On Second Day at Wimbledon, Favorites Have an Easier Time

Abstract: WIMBLEDON, England — If Monday sprung surprise here, with near upsets of Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic and the second match in the history of Centre Court held partly underneath the roof, Tuesday returned the tournament to normal. With strawberries festooned on her fingernails, Serena Williams thrashed another grass-court victim. Andy Murray confronted mounting pressure and satisfied the mostly dissatisfied home crowd. Rafael Nadal continued to return to his scary 2008 form. Thus the first round of Wimbledon concluded. “Happy to come back,” Nadal said, speaking for them all. “Always, the feeling is amazing.” Williams opened here the same way she ended this tournament last July , with emphatic, almost routine mastery. Her first Wimbledon set was shorter than many a sitcom, or a debate, of which, in regard to Williams’s dominance on grass, there is none. Her first set at the All England Club lasted just 21 minutes, and it was equally striking, ruthless and lopsided. Williams has never lost in the first round of a Grand Slam and has only once fallen in the second round, in 1998. Her opponent, Michelle Larcher de Brito, is best known for the earth-shattering decibel level of her grunts . Even Williams acknowledged the mismatch afterward, comparing Larcher de Brito to the North Korea soccer team, which Portugal slapped, 7-0, recently in the World Cup. Williams won, 6-0, 6-4, but seemed bored afterward with the tennis inquiry, so routine has victory here become. She grew more animated when detailing her outfit (called strawberries and cream), her curtsy practice (“I’m trying to tone down my wrist action”) and her soccer fandom (“I speak in terms of we”). Her best line, however, came when she described a talk she had with her serve after her quarterfinal exit at the French Open . At one point in that contest, against Samantha Stosur, she lost 17 straight points. At another, she failed to capitalize on match point. “We’ve got to do a little better,” she said she told her serve. On more serious matters, British tennis players continued to struggle until Murray, their great hope, sauntered onto Court 1 in the afternoon. This Wimbledon started on the wrong note for the natives, as the English failed to send a men’s player into the singles draw for the first time. “It’s not great, is it?” Murray said. “I’d like to see more British players playing in the tournament and more British wins. It’s not a good start.” The players from Britain who did qualify met mostly disastrous results. Four British women fell on Monday in singles. Anne Keothavong, from London, joined them Tuesday, blowing a 4-0 lead in the third set in falling to Anastasia Rodionova of Australia. Asked afterward if expectations for British players were too high, if the pressure was too much, Keothavong said: “It’s just the way it is. British players want to do well here. We’ve had so much stick in the past for not doing well. So, obviously, you’re aware of that.” Of course, other than Murray, none of the British players, male or female, were expected to last beyond the first week. Even Murray had struggled heading into Wimbledon. The local news media painted him as surly, sour, negative and grumpy, openly questioning whether he enjoyed tennis any longer. Murray insisted last weekend that he loved the game, and despite the enormous expectations he faces each year at Wimbledon, he maintained that the fortnight was his favorite time of the year. “I don’t mind it,” he said of the expectations. “There’s definitely more pressure on me to play well.” On Tuesday, with his family and advisers watching from the front row, he entered the packed grandstand to a loud ovation. When he fell behind a break in the first set, the crowd willed his comeback, and Murray, the fourth seed, recovered to defeat Jan Hajek of the Czech Republic, 7-5, 6-1, 6-2. While Murray deconstructed doubts, at least on Tuesday, Nadal continued to establish himself as the tournament’s biggest threat. He followed his French Open championship from earlier this month by thrashing Kei Nishikori, 6-2, 6-4, 6-4, on Tuesday. Nadal seized the No. 1 ranking from Federer after the French Open, a victory that Federer himself called “classic Rafa.” Nadal received the No. 2 seed here but was impressive in the first round as Federer opened up more doubts. On Monday, Andy Roddick took issue with news reports that he felt were taking away from Nadal’s overall game. Roddick said he read articles that presented Nadal as if “he hasn’t won a tournament in a long time” and “all of a sudden, he gets on clay, he wins everything.” Roddick continued: “Everyone changes him into a different human being. He’s the same. He’s the most dominant clay-court player that’s played. I don’t think anybody in the locker room has ever said Rafa is not the same. It’s a fine line between playing O.K. and really well. He’s found that ‘really well’ again.” Nadal said he watched only portions of Federer’s near defeat and comeback Monday. Predictably, Nadal also played down Federer’s struggles, suggesting that first-round matches are as difficult as later-round matches, sometimes even more so. As for the five-set final two years ago , when Nadal topped Federer and asserted himself as the best player in the world (until his injuries), Nadal said he had hardly given that a second thought. “I have enough work not to think about two years ago,” he said. “When I go on court, I think about the opponent. I don’t have time to think about other things.” The French Open curse continued Tuesday as the sixth-seeded Stosur lost to the qualifier Kaia Kanepi from Estonia, leaving the women’s champion and runner-up at Roland Garros dismissed in the first round. In the rest of the first round, with Williams and Murray and Nadal, form returned.

Wimbledon Tennis Tournament
Tennis
Williams Serena
Larcher de Brito Michelle


Montana: Judge Sends Racist Joke About Obama

Abstract: The chief federal judge in Montana has apologized for forwarding to some of his friends an e-mail with a racist joke about President Obama , and he initiated himself a complaint of judicial misconduct. Judge Richard F. Cebull told The Great Falls Tribune, which received a copy of the joke from a recipient, that he is opposed to Mr. Obama’s politics and sent it in that spirit. He admitted the joke — involving suggestions of bestiality and the president’s mother — was racist, but he said he personally was not. Judge Cebull, nominated by President George W. Bush, sent a letter to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit asking for the misconduct investigation.

Judges
Obama Barack
Federal Courts (US)
Montana
Cebull Richard F
Discrimination


Ducks’ Dixon Out for Season

Abstract: Quarterback Dennis Dixon will have surgery on his left knee, ending his season and spoiling his chance to win the Heisman Trophy. The knee buckled early in second-ranked Oregon’s loss against Arizona on Thursday. Dixon, a senior, tore his anterior cruciate ligament during Oregon’s Nov. 3 victory against Arizona State, according to Coach Mike Bellotti, but he had rested it and felt ready to play against the Wildcats. Dixon completed 67.7 percent of his passes for 2,136 yards, 20 touchdowns and four interceptions. A senior from San Leandro, Calif., he also ran for 583 yards and 9 touchdowns. Dixon crumbled as he tried to plant on an option with about 5 minutes left in the first quarter against Arizona.

Football
Oregon
Dixon Dennis
Heisman Trophy


Well Before Scandals, Cosby’s Wife Faulted Media Treatment of Blacks

Abstract: Bill Cosby’s public defenders have not been numerous of late, but they have included some serious, credible people like Whoopi Goldberg, Ben Vereen and, most recently, Phylicia Rashad — his wife on television for more than a decade — who expressed her full support for him as he confronted accusations that he was a serial sexual predator. In an online interview on Jan. 6, Ms. Rashad made a point of mentioning that her faith in Mr. Cosby was bolstered by the unflinching loyalty of his actual wife, Camille O. Cosby. “This is a tough woman, a smart woman,” she said. “She’s no pushover.” As Mr. Cosby continued his comedy tour last weekend in Colorado and California, his most important character witness remained his wife. When she spoke out last month in his defense, Mrs. Cosby said her support was based on the integrity of her husband, with whom she will celebrate a 51st wedding anniversary this weekend and with whom she has shared multiple triumphs and the pain of a child’s death. But it was also clear from her statement that Mrs. Cosby’s reaction to the allegations was influenced by a longstanding view that the news media trumpeting them was routinely wrong, even dishonest at times, in the way it portrayed African-Americans. “There appears to be no vetting of my husband’s accusers,” Mrs. Cosby, 70, said in her statement, “before stories are published or aired.” To review Mrs. Cosby’s life and accomplishments — running a business, amassing a world-class art collection, producing films — is to see that perhaps nothing has motivated her more than her interest in addressing what she views as glaring lapses in the media’s treatment of blacks. In her doctoral dissertation at the University of Massachusetts, in a book she later published , in a series of newspaper opinion articles and in a range of other activities that stretch back two decades, Mrs. Cosby has argued that the media, particularly television, has so distorted the image of African-Americans that it can taint the way young black people come to view themselves. “I don’t want others outside our community to define us, because they are doing a horrible job of it,” Mrs. Cosby said in a 1994 interview. “And they are lying.” To some, Mrs. Cosby’s ability to dismiss the accounts of more than two dozen women who have now publicly accused her husband of some form of sexual abuse, reads like denial, regardless of what the media may have bungled in the past. But Mrs. Cosby has characterized the allegations as a media feeding frenzy, and not unlike those she has seen before. Jannette L. Dates, who with Mrs. Cosby wrote a 1992 newspaper op-ed article critical of the media, said Mrs. Cosby was “adamant and passionate” about trying to get network executives and others to be more responsible in their depictions of African-Americans. “She wanted to shake things up,” Ms. Dates said. “We were saying those images are demeaning caricatures. That’s a thread that is still being woven today.” Her quest to create more positive images for blacks began decades ago and included efforts to convince her husband that Heathcliff Huxtable, the character who would evolve into America’s Dad during eight seasons of “The Cosby Show,” starting in 1984, should be a well-to-do doctor with a solid family, not a limousine driver, as Mr. Cosby had proposed. In other settings, independent of her husband, Mrs. Cosby worked to preserve black history because she said it was being ignored. In 1995, she co-produced a play, “Having Our Say,” about two pioneering centenarian sisters raised in the Jim Crow South who became successful after moving to New York. Nominated for three Tony Awards, it ran for almost nine months on Broadway. More recently, in 2001, she helped found an organization, the National Visionary Leadership Project , that videotapes interviews with accomplished African-Americans. Charles J. Hamilton Jr., a former board member, said Mrs. Cosby had been drawn to the project because “major institutions have relegated African-American history to the lower rung of the ladder.” But Mrs. Cosby’s concerns about the media run far deeper than simple neglect. Friends say she became particularly incensed by coverage of the murder of her son, Ennis, in 1997. He was shot to death on the side of a Los Angeles highway while changing a tire by a man who tried to rob him and later referred to him by a racial slur. On the same day as the shooting, a young woman, Autumn Jackson, claiming to be Mr. Cosby’s daughter from an extramarital affair, demanded money from him to buy her silence. She was later convicted of trying to extort millions of dollars from Mr. Cosby. Mr. Cosby ultimately admitted to an affair with Ms. Jackson’s mother, Shawn Berkes, but he denied his paternity, and Mrs. Cosby became frustrated that the media focused so much of its coverage on her husband’s infidelity, not, she believed, on finding her son’s killer. “All old personal negative issues between Bill and me were resolved years ago,” Mrs. Cosby said in a statement she released in 1997. “We are a united couple. What occurred 23 years ago is not important to me except for the current issue of extortion. What is very important to me is the apprehension of the person or persons who killed our son. I appeal to all of you to help us find the murderer.” When The National Enquirer published an article saying the death had pushed her to the edge of a nervous breakdown and that she was sedated, the Cosbys threatened to sue. Mrs. Cosby wrote an opinion article in USA Today with a headline that read “Don’t Believe the Tabs.” The following year, when the shooter was convicted, Mrs. Cosby wrote another essay in USA Today suggesting that the murderer, an immigrant from Ukraine, was a racist who had killed her son because he had been taught to hate blacks by, among other things, the American media. In a 1998 letter to The New York Times, she complained that the newspaper’s account of the crime had depicted it as an attempted robbery and omitted a racial slur the killer had used, which minimized race as a motivation. (The letter was never published.) “I think the death of her son hardened her,” said Sylvia Faddis, a friend at the time. “And I think she became hard in the years she had to fight for the privacy of their lives. I think it is hard for her to trust anyone.” Mark Whitaker, an author who wrote a largely favorable biography of her husband last year, “Cosby: His Life and Times,” said Mrs. Cosby was hardly the first spouse to see protection of the family as the primary priority when confronted by a situation like this. “You see this with political spouses,” he said. “They come to see things as a battle and a siege and who is on our side and who is not.” An intensely private woman, Mrs. Cosby declined to be interviewed by Mr. Whitaker, and Mr. Cosby’s publicist did not make her available for this article. But she was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey in early 2000 and said she had known about her husband’s affair with Ms. Berkes since the 1970s. Mrs. Cosby described a period in their marriage when they both had to learn to be unselfish and said she did not believe in “unconditional love” and wanted to be surrounded by “people with integrity.” Around that time, a young actress who had worked on “Cosby,” the CBS show in which Mr. Cosby starred from 1996 to 2000, told New York City police officers that Mr. Cosby had attempted to force her hand down his sweatpants. But no charges were brought in that case, and Mr. Cosby, 77, who has denied all the allegations of sexual abuse, has never been criminally charged. It is unclear when Mrs. Cosby learned of that actress’s account or to what extent she understood Mr. Cosby’s reputation as a womanizer during a period when he was a fixture at the Playboy Mansion and later when he often traveled alone on comedy tours. Certainly Mrs. Cosby knew her husband had settled a 2005 civil suit filed in Philadelphia by a woman who said she had been drugged and sexually abused. The terms of the settlement were never disclosed, but the woman’s lawyer said they had sworn statements from 13 other women who said they, too, had been molested in some way. More than a dozen other women have surfaced in the past few months with similar stories, a number that prompted several institutions that had been Mr. Cosby’s longtime allies, including Spelman College, to drop their ties. One friend, who asked not to be identified for fear of upsetting the Cosbys, said that beyond her love for her husband, Mrs. Cosby simply had not seen the evidence to suggest she should put any faith in the accounts of women she didn’t know as relayed by media outlets she had long distrusted. “She does not believe these women because they have no proof, only their stories,” the friend said. Mrs. Cosby’s faith in her husband is not so different from that of the many ticket holders who still flock to Mr. Cosby’s shows, give him standing ovations and say they are skeptical of accounts of abuse that took as much as 30 years to surface. Such proof is also essential to Mrs. Cosby, who last year wrote an op-ed article in which she related the trusted advice that her father, a research chemist, had drummed into her. “The evidence,” she remembers him saying, “is the truth.”

Camille Cosby
Bill Cosby
Black People,African-Americans
Discrimination
Rape
News media,journalism


Some Cockroaches Avoid Sweet Flavors as a Defense

Abstract: Everyone knows that cockroaches are the ultimate survivors, with enough evolutionary tricks up their carapaces to have thrived for 350 million years and to have completely adapted to the human species. But the nature of the adaptation that researchers in North Carolina described on Thursday in the journal Science is impressive even for such an ancient, ineradicable lineage, experts say. Some populations of cockroaches evolved a simple, highly effective defense against sweet-tasting poison baits: They switched their internal chemistry around so that glucose, a form of sugar that is a sweet come-hither to countless forms of life, tastes bitter. The way the roach’s senses changed, experts say, is an elegant example of quick evolutionary change in behavior, and offers the multibillion-dollar pest control industry valuable insights into enemy secrets, perhaps even revealing some clues for the fight against malaria-carrying mosquitoes, which are far more dangerous to human health than roaches. “This is a fantastic discovery,” said Walter S. Leal, the head of the entomology department in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at the University of California, Davis. (Dr. Leal was not part of the research.) “Sometimes,” he said, “the science is beautiful but you don’t know whether there is going to be an application five years from now, 10 years from now or 100 years.” But in this case, he said, the impact is both fundamental and practical. Ayako Wada-Katsumata, Jules Silverman and Coby Schal, all at North Carolina State University, who wrote the report in Science, set out to explain a well-known phenomenon: Some populations of German cockroaches (the ones that apartment dwellers see scurrying around in the kitchen at night) avoid poison bait that is laced with glucose, which is supposed to attract them. This behavior, discovered by Dr. Silverman, “first appeared in the early ’90s,” said Jim Fredericks, chief entomologist at the National Pest Management Association, shortly after exterminators — who now prefer to be called pest management professionals — started using poison baits instead of spraying as the main method of battling roaches. To get around the problem, the industry developed new baits, but the change in roach behavior was a puzzle. Image The head of a male German cockroach. The insect's taste hairs, which extend from its face, antennae and mouth, contain sweet and bitter detectors that help some cockroaches avoid traps baited with glucose. Credit Ayako Wada-Katsumata and Andrew Ernst Grzegorz Buczkowski, an entomologist at Purdue University who was not involved in the research, said the industry was always developing new poisons, because roaches and other pests become resistant to their effects, just as bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. “We lose baits all the time,” he said. But in this case, the problem was not a poison that had become ineffective. The cockroaches just seemed to avoid any bait that had glucose. Dr. Silverman showed that this behavior was inherited, not something an individual roach learned during its brief life. And a few years ago the North Carolina researchers decided to investigate what caused the change. Instead of taste buds, roaches have taste hairs on many parts of their bodies. The three North Carolina researchers concentrated on those around the mouth area and on two types of nerve cells that sense tastes and respond by firing electrical signals to the brain. One responds only to sugars and other sweet substances; the other responds only to bitter substances. Whenever a molecule of something sweet attaches to a sweet detector, it fires electrical impulses and the roach brain senses sweetness, which makes it want to eat whatever it is tasting. Whenever a molecule of something bitter attaches to the bitter detector, that cell fires and the brain senses bitterness, which makes the roach want to avoid that substance. But somehow the roaches had changed so that the glucose made the bitter detector fire. “Basically,” said Dr. Buczkowski, “when cockroaches taste glucose, they’re repelled by it because it tastes bitter to them.” Dr. Schal said the next step was to figure out the details of the genetic mutation that had occurred. Perhaps a mutation changed the molecules that detect bitter substances so that they would be sensitive to glucose, too. Or a different sort of mutation could have caused the dedicated bitter neurons to have lots of standard glucose detectors, which did not exist on those neurons before — a shift that also would have made the insects register sweet glucose as bitter. The research may be relevant far beyond roach control, perhaps helping to explain the behavior of mosquitoes that spread malaria, Dr. Schal said. “The mosquito changed its behavior,” he said, “and no longer rests on walls that are treated with insecticide. Instead it tends to rest on the ceiling, or it tends to rest on the outside walls that are not treated with insecticide. “We still don’t understand the cellular, the neural mechanism responsible for this change in behavior of the mosquito,” he said, so the approach that yielded results with the cockroach could offer useful insights.

Cockroach
Research
Insect
Evolution
Pesticide
Science Journal


In Patagonia, Caught Between Visions of the Future

Abstract: COCHRANE, Chile — At the end of a 200-mile stretch of mostly unpaved highway, nearly impassable during the long winter months and only marginally better in summer, sits the quiet community of Cochrane. For generations, this isolation nurtured a bucolic, if insular, existence where little changed. The grasslands around here were sliced up into cattle and sheep ranches. Folktales romanticized the gaucho lifestyle on the wide open Patagonian steppe, sharing maté around the campfire. But for all its remoteness, this hamlet has found itself at the heart of a heated national debate over the future — and some would say, the soul — of Patagonia itself. A short drive outside town, a $10 billion hydroelectric dam project, known as HidroAysén, is being planned, stirring a national outcry against what critics call the destruction of one of Chile’s most pristine ecosystems. Last year, thousands of protesters opposed to the dams took to the streets of the capital, Santiago, while hundreds more clashed with the police in a haze of tear gas and water cannons within view of the presidential palace. But just within eyeshot of the proposed project is the entrance to an entirely different view of Patagonia’s destiny: the 660,000-acre Patagonia National Park, which seeks to preserve the region’s grandeur by drawing tens of thousands of visitors a year. The two competing visions of Patagonia are set so close to each other that they seem to be squaring off in a blatant ideological battle, leaving local residents struggling to grasp where they fit in. The inauguration of the first work-training center in this remote Patagonian hamlet was a case in point, a significant but awkward event. The building, a three-room log cabin-like structure, was created for the purpose of molding an agrarian population into a skilled labor force for dam construction. As back-slapping company men congratulated city and school officials, the honored guests, a collection of former ranch hands and itinerant workers, among them Modesto Sepulveda, a 27-year-old converted gaucho, stood sheepishly in a corner, nibbling on bite-size empanadas and dishes of ceviche. Mr. Sepulveda, a soft-spoken husband and father of two, was awarded a certificate acknowledging his successful completion of construction site basics. On this evening, however, he was more philosophical than festive. “Development is coming, and we had all best adapt because sooner or later we aren’t going to have another option,” Mr. Sepulveda said plainly. The energy project is a partnership between the Italian-Spanish company Endesa and the Chilean company Colbún, which plan to harness the power of the untamed Baker and Pascua Rivers through a series of five dams that would generate 2,750 megawatts, primarily for energy-starved cities farther north. But while protesters denounce the threat to flora and fauna, María Ester Quijanes, a Cochrane City Council member, is more concerned that the project will create a privileged class of citizens than with the environmental consequences of damming Patagonia. “Politically, I agree with the dams because I believe in energy independence,” Mrs. Quijanes said, “but I do worry they are going to create a social imbalance between those who can adjust to a different work culture and those who can’t.” With a few notable exceptions, the controversy that seems to follow HidroAysén around the rest of the country is surprisingly absent from Cochrane. There is a simple explanation, according to Luigi Solís, 33, who was hired to build trails in Patagonia National Park: “They win you over with money.” HidroAysén has invested substantially in Cochrane’s future, supporting infrastructure projects, training hundreds to work on the dams while promising to train hundreds more, and offering 150 technical university scholarships for high school students. The company also has a Cochrane office with an open-door policy where citizens can peruse a model of the hydroelectric dam project. Conservación Patagónica , the foundation behind Patagonia National Park, has also channeled its energies toward infrastructure building, but it has largely overlooked public outreach. Its image among residents has suffered as a result. The community was incensed when the foundation bought and then shut down the biggest ranch in the region, contributing to what residents saw as the decimation of their traditional way of life. The purchase, made in 2004, was for a 173,000-acre tract, ideally positioned between two national reserves, allowing for a sweeping stretch of conservation land. It has not helped relations that the foundation — and thus the former ranch — is under the control of an outsider, Kristine Tompkins, the former chief executive of the Patagonia clothing company. Fueling the fire, she is married to the environmentalist Douglas Tompkins, whose own efforts at conservation in Chile have stirred nationalist sentiments. Exaggerated stories about the park run the gamut, from prejudice against locals who once managed the ranch — actually, the park has 50 employees, about the same number as during the ranching days — to criticisms that a gaucho-less countryside has allowed for a resurgence of the once maligned puma. “Lately, we’ve been organizing visits to dispel the myths older residents have about us while enchanting younger residents,” Mr. Solís said. The foundation has bought more land, restored ecosystems, recovered huemul deer and puma populations, and carved out a system of trails. It is also building park headquarters that will feature a museum, a restaurant and cabins made of stones from a small foundation-operated quarry, interior woodwork of recycled wood and roofs made from copper, Chile’s main export. It is an ambitious project, fashioned in the mold of Yellowstone or Yosemite National Parks. When completed, Patagonia National Park will unite the 460,000 acres of the adjacent national reserves with the 200,000 it has acquired, forming a unique range of semi-arid Patagonia steppe and temperate beech forests. “World-class parks attract people from all over the world,” Mr. Tompkins said. “I’ve seen it over and over again. It will be a tremendous opportunity to develop a new industry in this area, if they don’t build those dams.” Mr. Tompkins believes that within a few years the park could be drawing upwards of 150,000 visitors per year, similar to Torres del Paine , Chile’s other famous Patagonia park. And those visitors will need hotels, equipment rental, tourism agencies and transportation. “Sure, people talk about the expansion of tourism, but nobody truly understands what it means,” said Marcelina Catalán, 42, who runs Cafe Internet Mazal, the lone Internet cafe in Cochrane, with six computers and a patchy connection. “You have to prepare people if you are serious about developing a tourism industry.” Those opposed to HidroAysén and Patagonia National Park say their presence has already introduced social ills and caused divisions among residents of this tight-knit community. “Suddenly there is a nostalgia for the past,” said Rosa Gómez, 66, a retired teacher and local historian. “But people forget how tremendously isolated we were back then.” When she was a teenager, electricity and drinking water were luxuries, and the only way in or out of town was on horseback. Even if turning back the clock were possible, she said, who would? “If I had to weigh the trust and harmony that existed between neighbors back then with all that we have now,” Ms. Gomez said, pausing to consider the options, “the scale tips toward now.”

Patagonia (Chile)
Infrastructure (Public Works)
Water
Levees and Dams
Restoration and Renovation
National Parks Monuments and Seashores
Hydroelectric Power


Russian Soccer Fans Marching Backward to Intolerance

Abstract: A year in which racism and xenophobia have marred European soccer has brought another brazen act of intolerance. The largest fan club of Zenit St. Petersburg , the two-time defending Russian champion, has demanded that the team include no black or gay players . The prominent group of Zenit supporters, known as Landscrona, posted a letter on its Web site on Monday, saying it wanted to preserve the traditional identity of the team by signing only homegrown players or those from Slavic nations like Ukraine and Belarus, from the Baltic nations or from Scandinavia. The club did not have a black player until late summer and has a history of prejudiced behavior by some of its fans. “Dark-skinned players are all but forced down Zenit’s throat now, which only brings out a negative reaction,” the fan group said, adding that gay players were “unworthy of our great city.” Antiracism officials said the episode was another embarrassment for Russia as it prepares to host the 2018 World Cup and for Gazprom , the government-controlled natural gas company that owns Zenit St. Petersburg and is a sponsor of the Champions League, Europe’s most important club tournament. Late Monday night, Zenit’s sporting director, Dietmar Beiersdorfer, rebuked the fan group , saying on the club Web site, “We make our player selections without any limitation regarding origin, religion or skin color.” Zenit’s Italian manager, Luciano Spalletti, called for inclusiveness and respect of other cultures in an interview with the club’s radio network , saying that “being tolerant means that you fight against any kind of stupidity.” Despite Zenit’s disavowal of its fan club’s demand to sign only white players, “at some point, this policy has been practiced by the club,” said Piara Powar, the executive director of the London-based FARE network , formerly known as Football Against Racism in Europe. Zenit was the only top-level Russian club never to include a black player until early September, when it signed the Brazilian forward Hulk and the Belgian midfielder Axel Witsel for a combined $100 million. In late September, according to Russian news accounts, a fake bomb was found in a bag at Zenit’s training site , with a photograph of Hulk and the inscription, “Hulk out!” The French midfielder Yann M’Vila, who is black, reportedly turned down a transfer to Zenit in August after receiving threats from some of the club’s most extreme supporters, known as ultras, who have a notorious saying, “There’s no black in the colors of Zenit.” Last year, Zenit was fined about $10,000 after one of its fans offered a banana to Roberto Carlos, the onetime Brazilian great who was finishing his club career in Russia. Later last year, Carlos walked off the field before the final whistle in a match against Zenit after a banana was thrown at him . In 2008, Zenit’s manager at the time, Dick Advocaat of the Netherlands, said, “I would be happy to sign anyone, but the fans don’t like black players.” In 2007, Serge Branco, a midfielder from Cameroon playing in the Russian league, said he incurred repeated racial abuse by Zenit fans and added, “Zenit bosses do not do anything about it, which makes me think they are racists, too.” European soccer has dealt with a number of high-profile instances of racial abuse since last December, including the suspensions of Luis Suárez of Liverpool and John Terry of Chelsea in England’s Premier League. By degree, racism and xenophobia have historically been more virulent in Eastern Europe, with some fans making monkey chants and throwing bananas, and others giving Nazi salutes. The Russian soccer federation was fined $150,000 at the European Championships last summer after some fans fought with stadium stewards and displayed nationalistic “Russian Empire” flags. Russian fans also clashed with Polish fans in Warsaw and were accused of racially taunting Theodor Gebre Selassie, the lone black player for the Czech Republic. “People ask me, ‘Are we in crisis in Europe?’ ” Powar of the FARE antiracist organization said in a telephone interview from London. “I don’t think so. There’s not the same focus on racial tribalism as in the past. I think some big gains have been made. But some things we took for granted have been eroded away. It’s been a tough year, a step backward.” The latest racial behavior by Zenit fans underscores the education of tolerance necessary in Russia ahead of the 2018 World Cup, said Powar, who visited Moscow last week. The Russian soccer federation “understands the problems they face; they seem determined to do what they can,” Powar said. “But in the end, Russia is a very big place. To completely eradicate elements like this is going to be very difficult.” Some antiracism officials have criticized the muted response by European soccer officials to the latest Zenit incident. UEFA , European soccer’s governing body, has asked Zenit to clarify its position on the signing of players. Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA , soccer’s world governing body, which has called for zero tolerance of racism, could not be reached for comment. The FIFA Web site did not address the issue Monday or Tuesday. “Where is the world governing body in its denouncement?” said Lord Herman Ouseley of London, chairman of the antiracist group Kick it Out . Last week, Ouseley resigned a position with the English soccer federation , saying he thought it was retreating in its fight against racism. Of the demand by Zenit fans, he said from London: “It stands out because it’s gone public. But a lot of people are trying to articulate prejudices in different ways, behind the scenes, with a lot of pressure applied.” Given the growing diversity on Europe’s elite club teams, adherence to a policy of racial purity would only limit the breadth of Zenit’s player pool and lead to isolation and failure, Powar said. “Perhaps that is no bad thing,” he said.

Zenit (Soccer Team)
Gazprom
St Petersburg (Russia)
Discrimination
Soccer
Russia
Blacks
Homosexuality
Zenit St Petersburg (Soccer Team)


Bastrop State Park, Emerging From Rehab, Focuses on Future Fire Prevention

Abstract: Less than a year after a wildfire burned 96 percent of Bastrop State Park’s 6,613 acres in Central Texas, the park is showing signs of rebirth. Camping areas and hiking trails have recently reopened, and grass and trees are growing from the once-charred soil. The devastating September fire hit the park as it was suffering through the most severe drought in recorded Texas history. “It blew everybody away,” said Roger Dolle, the park’s site manager. “Nobody could believe how this fire reacted and how fast it burned and how hot it burned. After years and years of drought and prime fuels, it was the perfect storm.” Although pine trees may never grow back as densely in some areas — 34 percent of the park was heavily damaged — none of the park’s buildings were burned. The park, which opened in December for the first time after the fire, closed again after heavy January rains. This month, after some improvement projects unrelated to the fire and park rehabilitation were completed, cabins and most hiking trails and camping areas reopened to the public. Justice Jones, a fire prevention coordinator at the Texas Forest Service, said Bastrop officials had done all they could to educate people about protecting their homes before the blaze. The state was experiencing extreme heat and little rainfall, and the fire began when trees fell on power lines. “We knew it was going to be a bad year,” Mr. Jones said. “We knew that area was extremely high risk.” Bastrop’s power companies wanted to clear trees around the area’s power lines before re-energizing them. Bastrop State Park officials, not wanting to chop down any of the few live trees they still had, began a project to route their primary electric service underground. The new placement would also avoid a repeat of how the huge wildfire started. Since the fire, park officials have also chopped down leaning or burned trees that could have fallen on roads or campsites, battled erosion and rerouted hiking trails. The Texas Department of Transportation has been fixing rain-damaged roads. Native oak and invasive yaupon trees have sprouted. Park officials were prepared for erosion problems after the fire burned grass and small plants holding the soil in place, and heavy rains washed away roads and the soil. To address the problem, parts of the park were sprayed with a mustard yellow mixture of water, a gluelike solution, fine wood fiber mulch and grass seeds through a process called hydromulching. The hydromulch has already withstood heavy rain, and Mr. Dolle is hopeful that the rehabilitation will hold up. Mr. Dolle also wants to start replanting pine trees this winter and to continue over the next few years. “We’re hesitant to go out and start planting, because we don’t know what Mother Nature is going to throw at us,” Mr. Dolle said. “But we’ve got to do something.” Oaks have started sprouting, but because park officials do not want the park to turn into an oak and yaupon thicket that competes with pines for resources, park officials plan to cull the oak and yaupon manually or with chemicals or controlled burning. The region’s endangered Houston toad has not regenerated as quickly. The toads can burrow up to a foot underground, but the fire burned as deep as 18 inches. Toads have been spotted since the fire, but the outlook for them is “pretty grim,” Mr. Dolle said. Texas parks were already facing a $4.6 million budget shortfall for 2012 when the fire hit. About half of Texas state parks’ revenue comes from visitor fees, but the drought has discouraged camping across the state. Erosion control alone has already cost the park $1.1 million, and it is not finished. Most of the park’s rehabilitation has been paid for by donations. “Getting folks to come out and visit state parks is the best thing that we can ask for,” said Todd McClanahan, a regional director for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Bastrop State Park
Forest and Brush Fires
Texas
Forests and Forestry
Parks and Other Recreation Areas


Giving Names to Souls Forgotten No Longer

Abstract: THIELLS, N.Y. There was no reason to think that anyone would ever care to remember the 910 or so anonymous souls buried in a distant sloping glade under the T-shaped metal markers with no names, just numbers. They had, after all, been almost invisible in life. Why try to glimpse them now? But sometimes people find ways to make amends, however belated. And so here and in other relics of a long-gone world of institutionalized care for society’s outcasts, there’s a movement afoot to remember, to replace numbers with names, to acknowledge the worth of people who lived and died long ago in a world designed to be as distant as the stars. You won’t find the old cemetery at Letchworth Village unless you look for it — down the gravel path, over the modest creek, into the woods off Call Hollow Road. From 1917 to 1967 it became the final resting place for almost 1,000 participants in a grand experiment that symbolized the aspirations and limitations of a distant era of institutionalized care. Back then it was the home for generations of people viewed generically as the “feebleminded”: the mentally ill, the mentally retarded, epileptics, the homeless and others with nothing to tether them to home, family or society. Now, here and elsewhere, people are digging through records, checking death certificates, comparing numbers on graves with names in old ledgers, so these dead, too, will be remembered. “It’s a way to bring dignity to these people,” said Jacqueline Ferrara, the ombudsman for the regional office of the state agency that provides services to people with developmental disabilities. Letchworth Village sent the last of its residents out into group homes in 1996. “There was a time when, I hate to say it, but it was like out of sight, out of mind. This is a way to remember that these were people whose lives had worth and who deserve to be remembered.” Letchworth Village was never a perfect place, of course. How could it be? Still, when it opened in Rockland County in 1911, the inspiration of William Pryor Letchworth, who had made a fortune in the harness business, the idea seemed breathtakingly noble for its time. Instead of overcrowded Dickensian refuges for society’s most vulnerable, there would be a nurturing village in the woods with an acre of land for every inhabitant. Instead of Stygian high rises, there would be 130 rustic fieldstone cottages. There was a band, a Boy Scout troop and a self-sufficient community where residents farmed and raised cattle, pigs and chickens. They made toys to sell at Christmas, and when they died, unless they were taken to family burial plots, their remains went to the cemetery in the sloping two-acre grove. The dream outstripped the reality, and at its peak Letchworth Village had about twice the population originally forecast and some of its own horrors, caught up in allegations of mistreatment. And even from the start, whatever indignities that remained from life were compounded in death. Whether because the state saw no need to pay for gravestones for people whose lives were so devalued anyway or because their families did not want the shame of their afflicted son or daughter, brother or aunt advertised to all who might come to visit, they were buried anonymously. The graves were marked only by the numbered steel markers anchored to the ground by cement poured into industrial-size cans. In 1967, they began burying the dead in a second graveyard that did have headstones, but the old cemetery today has a capricious air of eerie repose, the hundreds of steel markers like odd industrial blooms augmented by occasional stray headstones paid for by family members. As it turned out, it was the modern-day counterparts of the forgotten dead who first spoke up for them. At meetings of the so-called self advocates living in group homes, the subject of the cemeteries came up. FROM that came a commitment on the part of the advocates and state agencies to bring dignity to the anonymous dead. The first place it was done was at what was once the Wassaic Developmental Center. There, a bronze marker in stone lists the names of some 625 of the dead under the heading: “In Memory of Those Who Shall Not Be Forgotten.” At the old Letchworth Village cemetery, there’s a new planter and wooden sign at the entrance to the graveyard. Mrs. Ferrara is going through all the records to come up with names for a plaque planned for this spring. It’s a gesture perhaps about symbolism as much as reality. Few people come to visit the site, most of whose denizens were buried a half-century to almost a century ago. Vandals have knocked over some of the markers, and there’s trash dumped in the woods leading up to it. Still, she walks through the cemetery, dead leaves swirling underfoot, metal markers listing this way and that, and says: “These are lives that should be recognized and celebrated and acknowledged, not as numbers, but as names. It’s the right thing to do.”

Cemeteries
Mental Health and Disorders
New York State


Carmelo Anthony Speaks About His Future After Knicks Roll Over

Abstract: The Knicks’ steady descent into chaos continued Sunday afternoon in Toronto, where forward Carmelo Anthony punctuated the team’s blowout loss to the Raptors by lashing out at the team’s management. Anthony opened the door to a possible departure from the Knicks by telling reporters that if Phil Jackson, the team president, no longer wanted him around, then it was a “conversation we should have.” Anthony’s comments came in response to questions from reporters about a column by Charley Rosen, a former assistant coach under Jackson and a longtime Jackson confidante, that was published on the website FanRag . In the column, Rosen wrote that Anthony had “outlived his usefulness in New York,” that his legs were “going, going, almost gone” and that Anthony would be willing to waive the no-trade clause in his contract to land with a contender. Image Toronto’s DeMar DeRozan, left, driving against Knicks center Kyle O’Quinn. DeRozan led the Raptors with 23 points. Credit Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press On Sunday, after the Knicks trailed the Raptors by as many as 38 points in falling, 116-101, at Air Canada Centre, Anthony said that he remained committed to the Knicks and denied that he had even considered waiving his no-trade clause. At the same time, he seemed to suggest that the views in Rosen’s column could have come directly from team officials. “Listen, if that’s how they feel, if that’s coming from that side, then that’s what’s coming from that side,” Anthony told reporters. “I haven’t thought once about that, to be honest with you. I hear it. I hear all the rhetoric that’s going on out there.” The last time Jackson spoke to the reporters who regularly cover the team was in the preseason. His most recent public comments came via Twitter on Dec. 27, when he announced the end of his romantic relationship with Jeanie Buss, the president of the Los Angeles Lakers. Jackson has otherwise remained silent throughout his team’s recent struggles. The Knicks have lost 10 of their last 12 games, a miserable stretch that has featured no shortage of drama — underscored by point guard Derrick Rose’s unexcused absence from a loss to the New Orleans Pelicans last week. Jackson has not commented on that situation, either. At the midway point of the season, the Knicks are 18-23 and several games out of playoff contention. Anthony, 32, whose contract with the Knicks runs through the 2018-19 season, is averaging 22 points a game while shooting 42.6 percent from the field. There have been a number of games when he has carried the team, but he has appeared to show his age in others. Anthony and Jackson have not had the best working relationship this season. In December, Anthony was annoyed after Jackson criticized him in an interview with CBS Sports Network for sometimes holding on to the ball too long. Eventually, the two met in Los Angeles during a trip to smooth things over. But now an even bigger rift may have opened.

Basketball
Knicks
Jeff Hornacek
Carmelo Anthony


Italian Regulators Investigating Google

Abstract: PARIS — Italian competition authorities said Thursday that they were investigating Google, following complaints from publishers that the company was abusing its dominant position on the Internet to deny them a fair share of online advertising revenue. Carlo Malinconico, president of the Italian Federation of Newspaper Publishers, said the group had complained to the antitrust authority about a “lack of transparency” in Google’s search engine and Google News service, which compiles blurbs of news stories on the Web and provides links to them. Because Google does not disclose the criteria for ranking news articles or search results, he said, newspapers are unable to hone their content to try to earn more revenue from online advertising. Ad revenue on the Web is directly proportional to the size of the audience, which is heavily influenced by search or Google News rankings. “Publishers provide much of the content on the Internet, but they get nearly nothing for it,” he said. “This is not fair, in our opinion. Our feeling is we lose more than we gain.” Google said it had become aware of the investigation only on Thursday morning, when investigators showed up to search its offices in Milan. “The Competition Authority has notified us of a claim against Google Italy,” the company said in a statement. “We're finding out more details today, although we do know that it’s in relation to Google News, which drives significant traffic and new readers to newspaper Web sites.” Publishers in a number of countries have complained about Google News, saying few readers bother to click through from the blurbs to their own Web sites. In Belgium, a newspaper organization, Copiepresse, successfully sued to prevent Google from including its newspapers’ articles in the news service. In Denmark, publishers banded together to prevent Google from setting up a news site, arguing that doing so would have violated Danish copyright law. Google says any publisher can opt out of having their content included in Google News — or the company’s search engine, for that matter, though few publishers want to take this step, because search links often provide a majority of Web visitors. But the Italian publishers contend that they are punished if they drop out of Google News, saying they are then automatically excluded from the search engine, too. Google denies this. Like newspapers in many places, Italian dailies are suffering from circulation declines and a steep drop in the advertising market. Online advertising has been particularly slow to develop in Italy, with ads linked to search results growing more rapidly than other kinds of ads. Mr. Malinconico said that in addition to the complaint against Google, the federation was also looking at other measures to try to generate more revenue from the Web. It has begun a study of the possibilities for charging readers for access to newspaper Web sites, for example. “We don’t think that these measures will compensate for the loss of advertising, but it is good to react,” he said.


Top Posts Remain Vacant Throughout Obama Administration

Abstract: WASHINGTON — John Kerry is practically home alone at the State Department, toiling without permanent assistant secretaries of state for the Middle East, Asia, Europe and Africa. At the Pentagon, a temporary personnel chief is managing furloughs for 800,000 civilian employees. There has not been a director of the Internal Revenue Service since last November, and it was only on Thursday that President Obama announced a nomination for commerce secretary after the job was open for nearly a year. As the White House races this week to plug holes in the cabinet, the lights remain off in essential offices across the administration. The vacancies, attributed to partisan politics and lengthy White House vetting, are slowing policy making in a capital already known for inaction, and embarrassing a president who has had more than five months since his re-election to fill many of the jobs. “I don’t think it’s ever been this bad,” said Representative Frank R. Wolf, Republican of Virginia, who recently wrote a letter urging Mr. Obama to act swiftly to fill top vacancies. One of the worst backlogs is at the State Department, where nearly a quarter of the most senior posts are not filled, including those in charge of embassy security and counterterrorism. The Treasury Department is searching for a new No. 2, the Department of Homeland Security is missing its top two cybersecurity officials and about 30 percent of the top jobs at the Commerce Department are still vacant, including that of chief economist. At the Pentagon, which is helping to lead the administration’s pivot to a greater focus on Asia, the assistant secretary of defense for Asia is about to leave his job. Mr. Kerry expressed frustration about the State Department vacancies in recent testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, saying he was “still waiting for the vetting to move” at the White House for people he recommended for jobs “way back in February.” But in a statement to The New York Times, Mr. Kerry said, “I have a new appreciation for how much the confirmation process has become a political football in recent years and what that forces on the vetting process required to announce nominees.” Although Mr. Kerry said that “the White House and the administration make the very best out of a tough situation,” who is to blame is a matter of intense debate. The White House faults an increasingly partisan confirmation process in the Senate and what officials say are over-the-top demands for information about every corner of a nominee’s life. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew received 444 questions from senators before his confirmation, more than the seven previous Treasury nominees combined, according to data compiled by the White House. Gina McCarthy, Mr. Obama’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, got 1,000 questions from the Senate, White House officials said. “Current Congressional Republicans have made no secret of the extraordinary lengths they will go to to obstruct the confirmation process,” said Eric Schultz, a White House spokesman. “That unprecedented evasiveness, often about matters decades old or unrelated to the post, slows down the process from beginning to end.” Image Secretary of State John Kerry said he had a new appreciation of the delays caused by the Senate confirmation process. Credit Jewel Samad/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images But members of Congress and a number of agency officials say the bottleneck is at the White House, where nominees remain unannounced as the legal and personnel offices conduct time-consuming background checks aimed at discovering the slightest potential problem that could hold up a confirmation. People who have gone through the vetting in Mr. Obama’s White House describe a grueling process, lasting weeks or months, in which lawyers and political operatives search for anything that might hint at scandal. Administration officials, members of Congress and scholars of the federal appointment process say it is difficult to determine — short of a six-month-long study — if Mr. Obama has filled fewer of the roughly 1,200 federal jobs that require Senate confirmation than George W. Bush or Bill Clinton had at this point in their second terms. But there is widespread agreement that an alarming number of important posts in the government’s most senior ranks are vacant or filled with acting deputies with little authority to make decisions. “It’s a weakening of accountability down the chain of command,” said Paul Light, a professor at New York University who has done extensive research on the appointment process. “You don’t have someone there who has full authority to say ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ The whole system tends to grind down to a very slow crawl.” The vetting process varies in the Obama White House, but it typically begins with a brief conversation with a lawyer from the White House counsel’s office on basic questions: drug use, taxes, criminal convictions. Next are financial disclosure forms seeking information about transactions as far back as a decade: home purchases, investments, income, employment. That is followed by questions from the Office of Government Ethics, which scours the answers for inconsistencies. In the security check that follows, potential nominees are asked to disclose all travel and meetings with foreign governments during the past 10 years or more. That is followed by a request for everything the nominee has ever written — papers, speeches, articles — and the official questions from members of Congress. “The basic premise was that it was better to over-vet, to get everything on the table early and not give something that could end up becoming a scandal,” said one former administration official, who underwent his own examination and requested anonymity to discuss internal White House procedures. At the State Department, the top official for arms control is waiting for Senate confirmation, and there is no permanent ambassador at large for global women’s issues. Mr. Kerry is also missing one of his two primary deputies. White House officials say that the vacancies are the result of departures when Hillary Rodham Clinton left the top post after the November election. Several came open just a few weeks ago. The Commerce Department vacancies have emerged since John E. Bryson abruptly left the secretary’s post last June after an accident in which he had a seizure while driving. On Thursday, Mr. Obama nominated Penny Pritzker, his longtime financial backer and an heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, to lead the agency. Mr. Wolf, the Virginia Republican, who has long focused attention on the war in Darfur, said the lack of a top State Department official for Africa meant that “you don’t have the decision makers there.” In a letter to Rebecca M. Blank, the deputy commerce secretary, he wrote that he was also concerned about the vacancies in her department. “I urge you to prompt the White House to expeditiously appoint persons to these important positions,” Mr. Wolf wrote. In thick black ink, he underlined the words “prompt” and “expeditiously,” and added “This is important” under his signature. William A. Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who was a co-author of an article titled “A Half-Empty Government Can’t Govern,” said he was especially taken aback by the State Department vacancies. “John Kerry won’t be able to function very long as his own assistant secretary for the Near East,” he said.

US Politics
Appointments and Executive Changes
Barack Obama
State Department
Commerce Department
John Kerry


Chronicler of Police Says His Arrest Was Payback for Harlem Video

Abstract: In the streets of his native Harlem, Joseph Hayden is a familiar presence, patrolling the neighborhood with his video camera, ready to document interactions between the police and the residents they stop — and doing so at an age when most people have retired. “Like I tell them,” Mr. Hayden, 71, said recently of the police, “I’m on your side to make sure there is courtesy, professionalism and respect. Isn’t that what you advertise on the side of your car?” “Seems like you’d want me to do it,” he added, “unless what you’re providing is not courtesy, professionalism and respect.” Mr. Hayden found himself on the receiving end of police scrutiny one evening last December, when he was arrested on charges of weapons possession after a traffic stop. Mr. Hayden, known as Jazz, said that his arrest was the product of a “bogus stop and frisk ,” and that it stemmed from his visible activism: he posts his videos on a Web site, All Things Harlem . “Our work galvanized them to push back, which resulted in my arrest,” Mr. Hayden said as he drove his old Jeep through his neighborhood one afternoon. As he fights to have the charges dropped, Mr. Hayden’s efforts have gathered support. There is an online petition with more than 2,000 names, as well as a letter-writing campaign to the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., whom Mr. Hayden interviewed for his Web site when Mr. Vance was running for election. There have also been rallies, the most recent held last week outside Mr. Vance’s office. His supporters characterize him as a leader in the growing field of a certain brand of citizen journalism , whose practitioners post videos or offer live streaming of encounters involving the police. “What Jazz is doing, it sparked this cop-watch thing,” said Christina Gonzalez, 25, a Harlem resident who, along with her partner, Matthew Swaye, has posted videos of police actions on YouTube. Their work led to their being characterized as “professional agitators” on a Police Department flier posted at the 30th Precinct station house in Harlem. “Even if my card is full or my camera is dead,” Ms. Gonzalez said, “I want officers to know they’re being watched.” Mr. Hayden is a short, gray-bearded man with faint tattoos on his brawny arms. He had a criminal history long before his current legal troubles. He was first convicted at 16 for heroin possession, and his other convictions include ones for manslaughter and laundering money for organized crime. But he said he believed that the pending charges stemmed from a video that he recorded one night outside the Seville Lounge in July 2011. The video displays his usual journalistic style, which he concedes tends to be aggressive. In it, he peppers officers with questions as they search a car, with the two occupants standing by the curb: What had the occupants done to prompt the search? Had they been violent, or displayed any weapons? Several times, Mr. Hayden lets the officers know, “Yeah, I got you,” aiming his camera into the glare of a police flashlight. Mr. Hayden advises the driver not to give permission for the search, then resumes his commentary. “This is what Harlem has turned into,” he says, “an open-air prison. You can get stopped for anything.” At some point, a man — Mr. Hayden said it was one of the officers — asks him: “You done selling drugs yet or what? I know your rap sheet.” “You done abusing your authority?” Mr. Hayden spits back. The two trade barbs. Months later, Mr. Hayden said, the same officers pulled him over at West 132nd Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard. He said he was driving from Riverside Church, headed to his daughter’s home after a prison ministry meeting, when he saw flashing police lights. “Hey, we know you,” Mr. Hayden said one of the officers told him. “Do you still sell drugs?” Mr. Hayden said the officers eventually told him that a taillight was broken on his old Jeep, which Mr. Hayden disputes. The criminal complaint does not give a reason for the stop. Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said the police interest in Mr. Hayden “was far more pedestrian” than drugs. “He was pulled over for a broken taillight,” Mr. Browne said in an e-mail. “Officers saw in plain view a wooden club in the rear of the auto and a switchblade knife in the center console where Hayden began to reach. He was removed from the auto and placed under arrest.” Mr. Browne added that Mr. Hayden had 22 previous arrests, dating to November 1957, and noted his 12 years spent in prison for manslaughter in the death of a sanitation worker. Mr. Hayden, who now lives in Yonkers, acknowledges his arrest record. “I’m not ashamed of anything in my life — nothing, absolutely nothing,” he said. He also said his past bore no relevance to the man he is now. “I think Malcolm X said, there’s nothing wrong with being a criminal — it’s staying a criminal,” Mr. Hayden said. He was charged was two counts of criminal possession of a weapon, a third-degree felony. He spent the weekend in jail before his arraignment. Prosecutors proposed bail, but the judge released him on his own recognizance. The case goes before a grand jury on Thursday. If he is ultimately convicted, Mr. Hayden could spend two to seven years in prison. The weapons in question, according to Mr. Hayden and his lawyer, Sarah Kunstler, were a souvenir small-scale baseball bat from a Yankees game, and a switchblade that Mr. Hayden said was the sort “you can buy at any 99-cent store in the country.” In any case, Ms. Kunstler said, she is pressing for the case to be dismissed, “given Jazz’s prior history with this officer, and how this case arose.” She added that she now believed that the switchblade was no longer usable as evidence. At a recent meeting in the Manhattan district attorney’s office, “the assistant spent five minutes fumbling with the knife,” Ms. Kunstler said, “and it became apparent that she couldn’t get it open.” “There’s a mechanism that’s bent that prevents it from opening fluidly,” she explained. “The screw in the knife fell out,” she said, “and we couldn’t open it anymore. It was broken, and it’s certainly more broken now.” When asked about the knife, Joan Vollero, a spokeswoman for the district attorney, said, “We will decline comment.” Mr. Hayden said he had already turned down a plea deal, in which he would have performed community service in exchange for admitting guilt to a lesser charge. “I didn’t do anything wrong, man,” he said. “That’s what’s wrong with the system now.”

Hayden Joseph (Jazz)
Video Recordings and Downloads
Police Department (NYC)
Harlem (NYC)
New York City


Avi Loeb Ponders the Early Universe, Nature and Life

Abstract: CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Among astrophysicists, Abraham Loeb is known for his creative and prolific attempts to understand the early universe. Dr. Loeb, known as Avi, specializes in 400,000 years to one billion years after the Big Bang. He has published more than 400 papers on the nature of early stars, galaxies, planets and black holes. “Avi is very good at picking problems to work on that have testable results,” said Robert Wilson, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics (with Arno Penzias) for discovering cosmic microwave background radiation, thought to be a remnant of the Big Bang. I spoke with Dr. Loeb, 52, in his office here at Harvard, where he is the chairman of the astronomy department, and then later by telephone. Here is an edited and condensed version of our conversations. Q. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THE EARLY UNIVERSE AS YOUR AREA OF STUDY? A. Because I like to work where there’s no crowd. One of the great pleasures of astrophysics is trying figure out something about the universe that nobody else has. When I first came to Harvard, about 20 years ago, I was attracted to the question of how and when did the first stars and galaxies form, because this was something that we really didn’t know much about. The only thing we knew was related to the cosmic microwave background radiation which originated about 400,000 years after the Big Bang. We also knew that the galaxies and the stars didn’t always exist. So the question was, when did they form? Over the years, I’ve helped develop tools to image and map what happened. I’ve done calculations and suggested to observational astronomers ways to approach this era. I’ve developed a technique to image the universe in three dimensions that relates to the times when galaxies were formed, and I helped develop tests so that we can detect previously unknown galaxies and black holes. I also developed a test which will hopefully permit us to see the expansion of the universe in real time. It will be loaded onto the James Webb Space Telescope, which is scheduled to be launched in 2018. This should produce new insights. So this once lonely field has gotten crowded. It may be time to do other things. LAST YEAR YOU PUBLISHED AN ASTONISHING PAPER SUGGESTING THAT SOME TYPE OF LIFE MIGHT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE IN THE EARLY UNIVERSE, BILLIONS OF YEARS BEFORE IT APPEARED ON EARTH. WHERE DID THIS COME FROM? On Thanksgiving morning, I had this realization: that at the time the first stars and galaxies were formed, the cosmic microwave background — the radiation left over from the earliest time — was roughly at room temperature. So the universe, at roughly 15 million years after the Big Bang, was at a comfortable enough temperature for the chemistry of life to have incubated. I realized this while in the shower — as often happens. We had guests coming in the afternoon. So I asked my wife if instead of helping her with the meal, I could take care of the dishes after dinner. That gave me a few free hours to think this out. What it came down to was that if there had been planets that early, they could have been warmed by the cosmic microwave background. They didn’t need to be warmed by a star. And so the chemistry of life could have started that early. After I finished working this out, I posted a draft of my paper on arXiv.org, a server where astrophysicists upload writings for feedback from colleagues. To my surprise, journalists also looked at it. Immediately, the phone rang. The paper ended up receiving a lot of media attention . WHAT DO YOU MAKE OF THAT? People are interested. Historically, cosmology has described the universe as full of lifeless objects. That may be a misconception. It may be that the universe is teeming with life. The problem is that life does not produce a lot of energy and it’s hard to detect. I’ve been curious about how this limits us in the search for life. Suppose there is an extraterrestrial civilization on a planet near a star not far from us, and suppose there was a nuclear war there. Could we see it with our telescopes? Turns out that even with the most powerful of contemporary telescopes, we couldn’t see the flare. However, there are ideas and techniques for detecting more subtle signatures — for example, radio signals. YOU ONCE PUBLISHED A PAPER SUGGESTING THAT IF WE’RE SERIOUS ABOUT LOOKING FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE, WE MIGHT SEEK OUT MARKERS OF INDUSTRIALIZATION, LIKE SMOG. SMOG? Yes, smog might serve as a fingerprint of an industrial civilization. It’s always been thought that the way to detect life elsewhere was to look for signs of oxygen. But intelligent life could produce unnatural molecules. They might do that intentionally if their planet was too cold for life. Unnatural molecules might even show signs of a civilization that may not exist anymore because unnatural molecules can survive long after a civilization. SOME OF YOUR WORK SOUNDS ALMOST LIKE SCIENCE FICTION. WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE? It’s not that. Nature has richness beyond our imagination. What I look for are interesting astrophysics questions that are provable. Though my research may ask unconventional questions, the answers are based on calculations, experiments and observations. DID YOU ALWAYS WANT TO BE AN ASTROPHYSICIST? At a young age, I was attracted to philosophy because it asked the most interesting questions. But then, at 18, I had to do my military service in Israel, where I grew up. After some testing, I was allowed to join a special program where you could work on projects useful for the defense of the country. I ended up doing research in plasma physics. And because of that, I was able to visit the United States in the 1980s. During one of these trips, I visited the Institute for Advanced Study. A month later, I was offered the opportunity to do a postdoc there. There was one condition, though: I had to switch to astrophysics. That appealed because it was like returning to an old love — philosophy. In astrophysics, I could address very big questions about nature and life. IN YOUR STUDIES OF THE EARLY UNIVERSE, YOU RUN SMACK AGAINST THE IDEAS OF THE BOOK OF GENESIS. HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THAT? The first chapter of the Bible states that there was a beginning in time. Science shows that we live in an expanding universe, and if you extrapolate, there was a point in time in when things began. In some ways, they are consistent. IS IT POSSIBLE FOR AN ASTROPHYSICIST TO BE RELIGIOUS? It really depends on what you mean by “God.” Spinoza would feel very comfortable with modern science because in his philosophy, God is nature. That pretty much summarizes Einstein’s view, too. So if you’re defining God in a way that identifies the laws of nature with his or her qualities, that’s perfectly consistent. But if you attribute parts of reality to God in a way that cannot be understood by rational thinking, a conflict emerges. HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE VAST QUANTITIES OF TIME AND SPACE THAT YOU MUST NAVIGATE TO DO YOUR WORK? DO YOU, AS IN THAT OLD KURT WEILL SONG , EVER FEEL LOST IN THE STARS? Personally, I do not feel lost in the stars, but rather at home with all of them. When I look at the stars of the Milky Way on a clear night, they appear to me like the lights of a giant spaceship streaming through the universe. Are there any passengers around the other lights in this spaceship? It would be fun to know and perhaps, share experiences with them.

Abraham Loeb
Space
Physics
Extraterrestrial life
Galaxy
Philosophy


Device Won Approval Though F.D.A. Staff Objected

Abstract: WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 - A top federal medical official overruled the unanimous opinion of his scientific staff when he decided last year to approve a pacemaker-like device to treat persistent depression, a Senate committee reported Thursday. The device, the surgically implanted vagus nerve stimulator, had not proved effective against depression in its only clinical trial for treatment of that illness. As a result, scientists at the Food and Drug Administration repeatedly and unanimously recommended rejecting the application of its maker, Cyberonics Inc., to sell it as such a treatment, said the report, written by the staff of the Senate Finance Committee. But Dr. Daniel G. Schultz, director of the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the agency, kept moving the application along and eventually decided to approve it, the report said. That approval did follow the backing of a divided F.D.A. advisory committee. Still, the Senate committee, which for two years has been investigating the decision-making processes at the F.D.A., could find no previous instance in which the director of the center had approved a device in the face of unanimous opposition from staff scientists and administrators beneath him, the report said. Dr. Schultz could not be reached for comment on Thursday, but Susan Bro, an F.D.A. spokeswoman, said the device had been approved because many people with persistent depression "are otherwise on their way to institutionalization, because of the seriousness of their illness." Ms. Bro said top officials did "occasionally overrule staff recommendations after assessing all data, expert opinion and medical need." Jill Gerber, a spokeswoman for Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who heads the Senate committee, said, "The report speaks for itself, and Chairman Grassley has no additional comment." In a 1,900-word written response issued Thursday night, Robert P. Cummins, Cyberonics's chairman and chief executive, said the investigators had failed to interview many experts on serious depression. Mr. Cummins said his company's device was "the only safe and effective treatment option ever specifically developed, studied, F.D.A.-approved and fully informatively labeled for the treatment of chronic or recurrent treatment-resistant depression." The vagus nerve stimulator is surgically implanted in the upper chest, and its wires are threaded into the neck. Batteries in the device stimulate a nerve leading to the brain. The nerve stimulator has been approved since 1997 for the treatment of epilepsy in some patients. Common side effects include voice alteration, increased cough, shortness of breath, neck pain and difficulty swallowing. The device has also been linked to rare reports of death, heart problems and vocal cord paralysis. When some epilepsy patients reported that their moods had changed after receiving the devices, Cyberonics, based in Houston, implanted them in 235 depressed patients and turned the machines on in half of them. After three months, the two groups were equally depressed. The trial had failed. Cyberonics then turned the devices on in all 235 patients and determined that 30 percent showed significant improvement after six months or more. Without a control group, however, it was impossible to determine if the device had caused the improvement. Internal correspondence among F.D.A. reviewers shows that some were bewildered by Dr. Schultz's support for the device, the Senate report said. "In my opinion, they do not have adequate data, and I don't understand how this can move forward," one reviewer wrote in an e-mail message to a colleague, the report said. Another wrote, "As an M.D. interested in science, it seems to me that such an approval would be akin to approving an experimental product."

CENTER FOR DEVICE AND RADIOLOGICAL HEALTH


Blowout Win Moves Leicester Closer to Premier League Title

Abstract: Despite missing its top scorer, Jamie Vardy, because of a one-game suspension, Leicester overpowered visiting Swansea, 4-0, on Sunday to extend its unbeaten run to nine games and draw closer to collecting the Premier League trophy. With the result, the only team that has a chance of catching Leicester is Tottenham, which is set to play West Bromwich Albion on Monday, but Leicester, a 5,000-to-1 preseason long shot, has its destiny in its hands. Leicester, which has an 8-point lead, can clinch the top-flight title for the first time in its 132-year history by collecting 5 points from its remaining three games, regardless of what Tottenham does in its last four. Manchester City and Arsenal can no longer catch Leicester, which last year was simply trying to avoid being relegated. Leicester’s win over Swansea was its biggest in three months. After Riyad Mahrez gave the team a lead in the 10th minute, Vardy’s replacement, Leonardo Ulloa, scored twice. Marc Albrighton, a second-half substitute, completed the rout in the 85th minute. Those performances were surely reassuring for Leicester as Vardy, who has scored 22 goals, continued to wait to hear from the Football Association of England on whether his ban would be extended. Vardy was sent off with a second yellow card in last weekend’s draw against West Ham and reacted angrily to the referee, eventually drawing a charge of improper conduct from the Football Association. Fourth-place Arsenal, which has gone 12 years without winning the league, was held to a 0-0 draw at Sunderland in Sunday’s other game. Later on Sunday, Mahrez, of Leicester, was named English soccer’s player of the year in the Professional Footballers’ Association awards. Mahrez, 25, who was born in France and plays internationally for Algeria, is only the second winner of the award from outside England, after the Uruguayan Luis Suárez, who won in 2014 while with Liverpool. BACK IN FINAL (FINALLY) Twenty-six years after its only appearance in the F.A. Cup final, Crystal Palace will have another chance, having beaten Watford, 2-1, in a semifinal at Wembley Stadium in London. As it did in 1990, Palace will take on Manchester United, which beat Everton on Saturday. JUVENTUS CLOSES IN Gianluigi Buffon saved a late penalty kick, and Juventus took a big step toward a fifth consecutive Serie A title in Italy with a 2-1 win at Fiorentina that left it 12 points ahead of Napoli. If Napoli fails to win at Roma on Monday, Juventus will secure the championship with three matches to spare. If Napoli wins, Juventus needs only 1 more point to clinch. The substitute Álvaro Morata scored the winner in the 83rd minute on Sunday, right after Nikola Kalinic had equalized for Fiorentina. Buffon then stopped a spot kick from Kalinic in the 90th.

Soccer
Tottenham Hotspur Soccer Team
Arsenal Soccer Team
Crystal Palace Soccer Team
Juventus Soccer Team
Riyad Mahrez
Leicester City Soccer Team
Swansea City Soccer Team


An Antiwar March Through Towns Unused to One

Abstract: CENTRAL SQUARE, N.Y. — On Wednesday, Charlie Price was smoking a cigarette and sitting outside his restaurant, Charlie’s Place, on a two-lane stretch of highway on the outskirts of town. He watched as a small group protesting the war in Iraq marched toward him, carrying peace signs and waving at the cars and tractor-trailers whizzing by. “I don’t think it’s going to do any good,” Mr. Price said of their efforts. “I want to get out of there, too, but I don’t think this is the way.” Yet once the protesters, headed for Fort Drum, more than 50 miles away, reached him, Mr. Price eagerly offered them water and a place to rest — a more pleasant welcome than they had received from many others along the way. Carmen Viviano-Crafts, 23, of Syracuse, who was carrying a small cardboard sign that read, “Bring home my boyfriend,” said that some people “gave us the finger and stuff like that.” Since the war in Iraq began five years ago, the Second Brigade at Fort Drum has put in four tours. For the past week, opponents of the war have taken several routes through the conservative and largely rural reaches of upstate New York — small communities that have sent many of their young men and women into the military right after high school and have paid a disproportionate price. On Saturday, which is Armed Forces Day, protesters ranging from peace activists to Iraq Veterans Against the War will hold a daylong rally outside Fort Drum. What they lack in numbers — there were only about 40 on the road on Wednesday — they have made up for in passion, having walked about 80 miles so far. The marchers started from several places, including Rochester, Ithaca and Utica, and merged on Wednesday, signifying the beginning of their final trek toward Fort Drum, just north of Watertown, near the Canadian border. Planners say they have a dual message: to protest both the war and what they see as poor treatment of veterans who are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. On Wednesday, marchers passed through the town of Mexico, home to Joseph C. Godfrey, 54, a business owner whose three children — a daughter and two sons — all chose to join the military. One son, Joseph, returned from a tour in Iraq in October 2004, developed a severe case of post-traumatic stress disorder and was medically discharged. While his family was trying to get him counseling, Joseph began drinking heavily. He was robbed and murdered four months after his discharge as he walked home from a bar. “We felt right from the beginning that if he’d been at a veterans’ hospital, he wouldn’t have been at the bar,” Mr. Godfrey said. Mr. Godfrey’s other son, Justin, 24, has already served one tour in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. In August, he will again depart for Iraq. When Mr. Godfrey — who joined the antiwar group “Military Families Speak Out” after Joseph’s death — learned that marchers were coming through his town, he arranged for them to sleep overnight at the First United Methodist Church in Mexico, about 10 miles from here, even though he feared that the pastor might be criticized by parishioners. “We’re pointing out some of the injustices,” Mr. Godfrey said. “It’s everybody’s responsibility to try and do what they can. And for most of us, it’s not a lot, it’s the little things. The march is one of them.” The marchers are an eclectic group. Some are die-hard protesters. Some are soldiers’ relatives who spontaneously joined after seeing the small parade pass through their towns. Many of them are veterans, including an 89-year-old man who fought in World War II. He rides in a car along the marchers’ route, and meets the group each evening when they stop to rest. At each town, they try to engage the community in conversation. “We’re really not here to argue with people,” said Vicki Ryder, 66, who is driving along with her dog, Harry, who sits in the back seat, wearing a shirt that reads, “Bones Not Bombs.” Along the way, several people have screamed at them, the organizers said, but a far greater percentage of people have expressed support. “Many may have believed in the principle of the war at the start, but now they’re saying that they want the soldiers to come back,” said Kathleen Castania, 59, an organizer who lives in Rochester. Whatever the reaction they draw, the organizers say they are making headway, both emotionally and physically. “There is some apprehension” in the towns, said Tod Ensign, the director of Different Drummer Café, a veterans’-support organization in Watertown. “But I don’t believe this has ever been done before anywhere in the country. This is a first step.”

Iraq
Veterans
Demonstrations and Riots
Fort Drum (NY)


When a C.I.A. Nominee Urged a New York Coup

Abstract: President-elect Barack Obama’s nominee as C.I.A. director plotted his first coup when he was in City Hall. Before he became a California congressman and later chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, Leon E. Panetta was hired in 1970 by Mayor John V. Lindsay , a Republican who had his own national political ambitions and so was busily recruiting alumni of Washington to bolster his national bona fides. By Mr. Lindsay’s standards, Mr. Panetta’s credentials were impeccable. He had been forced out as director of the Nixon administration’s office of civil rights because the White House felt he enforced the laws against discrimination too aggressively. Mr. Lindsay enlisted Mr. Panetta, at the time also a Republican, as executive assistant for intergovernmental relations and a special adviser on civil rights. One of Mr. Panetta’s less heralded legacies as a mayoral assistant first surfaced just after the city’s agenda was rebuffed in the 1971 legislative session. The city, Mr. Lindsay complained, “had been raped, but we’re being charged with prostitution.” Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller replied that the mayor was “emotionally upset” and that “the poor man has been under a lot of pressure.” A memo from Mr. Panetta dated May 19, 1971 , and now on deposit in the mayoral archives at La Guardia Community College in Queens said that New York City “can no longer depend on a body of upstate legislators, who are out of touch with urban problems, to respond to the city’s crucial needs.” “The tragic question is how long can the city survive this desperate annual crisis?” he wrote, adding that it seemed “ludicrous that the largest city in the nation” should be “totally dependent for its fiscal and administrative survival on an annual begging session that results in little sympathy much less actual relief.” Mr. Panetta embraced a radical regime change that had been advanced by Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin during their joint 1969 campaign for mayor and City Council president . “Statehood — while initiated somewhat facetiously during the last campaign — is not an unrealistic possibility,” he wrote. “Indeed, it may well be the only sensible approach to governing New York City.” Mr. Panetta acknowledged that “there are, of course, enough problems these days facing the city without taking on the implications of statehood.” And he warned, in a version of C.I.A.-speak, that seceding to form a separate state could trigger a “wild and possible vicious” power struggle. Still, he concluded, the city would come out ahead. He strongly recommended to Mr. Lindsay that the possibility be pursued. Mr. Rockefeller denounced the 51st-state proposal as childish, and it withered as the city and state appointed competing commissions to examine intergovernmental relations. “It was a nonstarter,” recalled William J. vanden Heuvel, who headed the city commission named by Mr. Lindsay. Mr. Panetta resigned later that year, frustrated with blurred lines of jurisdiction and bureaucracy (problems he is likely to confront again at the C.I.A.). Like Mr. Lindsay, he became a Democrat. A confidential subject file in the college’s La Guardia and Wagner Archives gives more insights into how Mr. Panetta might perform in another covert role. In thoughtful and pointedly strategic memos often leavened by a pithy “comment for the day,” Mr. Panetta suggested that the mayor unveil “mock budgets” to dramatize the impact of proposed deficits without more state and federal aid, lower penalties for marijuana possession, shift many city prisoners to state custody, limit appeals when defendants are denied a post-conviction remedy, and transfer more responsibility for United Nations security to federal officials. He complained about a double standard regarding Albany. “When the state fails in such areas as narcotics addiction, corrections and transportation, it is in view of the fact that it has far greater power to control its resources and is directly responsible for far fewer areas of public services,” Mr. Panetta wrote. “When the city fails in such areas as welfare or housing, it is in view of the fact that it has little power to determine what resources will be available and a far greater responsibility for numerous other services to people.” He also said the New York’s Congressional delegation liked to take credit for federal grants, while leaving federal failings to Mr. Lindsay. Speaking of Congress, Mr. Panetta enjoys another unheralded distinction: No one else lost a New Yorker as a roommate because of the constitutional separation of powers. When he and Charles E. Schumer were both congressmen, they shared an apartment on Capitol Hill with their landlord, Representative George Miller of California. When Mr. Panetta joined the Clinton administration, he had to move out because it was considered a conflict for an executive branch employee to pay rent to a member of Congress. In his confirmation hearings, some questions may be raised about Mr. Panetta’s lack of formal intelligence-gathering credentials, but it appears unlikely that either his coup attempt or roommate conflict will surface then. Still, Stu Loeser, who used to work for Mr. Schumer and is now Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s chief spokesman, mused about whether Mr. Panetta, now 70, had been thinking strategically even 40 years ago. “It’s not clear to those of us back at City Hall,” Mr. Loeser said, “that Mr. Panetta’s ascent to the leadership of the C.I.A. isn’t, in fact, the final stage of his long-held plans.”

Panetta Leon E
Central Intelligence Agency
New York City
Lindsay John V
Politics and Government


China Relaxes Controls Over Exchange Rates

Abstract: China said it would permit banks to set their own exchange rates for the renminbi against the dollar in deals with clients, in a step to relax controls to make the currency more market-driven. Chinese officials have pledged to loosen interest rates and currency controls eventually to help put its economy, the second largest in the world, on a more sustainable footing, but such changes have so far been gradual. Effective Wednesday, banks can set the dollar/renminbi exchange rate in their over-the-counter deals based on market demand. Rates that banks offer will be guided by the interbank market, which is still subject to controls including the central bank’s daily midpoint. From there, the spot rate may fluctuate in either direction by only 2 percent.


Want to Move to Canada? Europe? Somewhere? Trump’s Impact Will Follow You

Abstract: It has become a reflexive pledge, often half-joking, after an election: Worried about the next president? Move to another country. After the news of Donald J. Trump’s victory in the presidential election was confirmed early Wednesday, many Americans apparently considered doing just that. One likely destination was north. Late at night, Canada’s citizenship and immigration website crashed as it was flooded with interest. Remi Lariviere, a spokesman for the Canadian immigration agency, confirmed Wednesday morning that the cause was “a significant increase in the volume of traffic.” By then, the site was taking about half a minute to load but was accessible shortly before 8 a.m. Eastern. “Move to Canada” remained among the top trending search topics on Google. There is no way, of course, to be sure how serious these queries are. And experts point out that anyone seeking refuge in another country would be hard-pressed to escape the global effects of a new American administration or outlook on the world. Stephen J. Farnsworth, a co-author of the 2013 book “The Global President: International Media and the U.S. Government” and a professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington, said that escaping to Canada would not shield you from the influence of a President Trump. “America’s global reach being what it is, the impacts that America has in the world will also follow you wherever you go,” he said. “Decisions that the U.S. makes with respect to NATO policy, for example, would be part of your experience if you move to say, a NATO country.” (Canada is one of the founding members of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.) Of course, many of those exploring their options would be fleeing not just the new president and his policies, but also the America that voted for him. And Canada was not the only country people appeared interested in checking out. Immigration officials in New Zealand said that its website dealing with residency and student visas had received over 1,500 registrations from American citizens in November, according to Reuters, more than 50 percent the usual amount. Many people who already have or are close to achieving dual citizenship in other countries and the United States said they were considering staying in, or leaving for, their alternate homelands. And some of those without citizenship considered returning to one of the many nations — including Israel, China and Ireland — that offers “right of return,” an easy path to citizenship for those with some form of heritage related to that country. (For Jews, moving to Israel is known as making Aliyah.) Julian Edward Toles, 27, an essayist living with his girlfriend in Barcelona, said that while he had already started to look into the benefits of Spanish citizenship, which he could obtain were he and his girlfriend to marry, he was now thinking “much more seriously” about getting residency rights. “Trump and his promises to uphold ‘law and order’ frankly scare me,” Mr. Toles, who is black, said in a Facebook message. “I fear for my personal safety as the worst of what we’ve seen from his campaign becomes a daily reality.” Oscar Barajas, a 36-year-old with Mexican citizenship living in Chicago, said that while he was about to get his American citizenship, he “was not so happy to join after Trump’s election.” “I don’t plan to leave because Trump won, but I can say I at least would be fortunate to go back to my country if he makes the U.S. a place where I wouldn’t like to start a family,” he said. "I know so many people who are noncitizen and are scared about this situation.” Others advised that those upset about the election stay and ensure that their rights are upheld. Asked about what he would tell a Muslim mother of three who was worried about her future in the United States, Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group, said, “I don’t think leaving the country is what anyone would recommend.” “We’re Americans like all other Americans,” he said. “We’re here, we’re not going anywhere, and we’re going to defend our rights and the rights of all Americans regardless of who’s in the highest office in the land.” He did say, though, that he had been getting emails of friendly concern from Muslims in Canada. They’re “saying, ‘what’s going on down there?’ ” he said, chuckling at the emails. “ ‘It’s chillier up here but it’s nice.’ ” Alexandra Andreeva, 27, a dual citizen of Bulgaria and the United States, said that her “first instinct after learning the results of the election” was to return to the European Union. But she said her strong identity as an American made her feel responsible to the United States, where she moved from Bulgaria when she was 6 years old. “Because I was born under communism, which is the opposite of liberal democracy, I would say that I feel even more compelled to stay here and to continue the fight,” she said. Mr. Farnsworth said, “Every four years, people talk about leaving the U.S., but it’s really striking how few do.” It is not necessarily easy to become a Canadian citizen, despite the country’s reputation for niceness. The country is in search of university students and highly skilled workers; for those who do not fit into those neat categories, it would be far more difficult to find a place in the country. “I’m often amazed by people who describe themselves as patriotic being so willing to move away if they don’t like the outcome of a presidential election,” Mr. Farnsworth said. “The consolation for losers every four years is the recognition that there is no permanent majority and no permanent minority in American politics.” If you don’t like the political outcome, it’ll probably change in two years or four, he added. “And then a whole ’nother set of people can talk about moving to Canada.”

2016 Presidential Election
Canada
Citizenship
Europe