Voter ID Issue Is One of Many for U.S. Voting Systems

Abstract: Twelve years after a too-close-to-call presidential contest imploded in a hail of Florida punch card ballots and a bitter 5-to-4 Supreme Court ruling for George W. Bush , the country’s voting systems remain as deeply flawed as ever with any prospect of fixing them mired in increasing levels of partisanship. The most recent high-profile fights have been about voter identification requirements and whether they are aimed at stopping fraud or keeping minority group members and the poor from voting. But there are worse problems with voter registration, ballot design, absentee voting and electoral administration. In Ohio, the recommendations of a bipartisan commission on ways to reduce the large number of provisional ballots and long lines at polling stations in 2008 have come to naught after a Republican takeover of both houses of the legislature in 2010. In New York, a redesign of ballots that had been widely considered hard to read and understand was passed by the State Assembly this year. But a partisan dispute in the Senate on other related steps led to paralysis . And states have consistently failed to fix a wide range of electoral flaws identified by a bipartisan commission led by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III in 2005. In Florida, for example, the commission found 140,000 voters who had also registered in four other states — some 46,000 of them in New York City alone. When 1,700 of them registered for absentee ballots in the other state, no one investigated. Some 60,000 voters were also simultaneously registered in North and South Carolina . The panel suggested changes including impartial election administration, better voter list maintenance, uniform photo ID requirements and paper trails for electronic voting machines. But Republicans in some states liked the ideas that fit their notion of what was wrong — potential for fraud. And Democrats preferred others — increasing voter participation. Little was done. “This has all become incredibly politicized in recent years,” noted Daniel Tokaji, an election law professor at Ohio State University . “If you go back in our history, you can find voter registration rules used to exclude blacks or immigrants from voting. But since 2000 it seems to have gotten worse. Both parties have realized that election administration rules can make the difference between victory and defeat in a close election. And unlike virtually every other country in the world, our systems are administered by partisan officials elected as candidates of their parties.” Robert A. Pastor, co-director of the Center for Democracy and Election Management at American University, who was executive director of the Carter-Baker commission, said the voter identification fights of recent months pale when compared with some of these other issues, especially voter registration. Only half of eligible voters in the country are registered and few of them lack photo IDs, he said. “The proponents of voter ID are adamant that it is essential to stop electoral fraud even though there is hardly any evidence of voter impersonation, and the opponents are sure that it will lead to voter suppression even though they haven’t been able — until Pennsylvania — to point to a single instance where a voter could not vote because of a lack of ID,” he said. “I did a survey of Indiana , Maryland , and Mississippi and found only about 1.2 percent of registered voters did not have photo IDs. The problem remains registration — not IDs — in reducing voting participation. To quote Jorge Luis Borges on the Falklands war, ‘It’s a fight between two bald men over a comb.’ ” But the registration issue is acute. Nearly every other advanced country maintains a national voter roll. In this country, which eschews a national identity card, there are 13,000 separate rolls maintained by counties, towns and municipalities. David Becker, director of election initiatives at Pew Charitable Trusts, said his group’s research shows that 2.2 million votes were lost in 2008 as a result of voter registration difficulties. “So many problems that can result on Election Day are a result of inaccurate and incomplete information on the voter lists, which can lead to more provisional ballots because voters are in the wrong precinct because officials didn’t have the correct information,” he said. “Officials don’t get information about a move unless a voter affirmatively does something about their voter registration, and that is usually in the 30 days before a presidential election. In between elections, officials are sending mail to some people who are no longer there.” Pew has been working with some states to promote online voter registration and sharing of lists among government agencies for that purpose. Mr. Becker said that this year a number of states working with his group — Colorado , Oregon , Maryland, Utah and Virginia , among others — are going to reach out by mail for the first time to eligible but unregistered voters. “Republicans are very much in favor of cleaning up and maintaining voter lists and Democrats want to make sure access is available, and we believe there are tools that address both,” he said. One set of recommendations was released on Tuesday by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. Called “Better Designs, Better Elections,” the report estimates that in the 2008 and 2010 general elections combined, as many as 400,000 people had absentee or provisional ballots rejected because they made technical mistakes on the forms or the envelopes. It adds that the loss appears to be greatest among low-income and minority groups as well as among the elderly and disabled. Lawrence Norden, a co-author of the study and deputy director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, said that in Texas machines in 50 counties are set up so that if a voter marks a straight party option and also pulls the levers for the candidates, that vote gets annulled. Research has shown that blacks and Latinos tend to do this more often than others, leading Democrats there to try to change the design but to little avail. Looking broadly at such design flaws, Mr. Norden said he doubted that they were set up to suppress voting and were most likely the result of error. But because of mutual suspicion between the parties, they have been hard to fix. His co-author, Whitney Quesenbery, a design expert, said the private sector has learned a great deal about the significance of design — fonts, shadings, colorings, instructions — but election systems have been very slow to adopt them. “These are people who got elected under the old system and are not especially motivated to change it,” Ms. Quesenbery said of state and county officials. Richard L. Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Irvine , who has just published a book, “The Voting Wars,” said that each party has found that pushing electoral reform that suits it “is a great way to motivate its base.” He has also studied court decisions on voting disputes and found a high percentage of them break down along party lines — judges appointed by Democrats back their policies, and those appointed by Republicans back theirs. Broadly, he believes, the risk of another debacle like the 2000 election is high. “Elections are not well funded in this country, and the people running them are not professionals,” he said. “There are different rules in every district. When there is a razor-thin election — and we may have one in November — there is room for chicanery.”


If You Want to Sing Out, He Says He Can Teach You

Abstract: Here on one of the most crowded and noisiest stretches of Main Street in Flushing, Queens, traffic clogs the streets and throngs of Asian immigrants crowd the sidewalks. But one voice — that of Qi Chang, 60, a cheerful singing teacher — rings out above all others, thanks to his powerful singing ability, and a headset-microphone connected to a speaker hanging around his neck. Mr. Qi, a native of China, has become a local fixture in recent months, with his cardboard poster mounted on a cart and his hard-to-ignore vocal presence. “With my method, everyone reaches the high notes,” Mr. Qi boasted on Monday after tossing off some Verdi and a few Chinese pop tunes over the din. Mr. Qi’s daily recitals are sprinkled with cheerful pitches for his vocal method. These continuing infomercials can last hours at a time, as he belts out song after song, in Chinese and other languages. “He’s the best entertainment on Main Street,” said Niles Fredericks, 25, a baritone who sings in a synagogue in Fresh Meadows, Queens. Mr. Qi, whose given name is Qi Guosheng (Chang was his stage name) and who is married with a grown child, is originally from the city of Kaifeng in Henan Province. He said he taught Chinese literature and music in China. After immigrating to the United States in 1999, he held various restaurant jobs, taught sushi-making, managed distribution of the Chinese-focused newspaper Epoch Times in its free sidewalk boxes and taught singing using a more traditional approach — with no sidewalk appearances. But in September, Mr. Qi left the newspaper job to begin teaching singing using his own method. Mr. Qi, who charges $30 an hour, said his students could expect to see rapid results in three to five lessons in his studio, the living room of his apartment several blocks away. But his fliers promise that students will be able to “sing resoundingly and beautifully in one or two classes.” Asked about the discrepancy, he confided — he confides often, and always through his microphone, which amplifies these asides halfway down the block — his offers of multiple lessons are partly for appearances’ sake. “If I increase the number of days,” he said, “it sounds more believable.” Even in his sidewalk bargain offer, a $10 lesson right there on the spot, he can effectively teach a student how to “open up your head” and let the sound resound in the nasal cavity, he said. There are few takers for these quick lessons, he said, adding that his purpose on the street is to sign up students and promote his method. Dressed in a black jacket, slacks and sandals, Mr. Qi said he planned to gain a larger audience soon, by setting up in Manhattan, probably near Lincoln Center. “Traditional teaching does not come near my method,” he said, describing an approach that works on the theory that “our whole body is one big musical instrument,” with the proper sound being produced by a column of air, not unlike a flute. “I can’t just let anyone know about the method and let it get out in the public,” he said, before relenting and, with his amplified voice still blaring down the block, saying, “I’m ready to tell you part of my secret.” He described his discovery that certain Chinese characters — the ones for “sing” and “song,” for example — have a special resonance when sung, which promotes effective vocal technique. In his study of other languages, he said, he has found other words that are especially conducive to vocal training. “Why is my method so fast?” he said. “Because I use every culture’s language. Each language has its own special word that naturally creates the right sound. This has never been discovered in hundreds of years. I’m the first to discover it.” “Therein lies my secret,” he said. “It is a convergence of everything I’ve studied.” Standing on the corner of Main Street and Sanford Avenue, he launched into “The Girl From Dabancheng,” a folk tune in Mandarin. A Mister Softee vendor parked nearby began scatting and bobbing his head along. At one point, two men approached and challenged Mr. Qi to sing a difficult passage from the Beijing opera tradition. Mr. Qi responded with a high note, but the challengers remained unimpressed, sparking a debate in front of an attentive crowd. Back hawking again, Mr. Qi was approached by an elderly woman who asked, “If I don’t have a voice, don’t have the basic skills, can I still do it?” “You can be 70, 80, 90 years old, and you can do it,” Mr. Qi replied. “The proper way is to have the sound resound in the space between your nose and your forehead.” Mr. Fredericks, the baritone, listened to Mr. Qi’s pitch and decided to make an appointment for a lesson. “Listen, I’ll try it once,” he said, “And if it doesn’t work, it’s only a $30 risk.”


In West Ukraine, 2004’s Euphoria Turns to Despair

Abstract: LVIV, Ukraine — It is not immediately clear why Vasily V. Humenyuk should be a candidate for president of Ukraine. A former customs official from the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk, he subscribes to no particular ideology, has the flimsiest of platforms and does not plan to tour the country before the vote, reasoning that “these trips cost a great deal and the people are sick of them.” In fact, he could have vanished into this winter’s overpopulated presidential race had he not, on Oct. 2, legally changed his last name to “Protyvsikh,” Ukrainian for “Against Everyone.” Though few see Mr. Protyvsikh as a serious candidate, he reflects the sour mood that has swelled in the electorate — and one that could swing a pivotal presidential election in January. For years, the vote in Ukraine has been almost evenly divided between the industrial Russian-speaking east of the country, whose voters generally favor closer ties with Moscow, and westerners intent on pursuing a European path. The current field of 18 candidates is almost certain to narrow for a closely fought second round of voting between these two constituencies, in the form of former Prime Minister Viktor F. Yanukovich , from the east, and the current prime minister, Yulia V. Tymoshenko . But while Mr. Yanukovich’s voters have the incentive of reclaiming Kiev, deep disillusionment has settled in the west, home of the Orange Revolution. It is not yet clear whether that feeling runs so deep that voters will stay home, or — as Mr. Protyvsikh clearly hopes — go out of their way to cast a protest vote. “Everyone’s disappointed in politicians,” said Vladimir Zuyenko, 44, a security guard who said he had gone three months without pay. “They made this revolution, but they didn’t solve anything. We were poor then, and we’re still poor. The only reason to vote is that if we don’t, someone else will vote for us.” Five years ago, euphoria surged through this city, the first in Ukraine to declare Viktor A. Yushchenko president, on the eve of the Orange Revolution. So many people piled onto buses headed for Kiev to support the pro-Western coalition that streets were left half-empty, and those who stayed wore bits of orange in solidarity. Viktoria Gnip, 35, said she was so inspired that she vowed on the spot to name her unborn baby Yulia or Viktor, after the two heroes of the day. Even recalling that happiness seems painful in Lviv (pronounced luh-VEEV) these days. Voters complain about the bitter public infighting between Mr. Yushchenko and Ms. Tymoshenko, about cronyism in local appointments, about an underfinanced health care system and about an economy so miserable that doctors and teachers leave for menial jobs in western Europe. “People had hope then,” Darya Lobachevskaya, 63, said. “It lasted for a year, maybe two years. But then, wherever it came from, it went back there.” As this mood has deepened, the proportion of Ukrainians who tell pollsters they will vote for “none of the above” — one option on the ballot — has been edging up, from 4 percent in 2004 to around 8 percent now, said Oleksiy Antypovych, of the polling organization Rating , who works out of Kiev and Lviv. By the time voters go to the polls, that percentage drops by one-half, so it has never proved decisive in an election, he said. But the “none of the above” votes are much higher when respondents are asked about the second round of this winter’s election, with 18 percent answering that they would not vote for either Mr. Yanukovich or Ms. Tymoshenko. Even if half of that group ends up staying home or making a choice between the candidates, up to 10 percent of Ukrainians may vote for “none of the above,” Mr. Antypovych said. “That would set a precedent,” he said. The protest vote, in this case, could be decisive. Current data shows that 40 percent of voters would back Mr. Yanukovich in a second round, and 30 percent would back Ms. Tymoshenko, Mr. Antypovych said. Though Ms. Tymoshenko is likely to pick up many Orange votes from four first-round candidates with similar platforms — among them Mr. Yushchenko — it is not yet clear if the old coalition will rally around her when she most needs it. Or what will happen if the results are disputed. “One thing I can say with certainty: There will be no repetition of that revolution,” Mr. Antypovych said. “People will no longer go out into the streets for a politician. They simply will not go out. Based on our surveys, most voters expect there to be mass falsification. They are already accustomed to the idea.” It was against this backdrop that Mr. Protyvsikh, 63, began his quixotic campaign. In his handful of public appearances, he has stuck closely to his simple slogan, explaining that he does not subscribe to any particular ideology (“Elect me, and then I’ll explain everything,” he added, reassuringly). Amid speculation that he was injected into the race to sabotage another candidate, he said his financing came from “my friends, who are scattered all over the world, rich ones, my relatives, my fellow villagers.” Mostly, he answers questions about his last name. “I made this decision six months ago, because I had reached the end of my patience,” he said in a telephone interview. “I will stand in the breach. I am brave, I am independent. I changed my name to express the will of all the people — many, many in Ukraine — who are against everyone.” Andrei Mikitin, a journalist from Mr. Protyvsikh’s home town of Ivano-Frankivsk, said the “Against Everyone” campaign has provoked mostly chuckles at home. When push comes to shove, he said, however disappointed western Ukrainians are in the Orange leadership, they will be roused by the desire to vote against Mr. Yanukovich, if only because Moscow backs him. “You have to understand people here,” said Mr. Mikitin, editor in chief of the newspaper Western Ukraine. “People don’t need ‘Against Everyone.’ They need an ‘Against Russia.’ Or an ‘Against Putin.’ That’s what I would have advised him, if he had asked me.”

Ukraine
Elections
Yanukovich Viktor F
Tymoshenko Yulia V
Voting and Voters
Polls and Public Opinion


As Overtime Wanes, Devils Top Panthers on Marek Zidlicky’s Blast

Abstract: Marek Zidlicky scored with 2.1 seconds left in overtime to lift the host Devils to a 2-1 win over the Florida Panthers on Saturday night. With a little more than three seconds to go, the Devils called a timeout before the final face-off. Travis Zajac beat Marcel Goc on the draw. Jaromir Jagr nudged the puck back to the top of the right circle to Zidlicky, who ripped a shot past goalie Tim Thomas, who was screened. “That was a great draw and a great pass,” Zidlicky said. “That’s where it all started, and I just took the shot.” Michael Ryder extended his goal streak to four games, and Cory Schneider made 29 saves in giving the Devils their second straight win. LIGHTNING 6, FLYERS 3 Valtteri Filppula had the go-ahead goal during a second period in which the teams scored seven times, and Tampa Bay beat Philadelphia to snap the Flyers’ 10-game home winning streak. Ryan Malone had two goals, and Alex Killorn, Teddy Purcell and Martin St. Louis also scored for the Lightning. CANADIENS 2, BLACKHAWKS 1 Andrei Markov scored two goals, including at 1 minute 28 seconds of overtime, to lead host Montreal to victory over Chicago. Image Philadelphia’s Claude Giroux trying to put the puck past Tampa Bay goaltender Anders Lindback. Giroux had two assists. Credit Chris Szagola/Associated Press Markov took a deflected pass from Max Pacioretty and found the roof of the net. Carey Price finished with 19 saves for the Canadiens. SENATORS 2, PREDATORS 1 Mika Zibanejad and Jason Spezza scored in a shootout to lead visiting Ottawa past Nashville. Kyle Turris scored in regulation for the Senators, who have won five of their past six. Craig Anderson had 31 saves through overtime and then stopped Craig Smith and David Legwand in the shootout. DUCKS 5, COYOTES 3 Hampus Lindholm scored two goals, and Anaheim won for the 16th time in 17 games with a victory over host Phoenix. Ryan Getzlaf scored his 23rd goal of the season in the Ducks’ sixth straight win. Sami Vatanen and Dustin Penner also scored as Anaheim swept the season series with Phoenix, 5-0. AVALANCHE 4, WILD 2 Ryan O’Reilly scored twice, including the winner with 7:16 to play, and Colorado won at Minnesota. Gabriel Landeskog and Maxime Talbot also scored for the Avalanche, winners in five of seven. BLUE JACKETS 6, JETS 3 Boone Jenner and Mark Letestu each scored twice to lift Columbus to a win and extend host Winnipeg’s losing streak to a season-high five games. The Blue Jackets scored four goals in the second period.

Ice hockey
Devils
Florida Panthers
Marek Zidlicky


Beltran Reports No Pain in Knees

Abstract: PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Sometime in the next several days, Carlos Beltran hopes to come to the plate with teammates named Reyes and Wright on base. But in the meantime, as he goes through the drudgery of rehabilitating his sore knees, Beltran drove in someone named Horwitz on Thursday — Jay Horwitz, the Mets ’ 65-year-old media relations director. Beltran put new meaning into the term simulated game when, at the end of his 30-minute contest against the Mets’ coaching staff and assorted others, he pleaded with Horwitz to run the bases while he hit against Manager Terry Collins. Beltran was in a playful mood as he went through his paces, including hitting, running the bases, fielding balls in right field and making throws to the two school-age sons of the front-office executive J. P. Ricciardi. After he was done, Beltran reported no pain in his knees, and he hopes to play in at least one of the Mets’ final six major league spring training games. Collins was so impressed with the workout that he said he could see Beltran playing on opening day, April 1, against the Florida Marlins. “I absolutely can,” Collins said. “There’s no question about it.” Beltran has played in only one game all spring training, on March 6. Afterward he developed tendinitis in his left knee; he had surgery on his right knee last year. One reason the Mets are so eager to get Beltran into a game is to help him acclimate to playing right field after a career in center. “It’s going to take time because it’s a different view of what I’m used to,” he said. “But at the same time, it’s the outfield. I’m confident I know how to catch the ball.” Beltran may play another simulated game Friday, although Horwitz will most likely not repeat his comical backside slide into home plate. “That was a little bit weak,” Beltran said. “For 30 years in baseball, he can do better than that.” EMAUS SOLIDIFIES HIS POSITION Brad Emaus, who at this point can only lose the starting second base job, went 4 for 4 with a home run as the Mets pounded the St. Louis Cardinals, 16-3. David Wright, Angel Pagan and Josh Thole also homered. ... R. A. Dickey was headed to Tennessee for the weekend to be with his wife while she gives birth to their fourth child. ... Jason Isringhausen is scheduled to fly to St. Louis for a day to attend to family matters. TEXAS SETTLES ON A CLOSER Neftali Feliz will remain the Texas Rangers’ closer instead of moving into the rotation. Texas settled on a rotation without Feliz, who set a major league rookie record with 40 saves last season. He had been prepared in spring training to start if needed. The rotation will comprise C. J. Wilson, the opening day starter, Colby Lewis, Tommy Hunter, Matt Harrison and Derek Holland. (AP)

Beltran Carlos
New York Mets
Baseball
Emaus Brad
Knees


Sikh Soldier Sues Defense Dept., Citing Religious Discrimination

Abstract: A combat soldier who is Sikh sued the Defense Department on Monday, saying his beard and turban had made him the subject of religious discrimination because the Army was putting him through arduous helmet and gas mask testing that no other soldier goes through. The complaint, filed in Federal District Court in Washington by Capt. Simratpal Singh, a decorated West Point graduate and observant Sikh, said that, unlike other soldiers, he had been ordered to undergo three days of performance tests that “target him solely because of his religious beliefs.” The Army has a ban on long hair and beards, which it says are a battlefield liability because helmets and gas masks must fit well to work. At the same time, the Army has permitted about 100,000 troops to maintain beards for medical reasons, and in recent years it allowed Special Forces troops in Afghanistan to grow beards. “None of those people have had to undergo special tests,” said Jagmeet Singh, a spokesman for the Sikh Coalition, which filed the suit along with the religious freedom group the Becket Fund and the law firm McDermott Will & Emery. “We can only assume Captain Singh is being singled out because of his religion.” Captain Singh was ordered late Friday to begin three days of tests to determine if his helmet would fit over his long hair and if his gas mask could seal to his face. No other soldiers go through helmet testing, and the standard gas mask test lasts only a few hours. He passed the standard gas mask test on Monday. The lawsuit asks for an injunction forcing the Army to stop what the complaint called “extraordinary, targeted, repetitive testing.” Late Monday, after a hearing, the Army agreed to postpone Captain Sigh’s testing until the end of the week, to give the judge time to rule on the case. Military officials did not respond to requests for comment. Captain Singh, 28, grew up in an observant Sikh family in Seattle and did not shave or cut his hair until he joined the Army in 2006. For 10 years he shaved and cut his hair as he rose through the ranks, and he was awarded the Bronze Star for exemplary service in Afghanistan. In 2015, he asked the Army to let him begin growing his hair and wearing the outward symbols of his faith. The Army granted him a temporary accommodation in December pending a permanent decision. Many observers saw it as a crack in the strict uniform standards that have discouraged many religious Americans from serving in the military. For generations the Defense Department has nixed almost any departure from standard uniform appearance. In the 1980s, the case of a Jewish officer seeking to wear a skullcap went all the way to the Supreme Court. Since then, while barriers for women and gay people in the military have fallen, religious accommodations for uniforms have remained rare. Only three Sikhs, two Muslims and a Jewish rabbi have been granted accommodations in the Army since 2009, and none served in combat roles. Lawyers representing Captain Singh said they thought the testing was an effort by the Army to find an excuse to not allow religious turbans and beards. “There is no other reason they would do this,” said Amandeep S. Sidhu, a lawyer at McDermott Will & Emery who is representing Captain Singh. “If they want to do a study on beards and gas masks and include a variety of soldiers, including Sikhs, by all means. But to do a test with only one soldier while his religious accommodation decision is pending, that’s unreasonable.”

Sikh
US Military
Pentagon
Beards and Mustaches
Discrimination
Freedom of religion


Trump Strategist Stephen Bannon Says Media Should ‘Keep Its Mouth Shut’

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Just days after President Trump spoke of a “running war’’ with the media, his chief White House strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, ratcheted up the attacks, arguing that news organizations had been “humiliated” by the election outcome and repeatedly describing the media as “the opposition party” of the current administration. “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while,” Mr. Bannon said in an interview on Wednesday. “I want you to quote this,” Mr. Bannon added. “The media here is the opposition party. They don’t understand this country. They still do not understand why Donald Trump is the president of the United States.” The scathing assessment — delivered by one of Mr. Trump’s most trusted and influential advisers, in the first days of his presidency — comes at a moment of high tension between the news media and the administration, with skirmishes over the size of Mr. Trump’s inaugural crowd and the president’s false claims that millions of illegal votes by undocumented immigrants swayed the popular vote against him. Mr. Bannon, who rarely grants interviews to journalists outside of Breitbart News, the provocative right-wing website he ran until August, was echoing comments by Mr. Trump last weekend, when the president said he was in “a running war” with the media and called journalists “among the most dishonest people on earth.” Mr. Bannon’s remarks added to the growing acrimony between the press and a president who made attacks on the media a rallying point of his election campaign. Among Mr. Trump’s advisers in the White House, Mr. Bannon is responsible for putting into action the nationalist vision that Mr. Trump channeled during the later months of the campaign, one that stemmed from Mr. Bannon himself. And in many ways Mr. Trump has acted on that vision during his first week in office — from the description of “American carnage” he laid out in his inauguration speech to a series of executive actions outlining policies on trade agreements, immigration and the building of a border wall. Mr. Bannon is one of the strongest forces in an administration with competing power centers. A savvy manipulator of the press, and a proud provocateur, he was among the few advisers in Mr. Trump’s circle who were said to have urged Sean Spicer, the new press secretary, to give a confrontational, emotional statement to a shocked West Wing briefing room on Saturday, when the White House disputed news reports about the size of the inauguration crowd. He shares Mr. Trump’s view that the news media misunderstood the movement that the president rode into office. Speaking by telephone on Wednesday, Mr. Bannon delivered a broad indictment of the news media as being biased against Mr. Trump and out of touch with the American public. That is an argument familiar to readers of Breitbart and followers of personalities friendly to Mr. Trump, like Sean Hannity of Fox News. “The elite media got it dead wrong, 100 percent dead wrong,” Mr. Bannon said of the election, calling it “a humiliating defeat that they will never wash away, that will always be there.” “The mainstream media has not fired or terminated anyone associated with following our campaign,” Mr. Bannon said. “Look at the Twitter feeds of those people: They were outright activists of the Clinton campaign.” (He did not name specific reporters or editors.) “That’s why you have no power,” he added. “You were humiliated.” Mr. Bannon spoke in blunt but calm tones, peppered with profanity, and humorously referred to himself as “Darth Vader.” He said, with ironic relish, that Mr. Trump was elected by a surge of support from “the working-class hobbits and deplorables.” The conversation was initiated by Mr. Bannon to offer praise for Mr. Spicer, who has been criticized this week for making false claims at the White House podium about attendance at Mr. Trump’s inaugural, for calling reporters dishonest and lecturing them about what stories to write, and for failing to disavow Mr. Trump’s lie about widespread voter fraud in the election. Asked if he was concerned that Mr. Spicer had lost credibility with the news media, Mr. Bannon chortled. “Are you kidding me?” he said. “We think that’s a badge of honor. ‘Questioning his integrity’ — are you kidding me? The media has zero integrity, zero intelligence, and no hard work.” “You’re the opposition party,” he said. “Not the Democratic Party. You’re the opposition party. The media’s the opposition party.” Journalists reacted with alarm and defiance to Mr. Bannon’s comments. “What country are we living in?” Christiane Amanpour, the CNN correspondent, wrote on Twitter. “We are not the opposition,’’ Stephen Engelberg, editor in chief of the nonprofit news organization ProPublica , wrote in an email. “We are part of an essential function in any democracy.” He added that ProPublica had no intention of “shutting up in response to this or any other president’s demand.” “We are here to tell the truth and we intend to continue doing so, regardless of how badly some might want us to parrot ‘alternative facts,’” Mr. Engelberg said. Mr. Bannon mostly referred to the “elite” or “mainstream” media, but he cited The New York Times and The Washington Post by name. “The paper of record for our beloved republic, The New York Times, should be absolutely ashamed and humiliated,” Mr. Bannon said. “They got it 100 percent wrong.” He added that he has been a reader of The Times for most of his adult life.

News media,journalism
Steve Bannon
Donald Trump
Sean Spicer
US Politics


Derek Jeter Plays Final Game at Fenway Park

Abstract: BOSTON — Sunlight bathed the field when Derek Jeter came to bat Sunday for the last time in the major leagues. Only the home plate area, from which Jeter stared down Boston starter Clay Buchholz, was in shadows. Jeter took a strike and a ball, smacked a ball foul and then beat a 93-mile-an-hour fastball off the plate. The ball hung in the air for three seconds. The third baseman leapt for it and tipped it with his bare hand. The ball fell to the Fenway Park grass as Jeter raced through first base, with no throw. This was his 3,465th and final hit, a figure surpassed by only five others in history. Jeter already had his magic moment on Thursday, in his Yankee Stadium finale, when he played shortstop for the last time and singled home the winning run in the bottom of the ninth. He could have sat out this series, like the Red Sox great Ted Williams, who homered in his last at-bat at Fenway, in 1960, and did not even travel to New York to wrap up the year. But Jeter said he owed it to the fans here, and the teams’ rivalry, to make an appearance. He went 1 for 2 on Saturday and again on Sunday, each hit an infield single that found its way to a Boston rookie named Garin Cecchini. Cecchini was barely a year old when the Yankees drafted Jeter in 1992. He grew up in Louisiana, as a shortstop, and Jeter was his favorite player. He wears No. 70, the digits of a player who still must prove himself. It happens to be the number the Yankees assigned Jeter in spring training the year before he made the majors. “He’s a guy you respect and you kind of want to idolize because everyone liked him,” Cecchini said. “And he was a winner. He’s won a lot of games, won championships. That’s all you want to be recognized as in this sport: a winner.” The Yankees won five titles with Jeter, and the Red Sox won three during his career. This season, neither team made the playoffs. Given the standings, and the gripping finale in the Bronx, the weekend had the feeling of a bonus track on a masterpiece album, the way the Beatles tacked “Her Majesty,” a brief aside, on to the soaring medley that otherwise closed out “Abbey Road.” Image Chris Kowalczuk, center, teared up during the pregame ceremony honoring Jeter. Kowalczuk, who came to the game from Roanoke, Va., with friend Alan Moore, left, said he is a lifelong Yankees fan. Credit M. Scott Brauer for The New York Times Few of the game’s grand figures go out in style. Mickey Mantle — 46 years ago to the day, also at Fenway Park — popped out to shortstop in the first inning and never played again. Yogi Berra finished with a fielder’s choice groundout for the Mets in 1965. Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth went hitless in their final games, in the 1930s. Jeter’s last hit did not go far, but it nudged his career average up a point, to .310, where it will sit forever. He finished with 1,923 runs scored — an evocative number in the history of the Yankees, who won their first title in 1923 — and nobody ever started more games at shortstop than Jeter’s 2,660. With two hits on Sunday, Jeter could have tied Ty Cobb’s record for most seasons of 150 hits, with 18. Manager Joe Girardi told him of the possibility on Sunday morning, he said, believing it was his obligation. Jeter was not swayed. His plan was to bat twice and take the results, whatever they were. “I never played the game for numbers,” he said. “So why start now?” Jeter arrived in the visitors’ clubhouse at 10:50 a.m., coming in on the team bus and chatting along the concourse with Tim Wakefield, a former Red Sox knuckleballer whom he faced more than any other pitcher. He passed souvenir stands that sold T-shirts and caps and pink foam fingers commemorating his career. He was not an enemy this weekend. He dressed in his usual Fenway locker, the last in a row of four green stalls, closest to the tunnel leading to the field. He laughed with Brett Gardner and Chris Young and spoke with Jeff Idelson, the president of the Hall of Fame. He came across the young son of the Yankees’ pitching coach, Larry Rothschild, patting him on the shoulder and offering his standard greeting: “What’s up, buddy?” Jeter smiled a lot during batting practice, the fans practically spilling onto the dirt track behind the cage, holding signs for him. Spike Lee and Joe Torre looked on. Jeter joined his teammates in the outfield for a silly footrace between two plodders, Mark Teixeira and Brian McCann. Teixeira won. Soon enough came the ceremony on the field, featuring Boston sports greats like Carl Yastrzemski and Bobby Orr. Pete Frates, the former Boston College baseball captain who inspired the A.L.S. Ice Bucket Challenge, was there, too, and a singer from “The Voice” serenaded Jeter with Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” The gifts were modest — a pair of duck boots, a base with his number on it, a signed “RE2PECT” plate from the scoreboard, a check to his foundation — and the cheers from the fans heartfelt. Jeter had been a worthy rival. “I don’t know many people who could really unite a crowd like he did today,” Girardi said later. “Such big rivals, so much history between the teams, but you would have thought it was one team today.” The Red Sox marched onto the field to greet Jeter, one by one, in the ceremony. Joe Kelly, who on Saturday became the last pitcher to strike out Jeter, posed for a selfie with him. Jeter lined out to shortstop in the first inning before beating out that final single in the third that scored a run. Girardi looked to first base, where Jeter signaled that he was through. McCann lumbered out to run for him, hugging Jeter. “Congratulations on everything,” McCann said he told Jeter. “You’re the best.” Jeter stopped near the mound, telling Buchholz that he had enjoyed competing against him, something he could not say in the pregame ceremony, when Buchholz was warming up. Jeter crossed the third-base line without stopping and hugged his coaches and teammates. He waved his cap. His mother, Dorothy, wiped away tears in a box above the grandstand. But Jeter did not cry. “My emotions were so all over the place on Thursday in New York,” he said. “When I got here, I was ready. I was ready for my career to be over with. I’m happy I had an opportunity to come and play here for a couple of games, but I’m ready for this to be the end.” Jeter watched the rest of the game from the dugout — his old friend Bernie Williams played guitar in the outfield during the seventh-inning stretch — and the fans chanted Jeter’s name as the Yankees finished a 9-5 victory. Jeter spoke later about his legacy, saying he hoped to be known for respecting the game and those around it and, of course, for being a Yankee. He will appear this week on the “Today” show and “The Tonight Show,” and he will take a vacation. He will rest after a season of 145 games; as Tom Verducci notes in Sports Illustrated, only one Hall of Famer in the last century, Al Kaline, played more games in his final season. But mostly Jeter is free. There are no baseball obligations, no schedule to follow to prepare for another season. On Saturday, when Jeter struck out, Kelly blew a 99-m.p.h. fastball past him. There will be no more of those, either. Jeter recalled a moment a few years ago when, on his way to lunch in San Francisco with Jorge Posada, he saw the former shortstop Shawon Dunston. Jeter asked Dunston how life was going, and Dunston said it was stress-free. No more sliders to hit. Asked to describe his career, Jeter began with the word “fun.” But it was only fun because he worked hard enough to get the most from his talent. There would have been no records, no championships, no adoration if he had not done all he could to ward off as much of the hard stuff as possible. So what does Jeter do now, as he begins his life as a former baseball player? “I don’t know,” he said. “That’s a good thing. I don’t know.”


Pétain’s Last Stand, on a Tiny Street in Northeast France

Abstract: TREMBLOIS-LÈS-CARIGNAN, France — The municipal council here on the edge of the Ardennes Forest recently voted to change a third of the village’s street names. Tremblois has only three streets, and they are named for three French heroes of World War I: Marshals Ferdinand Foch, Joseph Joffre and Philippe Pétain. The problem is that Marshal Pétain had a second act as head of state during World War II, when his administration in the unoccupied part of the country that was known as Vichy France collaborated with Nazi Germany in eliminating its enemies, notably the Jews. So under pressure from the national government, veterans and Jewish groups, the council voted unanimously to drop the name Pétain from a little street about 600 feet long, renaming it Rue de la Belle-Croix, for a chapel that stands in a wood at its foot. After World War I, virtually every town in France had its Rue or Avenue Pétain. So vast was his fame that a dozen or so towns and cities in the United States also named streets for him. But when the signs here change this month, the last street in France bearing his name will have disappeared. Not everyone is happy with the decision. “It is ridiculous,” said Laurent Joste, 27, an auto mechanic from Belgium who has lived in the village for three years. “Clearly, he was a traitor in the Second World War; but these things happened decades ago. It’s not good to think like that.” World War I left deep scars in the village, which lies among the killing fields of 1914-18, near the Belgian border. It is a short drive from here to Verdun, where armies faced off for years in one of the war’s most calamitous battles . It is hard by the Marne River and Chemin des Dames ridge, where the slaughter of French troops in 1917 incited mutinies that only the calm but firm hands of Marshals Foch and Pétain put down. Tremblois was leveled by shelling, save for a few houses and the church. A monument to the war dead — a statue of a French poilu, or doughboy, in bright colors — bears the names of 15 villagers, roughly 15 percent of the population then. By comparison, World War II left the village relatively untouched. For Jean Ponsart, who was 13 in 1945, the principal memory is of the endless column of American trucks and tanks rumbling along Rue Foch, the main street, stopping now and then, out of precaution, but usually long enough to give candy to the village children. His house bears the sole sign for Rue Pétain (street signs in France are often on the sides of houses), and he says he is comfortable with it. He opposed a proposal to rename the street Rue Charles de Gaulle , for the leader of the French resistance in World War II and postwar president. “If it’s Pétain or de Gaulle,” he said, “then Pétain!” The commotion around Rue Pétain began last year when a local journalist discovered the street and wrote several articles for his newspaper. At the time, two other towns in northern France had streets named for Marshal Pétain, and his portrait hung in the hall of a third town, in the west of France. Under public pressure, the other streets were renamed, and a court ordered the portrait taken down. Tremblois remained the marshal’s last refuge. “It was scandalous,” said the journalist, Guillaume Lévy. “I met the mayor. There were different reactions; the arguments were not political.” First there was the enduring image of Marshal Pétain as the “conqueror of Verdun,” the man who won World War I for the French, Mr. Lévy said by telephone. Then there was also the inconvenience. “I talked to the man on whose house the sign hangs,” he said. “He said how much it would cost, that the postman wouldn’t know where to bring letters.” “Then,” he said, “it got all polemical.” Partly, it was town versus country. The village mayor, Jean-Pol Oury, shows visitors the hate mail he got, including threats, for keeping the name Pétain. Mr. Oury, 56, who runs a public relations company when not steering the affairs of Tremblois, said he did a survey among its 114 residents. “A majority said, ‘It doesn’t disturb me,’ ” he said. Still, Mr. Lévy’s articles caught the attention of Jewish groups and organizations representing the war’s survivors and people who were deported during World War II by Petain’s Vichy government and the Germans who occupied the rest of France. Finally Mr. Oury went before the town council’s nine members. “I explained the situation, that we were the last town with a Pétain street,” he recounted. “I said two other towns had just renamed streets. I said it’s you who decide.” All nine voted to change the name. Many historians consider Marshal Pétain as more of an enabler of the Nazis than an instigator of their designs. Although that view was tinted by the discovery last year of papers suggesting that he took an active role in writing the Vichy government’s anti-Jewish laws . Historians have long blamed him for failing to desert the Nazis once their policies of extermination of the Jews became clear. He was sentenced to death in a postwar trial for treason, but President de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. In 1921, de Gaulle, a great admirer of Pétain, honored him by naming his first son Philippe. A remnant in France still defends Marshal Pétain. “In 1940, since the government was incapable of acting in the face of chaos, the first who came among the people and the politicians was Pétain,” said Hubert Massol, president of the Association for the Defense of the Memory of Marshal Pétain, which was founded right after the war by the marshal’s closest supporters. “Then all the mistakes were dumped on him.” Without Petain’s intervention, Mr. Massol said, “no one, not even the Jews, would have been spared.” In Tremblois, some are relieved to see the change, even if the name never bothered them. Marie Stutzmann, 46, moved from Alsace with her parents 40 years ago to a corner house on Rue Pétain. Friends and acquaintances invariably reacted when she told them her address. “It doesn’t bother me,” she said. “But people raised their eyebrows.” Céline Grulet, 41, who works in the big Ferrero chocolate factory just across the border in Belgium, said: “I’m content that it’s being changed. Particularly with regard to the years after 1940.” For years she grated at the name. “But I said to myself, ‘What can I do?’ ” Mayor Oury cites President Nicolas Sarkozy. “Sarkozy often says, with regard to the Germans, ‘Don’t forget, but forgive.’ Why not Pétain?”

Petain Philippe
World War II (1939-45)
Holocaust and the Nazi Era
World War I (1914-18)
de Gaulle Charles
Jews and Judaism
History
France


Variable Pricing and Net Neutrality

Abstract: It is easy to frame the debate over net neutrality as an ideological battle between forces who want unfettered Internet access and those who would prevent it. In reality, as with most good fights, it is largely a dispute over money. Some pretty basic numbers illustrate the point — and provide an idea of where the debate should logically wind up. There are two broad constituencies at odds in this quarrel. On one side are providers of Web access. Call them the Pipes. They include the telecommunications giants AT&T and Verizon , who have a combined 142 million wireless customers and provide fiber and DSL connections to homes. Alongside are the cable operators, led by Comcast and Time Warner Cable, who together reach into 30 million American homes. In the other side are those companies that benefit the most from surging traffic on the Internet. Call them the Swipes. Included in this camp are Apple, Google , Cisco and Microsoft. Their businesses — whether selling search advertising, routers for data or snazzy mobile devices — demand ever-larger amounts of bandwidth to grow. But the economics are incredibly skewed. The Pipes bear the price of building the infrastructure on which all these Web businesses depend. That is reflected starkly on their balance sheets. The four biggest Pipes have combined net debt of around $143 billion. Last year alone they spent $42 billion on capital expenses. As for the four leading Swipes, they have a combined net cash pile of around $140 billion. Last year they spent $4.9 billion on capital expansion, a tenth of what the big four Pipes paid to erect new cell towers, buy routers and extend fiber-optic cables. The switch to mobile devices like the iPad and Android-powered handsets will aggravate this divide. Cell networks were intended for short and infrequent calls. Customers use these new gadgets longer, more frequently and download more data. If people use wireless connections in the same way they use their broadband connections, operators would need 10 times as many base stations, according to research from Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. The introduction of variable pricing, or charging customers based on the data they consume, will help pay for the needed gear. But it means that the already unpopular Pipes will stick their customers with far larger bills — a recipe for political interference. Meantime, the Swipes would continue to carry away what the telecom operators see as a disproportionate share of the benefits. Some of the Swipes realize this imbalance is not sustainable. Witness Google’s decision last week to issue a shared statement of principles with Verizon to protect “the future openness of the Internet and encouraging the rapid deployment of broadband.” Of course, there is no assurance that those principles will be accepted by regulators, Congress, other companies or consumer groups. But the proposal shows how much of the Pipes-and-Swipes dispute centers on economics. Wired networks are largely built out, and need relatively modest new capital. So the proposal gives the Swipes what they want for existing Internet services — carriers can’t favor, or charge premiums, for transmitting one sort of data traffic over another. Wireless networks, on the other hand, need huge investment and face capacity constraints. The Pipes get something they like here. Traffic on these networks would remain largely unregulated, and carriers could charge more for carrying services like streaming video. Google, once the leading proponent of strict net neutrality, may have recognized the symbiotic relationship that exists between its business and that of the Pipes. Not all its peers will follow suit. Facebook is already challenging the Google-Verizon détente. But over time it is hard to see this as anything more than a negotiating stance. Already it is clear that demand for bandwidth is outpacing supply. If this persists, it will act as a drag on growth for the Swipes. They could take matters into their own hands by, for example, buying one of the Pipes or sharing more of their revenue with them. The better financial option, though, is to expand the size of the profit pie. And that is why the Swipes and the Pipes will increasingly find a middle ground like the one staked out by Google and Verizon. Call it a net neutral zone.

Net Neutrality
Computers and the Internet
Wireless Communications
Google Inc
Verizon Communications
Facebook.com
Infrastructure (Public Works)
AT&T Corp


Iran Arrests 2 Chinese on Charges of Spying

Abstract: TEHRAN, Aug. 15 — Iran has arrested two Chinese citizens on charges of spying for taking pictures of a military complex in the central city of Arak, where Iran is building a nuclear reactor, the judiciary spokesman said Wednesday. “The Chinese nationals were detained while photographing and recording video of a military complex in Arak city,” said the spokesman, Alireza Jamshidi, according to the news agency ISNA. Mr. Jamshidi said the two had entered the country at Kish Island, a resort island in southern Iran on the Persian Gulf. Mr. Jamshidi said their case was under initial investigation at a court in Arak, but he would not give further details about the arrest or the suspects’ identities. The heavy-water reactor in Arak is one of the Iranian nuclear facilities that have been criticized by Western nations, and the government recently reversed its refusal to allow inspectors at the site. Iran insists that the reactor is only for peaceful purposes, but the reactor would eventually be capable of producing plutonium, which the United States and other countries say is a crucial part of a drive by Iran to make nuclear weapons. China and Iran have generally had solid economic and political ties. And while China was one of the United Nations Security Council members to vote in favor of economic sanctions because Iran would not stop enriching uranium, it has often balked at imposing or enforcing harsher penalties. In a separate case involving detainees, Mr. Jamshidi, who was speaking at a news conference, said the release of the two Iranian-Americans who have been in custody since May would depend on the opinion of the judge after formal accusations were made. The two detainees — Haleh Esfandiari, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, and Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planner with ties to the Open Society Institute, a pro-democracy policy planning organization financed by George Soros — were arrested on espionage charges more than three months ago. A senior judiciary official said Sunday that the investigation into their case had been completed, pending “some written work.” “We have to wait for the indictment and the referral of the case to court,” Mr. Jamshidi said Wednesday, according to ISNA. “The decision to release them depends on the judge during the trial.”

Iran
Espionage
China
Atomic Energy
International Relations


Legal Battle Lifts Profile of a Quiet Empire

Abstract: It is a quiet American fortune, a $25 billion empire stretching from Boston to Honolulu that is rarely noticed outside tight business circles. But now the private world of Barry Portnoy, the anti-Trump of American real estate, is being dragged into an uncomfortable spotlight in a drawn-out legal battle for part of his empire. Mr. Portnoy, 67, oversees a wildly lucrative business from unassuming offices in Newton, Mass., west of downtown Boston. In an industry known for big money and bigger egos, he cuts a decidedly unglamorous figure. Mr. Portnoy runs his empire on a shoestring and, by most accounts, is far more interested in making money than spending it. For a time, he commuted to work in a Subaru, according to several former employees, and he keeps a low profile even at events like the annual company clambake in the parking lot. His son and business partner, Adam Portnoy, lives a bit larger. Adam Portnoy’s wife, Elika, was a runner-up in a Miss Bulgaria beauty contest. Said to be an expert marksman, she played a belly dancer in the 2012 Christian Slater thriller “Assassin’s Bullet.” Adam Portnoy owns a 43-foot yacht called the Mutressa, a Bulgarian term that loosely translates as “gangster’s mistress.” The couple met while working at the World Bank. What unites father and son, the former employees say, is an abiding love for a hard-nosed deal. In their Newton offices hangs a painting of Wild West bank robbers wearing ill-fitting business suits. It is titled “The Fort Worth Five a k a The Board of Directors.” Image The Triangle Plaza East Tower, near O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. Credit Nathan Weber for The New York Times For years, some investors have grumbled that the Portnoys have enriched themselves at investors’ expense, a claim the Portnoys have dismissed as nonsense. But now some serious financial players are vying for a multibillion-dollar piece of their kingdom, in a legal battle over an obscure real estate investment trust called CommonWealth REIT. On one side are the Portnoys, who have long blurred the lines between their public companies and their private fiefs. On the other is a cohort of New York money men, among them a protégé of Carl C. Icahn, the quintessential Wall Street gadfly, and associates of Stephen Ross, the Manhattan real estate magnate. Both sides are hurling an accusation often heard when money collides with money: each accuses the other of baldface greed. Whatever the outcome, the imbroglio has trained attention on a web of trusts and partnerships that the Portnoys have long used to pull many millions from CommonWealth and other public entities that own city towers and suburban office complexes across the nation. Last year, their private management company collected nearly $200 million in various fees and expenses from those businesses. The Portnoy camp says that the dissidents are essentially trying to steal CommonWealth and that courts have repeatedly sided with the Portnoys. In late June, the Portnoys and the rest of the board were voted out, but the Portnoys contend that the vote was invalid and was swayed by their opponents’ hedge fund friends. Starting this week, the dispute will go before an industry arbitration panel. A crucial issue is the Portnoys’ management arrangement with the funds they oversee. Essentially, they make money through numerous fees they charge no matter how CommonWealth’s share price performs in the stock market, leading one research firm, Green Street Advisors, to brand the Portnoy funds “uninvestible.” Over the last decade, CommonWealth has returned about 45 percent. That performance might sounds great, but it lagged the broad stock market and an index of other real estate investment trusts during that period. Real estate investment trusts, a popular investment strategy, pay no corporate income tax as long as they distribute 90 percent of their profits as dividends to investors. Adam Portnoy, 43, staunchly defends the Portnoy way. He says the family has rewarded investors over the years and points out that CommonWealth found ready buyers for new shares that it sold this spring. Image The Herald Square building on H Street in Washington. Credit Drew Angerer for The New York Times “If we hadn’t, how would we be able to raise money so readily?” Mr. Portnoy said in a telephone interview. “Why are shareholders investing in our companies?” Barry Portnoy got into real estate in 1986. While a lawyer at the Boston firm of Sullivan & Worcester, he established a real estate investment trust that was initially involved in health care centers. Former employees, including several who worked closely with the Portnoys, say Barry Portnoy spends long hours poring over numbers, and they characterize him as demanding boss who can be unforgiving at regular Tuesday night strategy meetings. When Adam Portnoy joined the family firm in 2003, after starting an Internet service provider that eventually merged with another service provider, father and son continued to expand their reach into hotels, retirement homes and buildings leased to the government. As they built their empire, small, dissident investors argued that some of their acquisitions appeared to benefit the Portnoys more than the shareholders. But now bigger, more powerful adversaries have arrived. Jeff T. Blau, the chief executive of Related Companies, the real estate giant founded by Mr. Ross, is one of the New Yorkers now battling the Portnoys. “Maybe if we had known they’d go to such extremes to thwart the will of shareholders, we would have thought twice about doing this,” Mr. Blau said during an interview in his office overlooking Columbus Circle in Midtown Manhattan. The activist role against the Portnoys has pushed Related into new and uncomfortable territory. Image The British School of Washington, on Wisconsin Avenue in Washington. Credit Drew Angerer for The New York Times Mr. Blau and Keith Meister, a former top lieutenant of Mr. Icahn who now runs his own hedge fund, invested heavily in CommonWealth earlier this year. The two said they believed the stock was undervalued, contending that, with some improvements, the buildings could draw higher rents. In late February, Related and Mr. Meister’s firm, Corvex Capital, disclosed that they together controlled 9.8 percent of CommonWealth. The Portnoys promptly began a vigorous defense. Eventually the dissidents sought support from heavyweight investors like Richard Perry, a prominent New York hedge fund manager. They also started making multiple offers to buy CommonWealth at above-market prices, but the fund’s trustees decided against a sale, calling the offers “illusory,” unfinanced, and an attempt to “seize control.” “There was no offer,” Adam Portnoy said. “They wrote on a piece of paper that they might, on a very conditional basis, maybe they would pay a certain price. That’s not an offer.” Mr. Blau shakes his head at that statement. “It’s in writing, and we sent it to the board,” Mr. Blau said. In late June, Corvex and Related announced that 70 percent of CommonWealth shareholders had voted to remove the entire board. The Portnoys said that the vote did not follow rules and that it was influenced by a group of shareholders — hedge fund pals of Corvex and Related — who have since sold their stake. It now falls to an arbitration panel to decide. “In all of my experience, I’ve never seen a management team react with such disregard for corporate value and such personal self-interest as a motivation,” said Mr. Meister of Corvex. But the Portnoys say they are on the side of everyday shareholders. “Everything we’ve always done has been in the best interest of shareholders,” Adam Portnoy said. “When we come in to work every day, our focus is on the common shareholders and executing on the business plan. And it’s starting to work. But it needs a little more time to come to fruition.”

CommonWealth
REIT
Barry M Portnoy
Adam D Portnoy
Keith A Meister
Jeff T Blau
Corvex Management
Related


Train Crash Kills 4 at Veterans Parade in Texas

Abstract: At least four people were killed and 17 others injured in Midland, Tex., on Thursday evening when a freight train crashed into a parade float at an event honoring veterans, the authorities said. The crash occurred at a railroad crossing in the city in West Texas around 4:30 p.m., according to the Midland police chief, Price Robinson. Many of the injured appeared to be veterans and their spouses, he said. “This was part of a celebration to honor military heroes and their spouses for their service in the military,” Chief Robinson said. “It’s a very tragic event that words can’t describe.” The parade, led by a local group called Show of Support, was supposed to take the veterans through the city before ending at a planned banquet. The group provides outdoor opportunities for wounded service members, according to its Web site . Two people died at the scene, and two others died at a hospital, Chief Robinson said. At least 10 were in critical condition, and seven others were in stable condition at Midland Memorial Hospital, he said. The crash took place at the railroad crossing at Garfield Street and Industrial Avenue, in the city of about 113,000 people, 330 miles west of Dallas. The train, from Union Pacific, was heading east toward Shreveport, La., according to Tom Lange, a spokesman for the railroad. A preliminary investigation by the company found that the lights and gates at the crossing were working at the time of the crash and that the train crew had properly sounded the locomotive horn, he said. Union Pacific is investigating why the trailer was in the crossing. It plans to examine video from a camera in the locomotive’s cab, Mr. Lange said. The train crew was not injured in the crash, and they will be offered counseling, he said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of anyone involved in the incident,” Mr. Lange said. The National Transportation Safety Board said it was also looking into the crash. Two investigators were expected to arrive at the site on Thursday night and the rest of the team will arrive on Friday, according to Peter Knudson, a board spokesman. Hundreds of people flocked to blood donation centers on Thursday evening, according to local news reports. Dozens posted grief-stricken messages on the group’s Facebook page. One read, “Our prayers go out to my fellow veterans and their families in this time of sorrow.”

Railroad Accidents and Safety
Texas
Veterans
Midland (Tex)
Parades


Companion of Bomber in Casablanca Is Questioned

Abstract: PARIS, March 12 — Moroccan officials on Monday were questioning the companion of a suicide bomber who blew himself up in an Internet cafe in Casablanca on Sunday, according to news agencies and local press reports. At least three people were wounded in the blast. The bomber and his companion, both in their early 20s, were using a computer at the cafe in the poor Sidi Moumen neighborhood when the owner objected to their behavior, said a Moroccan official who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the press. An altercation ensued when the owner closed the doors to the shop and tried to call the police, the official said. Explosives concealed on the body of one of the men exploded during the tussle, either by design or by accident. The bomber’s companion was caught as he tried to flee. He was discovered to have explosives concealed on his body as well. “The man used to come to view jihadist Web sites, and the dispute was prompted by the Internet cafe owner’s decision to prevent him this time from viewing such propaganda material,” another official who declined to give his name told Reuters, adding that he hoped the arrested man would say whether his companion had planned a bomb attack elsewhere. A Moroccan Interior Ministry spokesman, Abderrahman Achour, told The Associated Press that the dead man was Abdelftah Raidi , who was convicted in connection with terrorism activities and sentenced to five years in prison before being pardoned in 2005. Mr. Raidi was unemployed and in his 20s, Mr. Achour said. The ministry spokesman said the bomber’s companion, Yusuf Khoudri, was among those wounded in the blast and that because of a throat wound, questioning by the police was limited, The Associated Press added. The Sidi Moumen neighborhood was home to 13 suicide bombers who killed more than 30 people in a coordinated terrorist operation in Casablanca in 2003. Sunday was the third anniversary of train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people. Several Moroccans were implicated in those bombings. Morocco has aggressively pursued potential terrorists in the wake of those attacks, arresting thousands of people. Several recent high-profile cases have come to trial in recent weeks. Last week, the Interior Ministry said it had arrested Saad Houssaini, a member of the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, known by its French acronym GICM. Mr. Houssaini has been implicated in the 2003 Casablanca attacks. Morocco, a constitutional monarchy that is friendly to the West, has struggled to curb growing Islamic fundamentalism and has battled persistent militantism in a small segment of that movement that wants to establish an Islamic theocracy. North African governments have been on high alert since the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat in Algeria aligned itself with Al Qaeda last year in an effort to become a regional force. Earlier this year, the group renamed itself Al Qaeda of the Islamic Maghreb.

Terrorism
Bombs and Explosives
Computers and the Internet
Islam
Al Qaeda
Casablanca (Morocco)
Morocco
Africa
Madrid (Spain)


Keeping New York Dogs Cool as the City Heats Up

Abstract: Hot dogs. Dog days of summer. When describing how canine New Yorkers weather the hot weather, the cutesy clichés are easy. But keeping a pup cool during a heat wave is not. Julius Pearson, 32, risks his street cred to keep his 6-year-old Pomeranian, Bam Bam, from sizzling. He keeps a spray bottle holstered in his pants when he walks the dog in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, where both grew up, and stops every few blocks to mist Bam Bam’s tiny pointed face. “I don’t care what people say,” Mr. Pearson, who works in a hardware store, said over the weekend when temperatures had blistered into the 90s. “My dog comes first.” The squished faces of the two Boston terriers owned by Megan Bell and her wife, Bethany Haynes, of Greenwich Village, are the problem in these climes. Their breaths start to make a clicking noise when they overheat, said Ms. Bell, 37, and one, Dizzy, will succumb soon after, splaying in any smidge of cool shadow cast over the sidewalk. Out comes Ms. Bell’s bottled water, and the doggies are flipped over for a reviving douse of water on their bellies. “They shake it off,” she said. “They are super offended that I would do that.” At Malibu Dog Kitchen, a dog food specialty store in the West Village, Ashley Brooks, the operations manager, said: In the heat, pay special attention to dog feet. The hot sidewalk, she said, “scalds their little paws.” Her two Chihuahuas wear teeny shoes in this weather. “It’s ridiculous,” she said, before suggesting that pet owners make goat-milk Popsicles to cool down their dogs. The schnauzer Buca, 9, who lives in the neighborhood, gets by on frozen watermelon. “We keep the watermelon people in business,” said Martin Schneider, 56, who works in the airline industry. But Liz Gonzalez’s dog Nyla, a year-old Border collie-terrier mix, does well with just fresh water, which on Sunday she was drinking from a coffee cup while she watched her owner coach basketball on West Fourth Street. Ms. Gonzalez, from Mount Vernon, N.Y., found Nyla wandering a beach in Puerto Plata in the Dominican Republic. “It was 90 degrees,” Ms. Gonzalez said, explaining the dog’s grit. “She was born in the heat.”


Mays, at Home in Harlem, Connects With Its Children

Abstract: Harlem has had so many magical days; Friday offered yet another, when the great Willie Mays came back home. More than 200 students from P.S. 46 gathered inside the school’s auditorium to listen to Mays talk about his life in Harlem as the Giants’ center fielder. The students were familiar with Mays because the school’s principal, George Young, had ordered a schoolwide assignment to research Mays’s career and life . The students entered the auditorium knowing that they were in the presence of a great man who had once lived in Harlem and had made his name in the Polo Grounds, the stadium once located where the school now stands. The students got more than they bargained for. Over the years, Mays has developed a reputation for being difficult, but on this day, he was anything but. He was accommodating and truly seemed to enjoy being back in Harlem and sharing himself with the public school students. Mays brought gifts for the school’s best students — 12 baseballs and three replica 1951 Giants jerseys. The balls were handed out one by one by Harold Reynolds, the former major leaguer who serves as an analyst for the MLB Network. But when it was the turn of the final student, the sixth grader Kendrick Taveras, Mays realized they were one ball short. Rather than leave Kendrick empty-handed, Mays pulled out his wallet. “I know this is not appropriate,” he said, but he pulled out a $100 bill anyway and handed it to the student, whose shocked expression was worth a million dollars. In that instant, the legend of Willie Mays became tangible for the schoolchildren. Mays later explained that he didn’t want the student to feel left out. “I didn’t want him to go away saying, ‘Hey, that guy didn’t give me nothing,’ ” Mays said, laughing. Sixty years ago, Mays was called up by the Giants a few days after his 20th birthday. He moved to New York and lived in a first-floor apartment on St. Nicholas Place just below 155th Street. Mays called Harlem home, and in return Harlem embraced him as a native son. “In 1951 when I first started, I lived right on top of the hill on St. Nicholas Place,” Mays said, referring to the Sugar Hill area, where he lived during his first two years in New York. Mays would walk to the Polo Grounds using the steep staircase off 155th Street. “I used to go up and down this street all the time, so I’m familiar with this area,” he said. “That’s why I wanted to come back, to let all of the youngsters know what I was doing here.” In addition to his emerging stature then as a great player, Mays’s ability to connect with young people became legendary. During the season, Mays regularly played stickball with a group of 10 children in the neighborhood. They would knock on his first-floor window, and by 10 a.m. they were playing ball on St. Nicholas Place. “I like kids,” Mays said. “I think I’m more at home with kids than I am with grownups, because the kids are genuine. You see them and there’s no falsehood there. You see what you see; that’s what you’re going to get.” Mays, who will turn 80 in May, made his way to P.S. 46 through Friday morning’s snow and arrived nearly an hour early. “I woke up at 5:30 in the morning and I asked myself, ‘What am I going to tell these kids?’ ” he said. When he realized it was snowing, he asked himself, “Is it snowing too bad to get uptown?” But his decision was easy. “I said: ‘Let’s go early, because if I miss this session, these kids are going to be disappointed.’ So I was early.” This is where Mays made his name, where he became rookie of the year and won his only World Series championship. If Harlem was the spiritual capital of black America, Willie Mays was its center fielder. Mays is an American treasure, an Alabama native but a state-of-mind New Yorker. As Reynolds tried to keep the program moving, Mays, taking his time and clearly enjoying the moment, told him: “You don’t understand, man. This is my neighborhood.” As the program came to a close, Young came onstage and asked the audience to stand and serenade Mays with a rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” This was perhaps the most touching act of a magical day. Inside the auditorium, generations and ethnicities converged, singing baseball’s anthem of innocence and hope. Mays sat and absorbed what was happening. “I thought he was very sincere,” Young said. “He seemed concerned about the well-being of the children and the community. I feel that he connected. There was a sincerity there.” The Giants returned to New York this weekend to share the world championship — their first since 1954 — with legions of fans who remained loyal to the team, and to reach out to fans whose hearts were so broken by the Giants’ departure for San Francisco that they zoned out of baseball. Mays was one whose soul remained in New York. He returned on Friday to reconnect with a generation of young people who he felt needed to see, feel and touch a legend who once called Harlem home. Mays is the hero who never really left.

Mays Willie
Children and Youth
San Francisco Giants


Gingrich the Front-Runner Is Still a Book Seller

Abstract: Even as he widens his lead in the polls, Newt Gingrich spends substantial time on an activity that raised questions about his ultimate motive when he was a back-of-the-pack candidate: selling and signing $25 copies of his books. As his primary foe, Mitt Romney , and the White House intensify their efforts to negatively define Mr. Gingrich, his sole public event on Friday is at a bookstore in Washington. On Saturday he flies to Des Moines for a Republican debate but plans to squeeze in an afternoon book-signing. Experienced campaign strategists cannot recall a top-tier contender devoting so much time to pitching products while seeking the White House. Mitt Romney, who also has a book out, has never sold it while stumping, his campaign said. President Obama , a best-selling author in 2007, did not incorporate sales events into campaign appearances, according to a spokesman for his re-election committee. Mr. Gingrich’s devotion to book-selling, Republican strategists said, raises questions about the propriety of a candidate who is generating personal income while seeking the White House, as well as whether he is making the optimum use of limited campaign time. Mr. Gingrich said that book sales, far from a distraction, effectively conveyed his views and values. They are “the cultural wing of what we’re doing,” he said in an interview. “I am a cultural teacher, with a political campaign to change a government. And that’s how I see myself.” Mr. Gingrich, who now holds strong leads in the latest polls in Iowa , South Carolina and Florida , may be having the last laugh after a mutiny by staff members this spring who complained about his preference for selling books and DVDs of movies he makes with his wife, Callista, over meeting with voters. “A Nation Like No Other,” published in June, is Mr. Gingrich’s 16th nonfiction title. It has sold 15,000 hardcover copies, according to Nielsen BookScan. Mrs. Gingrich, also an author, sells an illustrated children’s book, “Sweet Land of Liberty,” about Ellis the Elephant, at campaign events. Although some buyers are under the impression that sales of their books, like T-shirts or coffee mugs, support the campaign, the proceeds go to the Gingriches personally, even as the campaign is scrambling to pay off debt and raise enough money to run an ambitious national operation. “People who are seriously considering someone for president of the United States , I’m not sure they see that the process should be financially beneficial to the candidate,” said Jim Dyke, a former executive for the Republican National Committee . “I don’t know that it presents a presidential feeling to be there pushing your own book.” Steve Schmidt , who managed Senator John McCain ’s 2008 presidential bid, said Mr. McCain never sold books while campaigning. But “we live in a new age,” he said, one where Mr. Gingrich’s sales efforts are consistent with how he leveraged his political capital to start businesses after quitting the House, consulting for nearly $2 million for Freddie Mac , for example. “As Republican voters give consideration to a Gingrich nomination, one of the considerations is understanding what you’re getting,” Mr. Schmidt said. “He monetized his years of being speaker for consulting gains. Why wouldn’t there be an expectation that he monetizes his front-running status?” Campaign autobiographies have been fixtures at least since Jimmy Carter ’s “Why Not the Best?” introduced the little-known governor to a national audience. Nearly every Republican candidate this year has a book out, and at least two besides Mr. Gingrich — Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann — made book-store appearances part of wooing voters. Mr. Gingrich, who also writes historical novels with a co-author, said there was nothing wrong with selling books while campaigning. “I believe in free enterprise, and I think it’s O.K. to make money,” he said. More than 100 buyers who lined up for his signature Saturday after a town hall-style appearance on Staten Island seemed to agree. Kenneth May, a technician for an oil refinery in New Jersey , held three copies of Mr. Gingrich’s book that he planned to share with friends. “I’m helping his campaign as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “Plus it helps me to learn more about him.” The operation was smooth and efficient. An aide wrote each customer’s name on a Post-it note on the title page and slid it over to Mrs. Gingrich. She inscribed the book with the buyer’s name before sliding it to her husband. Mr. Gingrich, wielding a blue Sharpie and sipping a Diet Coke, scrawled his name and shook the buyer’s hand. He rarely spoke before turning to the next customer. Campaign finance experts said that promoting a book for personal profit while running for office was within the law. The book signings are run by Gingrich Productions, of which Mrs. Gingrich is president, a company that produces and promotes the couple’s books and documentary films. There is a link to it from the campaign’s Web site, and people can buy the full back catalog of Mr. Gingrich’s books. Mrs. Gingrich’s sales have clearly benefited from piggybacking on her husband’s celebrity. She recently sold more than 50 copies of her $15 book to elementary students after a reading in South Carolina, where an aide dressed as Ellis the Elephant. At readings, aides collect customers’ e-mails to add to fund-raising pitches for the campaign. The Federal Election Commission debated the practice in January but deadlocked and did not issue an opinion. An experienced Republican consultant, Mark McKinnon, said he doubted voters perceived Mr. Gingrich as mercenary. “On the contrary, I think voters view book-related events as just making the candidates more substantive,” he said. Mr. Gingrich’s latest novel, “The Battle of the Crater,” is about black Union troops in the Civil War, which Mr. Gingrich said he would discuss and promote widely during Black History Month in February. “It has a lot of different signals to a lot of different people that there are things in American history worthy knowing,” he said. “You have to see me as a teacher.” When Mr. Gingrich was an also-ran earlier in the year, there was speculation that he was mainly seeking to raise his value as an author and a paid television commentator. Observers pointed to Mike Huckabee , who won the 2008 Iowa caucuses, dropped out of the race soon after but ended up with his own Fox News show. “Pat Buchanan perfected this process years ago,” said Rick Tyler, a former longtime aide and a co-writer with Mr. Gingrich. “Pat would go run for president and then get a better contract with CNN. Others picked up on it.” Mr. Tyler said, “We worked for years restoring Newt’s brand because it was damaged once he left the speakership.” In 2008, they had a New York Times best seller with the nonfiction book “Real Change.” But when “A Nation Like No Other” was released in June, just as the campaign was imploding, it flopped, Mr. Tyler said. Now things are different. “The behaviors of someone running for president and someone trying to gain market viability are exactly the same,” he said. “You can’t tell them apart.”

Newt Gingrich
2012 Presidential Election
Books
US Politics


In the Heart of Brooklyn, No Man’s Island

Abstract: FROM a seat near the center of Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn one recent sunny afternoon, the world was a surprisingly quiet place. The sounds of the traffic whirlpool swirling around in every direction had receded into a white-noise drone, and the only pedestrian passers-by were those brave enough to cross four lanes of cars at one time in pursuit of a short cut. It was, in short, not a bad place for quiet reflection. Javaka Steptoe, of nearby Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, knew this: He had stopped to meditate on his way home from the gym, and he was sitting quietly and undisturbed on a bench near the middle of the plaza, a solitary figure with his eyes closed and his back straight. At that moment, he was the only person who could be seen sitting in the plaza, which at 11 acres is about the same size as 10 football fields. A little later, when he stood up and proceeded to make his way through the traffic and head home, Mr. Steptoe was asked if the elliptical space could perhaps be made easier to navigate. “I don’t have a problem with it how it is,” he said with a smile. “It suits my purposes.”  Still, Grand Army Plaza is not quite what Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted envisioned when they designed the space in the 1860s. They pictured a grand and sprawling entrance to Prospect Park, a gateway through which most of the park’s visitors would pass. It worked for a time, but soon there was discontent. “No one cares to cross it,” a report by Brooklyn’s Parks Commission noted in 1888. “It is devoid of all life and is a stony waste. It is suggestive of Siberia in winter and Sahara in summer.” The complaint would ring strikingly familiar to many in the area today, who say the plaza, designed as a portal and a promenade, long ago devolved into a traffic circle with more lanes than the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway — depending on what point you’re crossing from — and a center as daunting to reach as an island in a storm. Now, those neighbors — through an umbrella group called the Grand Army Plaza Coalition, which is working with the city’s parks and transportation departments — have begun an effort to redesign the plaza, or, they say, to design it for the first time with cars in mind. When the Design Trust for Public Space, which is working with the local groups, held a competition in the spring seeking new ideas for the plaza, the organization received more than 200 entries. A jury narrowed them to 30 finalists and three prizewinners, whose proposals are all to be displayed in the plaza starting Sept. 12. Deborah Marton, the trust’s executive director, says that just getting people into the middle of the plaza to see the exhibits is important. “Today, if you want to move north to south or east to west, you’re basically confined to the perimeters,” Ms. Marton said. “If you’re on a bike or on foot, what the space conveys to you is that the people who actually live there are much less important than people who are passing through in a car.”  But managing the 4,000 cars that the trust says pass through the plaza every hour will be tricky. Craig Hammerman, the district manager of Community Board 6 and a member of the plaza coalition, said the neighborhoods south of Prospect Park face rush-hour traffic jams when flow through the park and around the plaza is restricted. Even so, added Mr. Hammerman, with a redesign, perhaps parts of the circle could be closed to traffic at times. According to Michael Cairl, a spokesman for the coalition who lives a block away from the plaza on Berkeley Place, one of the sad things about the plaza is that it acts as a barrier between neighborhoods, like Park Slope and Prospect Heights, and even between destinations that are otherwise physically close, like Brooklyn’s Central Library and the subway stop on the other side of the plaza. Another issue involves the center island, with its park, fountain and handful of devotees for whom it can feel like a private secret. “It’s such a great space,” Mr. Cairl said of the plaza. “We like to call it our flawed gem.”

Brooklyn (NYC)
Roads and Traffic
Vaux Calvert
Olmsted Frederick Law


Beyond the Mets’ Steven Matz: Other Pitchers With Big R.B.I. Games

Abstract: The Mets have had some pretty impressive pitching debuts in recent years. Matt Harvey struck out 11 Diamondbacks in winning his first major league start in 2012. Zack Wheeler struck out seven Braves and pitched six shutout innings in 2013. Now add Steven Matz to the list. Matz gave up two runs in seven and two-thirds innings in beating the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday . But he will be remembered more for the record he set with his bat. Matz, who throws left-handed and bats right-handed, had a double and two singles in three trips to the plate. His four R.B.I. were the most in history by a pitcher making his debut. Amazingly, four R.B.I. are also the most by any Met in a debut, breaking the record of three shared by Kazuo Matsui in 2004 and Mike Jacobs in 2005. Image Tony Cloninger once drove in nine runs in a game for the Braves. Credit Associated Press Matz was a second-round pick by the Mets in 2009 out of Ward Melville High School, on Long Island, and his minor league debut was delayed by Tommy John surgery. After finally starting his pro career in rookie league in 2012, he showed promise at every level before making his major league debut Sunday at age 24. (As a hitter, he batted .219 with three R.B.I. in 35 minor league plate appearances.) Three pitchers had shared the record for R.B.I. in a debut, with three. None of them turned out to be reliable offensive weapons. The most recent was Tommy Milone, who hit a three-run homer on the first pitch he faced as a major leaguer in September 2011 for the Nationals. At the end of the season, though, he was traded to the American League and has gathered only three more R.B.I. since. Bobby Locke of the 1959 Indians also got all three R.B.I. on a homer in his debut. He wound up with 12 R.B.I. in nine years. Mike Ryba of the 1935 Cardinals was 32 when he finally made his debut and got three R.B.I. while pitching seven innings in relief. He played till he was 43 and collected a total of 24 R.B.I. Image Red Ruffing, right, with Lou Gehrig, had 273 R.B.I. in his career. Credit Associated Press Pitchers were more likely to be decent hitters back in the mists of time. The single-game R.B.I. king among pitchers is Tony Cloninger, who stroked nine in a game for the Atlanta Braves in 1966. He was 3 for 5 with two grand slams and also got the complete-game win over the Giants, 17-3. The R.B.I. record in the 21st century for a pitcher belongs to Robert Person, who had seven, thanks to two home runs in an 18-3 Phillies win over the Expos in 2002. He hit four homers in the major leagues, and his career batting average was .117. The R.B.I. king among pitchers is Red Ruffing, who amassed 273 from 1924 to 1947. But if you include only pitchers who threw in this century, you have to go dozens of names down the list to Tom Glavine, who had 90 with the Braves and the Mets. The leader among pitchers who have batted this year is Jason Marquis, who was recently released by the Reds at age 36 and knocked in 57 runs over his long career. The days of pitchers regularly helping themselves with the bat are over. Once in a while, though, a game like Sunday’s comes along to remind us that even after 100 years, we can still see something we have never seen before.

Baseball
Steven Matz
Records and Achievements
Red Ruffing
Mets


Florida Buys Thousands of Acres for Preservation

Abstract: A working ranch and tens of thousands of acres of wilderness inhabited by bears and panthers among other wild animals were handed over to the state in Florida ’s biggest purchase of land for environmental preservation. The $350 million purchase of the Babcock Ranch creates an almost unbroken stretch of brush and swamp wilderness from Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf of Mexico. Syd Kitson, the developer who bought the 91,000-acre property about a year ago, retained 17,000 acres to develop as a new town.


In the New York Region, Merger as a Survival Strategy

Abstract: AS many recession-racked communities slash their payrolls and cut services to survive the economic downturn, Joseph Carvin is promoting a more radical solution that would cost him his job: dissolving the Town of Rye in Westchester County, where he is the supervisor. “We’ve reached a point where the taxes are becoming unsustainable — people can’t afford to live here,” Mr. Carvin said of Rye Town, which is composed of the Villages of Port Chester and Rye Brook and a section of the Village of Rye Neck. “Something has to change.” The proposal is part of a wave of consolidations, mergers and sharing of services being considered by local governments in the New York region as falling revenues and rising unemployment force elected officials to make an unpalatable choice between property tax increases and service cutbacks. Recently, even some states, like Minnesota and Wisconsin, have taken to sharing services to split costs. New York State has given $29 million over the past two years to help 140 local governments consolidate services, yielding $250 million in savings, said Lorraine A. Cortes-Vasquez, the secretary of state. Gov. David A. Paterson and legislative leaders in Albany are pushing a bill to encourage mergers. New Jersey — which has 566 municipalities, the most of any state in the country per capita and, not coincidentally, the nation’s highest property taxes — started slashing aid to more than 300 communities with populations below 10,000 last year to try to pressure them into combining police, fire and trash collection services. Now the state is moving to encourage 20 tiny “doughnut hole” communities to merge with the larger municipalities that surround them. Despite stiff resistance, Connecticut, which decades ago eliminated county government, is moving ahead with a plan to consolidate its probate courts. Efforts to streamline government have encountered a backlash from residents, employees and local elected officials. Bart Russell, executive director of the Connecticut Council of Small Towns, warned that the “myopic metro-mania” would not deliver the tax savings being promised and would end up costing public servants their jobs, communities their identities and residents the level of local service they had come to expect. But as the recession grinds on, many government officials expect that the move to reduce the amount of government will intensify. “It’s Hamilton versus Jefferson all over again,” said Joseph V. Doria Jr., New Jersey’s commissioner of community affairs and a former mayor of Bayonne. “Jefferson’s model was the small agrarian communities. Hamilton was in favor of more centralized government. And right now, Hamilton has the momentum.” The crazy quilt of municipal governments that ring the metropolitan area grew for an assortment of personal, cultural, economic and political reasons, most having little to do with the best use of tax dollars or the quality of services. Some were established along highway routes or commuter rail lines, some to provide housing near up-and-coming manufacturing centers or to establish a political fief, and others to separate racial, ethnic or religious groups. In New Jersey, Florham Park was founded by a wealthy couple — Florence Vanderbilt, granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and Hamilton McKown Twombly — who wanted to pay lower taxes. Tavistock (population 24) was created in 1921 to sidestep the blue laws that prevented members of the Tavistock Country Club from golfing on Sundays. The proliferation of government bodies — and the money they consume — has become the stuff of legend: New Jersey recently voted to phase out more than 20 school districts that had administrators and offices but no schools. New York State has 6,900 special taxation districts to pay for municipal water, sewer and trash collection services, and some of these districts have more cars and supervisors than workers. In New York, nine small upstate communities are considering dissolving themselves and being absorbed by neighbors, though only one — the Village of Pike (pop. 382 ) in Wyoming County — has voted to do so. Next could be the Town of Rye, which has an annual budget of $2.8 million to oversee parks and provide administrative services, like tax collection, for the three villages it unites. If the town disappeared, the villages would have to provide those services to their residents. In New Jersey, one community has disbanded in recent decades, in 1997, when Hardwick Township absorbed Pahaquarry (pop. 7). Two mergers are being seriously considered in the state: one involving Sussex Borough and Wantage Township, the other between the Village and Borough of Chester. In New York, the bill supported by Mr. Paterson would encourage county leaders to draw up reorganization plans to reduce the size and number of municipal governments and make it easier for voters to place such proposals on the ballot. Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, who supports the bill, said that sharing services made sense for the vast majority of New York communities, “if you care more about your children than your sewer pipes.” The most pitched battle in New York over scaling back government involves the special districts, which assess taxes for libraries, sewers, trash collection and water systems but have little accountability to voters and — until recently — have received little scrutiny from state officials. In Nassau County alone there are more than 200 such districts that levy $500 million a year in taxes and have been criticized in audits for wasteful spending and duplicating the efforts of other government agencies. “These districts are the last bastion of the Nassau County political machine,” said Jeff Guillot, of the Long Island Progressive Coalition, a nonpartisan community group. “They hire lobbyists with taxpayer dollars to fight against bills to restrict their power.” But advocates of small government bodies say that they can be more cost-efficient than larger bodies. And, these advocates say, smaller entities provide people the chance to get involved in local issues, preserving a hallmark of states with a strong tradition of “home rule” or autonomy in local governance. When Gov. M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut won legislative approval this month for a plan to reduce the number of probate courts to 50 from 117, dozens of local officials converged on Hartford to protest the move, which is moving forward despite their objections. Tom Marsh, a first selectman in Chester, said fewer courts would prove inefficient and alienate tax payers. “All of the representatives and senators will tell you that the most fiscally accountable form of government is the town meeting,” Mr. Marsh said. “So why would we be moving away from that form of government to address a fiscal issue?” A commission in New Jersey working on reorganizing government has tried to offer some clarity on the debate about the efficiency of large and small governments. It recently issued a report saying that, generally, government is most cost-effective when it serves populations between 25,000 and 250,000. Reed Gusciora, a state assemblyman from Princeton, is trying to force dozens of communities in his district to merge or lose state aid. “We’ve tried everything to coax these communities to the altar,” said Mr. Gusciora, who sponsored the bill on the so-called doughnut hole communities. “What we need now is a few shotgun weddings.”

Local Government
Taxation
Mergers Acquisitions and Divestitures
Rye Brook (NY)
Connecticut
New Jersey
Long Island (NY)