Avedon, Unsigned

Abstract: Hanging in the foyer of Ruedi and Ann Hofmann’s art-filled home in Newburgh is a large black-and-white photograph by Richard Avedon . Unsettling in scale as well as content, it’s a half-length portrait, larger than life-size, of a curly-haired teenage boy who stands against a white background holding up the sagging skin and shiny entrails of an eviscerated rattlesnake. The headless animal’s dark blood is spattered across the bib of his overalls; its curdlike guts squish through the fingers on his right hand. The boy’s hieratic gesture is like that of someone performing an ancient sacrifice, and his hard gaze suggests he has been doing this for much of his young life. Not many would choose such an image to welcome visitors. Mr. Hofmann is clearly proud of it, though, and more than 100 others like it. As master printer on Avedon’s last major project, “ In the American West ,” Mr. Hofmann was responsible for bringing out the myriad gray shades and material details in “Boyd Fortin,” the portrait of the 13-year-old rattlesnake skinner, and the other images of weathered, hard-bitten characters featured in the landmark 1985 exhibition and book. It was a job, said Mr. Hofmann, that took almost three years to complete, and one that he often could begin only after his other job — supervising the technical side of Avedon’s commercial operations — was over for the day. He and his assistant, David Liittschwager , would often work late into the night at the Modernage photo lab on Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan. Their task was to emerge from the darkroom with prints that met the photographer’s exacting standards: portraits that combined razor-sharp optics with psychological intensity. “The eyes were always critical for Dick,” said Mr. Hofmann, pointing to the boy’s creased brow. “That’s the first place he looked in a print. If he didn’t like the eyes, it didn’t matter about the rest.” Mr. Hofmann’s respectful memories of Avedon, who died in 2004, are tempered by a perplexed irritation with the Richard Avedon Foundation , which the photographer set up in 2003 and which oversees his estate, including copyright issues and exhibitions. Mr. Hofmann has 126 prints from “In the American West,” 104 of them sized 16 by 20 inches, and 22 sized 41 by 57 inches. The prints are pristine, having been stored in archival boxes for decades. None has suffered the dings and scratches that can happen to photographs during shipment from venue to venue for an exhibition. The prints were Mr. Hofmann’s reward for his labor, he said, explaining that he struck a deal with Avedon in the fall of 1984: instead of money, he would be paid with a signed print of everything he produced for the project. “Dick had no conception of what people lived on, and asking him for money was difficult,” he explained. “Being paid in prints seemed the path of least resistance.” But there is a snag. None of Mr. Hofmann’s prints from the series is signed. In the art market, Avedon’s photographs can be high-priced commodities. His estate is currently represented by the Gagosian Gallery. A vintage print from 1955 of his “Dovima With the Elephants” sold at Christie’s in 2010 for $1,148,910. Two weeks ago, at Art Basel in Switzerland, a print from “In the American West” of the so-called “Bee-man” was offered for sale in one booth for $155,000. All things being equal, Mr. Hofmann’s collection, which he is eager to sell, should be worth a high multiple of that figure. But the Avedon Foundation has refused to authenticate them. It insists that Mr. Hofmann has not provided sufficient evidence that he made these prints under the terms he claims were agreed to with Avedon. What’s more, its lawyer and director have informed Mr. Hofmann in writing that should he ever attempt to reproduce any image for purposes of sale, they will demand a penalty from him of up to $150,000 per print. And should he sell them, they will sue the buyers, citing legal precedent in Guggenheim v. Lubell , a case that dealt with a work of art that had been stolen from the Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum and sold to a buyer unaware of the theft. For now, then, their value cannot be determined: perhaps a lot, or a little, or next to nothing. No auction house would dare to offer them, for fear of a lawsuit. Museums, eager to stay in the good graces of the Avedon Foundation, which shares a block of West 53rd Street with the Museum of Modern Art, have been similarly wary. So as things stand, these 126 rare and impeccable photographs have become as much a worry and a burden to their owner as they are a potential bonanza. To complicate matters, the Avedon Foundation is involved in a legal wrangle with another master printer for the photographer, Gideon Lewin . Suits and countersuits have been filed concerning who controls the copyright of photographs Mr. Lewin took of Avedon working with clients in the studio. Questions have been raised over what is a photographic “gift” and what is stolen property, and over whether a ledger, designed to catalog every exhibition print made by the Avedon studio when he was alive, is reliable. Image Ruedi Hofmann at his home with Richard Avedon’s image of Boyd Fortin, a 13-year-old rattlesnake skinner. Mr. Hofmann was responsible for printing the photo for Avedon’s exhibition “In the American West.” Credit Meredith Heuer for The New York Times Separate though the cases are, both expose an open secret: that Avedon, like many of the other most revered names in art and fashion photography, did not do his own printing. Mr. Hofmann is an unassuming figure. Sixty-two years old, slight and balding, with thick-frame glasses and a gray goatee, he speaks softly and carefully, his accent faintly Southern. He makes his living now shooting for advertisers and catalogs, but he is also in demand as a printer for special exhibitions. The son of Italian and Swiss immigrants — hence the unorthodox spelling of Ruedi — he grew up in South Carolina and Europe. Through much of the 1970s, he thought he might become a psychologist or an architect. In 1978 he enrolled at the Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif., where in 1979 a friend gave him a copy of “Avedon: Photographs 1947-1977,” the catalog for a 1978 retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “It really changed everything for me,” Mr. Hofmann said. “I studied the book, tried to duplicate the pictures, see how they were done. I moved to New York for the express purpose of working for Richard Avedon.” He got his wish in the winter of 1981 when he was hired as a lowly assistant. “I was told, ‘You’re going to pick up pastry, you’re going to do the floors,’” he recalled. The Avedon studio on the Upper East Side was at the time one of the most prestigious in photography and probably the busiest, with a nonstop parade of fashion models and celebrities passing through its doors. In addition, lucrative advertising shoots for Calvin Klein and Dior kept everyone jumping. Doing your job, said Mr. Hofmann, meant reading Avedon’s moods and anticipating his wishes. “Dick was very personable and engaging,” he said. “But he wasn’t someone with whom you had a conversation. He just expected results. And if the results weren’t what he expected, there was tension.” The studio had an apprentice system, and Mr. Hofmann was trained by other assistants. By the end of the first week he was printing, he said, although it was some time before anything was deemed good enough to present to the boss himself. Only after he had earned his trust was Mr. Hofmann promoted. Within six months, he was running the technical side of the studio and going on shoots with Avedon around the country, including journeys to desolate rural places where Avedon photographed the locals who would populate his magnum opus, “In the American West.” Commissioned in 1979 by the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, Tex., the venture paid Avedon $100,000 a year for five years. He and his crew traveled through 17 Western states and made portraits of 752 people. After it opened at the Amon Carter, the exhibition toured the country to wide acclaim. The catalog, published by Abrams, was a best-seller and is now a collector’s item. Mr. Hofmann left the Avedon studio in September 1985; he had agreed to stay on through the opening at the Amon Carter. A year later he opened his own studio in the meatpacking district, where he worked for 20 years. The photographer Laura Wilson documented the project’s gestation and birth in her book “Avedon at Work: In the American West.” Published in 2003, it features several photographs of Mr. Hofmann, some in which he is holding cameras in the field for Avedon, others where he is working on exhibition prints at Modernage , a photography lab. In support of Mr. Hofmann’s claim, and at his request, Ms. Wilson wrote a letter on April 5 this year that recalls a 1984 visit to the lab. “I was stunned by the amount of time involved, the long hours and painstaking skills necessary to do these large prints,” she wrote. “I remember saying, ‘Gosh, Ruedi, this is a lot of work. How are you being paid for all this extra work?’ Ruedi told me he was being paid with prints. Dick had agreed to give him a signed print for each image in the book and exhibition. I am clear about this, certain of the recollection.” During our visit, Mr. Hofmann went to a desk in his dining room and read from three other recent letters written by others employed at that time, including Mr. Liittschwager and Norma Stevens, manager of Avedon’s studio for more than 30 years. They all attest that their employer and Mr. Hofmann had agreed orally to this financial pact. The Richard Avedon Foundation disputes that any such arrangement could have taken place. The photographer’s son, John Avedon, and John’s wife, Laura, have been mainstays of the board. Its current executive director is James Martin. When asked to comment on Mr. Hofmann’s assertion, Mr. Martin responded by email that “no documentation proving the authenticity and ownership of even one of these prints — let alone 120+ unsigned prints — has been provided to the foundation.” “The documentation we did review was drafted by Hoffman a decade after Avedon’s death,” he continued. “The notion that Richard Avedon knew these unsigned prints were in Hofmann’s possession is not credible given that Avedon did not conduct business in this wholesale and careless manner.” The foundation director also wrote that Mr. Hofmann had many years "during which he could have had Avedon sign, authenticate or otherwise transfer these prints if they were legitimately in Hofmann’s possession and meant as gifts or payments to him.” Image Mr. Hofmann, center, preparing prints for an exhibition. Credit Laura Wilson Mr. Martin did not respond further. “There is nothing more to be said,” he wrote. Mr. Hofmann has sought legal counsel but has not pursued legal action. “I’ve tried to keep things as cordial as possible,” he said. “But I’ve made it clear that I want to sell these prints.” Ms. Stevens, once the director of the foundation, said she had tried to serve as mediator in the situation. As longtime manager of the Avedon studio and the only other living witness to what she agrees was a 1984 agreement about the prints-as-payment, she has backed Mr. Hofmann’s version of events in a pair of letters, the first written more than three years ago. “Ruedi is a wonderful printer and a great guy,” she said by phone. “Very ethical. He did a great job.” But as it has become apparent that the foundation would threaten to punish Mr. Hofmann financially if he tried to sell the prints, she has looked for other ways in which he might be compensated. At one point the foundation suggested a trade: a signed print, unframed on aluminum, from “In the American West,” in exchange for his turning over the unsigned prints. “Those things are worth a lot of money,” Ms. Stevens noted, estimating its value at $180,000. She urged him to accept the offer. Mr. Hofmann thought it insufficient. She — and everyone else from those days — is not sure why he kept this trove of prints for decades and never asked Avedon to complete his end of the bargain. She said that he “wasn’t aggressive enough,” and added, “Maybe he thought Dick was too busy and he didn’t want to bother him.” “I don’t know why he didn’t get them signed,” she said. “But he just didn’t. I’d like to help him. But I can’t authenticate the prints, and the person who can is dead.” When Avedon made an arrangement with Mr. Hofmann, he could have thought he was getting the better deal. The market for photographs was then in its infancy, and his own work was not in high demand. The record price for an Avedon in 1985 — a portrait of Marilyn Monroe — was $1,100. (A vintage print of this same image sold in 2008 at Christie’s for $457,000.) It’s possible that as he watched his prices rapidly escalate in the 1990s, Avedon realized that he had made a poor wager. He was known as a tough businessman. Just as likely, he simply forgot about the prints in the rush of life. In any case, he never offered to sign them, and his former employee never asked him to. “Perhaps he thought the privilege of working for him was payment enough,” Mr. Hofmann said in a frosty tone — one of the few moments during our interview that he was less than reverent about his former employer. Mr. Hofmann himself was slow to comprehend what he possessed. Not until three years after Avedon’s death did he put up for auction a signed diptych of the rancher Richard Wheatcroft, one of the leathery men “In the American West.” A gift from the photographer, one of a handful he gave to those who had worked with him over the long span of the project, it was chosen as the cover lot for the Sotheby’s New York photographs catalog in the spring of 2007 and sold for $160,000. Only two complete sets of signed prints from the series are known to exist: one at the Amon Carter Museum; the other at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Ariz., where the photographer’s negatives are stored. An unsigned print is not necessarily less valuable than a signed one. According to Denise Bethel, former director of Sotheby’s Photographs Department for 25 years, “it depends on the artist and the rarity of the print, and its condition.” “I can imagine, if rare enough, that distinction, between signed and unsigned, becomes almost academic,” she said. Image Gideon Lewin, who was a master printer for Avedon, has been engaged in a legal tussle with the Avedon Foundation over a book he planned to publish. Credit Lindsay Morris for The New York Times She cited two examples from 2006 in which Sotheby’s offered two palladium prints of Georgia O’Keeffe by Alfred Stieglitz. One sold for $1.472 million; the other for $1.36 million. Neither was signed. “The question collectors have to ask themselves is: How many other chances am I going to have to buy these exceedingly uncommon prints?” Ms. Bethel said. "Maybe zero. So the savvy collectors aren’t going to wait for the signed ones.” “Provided,” she emphasized as a caveat, “there is no impediment to the sale.” Mr. Hofmann is not the only former master printer to have a contentious relationship with the Richard Avedon Foundation. Gideon Lewin, 77, is a photographer who from 1964 to 1980 had a role in the Avedon studio similar to the one Mr. Hofmann later assumed. During his 16-year tenure, Mr. Lewin claims to have printed the photographs for all of Avedon’s exhibitions. “He had other things to do,” Mr. Lewin said by phone from his home in Manhattan. “He was too busy with the clients. He was the hardest-working man I’ve ever seen.” Mr. Lewin said that while teaching at the Pratt Institute in 2006, and finding that his students had only a vague understanding of what the recently deceased photographer had done, he had an idea to do a book that would “show the lighter side of Richard Avedon, very young at heart, and very funny.” It would feature the hundreds of photographs he had taken of the master at work in the studio. “Dick encouraged me to document him,” he said. “We were very close.” In 2009, Mr. Lewin “got serious,” did layouts and signed a contract with a publisher, Assouline, for a volume to be called “Behind the Scenes With Richard Avedon.” Mr. Lewin said he had the full cooperation of the Avedon Foundation until he submitted his essay. In it, he had written: “Avedon never went into the darkroom. He hasn’t printed since 1950, probably.” Laura Avedon was “enraged,” he said, laughing. She wasn’t the only one. Ms. Stevens, then the head of the foundation, was also upset by the essay. “I was horrified by what he wrote,” she said. “Gideon is very arrogant. He claims he did everything. He got a lot of praise from Dick and was paid a lot of money. But he wasn’t in charge. He is a very good commercial photographer. But that’s it.” By 2011, the foundation had decided to block publication of the book by insisting that all of the photographs Mr. Lewin had taken, because he was still an employee of the studio, were not in his copyright but in the foundation’s. Mr. Lewin sued the foundation, which countersued. In 2012 a New York State magistrate judge ordered mediation. “We were about 95 percent in agreement in 2014,” said Mr. Lewin, “and then they changed lawyers. So we started all over again.” On June 23, United States Distict Court Judge Kimba M. Wood, having been advised that Mr. Lewin and the foundation had reached an agreement in principle to settle, ordered the case closed. Mr. Lewin said he had been allowed copyright on his own images, but that “there are several unresolved issues.” Mr. Martin wrote in an email: “If the settlement agreement can be consummated in a timely fashion, the foundation will agree not to challenge Lewin’s assertion of copyright in approximately 10 percent of the images that he sought to obtain in this lawsuit, with the foundation not being challenged by Lewin in the remaining 90 percent. Almost all of the tangible property at issue in this case will either be returned to the foundation or distributed to institutions of the foundation’s choosing.” What unites the two grievances is that they both make clear that the startling lucidity that characterizes an Avedon print was only partly a result of his hand. Outsourcing, though, is anything but unusual in photography, or in the history of art. Just as Rembrandt and Rubens operated studios where assistants painted the fur or the armor, leaving the faces and the virtuosic blending of the ensemble to be completed by the master, numerous photographers through the 20th century employed technicians to develop film and print negatives. Image Mr. Avedon in 1985 in front of one of the portraits from his book “In The American West.” Credit Jack Manning/The New York Times Edward Steichen, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Walker Evans, Berenice Abbott and Cindy Sherman are only a few who at some point in their careers hired others to perform this labor-intensive, unheralded and often uncredited task. The Avedon cases underline the ambiguous importance of the printer in art photography. Yes, the impeccable prints by Mr. Hofmann were the product of Avedon’s vision. Without Avedon’s immense intelligence, energy and manipulative charm, the portraits would lack the impact and psychological complexity that make them so prized. It was his eyes that determined if Boyd Fortin’s eyes in the portrait photograph were hauntingly affective and exactly what he wanted. But doesn’t the printer, like the cinematographer on a movie, deserve to share a screen credit along with the director? Artists’ estates have a vested interest in playing down the role of printers and assistants and in keeping unsigned copies off the market. One reason has to do with commercial self-interest: It can be confusing or difficult to sell something if multiple people deserve an unknown measure of the praise for its excellence. But another reason, more historically minded, is for purposes of cataloging an oeuvre after an artist’s death, for separating legitimate from ersatz and for preventing fraud. After all, not much deters anyone with access to a photographer’s negatives from printing a few unauthorized copies, late at night in the lab, and secreting them out the door. The Avedon studio hired a librarian in 1975 whose job it was to list in a ledger all editions of prints made for exhibitions. The foundation is arguing in its case against Mr. Lewin that a number of prints in his possession were illegally made because they are not mentioned in the ledger. He disputed this allegation — “Avedon gifted me quite a few prints, some of them quite valuable,” he said — and part of his defense rests on his contention that the ledger is far from complete or accurate. But even if Mr. Lewin’s case is settled, it may not help Mr. Hofmann. There is no mention in the ledger of the “In the American West” prints now in his house, and neither he nor Ms. Stevens, who was in charge of the studio at the time, can explain why. To conclude our visit, Mr. Hofmann, his wife, and their friend Richard Corman (another former Avedon employee) led me on a five-mile drive to a carriage house that has become a local arts center. Newburgh has a picturesque setting along the Hudson but has been gutted by decades of unemployment. We passed blocks of boarded-up houses and broken fences. “The city is on its knees,” said Mr. Hofmann, who last fall used this same arts center to exhibit a show of his portraits of people in the community, a “Pivotal Project,” funded by the city’s residents. Inside on this spring day, he had papered the four walls with photocopies of his Avedon prints. The sheets were blank except for the names of people in the portraits. “Boyd Fortin,” “Red Owens,” “Sandra Bennett.” Mr. Hofmann would like to install his collection here. Until then, he is calling this temporary exhibition “Unsigned 126: American West Collection.” Below this title he has hung six photocopies from Laura Wilson’s book that show him assisting on “In the American West.” But neither his name nor Avedon’s appears on the walls. He told stories about his late-night work on the project. A single exhibition print might take 45 minutes, with each part of a face or item of clothing receiving its own dose of timed light as he masked, dodged and burned. “It was like a dance,” said Ann Hofmann, whose only chance to see him some days would be at the lab. Mr. Hofmann’s high regard for his former boss as an artist is undiminished. “Dick worked with an 8-by-10 the way others worked with a 35,” he said. “I loved going through the Amon Carter with Dick and seeing the scale.” He said Avedon “had no problem” acknowledging in public his role as the printer of the series and at an Amon Carter symposium praised his contributions. Why did he never ask Avedon to sign them? It’s not as if he didn’t think about this piece of unfinished business repeatedly over the years. He hesitated in answering. “Out of too much respect,” he ventured. “Maybe lack of self-esteem.” Then he corrected himself. “No, not lack of self-esteem,” he said. “I thought I should just wait. Dick’s life was about what he was engaged in at the moment. He had an incredible life. He was active the second he woke up in the morning, always moving forward. The agreement was there. It just wasn’t on his mind.” To make sure that he didn’t leave the impression that he was naïve about what he owned, or where his actions had led him, he spoke more forcefully: “I’m not a lemming. I am not a simpleton.” He paused and then laughed, with more exasperation than amusement. “I just want to be paid,” he said. “My wages were the prints. And the check isn’t even in the mail.”

Richard Avedon
Photography
Ruedi Hofmann


Weather Disrupts Athletes’ Training

Abstract: VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Sloppy, foggy weather continued to disrupt Winter Olympic training schedules Friday, turning carefully groomed ski courses to mush in Whistler and on Cypress Mountain a day before competition was scheduled to begin. In Whistler, overnight rain led to the postponement of the women’s and men’s downhill training sessions. Because the men were able to complete a final training session on Thursday, their downhill event can begin as scheduled Saturday at 11:45 a.m., local time. But the women have been unable to complete a training session. If they cannot fit one in Saturday morning before the men’s downhill, the women’s downhill race on Sunday will be pushed back a day or more. The overnight precipitation created sections of soft snow on the downhill course. Officials decided to work on the course all day and night Friday, rather than risk further damage in training sessions. On Cypress Mountain, rain pounded the freestyle and snowboarding runs, where for weeks workers have been hauling in snow by helicopter and truck . Olympic organizers have said that rain and a lack of snow have always been foreseen as a possibility because of Vancouver’s coastal, temperate climate, but they have acknowledged that they are pushing their contingency plans to the limit. To date, workers have moved roughly 68,000 kilograms (150,000 pounds) of straw onto Cypress Mountain, and lugged in about 9,000 cubic meters (318,000 cubic feet) of snow, said Terry Wright, executive vice president for services and Games operations for the Vancouver Organizing Committee. “Weather has not been our friend, as you know, and it continues to challenge us,” Cathy Priestner Allinger, executive vice president for sports and Games operations for the Vancouver Organizing Committee, said at a news conference Thursday. “It’s soupy, it’s mushy, it’s mashed potatoes,” Nate Roberts, an American freestyle skier, told reporters Thursday after abandoning training because of the rain. At Cypress, the rain might have actually improved the moguls course by softening the snow and smoothing out turns. The race director, Joe Fitzgerald, told The Associated Press that he expected the course to hold up through the weekend. “It’s not going away,” he said. Despite the nasty weather, some athletes were able to begin competition: in Callaghan Valley, near Whistler, ski jumping qualifications started Friday morning. At the same site, American biathletes tested out the cross-country course Thursday and reported that the trails were “hard and fast,” but seemed to change by the day. “Each day, we’ve seen completely different conditions, and I think that’s something that will be a theme here throughout the Games,” said Tim Burke, an American biathlete. Weather forecasts in Whistler and on Cypress Mountain do not bring much hope for a reprieve. Rain and highs in the low 40s are predicted for Cypress Mountain on Saturday and Sunday, while a mix of snow and rain is expected in Whistler. “We know we have more bad weather ahead and it isn’t going to be as easy as we had hoped,” Peter Bosinger, the Vancouver Organizing Committee’s sport manager for Alpine skiing, told The Associated Press.

Olympic Games (2010)
Weather
Vancouver (British Columbia)


Bank of England Official to Head Prudential Regulation Authority

Abstract: LONDON — The Bank of England said on Friday that its top insurance regulator had been named the next chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority, a financial regulator within the central bank. Sam Woods, the executive director of insurance, will succeed Andrew Bailey as the deputy governor for prudential regulation at the Bank of England and as the chief executive of the Prudential Regulation Authority on July 1. He will serve a five-year term. Mr. Bailey is scheduled to leave the Bank of England at the end of June and become the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority, another British financial regulator. In 2013, the responsibilities of the Financial Services Authority, then the primary financial regulator in Britain, were split between two agencies: the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority. “Sam is a dedicated public servant, a forward-looking policy maker and a natural leader,” Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, said in a statement . “His broad experience and personal qualities will be vital in building on Andrew Bailey’s extraordinary contributions since the creation of the P.R.A. in 2013.” Martin Wheatley, who had been the Financial Conduct Authority’s chief executive since its inception, stepped down last year. Mr. Woods joined the Financial Services Authority in 2011 and transferred to the Bank of England in 2013 when the Prudential Regulation Authority was created. In his role as executive director of insurance, Mr. Woods oversees the regulation of more than 600 life and general insurance firms in Britain. He previously served as director for financial stability strategy and risk and as a director overseeing supervision of domestic banks in Britain. Mr. Woods spent a decade in a variety of senior roles at Britain’s Treasury before joining the Financial Services Authority. “I am absolutely delighted and very honored to be taking on the deputy governor role,” Mr. Woods said. “The P.R.A. has made a strong start as a prudential regulator under Andrew Bailey’s leadership and I look forward to continuing our work.”

Prudential Regulation Authority Great Britain


At the S.E.C., a Question of Home-Court Edge

Abstract: SINCE Mary Jo White settled in as chairwoman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, lots of tough talk has emanated from the agency about enforcement priorities. Just last week, Andrew Ceresney, co-director of enforcement, told an audience in New York to expect bolder actions out of the agency, especially when it comes to penalizing individuals. The S.E.C. has many weapons in its arsenal. One that is not so well known is its internal court system, overseen by administrative law judges. This is the place where the S.E.C. brings civil enforcement suits that it has not, for various reasons, filed in federal district courts. Because of a recent change in the law, these tribunals are likely to hear more cases. “Our expectation is that we will be bringing more administrative proceedings given the recent statutory changes,” Mr. Ceresney said last week. “But we evaluate the appropriate forum in each case and make the decision based on the particular facts and circumstances.” The enforcement matters taken to these venues are heard by judges employed by the S.E.C. and housed at the agency but who are charged with being impartial triers of fact. These judges — there are now three — hold public hearings, issue decisions and impose sanctions, including revoking brokers’ or investment advisers’ licenses and ordering monetary penalties. (The S.E.C. is still operating, despite the government shutdown.) The S.E.C. is not alone in using administrative law judges to decide legal disputes. Some 30 federal agencies — including the National Transportation Safety Board and the Social Security Administration — do so as well. S.E.C. officials like the system. “Administrative law judges have a sophisticated understanding of the securities laws and markets, which is very helpful in cases involving complicated securities issues and technical violations,” said George Canellos, co-director of enforcement at the S.E.C., in an interview last week. “In addition, the A.L.J. process tends to work much more quickly than a district court adjudication, given the prescribed time limits.” But some legal experts say these proceedings suffer from potential bias because the judges operate within the agency bringing them. The possibility of a home-court advantage or a sympathetic adjudicator, critics say, raises questions of fairness, especially for individuals defending themselves in these matters. “If you get caught up in the web of an agency investigation, you’re investigated, prosecuted and judged by agency personnel,” said Ronald J. Riccio, former dean of the Seton Hall Law School and a professor of constitutional law there. “Even if it doesn’t create actual bias, it doesn’t look good.” S.E.C. officials reject the notion that the judges are biased. “Our experience has shown us that administrative law judges are very fair and unbiased adjudicators,” Mr. Canellos said. (Brenda P. Murray, the S.E.C.’s chief administrative judge, declined to comment on the record for this column.) STILL, questions of fairness are likely to resonate, given that a legal change under the Dodd-Frank law means that more securities law cases are likely to be brought before these tribunals. Under previous law, the agency could bring cases in an administrative forum only against individuals associated with regulated entities; cases against people who were not employees of brokerage firms or investment advisers had to be heard in district court. The new law changed that. And because some cases can be heard only before an administrative law judge, it’s worth exploring their workings and whether there is a better alternative. “As a securities lawyer, I’ve been involved in these administrative proceedings for many years and have been struck by the unfairness and lack of neutrality in the system,” said Lewis D. Lowenfels, an expert in securities law in New York City. “The judges’ mind-set reflects the agenda of the agency, which in this arena is enforcement.” The administrative forums also restrict defendants’ abilities to take depositions, obtain documents from the government’s witnesses and conduct other discovery. The appeals process is similarly narrow; defendants seeking a reversal must first go to the commission itself. If unsuccessful there, they must go to a circuit court of appeals, which is typically hesitant to question administrative law judges’ findings as they are considered experts in their areas, Mr. Riccio says. The S.E.C. says successful appeals have been rare. The most well-known matter the S.E.C. has brought in an administrative forum is the one against Steven A. Cohen, the founder and manager of SAC Capital. The statute covering the S.E.C.’s accusations in the case — that Mr. Cohen failed to supervise his employees — requires remedies to be assigned in an administrative proceeding. The proceeding is postponed until the Justice Department’s criminal case against SAC is completed. But Mr. Cohen has already lost a round in the S.E.C. forum: In July, Mr. Cohen’s lawyers asked to be given the government’s investigative file in the case. In early August, Ms. Murray denied the request. The S.E.C.’s track record in these proceedings is certainly impressive. Among cases filed in fiscal 2011, the most recent period for which all the matters have been decided, the agency won seven of the eight matters that went before an administrative law judge. That’s an 88 percent success rate. In district court proceedings, the agency’s record is more mixed. Among cases filed that year, the S.E.C. won 7.5 out of 12, a 63 percent success rate. (The half-win represented a split decision.) While these tribunals are prevalent among federal agencies, they have become less common among state governments. Concerned about the potential for bias, but wanting to maintain a streamlined process, roughly two dozen states have replaced internal administrative adjudicators with an independent corps of judges assigned to preside over a wide variety of matters. Georgia, Minnesota, New Jersey and Oregon are among the states that have created such independent forums. New Jersey was among the first to change, in 1979 . In 1999, Oregon moved to an office of administrative hearings to provide “an independent and impartial forum.” Some 65 professional judges there hold more than 30,000 hearings each year on matters involving about 70 state agencies. Such systems eliminate the potential for bias, Mr. Riccio said. “There’s no reason not to have an independent corps of hearing examiners,” he said. “When you look at what’s at stake — a person’s livelihood — why should that be subjected to second-class due process?”

SEC
Judiciary
Dodd Frank
Andrew J Ceresney


Rose Gets First Win Since ’13 U.S. Open in a Fast Playoff

Abstract: Justin Rose got his mistake out of the way one hole early and won the Quicken Loans National in a playoff Sunday over Shawn Stefani. Tied for the lead as he played the 18th hole at Congressional in Bethesda, Md., Rose tried to hit through two trees left of the fairway and overturned the shot. The ball ran down a bank and into water, and he had to hole a 15-foot bogey putt just to stay in contention. Behind him, Stefani made bogey on the 17th and narrowly missed a birdie putt on the 18th to set up the first playoff in the event’s eight-year history. Stefani essentially repeated Rose’s mistake on the first extra hole, No. 18. After taking a drop because the grandstands blocked his view of the green, Stefani wanted to play his low punch to the right side of the green. His shot also had too much turn and bounded into the water. Rose hit the middle of the green from the fairway and two-putted for par. Stefani made double bogey. The victory was Rose’s first since the United States Open last summer at Merion, in Pennsylvania. He and Stefani each closed with a one-under 70 and finished at four-under 280. LEWIS WINS IN ARKANSAS Stacy Lewis made a 7-foot birdie putt on the final hole in the NW Arkansas Championship to finally win an official event in her adopted state. The top-ranked Lewis, a Texan who played at the nearby University of Arkansas, had an unofficial win in the rain-shortened 2007 event as an amateur. On Sunday, she closed with a six-under 65 for a one-stroke victory at Pinnacle Country Club in Rogers. It was her third L.P.G.A. Tour victory of the year and 11th over all. She finished at 12-under 201. Lydia Ko, Cristie Kerr and Angela Stanford tied for second. Ko finished with a 65; Kerr and Stanford shot a 67. The second-round leader and the United States Women’s Open winner, Michelle Wie, had a 73 to tie for eighth. LANGER PREVAILS IN PLAYOFF Bernhard Langer made a short birdie putt on the second hole of a playoff with Jeff Sluman to win the Senior Players Championship. The victory was the 56-year-old Langer’s third of the year and his third major title on the Champions Tour. Langer, a two-time Masters champion, shot an even-par 70 to finish at 15-under 265 at Fox Chapel in Pittsburgh. Sluman had a bogey-free 65 to match Langer, but he narrowly missed a birdie putt on the first playoff hole that would have won it. PARAGUAYAN IS VICTOR IN GERMANY Fabrizio Zanotti won the BMW International Open in Cologne, Germany, to become the first player from Paraguay to win a European Tour event, beating second-ranked Henrik Stenson on the fifth hole of a playoff. Zanotti won when Stenson conceded after failing to hole a bunker shot. Zanotti closed with a seven-under 65 to match Stenson and two others who finished at 19-under 269 but were eliminated earlier in the playoff. SEVEN-STROKE LEAD ERASED England’s Greg Owen won the United Leasing Championship at Victoria National in Newburgh, Ind., for his first Web.com Tour title, overcoming a seven-stroke deficit with a five-under 67 for a one-shot victory.


Pregnant Pakistani Woman Is Beaten to Death by Her Family

Abstract: LAHORE, Pakistan — A pregnant Pakistani woman was beaten to death by her family outside a courthouse in the eastern city of Lahore on Tuesday because she had defied their wishes and married the man of her choice, police officials said. Police investigators said that the woman, Farzana Parveen, 25, was beaten to death on a busy street as a crowd of about 30 men watched, but did nothing. Such attacks, known as honor killings, are common in pockets of rural Pakistan where tribal traditions are strong. But they are relatively rare in large, cosmopolitan cities like Lahore, and Ms. Parveen’s death was taken as further evidence of the failure of Pakistan’s increasingly weak police to protect vulnerable members of society. Ms. Parveen, who came from a small Punjabi village 57 miles west of Lahore, enraged her family in January when she married Muhammad Iqbal, a widower from a neighboring village, instead of the cousin who had been chosen by her parents. Her parents brought a police complaint against Mr. Iqbal, claiming that he had kidnapped their daughter. On Tuesday, Ms. Parveen was scheduled to appear in court in Lahore in the case. Her lawyer said she intended to tell the court that she had not been coerced into the marriage. She was three months pregnant. As she met with her lawyer early in the morning, a large group of men from her home village gathered outside the lawyer’s offices. The crowd attacked her as she walked the short distance to the city High Court. One of Ms. Parveen’s brothers stepped forward and fired a gun at her, but missed, the police said, and she stumbled and fell as she tried to flee. He caught her and beat her on the head with bricks from a nearby construction site. A crowd of witnesses, including her father, failed to intervene during the beating, and Ms. Parveen died of her injuries, the police said. Her brother fled the scene, and the police later arrested her father, Muhammad Azeem, over the killing. Honor killings in Pakistan are often mistakenly described as the product of Islamic law. Some reports on Tuesday described Ms. Parveen as the victim of a stoning — an image that conjures up images of Taliban-era executions of women accused of adultery — because she had been beaten to death with bricks. But such killings more frequently stem from tribal traditions or deep-rooted cultural norms. The independent Human Rights Commission reported that 869 women were stabbed, shot, beaten or burned to death in honor killings in Pakistan in 2013, usually at the hands of close family. The attacks have a variety of names in different languages, but are usually referred to as “black work,” a reference to the culturally unacceptable practice of marrying without familial consent. In some cases, the killings are sanctioned by tribal councils or other community groups; men are also sometimes killed in such cases, but much less frequently. As the country becomes more urbanized, and the middle class grows in size, marriages conducted through free choice are becoming more common. But for many young Pakistanis, the choice of a marriage partner is strongly influenced, if not entirely dictated, by parents. Lawyers who defend women at risk of honor killing are routinely subjected to death threats, and the men who carry out the killings often escape imprisonment through an Islamic provision of Pakistani law that allows the perpetrator of a crime to avoid penalties by making a cash payment to the family of the victim. When honor killings take place inside a family, such a payment may not even be made. Had she made it to the courthouse on Tuesday, Ms. Parveen would have told the court that she had married Mr. Iqbal of her own free will, according to her lawyer, Rao Mohammad Kharal. “Farzana was here to tell the court that she married of her own choice,” he told Agence France-Presse. Her husband, Mr. Iqbal, accused Ms. Parveen’s father, two brothers and three other men of being behind her killing, according to a police report. Hours later, in an interview from inside the jail cell where he was being held, Mr. Azeem told reporters that he had killed his daughter to preserve the family’s honor.

Lahore
Honor killing
Murders
Karachi
Pakistan
Muhammad Iqbal
Farzana Parveen


Dean R. Hoge, 71, Expert on Catholic Priesthood, Is Dead

Abstract: Dean R. Hoge, a prominent sociologist of American religion best known for incisive studies of an aging and dwindling Roman Catholic priesthood, died Sept. 13 Saturday in Baltimore. He was 71. The cause was stomach cancer, said his daughter, Elizabeth Hoge. Dr. Hoge’s research, published in 25 books, illuminated some of the major trends reshaping American Christianity from the 1970s on. In his book “Vanishing Boundaries: The Religion of Mainline Protestant Baby Boomers” (Westminster John Knox Press, 1994) with Benton Johnson and Donald A. Luidens, Dr. Hoge found that mainline American Protestants were losing their historical attachment to specific denominations, switching among Episcopal, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. He examined trends in church giving, how churches influence immigrants and the increasing involvement of Catholic laity in parish life. For 32 years, Dr. Hoge was a professor at the Catholic University of America in Washington; he was director of the Life Cycle Institute there from 1999 to 2004. In the fall of 2007, Dr. Hoge was elected president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. He fell ill with cancer last spring as he was helping to plan the group’s next conference. The conference, to be held in October, will feature a symposium on Dr. Hoge’s work. His most groundbreaking studies were those on the Catholic priesthood, said William V. D’Antonio, a sociologist and colleague at Catholic University. Dr. Hoge examined the reasons for the shortage of priests, the challenges a priest faces in his first five years after ordination, the aging of the priesthood and the morale of priests. “The priest studies point to some of the core problems that are facing the Catholic Church today, such as what are the possibilities of new recruitment policies bringing in the numbers you need if you stay within the traditional male-only structure?” Dr. D’Antonio said. Bernard F. Stratman, a Catholic brother and executive director of the seminary department of the National Catholic Educational Association in Washington, said, “Research is often difficult for church leaders to receive and it’s not always good news, but Dean was determined to tell the truth and name the proverbial elephant in the room. “The people who paid the most attention were people in the middle rungs of church leadership, in seminaries, lay organizations and pastoral groups who have to tend the flock,” Brother Bernard said. Dr. Hoge also collaborated with Dr. D’Antonio and two other sociologists on four periodic surveys that looked at the changes in Catholic belief and identity in the decades after the Second Vatican Council. Dr. Hoge was a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Graduate School. Besides his daughter, Elizabeth, his survivors include his wife of 43 years, Josephine, of Takoma Park, Md.; a son, Christopher Hoge of Kirkland, Wash.; and his brothers William Hoge of Flemington, N.J., and John Hoge of New Knoxville, Ohio. Although Dr. Hoge’s work often focused on Catholics, he was a member and lay leader at the Takoma Park Presbyterian Church for 34 years. “We used to joke that Dean was more Catholic than many of the Catholics we were studying,” Dr. D’Antonio said. For his part, Dr. Hoge used to say that he was “49 percent Catholic.”

Sociology
Priests
Christians and Christianity
Deaths (Obituaries)
Religion and Churches


Saks Treatment of Transgender Employees Is Investigated

Abstract: New York’s attorney general is investigating Saks Fifth Avenue’s treatment of transgender employees after a former saleswoman said that the luxury retailer had harassed and dismissed her over her transgender identity. In a letter to Saks dated Wednesday, the office of the attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman , asked Saks to provide documents on all existing anti-discrimination policies that apply to Saks employees in New York. The letter also asked Saks to detail how it allows employees to file harassment or discrimination complaints, and to outline training materials it uses to educate its employees on workplace harassment. The inquiry is related to a lawsuit filed in Texas in September by Leyth O. Jamal, 23, who says that managers at a Saks in Houston referred to her as a man and instructed her to use the men’s restroom. She also says that managers pressured her to make her appearance more masculine despite being aware of her transgender identity. Saks terminated Ms. Jamal in July 2012 after she brought a discrimination complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission . In its letter, the attorney general’s office takes issue with claims made by Saks lawyers in response to Ms. Jamal’s lawsuit. The lawyers said that discrimination based on gender identity was not prohibited by federal law. Both the Justice Department and the employment commission protect transgender employees from harassment and discrimination in the workplace, the letter said, while the New York City human rights law prohibits sex discrimination based on gender identity. Saks confirmed that it had received the letter.

Discrimination
Transgender,Gender Dysphoria
Saks Fifth Avenue
Workplace


Bitcoin Exchange Receives First License in New York State

Abstract: New York State’s top financial regulator has granted the first license to a Bitcoin exchange, allowing it to open legally to customers across the country. The exchange, itBit, said Thursday morning that it was beginning to take on customers in the United States immediately after receiving a banking trust charter from New York State’s Department of Financial Services and its superintendent, Benjamin M. Lawsky, who has been trying for some time to bring new rules to the fledgling virtual currency industry. In addition to the new license, itBit, which has offices in New York and Singapore, also announced on Thursday that it had won $25 million in new financing and had appointed three prominent board members: Sheila C. Bair , the former chairwoman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation; Bill Bradley , the former New Jersey senator; and Robert H. Herz, a Morgan Stanley director. The trust company charter gives itBit a banklike status and appears to make it the winner in a race among Bitcoin exchanges to become the first to be fully regulated in the United States. “This is a big deal, not just for us, but for the entire Bitcoin industry,” itBit’s chief executive, Charles Cascarilla, said. Image Benjamin M. Lawsky, the New York State financial services superintendent, is developing a so-called BitLicense. Credit Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times In the past, several unregulated Bitcoin exchanges have collapsed under questionable circumstances, tarnishing the public reputation of the virtual currency and losing coins worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Earlier this week, an enforcement arm of the Treasury Department fined a virtual currency company, Ripple Labs, $700,000 and said it “willfully violated” the bank secrecy act and failed to report suspicious activity. Mr. Lawsky has been working for more than a year to establish a regulatory procedure to deal with the unusual nature of virtual currencies and the unique security risks that they present. He has proposed a so-called BitLicense and has said he hopes to complete it later this month. ItBit avoided the need for a BitLicense by instead applying for a trust company charter, which appears to come with even stricter regulations. It is the first trust company to be created in New York since the financial crisis. “The technology behind Bitcoin and other virtual currencies could ultimately hold real promise, and it is critical that we set up appropriate rules of the road to help safeguard customer funds,” Mr. Lawsky said in a statement on Thursday. “Indeed, we believe that regulation will ultimately be important to the long-term health and development of the virtual currency industry.” Many Bitcoin companies have been held back by the difficulty of opening accounts with banks, which have been hesitant to deal with the risks of virtual currencies. As a trust company, itBit will be able to be the custodian of customer funds by itself. Video Chad Cascarilla, the chief executive of itBit, on becoming the first Bitcoin exchange allowed to open legally to customers across the United States. Credit Credit CNBC The process of obtaining the charter has been arduous and expensive and occupied itBit for more than a year. It has already been operating for foreign customers from Singapore. Because of the extensive requirements for opening an account with the company, itBit is planning to focus primarily on larger investors and financial institutions. The company was founded by several people with Wall Street experience, including the chief executive, Mr. Cascarilla, who previously worked at Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. The company’s chief operating officer, Andrew Chang, came to itBit from Google. Although the price of Bitcoin has stagnated over the last year, interest in its technology has been growing among large financial and technological companies. Last week, Goldman became the first bank to make a significant investment in a Bitcoin company when it helped lead a $50 million funding round for the Bitcoin payment company Circle. Many banks are most interested in the financial network, called the blockchain, that allows the Bitcoin digital tokens to be transferred quickly and cheaply. The focus at itBit will be on allowing customers to buy, sell and hold the digital tokens as an asset, like a sort of digital gold. Video While regulators debate the pros and cons of bitcoins, this volatile digital currency inspires the question: What makes money, money? Since Bitcoin was released in 2009 by a mysterious creator named Satoshi Nakamoto, the largest exchanges have mostly been outside the United States. Mt. Gox, an exchange based in Tokyo, was the dominant exchange for years, but it declared bankruptcy last year and said that nearly $400 million worth of customer coins were either lost or stolen. A criminal investigation is continuing. Mt. Gox was overtaken by Bitstamp, an exchange based in Slovenia. Earlier this year, though, Bitstamp was hacked and lost about $5 million in coins. More recently, a company in San Francisco, Coinbase, said it was opening the first Bitcoin exchange to have all the necessary licenses in the United States. But soon after that announcement, Mr. Lawsky’s office said that Coinbase did not have the licenses needed to operate in New York. The Winklevoss brothers, famous from their legal battles with the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, announced their intention this year to open the first regulated United States Bitcoin exchange, but that has not come to fruition yet. Many early Bitcoin users, who were drawn to the virtual currency because of its independence from government, have opposed efforts to win regulatory approval for the technology. But itBit and other companies have said that approach is unlikely to work in bringing virtual currencies into the mainstream. “While some see Bitcoin as alluring for its potential to operate outside this system, we see it differently,” Mr. Cascarilla said in a blog post Thursday morning. “We believe Bitcoin and blockchain technology have immense potential within the system — to help make it more efficient, to offer new solutions and to bring us all into the future.”

Bitcoin
itBit
Department of Financial Services NYS
New York
Benjamin M Lawsky
Sheila C Bair
Bill Bradley
Robert H Herz


Resistance to Kennedy Grows Among Democrats

Abstract: ALBANY — Resistance is emerging among Democratic officials against Caroline Kennedy as she pursues Hillary Rodham Clinton ’s seat in the United States Senate, with Gov. David A. Paterson bristling over suggestions that her selection is inevitable, according to his advisers, and other leading Democrats concerned that she is too beholden to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg . The governor is frustrated and chagrined, the advisers said, because he believes that he extended Ms. Kennedy the chance to demonstrate her qualifications but that her operatives have exploited the opportunity to convey a sense that she is all but appointed already. He views this as an attempt to box him in, the advisers said. “You have people going around saying, ‘Oh yeah, it’s a done deal,’ ” said one of the advisers, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the selection process and did not want to anger the governor. “The quickest way to not get something you want is to step into somebody’s face.” The governor’s frustration follows reports last week that Kevin Sheekey, a top deputy to Mr. Bloomberg who has been advising Ms. Kennedy, had called a labor leader and told him that Ms. Kennedy was going to be senator, “so get on board now,” and that a member of Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s staff was helping Ms. Kennedy reach out to unions. It was not clear on Tuesday whether the governor’s reaction would seriously damage Ms. Kennedy’s chances to win the appointment or if it merely reflected Mr. Paterson’s desire to regain control of the selection process after Ms. Kennedy’s very public political debut. But Ms. Kennedy’s ties to Mr. Bloomberg’s political team and her waffling over whether she would support a Democrat in next year’s mayoral race appear to be angering some Democrats. On Tuesday, Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, became the most senior elected official in the state to say that that Mr. Paterson should not select Ms. Kennedy to the Senate seat. “If I were the governor, I would look and question whether this is the appointment I would want to make, whether her first obligation might be to the mayor of the City of New York rather than the governor who would be appointing her," Mr. Silver said during an interview on WGDJ, an Albany radio station. Mr. Silver has long had a testy relationship with Mr. Bloomberg, fueled by battles over mayoral initiatives like congestion pricing . A spokeswoman for Ms. Kennedy declined to comment. Ms. Kennedy’s advisers, speaking anonymously because they did not want to inflame the situation further, rejected any suggestion that they had portrayed her selection as inevitable and insisted that they had been respectful of the governor’s desire for a decorous selection process. The criticism over her bid has also frustrated those advisers, who feel that Ms. Kennedy has been whiplashed by assertions that she is at once protected and presumptuous. Both the governor and Ms. Kennedy’s advisers appear to have been thrown, in part, by Ms. Kennedy’s overwhelming personal celebrity. Ms. Kennedy made dozens of calls to elected officials and other leaders to build interest in her candidacy, and many of those with whom she spoke call her thoughtful and self-effacing. But her refusal to say over the weekend whether she would back a Democratic candidate next year, when Mr. Bloomberg will seek re-election as an independent, set off intense reaction among some in the party. A follow-up statement — in which her spokesman, Stefan Friedman, said that Ms. Kennedy “fully intends to support the Democratic nominee” — did not assuage those concerns. Moreover, her ties to Mr. Bloomberg’s operatives have aroused suspicions among Democrats and labor officials that she would be beholden to the mayor. Ms. Kennedy hired the consulting firm Knickerbocker S.K.D., which includes Mr. Bloomberg as one of its biggest clients. Those suspicions appeared to be compounded by a comment Mr. Bloomberg made on Monday defending Ms. Kennedy and suggesting that, though the choice was Mr. Paterson’s, the governor should move quickly to select a replacement for Mrs. Clinton, who is expected to be confirmed next month as secretary of state. “We didn’t tell him to hurry up on term limits,” said another Paterson adviser, referring to Mr. Bloomberg’s move this fall in which he marshaled votes on the City Council to nullify a city referendum so that he could run for another term. In a conference call on Tuesday, Mr. Paterson, who was traveling, declined to address Mr. Silver’s or Mr. Bloomberg’s comments. But he reiterated that he had made no selection and would not do so until Mrs. Clinton was confirmed. “What I’m trying to keep away from is lobbying, coercion and distracting information,” he said. He added later: “I don’t feel rushed by any of this process. I have said from the very beginning what I thought the right way to do this would be.” Mr. Silver also praised several other potential appointees to the Senate seat, including Andrew M. Cuomo, the attorney general. Should Mr. Paterson pick Mr. Cuomo, the Legislature would be responsible for choosing his successor, and Mr. Silver would have by far the most influence over that choice. A spokesman for Mr. Silver declined to say whether the speaker had consulted with Mr. Paterson before speaking publicly about Ms. Kennedy. Even some of Ms. Kennedy’s potential rivals for the seat expressed some sympathy for her quandary. “Any true Democrat loves Caroline Kennedy,” said Thomas R. Suozzi, the Nassau County executive, who has said he is also interested in the Senate appointment. “I think the way that her handlers and strategists are pushing her and trying to box in the governor is damaging the reputation of someone that we all care about.”

Kennedy Caroline
United States Politics and Government
Politics and Government
Clinton Hillary Rodham
Paterson David A
Bloomberg Michael R
New York State
Democratic Party


Geoffrey Polites, Australian Ford Official, Is Dead at 60

Abstract: Geoffrey Polites, the chief executive of Jaguar and Land Rover who played a key role in arranging last month’s deal to sell the brands to an Indian automaker, died Sunday in his hometown, Melbourne, Australia. He was 60. The Ford Motor Company , based in Dearborn, Mich., confirmed his death, saying it followed a serious illness of more than two years; Mr. Polites had been quoted in industry publications as saying he had cancer. Mr. Polites, who lived in Great Britain while running Jaguar and Land Rover since 2005, had traveled to Melbourne last week after the birth of his first grandchild, the Sydney Morning Herald reported; his health worsened unexpectedly before he could see the child and he was admitted to a hospital, where he died. Mr. Polites had been with Ford for nearly 40 years, as a product planner, dealer and executive. His tenure with the carmaker was expected to end this quarter, when Tata Motors of India plans to take control of Jaguar and Land Rover. Ford will receive $1.7 billion from Tata, about one-third of the total price it originally paid for Jaguar and Land Rover in 1989 and 2000, respectively. Ford said that David Smith, the chief financial officer of Jaguar Land Rover, would act as the brands’ chief executive until a successor to Mr. Polites was selected. Ford Australia hired Mr. Polites as a product planner in 1970. He held several executive positions with Ford in Australia and Europe before leaving in 1988 to run the City Ford dealership in Sydney. In 1999, Mr. Polites became president of Ford Australia, where he often fraternized with factory workers and eliminated executive perks. Jaguar and Land Rover were money losers when Mr. Polites was appointed to head them in 2005. They made a profit in all four quarters of 2007, Ford said. “His drive and determination, combined with his clear sense of vision for the business, played a huge role in turning round the business at Jaguar Land Rover and returning it to profitability,” Ford’s chief executive, Alan R. Mulally, said in a statement. “Geoff ensured that Jaguar Land Rover was not distracted and continued to focus on the fundamentals of the business during the recent sale process, despite at the time also fighting his own personal health battle.” Mr. Polites, who was born in Melbourne in 1948, received an economics degree from Monash University there. He is survived by his wife, Linda, and two sons.

Ford Motor Co
Automobiles
Polites Geoffrey
Deaths (Obituaries)
Executives and Management
Australia


On the Glass House’s Pond, Yayoi Kusama’s Clattering Polka Dots

Abstract: Thirteen-hundred glimmering spheres float on the pond below Philip Johnson’s Glass House , in the Lower Meadow on the renowned architect’s 49-acre estate. Just under a foot in diameter, the stainless steel orbs reflect the environment, creating seemingly endless echoes of the towering trees, the changing skies and the multiple arches of the pavilion Johnson designed at the pond’s edge. Hollow, the spheres weigh less than a pound each, so when the wind blows, they drift, sometimes in groups, sometimes one by one. When they touch, they clatter gently, like a chorus of muffled typewriters. This is the newest iteration of “Narcissus Garden,” by Yayoi Kusama , an 87-year-old Japanese artist whose lifetime of works — paintings, drawings, sculptures, prints, installations, performance “happenings” — have been defined by compulsively repetitive patterns, most famously polka dots. On the Glass House website, Ms. Kusama is quoted as saying: “The single dot is my own life, and I am a single particle amongst billions.” “Narcissus Garden” was first realized 50 years ago as a land installation at the 33rd Venice Biennale and has since been reinstalled internationally in numerous configurations; its last appearance on water in the United States was in Central Park as part of the 2004 Whitney Biennial . At the Glass House, it is one of three pieces that make up “Yayoi Kusama: Narcissus Garden,” organized to commemorate the 110th anniversary of Johnson’s birth and the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Glass House to the public. “We wanted to have a celebratory mood here, and Kusama was it,” Irene Shum, the Glass House’s curator and collections manager, said. Image Ms. Kusama’s “Pumpkin,” from 2015, is stainless steel, its polka dots punched out to reveal an interior painted a vibrant color called Pepsi red. Credit Matthew Placek While much of Ms. Kusama’s work, with its undulating motifs and often psychedelic colors, has an air of celebration, its impetus isn’t always joyful. The artist has suffered from anxiety and hallucinatory disorders for most of her life. After moving to the United States and working prolifically for 16 years in New York, Ms. Kusama returned to Japan in 1973. Since 1977, she has lived in a psychiatric hospital in Tokyo, spending her days in her studio across the street. In her 2002 autobiography, “Infinity Net,” she wrote: “I fight pain, anxiety and fear every day, and the only method I have found that relieves my illness is to keep creating art.” Besides the potent beauty of “Narcissus Garden” at the Glass House, the pairing of the two projects evokes connections between Ms. Kusama and Johnson. Both were active during the same era: Although the Glass House was built in 1949, the pavilion was constructed in 1962, four years before Ms. Kusama created “Narcissus Garden.” Johnson acquired her 1962 collage “ Accumulation of Stamps, 63, ” which he later donated to the Museum of Modern Art. And the two traveled in common circles. “Kusama’s studio was below Donald Judd ’s studio on 19th Street, and Judd was an artist that Johnson collected,” Ms. Shum said. “The proximity was there.” Ms. Shum noted another parallel. “Johnson referred to the Glass House as his 50-year diary,” she said, “a place of self-reflection where he was working out his issues, just as Kusama is working out her issues through her art.” On the opposite side of the house, an almost six-foot-tall shiny polka-dot gourd nestles into a grassy slope. Ms. Kusama’s “Pumpkin,” from 2015, is stainless steel, its polka dots punched out to reveal an interior painted a vibrant color called Pepsi red . The pumpkin is a recurrent theme in Ms. Kusama’s work. Her parents were prosperous managers of wholesale seed nurseries, and in her autobiography she recalled seeing her first pumpkin as a child. “It immediately began speaking to me,” she wrote. While pumpkins can have pejorative associations in Japanese culture, Ms. Kusama found them charming. “What appealed to me most was the pumpkin’s generous unpretentiousness,” she wrote. “That and its solid spiritual balance.” Image The spheres weigh less than a pound each, so when the wind blows, they drift, sometimes in groups, sometimes one by one. Credit Matthew Placek The sculpture’s placement at the Glass House is significant. It sits on a concrete footing that once held Ellsworth Kelly’s 1973 “Curve II.” In 1984, Johnson donated Kelly’s sculpture to the Museum of Modern Art, and the site remained empty until now. Not far from “Pumpkin” is another building called the Painting Gallery, where visitors will find “Robert Rauschenberg: Spreads and Related Works.” The exhibition presents six large-scale collages made with paper, fabric and other items, including a split rubber tire and an electric fan. The fan is part of “Recital (Spread),” completed by Rauschenberg in 1980 and purchased by Johnson the same year. The other pieces were selected by David White, senior curator of the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation , to complement “Recital (Spread).” After the Rauschenberg show closes, the Glass House itself will be transformed by polka dots. For Kusama’s site-specific installation “Dots Obsession – Alive, Seeking for Eternal Hope,” the artist’s team will return to the Glass House to apply hundreds of double-sided vinyl Pepsi red dots to the inside of its walls. During the month of September, the house will become a modified version of Kusama’s “infinity rooms,” mirrored chambers filled with intricate repeating patterns to produce a sense of boundless space. “Unlike her other ‘infinity rooms,’ ours will be more restrained,” Ms. Shum said. “It will have a limited color palette, and it will be interacting with the natural environment instead of being enclosed. It will be about the reflections in the glass, the shadows that the polka dots will cast and the colors playing against the green outside.” The Glass House is accessible by tour only, and this season several new options have been added. Ms. Shum will lead private, appointment-only tours of “Dots Obsession” and special weekly tours will bring guests to the Lower Meadow for up-close viewing of “Narcissus Garden.” The installation marks the first-ever opening of the Lower Meadow to the public. Standing by the newly excavated pond, surrounded by the poignancy of Ms. Kusama’s hypnotic spheres, Ms. Shum gazed at the Glass House, the nearly transparent structure perched on a tree-lined rise. “This is a view of the house that most people haven’t seen,” she said. “You can look up at the Glass House from here, and down at ‘Narcissus Garden’ from the Glass House.”

Art
New Canaan CT
Yayoi Kusama
Philip Johnson
Glass House
Architecture


Exploring Red Hook, Brooklyn, Unplugged and With Friends

Abstract: THE idea of foraging New York in this strange way came to us from a great distance. We were under umbrellas on Sri Lankan sand about a year ago, pondering the ocean; swapping notes on our wedding, days earlier; volleying ideas for our new existence in New York, where we were moving from Boston after the honeymoon. Neither of us had ever lived there; we’d waited because we each saw the city with the same reverence, as a place that you earned by first inhabiting other places. We knew that on the day of our arrival that March, for a flicker of history, every one of this city’s eight million citizens would have arrived here before us. How to catch up? A plan took shape. On some weekends my wife, Priya Parker, and I would set aside our technology and to-do lists, choose a quarter of the city we wanted to know better and explore it for a full day. Today, many months later, we can report that we’ve pretty much stuck to that plan but with one change: When we got here, so many of our new friends — having themselves arrived with fervor for the city, only to become lost in its gears — flew mothlike to this notion of unplugging and immersing. They joined us in what grew into a kind of anti-modern communal experiment: giving our gadgets a secular Sabbath; reveling in friendship and conversation of a kind that Facebook doesn’t do; being thickly in one place, not thinly everywhere. We began to call them “I am here” days. On the day we visited the Red Hook section of Brooklyn, there were six of us — which was, give or take a few, the usual size of the contingent. The trip began around 11 a.m. on a Saturday with an eggy breakfast at a place called home/made . We did a round of introductions and went over the rules, such as they are: Be there the full day, no coming and going; keep your gadgets at bay (unless to take pictures or otherwise enhance the day); be present and game; try when possible to nourish a single, rolling conversation among the group rather than one-on-one side chats. After some food and some talk, we walked south on Van Brunt Street, popping into some of the stores, asking their owners about the neighborhood and their businesses . We turned right on Reed Street, bound for the sea, which was how we came upon Ralph’s. There, in an unremarkable garage the length of three or four cars, sat a half-dozen or so middle-aged and older men. They said they were “retired sanitation.” They were feasting on pickles, canned pigeon peas and beer set on a wooden table. They had decorated every square inch of the garage with the paraphernalia of their lives: items rescued from other people’s garbage, photos from their younger days, street signs, stuffed animals, clocks, crutches. The one at the head of the table, with a feathered hat and dancing shoes and necktie, said he and the boys gathered here every day around midday. He called it Ralph’s Club. It wasn’t entirely clear if he was Ralph. Then onward to a lesson in Red Hook history from a quixotic, passionate man who had salvaged a decaying boat and turned it into the Waterfront Museum. Then a stop to try Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies . Then lobster rolls for a late lunch. (Many of the places we visited in this seaside neighborhood are now struggling to reopen after being hit by Hurricane Sandy.) Then a visit to the home of a friend who lives in the neighborhood — something we always try for, to see a place more fully, when we can swing it. Then a stroll out to the Louis Valentino pier , where a group of fishermen were dropping hooks into the bay to get what they could before dark. Then over to Sunny’s , a local bar, for cocktails and a brief respite. ‘I Am Here’ Days 9 Photos View Slide Show › Image Anand Giridharadas for The New York Times All day long we talk. We walk, we talk; we eat, we talk; we browse, we talk. It can feel, in the days we live in, like a subversive act. It is, you could argue, a golden age for talk — or perhaps for chatter. More people have more ways to say more things than ever before. But for many of us our communicative lives have become lives of chaos, fragmentation, addiction, alienation, guilt. What we discovered when we turned off our machines and spent whole days together was how desperately we all wanted to talk. We talked about our histories, our work, our secret dreams. Talked about the scars of our pasts, the hazards of dealing with our families. Talked about relationships savored and lost. Talked about illness and health, faith and technology, books and money. You see, a funny thing happens when you spend 12 hours with the same people and just those people. It’s unlike spending three hours with them four different times, as Priya always points out. People usually manage to be polite and dignified for the first few hours, which is perhaps why we spend only a few hours with people most of the time. After that, things unravel in the loveliest ways. Their guards come down. Crankiness slips out, but so does the truth. Life intervenes: someone has a breakdown; someone gets word of a friend’s illness; someone hears a story that breaches an impregnable fortress of feeling. We’ve done nine “I am here” days so far, about one per month. We’ve had a Harlem day, two days in the Bronx, an Upper East Side day, a day in the Long Island City area of Queens. We’ve spent a day visiting the studios of Brooklyn artists. Sometimes we do a theme more than a physical place. In one case we confined ourselves to the city’s secret establishments; in another we hung around its squares and only its squares. Our days have taken us to the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where the Rev. Calvin O. Butts embarrassed us by making us stand before the Sunday congregation while he read from our résumés, which he had somehow obtained; an afternoon dance party we came upon at El Museo del Barrio; speakeasy watering holes where we couldn’t get in; a mansion on the Grand Concourse in the Bronx where a wealthy man once arranged to care for wealthy people who had fallen into poverty; the 5 Pointz compound in Long Island City, Queens, where a massive building is covered with a small town’s worth of legal graffiti; a Chinese marriage hall in downtown Manhattan; a giant globe in the lobby of the old Daily News building; and a section of the Berlin Wall that stands in Midtown. The days’ touristic benefits, considerable as they are, are almost a footnote to their power. What they have become to us is a strange little antidote to our frenetic, insatiable age. “I am here” days feel like a bet against the reigning cults of productivity and connectivity, the sense that everything must be optimized and efficient and that you must always be “on” and available. They are a challenge to the transactional quality that can, without resistance, define cities like this. They question the notion that digital intimacy is the same as intimacy. They defy the research suggesting that it gets harder to make friends the further you get from school days. In Red Hook on that languorous Saturday, dinnertime found the six of us in an isolated alcove of a dark restaurant called the Good Fork. The conversation turned to religion and family. Voices rose. Bodies leaned forward. A few tears might have flowed. Here we were, all transplants to the restless city, our roots and histories far away, but doing what felt like a family supper. As it happens, the film “Red Hook Summer” was playing not far from Red Hook. Suckers for punishment, we decided that a movie about religiosity was what we needed. We headed over. And on a day of much serendipity, here was another instance, only in New York. The film’s director, Brooklyn’s own Spike Lee, was sitting alone at the rear of the theater, perhaps hoping no one would spot him. We did and shook his hand, and then settled into our seats for the day’s final act.

Red Hook Brooklyn
Friendship
Waterfront Museum
NYC


Paula Deen Loses Major Endorsement Deal

Abstract: ATLANTA — Paula Deen’s troubles intensified on Monday as she scrambled to cope with allegations that she and people in her restaurants have been insensitive or worse to blacks, women and other groups. Smithfield Foods, whose hams and other products Ms. Deen has endorsed since 2006, severed its relationship with her Monday. Smithfield, the world’s largest pork producer, has been the flagship in Ms. Deen’s collection of at least 17 licensing and endorsement partnerships. At issue is Ms. Deen’s admission in a court deposition that she has used racial slurs and off-color jokes. “Smithfield condemns the use of offensive and discriminatory language and behavior of any kind,” Keira Lombardo, a Smithfield spokeswoman, said in a statement Monday. “Smithfield is determined to be an ethical food industry leader and it is important that our values and those of our spokespeople are properly aligned.” Smithfield announced a deal last month in which the Virginia-based food company would be sold to a Chinese pork producer for $4.72 billion. Ms. Deen’s empire began to crumble last week after her deposition in a discrimination lawsuit was leaked to the news media. By Friday, the Food Network announced it was terminating her contract and immediately pulled her two shows from the network. Image Paula Deen in 2010. Smithfield Foods, whose hams and other products Ms. Deen has endorsed since 2006, severed its relationship with her Monday. The world’s largest pork producer has been the flagship in her collection of at least 17 licensing and endorsement partnerships. Credit John M. Heller/Getty Images At the center of the lawsuit is Lisa T. Jackson, who for several years considered herself Mrs. Deen’s right hand, helping manage her restaurants and becoming close to the Deen inner circle. Ms. Jackson filed the suit in March 2012, after she spent six months trying to turn around Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House in Savannah, Ga., which is largely run by Ms. Deen’s brother, Earl W. Hiers, who is known as Bubba. Ms. Deen also operates The Lady and Sons restaurant in Savannah with her sons, Jamie and Bobby. At Uncle Bubba’s, the federal lawsuit contends, racial slurs and jokes about women, Jews and blacks were common. Workers were intimidated and pornography was left on computers in the kitchen. Ms. Deen and her brother have long contended that Ms. Jackson was bent on revenge. Before she filed the suit, she asked for $1.2 million, Ms. Deen’s lawyers have said, and threatened to take the matter public if she was not paid. Late Friday, a lawyer for Mr. Hiers filed a motion in the case arguing that Ms. Jackson was pursuing race-based claims even though she is white and thus had no standing. Ms. Jackson has since moved to Atlanta, where she began managing restaurants. She anxiously watched the story unfold over the weekend with friends. “It’s sad and it’s hurtful,” she said in a brief interview on Monday. “At least the truth is going to come out now.” Also on Monday, a person in New York who works closely with Ms. Deen’s media operations said the TV cook went into the problematic deposition in May ill prepared. She was convinced the case would be dismissed because of the earlier demand for money and thus spoke in her usual forthcoming and folksy style, said this person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared losing her job. Video The Times’s Kim Severson asked Paula Deen her thoughts about race relations in the South during a TimesTalk event last year. Credit Credit Jason Merritt/Getty Images Meanwhile, other investigators are looking into Ms. Deen’s restaurants. Robert Patillo, an Atlanta employment and labor lawyer who volunteers for Rainbow/PUSH, the civil rights group founded by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, spent the weekend in Savannah interviewing three former and current employees. Mr. Patillo, who plans to head back to Savannah with a larger team of investigators this week, said the workers claimed white employees were routinely paid more than black employees, and that a black man who had threatened to go to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Mr. Hiers pushed him and said, “You don’t have any civil rights here.” Because Ms. Deen pays her kitchen staff more than comparable area restaurants and has a lot of influence in the city, many who work for her are reluctant to complain, Mr. Patillo said. “Most of them fear that if they come out and make these statements, not only will they lose their job with Paula Deen, they won’t be able to get work elsewhere,” he said. The environment at Mr. Hiers’s restaurant appears to be a problem but “she condones it because she doesn’t discipline her brother,” Mr. Patillo said. Ms. Deen did not respond to requests for interviews, but she has said publicly that she will appear Wednesday on the “Today” show. She abruptly canceled an appearance last Friday. Later that day, she released a video apology to Matt Lauer and issued another, broader video apology in which she said hurtful language is inappropriate. Still, Ms. Deen has plenty of fans left. In her hometown, Albany, Ga., a city of about 78,000, plans remain under way for a Paula Deen museum scheduled to open later this year. “We stand behind what Paula represents, and that’s Southern hospitality,” said Billie Jo Fletcher, a museum organizer and restaurateur. “That’s what we sell here in Albany.”

Paula Deen
Smithfield Foods
Lawsuits
Discrimination
Race and Ethnicity


Dismissal From Bowl Stems From False Accusation, Quarterback Says

Abstract: BOISE, Idaho — Boise State quarterback Joe Southwick said he was unfairly dismissed from the Hawaii Bowl, arguing he was falsely accused of urinating from a hotel balcony. Southwick, a senior who was sent home Friday by the interim head coach Bob Gregory shortly after the Broncos got to Hawaii, took a polygraph test after arriving in Boise in a bid to prove his innocence, the Boise television station KTVB reported Sunday. Initially, Southwick and the backup quarterback Nick Patti were suspended for violating team rules, with Boise State not providing details. Eventually, Patti was reinstated, but Southwick was taken to an airport where he says he waited nine hours before his flight. The Hawaii Bowl, on Tuesday night, matches Boise State against Oregon State. The episode — and Southwick’s denial of involvement — represents a challenge for a program that was already in transition: Coach Chris Petersen quit and took a job at the University of Washington earlier this month following an 8-4 season, his worst since taking over in 2006. Brian Harsin, the former head coach at Arkansas State, has been hired to replace Petersen. “It’s really important for myself and my family to get this cleared up,” Southwick said. “There was no process to properly adjudicate what happened. It’s really disappointing that it had to come to this.” Southwick said the results of the polygraph indicated he was telling the truth: He witnessed another player urinate off the balcony, but did not do it himself. Image Boise State quarterback Joe Southwick told television interviewers he took a polygraph test in Idaho that vindicated him. Credit Otto Kitsinger/Associated Press “Really, this gives me a leg to stand on,” he said of the polygraph, adding that he went to bed after watching the incident and learned the next morning at the team’s breakfast that he had been accused. Max Corbet, the Boise State sports information director who was in Hawaii with the team, said in an email that the issue was investigated at the time and a decision was made. “We investigated the matter with university administrators, coaching staff, a law enforcement official, hotel security and student-athletes,” Corbet said in a statement. “We made the decision to send the student-athlete home, and we stand by this difficult decision.” There will be no further comment from Boise State, he said. Southwick, who described the evening preceding the incident that led to his dismissal as one fueled by alcohol but did not say if he had been drinking, declined during the television interview to name the player that he said had urinated from the hotel balcony. He said at least three other players testified against him; he maintained his innocence throughout, but coaches decided he should be dismissed, he told the TV station. Southwick acknowledged losing his temper after being accused. “They had to make a call, very quickly,” Southwick said. “Unfortunately, they made the wrong one.” He said he tried to contact Boise State administrators while waiting at the airport, but to no avail. The dismissal puts an end to a difficult season for Southwick. He missed most of five of the team’s final six games after sustaining a broken right ankle on the opening drive against Nevada on Oct. 19. He played briefly in a Dec. 1 game against New Mexico on Boise State’s first drive, leading the team to a touchdown.

Boise State University
College football
Joe Southwick
Bowl Games


Abortion Bills Advance, Setting Up a Showdown

Abstract: WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans said on Thursday that they would take up legislation outlawing all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and the House voted to move forward with a bill that would end government financing for Planned Parenthood, intensifying a fight over abortion that threatened to paralyze budget talks and force a government shutdown at the end of the month. Despite the Republicans’ push, which was a response to videos showing Planned Parenthood executives discussing the use of aborted fetuses in medical research, there were also signs that congressional leaders were counting on a fallback plan to keep the government functioning temporarily, roughly at last year’s spending levels. The return to center stage of abortion, an issue that has divided Washington and the country for generations, signaled just how bitterly partisan the political climate had recently become — driven by a powerful and unyielding group of hard-right lawmakers in the House — and how difficult it has become for the White House and congressional leaders to perform even the most basic responsibilities of governing. While forestalling a shutdown, a temporary funding measure would set the stage for a fierce budget fight this fall between President Obama, who says increased spending is needed to spur economic growth, and Republican congressional leaders, who believe mandatory cuts have forced restraint on government spending. That spending fight could coincide with other battles over the need to raise the nation’s debt ceiling and replenish the Highway Trust Fund, which finances the construction and maintenance of roads and bridges and will run out of money Oct. 29. Even as the abortion issue has animated Republicans on Capitol Hill, their leaders, particularly the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, acknowledge that Mr. Obama would refuse to sign any spending legislation that cuts off funds for Planned Parenthood. As a result, the Appropriations Committees in the House and Senate have each drawn up plans for a “clean” temporary spending bill, called a continuing resolution , that would keep the government functioning after the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. “We have got the C.R. ready to go, a clean C.R.. The only thing we are lacking is leadership’s decision on how long it’s going to last, and that’s under discussion,” the House Appropriations Committee chairman, Harold Rogers, Republican of Kentucky, said in an interview. But Mr. Rogers said the Planned Parenthood issue had injected deep uncertainty into the situation, with some Republicans potentially willing to shutter the government over it. “This issue is so explosive, so emotional and has been so publicly discussed across the country that it’s difficult to come to a consensus,” Mr. Rogers said. Still, he added: “Eventually we have got to pass a CR that the president will sign.” At a news conference on Wednesday, Mr. McConnell was nonchalant about an impending shutdown. “The question was, am I losing sleep?” Mr. McConnell said, not quite smiling. “No, I’m not. We’re going to fund the government. We’re not going to shut the government down.” Mr. McConnell said that he was conferring with House leaders over how to proceed. “We’ll be forced into a discussion about how much we’re going to spend,” Mr. McConnell said. “We know our Democratic friends’ goal is to spend more on everything. As all of you know, I’ve got members who want to spend more on defense. I put myself in that group as well.” Republicans have already taken steps to increase military spending without abrogating previous spending limits by adding $38 billion to a contingency fund for overseas war operations, which does not count toward the limits. The White House and Democrats are demanding that any spending increases be divided equally between military and nonmilitary programs. To add pressure, the White House and some congressional Democrats have called this week for ending a tax provision that has granted billions in tax breaks to wealthy private equity managers — a move supported by some Republican presidential candidates. For his part, the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, agreed with McConnell’s desire to avoid halting government operations. “The Republican leader and I don’t see eye-to-eye on much — but we both support a clean bill to stop a government shutdown,” Mr. Reid said on the Senate floor. “We all know how this ends,” he said. “The Senate will pass a clean continuing resolution.” He added, “So what are we waiting for?” Republicans, however, showed no sign of relenting in the push against Planned Parenthood, particularly in the House, where Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio has been struggling to contain an uprising by rank-and-file conservatives who have even threatened to try to oust him from his post. At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. Boehner stressed his party’s efforts to act on the anger over the Planned Parenthood videos. “We’re also standing with the American people to stop these grisly practices that we have seen from some abortion providers throughout our country,” Mr. Boehner said. “My colleagues on the Democrat side, both in the House and Senate, should heed what the American people are saying: It’s time to stop these horrific practices and the selling of baby parts in America.” Federal law already bans the use of tax money for elective abortions, but House Republicans want to end all government financing for Planned Parenthood, which provides an array of other women’s health services. The House also voted on Thursday to move forward with a bill that grants added protections for fetuses born live during attempted abortions, an effort that many Republicans spoke about in deeply emotional terms. “Science has shown us earlier and earlier glimpses of tiny unborn human beings who can feel pain,” Representative Joe Pitts Jr., Republican of Pennsylvania, said at a hearing on the bill to cut financing for Planned Parenthood. “What must such a baby feel when she is approached by doctors who come to kill rather than to cure?” The situation is further complicated by the fact that four Republican senators are also running for president, and the issue was highlighted in Wednesday night’s debate. Democrats warned that by next week any one of those senators could single-handedly force at least a short-term government shutdown simply by exploiting the Senate’s procedural rules for debate. In a sign of increasing engagement by the Obama administration, Mr. Reid and the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, met with the president at the White House to discuss strategy on Thursday afternoon. In a 90-minute meeting, Mr. Obama and the two top Democrats agreed that they should pursue a short-term funding measure free of extraneous policy provisions, to provide time for negotiations on a broader deal. Ms. Pelosi said Democrats were ready to “be cooperative” and negotiate with Republicans. “I’m ever optimistic that the Republicans know that it was very damaging to our country when they did this before, and hopefully they won’t do it again,” she said of a shutdown.

US Politics
Federal Budget
Abortion
Planned Parenthood
Democrats
House of Representatives
Congress
Closings
Senate
Congress


In Thailand, Burmese Workers Call Out to ‘Mother Suu’

Abstract: MAHACHAI, Thailand — When word got out that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi , the long-imprisoned democracy campaigner, would visit this gritty town on the Gulf of Thailand, the mood became electric in the massive fish and shrimp processing plants where some Burmese eke out a living and where she is a heroine to many. For Wai Wai Khaing, who has spent the past 12 years working long hours gutting fish, the news was almost too much to handle. “I cried at work, and then I cried at home,” she said. “I cried when I made rice. I cried when I washed clothes. Tears came every time I thought about her coming.” Wednesday was Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s first full day outside Myanmar in 24 years, and for a woman who has sacrificed her family life to bring democracy to her people, it seemed fitting that she began the day among the downtrodden. Her visit to this obscure corner of Thailand offered an escape from the drudgery of long days of repetitive work and from stingy bosses. Many of the workers, here only to escape the economic dysfunction of their own country, repeated a word used so often in the context of Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi’s years of campaigning for democracy: hope. If her mission was to lift their spirits, it seems to have succeeded. “Being here is the best thing that has ever happened to me in my life — including passing my exams in school,” said Pyae Sone Nyein, a 23-year-old woman who works in the family business, importing squid from Myanmar. “I never dreamed I would see Mother Suu.” Unbothered by the searing sun, the crowd welcomed her with loud cheers, chants and song. Some carried bouquets; others clutched single roses. Some carried signs that said, “We want to be cradled in your arms, Mother Suu.” “There is no need to feel sad or depressed living in a country that is not yours,” she told the crowd from a third-floor balcony of a building above the crowded streets. More than two million Burmese workers are estimated to live in Thailand, and many occupy the bottom rungs of society. In Mahachai, workers gut fish and peel shrimp for 300 baht, or about $10, a day. Much of the nearly 580 tons of shrimp exported from Thailand every day passes through their hands and ends up in supermarkets in the United States, Europe and Japan. Workers live in mold-stained tenements, and the smell of fish wafts through the town with every breeze. Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi told the crowd that one day their status would be raised, that their country would rejoin the ranks of Asia’s up-and-coming economies. “History is fluid, and it is always changing,” she said. “Please believe that as our country’s situation gets better and develops more, our value as workers will increase, and people’s perspectives on us will also change for the better.” She advised the crowd to know their rights and encouraged them to speak out about abuses. “I would like to let you know that you are not forgotten,” she said. The words resonated with women like Ms. Wai Wai Khaing, whose hands were shaking when she talked about her life in the cannery. “I’m very angry about how we are being treated,” she said. “I hope Daw Suu can help address this.” Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi arrived in Thailand on Tuesday night, her first foreign trip since beginning her campaign against military rule in Myanmar in 1988. Her trip to Thailand, hastily planned, includes attending a conference sponsored by the World Economic Forum and a trip to a refugee camp along the border with Myanmar. She will return on Sunday to Myanmar, where she was recently elected a member of Parliament, a new phase after her long years under house arrest under the former military junta. Ms. Wai Wai Khaing and her colleagues have cellphones, e-mail accounts and the other trappings of modern communication. But when the first rumors surfaced this week that Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi might visit, word spread quickest the old-fashioned way: by word of mouth. Suwannee Rujanisarakul, a Thai marketing manager for King Fisher, a company with three factories and 5,000 workers here, said her Burmese employees had breathlessly asked for Wednesday off. “I asked them why,” she recounted. “They said, ‘My mother is coming from Burma! My mother is Aung San Suu Kyi!’ ” Burmese workers in the factory have been captivated by the changes in Myanmar in recent months, Ms. Suwannee said. When Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi was elected to Parliament in April, workers rejoiced. “All the migrant workers here were so excited,” she said. “They told me, ‘Now we’ve got democracy.’ ” Workers at the King Fisher factory peel shrimp in vast quantities. Depending on the size of the shrimp, each worker goes through about 11 to 33 pounds an hour. Those who do the work regularly are often injured on the job. “May you prosper with health, wealth and be free from danger,” Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi said before leaving Wednesday. “And may you be able to come home soon.”

Aung San Suu Kyi
Myanmar
Thailand
Politics and Government
Fishing Commercial