April 16, 2008

4-16-08—A company of Iraqi soldiers abandoned their positions on Tuesday night in Sadr City, defying American soldiers who implored them to hold the line against Shiite militias.—NYT A1

--Danny Meyer, who operates several highly rated restaurants in Manhattan, said the he added the Euro equivalent on the wine list at the Modern, the restaurant at MoMA, to impress upon tourists what bargains the bottles were. The device worked. NYT A1

--The richest hedge fund managers keep getting richer—fast. To make it into the top 25 of Alpha’s list, the industry standard for hedge fund pay, a manager needed to earn at least $360 million last year, more than 18 times the amount in 2002. The median American family, by contrast, earned $60,500 last year. –NYT A1

--Until early Tuesday morning, visitors to John McCain’s campaign Web site could find seven of “Cindy’s Recipes” ... Only problem was, all three, listed as favorite family recipes of Cindy McCain, Mr. McCain’s wife, were taken verbatim from the Food Network. A fourth ... bore a striking resemblance to a similar recipe by Rachel Ray. NYT A22

--Krister Stendahl, a former dean of Harvard Divinity School and a bishop in Sweden ... died Tuesday in Boston. He was 86. ... As dean of the Harvard Divinity School from 1968 to 1979, he [transformed the School] into a more diverse institution. The women among the divinity students so appreciated his support that they called him “Sister Krister.” ... he wrote that he had learned to “argue with God,” saying that in Jewish and biblical traditional, this was the proper relationship.—NYT, A23 [full disclosure: Stendahl’s wife Brita introduced me to Kierkegaard by meeting with me individually to discuss his philosophy, so I am monumentally prejudiced in favor of the Stendahls, and I grieve Krister’s passing—if there is a God worth existing, Krister will be arguing with him as I write this]