Frustrated With West, Turks Revel in Empire Lost

Abstract: ISTANBUL — More than eight decades ago, Ertugrul Osman , an heir to the Ottoman throne, was unceremoniously thrown out of Turkey with his family. He lived to be 97, spending most of his years in a modest Manhattan apartment above a bakery. But in September, at his funeral in the garden of the majestic Sultanahmet Mosque here, thousands of mourners paid their respects, including government officials and celebrities. Some even kissed the hands of surviving dynasty members, who appeared shocked at the adulation. The show of reverence for the man who might have been sultan, historians said, was a seminal moment in the rehabilitation of the Ottoman Empire, long demonized by some in the modern, secular Turkish Republic created by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923. During Ataturk’s rule, the empire was remembered mainly for its decadence and its humiliating defeat and partition by the Allies in World War I. Mr. Osman’s send-off was just the latest manifestation of what sociologists call “Ottomania,” a harking back to an era marked by conquest and cultural splendor during which sultans ruled an empire stretching from the Balkans to the Indian Ocean and claimed the spiritual leadership of the Muslim world. The longing for those glory years — by religious Muslims and secularists alike — partly reflects Turks’ frustration with a European Union that seems ill disposed to accept them as members. And in a country where the tension between religion and secularism is never far from the surface, members of the new governing class of religious Muslims have seized upon nostalgia for the Ottoman Empire as a way to challenge the pro-Western elite that emerged during Ataturk’s rule, and to help forge a national identity of Turkey as an aspiring regional leader. “Turks are attracted to the heroism and the glory of the Ottoman period because it belongs to them,” said the director of Topkapi Palace , Ilber Ortayli, who, as the keeper of the sumptuous residence where Ottoman sultans lived for 400 years, is also a zealous unofficial gatekeeper of the Ottoman legacy. “The sultans hold a place in the popular consciousness like Douglas MacArthur or General Patton have for Americans.” The current vogue of all things Ottoman, from the proliferation of historical docudramas to the popularity of porcelain ashtrays adorned with harem women, is sometimes manifesting itself in ways that would surely have made a real sultan blanch. During Ramadan, Burger King offered a special sultan menu featuring dishes popular in the Ottoman years. In the television commercial promoting the meal, a turbaned Janissary — a member of an elite group of Ottoman soldiers — exhorts viewers not to “leave any burgers standing.” Ottomania has also infected the nation’s youth; 20-somethings at hip dance clubs here wear T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like “The Empire Strikes Back” or “Terrible Turks” — the latter turning the taunt Europeans once used against their Ottoman invaders into a defiant symbol of self-affirmation. Kerim Sarc, 42, the owner of Ottoman Empire T-Shirts and the scion of an illustrious Ottoman family, believes that the newfound fondness for a mighty empire that lasted more than 600 years and once reached the gates of Vienna is linked to the long struggle for membership in the European Union. The bloc has imposed tough conditions on Turkey, including asking it to compromise in its longstanding dispute over Cyprus. “We Turks are tired of being treated in Europe like poor, backward peasants,” he said. The Ottoman renaissance is equally prevalent in the nation’s highest political circles, where the Muslim-inspired Justice and Development Party government has been aggressively courting former Ottoman colonies, including Iraq and Syria, in at least a partial reorientation of foreign policy toward the east that Turkish analysts have labeled as “Neo-Ottoman.” That shift has alarmed officials in Europe and Washington, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is expected to reassure President Obama when he meets him at the White House on Monday that Turkey has not abandoned its Western course. It is a sign of the Ottoman Empire’s new hold on the popular imagination that in January when Mr. Erdogan publicly rebuked the Israeli president , Shimon Peres, over the war in Gaza, at a debate at Davos, Switzerland, he was greeted enthusiastically by his supporters back in Turkey with the chant, “Our fatih is back!” The allusion was to Fatih — or conqueror — Sultan Mehmet II, the towering sultan who at age 21 conquered Constantinople, now Istanbul, in 1453. Colleagues said Mr. Erdogan proudly displays an original decree in his office by Sultan Mehmet II granting autonomy to religious minorities within the empire. “The Ottoman Empire conquered two-thirds of the world but did not force anyone to change their language or religion at a time when minorities elsewhere were being oppressed,” said Egeman Bagis, the minister for European Union affairs. “Turks can be proud of that legacy.” Pelin Batu, co-host of a popular television history program, argued that the glorification of the Ottoman era by a government with roots in political Islam reflected a revolt against the secular cultural revolution undertaken by Ataturk, who outlawed the wearing of Islamic head scarves in state institutions and abolished the Ottoman-era caliphate. “Ottomania is a form of Islamic empowerment for a new Muslim religious bourgeoisie who are reacting against Ataturk’s attempt to relegate religion and Islam to the sidelines,” she said. In a society struggling with its identity, not everyone welcomes the phenomenon. Some critics accuse its proponents of glossing over the empire’s decline and of glorifying an anachronistic system that, at the very least, was mired in corruption and infighting in its later years. The massacre of Ottoman Armenians between 1915 and 1918 stands as a particular dark spot in the history of the empire. “The religious Muslims now in power are trying to feed the Turkish people an Ottoman poison,” said Sada Kural, 45, a housewife and staunch supporter of Ataturk’s vision. “The Ottoman era wasn’t a good period; we were the sick man of Europe, rights were suppressed and women only got the vote after Ataturk came to power.” While some bemoan what they consider the crude commercialization of a nation’s history, others, like Cenan Sarc, 97, who was 10 years old at the time of the empire’s collapse in 1922 and is the descendant of an Ottoman pasha, cautioned against idealizing an era of dictatorship. Mrs. Sarc recalled her idyllic childhood in a mansion on the Bosporus, a poetic time, she said, when fathers ruled, mothers stayed at home and Islam held sway. But, she insisted, “we can never go back to that time.” Ertugrul Osman, the Ottoman heir, had himself accepted obscurity. When he visited Turkey in 1992, for the first time in 53 years, and went to see the 285-room Dolmabahce Palace , which had been his grandfather’s home, he insisted on joining a public tour group. Asked frequently if he dreamed about restoring the empire, he always emphatically answered no. “Democracy,” he said, “works well in Turkey.”

Ottoman Empire
Turkey
Politics and Government
Osman Ertugrul


Mayor de Blasio, Seeking Re-election, Secures Backing of 2 Unions

Abstract: In recent weeks, Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, has shifted into re-election mode, holding campaign events and fund-raisers, using separate Twitter accounts for political talk and mayoral messages . His hope, aides say, is that by raising money early — mostly in the form of small contributions — and locking up key endorsements, he can ward off any potential Democratic challenger from jumping into the race. On Monday, he received a significant boost in those efforts: the backing both of a municipal labor union, the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, and of one of New York City’s largest and most powerful private sector unions, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Neither union initially backed Mr. de Blasio in 2013, and the two endorsements, the first from major labor groups in the election next year, could have the effect of tipping others into the mayor’s camp. Douglas Muzzio, a professor of public affairs and political science at Baruch College, said that if several unions supported the mayor’s re-election efforts, “it’s all over.” In New York, the culmination of the presidential election typically is the unofficial start of the 2017 campaign for mayor. But with the victory last week of President-elect Donald J. Trump, a Republican, the endorsements seemed to carry extra weight. Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the retail union, framed the choice for mayor as a referendum on liberal governance of the city at a time of ascendant conservatism in Washington. “This election, and our endorsement, is about more than just Bill de Blasio; it’s about a progressive vision,” he said after the union’s executive board voted unanimously on the endorsement, set to be officially announced on Tuesday. “We can’t afford the luxury of intramural squabbles in the progressive community in this new era of Trump.” Mr. de Blasio, in a statement, welcomed the two endorsements from “some of the fiercest advocates for working families in this city.” But the impact of individual labor endorsements, sought after by Democrats, is a matter of debate. Unions have largely supplanted Democratic organizations in turning out voters to the polls, political analysts say, but members also form their own opinions and may not follow the guidance of their leadership. Image Stuart Appelbaum is the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Credit Christian Hansen for The New York Times “The effect is marginal,” Mr. Muzzio said, adding that there were exceptions like the 1990 election of Mayor David N. Dinkins, a Democrat, in which Local 1199, the health care workers union now known as 1199 S.E.I.U., played a big role. Four years ago, Mr. Appelbaum’s union, which has roughly 45,000 members in New York City, also came out with an early endorsement in the Democratic primary contest — in support of Christine C. Quinn, Mr. de Blasio’s rival who was then seen as the front-runner. At the time, Mr. Appelbaum cited her “electability.” The sanitation workers also endorsed Ms. Quinn . After her loss, both unions backed Mr. de Blasio in the general election. Sitting in his Midtown Manhattan office overlooking Seventh Avenue and the Macy’s flagship store, where many of the union’s members work, Mr. Appelbaum said this month that he was “trying to send a message” with an early endorsement this time around that Mr. de Blasio “has earned our support” through his actions on behalf of working people. Despite some grumbling among the city’s unions, most labor leaders have been cheered by Mr. de Blasio’s efforts on their behalf. He signed contracts with nearly every municipal union quickly after taking office, and threw the doors of City Hall open to their concerns after two decades of arms-length relations under the former mayors Michael R. Bloomberg, a Republican turned political independent, and Rudolph W. Giuliani, a Republican. On Monday afternoon, Mr. de Blasio appeared before a crowded, hot and rowdy room full of sanitation workers. “This, gentlemen, is a union-friendly mayor,” Harry Nespoli, president of the Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association, told them before leading a chant of “four more years.” Mr. de Blasio reached a deal on the contract for the city’s roughly 6,000 sanitation workers last year. Mr. de Blasio, in his remarks, celebrated the workers and offered a kind of slogan for his re-election bid — “a city for everyone, and a city where everyone has a shot” — as he framed the moment as an opening marker in a Democratic campaign that, in Mr. Trump, has a ready-made foil. “If Washington turns against labor unions ——” he said. “There’s going to be trouble,” a worker shouted. “Thank you, brother,” Mr. de Blasio replied. In the interview, Mr. Appelbaum explained his union’s support by saying the mayor had “done what he promised” on a range of issues, including providing universal prekindergarten, ensuring a rent freeze, creating a municipal identification card, supporting paid sick leave and a living wage for New Yorkers and “creating the atmosphere” for the state to act on a $15-an-hour minimum wage. He has also pointed to the signing of specific legislative measures — such as the Grocery Worker Retention Act and the Car Wash Accountability Act — that have a direct impact on the union’s members, who include grocery store and carwash workers. Mr. Appelbaum praised the de Blasio administration for being open and responsive to labor concerns. “I feel like we’ve been integrated into the governance of this city,” he said. And he did not believe that it was a risk to endorse the mayor early, before any resolution of the multiple overlapping state and federal investigations into Mr. de Blasio and his aides’ fund-raising activities. “All of that is a hypothetical,” Mr. Appelbaum said. “No matter what, we are saying we applaud the way he has governed the city and what he has chosen to make the priorities of his administration.”

Bill de Blasio
Mayoral races
Political endorsement
Labor Unions
Retail
Wholesale and Department Store Union
Uniformed Sanitationmen's Assn
NYC


Five Years, Two Owners and a Town Still in Limbo

Abstract: BRIDGEVILLE, Calif., July 5 — The one thing the people who still live here have come to believe is that the words “ eBay ” and “town” do not mix. Had this former pit stop on the Pony Express route been sold the old-fashioned way — preferably to a quiet mogul bent on historic preservation — maybe by now Bridgeville would be different. The falling-down cabins would be made new, the weeded lots trained into parks and the old barn-red cafe turned into a destination restaurant, a place that would inspire tourists to venture to this neck of Northern California redwood country. Instead, the only thing that has changed in Bridgeville (population 29) in the five years since it became the first town sold on eBay has been its owner. Not once, but twice. Now, the town is up for sale again, this time through a Eureka, Calif., real estate company, and those living on its 83 acres are hoping that a serious buyer with money and time will commit to Bridgeville for the long haul. Though a handful of other towns have been auctioned on eBay since Bridgeville made history, locals are sour on the approach. It is a funny thing, they say, for a town, even a small one, to be bought like bric-a-brac or collectible comics through the impulsive rush of online bidding. “The owners don’t last,” said Jennifer Cirrincione, a postal worker. Bridgeville has had bad luck with its winning bidders, and vice versa. Its first buyer, Bruce Krall, a banker from Orange County, Calif., who bought Bridgeville for $700,000 in 2002 (after the original eBay high bidder backed out), generated unwanted publicity when he decided it would cost too much to fix up the town and relisted it on eBay last year. Daniel La Paille, a 25-year-old entertainment manager from Los Angeles, picked up Bridgeville for $1.25 million last August. He had plans for a hotel, parks and houses. But a few months later, in November, he committed suicide, leaving Bridgeville in limbo. Residents speculate that the burden of resurrecting the fading town had proved too much. “He never complained,” said Daniel Morris, a tree-cutter who lives in one of four small houses in the two-street town. “But I could see the stress in his face, in his eyes.” Mr. La Paille’s relatives disagree. “His death was personal,” said Claudia Zellner, his grandmother. She had driven to Bridgeville from Palm Springs, 14 hours away to the south, to spend the July 4 week here to work on four abandoned cabins, each about the size of a large storage shed. “This is all family-done,” Ms. Zellner said, waving her hands around a gutted cabin. “We haven’t had any paid labor on these cabins. It’s all been what we could do, a little at a time.” After Mr. La Paille’s death, the family thought it would keep Bridgeville. “But it’s too hard,” Ms. Zellner said. She walked the two streets of town proudly. “This cafe used to be quite the spot,” she said. “And have you seen the view from the historic bridge?” Another grandson, Adam Wade, 24, loved Bridgeville so much that he and his wife moved here from Ontario, Calif., in October. “We came to help out,” he said, “but now we want to stay.” Mr. Wade was putting in wiring in one of the cabins, having learned how to do so from a manual. The family had a broker announce the town’s sale a few weeks ago. The asking price is $1.3 million. Of course, Bridgeville is a town in name and ZIP code only. It has about a dozen buildings, half of them vacant. There is an elementary school with about 55 students, who also come from the neighboring hamlets, and a post office and cemetery. During the Gold Rush, the town was an important stop on the wagon trail connecting San Francisco to Eureka. Now San Francisco, about 270 miles south, seems like another country, and the nearest city, Fortuna, is 45 minutes away, on a twisty two-lane road. People who choose to live here do so because they want to be away from it all. “My family likes the country,” said Spirit Herzog-Bottom, 14. Her family lives in a hot-pink house with three wolf-hybrids. Except for her 21-year-old brother’s girlfriend, who is 18, there are no other girls her age or near it in Bridgeville. Fun in the summer is a day at one of the swimming holes in the Van Duzen River, or watching the boys in town — there are 10 boys in two families — riding dirt bikes behind their houses. “I could settle here,” said Daniel Morris, who, after years away, moved back to Bridgeville last year so his five sons, ages 6 through 15, would stay out of trouble. All he hopes now, Mr. Morris said, is that a new Bridgeville owner does not evict them back into the real world.

eBay Inc
Computers and the Internet
Restoration and Rehabilitation
Auctions
California


A Choice, and a Second Chance

Abstract: Upon completing an interview with the American swimming sensation Missy Franklin on the University of California-Berkeley campus in October, a television reporter from Brazil, in a show of appreciation, gave a T-shirt to Franklin. She accepted it graciously, and then surreptitiously handed it to a coach who was standing nearby. The coach handed the T-shirt back to the television reporter with apologies, explaining that N.C.A.A. rules prohibit Franklin from accepting gifts. By resisting the siren call of professional sports to accept a swimming scholarship to California, Franklin lost much more than a T-shirt, leaving behind potentially millions of endorsement dollars. When making her decision, Franklin said she was mindful of what had happened to another swimming prodigy, Dagny Knutson, who broke an American record as a 16-year-old in 2008, two years before Franklin qualified, at 15, to represent the United States at the Pan Pacific Championships. At the 2012 Olympics, Franklin, then 17, won five medals, including four golds. After consulting with her family and a USA Swimming official, Knutson chose to turn pro rather than attend college on a swimming scholarship. She signed with an agent, moved to California from North Dakota to train with a coach, and then affiliated with the national team and accepted a performance-based stipend from USA Swimming. It dried up after her ranking fell when she stepped away from training before the 2012 Olympic trials for treatment of an eating disorder. Image Dagny Knutson was a record-setting swimmer as a teenager. Credit Ezra Shaw/Getty Images As an article in The New York Times reported, Knutson ended her comeback in January, in part because her family did not have the money to cover the costs of her schooling and her swimming. For every Missy Franklin who rockets to fame, there are scores of Dagny Knutsons whose stars fizzle. Knutson, 21, told her story, she said, to help others who might feel ashamed and forsaken after falling short of Olympian expectations. At the start of the year, she petitioned the N.C.A.A. to regain her amateur status, the first step in securing an athletic scholarship that would have lifted her financial burden. Her appeal was denied, she said, because she had signed with an agent. The uncertainty that clouded Knutson’s future at the start of 2013 recently lifted when Grand Canyon University, a private school in Phoenix, offered Knutson a scholarship, starting next month. In addition to completing her education degree, Knutson plans to assist the men’s and women’s swim team as a student manager, giving her a chance to experience the college camaraderie that she missed by turning pro. Steve Schaffer, the Grand Canyon swim coach, who went to bat for Knutson with his administration, told her she was free to train with his postgraduate athletes if she decides to swim for fitness or return to competition. And so the year ends with Franklin and Knutson happily pursuing their improbable college dreams, but for starkly different reasons. “It’s basically a miracle,” said Knutson, who has been helping coach high school and USA Swimming teams in Bismarck, N.D. “I couldn’t have asked for a better situation. I mean, the option to compete, to train again, will always be there, but that is not really my priority. My priority is to get through school, and this is a great opportunity to do that without a huge financial burden.”

Missy Franklin
Dagny Knutson
Swimming
2012 Summer Olympics


Plants Found to Show Preferences for Their Relatives

Abstract: From its diminutive lavender flowers to its straggly windblown stalks, there is nothing about the beach weed known as the Great Lakes sea rocket to suggest that it might be any sort of a botanical wonder. Yet scientists have found evidence that the sea rocket is able to do something that no other plant has ever been shown to do. The sea rocket, researchers report, can distinguish between plants that are related to it and those that are not. And not only does this plant recognize its kin, but it also gives them preferential treatment. If the sea rocket detects unrelated plants growing in the ground with it, the plant aggressively sprouts nutrient-grabbing roots. But if it detects family, it politely restrains itself. The finding is a surprise, even a bit of a shock, in part because most animals have not even been shown to have the ability to recognize relatives, despite the huge advantages in doing so. If an individual can identify kin, it can help them, an evolutionarily sensible act because relatives share some genes. The same discriminating organism could likewise ramp up nasty behavior against unrelated individuals with which it is most sensible to be in claws- or perhaps thorns-bared competition. “I’m just amazed at what we’ve found,” said Susan A. Dudley, an evolutionary plant ecologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who carried out the study with a graduate student, Amanda L. File. “Plants,” Dr. Dudley said, “have a secret social life.” Since the research on sea rockets was published in August in Biology Letters, a journal of the United Kingdom’s national academy of science, Dr. Dudley and colleagues have found evidence that three other plant species can also recognize relatives. The studies are part of an emerging picture of life among plants, one in which these organisms, long viewed as so much immobile, passive greenery, can be seen to sense all sorts of things about the plants around them and use that information to interact with them. Plants’ social life may have remained mysterious for so long because, as researchers have seen in studies of species like sagebrush, strawberries and thornapples, the ways plants sense can be quite different from the ways in which animals do. Some plants, for example, have been shown to sense potentially competing neighboring plants by subtle changes in light. That is because plants absorb and reflect particular wavelengths of sunlight, creating signature shifts that other plants can detect. Scientists also find plants exhibiting ways to gather information on other plants from chemicals released into the soil and air. A parasitic weed, dodder, has been found to be particularly keen at sensing such chemicals. Dodder is unable to grow its own roots or make its own sugars using photosynthesis, the process used by nearly all other plants. As a result, scientists knew that after sprouting from seed, the plant would fairly quickly need to begin growing on and into another plant to extract the nutrients needed to survive. But even the scientists studying the plant were surprised at the speed and precision with which a dodder seedling could sense and hunt its victim. In time-lapse movies, scientists saw dodder sprouts moving in a circular fashion, in what they discovered was a sampling of the airborne chemicals released by nearby plants, a bit like a dog sniffing the air around a dinner buffet. Then, using just the hint of the smells and without having touched another plant, the dodder grew toward its preferred victim. That is, the dodder reliably sensed and attacked the species of plant, from among the choices nearby, on which it would grow best. “When you see the movies, you very much have this impression of it being like behavior, animal behavior,” said Dr. Consuelo M. De Moraes, a chemical ecologist at Pennsylvania State University who was on the team studying the plant. “It’s like a little worm moving toward this other plant.” Although a view of plants as sensing organisms is beginning to emerge, scientists have been finding hints of such capabilities and interactions for 20 years. But discoveries have continued to surprise scientists, because of what some describe as an entrenched disbelief that plants, without benefit of eyes, ears, nose, mouth or brain, can and do all they are seen to do. “A lot of the examples of plant behavior are examples in which the phenomena are pretty easy to observe,” said Dr. Richard Karban, a plant ecologist at the University of California, Davis. The problem, for many scientists, is that as obvious as the behaviors sometimes are, they can seem just too complex and animal-like for a plant. “Maybe if we understood more mechanistically how it’s happening,” Dr. Karban added, “we’d feel more comfortable about accepting the results that we’re finding.” It does not help credibility that scientists in the field often find themselves having to distinguish the results of careful experimental studies from decidedly nonscientific, even kook-fringe, discussions about phenomena like plant sentience and emotion. Plants are not “sensitive new age guys who cringe when something around them gets hurt and who love classical music and hate rock,” Dr. Dudley said as she referred to depictions in popular works of plants living tender, emotion-soaked existences, in particular the 1970s “The Secret Life of Plants.” Even mainstream researchers do not always completely agree on which ideas are clearly within the realm of science and which have gone a bit too far. Recent debates have revolved around a longstanding question: which of the abilities and attributes that scientists have long considered the realm of just animals, like sensing, learning and memory, can sensibly be transferred to plants? At the extreme of the equality movement, but still within mainstream science, are the members of the Society of Plant Neurobiology, a new group whose Web site describes it as broadly concerned with plant sensing. The very name of the society is enough to upset many biologists. Neurobiology is the study of nervous systems — nerves, synapses and brains — that are known just in animals. That fact, for most scientists, makes the notion of plant neurobiology a combination of impossible, misleading and infuriating. Thirty-six authors from universities that included Yale and Oxford were exasperated enough to publish an article last year, “Plant Neurobiology: No Brain, No Gain?” in the journal Trends in Plant Science. The scientists chide the new society for discussing possibilities like plant neurons and synapses, urging that the researchers abandon such “superficial analogies and questionable extrapolations.” Defenders point out that 100 years ago, some scientists were equally adamant that plant physiology did not exist. Today, that idea is so obviously antiquated that it could elicit a good chuckle from the many scientists in that field. As for the “superficial analogies,” the new wave botanists are well aware that plants do not have exact copies of animal nervous systems. “No one proposes that we literally look for a walnut-shaped little brain in the root or shoot tip,” five authors wrote in defense of the new group. Instead, the researchers say, they are asking that scientists be open to the possibility that plants may have their own system, perhaps analogous to an animal’s nervous system, to transfer information around the body. “Plants do send electrical signals from one part of the plant to another,” said Dr. Eric D. Brenner, a botanist at the New York Botanical Garden and a member of the Society of Plant Neurobiology. Although those signals have been known for 100 years, scientists have no idea what plants do with them. “No one’s asked how all that information is integrated in a plant, partly because we’ve convinced ourselves that it isn’t,” Dr. Brenner said. “People have been intimidated from asking that question.” The mention of the possibility of plant neurobiology elicits such visceral responses that Dr. Brenner said he had at times worried that it could harm his career. “I see a lot of people waiting on the sidelines,” he said, “to see how this all pans out.”


Woolly Mullein: The City Cactus

Abstract: The seed-packed woody stalk of the common or woolly mullein stands out this time of year like an urban saguaro. Once covered with pale green leaves and flowers as yellow as summer, it is now leafless, coarse and bleached, anchored in the poor soil it prefers. Nature wastes nothing. A stem this strong, tall and energetically expensive to produce turns out to be an elegant solution for seed dispersal. Like a six-foot pepper shaker, it dispenses hundreds of tiny black seeds each time it is rattled by winter winds. Mullein seeds often do not travel far from the parent plant, which illustrates a remarkably simple survival strategy. In the plant kingdom, if conditions are right where your parent put down roots, they will probably suit you too. The mullein (Verbascum thapsus) is not a native plant; it was introduced by European settlers. The plant may have been brought to the New World intentionally, or may have hitched a ride in livestock feed. It is also the reason that Europeans probably had more uses for the plant than the Native Americans did. Nonetheless, names blithely attributed to Native Americans have stuck with the plant for many hundreds of years, some commemorating the most unlikely uses. I grew up hearing that Indian women used the mullein’s large, furry leaves to apply makeup (a constant and pressing concern for hunter-gatherers), or to line their moccasins (though the fuzzy leaves actually become quite brittle when they’re dry). They were also reputedly used for brewing tea, but the innumerable hairs of mullein leaves float to the top for a deeply disturbing drinking experience. I have also heard that these same tiny hairs were used to poison fish for easy capture. But perhaps my favorite nickname, Indian toilet paper, speaks for itself. It makes you wonder: Whatever did Native Americans do before the plant’s introduction? In summer, mullein is a miracle. The plant is a biennial, producing a flat rosette of fuzzy, light blue-green leaves in its first year. A prime mullein growing in good conditions can form a rosette almost two and a half feet wide. In its second year, the plant produces a central flower stem, which can reach six feet or higher, with diminishing leaves positioned along the stem. Mullein flowers, though lovely, are not long-lasting, and while the plant produces them by the hundreds, only a few open each day, so the “show” is minimal. Most people describe mullein as “alien,” “weird” or “interesting” but stop short of calling it beautiful. At the end of its second year, and sometimes as late as October in New York City, the last mullein flowers fade and the entire plant dies, leaving the skeletal main stem to spread thousands of seeds. Many birds, including goldfinches, sparrows and even downy woodpeckers, can be observed feeding on the dried stalks, some looking for the seeds, others for the insects that take shelter on the tall stems. Mullein grows in poor soils throughout the city. Particularly impressive examples sometimes emerge from the rocky shoulders of the Cross Bronx Expressway, but I’ve seen it growing happily in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park and in Alley Pond Park in Queens as well.


Johan Cruyff, the High Priest of Dutch Soccer, Dies at 68

Abstract: Johan Cruyff, a brash Dutch soccer star who helped develop a style that revolutionized the way the game is played, becoming the Netherlands’ greatest player and later a scolding conscience of the sport, died on Thursday in Barcelona, Spain. He was 68. The cause was cancer, Cruyff’s family said in a statement on his website . Cruyff, a heavy smoker until he had heart problems in the 1990s, revealed in October that he had lung cancer. But as recently as Feb. 16 he had predicted his recovery, saying he had “the feeling that I am 2-0 up in the first half of a match that has not finished yet.” Widely acclaimed as one of the best players in history, Cruyff (pronounced CROYF) teamed with the famed coach Rinus Michels in the 1970s to perfect a style called Total Football, a shape-shifting system in which players switch positions effortlessly. A wiry and deceptively quick forward, Cruyff was the personification of the style, bursting forward to attack or drifting back to defend, but always ready to deliver an incisive pass or to appear in the perfect position when an opportunity to score arose. He was a proponent of beauty over efficiency, though he preferred to demonstrate both. “Quality without results is pointless,” he was quoted as saying. “Results without quality is boring.” Cruyff, though, was never boring. Supremely confident in his opinions and quick to share them, sometimes with an acid tongue, he left a trail of bitter feuds as a player, coach and executive. He quibbled about money and sponsorships, and about tactics and control. He departed his boyhood club, Ajax Amsterdam, on bad terms several times and was fired by Barcelona in 1996 — four years after winning the European Cup — after a falling out with the club board. Yet the vision and adaptability inherent in the Total Football he helped create changed the way soccer was played, and lifted its adherents, notably Ajax, F.C. Barcelona and the Dutch national team, to great heights. Image Cruyff at an awards ceremony in Barcelona in 2006. Credit Gustau Nacarino/Reuters Ajax won the first of three consecutive European Cups in 1971 with Cruyff and Michels at the controls, and the Netherlands reached consecutive World Cup finals in the 1970s, becoming known as the Clockwork Orange for the team’s orange jerseys and sweeping movements. Cruyff, like Michels before him, preached Total Football at Barcelona, which Cruyff coached to its first European title in 1992 and which continues to hold to t style of play as its guiding philosophy. His influence on the club’s youth academy and players and coaches like Pep Guardiola set a foundation for Barcelona’s, and Spain’s, recent era of trophies and championships. The former England striker Gary Lineker, who played for Cruyff at Barcelona, said, “Football has lost a man who did more to make the beautiful game beautiful than anyone in history.” Hendrik Johannes Cruyff was born on April 25, 1947, in Amsterdam, and grew up in a working-class neighborhood that was only a short walk from the Ajax training facility. He joined the club as a 10-year-old and made his first-team debut at 17 in 1964. Michels arrived a year later, and together they turned Ajax into one of the best teams in the world. With Cruyff directing the Total Football symphony Michels had designed, Ajax won the European Cup, the forerunner of the UEFA Champions League, three straight times, from 1971 to 1973. In 1973, Cruyff joined Michels at Barcelona for a transfer fee of about $14.1 million in today’s dollars, a record at the time. A year after that they led the Netherlands to the World Cup final in Germany. The Dutch took a 1-0 lead in that game before the Germans even touched the ball, stringing together 17 passes from the opening kickoff until Cruyff won a penalty, which Johan Neeskens converted. But Germany answered with two goals, denying Cruyff and his country a title they have yet to claim. That final, like the Barcelona transfer, offered a glimpse of Cruyff’s mercenary side. The Dutch federation had signed a sponsorship with Adidas for that year’s World Cup, but Cruyff, who had his own deal with rival Puma, refused to wear the team’s official uniform, believing that to do so would be a conflict. To appease their star, Dutch officials relented and allowed Cruyff to play in a custom-made shirt bearing only two stripes on the sleeves instead of Adidas’s famed three. Honored as Europe’s best player in 1971, 1973 and 1974, Cruyff won nine Dutch League titles in Holland (eight with Ajax and one with Feyenoord at the end of his career) and another in Spain with Barcelona. He later coached Ajax and Barcelona, with whom he won four Spanish titles and his fourth European club title. But despite flirtations with the Dutch federation, he never led his national team. Cruyff retired from international soccer in 1977, missing the Netherlands’ return to the World Cup final in 1978 in Argentina. The reason given at the time was that he opposed the military dictatorship in Argentina; years later, however, he revealed to a Catalonian radio station that he and his family had been subjected to a kidnapping attempt in Barcelona a few months before the tournament. He left Barcelona in 1978 but returned to the game a year later when he signed a $1.4 million deal with the Los Angeles Aztecs of the North American Soccer League. At the time, he credited his comeback, at age 32, to his love for the sport and to the chance to bring the game to a new place; in reality, he acknowledged, he had lost money in a series of investments and saw the rich contract with the N.A.S.L. as a welcome payday. He played for one season with the Aztecs and another with the Washington Diplomats before returning to Europe for a brief tenure with Spain’s Levante and then a return to Ajax. When Ajax did not offer him a new contract in 1983, he signed with rival Feyenoord — and promptly won the league and Dutch Cup double at age 37 before retiring for good. The English journalist David Miller labeled him “Pythagoras in boots” for his ability to see open space and advantageous angles on a field. David Winner, in his book on Dutch soccer, “Brilliant Orange,” compared Cruyff’s play to the perfection and organization of a Vermeer painting. His game was so sublime that he has a move named after him: the Cruyff turn, a deft sleight-of-foot maneuver in which he teased defenders in one direction before using his heel to push the ball behind him and a burst of speed to break away. “There is no better medal than being acclaimed for your style,” he said in 1998 after watching another eye-pleasing Dutch team try, and fail, to win the World Cup. But as much as he prized elegant play, Cruyff loathed teams that turned away from his ideals. When the Netherlands reached the World Cup final in 2010, Cruyff decried the team’s bruising style as “antifootball.” “This ugly, vulgar, hard, hermetic, hardly eye-catching, hardly football style, yes, it served the Dutch to unsettle Spain,” he told a Spanish newspaper. “If with this they got satisfaction, fine, but they ended up losing.” Spain won the final, 1-0, playing with a possession-based style more to Cruyff’s liking, and with a goal scored by a player, Andrés Iniesta, who had emerged from the Barcelona youth system Cruyff had nurtured. Cruyff is survived by his wife of 47 years, Danny Coster; two daughters, Chantal and Susila; and a son, Jordi, who followed his father into professional soccer, playing with Barcelona and Manchester United, and coaching.

Johan Cruyff
Obituary
Soccer
Ajax Soccer Team
Barcelona Soccer Team
Netherlands


Best Buy Suffers for Lack of a Succession Plan

Abstract: Confronted with an extraordinary situation, the board of Best Buy , the large electronics retailer, did what good corporate governance practices required. It fired the chief executive. As a result, the company is in a mess. It has an interim chief executive without retailing experience who is searching for a strategic plan while the board tries to decide whether to give him the job permanently or try to hire an outsider. The founder and former chairman, who lost his job as a result of the board’s decisions this year, is trying to put together an offer to take the company private. Whoever gets the chief executive job will have a staff of top aides, none of whom the board evidently trusted to run the company, who have been given retention bonuses and employment contracts to keep them from leaving during the chaos. To make things even worse, the company’s market share in electronics sales is slipping. Same-store sales are falling as Amazon.com, which now sells almost everything, muscles into the market. How could this mess have been avoided? Part of the answer is that the board could have paid attention to what may be its most important responsibility: have a plan in place to deal with a sudden departure by the chief executive. That is often not an easy question to address. The incumbent C.E.O. may not much want to have an alternative in place. But chief executives are mortal, and a board should have a plan for what will be done to keep the company running if the current boss is hit by a bus. That plan does not have to be public, or even known to the successor-in-waiting, but it should be there. And it should be reviewed on a regular basis. Confronting that possibility can have positive results even if the current chief is destined to stay around for many years to come. If there is no one around who the board thinks could step into the top spot, it is time to look for more talent. At Best Buy, it is clear that did not happen, and perhaps equally clear why it did not. The board was used to deferring to its chairman, Richard M. Schulze, the company’s founder. He was chief executive for decades and chose the men who followed him. He was used to making the decisions. And that led to the problem that produced the current mess. Late last year, Mr. Schulze, now 71, received a written statement from an employee “containing specific allegations about a possible inappropriate relationship” between Brian J. Dunn, the 51-year-old chief executive, and a 29-year-old female employee, according to a later report by the company’s audit committee. Mr. Schulze confronted Mr. Dunn, who “adamantly denied any inappropriate conduct or romantic relationship with respect to the female employee.” Mr. Schulze accepted his word and viewed the matter as settled. He did not tell any of his fellow board members. Alas, like many companies, Best Buy had written policies in force for how to deal with such a complaint. The decision was not supposed to be made by the chairman. It was the board’s audit committee that had the power to decide. When the audit committee was told of the allegation by a company executive in March, it hired an outside law firm to conduct an investigation, which concluded that Mr. Dunn had acted inappropriately, even if he had not had a sexual relationship with the woman, as both he and the woman said was the case. “The C.E.O. violated company policy by allowing his relationship with the female employee to negatively impact the work environment,” the committee stated, and “by placing his interest in the relationship ahead of company interests.” He had, among other things, asked a company vendor to provide the woman a free ticket for a concert in Las Vegas. He had to go. And so, the board decided, did Mr. Schulze. He should have referred the case to the audit committee. He should not have told Mr. Dunn which employee had complained. After all, “improper handling of employee allegations discourages employees from reporting potentially improper behavior to their supervisors, adversely affects the company’s governance and inhibits its ability to run an effective ethical compliance program,” the board committee said. The board tried to push Mr. Schulze aside with as much grace as possible. He was to be replaced as chairman after this year’s annual meeting, but could stay on the board until his term expired in 2013. He was given the title “founder and chairman emeritus,” and promised that he and his wife would still have company health insurance and an office at headquarters. George L. Mikan III, 41, a board member and former insurance company executive, became the interim C.E.O. in April, and made clear he wanted the job permanently. He appears to have not had another full-time job when he assumed the post. Best Buy says he left the UnitedHealth Group in February, although the insurance company had announced his departure the previous summer. UnitedHealth at that time said he was leaving to “lead a private equity fund,” but Best Buy says the planned fund did not get off the ground before he took over the retailer. In early June, two weeks before the company’s annual meeting, Mr. Schulze quit and directed a blast at his successors. “There is an urgent need for Best Buy to reinvigorate growth by reconnecting with today’s customers and building pathways to the next generation of consumers,” he said, adding that he planned “to explore all available options for my ownership stake.” The board named Hatim A. Tyabji, the chairman of its audit committee, as chairman. The company announcement called Mr. Schulze “an iconic entrepreneur.” This week, the pretense of cooperation ended. Mr. Schulze said he wanted to lead a leveraged buyout of the company, and said Credit Suisse was “highly confident” that financing could be arranged. He said he would put as much as a billion dollars of his own money into the deal, and said he had talked to private equity firms about joining him. The stated price was $24 to $26 a share. Best Buy stock, at $17.64 before the announcement, leapt as high as $21.60 before doubts set in and the figure fell back below $20. For now, there is stalemate. The company says that unless and until Mr. Schulze organizes a group, there is no offer to respond to. Mr. Schulze says that announcing a group without board approval could run afoul of a Minnesota anti-takeover law — the company is based there — that would bar him from actually doing a deal for four years. If he prevails, Mr. Schulze says, he will bring back the two executives who ran the company before Mr. Dunn. The company did well under them, but of course that was before Amazon became a fierce competitor. The company will announce quarterly earnings in less than two weeks, and the expectation is that the figures will be way down from a year ago. The company has announced some plans, including store closings and an increased focus on Internet sales, and is expected to announce its full strategy soon. Meanwhile, the search for a permanent C.E.O. to carry out that strategy goes on. Best Buy declined to make Mr. Mikan, or any other member of the board, available for an interview. The worst possibility of all for current shareholders might be for Mr. Schulze to find he could not raise the money for a deal. That would deliver a bad message about the company’s prospects. But the worst possibility for the company and its employees might be for him — or some white knight the company finds — to finance and complete such a deal, forcing Best Buy to slash spending just to meet debt payments at a time when revenue prospects are far from clear. At the price Mr. Schulze is talking about, buying the company would cost about $10 billion. The assumption is that a billion of that would come from Mr. Schulze’s not selling all of his stock in the deal, and retaining an equity interest while taking out about $700 million. An additional $2 billion would come from private equity firms, and there would be $7 billion in new debt. Now there is about $1.7 billion in long-term debt. There was no way for the board to know that Mr. Dunn would have to leave suddenly. But there was a way to plan for that possibility. The board’s failure to do so left the company in a very bad situation.

Best BUY Company Inc
Schulze Richard M
Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations
Dunn Brian J
Appointments and Executive Changes
Executives and Management (Theory)


Campbell Cuts Forecast, Citing Weak Soup Sales

Abstract: The Campbell Soup Company, the world’s largest soup maker, cut its full-year sales forecast on Monday, as it faces tough competition from other makers of inexpensive and easy-to-prepare meals. Shares of Campbell fell 2.4 percent on Monday. Campbell’s United States soup sales were flat in the quarter that ended April 27 compared with the same quarter last year, when sales rose 14 percent. Sales of condensed soup fell 3 percent, and sales of ready-to-serve soups fell 1 percent in the latest quarter. Total sales rose 0.4 percent to $1.97 billion but fell short of the average analysts’ estimate of $2 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. Campbell cited the weak soup sales and a fall in sales of its Pepperidge Farm products. Net income attributable to Campbell rose about 2 percent to $184 million, or 58 cents a share, in the third quarter. Excluding items, the company earned 62 cents a share, beating the average analysts’ estimate of 59 cents.


Rio Tinto Appoints New Chief Executive

Abstract: SYDNEY, Australia — The British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto said on Thursday that its chief executive, Sam Walsh, would retire on July 1 and that Jean-Sébastien Jacques, chief executive of its copper and coal division, would take the reins of the company, which faces the worst downturn in the sector in nearly two decades. Rio Tinto, the world’s second-biggest mining company, after BHP Billiton, bowed to pressure from investors and credit ratings agencies this year and scrapped its payout policy, under which it had promised never to cut its dividend from year to year, to better reflect commodity cycles. “The board has decided that J.-S. is the right person to lead Rio Tinto in an increasingly complex world filled with both challenges and opportunities for our industry,” Jan du Plessis, Rio Tinto’s chairman, said on Thursday , referring to Mr. Jacques. Mr. Walsh, 66, joined Rio Tinto in 1991 after two decades in the auto industry, and was appointed chief executive in 2013 after the London-based company dismissed Tom Albanese over acquisitions that soured and prompted large write-downs. Mr. Walsh had been expected to leave this year, but it was unclear whether he would be replaced by Christopher Lynch, the chief financial officer, or by a younger division leader. Mr. Jacques, 44, has spent more than three years on Rio Tinto’s executive committee. He was tasked with bringing greater focus to the copper and coal businesses and has been credited with improving safety while significantly reducing costs as the global mining sector faltered. Most recently, the French-born executive took the lead role in negotiations over a $4.4 billion financing agreement necessary for an expansion of the giant Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia. Mr. Jacques will join the board and becomes deputy chief executive effective immediately, the company said in a statement.

Appointments and Executive Changes
Mining
Rio Tinto


Pilot Dies in Plane Crash in Long Island Sound

Abstract: The pilot of a single-engine airplane died on Monday after his craft crashed into the waters of the Long Island Sound, Coast Guard officials said. Investigators have yet to determine the cause of the crash or to release the name of the pilot. Shortly before 9 a.m., officers at the command center of Coast Guard Sector Long Island Sound received a radio call from the pilot of another plane in the area. The pilot said that he had spotted “a small, white, fixed wing, single-engine plane” going down about eight miles north of the Mattituck Inlet. The pilot also reported that the downed plane’s parachute had been deployed. A rescue boat from New Haven was sent to investigate the crash, Coast Guard officials said, and after the plane was found divers from the Mattituck Fire Department recovered a body from the wreckage. The unidentified male pilot was pronounced dead at noon by a Suffolk County medical examiner. The National Transportation Safety Board plans to investigate the crash.

Plane Crashes and Missing Planes
Long Island Sound


British Financial Firms Expect to Keep Hiring, Survey Finds

Abstract: LONDON — In a further sign of optimism about strengthening economies in Europe, financial services firms in Britain said they expected to employ 1.16 million people by the end of the second quarter of this year, adding as many as 26,000 more jobs than in the same period a year earlier, according to a survey released on Monday. The pace of hiring remains strong and companies continue to expect to rapidly expand their head count during the next three months, according to the quarterly survey by the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and a trade group, the Confederation of British Industry. At the peak in the fourth quarter of 2008, about 1.21 million people worked in the financial services sector in Britain, the C.B.I. said. “Financial services firms are growing steadily and are optimistic about their business situation,” said Matthew Fell, the C.B.I.'s director for competitive markets. “The fact that competition is growing as a potential business constraint highlights intensifying activity in the sector.” Firms, however, said they were becoming more concerned that a shortage of professional staff might limit their business during the coming year: Thirty-eight percent said they feared a lack of qualified candidates could constrain growth, the highest level since March 2006. Of the 87 banks, asset managers and insurance companies surveyed, 41 percent said they felt more optimistic about the overall business situation compared with three months ago. Business volumes grew for the second consecutive quarter, across all industry subsectors except for life insurance, the poll found, but growth was more moderate than expected. In the second quarter, 49 percent of the companies said they expected business volumes to increase. In the insurance sector, growth in business volumes slowed markedly in the first quarter, partly because of a sharp fall in business with industrial and commercial companies, the survey found. The slowdown was expected to continue in the second quarter.


In-Flight Plight of a Famished Vegan

Abstract: OF all the things that can upset a frequent flier like me, I have to say the worst annoyance isn’t marching through security with my shoes off. It’s my stomach. More specifically, the hunger pangs. I’m a vegan. That means no meat, no dairy, no animal products of any type. But all of us frequent-flier types are feeling somewhat starved. Sure, airline food was an easy target for all of us to mock. We’re not laughing today. Some of those airline meals I used to scorn are actually looking pretty good right now. They had rice and vegetables, foods that a vegan like me could actually eat even if it was occasionally a little difficult to identify the particular fare. Though their choices are limited, vegetarians can find some decent food at the airport. Vegans have it a little tougher. Since I fly so much, and often at short notice, I often think I should approach my food needs more diligently. I do try to pack some food before flights. But I sometimes have problems with security. On a recent flight I brought a jar of vegan creamy peanut butter with me. The security agent insisted that my carry-on food product was a cream, and therefore a forbidden substance. A rather strange discussion ensued in which I tried to explain that peanut butter was a solid with a “creamy” consistency. Creamy was, in this case, an adjective. And the peanut butter should not be thrown in the trash. The agent looked at me as if I were as nutty as my peanut butter. I demanded to see his supervisor, convinced that I could dazzle him with my knowledge of grammar. I got a blank stare from him. Fortunately, he cleared the product. And I’m grateful I didn’t have to paraphrase Charlton Heston by saying, “You can take my peanut butter from my cold, dead hands.” Sometimes flight attendants take pity on me. I particularly like the flight attendants who distribute Biscoff cookies. They taste great and are a safe choice for vegans. The attendants usually give one package to a customer. But once I explain my dilemma, they pass me a few extra packages on the sly. In terms of vegan fare, I come up wanting in many small to middle-size cities, especially those in the Midwest and South. After speaking recently at the annual gala of the Capital Humane Society in Nebraska, I arrived at the Omaha airport on time for my flight, yet didn’t get off the ground for eight hours. Omaha is famous for its steaks. That’s great for a meat eater; not so great for a vegan. I felt a little like Tom Hanks on that island in “Cast Away” since I had to be resourceful in trying to find food. I wound up scavenging the newspaper shops and paid a king’s ransom for some mixed nuts. Perhaps it’s the delirium of hunger, but I often fantasize that all airports might someday take up the slack by offering us vegans some wholesome choices. All I want is some decent food that doesn’t involve animals in any way. There is some good news in all of this. I often enjoy talking to my seatmates. And when they find out what I do for a living, many people whip out wallets and show me pictures of the family pets. I always like that. Animals do connect people and almost all of us have a favorite animal story to share. People are passionate about their pets. It gives me a lot of hope. And it’s that emotional satisfaction that nourishes my soul. If not my stomach.

Airlines and Airplanes
Food
Vegan
Vegetarianism
Frequent Flier Programs
Business Travel
Airports


Europeans Widen Investigation Into Search Data

Abstract: BRUSSELS, June 21 (AP) — A European Union investigation set off by concerns over how long Google stores user information has widened to include all Internet search engines. The European Union’s panel of national data protection officers said it was now concerned over the retention of data that the companies use to deliver more-relevant search results and advertising. Some fear the data could be sought by hackers and governments. The panel “will deal with search engines in general and scrutinize their activities from a data-protection point of view, because this issue affects an ever-growing number of users,” it said in a statement on Thursday. Trying to soothe European Union concerns, Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., offered this month to cut the time it retains data on user searches from the current 24 months to 18 months, saying this was going further than most other search engines. After that, identifying information is removed. It insists that its retention policies comply with European Union data privacy rules. The 28-member panel, which advises the European Commission and European Union governments on data protection issues, said it still needed to analyze Google’s response and would also look at other search engines in the coming weeks to evaluate what data protection issues were at stake. It also has asked Google to answer questions on the specific use of technologies used by Google and other Web sites to collect insights about what sites people visit. Microsoft, which operates the third-largest search engine in the United States, behind Google and Yahoo, said it had not had a formal conversation with the European panel. “We recognize that online search is creating legitimate concerns about privacy and are actively engaged with data protection authorities around the world to ensure that our practices meet the highest standards when it comes to protecting privacy,” Peter Cullen, the company’s chief privacy strategist, said in an e-mailed statement. The European Union investigation into Google comes amid growing concerns over the company’s privacy practices. Privacy International, which is based in London, has rated Google the worst among the Internet’s top destinations on privacy. The watchdog said it was particularly troubled by Google’s ability to match data gathered by its search engine with information collected from other services like e-mail, instant messaging and maps.

European Union
Google Inc
Computers and the Internet
Privacy


October Report Shows Home Prices Down 18% From Last Year

Abstract: How bad has the housing market gotten? With home values dropping by faster rates each month, a real estate agent near Detroit said that if houses weren’t priced as low as foreclosures, they simply would not sell. That grim assessment underscored numbers released Tuesday showing that home prices in 20 metropolitan areas across the country dropped at a record rate of 18 percent in October from a year earlier as the fallout from the financial collapse reverberated through the housing market. According to the measure, the Standard & Poor’s/Case Shiller Home Price Index, all 20 cities surveyed reported one-year price declines in October. Prices in 14 of the 20 metropolitan areas fell at a record rate. “October was clearly the free-fall month,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at Standard & Poor’s. “Everything was going against us in October, without exception.” After increasing steadily through the first part of the decade, home prices have fallen every month since January 2007, their slide accelerating as troubles in the housing market infected the broader economy and brought down financial firms. Now, as buyers sit on the sideline and a glut of unsold homes clogs the market, economists say that home prices might continue to slide throughout 2009. “It’s just been an absolute downward trajectory,” said Michael Darda, chief economist at MKM Partners. According to another report released Tuesday, the December survey of consumers by the Conference Board, overall consumer confidence dropped to its lowest levels on record this month, after rising slightly in November, as Americans braced for a long recession. Only 6.6 percent of Americans said that business conditions were good, and 6.2 percent of people said jobs were plentiful, down from 23.6 percent a year ago. Prices in every metropolitan area in Case-Shiller’s 20-city index dropped from September to October, and six of them — Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, Washington, Charlotte, N.C., and Tampa, Fla. — posted record one-month declines. The index excludes many midsize metropolitan areas and some large cities, like Houston and Philadelphia. The numbers show that the cities that had the greatest gains in the housing boom are now suffering the steepest drops as a flood of lender-owned homes and distressed sales hit the market. Prices in Las Vegas and Phoenix, where developers built subdivisions stretching into the desert, fell by nearly a third in October from 2008. Prices in Miami fell by 29 percent. There, homeowners who tried to wait out the market are paying a price, said Madeline Romanello, a real estate agent with Douglas Elliman. Sellers who turned down offers of $700,000 for a house they had listed for $900,000 are now scrambling to sell for $550,000, she said. Prices in New York declined 7.5 percent in October over the same month a year ago. Fourteen of the 20 cities in the Case-Shiller survey posted double-digit declines for the year. The relative winner was Dallas, which had the smallest decline, 3 percent. Realtors said that foreclosure sales and distressed sales dominated the market, forcing other sellers to lower their prices or take their homes off the market and wait. “If the house doesn’t have a foreclosure price on it, even if the owners aren’t in foreclosure, buyers aren’t even looking,” said Kathy Buterakos, a real estate agent in Grand Blanc, Mich. “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen it.” To stimulate interest in open houses, she has sent out bulletins to neighbors, posted notices in gyms and local apartment complexes and had her sister put up fliers at a hospital. But no one has responded, Ms. Buterakos said. The Case-Shiller numbers were the latest round of bleak news for the housing sector, which is at the center of the country’s broader economic troubles. Foreclosures, bad loans and collapsing housing prices contributed to the financial crisis earlier this year, and now the widening recession is dragging housing down even more. Last week, the National Association of Realtors reported that sales of previously owned homes, which dominate the market, fell to the lowest rate in years. Home values tumbled 13 percent in November from a year earlier, the sharpest drop in more than 40 years, the industry group reported. A glut of unsold houses is weighing down the market, and housing is likely to deteriorate further in 2009 as the jobs picture continues to weaken. Unemployment is at 6.7 percent, its highest point in a decade, and is expected to rise further next year, to above 8 percent. “People who think they’re going to lose their job don’t buy a home,” Steven Ricchiuto, chief economist at Mizuho Securities, said.

Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Home Price Index


Profit at Macy’s Rose 22%, Topping Analyst Forecasts

Abstract: Macy’s is seeing signs that the holiday shopping season will be strong. The department store chain reported on Wednesday a quarterly profit that handily beat Wall Street expectations, with the company citing revamped advertising and promotions for helping reverse a slip in sales in the previous quarter. Macy’s chief financial officer, Karen M. Hoguet, said on a conference call with analysts and investors that traditional gift categories like fine jewelry, cashmere and housewares were selling well. She also noted positive trends for cold weather items like coats, boots and sweaters. “If we have anything close to a normal weather pattern this year, this could add significant volume,” she said. The holiday shopping season is a make-or-break time for retailers because it can account for as much as 40 percent of annual revenue. This year, there are also six fewer days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, intensifying the pressure for companies to perform. Already, Macy’s has said it plans to open on Thanksgiving evening for the first time. “We expect a heightened sense of urgency among customers, so it’s important that we be ready for her every day, every time, in every way she shops,” Ms. Hoguet said. Retailers are also facing continuing concerns about shoppers’ willingness to spend in the weak economy. Macy’s, for example, has stepped up promotions, which led to a slide in gross profit margins in the quarter. Macy’s, which also operates the Bloomingdale’s chain, is the first of the major retailers to report third-quarter results and is often seen as a barometer of spending among middle- to upper-income shoppers. For the fiscal third quarter that ended Nov. 2, Macy’s reported its net income rose 22 percent, to $177 million, or 47 cents a share, from $145 million, or 36 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue rose 3 percent, to $6.28 billion. Analysts had expected earnings of 39 cents a share on revenue of $6.19 billion. Revenue at stores open at least a year, a crucial retailing measure, was up 3.5 percent. Analysts had expected a 2.1 percent increase. Earnings for the year are expected to be $3.80 to $3.90 a share, above Wall Street’s expectations of $3.78 a share.

Macy's
Earnings Reports
Retail
Holidays
Consumer behaviour


Freshmen Forcier and Barkley Pass Major Tests

Abstract: COLUMBUS , Ohio — Two of college football’s brand-name programs barely won big games Saturday, and each can attribute its victory to a scintillating comeback engineered by its true freshman quarterback. Tate Forcier of Michigan and Matt Barkley of Southern California put together hair-raising, game-winning drives, and nothing better reflected their composure than their grins. And though their careers are only two games old, each has shown enough promise that his robust and loyal fan base should be smiling for years. When Barkley entered the huddle on U.S.C.’s winning drive against Ohio State , he had everything against him. He had played a shaky game to that point, and a record crowd of 106,033 rumbled to a roar at the Horseshoe. But Barkley gave a big smile, as if the U.S.C. superfan Will Ferrell were banging on a cowbell on the sideline. “Let’s do what we came here to do,” Barkley barked to the huddle. Backed up to his 5 on second-and-19, Barkley led the Trojans to the winning score with 1 minute 5 seconds to play in their 18-15 victory. In the process, he won over his teammates and coaches. “Let the games begin when talking about his career,” U.S.C. Coach Pete Carroll said. “That’s a huge, huge statement for him.” Forcier’s smiling moment came before Michigan’s game at home against Notre Dame . When headed to the team bus, Forcier stopped. “Aw!” Forcier said, according to Coach Rich Rodriguez. “I forgot to brush my teeth.” So Forcier quickly returned to his hotel room for a brush. Clearly not overwhelmed by the moment before the game or in the waning minutes, Forcier led Michigan on a 57-yard touchdown drive that produced a 38-34 victory . He capped it with a 5-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Greg Mathews with 11 seconds left. “Tate’s a unique individual,” Rodriguez said. “Some guys, when everything’s going crazy around them, you can see them change their personality. Tate’s just the opposite.” Forcier might have had a better day than Barkley. He completed 23 of 33 passes for 230 yards and 2 touchdowns. He threw an interception, but he also ran for 70 yards. Barkley finished 15-of-31 passing for 195 yards with an interception. That was more impressive than it appeared because Barkley said he could not feel his throwing shoulder for most of the second half after taking a third-quarter hit. He looked shaky at times but delivered when it mattered the most. “When we’re 95 yards backed up and he grins and gives us a smile, that means something special is about to happen,” said U.S.C. center Kristopher O’Dowd, a junior who started his 18th game. “I’m proud as heck of him. He’s really grown up as a player and a person. I can’t wait to see what else he can do in his career here.” Perhaps the most important development for Michigan and Southern California was that Forcier and Barkley showed that they were the perfect quarterbacks for their systems. Michigan’s offense ran like a tricycle with two wheels last year in a 3-9 season. Those Wolverines lacked the proper personnel to run Rodriguez’s spread offense, which requires an athletic and mobile quarterback who can run the zone read, in the mold of Pat White, one of his quarterbacks at West Virginia . “It’s all natural,” Rodriguez said of Forcier. “Then again, it’s just two games, so let’s not anoint him too much. We have ways of keeping him humble in practice.” Carroll’s teams run a traditional pro-style offense, and Barkley appears to be the latest in a line of drop-back quarterbacks, following Matt Leinart , John David Booty and Mark Sanchez . Barkley said he heard taunts from the Ohio State crowd to “go back to high school.” But in the end, he showed sufficient poise that he could end up one day being the class of college football. Barkley, who is blond and California cocksure, said he was “stoked” about the victory. “I think we verified who we are and really proved that it doesn’t matter what quarter it is or where we have the ball,” he said after the game. “If we play Trojan football, it will work. There were a lot of haters and doubters out there. I’m real proud of the guys and the way that they played tonight.” Neither Barkley nor Forcier became harried in the waning moments. On the play before Michigan’s winning touchdown, LaTerryal Savory dropped a pass in the end zone despite being wide open. Forcier shrugged it off and threw another. “I’m the quarterback,” he said. “I’m supposed to be the leader of the team. The way we won, you know, it couldn’t have been any better than that.” It would have been hard to top what Barkley did, too. To start the final drive, Joe McKnight missed a block, resulting in a sack, and a false-start penalty put the Trojans at second-and-19. But Barkley looked most comfortable in a hurry-up offense. He completed 4 of 6 passes on the final drive, including a 2-point conversion to McKnight. The crowd fell silent, hecklers included. “They weren’t saying anything in the fourth quarter,” Barkley said, laughing. “That’s all that matters.” In the end, the freshman quarterback straight from central casting delivered a win that kept his team in the national title race. And Michigan’s victory put the Wolverines in the Associated Press top 25, a stunning turn after last year. “Everybody kept saying a freshman can’t do it,” Forcier said, “and I did it.” And in Ann Arbor and Los Angeles , the precocious quarterbacks’ performances made sure there were smiles all around.

Football
College Sports
Ohio State
USC
Matt Barkley
Pete Carroll
Tate Forcier
Rich Rodriguez


Hamilton Wins Turkish Grand Prix

Abstract: ISTANBUL (AP) — Lewis Hamilton led McLaren to a 1-2 finish at the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday after a costly run-in between the teammates Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel denied Red Bull a shot at the top two spots. Webber and Vettel touched as Vettel looked to pass along the Istanbul Park Circuit’s fastest section, causing him to spin out of the race. Webber, who had led all 40 laps to that point, recovered to run third behind Hamilton and Jenson Button as Red Bull’s pit-lane team looked on in disbelief. The McLaren team also had some nervous moments near the end as its drivers exchanged the lead, but Hamilton eventually earned his first Formula One victory of the season, by 2.6 seconds, after rain sprinkled the circuit. It was McLaren’s second 1-2 finish this season. “It was quite an exciting race,” said Hamilton, the 2008 Formula One champion. “It was great to watch — it was like an action movie." Webber’s disappointment was obvious after he looked set to take a third straight victory from the pole. “It happens,” Webber said. “There was a long way to go in the race, so it wasn’t a guaranteed victory. It was an interesting few meters between us on the track.” Webber leads the drivers’ standings with 93 points. Button moved into second with 88 points — 4 more than Hamilton. Fernando Alonso of Ferrari finished eighth to improve to 79 points, and Vettel stayed at 78.

Automobile Racing
McLaren Racing
Red Bull
Formula One
Hamilton Lewis
Webber Mark
Vettel Sebastian
Button Jenson
Alonso Fernando


Judge Upholds Right to Ban Metal Bats

Abstract: In a case closely watched by baseball organizations and bat manufacturers across the country, a federal judge yesterday upheld a New York City law banning the use of metal bats in high school baseball games. In a 39-page decision, Judge John G. Koeltl of United States District Court in Manhattan struck down arguments from opponents and said that the City Council acted within its constitutional authority in seeking to protect health and safety. While the judge observed that there was disputed evidence over whether metal bats were more harmful than wooden bats, he said that the Council had acted rationally in assessing “that the risk is too great.” “The judgment that high school baseball players’ safety is more important than higher batting averages and more offense is a classic legislative judgment that the City Council could constitutionally make,” he wrote. The ruling clears the way for the law, which was passed in April over the veto of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, to go into effect on Saturday. The first teams to be affected will be the city’s 20 Catholic high schools, which begin their season next Wednesday. The public high schools’ baseball season begins in the spring. Critics say the law leaves a host of unanswered questions, including who will pay for the extra wooden bats a team is likely to go through in a season and how the ban will be enforced. “How does a player know if his bat is legal?” said Wally Stampfel, varsity baseball coach at St. Michael’s High School and chairman of the Catholic High School Athletics Association, said in a statement. City Councilman James S. Oddo, the Staten Island Republican who was the law’s leading proponent, said the Council and city officials were working to answer those questions in time for the season. He also said that critics were exaggerating the cost concerns, and that the Council was seeking private financing to help defray the costs for parochial and private schools. The suit was brought by a coalition of bat manufacturers, coaches, parents and USA Baseball, among others. At the core of the issue was whether metal bats, which proponents of the law say have a larger “sweet spot” and propel balls at faster speeds, present a greater danger to pitchers and infielders than wooden bats. The plaintiffs said they were considering whether to appeal.


Female Bobsledder Could Race on Men’s Circuit

Abstract: Elana Meyers Taylor, the two-time Olympic women’s bobsled medalist, drove to a third-place finish in the United States four-man national team selection race at Park City, Utah, finishing behind Nick Cunningham and Steven Holcomb. With that, Meyers Taylor moved a step closer at having a shot of competing against men on the World Cup circuit this winter and potentially at the 2018 Olympics. Bobsled’s world governing body decided this year to declare four-man gender neutral, meaning women can compete alongside men. Meyers Taylor and Canada’s Kaillie Humphries, a silver medalist at the Sochi Olympics, are now eligible for their four-man national teams by finishing third in their nation’s selection races. Neither Humphries nor Meyers Taylor is in yet. To race at the World Cup, drivers have to show a certain aptitude, usually by competing in lower-tier races So for either to be eligible for the four-man World Cup event at Lake Placid, N.Y., they would need a waiver, which seems unlikely, or compete in three races over the next month.

2018 Winter Olympics
Pyeongchang
Bobsleigh
Steven Holcomb


Vermont Exercising Option to Balance the Budget

Abstract: MONTPELIER, Vt. — Technically, Vermont could play fast and loose in this season of fevered budget-chopping: it happens to be the only state with no budget-balancing requirement. But Vermont, it turns out, is a fiscal goody two-shoes. This spring, the Democratic-controlled Legislature toiled to close a projected $176 million gap in its $4.6 billion budget for the coming 2012 fiscal year with a combination of spending cuts and scattered tax increases. Gov. Peter Shumlin, a newly elected Democrat, said Vermont was so innately frugal that it had no use for a balanced-budget law. “Vermont has more common sense than the 49 other states,” Mr. Shumlin said in a recent interview. “We pay our bills, live within our means and hold firm to the tradition of not spending more than we take in.” But not everyone here is pleased about the thriftiness, especially when it means cutting services. State Representative Paul N. Poirier, an independent, said his colleagues should have raised taxes on the wealthy instead of cutting programs for the elderly, mentally ill and developmentally disabled. “In the last three years, our little state of Vermont has cut over $300 million in direct services to people,” Mr. Poirier said. “Why not ask people who have done well during this recession to step up and pay a little more?” Some wealthy Vermonters agreed, going so far as to publicly ask Mr. Shumlin to raise their taxes. In a letter last month, about 50 of them — including Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the Ben & Jerry’s ice cream titans — beseeched Mr. Shumlin to “help meet basic human needs” by imposing a temporary income tax surcharge on the top 5 percent of earners. Both the House and the Senate rejected the proposal. Mr. Shumlin, too, said thanks but no thanks. “I’m very grateful to them for their generosity,” he said. “But we’re already asking a lot of our wealthy residents.” Among other things, the planned cuts would reduce the number of substance abuse counselors in high schools and scale back programs that help elderly people stay in their homes and avoid moving to nursing homes. On Friday, the Senate approved a budget plan that would also increase the cigarette tax and raise taxes on health care providers. State Senator Ann Cummings, the chairwoman of the Finance Committee, said that carrying over a deficit was unthinkable, partly because the state already anticipates a shortfall of $60 million in the budget for the 2013 fiscal year. “It’s like charging groceries,” she said. “Once you start, if you don’t have a reasonable expectation that the money is going to be there, it’s just a snowball going downhill.” Mr. Poirier and others who think the state is being too prudent point to the early 1990s, when Gov. Richard A. Snelling, a Republican, addressed a budget crisis in part by carrying over deficits for several years and temporarily raising taxes on income and sales. “It really was a boon to be able to do that,” said Jack Hoffman, a senior policy analyst with the Public Assets Institute here, a liberal-leaning research group. “We worked our way out of the hole over time instead of making these really drastic cuts.” Mr. Hoffman is among those who expressed frustration that Mr. Shumlin and legislative leaders have refused even to borrow from the state’s reserve fund, which currently holds about $55 million, to avoid service cuts. “I don’t know what they’re waiting for,” Mr. Hoffman said. “I worry that we’re going to come through this recession, get to the other side and someone will proudly say, ‘We never touched the rainy day fund.’ ” Others say that next year could be the biggest test of Vermont’s flintiness because the last of the federal stimulus money that has helped states survive the recession is scheduled to disappear. As for why Vermont has never passed a law or amended its Constitution to require a balanced budget — something every other state has done, though some are looser than others in their definition of “balanced” — even the state archivist, Gregory Sanford, said he had no clue. “There apparently has not been much of a clamor for one,” Mr. Sanford said in an e-mail after searching for evidence that anyone ever tried to propose a balanced-budget amendment here. Given the deep fiscal problems of some states that have such requirements, like New York and California, Mr. Sanford said, “I am not sure what the value of such an amendment would be.” Former Gov. Jim Douglas, who left office in January after eight years, theorized that Vermonters would actively resist such a check if it were suggested. “Vermonters like to think of ourselves as able to make sound decisions,” Mr. Douglas said, “without the heavy hand of a constitution or government forcing it.”

Vermont
Budgets and Budgeting
Politics and Government
Taxation
Shumlin Peter


Romney Endorsement in Church Bulletin Raises Outcry

Abstract: Two weeks ago, the weekly bulletin at the Church of St. Catherine of Siena on the Upper East Side of Manhattan carried a blunt political message from a priest on the parish staff. Which the priest, Rev. John A. Farren , took care to dissociate himself from. “I am aware that I and no church authority may endorse candidates for political office,” Father Farren wrote. You could practically see him winking. Father Farren proceeded to turn over much of his page in the bulletin to a letter written by six former ambassadors to the Vatican who said they were supporting Mitt Romney for president because of his opposition to abortion, to marriage rights for same-sex couples and to aspects of the national health insurance law that require coverage of contraceptives. “We urge our fellow Catholics, and indeed all people of good will to join with us in this full-hearted effort to elect Gov. Mitt Romney as the next President of the United States,” concluded the Romney supporters. As it happened, just as the weekly bulletin appeared in the pews at St. Catherine’s, the head of the New York Archdiocese, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, was getting ready to head for Charlotte, N.C. There, he would give a prayer at the close of the Democratic National Convention , just as he had in Tampa, Fla., where Republicans met to formally select Mr. Romney as their nominee. It was a conspicuous display of even-handedness. Father Farren was filling in for the parish’s pastor, who was taking a break on Labor Day weekend. Normally, church bulletins do not become hot items. But more than 20,000 people signed a petition to Cardinal Dolan, objecting to Father Farren’s endorsement-by-proxy. Though it was the voice of one priest, and not the institutional church, it opened a window onto a debate among Catholics about how they and the church engage with civil society. The church has made strong statements about economic justice for the poor, protection of immigrants, support of labor unions and objections to the death penalty, but those issues have largely been drowned out by advocacy against abortion and same-sex marriage. “We have a responsibility to be engaged in the public debate,” said James Salt, the leader of Catholics United, a group that supported the petition drive and that promotes what it views as the overlooked aspect of Catholic social justice doctrine. “If the church wants to be a spiritual leadership in our culture, they can’t be seen as the heirs of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell.” The church bulletin was sent by a man who attended Mass at St. Catherine’s to a group called Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service. Tax-exempt organizations like churches are “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office,” according to I.R.S. guidelines . This includes, according to the I.R.S., “distributing statements prepared by others that favor or oppose any candidate for public office.” The petitions from Catholics United were delivered to St. Patrick’s Cathedral last week. “I wouldn’t comment beyond noting that archdiocesan policy is clear that our churches should not endorse candidates for office,” said Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese. On Tuesday morning, about 25 people gathered for Mass at St. Catherine’s. The church, an imposing presence that stretches from 68th Street to 69th Street, and is close to four major medical centers, was nearly empty. The least sound rose into vaulted ceilings, gathered force and carried to the most distant pew: a squeak of rubber soles, the clink of a coin dropped in an offering box. At the rear of the church was a stack of fresh church bulletins, these carrying a note from the Rev. Jordan Kelly, the church pastor, about the letter. “The reprinting of this letter was an unfortunate error in judgment,” Father Kelly wrote. He regretted the confusion. During the Mass, another priest, Juan-Diego Brunetta, prayed for “the sick and dying in the hospitals all around us, especially those who will die this day.” In one aisle, a hospital housekeeper, in a blue pinstriped dress, bowed her head. The Mass finished early enough for her and other hospital workers to get to work on time without politics, but with faith and reason braided into a rope to use while crossing the slippery deck of the day.

Roman Catholic Church
Religion-State Relations
Presidential Election of 2012
Upper East Side (NYC)
Endorsements


Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador, Issues Warning on Anti-Semitism in Europe

Abstract: BERLIN — Against the backdrop of what several speakers called an unmistakable rise in anti-Semitism in Europe, the American ambassador to the United Nations warned on Thursday that the increase in attacks poses a threat to European values, and urged leaders to step up their efforts to thwart anti-Jewish sentiment. “Make no mistake – we have a problem,” said Samantha Power, a top aide to President Obama, at a conference here organized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. She said the growing number of anti-Semitic acts “are not only a threat to the Jewish community, they are a threat to the larger project of European liberalism and pluralism.” The two-day conference was attended by only about two-thirds of the 57 member states, most of whom, unlike the United States, sent deputy-level representatives. Ms. Power, speaking firmly, chastised European leaders, asking why fewer countries were attending the gathering than were present a decade ago, when representatives passed a resolution on fighting anti-Semitism, known as the Berlin Resolution. Deputy Foreign Minister Tzachi Hanegbi of Israel noted at the time that the measure had been adopted with the force of law in only 12 of the 57 participating states. Ms. Power, who singled out Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany as among the political leaders who have stood strongly against anti-Semitism, stressed that “rising anti-Semitism is rarely the lone or the last expression of intolerance in a society.” Often, she said, it is “the canary in the coal mine.” She cited what she said was a recent survey done in the eight European nations where 90 percent of the continent’s Jews live. One in four of the Jews who responded reported having been subjected to attack, and said they felt more insecure than they did five years ago. Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, one of the most prominent Jewish groups in the United States, and a member of Ms. Power’s delegation, said Europe was approaching “a moment of truth.” Jewish life returning to places like Germany and Poland, where the Holocaust was planned and largely executed, may not survive the rising insecurity felt by European Jews, he said. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier of Germany recalled speaking with Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate and a Holocaust survivor, after presenting him with a German award this year. He said Mr. Wiesel had told him he would never have believed anyone who tried to tell him in 1945 that he would be fighting anti-Semitism in 2014. “But it is necessary,” Mr. Steinmeier quoted Mr. Wiesel as saying. “The danger is again there.” There have been several notable attacks on Jews in Europe, including one on a Jewish day school in Toulouse in the spring of 2012, when three children and a teacher were killed, and another on the Jewish Museum in Brussels last May, when four people were fatally shot by a French gunman. In July, an attempt was made to set fire to a synagogue in Wuppertal, Germany, which was rebuilt on the site of a synagogue burned to the ground by the Nazis in 1938. In addition, some European institutions, intellectuals and businesses have boycotted Israel, and there have been other incidents, such as demonstrators shouting slogans about gassing Jews, and anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli graffiti sprayed in European cities. Several speakers and delegates noted that the rise in anti-Semitic attacks had often been linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this year in and around the Gaza Strip. But dissenting from Israeli policy should be firmly separated from anti-Semitism, Ms. Power and others said. Scores of representatives from nongovernmental organizations spent Wednesday debating proposals to increase awareness of anti-Semitism and bolster action by individual citizens, nongovernmental groups, schools, religious communities and political leaders to counter it. They particularly emphasized the need to recognize and oppose not only Holocaust denial but Holocaust distortion. Rabbi Andrew Baker, who is the personal representative of the organization’s chairman for combating anti-Semitism, captured the dilemma for Jews in Europe with an introductory question: “If things are so good” – in terms of reviving Jewish life on the continent – “then why are they so bad?” The physical security of Jews, he said, “is openly threatened today in much of Europe.” In particular, he said, Jews are concerned for the future security of their children. Countering this fear, he added, “requires political leaders to speak out sharply and swiftly” against anti-Semitism. At the end of the meeting Thursday, Rabbi Baker read a concluding statement containing recommendations on various fronts, including defining anti-Semitism, or overcoming challenges to rituals. “It is not a declaration,” he said afterward by telephone. “It doesn’t have that kind of imprimatur.” But, by dint of introducing the recommendations to full ministerial or ambassadorial gatherings of the security and cooperation organization, he said, “the hope is that it will become that.”


Manhattan: Meatball Defense Is Rejected

Abstract: The Police Department has fired a veteran counterterrorism detective who failed a drug test, finding that his claim that his wife had served him marijuana-spiked meatballs was not credible, Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said yesterday. With the decision, Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly rejected an earlier recommendation by an administrative judge that the detective, Anthony Chiofalo, be reinstated. Commissioner Kelly has the final say on firings. Detective Chiofalo, a 22-year veteran, was suspended without pay in 2005 after a random drug test found marijuana in his system. During an investigation, his wife said she had secretly substituted marijuana for oregano in her meatball recipe in the hope of forcing him to leave police work.

Police
Suspensions Dismissals and Resignations
Marijuana