOSHEN, Ind. — At the small liberal arts college here known for its pacifist Mennonite traditions, sporting events have never begun with the same pregame routine as almost everywhere else — cheering hoopla for the home team, complete with a ritual salute to the flag and the playing of the national anthem. Usually, the Goshen College Maple Leafs just huddle and head out to play.
But a baseball double-header on Tuesday broke with generations of tradition as the school made peace with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” playing it over the public-address system.
The players, standing alertly, turned their eyes to the flag, and most of the spectators cheered in the bleachers. Then, in another twist, the announcer said, “Let us pray.” Almost everyone joined in and recited the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi, beginning with the words, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.”
Then they played ball.
The new pregame program is an effort to come to terms with reality: almost half the student population is non-Mennonite, and patriotic fervor is running high here in northern Indiana and across the country.
But for many Mennonite students and other pacifists on campus, the change is a heart-wrenching disappointment, as they hold to the church’s traditional belief that the words to the anthem — Francis Scott Key’s paean to the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812 — glorify war and exalt a kind of nationalism that they say has been so problematic throughout the world’s violent history. They say they want their only allegiance to be to God, not a flag.
As a compromise, the college administration chose an instrumental version of the anthem, thus omitting all mention of rockets and bombs bursting in air — though people may sing if they want.
Even that was too much, some students said. About a dozen protesters among the 100 or so spectators remained seated in the bleachers during the anthem. In keeping with pacifist habits, they did not yell or carry signs.
“We want our silence to be the power,” said Josh Miller, 22, a junior from Harrisonburg, Va., who is Mennonite. “It’s a challenging time to try to live Christ’s peace.”
In contrast, Taylor TenHarmsel, 20, and Sean Doering, 21, — who are Christian, but not Mennonite — painted “U.S.A.” in red, white and blue across their bare chests along with stripes and whooped it up at the end of the song. They said they were relieved to be able to show their spirit. “I respect some of the beliefs people have here, but I think the freedom of the flag is what allows us to be here,” Mr. TenHarmsel said. “People fought to give us the freedoms we have, and that should be respected.”
The plain-living Mennonites are Christians who descended from the same 16th-century Anabaptist group as the Amish, although they are typically more worldly, having evolved over the centuries into conservative and more progressive communities.
Goshen College, with about 1,000 students, would fall into the increasingly liberal category, much to the chagrin of students like Mr. Miller. “What does it mean to be Mennonite in 21st-century America?” he said. “It’s about integrating and not recognizing the value of being a separate and unique church.”
But James E. Brenneman, the college president, said he could not disagree more, calling the decision “a whole new kind of peace movement.”
“I am committed to retaining the best of what it means to be a Mennonite college, while opening the doors wider to all who share our core values,” he said.
Goshen’s board of directors and college administrators had debated the merits of this change in policy for years. There was precedent: Mennonite colleges in Kansas, Ohio and other states played an instrumental version of the anthem. The Goshen News called the decision “a gesture worth embracing.”
Still, some wondered if the move, to be reviewed in a year, was not prompted more by pressure from outside groups and critics, particularly a conservative talk-radio host who singled Goshen out for ridicule three years ago, prompting a flurry of angry calls and e-mail messages to the college. There was also the issue of a declining Mennonite student population and the need to recruit beyond members of the peace church.
Paul Hershberger, class of 1958, said he remembered a student body that was nearly homogeneous in religion makeup. He stood for the anthem on Tuesday, with his friend Stan King, class of 1961.
“I feel O.K. about it,” Mr. King said. “At first I didn’t particularly like it, but then I listened to the other side. I feel there was not much lost.”
As for the Maple Leafs on the field, they lost their first game to the Siena Heights Saints, but rebounded to win the second game. Joel King, a player, said, “We seemed a little nervous in the first two innings with the added distraction.”

happy 30th

No soldier is obliged to obey an order contrary to the law of God. It is time that you come to your senses and obey your conscience rather than follow sinful commands.—Archbishop Romero [spoken 3-23-80, assassinated the following day—USA lawyers, of course, continue to enjoy the right to justify whatever they want]

3-24-2010

3-23-2010—A retired US Army colonel became the latest and highest-ranking officer to plead guilty in an Iraq War contractor-corruption scandal.—WSJ A1 [a guy dressed as a pimp tricked him into confessing]

--[Conservative member of Parliament, speaking about the “relative ghastliness of people in standard-class train cars:] “They are a totally different type of people... There’s lots of children, there’s noise, there’s activity. ...” NYT A1 [to be fair, I don’t think Republicans are human..]

3-22-2010

3-22-2010—Europe’s stragglers find villain: Germany’s competitiveness. ... That doesn’t mean German labor comes cheap. Their manufacturing wages and benefits are among the highest in Europe, at about 34 euros an hour... WSJ A2

--French opposition scores a victory. ... Mr. Sarkozy was elected in 2007 on the promise he would bring France out of a prolonged economic malaise and cut unemployment in half by introducing more free-market policies. But last year’s recession and a sharp rise in joblessness have led him to call for giving state administration a bigger role. In Sunday’s regional vote, the opposition Socialist party won control most regions through coalitions with Communist and green movements. –WSJ A13

3-21-2010

3-21-2010—“Dear Texas: Please shut up. Sincerely, History.” SF Chronicle, NYT WK1

big day

3-19-2010--Banking regulators rewarded: report finds government gave bonuses to auditors who may have missed warning signs of trouble. SBT A3 (AP)

--Excuse [as in throw out] for the rest of the year any player who is not clean in his play.—James Niasmith, founder of basketball—WSJ W11

--Looking back Greenspan says Wall Street needs a tighter rein. NYT B1

--Arizona drop’s children’s health program. NYT A17

--Two former high school teachers running for governor in Georgia were suspended from their jobs in the past for sexual misconduct involving students, according to state documents. [Georgia TRIES to match NY and ILL...]

--The German archdiocese led by the future Pope Benedict XVI ignored repeated warnings in the early 1980s by a psychiatrist treating a priest accused of sexually abusing boys that he should not be allowed to work with children, the psychiatrist said Thursday. NYT A1 [he was being groomed to run for governor of Georgia]

--[British Conservative think tanker Philip Blond argues for three big areas of reform]: remoralize the market, relocalize the economy and recapitalize the poor. NYT A23

--[the insurer] had a systematic policy of revoking its clients policies when they got sick. In particular ... it targeted every single policy holder who contracted HIV looking for any excuse, no matter how flimsy, for cancellation. In the case that brought all this to light, Assurant Health used an obviously misdated handwritten note by a nurse ... to claim that [an insured’s] infection was a pre-existing condition that the [insured] had failed to declare, and revoked his policy. NYT A23

big day

3-19-2010--Banking regulators rewarded: report finds government gave bonuses to auditors who may have missed warning signs of trouble. SBT A3 (AP)

--Excuse [as in throw out] for the rest of the year any player who is not clean in his play.—James Niasmith, founder of basketball—WSJ W11

--Looking back Greenspan says Wall Street needs a tighter rein. NYT B1

--Arizona drop’s children’s health program. NYT A17

--Two former high school teachers running for governor in Georgia were suspended from their jobs in the past for sexual misconduct involving students, according to state documents. [Georgia TRIES to match NY and ILL...]

--The German archdiocese led by the future Pope Benedict XVI ignored repeated warnings in the early 1980s by a psychiatrist treating a priest accused of sexually abusing boys that he should not be allowed to work with children, the psychiatrist said Thursday. NYT A1 [he was being groomed to run for governor of Georgia]

--[British Conservative think tanker Philip Blond argues for three big areas of reform]: remoralize the market, relocalize the economy and recapitalize the poor. NYT A23

--[the insurer] had a systematic policy of revoking its clients policies when they got sick. In particular ... it targeted every single policy holder who contracted HIV looking for any excuse, no matter how flimsy, for cancellation. In the case that brought all this to light, Assurant Health used an obviously misdated handwritten note by a nurse ... to claim that [an insured’s] infection was a pre-existing condition that the [insured] had failed to declare, and revoked his policy. NYT A23

3-17-2010

3-18-2010—Local marine in Afghanistan shot to death by private security contactor supported by US government.—SBT B5 [free enterprise at work]

—Files kept secret for decades that detail hundreds of claims of child sexual abuse by troop leaders of the Boy Scouts of America are at the center of a civil court case that began here Wednesday.—NYT A21 [call the Pope! Call the Pope!!]

3-16

3-16-2010--Ms. Roslaniec called mall girls the daughters of capitalism. “Parents have lost themselves in the race after a new washing machine or car and are rarely home,” she said. “A 14-year-old girl needs a system of values that can’t be shaped without the guidance of parents. The result is that these girls live in a world where there are no feelings, just cold calculation.” According to a recent study commissioned by the Ombudsman for Children in Poland, 20 percent of teenage prostitutes in Poland sell their bodies for designer clothes, fancy gadgets or concert tickets. Girls on average enter the sex trade at age 15; boys at 14. NYT A8 [no stupid regulations to contain the working of the marketplace in Poland...]

--Moody’s says US debt could test triple-A rating—NYT B1 [they did so well rating the banks...]

ides of March 2010

3-15-2010--To begin with, there’s Steve Eisman, who had started out “a strident Republican” and was on his way “to becoming the financial market’s first socialist” as he grew increasingly convinced that “an entire industry, called consumer finance,” basically “existed to rip people off.” Mr. Eisman and his team “had a from-the-ground-up understanding of both the U.S. housing market and Wall Street,” Mr. Lewis writes, and by performing the sort of nitty-gritty credit analysis on mortgages (that should have been done before the loans were made in the first place), they realized that they could make a fortune by shorting the worst of the worst.
Then there is Michael Burry, a doctor with Asperger’s syndrome, who’d become obsessed with investing and started a fund with money from a small settlement his family received when his father died after a medical misdiagnosis. Dr. Burry immersed himself in studying the bond market in 2004 and became convinced that lending standards had declined so alarmingly that he could make money by shorting subprime mortgage bonds; by the end of 2007, Mr. Lewis reports, “he would have realized profits of more than $720 million” for his fund.
Finally, there is the “garage band hedge fund” started by Jamie Mai and Charlie Ledley in 2003 with a Schwab account containing $110,000 and housed in a shed in the back of a friend’s house in Berkeley, Calif. Mr. Ledley believed, Mr. Lewis writes, “that the best way to make money on Wall Street was to seek out whatever it was that Wall Street believed was least likely to happen, and bet on its happening.” In this case, his contrarian instincts told him, in Mr. Lewis’s words, that “the markets were predisposed to underestimating the likelihood of dramatic change.”
Four and a half years later the American economy was in trouble, and, Mr. Lewis says, the fund run by Mr. Ledley, Mr. Mai and their partner, Ben Hockett, would net more than $80 million.—NYT –Review of Michael Lewis’ THE BIG SHORT (author of LIAR’S POKER)

Sunday papers

3-14-2010—Although the idea of [expanding the NCAA basketball tournament from 64 to 96 teams] has been panned by fans and criticized by pundits, the promise of more TV money and greater aces to the tournament has made change conceivable.—NYT,Sports, A1-- [place your bests, ladies and gentlemen...]



--Life is wasted on the young? Life is wasted on – people. Roger Baumbach NYTAR9



--Small company to run for office; Firm says Supreme Court gave businesses the same rights as individuals.—SBT A6



--New Fraud Cases Point to Lapses in Iraq projects. NYT A1 [you can put lipstick on a pig, but...]



--Vatican defends pope against allegations of sexual abuse cover-up scandal [tell friends to sit down before reading that one] NYTA8



--Utah’s house majority leader [confessed to] sitting nude in a hot tub with a minor 25 years ago... [ditto] NYT A19

3-12-2010

3-12-2010—Last week, the conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck called on Christians to leave their churches if they hear preaching about social or economic justice, saying they were code words for Communism and Nazism.—NYT A14

NYT 3-10-10

One of the world’s foremost experts on comparing national school systems told lawmakers on Tuesday that many other countries were surpassing the United States in educational attainment, including Canada, where he said 15-year-old students were, on average, more than one school year ahead of American 15-year-olds.

A report last week in The Chicago Tribune said that the Big Ten had hired an investment firm to study Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Missouri and Notre Dame. The study found that if the Big Ten decided to expand, the league’s current members would be able to make more money.

which do you love more, this country or its patriots?

3-10-10—Wall Street has received fees exceeding $1 billion in less than a year selling “Build America Bonds.” WSJ A1

weekend update

3-8-2010-Joan Laporta. .. is stepping down after a successful tenure as president of the Barcelona soccer club, and speculation is that the 47-year old lawyers will enter politics. While Mr. Laporta has said “nothing is decided,” he did release a book with a title that bears an uncanny resemblance to that of another formerly young soon-to-be-politician lawyer. Mr. Laporta’s books is titled ... “dreams for my Children.” WSJ B8 [more than just a club]
3-6-2010-The [banking] crisis spurred a series of demonstrations from usually phlegmatic Icelanders, who recited poetry and tossed yogurt pots and rocks at government buildings to protest what they deemed the greed, ineptitude and spinelessness of the government elite. NYT A4 [wanna riot of my own!!]
3-5-2010—Vatican enmeshed in gay sex allegations NYT A6 [this is news?]

Wellesley, testing, and the decline of empire

Diane Ravitch, the education historian who built her intellectual reputation battling progressive educators and served in the first Bush administration’s Education Department, is in the final stages of an astonishing, slow-motion about-face on almost every stand she once took on American schooling. ... Once outspoken about the power of standardized testing, charter schools and free markets to improve schools, Dr. Ravitch is now caustically critical. She underwent an intellectual crisis, she says, discovering that these strategies, which she now calls faddish trends, were undermining public education. She resigned last year from the boards of two conservative research groups. ...Among the topics on which Dr. Ravitch has reversed her views is the main federal law on public schools, No Child Left Behind, which is up for a rewrite in coming weeks in Congress. She once supported it, but now says its requirements for testing in math and reading have squeezed vital subjects like history and art out of classrooms. ...In 2005, she said, a study she undertook of Pakistan’s weak and inequitable education system, dominated by private and religious institutions, convinced her that protecting the United States’ public schools was important to democracy. ... She remembers another date, Nov. 30, 2006, when at a Washington conference she heard a dozen experts conclude that the No Child law was not raising student achievement. ... Testing had become not just a way to measure student learning, but an end in itself. “Accountability, as written into federal law, was not raising standards but dumbing down the schools,” she writes. ...Dr. Ravitch is finding many supporters. She told school superintendents at a convention in Phoenix last month that the United States’ educational policies were ill-conceived, compared with those in nations with the best-performing schools. “Nations like Finland and Japan seek out the best college graduates for teaching positions, prepare them well, pay them well and treat them with respect,” she said. “They make sure that all their students study the arts, history, literature, geography, civics, foreign languages, the sciences and other subjects. They do this because this is the way to ensure good education. We’re on the wrong track.” ... “We totally agreed with what she had to say,” said Eugene G. White, superintendent of the Indianapolis Public Schools. “We were amazed to see that she’d changed her tune.”

2-25-2010

2-25-2010—Bannks Bet Greece Defaults on Debt They Helped Hide. Traders seek to profit, making it harder to raise money. Bets by some of the same banks that helped Greece shroud its mounting debts may actually no be pushing the nation closer to the bring of financial ruin. NYT A1

2-24-2010

2-24-2010—The free market system blunders into recession; its victims flock to the free market banner. And here we go again.... The laissez faire system has just finished giving us a demonstration of its viciousness, but the part of FDR can’t get out in front of the working class anger. Working-class Massachusetts and Appalachia are turning away from it in disgust, but the party of the political scientists does seem to have noticed.—Frank, WSJ A15

weekend words of comfort

—2-21-201---A last-ditch effort to keep Dutch troops in Afghanistan brought down the governing coalition in the Netherlands ... NYT A12
--Afghan Army Lags in Battle; In Marja, Marines do the heavy lifting. NYT A1
--Whether it’s the Somali pirates, who created a national economy based on corruption; the drug lords in Afghanistan and Columbia; or the Mafia in Moscow, corruption elsewhere dwarfs the worst crime in Illinois, New Jersey and New York. NYT 27A
--2/20-21-2010--“[federal response to Toyota problems] isn’t an NHTSA failure under this president. There is a continuation of a failure” that may go back more than a decade. --GOP Congressman Issa. WSJ B5
--2/11/2010—The lesson Stalin should have taught us==and if he didn’t, then the more recent history delivered by Dick Cheney will do—with the paradoxical one that that the more security-conscious a state becomes, the more insecure are those it is supposedly trying to protect. LRB 33

2-18-2010

2-18-2010—Mitt Romney ... is back with a new book in which he warns that if America doesn’t change its ways it could wind up becoming the “France of the 21st century.” We all know that Americans would hate to spend the next 90 years enveloped in serious wine and universal health care... Collins, NYT A21 where are the coneheads when we need them?]
--The 400 highest-earning households in the USA made nearly $435 million in 2007, up 31% from a year earlier [according to IRS data] NYT B11 [o for the days of class war of yore...]
2-17-2010—China sold a record amount of US Treasury holdings in December, ceding its place as the world’s biggest foreign holder of US debt to Japan. WSJ A1 [cui bono?]
--2-15-2010—Timothy Corvidae is a student in the University’s School of Social Work. Corvidae doesn’t identify with any specific gender and uses the pronoun “ze” instead of “he” or “she.” Corvidae is a member of a group of people on campus who face language barriers as a result of their decision not to identify with a specific gender. Though these individuals represent a minority of students, their cause has recently made its way to the forefront of campus discussion. –MICHIGAN DAILY, A1 [o for the days of class war of yore...][and as a German I’m pissed because nobody is acknowledging German’s third gender, neuter...]

VD weekend update

2-14-2010—Wall Street tactics akin to the ones that fostered subprime mortgages in America have worsened the financial crisis shaking Greece and undermining the euro by enabling European governments to hid their mounting debts. NYT A1

--As a former-student athlete at Binghamton, I am dismayed at the negative publicity brought upon the university by its athletic department. But I am equally dismayed that the SUNY board would try to mitigate the negative effects by paying $913,000 Skadden Arps for its report on the scandal. NYT SP5

2-13-2010—As Chine builds a vast network of fast trains, the US falls further behind. NYT B1

no childs left behind

2-12-2010--ATLANTA — Georgia education officials ordered investigations on Thursday at 191 schools across the state where they had found evidence of tampering on answer sheets for the state’s standardized achievement test. The order came after an inquiry on cheating by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement raised red flags regarding one in five of Georgia’s 1,857 public elementary and middle schools. A large proportion of the schools were in Atlanta. The inquiry flagged any school that had an abnormal number of erasures on answer sheets where the answers were changed from wrong to right, suggesting deliberate interference by teachers, principals or other administrators. Experts said it could become one of the largest cheating scandals in the era of widespread standardized testing. –NYT A16

2-11-2010

2-11-2010—The British government lost a protracted court battle on Wednesday to protect secret US intelligence information about the treatment of a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, and immediately published details of what it called the “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” administered to the prisoner by US officials. NYT A12 [stupid courts, stupid freedom of the press, stupid human rights...]
--In the battle over the pricing of electronic books, publishers appear to have won the first round. The price of many new releases and best sellers is about to go up, to as much as $14.99 from $9.99. But there may be an insurgency waiting to pounce: e-book buyers. Over the last year, the most voracious readers of e-books have shown a reflexive hostility to prices higher than the $9.99 set by Amazon.com and other online retailers for popular titles. When digital editions have cost more, or have been delayed until after the release of hardcover versions, these raucous readers have organized impromptu boycotts and gone to the Web sites of Amazon and Barnes & Noble to leave one-star ratings and negative comments for those books and their authors. “This book has been on the shelves for three weeks and is already in the remainder bins,” wrote Wayne Fogel of The Villages, Fla., when he left a one-star review of Catherine Coulter’s book “KnockOut” on Amazon. “$14.82 for the Kindle version is unbelievable. Some listings Amazon should refuse when the authors are trying to rip off Amazon’s customers.” [stupid market] NYT B1
--Two former employees of Blackwater Worldwide have accused the private security company of defrauding the government NYTA 20 [stupid government]
-- Since the euro was launched—as an accounting currency in 1999 and as cash in 2002—c9untries in Southern Europe and Ireland have ... allowed the low interest rates and stable currency that came from euro membership to fuel housing and consumption binges. WSJ A14—[stupid brunettes—or stupid blondes?]

nyt a couple days ago

February 8, 2010
In a Message to Democrats, Wall St. Sends Cash to G.O.P.
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON — If the Democratic Party has a stronghold on Wall Street, it is JPMorgan Chase.

Its chief executive, Jamie Dimon, is a friend of President Obama’s from Chicago, a frequent White House guest and a big Democratic donor. Its vice chairman, William M. Daley, a former Clinton administration cabinet official and Obama transition adviser, comes from Chicago’s Democratic dynasty.

But this year Chase’s political action committee is sending the Democrats a pointed message. While it has contributed to some individual Democrats and state organizations, it has rebuffed solicitations from the national Democratic House and Senate campaign committees. Instead, it gave $30,000 to their Republican counterparts.

The shift reflects the hard political edge to the industry’s campaign to thwart Mr. Obama’s proposals for tighter financial regulations.

all marxists should get $16 million bonuses

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama said he doesn't "begrudge" large bonuses paid out to JPMorgan Chase & Co chief executive Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs Group Inc CEO Lloyd Blankfein.

Barack Obama

"I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system," Obama said.

Obama, in an interview with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, called the two "savvy businessmen." Although he said the pay packages for Dimon and Blankfein were "an extraordinary amount of money" for Main Street, he pointed out that some baseball players make more than that.

Goldman, which reported a record profit for 2009, announced last week it would award Blankfein stock worth about $9 million. Dimon is to receive a compensation package worth about $16 million.

it's getting better all the time...

2-10-2010—Far fewer children would get a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. “Binge eating disorder” and “hypersexuality” might become commonly used labels for adults. And the way mental disorders are diagnosed and treated would be sharply revised. These are a few of the changes proposed on Tuesday by doctors charged with revising psychiatry’s encyclopedia of mental disorders, the guidebook that largely determines where society draws the line between normal and not normal...” NYT A1 [don’t’ like it? Change the name!]
—One reason conservatives own the antigovernment narrative is because liberals don’t really offer a competing one ... .. the toxic truth is staring us right in the face: The reason government has failed so many times is because it’s been run into the ground by antigovernment politicians.—Frank, WSJ A17 [reality perception disorder—change the name]
2-09-2010--They were Tokyo’s worst-kept diplomatic secrets: clandestine cold war era agreements with Washington that obligated Japan to shoulder the costs of US bases and allow nuclear-armed US ships to sail into Japanese ports.—NYT A4 [reality perception disorder—change the name]
--The Roman catholic Church faces yet another child abuse scandal, this time in Pope Benedict XVI’s native Germany.—NYT A9 [hypersexuality]
--Irish [child abuse] victims write to Pope. Ibid. [hypersexuality]
--Pope Benedict XVI on Monday condemned the abuse of children by members of the clergy. NYT A11-- [reality perception disorder—change the name]
--—JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently explained this brave new world, saying that crises should be expected “every five to seven years.”—WSJ A19 [didn’t Marx say this?]
2—8-2010—The good news for players [in the upcoming NFL collective bargaining negotiations] is that Saints quarterback Drew Bess is a player representative who is passionate about union issues.—NYT D7 [workers of the world unite]

you read it here first 2-9-2010

BEIJING (Reuters) - Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country boost defense spending, adjust PLA deployments, and possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of arms sales to Taiwan.

weekend update

2-7-=2010—To have a healthy culture you have to have stable health care financing and stable arts financing and stable sports financing, and if you don’t have that, your culture beomces a parking lot.—Douglas Coupland—NYTMag 12
Feb. 2-7,2010—A Tailban attack [in Afghanistan] was tied to poor US defenses. WSJ A1
--Gates made a plea to NATO for thousands of troops to train Afghan forces, but France will contribute only 80. Ibid.
--Danish special forces stormed a ship captured by Somali pirates and freed the 25 crew who were on board. Ibid.
--[GOP] Senator Richard Shelby has blocked more than 70 presidential nominees over a long-running feud related to an Air Force refueling-tanker contract and an FBI lab he wants to see built in his home state....WSJ A5
2-6-2010---The Air Force Academy, which recently set up an outdoor worship area for founders of Wicca, Druidism and other Earth-centered religions on its Colorado Springs campus, has come under criticism from some cadets as being too slow to address an incident of vandalism at the area...NYT A12
2-6-2010—While Republican members of the banking committee expressed hope that a deal could still be brokered [on banking reform] several Democratic members said on Friday they were resolved to move on.—NYT B1
--Goldman chief’s $9 million bonus seen by some as show of restraint. –Ibid.

2-4-2010

2-4-2010—In a Recession, Europe’s Focus on Saving Jobs Pays off. NYT B1 [fuck Adam Smith]

--Prime Minister François Fillon said Wednesday that he would sign a decree denying French nationality to a man who ordered his French wife to wear the full Islamic veil. “This case is about a religious radical: he imposes the burqa, he imposes the separation of men and women in his own home and he refuses to shake the hands of women,” Mr. Fillon told Europe 1 radio. “If this man does not want to change his attitude, he has no place in our country. In any case, he does not deserve French nationality.” The government is examining a ban on the full veil. The man’s name was not released. NYT A& [fuck diversity]

a nod to the national holiday

2-4-2010—[The low average weight of the Colts’ defense] stands out: The Colts defense is also shorter, on average, than the starters from all but one other team. .. The Colts’ defense allowed the eighth fewest points in the NFL this regular season and, more impressively, showed the ability to stiffen in the late stages of games—when the players would have every reason to be exhausted. ... The Colts’ success stems from a philosophy that borders on treason in the modern NFL: the idea that bigger is not always better. ... By carrying less mass, the Colts believe their players are quicker to the ball and less fatigued late in games....Some studies have shown that mental fatigue hinders decision-making.—WSJ D9

--Long ago, then-NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle figured out this greatest of all human truths, that the only value most people have in common, other than life itself, is the desire for a competitive home team. Family members who would sink a dinner fork into each other over Barack Obama’s health care plan will do high fives in the living room later if the Cleveland Browns beat the Pittsburgh Steelers. ... Basketball and hockey [do the same as football, i.e., TV revenue sharing] Baseball has not, and it is well established that Chicago Cubs fans do not believe happiness exists. WSJ A17

ground hogs

2-2-2010—why do almost all animal species reproduce sexually, and why are most asexual reproducters on their last legs, so to speak?—NYT D3 [you read it here first]
--Wealthy face tax increase; budget projects larger deficits despite spending cuts; “Think bigger,” says GOP WSJ A1 [depending on what we should think bigger, I’m w/ GOP]
--...the US could begin to suffer the same disease that has afflicted Japan over the past decade. As debt grew more rapidly than income, that country’s influence around the world eroded.—NYT A1 you read it here first]

weekend update

1-31-2010—[Nobel prize winner] Joseph Stiglitz argues that so-called too-big-to-fail banks like Citigroup are exactly that: too big. He says that they should be broken up, and that the government should regulate derivatives and discourage mortgage securitization. What’s more, he says, Americans need to get over the idea that higher taxes and more government involvement in the economy are a recipe for disaster. He points to Sweden as an example of a country that has a thriving economy but still provides its citizens with extensive social services. NYT WK4
--NYT Mag interview w/ Stiglitz: You grew up in Gary, Ind? Paul Samuelson was from Gary, Ind., too. NYT Mg 13.
1-30/31-2010—The ire directed at bankers from all sides [in Davos] is palpable, acknowledged Donald Moore, chairman of Morgan Stanley in Europe ... Asked which other gropus of people have been similarly unpopular in Davos in the past, he said: “terrorists.” WSJ A1
--Ibid.—But just as New Orleans is revving itself into a fever pitch ... the NFL is claiming ownership of the phrase “Who Dat.”

freaky friday

1-29-2010In the hours after the iPad announcement on Wednesday, “iTampon” became one of the most popular trending topics on Twitter.—NYT A1 [any girls in their marketing dept?]



--Tampering at Senator’s Office was “Stunt” Lawyer Says-NYT A10 [and ACORN runs bordellos]



--Meanwhile, Thursday, CTS Corp, the Elkhart, Inc., parts supplier that makes the gad pedal units for Toyota, said the problem is related to Toyota’s design WSJ B1 [hoosiers are clean]



--The Saints’ win on Sunday night, a victory that sends them to the Super Bowl for the first time, unleashed a raucous, trombone-blaring, grown-man-weeping, stranger-hugging frenzy. In a city that has been associated over the last four and a half years with divisiveness and suffering, the delirium over the Saints is pretty much unanimous.

Consider: Sunday night’s game prompted the rescheduling of both a performance of Verdi’s “Requiem” by the New Orleans Opera Association, and a performance of Keith Lewis and his Blues Revue at the Young at Heart Lounge.

A number of schools have canceled classes for Feb. 8, the day after the Super Bowl. A civil trial has been postponed. Mardi Gras parades have been moved. Commander’s Palace, the 130-year-old grand dame of New Orleans restaurants, will close on game night, the first time the restaurant has closed for a one-time event in memory, possibly ever.

And at least 20 Catholic parishes are rearranging or outright canceling evening Mass on Super Bowl Sunday.

Serious people are discussing how much the Super Bowl will affect the turnout in this year’s mayoral election, as the primary takes place on Saturday, Feb. 6, the day before the game.

“It’s more of a problem for candidates who have to build support,” explained Silas Lee, a pollster and political analyst, arguing that the distraction benefits the current front-runner, Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu. “It’s harder to crack that emotional barrier right now.”

Just how much of an effect is debatable, but it is generally agreed that there will be one. In other words, Garrett Hartley’s straight and true field goal from 40 yards on Sunday could have a direct bearing on who governs New Orleans for the next four years. Few seem to think this is odd. [who dat?]



1-28-2010--...voters in Oregon have agreed to raise taxes on people with higher income... NYT A14



John Edwards and Wife have separated, Friends say NYT A15 [hot breaking news]



--Sarkozy calls for global monetary system, without dollar as top reserve currency—nyt B3 [more cracks in the empire]