F R O M T H E PA G E S O F
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Court Weighs
life sentences
for juveniles
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — There
are just over 100 people in the world
serving life sentences without pos-
sibility of parole for crimes commit-
ted as juveniles in which no one was
killed. All are in the United States.
And 77 of them are in Florida.
On Monday, the Supreme Court
will hear appeals from two: Joe Sul-
livan, who raped a woman when he
was 13, and Terrance Graham, who
committed armed burglary at 16.
They claim that the Eighth Amend-
ment’s ban on cruel and unusual
punishment forbids sentencing
them to die in prison for crimes oth-
er than homicide.
The court barred the execution of
juveniles in 2005, saying people un-
der 18 are immature, irresponsible,
susceptible to peer pressure and of-
ten capable of change.
A ruling extending that reasoning
beyond capital cases “could be the
Brown v. Board of Education of juve-
nile law,” said Paolo G. Annino, the
director of the Children’s Advocacy
Clinic at Florida State University’s
law school.
Florida’s attorney general, Bill
McCollum, wrote, “By the 1990s,
violent juvenile crime rates had
reached unprecedented high lev-
els throughout the nation. Florida’s
problem was particularly dire, com-
promising the safety of residents,
visitors and international tourists.”
Nine foreign tourists were killed
over 11 months in 1992 and 1993, one
of them by a 14-year-old.
In response, the state moved
more juveniles into adult courts and
increased sentences.
The state’s brief in Graham’s case
said juvenile crime fell 30 percent in
the decade ended in 2004. It attrib-
uted the drop to its tough approach
to the problem.
“Sometimes a 15-year-old has a
tremendous appreciation for right
and wrong,” said state Rep. William
D. Snyder, a Republican. “I think it
would be wrong for the Supreme
Court to say that it was patently il-
legal or improper to send a youth-
ful offender to life without parole.”
 ADAM LIPTAK
from the pages of
Health Care Reform Passes a Big Test
WASHINGTON — President
Obama exhorted Democrats on
Saturday to approve a sweeping
overhaul of health care and to
“answer the call of history” as the
House began debating legislation
that would transform the nation’s
health insurance system.
Democrats quickly took a sig-
nificant step toward passage of
the plan by surmounting a key
procedural hurdle in approving
the rules for debate.
Despite a sharp party divide
over how strictly to limit spending
for abortions, leading Democrats
were increasingly confident they
had locked up the necessary sup-
port for the measure. A handful of
undecided lawmakers announced
they were ready to back it.
“We are on the cusp of making
a historical decision on behalf of
the American people,” said Rep.
James E. Clyburn of South Caro-
lina, the No. 3 Democrat in the
House.
Obama made a rare weekend
appearance on Capitol Hill as
part of an all-out effort to rally
Democrats to support the big-
gest health care legislation since
the creation of Medicare for the
elderly in 1965.
Democrats say their $1.1 tril-
lion, 10-year measure would ex-
tend coverage to 36 million people
Military Counselors Facing Case Overload
Many of the patients are bereft,
angry, broken. Their stories are
gruesome and the process of re-
covery exhausting. In time, the
repeated stories of battle and loss
can leave even the most profes-
sional therapist numb or angry.
And hanging over it all, for psy-
chiatrists and psychologists in to-
day’s military, is the prospect of
their own deployment — of work-
ing under fire with combat units.
That was the world that Maj.
Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psy-
chiatrist, inhabited until Thurs-
day, when he was accused of one
of the worst mass shootings ever
on a military base in the United
States, an attack that killed 13.
Investigators are still trying to
determine Hasan’s motives, ex-
ploring everything from job pres-
8 p.m. in New York © 2009 The New York Times
now without insurance and end
insurance company practices like
not covering pre-existing condi-
tions or dropping people when
they become ill.
During the private meeting
with Democrats in the Cannon
Caucus Room, the president
acknowledged the political dif-
ficulty of supporting major leg-
islation in the face of unanimous
Republican opposition and tough
criticism from conservatives.
But, those present said, he
urged them on, saying, “When I
sign this in the Rose Garden, each
and every one of you will be able
to look back and say, ‘This was
my finest moment in politics.’ ”
That sentiment draw a cheer, se-
nior aides in the room said.
The House debate opened
after months of internal party
wrangling, angry town-hall-style
meetings and committee delib-
erations, and Republicans were
united in their criticism of the
measure, describing it as a gov-
ernment takeover of health care
that would damage the economy
at a weak moment.
“This bill is a wrecking ball to
the entire economy,” said Rep.
Jack Kingston, R-Ga. “We need
targeted specific reforms to help
people who have fallen through
the health care cracks.”
sures to harassment as a Muslim
to his opposition to the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
But those who treat the psycho-
logical wounds of the country’s
warriors say Thursday’s ram-
page has put a spotlight on the
strains of their profession. Hasan
was one of a thin line of military
therapists trying to hold off a ris-
ing tide of need. By the latest Ar-
my count, there are only 408 psy-
chiatrists serving about 553,050
servicemen and women.
Some of those hired to heal oth-
ers end up needing help them-
selves. Others, like Bret A. Moore,
a former Army psychologist at
Fort Hood, look for other work.
“I planned for a career in the mili-
tary, but I burned out,” he said.
The Fort Hood shootings have
But Democrats said Republi-
cans were intent on protecting the
status quo in health care and that
the new Democratic approach
would vastly improve the ability
of Americans to gain affordable
health insurance.
“Now is the chance to fix our
health care system and improve
the lives of millions of Ameri-
cans,” said Rep. Louise M. Slaugh-
ter, D-N.Y., the chairwoman of the
Rules Committee, as she opened
the daylong proceedings.
In remarks later Saturday
from the Rose Garden, Obama
continued to ask lawmakers to
press ahead with the legislation.
“I urge members of Congress to
rise to this moment,” he said. “An-
swer the call of history, and vote
yes for health insurance reform
for America.”
He told Democrats on Capitol
Hill that their vote would define
them in the future.
The expected wall of Republi-
can opposition gave Democrats
little room to maneuver, and they
were working to corral as many
party members as they could. But
the preliminary approval to clear
the way for the debate came on a
vote of 242-192, suggesting Dem-
ocrats had a historic win within
reach.  CARL HULSE
 and ROBERT PEAR
raised a pressing question: Who
counsels the counselors? Moore
and others said mental health
evaluations of therapists them-
selves were nonexistent.
If it turns out that Hasan did in
fact break partly under the stress
of the job and impending deploy-
ment, many veterans would not
be surprised.
“If this guy can go over the
edge, imagine what it is like for
the actual combat troops who
have been through four or five de-
ployments,” said Bryan Hannah,
22, a disabled Iraq war veteran
from San Marcos, Texas, who was
discharged a year ago because of
post-traumatic stress disorder
and other injuries.
 BENEDICT CAREY
 and DAMIEN CAVE
International Sunday, November 8, 2009 2

In British Court, 20 Years Later, German Divisions Have Faded

A Jewish Divide
LONDON — On the surface,
Britain’s Supreme Court last week
was considering a challenge to the
admissions policy of a Jewish high
school in London. But the case has
bared bitter divisions in Britain’s
community of 300,000 or so Jews.
“This is potentially the biggest
case in the British Jewish commu-
nity’s modern history,” said Ste-
phen Pollard, editor of the Jewish
Chronicle newspaper here.
The case began when a 12-year-
old boy, an observant Jew whose
father is Jewish and whose moth-
er is a Jewish convert, applied to
the school, JFS.
By all outward appearances,
the JFS applicant, identified only
as “M” in court papers, is Jewish.
But because M’s mother’s con-
verted in a progressive, not an
Orthodox, synagogue, the school
said, she was not a Jew — and nei-
ther was her son. It turned down
his application.
M’s family sued, saying that the
school had discriminated against
him. They lost, but the ruling was
overturned by the Court of Appeal
this summer.
The court concluded that bas-
ing school admissions on a classic
test of Judaism — whether one’s
mother is Jewish — was by defini-
tion discriminatory.
“How dare they question our be-
liefs and our Jewishness?” David
Lightman, an observant Jewish fa-
ther whose daughter was also de-
nied a place at the school because
it did not recognize her mother’s
conversion, said recently. “I find
it offensive and very upsetting.”
 SARAH LYALL
BERLIN — “The Quiz of the
Germans,” a lighthearted entry
amid a crush of serious examina-
tions of the 20th anniversary of the
fall of the Berlin Wall, pitted three
West German celebrities seated
behind the hood of an old Volkswa-
gen Beetle against counterparts
from the East perched above the
front of a clunky Trabant.
On a production stage with an
oversize map of unified Germany,
the questions about the divided
days of the past were as symmet-
rical as the antique cars. The top-
ics — nude beachgoers in the East
and sex education in the West, the
vacation destinations of the two
populations or the funny dialects
on either side of the border —
struck a note of commonality, of
shared Germanness, even at the
peak of the cold-war standoff.
The impending anniversary on
Monday has prompted a power-
ful national conversation, not just
about a moment two decades in
the past, but about the Germany of
today. It is a country that is peace-
ful, more united and less turbulent
than many here or abroad expect-
ed or, given its troubled 20th cen-
tury, many thought it deserved.
Especially among the young,
there is the sense that the aspira-
tion to transcend Germany’s dark
history and simply become nor-
mal may finally be within reach.
In recent weeks polls have been
released on the differences, and
as often as not the similarities,
between the former East and the
former West in matters of love and
real estate, table manners and car
ownership. In ways both typically
serious and atypically jocular,
Germans seem to be groping for
an understanding of what hap-
pened and what, along the way,
they have become.
Beneath the trivial differences
lies a country more together
than anyone expected. That is
not to say that there are not still
some hard feelings, and particu-
larly among those from the East,
known officially as the German
Democratic Republic. Despite
great strides and an estimated $2
trillion in assistance since 1989,
many there have not quite caught
up to the West materially and saw
their everyday way of life disap-
pear along with the wall.
“The things from the G.D.R. are
no longer around, and have to be
hauled out of museum cabinets,
whereas in the West they don’t
have to remember because those
things are still there,” said Jana
Hensel, a writer who grew up in
the eastern city of Leipzig. “For
East Germans it is still painful to
have to remember the things they
have lost,” she said.
But the fading divisions be-
tween the sides are most apparent
among those with no memories of
the wall or the G.D.R., the genera-
tion born after 1989.
“For people from our genera-
tion, it’s just a part of German
history,” said Sebastian Melchior,
19, a student at the Alexander von
Humboldt High School here in the
district of Köpenick in the former
East. “For us this division doesn’t
really exist anymore.”
“My parents ask if people are
Wessis or Ossis,” he said, using the
colloquial and slightly derogatory
terms for the two groups, “but I
just can’t identify with that at all.”
He is far from alone. A repre-
sentative survey of more than
1,300 people published by the Ger-
man newspaper Welt am Sonntag
found that just 11 percent among
those between the ages of 14 and
19 defined themselves as East
German or West German, com-
pared with 36 percent of Germans
between the ages of 40 and 49.
The reality of Germany today
makes it difficult to remember the
immediate concerns in Europe
after the wall fell. Leaders like
President François Mitterrand of
France and, in particular, Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher of
Britain, worried aloud that a re-
unified Germany was likely to drift
away from the NATO alliance and
the structures of the European
Union and at worst might return
to the path of nationalism.
“The fear was that this thing
in the center of Europe, if it were
allowed to become unified, was
going to be a cancer once again
and lead to Act III of the great Eu-
ropean tragedy,” said Robert E.
Hunter, an ambassador to NATO
under President Bill Clinton.
Instead, Hunter said, “the Ger-
man problem, which emerged
with the unifying of Germany be-
ginning in the 1860s, is one of the
few problems in modern history
that has been solved.”
“I’ve never been ashamed to
come from Germany,” said Björn
Viergutz, 18, who also attends the
Humboldt school. “One can be
proud. When you compare to 20
years ago, an immense amount
has happened. The fact that there
are differences between East and
West is really normal. What sur-
prises me is that they’re so minor,
actually.” NICHOLAS KULISH

Airstrike Kills 7 Soldiers
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan De-
fense Ministry and local officials in Badghis
Province said on Saturday that seven mem-
bers of the Afghan security forces had been
killed in a NATO airstrike the day before
that was part of an effort to aid a belea-
guered Afghan and NATO operation against
the Taliban.  (NYT)
Russia May Back Sanctions
MOSCOW — President Dmitri A. Med-
vedev said Russia might back sanctions
against Iran if the Iranians did not take a
“constructive position” on an international
In Brief
plan to temporarily diminish their stockpile
of enriched uranium.
“If the Iranian leadership takes a less
constructive position, then anything is pos-
sible, in theory,” Medvadev said.  (NYT)
Russian Plane Crash
MOSCOW — A Russian military plane
with 11 people on board crashed in the Pa-
cific Ocean during a training flight late on
Friday, the Defense Ministry said.
The ministry said that a search was un-
der way for the crew of the Tu-142 aircraft.
But the RIA news agency quoted a military
source as saying there was little chance of
finding survivors.  (Reuters)
Guyana Leader Suspects
U.S. ‘Terrorist Mastermind’
GEORGETOWN, Guyana — Arson at-
tacks and shootings in this South American
nation are the work of a mastermind in the
United States, the Guyanese president said.
The president, Bharrat Jagdeo, made the
assertion late Friday, shortly after his ad-
ministration submitted a request to the U.S.
Embassy for help with the investigation.
“There is a terrorist mastermind who
lives in the U.S.,” Jagdeo said, declining to
give more details.
Carol Horning of the U.S. Embassy said
Saturday that the Department of Justice
was reviewing the request.  (AP)
national
Lawyer Cites Mental Illness in Florida Shooting
ORLANDO, Fla. — The lawyer
for the man accused of shooting
six people, one fatally, at an Orlan-
do office building on Friday told
reporters after a court appear-
ance on Saturday that his client
was “very, very mentally ill.”
“This guy is a compilation of the
front page of the entire year — un-
employment, foreclosure, bank-
ruptcy, divorce — all of the stress-
es,” said the lawyer, Robert Wes-
ley, a public defender assigned to
represent the accused gunman,
Jason Rodriguez. “He has been
declining in mental health.’’
Rodriguez, 40, who was appar-
ently unemployed, had been fired
in 2007 from an entry-level job at
Reynolds, Smith & Hills, the en-
gineering company where the
shooting took place. A company
spokesman said Rodriguez had
been fired because his work had
not been up to the company’s stan-
dards.
“He had been given notice all
year that performance was sub-
standard,” said Michael T. Ber-
Heavy People Push Back in Health Care Debate
Marilyn Wann is an author
and weight diversity speaker in
Northern California who has a
message for anyone making judg-
ments about her health based on
her large physique. “The only
thing anyone can accurately diag-
nose by looking at a fat person is
their own level of stereotype and
prejudice about fat,” said Wann, a
43-year-old San Franciscan whose
motto in life is also the title of her
book: “Fat? So!”
Hers has been an oft-repeated
message this summer and fall by
members of the “fat pride” com-
munity, given that the nation is in
the midst of a debate about health
care. That debate has focused its
In Wake of Fort Hood Shootings, Obama Urges Tolerance
WASHINGTON — President
Obama reminded Americans on
Saturday that people of “every
race, faith and station” serve in
the military — an oblique attempt
to prevent a backlash against
Muslims in the wake of Thurs-
day’s shootings at the base that
left 13 dead.
Many Muslims have been con-
cerned that their faith will some-
how be blamed after an Army psy-
chiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan,
nos, the spokesman. After that,
Rodriguez had difficulty keeping
a job and filed for bankruptcy in
May, claiming assets worth less
than $5,000.
He is being held without bail
on a suicide watch in the Orlando
County Jail. He appeared in court
wearing handcuffs and a protec-
tive vest. Rodriguez is accused
of entering the offices of the engi-
neering firm and opening fire, kill-
ing Otis Beckford, 26, the father of
a 7-month-old, near the reception
desk. He then went into the com-
mon work area, the police said,
and opened fire, wounding five
people, who are in stable or good
condition. Hours later, he was ar-
rested at his mother’s apartment.
According to an arrest affidavit,
Rodriguez told the police, “I’m
just going through a tough time
right now, I’m sorry.” When asked
by a reporter why he had opened
fire, he replied, “They know why I
did it; they left me to rot,” accord-
ing to the affidavit.
Rodriguez had quit his most
attention on the growing popu-
lation of overweight and obese
Americans with unambiguous
overtones: Fat people should lose
weight, for the good of us all.
Heavier Americans are pushing
back now with newfound vigor in
the policy debate, lobbying legis-
lators and trying to move public
opinion to recognize their point of
view: that thin does not equal fit,
and that people can be healthy at
any size.
Extra weight brings with it an
increased risk of chronic disease,
medical experts say, and heavier
people tend to have medical costs
that are substantially higher than
their leaner counterparts. As a
who prayed regularly at the Fort
Hood mosque, was accused of
being the lone gunman in the at-
tack. Obama did not address that
concern directly. But, speaking in
his weekly address, he seemed to
urge Americans not to dwell on
the suspect’s religion by remind-
ing the nation of the broad diver-
sity of those who serve.
“They are Americans of every
race, faith and station,” he said.
“They are Christians and Mus-
Sunday, November 8, 2009
recent job, at a Subway sandwich
shop, the affidavit said, because he
was not getting enough hours, and
he had filed for unemployment. He
believed that the engineering firm
was somehow blocking his appli-
cation for benefits, the affidavit
said.
Rodriguez periodically took
medication for what his former
mother-in-law, America Holloway,
said was schizophrenia. When he
was not taking the medication,
Holloway said, he was unbearable
to live with — angry, insanely jeal-
ous, paranoid and controlling.
Once, Holloway said, her daugh-
ter had appeared at the front door
covered in bruises. She moved
home, but a few weeks later Rodri-
guez apologized and said he was
taking anger management class-
es. Her daughter took him back.
The couple then lived with her
for five years, Holloway said,
before she finally threw him out
and the couple divorced in 2006.
They have an 8-year-old son.
 SHAILA DEWAN
result, Congress is considering
proposals in the effort to overhaul
health care that would make it eas-
ier for employers to use financial
rewards or penalties to promote
healthy behavior by employees,
like weight loss.
Heavy people say they have
been maligned.
“I thought, ‘Health reform?
Yay!’ ” said Lynn McAfee, the di-
rector of medical advocacy for the
Council on Size and Weight Dis-
crimination, an advocacy group
for heavy people. But McAfee said
it was not long before her senti-
ment changed to the more sober,
“Oh no, we’re being scapegoated
again.”  SUSAN SAULNY
lims, Jews and Hindus and non-
believers. They are descendants
of immigrants, and immigrants
themselves. They reflect the di-
versity that makes this America.
But what they share is a patrio-
tism like no other.”
Obama has ordered flags at gov-
ernment buildings to fly at half-
staff until Veterans Day, and the
White House has said he will at-
tend a memorial service at the fort
when one is scheduled.  (NYT)
3
In Brief
Stairway to Heaven
A start-up company from the
Seattle area, LaserMotive, won
$900,000 on Friday in a NASA
contest to build a miniature pro-
totype of a machine that could
one day climb from Earth to
outer space.
The idea of a space elevator
— passengers and cargo trav-
eling up and down a 60,000-mile
cable — has long been a fixture
of science fiction, notably in
Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “The
Fountains of Paradise.”
A real space elevator is still
decades in the future, but the
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, along with the
nonprofit organization Space-
ward Foundation, sponsored
the contest to encourage devel-
opment of some of the needed
technologies.  (NYT)
Seattle Flood Threat
Greatly Reduced
SEATTLE — Hurried repairs
at a badly weakened flood-con-
trol reservoir have greatly re-
duced but far from eliminated
the risk of flooding this winter
in the Green River Valley near
Seattle, the Army Corps of En-
gineers said last week.
The region has been prepar-
ing for flooding ever since a tor-
rential storm in January weak-
ened an abutment to an impor-
tant upstream dam that holds
back the Green River. Resi-
dents and businesses have been
piling up sandbags, and the
corps has been working around
the clock on repairs to shore up
the abutment.
Most of the repairs were com-
pleted in the last week.  (AP)
Colorado Crunch
DENVER — Facing an ex-
pected $1 billion shortfall in
next year’s budget, Gov. Bill
Ritter Jr. is proposing that
education spending be cut by
$260 million and that Colorado
bring in another $132 million
by charging sales tax on candy
and soft drinks as well as online
sales.
Ritter said that the budget
was fair and that it spread the
pain among a variety of groups.
“We are asking everyone to
share in this sacrifice,” he said.
 (AP)
business 
Windfall as Bank Bonuses Are Paid in Stock
Even as Washington tries to
rein in Wall Street pay, bankers
are likely to make unusually large
gains on the stock grants and op-
tions they received after shares
in their companies fell sharply
during the financial crisis.
Banks cut bonuses last year
and shifted more pay into stock
and options from cash, a tactic
that lawmakers supported for
its emphasis on long-term per-
formance. Within months, the fi-
nancial system began to mend —
partly with the help of billions of
dollars in government aid — and
that stock began surging in value.
Some of it can be cashed in start-
ing in just a few months.
And so the bonuses Wall Street
received last year, billed as paltry
at the time, are turning out to be
among the most lucrative pay-
outs ever.
Tough Times Fuel a New Global Frenzy for Gold
MENDRISIO, Switzerland —
Here, in a corner of Switzerland
where roughly one-third of the
world’s gold is refined into bars
and ingots, business is booming.
Every day, bangles, bracelets and
necklaces from around the world
arrive in plastic bags.
“It could be your grandmoth-
er’s gold or the gift of an ex-boy-
friend,” said Erhard Oberli, the
chief executive of Argor-Her-
aeus, a major refiner here. “Gold
doesn’t disappear.”
Amid a global frenzy fed by
hedge funds, speculators and
governments, the price of gold
briefly surpassed $1,100 an ounce
on Friday, a record high.
Long considered the ultimate
refuge for nervous investors,
gold has climbed as the dollar
Britain and U.S. Clash Over Tax on Bank Transactions
ST. ANDREWS, Scotland —
The United States and Britain
voiced disagreement Saturday
over a proposal that would im-
pose a new tax on financial trans-
actions to support future bank
rescues.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown
of Britain, leading a meeting here
of finance ministers from the
Group of 20 countries, said such
a tax on banks should be consid-
ered as a way to take the burden
off taxpayers during periods of fi-
nancial crisis. His comments pre-
Goldman Sachs, for instance,
sharply cut nearly all bonuses
it paid last year but gave some
executives more options than
usual.
The company gave its general
counsel, for example, 104,868
stock options and 14,117 shares in
December, when the bank’s stock
was around $78.
Now the bank’s shares have
more than doubled in value, mak-
ing that stock and option award
worth nearly $12 million, accord-
ing to Equilar, an executive com-
pensation research firm in Red-
wood Shores, Calif.
That executive is just one of
many Wall Street workers who
have seen the bonuses they re-
ceived last year soar in value,
even though some of the shares
cannot be sold for a few years.
The Treasury’s special master
has steadily weakened, budget
deficits have expanded, and
central banks have continued
to pump trillions of dollars into
weak economies, creating fears
of another asset bubble that will
ultimately pop.
In the United States, ads prom-
ising high prices for gold are regu-
lar fodder for late-night television
spots, while buyers are setting up
tables at shopping malls or host-
ing gold-buying gatherings at pri-
vate homes.
Even the most bullish of gold
lovers were surprised last week
when the Reserve Bank of India
stepped in and bought 220 tons of
gold from the International Mon-
etary Fund for $6.7 billion, a sign
that other central banks might
move away from dollar-denomi-
empted the International Mone-
tary Fund, which is set to present
a range of options next spring to
ensure financial stability.
But the proposal was met with
little enthusiasm by the U.S. Trea-
sury secretary, Timothy F. Geith-
ner, who told Sky News in an in-
terview that he would not support
a tax on everyday financial trans-
actions. Later he seemed to soft-
en his position, saying it would be
up to the I.M.F. to present a range
of possible measures.
“We want to make sure that we
Sunday, November 8, 2009
of pay, Kenneth R. Feinberg, has
said there is “too much reliance
on cash” on Wall Street and has
proposed stock as an alternative.
Banks began the trend by pay-
ing more in stock last year. Then,
in February, Congress required
that bonuses at bailed-out banks
be paid entirely in stock. Last
month, the Treasury Department
took the idea further by propos-
ing that some executives’ sala-
ries be paid in stock.
The stock gains raise questions
about the wisdom of pushing bo-
nus pay too far in either direction,
favoring either cash or stock.
Normal theories about stock
compensation and risk-taking
may not hold true today, compen-
sation experts say, in large part
because of the government’s
continued financial support of the
industry.  LOUISE STORY
nated assets like Treasury bonds
in favor of the precious metal.
With a crackdown on tax ha-
vens worldwide, some experts
say rich people now prefer an in-
vestment that can easily be hid-
den from tax collectors.
“In Europe, people want physi-
cal gold to store themselves, with
no documents,” said Bernhard
Schnellmann, director for pre-
cious-metal services at Argor-
Heraeus.
Oberli, the chief executive,
is confident that he is running a
business that is always of interest
to investors.
“Gold has been around as an in-
vestment for 6,000 years,” Oberli
said. “When there is no alterna-
tive, it’s there.”
 NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
don’t put the taxpayer in a posi-
tion of having to absorb the costs
of a crisis in the future,” Geithner
said.
The Russian finance minister,
Alexei Kudrin, also said he was
skeptical of such a tax.
Supporters had argued that
it would reduce the volatility of
markets; opponents said it would
be too complex to enact across
borders and could create huge
imbalances. Brown said any such
tax would have to be applied uni-
versally.  JULIA WERDIGIER
4
In Brief
Small Businesses
Adapting to Slump
From the beginning of this year
through Sept. 30, sales at small
businesses (privately held com-
panies with revenue of $10 million
or less) have fallen 3.75 percent,
according to new figures from
Sageworks Inc. At the same time,
net profit at these businesses has
risen to 6.5 percent. How have
they accomplished this? By cut-
ting their costs. Overhead, payroll
and advertising as a percentage
of sales have all declined.
The data shows that small com-
panies have “reacted strongly
and appropriately” to survive the
downturn, said Drew B. White,
the chief financial officer of Sage-
works.
When you are a small business
and your survival is at stake, it is
hard to take risks, which general-
ly require extra spending.
“I am not looking to private-
ly held small business to lead us
out of this recession,” White said.
 (NYT)
Holiday Fares Rising
Waiting to book your holiday
travel could cost you.
Most carriers pushed through
a $10 fare increase at the end of
October. For the holidays, the big
airlines added a $20 surcharge
each way on popular travel days
closest to Christmas and New
Year’s.
Tom Parsons of BestFares.
com compared holiday fares pur-
chased on July 1 with the same
itinerary booked on Nov 2. Sev-
eral had risen 50 percent or more.
Los Angeles to Fort Lauderdale,
Fla., had more than doubled to
$528.  (AP)
Court Case on Patents
The Supreme Court on Monday
will explore what types of inven-
tions should be eligible for a pat-
ent in a pivotal case that could
undermine such legal protections
for software.
The roots of the dispute go back
to 1997, when the inventors Ber-
nard Bilski and Rand Warsaw
tried to patent a method of hedg-
ing weather-related risk in ener-
gy prices. The Patent Office con-
cluded the process was too ab-
stract and denied the application.
 (AP)
arts
Veggies and Yoga Come to Sesame Street On Screen, Unleashing
It is almost too perfect that the first African-
American president of the United States was
elected in time for the 40th anniversary of
“Sesame Street.” The world is finally begin-
ning to look the way that PBS show always
made it out to be.
So it is to the credit of this daunting cultural
landmark — a program that has taught gen-
erations of children to count, countless parents
how to teach and is seen in 125 countries — that
Tuesday’s anniversary is not a frenzy of preen-
ing self-celebration.
The special guest — the first lady, Michelle
Obama — doesn’t make her appearance
alongside Big Bird until midway into a show
crammed with the usual preschool didactics.
The only real difference is that on this day,
viewers have to count to 40.
The pedagogy hasn’t changed, but the look
and tone of “Sesame Street” has evolved.
Forty years on, this is your mother’s “Sesame
Street,” only better dressed and gentrified. The
opening is no longer a realistic rendition of ur-
ban skyline but an animated, candy-colored
chalk drawing of a preschool Arcadia, with
flowers and butterflies and stars. The famous
set, brownstones and garbage bins, has lost the
gritty smudges of city life over the years. Now
there are green spaces, tofu and yoga.
It’s still a messianic show, but the mission
has shifted to the more immediate concerns of
pediatricians and progressive parents, espe-
cially when it comes to childhood obesity.
Put it this way, Obama’s message on the an-
niversary episode isn’t an exhortation to future
soldiers, scientists and presidents to be all that
they can be, but to tiny consumers to eat fresh
food. “Veggies taste so good when they come
fresh from the garden, don’t they?” Obama
tells children gathered around a soil tray, an
echo of her White House kitchen garden. “If
you eat all these healthy foods, you are going
to grow up to be big and strong,” Obama says,
flexing her fists. “Just like me.”
“Sesame Street” no longer has a monopoly
on growing minds; if anything, it is an endan-
gered species. There are now scores of pre-
school shows, and some of them also are shown
‘Messenger’ Tries a Different Attack on the Iraq War Movie
“The Messenger,’’ which opens on Friday
in New York and Washington, is a war movie.
But the war, unlike in most films about Iraq and
Afghanistan, is completely off screen. The film
instead focuses on two casualty-notification
officers — a crusty career sergeant (Woody
Harrelson) and a wounded soldier just back
from Iraq (Ben Foster) — whose mission is to
knock on doors and deliver news of death to
next of kin.
Shot at and around Fort Dix in New Jersey,
with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans as extras,
it has true grit and flavorful dialogue. (“I’d
like to strap her on and wear her like a govern-
ment-issued gas mask,’’ Harrelson’s character
says about a comely bartender.) Yet the film,
richard termine
Michelle Obama appears on the 40th
anniversary episode of “Sesame Street.”
without ads, like “Playhouse Disney.”
The original intent of “Sesame Street” was
to present enjoyable and beguiling preschool
education to poor children who did not have
access to decent preschools while bringing di-
versity to children’s programming. But it was
the mixture of whimsy, pop music and didactic
rigor that distinguished “Sesame Street” from
everything else. It has arguably had an even
greater impact overseas, especially in places
like Kosovo and South Africa, where the show
is made in partnership with local television
producers and tailored to local concerns.
This season has an Om sensibility. “My mom
takes me to yoga class, I love doing yoga,” a
little girl in pigtails says in an episode that ran
in October. After class her mother arrives with
a plastic water bottle. “She says it’s important
to drink water when you exercise,” the girl ex-
plains. “When I grow up I want to be a yoga
teacher.”  ALESSANDRA STANLEY
written by Oren Moverman, who was raised in
Israel and is also the director, and Alessandro
Camon, who grew up in Italy, has a distinctly
European feel that sets it apart from other
Iraq War-related films. It is visually spare, dia-
logue-intensive and restrained in its plotting.
That the director spent four years in the Isra-
el Defense Forces, absorbing viscerally what
he calls the “emotional landscape” of war, dis-
tinguishes the film too.
The odyssey of making the movie began
three years ago. Moverman portrayed the film,
with a budget under $10 million, as the little
war movie that could.
“This was at a time when you actually could
not see certain images, like the repatriation
Sunday, November 8, 2009 5
Life’s Wild Things
An interesting controversy has enveloped
Spike Jonze’s dark, melancholy “Where the
Wild Things Are.” Parents, most of whom want
their kids to be both adventurous and protect-
ed, tend to worry a lot about how much and
what kinds of movies children should see. On
Friday the argument will shift to Wes Ander-
son’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” about an unrepen-
tant poultry killer, and in the meantime there
is Disney’s “Christmas Carol,” which is both
a pretty scary ghost story and a rather stern
Victorian lesson in the fear of death.
Jonze’s film, extrapolated from a few hun-
dred words and a dozen or so illustrations by
Maurice Sendak — not uncontroversial in their
own right, by the way — is dense with difficult
emotions. The hero, Max, is often angry and
lonely, frustrated when his sister neglects him
and jealous when his divorced mother spends
time with her boyfriend. But like Dorothy be-
fore him, who found in Oz some of the same
characters she’d left back in Kansas, Max es-
capes to an enchanted world that looks a lot
like home. The furry, talking creatures who
give the movie its name are strikingly grouchy,
quarrelsome and passive-aggressive.
No place is free of conflict and bad feeling,
Max finds. Where there is happiness, there is
also, inevitably, disappointment. That’s life.
When you stop to think about it, this is a pretty
strong message, and not what you might expect
from children’s entertainment. But at the same
time, this kind of honest, realistic assessment of
human relationships has gone missing from far
too many supposedly grown-up movies.
Sometimes we make too much of the division
between generations. Every adult is a former
child, just as every child is an incipient adult,
and at their best, children’s film and literature is
an attempt to communicate across this distance.
Young viewers may see a premonition of what
lies ahead as well as a sympathetic rendering of
what they already know, whereas adults may
find pleasure in recalling old hurts and relief
that they are not at the mercy of them.
 A. O. SCOTT
of soldiers’ coffins,’’ Camon said. “We talked
about how, despite the extensive coverage of
the war as a political issue, there was a blind
spot related to the human cost of it.’’
As Moverman and Carmon serached for a
director, conventional wisdom held that the
public did not want to think about the Iraq War
while eating popcorn. But they argued that the
movie industry could not ignore “one of the de-
fining events of our times,’’ in Camon’s words.
To Moverman and Camon, theirs was not re-
ally an Iraq War movie, anyway, but a nonpar-
tisan, life-after-war movie. “The bottom line is
that war is not a good thing,’’ Moverman said.
“But it takes no point of view in terms of this
particular war.’’  DEBORAH SONTAG
books Sunday, November 8, 2009 6

Bite-Size Legal Suspense From John Grisham Editor’s Row

John Grisham had some story
ideas that he didn’t think could
sustain full-length narrative. So
he did what he customarily does:
whatever he wants to.
Grisham took seven of his un-
used plot ideas and turned each of
them into a sharp, lean tale free of
subplots and padding. The change
invigorates him in ways that show
up on the page.
“Ford County” begins on a light
note and ends with a teary one; in
between it’s full of tacit suspense
that hinges on the bending, break-
ing and subversion of Mississippi
law. Exactly when and how will
a tricky legal issue arise? You
needn’t see it coming to know it
will be there.
In the hive of criminal creativ-
ity that is Ford County (the place
introduced in Grisham’s debut
novel, “A Time to Kill”) many a
citizen seems poised on the brink
of trouble. Yet Grisham often ap-
proaches that trouble in wryly
humorous fashion, as he does in
“Blood Drive,” the book’s opening
story. He begins with an emergen-
cy: A local named Bailey has been
injured in a construction accident
in Memphis, and Bailey needs
blood donors. Exactly what hap-
pened? Nobody’s sure. What work
was Bailey doing? Good question.
His mother always said he was an
assistant foreman, but he turns
out to have been a mason’s helper
instead.
FORD COUNTY
Stories
By John Grisham
308 pages. Doubleday. $24
Soon three stalwarts have been
recruited to make a hasty run
from Mississippi to Memphis. And
it takes remarkably few words for
Grisham to sketch them perfect-
ly. “A hero quickly emerged,” Gr-
isham writes archly of Wayne Ag-
nor, aka Aggie, whose ownership
of a pickup is his main qualifica-
tion for the job. The second volun-
teer is Calvin Marr, conveniently
unemployed and eager to see what
Memphis is like. The third, the guy
nobody wants, is named Roger,
and his father seems to volunteer
Roger for the job just to get rid of
him. Would Roger’s drug history
make him a good blood donor?
“Needles certainly wouldn’t in-
timidate him,” Grisham writes.
As “Blood Drive” begins living
up to its title, Grisham leads his
threesome down a slippery slope
toward life-changing legal con-
sequences. He also leads them
into so much trouble that Bailey is
the character who emerges least
scathed.
Then it’s on to “Fetching Ray-
mond,” another story about a road
trip, this one as mysterious in
purpose as the Bailey rescue mis-
sion was clear. Three no-account
Graneys, Inez and two of her sons,
are headed for an unnamed desti-
nation. They are making what is
apparently a regular pilgrimage
for them all.
They’re going to visit a third
brother, Raymond, at the prison
where he has been spending his
family’s scant resources, learn-
ing big words (“what the hell is a
stipend?” a brother asks), hiring
lawyers, firing lawyers and do-
ing some truly terrible writing.
Raymond has also insisted on be-
coming the rare white Delta blues
singer on death row.
The death row angle is slipped
almost casually into what has
until then been a fairly upbeat
dysfunctional-family tale. But
Grisham can give his story an
unexpected twist without need of
a heavy hand. His novels some-
times moralize; these short sto-
ries don’t need to because they
transform their agendas into
pure, vigorous plot.
“Quiet Haven” is the book’s
sneakiest story. Why would a nice
young man seek work at nursing
home after nursing home and
keep changing jobs so regularly?
The answer isn’t hard to guess,
but it’s the tactics that matter.
A scam artist can have no better
accomplice than Grisham when
it comes to doing the wrong thing
but doing it right.
 JANET MASLIN
What the Dog Saw: And Other
Adventures, by Malcolm Gladwell. (Little,
Brown, $27.99.) This selection of articles
from The New Yorker offers plenty of the
indefatigably curious Gladwell’s stock
in trade: counterintuitive findings from
little-known experts.
INVISIBLE, by Paul Auster. (Frances
Coady/Holt, $25.) The student-hero of
Auster’s masterly novel learns about love
from several characters, but an affair
with his sister permanently defines his
personality.
Lit: A Memoir, by Mary Karr. (Harper/
HarperCollins, $25.99.) Despite the
deep seriousness — about motherhood,
disintegrating marriage, alcoholism,
depression and God — nothing can keep
Karr from being funny.
THE GROUND TRUTH: The Untold
Story of America Under Attack on 9/11,
by John Farmer. (Riverhead, $26.95.) A
senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission as-
sails the Bush administration’s depiction
of the event as public relations flimflam.
THE ORIGINAL OF LAURA: (Dying
Is Fun), by Vladimir Nabokov. Edited by
Dmitri Nabokov. (Knopf, $35.) Nabokov’s
far-from-finished last novel.
MY PAPER CHASE: True Stories of
Vanished Times, by Harold Evans. (Little,
Brown, $27.99.) Evans describes the era
of British newspapers when journalists
were literate buccaneers.
The Canterbury Tales: A Retell-
ing, by Peter Ackroyd. (Viking, $35.) Ack-
royd’s robust Modern English preserves
much of Chaucer’s richness.

Paperback Row
The World Is What It Is: The Authorized
Biography of V.S. Naipaul, by Patrick French.
(Vintage, $17.) French’s biography, one of the Book
Review’s 10 Best Books of 2008, is “fully worthy of
its subject, with all the dramatic pacing, the insight
and the pathos of a first-rate novel,” our reviewer,
George Packer, said. “It is also a portrait of the art-
ist as a monster.” It describes the sadomasochistic
triangle — physical with his mistress, emotional
with his first wife — that nourished Naipaul for 25
years. In A Writer’s People. Ways of Looking
and Feeling: An Essay in Five Parts (Vintage In-
ternational, $15), Naipaul looks, both bracingly and
grandiosely, at some of the writers who influenced
him.
The Piano Teacher, by Janice Y. K. Lee. (Pen-
guin, $15.) In this first novel, a young English bride
who has moved to Hong Kong in 1951 becomes the
piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese
couple. Falling for Hong Kong as well as an enig-
matic Englishman, she learns about and lives with
the consequences of the complicated choices made
during the Japanese occupation by her lover and
her employers.
Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the
New Barbarism, by Bernard-Henri Levy. Trans-
lated by Benjamin Moser. (Random House, $16.)
In the wake of Nicolas Sarkozy’s election in May
2007, Lévy, a philosopher and journalist, defends the
left but confronts some hard questions. Are human
rights Western or universal? he asks. He urges a
secular, pragmatic humanism, “neither resignation
nor defeatism.”
Martial’s Epigrams: A Selection, translated
and with an introduction by Garry Wills. (Penguin,
$15.) During the days of Nero and Domitian, a Span-
ish provincial named Marcus Valerius Martialis
made a living writing dirty poems for the sophis-
ticates of ancient Rome. Wills’s enthusiastic verse
translations reveal “a great scholar at play,” Steve
Coates said in the Times Book Review.
How to Talk About Books You Haven’t
Read, by Pierre Bayard. Translated by Jeffrey
Mehlman. (Bloomsbury, $14.) People lie about the
books they read, Bayard, a psychoanalyst as well as
a Paris University literature professor, says in this
serious book, a best seller in France. “I know few
areas of private life, with the exception of finance
and sex, in which it’s as difficult to obtain accurate
information.” But we shouldn’t blame ourselves;
talking about books you haven’t read is “an authen-
tic act of creativity.”
Blue Genes: A Memoir of Loss and Survival,
by Christopher Lukas. (Anchor, $15.) Lukas’s moth-
er killed herself when he was 7, and his older broth-
er, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist J. Anthony
Lukas, committed suicide in 1997. The memoirist
struggles to understand “why Tony succumbed to
despair and died, and why I have not.”
Collections of Nothing, by William Davies
King. (University of Chicago, $13.) “I love it all,”
King writes about his cache of food labels, bottle
caps and matchbook covers. This book, part memoir
and part examination of the psychological impulses
behind the urge to accumulate, is “a wonderfully
frank and engaging look at one man’s detritus-
fueled pathology,” our reviewer, Henry Alford, said.
 Elsa Dixler
crossword Sunday, November 8, 2009 7

THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE CROSSWORD PUZZLE

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
COLONIZATION
BY ROBERT W. HARRIS / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26

A C ROSS 48 Run down, in 82 Put back on the 27 28 29 30 31

1 Oriole, e.g., briefly slang market
32 33 34 35
5 “Still waters run 49 Collectible disks 84 Gentleman’s
deep,” for example 52 Singer India.___ intransigent reply? 36 37 38 39

10 Microwaves 53 Philadelphia’s 87 Means of 40 41 42 43

historic Gloria ___ identifying wood
14 Bygone Toyota
model Church 90 Dry Champagne, 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

54 Singer Horne e.g.

19 Prefix with factor 52 53 54 55 56
55 Lacking 91 Horseshoer’s tool
20 Brand with a 57 58 59 60 61 62
pyramid on the serviceability 95 Columnist Barrett
package 57 Poet Federico 96 &&&& 63 64 65 66
21 Verve García ___ 98 This one, in 67 68 69 70 71 72
22 Person with a 59 Hair net Acapulco
73 74 75 76 77 78
program 61 Place to get drunk 99 Against
23 “O say can you in the kitchen? 101 Latin 101 verb 79 80 81 82 83
see” or “Thru the 63 About to get 102 Redheaded kid of
perilous fight”? 84 85 86
64 A as in Austria old TV
25 Resident of a 103 “The Time 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94
military installation? 65 Original nuclear
regulatory grp. Machine” race 95 96 97 98 99 100
27 Divine 104 More than the
66 Craggy ridge
28 Lace shade immediate future 101 102 103 104
67 What overuse of a
30 Place on a bus credit card might 105 Where nitpickers 105 106 107 108 109
31 Business card result in? walk on a street?
110 111 112 113
abbr. 70 “That’s ___” (“It’s 108 Online beauty
32 Boxful for Bowser done”) contest? 114 115 116 117
33 Miss in Monterrey: 72 Seasons 110 Obliterate
Abbr. 111 Nabisco product (No. 1108)
73 Not so cool
34 Bring in 112 Group with the
74 Drains 2002 hit “Girlfriend”
35 Alarm 16 Sci-fi weapon 50 Like surveyors’ 87 Basis of 85-Down
76 Like, ’60s-style 113 Isn’t straight charts
36 Architect Saarinen 17 Vacation place, 88 “Night of the Living
78 Old brand in the 114 Cobbler’s supply often 51 Most withered
37 Confronting boldly shaving aisle Dead” director,
39 Singer Simon 115 Seizes 18 Boulevard, e.g. 52 Makes flush 1968
79 Toledo-to-
40 Tropical fruit seller? Columbus dir. 116 Drug agent’s 24 Impedes legally 54 Cambodia’s ___
seizure Nol 89 From one end of a
44 Tape holder 80 “Casablanca” role 26 Whip battery
117 Handy ___ 56 54-Down, e.g.
47 Alley ___ 81 Cool 29 Sent a message to 92 Cartwright of “Make
shore, say 58 Goldsmith, for one
Room for Daddy”
D OWN 33 Guard 60 Crude transports
C A P S B A T T A B H O R C D S
1 Toward the stern 62 College world 93 Group of viruses
A P O C R Y P H A P I A N O T W E E T 34 Heavy sheet inside
R E T R O S P E C T A C L E S V I L L E 2 Poe poem a book’s cover 65 Utterances around 94 Trimmed
B A T E S K A T F L E W A K I T E 3 Beef Wellington, 35 Away’s partner baby pictures
E L E P H A N T O M S P O R A D I C A L e.g. 96 Quick
37 ___ Motel 68 Moccasin
A I L S Y A N C O R T E X P A S 4 Take up again, as a decoration
R E L C R A G W A D I D O T E 38 Home ___ 97 Subject of a
case 69 Diner manager/ museum in Yorba
P S Y C H E D E L I C A C Y N O D I C E 39 Pauses during
5 High points waitress in Linda, Calif.
A A H A L A E A T M I S O S speech: Var.
C O N T R A B A N D O N L I P B A L M S 6 Place for a rivulet “Garfield”
41 Had the upper 99 One way to fly
U T A H S E D G E E F I L E T A M E 7 Porthos, to Aramis 70 Shirts and blouses
hand
O H F A T H E R R O U L E T T E R M A N 8 Produce 71 Rice ___ 100 Fidgety
M E T R O R A J A M O I C I 42 Score just before
9 Bygone Buick winning 75 “Je vous ___” 102 Till compartment
O R A T O R G U I T A R I S T O C R A T
I L A Y S V E N N O E L E G O 10 Indian bovine 43 Bit of fluff 77 Gibson necessity
103 Cause of star
R E C L E C T E R S T L A F E W 11 Part of many fancy 44 Back-room cigar 82 Most dilapidated wars?
P E R H A P S O D Y F O R E V E R I E S dish names smokers, say 83 Muscly
H I R O S H I M A Z O L A A S A N 12 Part of a book … or 104 Hosp. staffers
O S A K A C E N T I P E D E S T R I A N 45 United charge 84 Cara ___ (term of
something to book endearment) 106 Enzyme suffix
T E T E S A R D E N M A K E H A S T E 46 Back up
O R A N S Y N C N Y E S T H A W 13 Scornful expression 85 Sherry-like wine
49 Object of a 107 Wyo. neighbor
14 Tallow ingredient scurrilous attack, 86 Takes out of the
Answer to puzzle for 11/01/09 15 Blue Angels org. maybe will, say 109 ___ hair

Answers to this puzzle will appear in next Sunday’s TimesDigest, and in next Sunday’s New York Times.
You can get answers to any clue by touch-tone phone: 1-900-289-CLUE (289-2583), $1.49 a minute;
or, with a credit card, 1-800-814-5550.

G ET H OME D ELIVERY OF T HE N EW Y ORK T IMES . C ALL 1-800-NYTIMES

OPINION Sunday, November 8, 2009 8

editorials of the timeS NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Jobless Recovery Scary in the Pantry

If you are looking for an economic recovery
you can believe in, the October employment
report is not for you.
After contracting for a year and a half, the
economy grew in the quarter that ended in
September, driven largely by federal stimulus.
But government spending, as large and as nec-
essary as it has been, has not been enough to
revive hiring.
Unemployment surged from 9.8 percent in
September to 10.2 percent last month, its high-
est level since 1983. At the same time, the econ-
omy lost 190,000 more jobs. That means em-
ployers have eliminated 7.3 million positions
since the recession began in December 2007.
As dreadful as they are, the headline num-
bers understate the severity of the problem.
They also obscure an even grimmer fact: Un-
less there is more government support, it will
take several years of robust economic growth
— by no means a sure thing — to recoup the
jobs that have been lost.
The unemployment rate includes only job-
less people who have looked for work in the
past four weeks. The underemployment rate —
which also includes jobless workers who have
not recently looked for work and part-timers
who need full-time work — reached 17.5 percent
in October. And the long-term unemployment
rate — the share of the unemployed population
out of work for more than six months — also
continues to set records. It is now 35.6 percent.
The official job-loss data also fail to take note
of 2.8 million additional jobs needed to absorb
new workers who have joined the labor force
Equality’s Ragged March
Last Tuesday’s Election Day results showed
how far the nation has traveled in the struggle
for gay equality — and the distance still to go.
The returns also added fresh urgency to prom-
ising efforts in New York, New Jersey and the
District of Columbia to legalize marriage for
same-sex couples.
Voters in Washington State approved a bal-
lot measure endorsing a new law granting gay
and lesbian couples the same state-provided
benefits that heterosexual couples have.
In other good news, voters in Kalamazoo,
Mich., declined to overturn a new law barring
discrimination based on sexual orientation or
gender identity in housing, employment and
public accommodations. Voters elected their
first openly gay City Council members in St.
Petersburg, Fla., and Detroit. Chapel Hill,
N.C., elected its first openly gay mayor.
By sad contrast, voters in Maine — by a slim
margin, and following an aggressive, narrow-
minded campaign led by the forces of the re-
ligious right — repealed the state’s new law
extending the freedom to marry to same-sex
couples.
Fights for justice rarely follow a linear path.
Maine voters have approved anti-gay mea-
sures in the past only to reverse themselves in
during the recession. When those missing jobs
are added to the official total, the economy
comes up short by 10.1 million jobs.
Taken together, the numbers paint this
stark picture: At no time in post-World War II
America has it been more difficult to find a job,
to plan for the future, or — for tens of millions of
Americans — to merely get by.
At a recent meeting at the White House to
discuss job creation, President Obama said
that “bold, innovative action” would be needed
— from the administration, Congress and the
private sector — to undo the devastation in
the labor market. Americans are waiting for
Obama to lead the way.
There were good ideas floated at the White
House meeting, including bolstered federal
support for efforts to retrofit and weatherize
homes and public buildings. There was also
talk of using government money to establish-
ing a so-called infrastructure bank that would
issue bonds to help finance big construction
projects.
The country also needs a program that
would create jobs for teenagers — ages 16 to
19 — whose unemployment rate is currently a
record 27.6 percent.
We know that more stimulus spending and
government programs are a fraught topic.
But they are exactly what the country needs.
It may be the only way to prevent a renewed
downturn. And the only way to create the jobs
needed to put Americans back to work. Those
are the essential — and missing — ingredients
of a sustained recovery.
a subsequent election. We trust they will do so
again on the issue of same-sex marriage. It is
worth recalling, too, that fears of a devastating
ripple effect from a similar ballot defeat a year
ago in California proved unfounded.
Since that vote, three other states have
joined Massachusetts and Connecticut in al-
lowing same sex couples to marry. Another
victory may lie ahead in the District of Co-
lumbia, where a local law legalizing same-sex
marriage is moving toward approval.
The big battlegrounds now are New York
and New Jersey. New York’s governor, David
Paterson, has called the Legislature back to
Albany. The budget crisis heads the agenda,
but gay rights must be there, too. The As-
sembly has already approved legislation giv-
ing same-sex couples the freedom to marry.
Democratic leaders need to allow debate to
proceed, and rally the Senate’s 62 members to
follow suit.
In New Jersey, Gov. Jon Corzine’s loss to
Christopher Christie means that the Legisla-
ture must move urgently to approve marriage
equality. Corzine has said he would sign the
bill. Christie has said he would veto it. Legisla-
tors must act before Jan. 19, when the govern-
ment changes hands.
Your body is probably home to a chemical
called bisphenol A, or BPA. It’s a synthetic es-
trogen that United States factories now use in
everything from plastics to epoxies — to the
tune of six pounds per American per year.
More than 92 percent of Americans have
BPA in their urine, and scientists have linked
it — though not conclusively — to everything
from breast cancer to obesity, from attention
deficit disorder to genital abnormalities in
boys and girls alike.
Now it turns out it’s in our food.
Consumer Reports magazine tested an ar-
ray of brand-name canned foods for a report
in its December issue and found BPA in almost
all of them.
The magazine also says it found BPA in the
canned liquid version of Similac Advance in-
fant formula (but not in the powdered version)
and in canned Nestlé Juicy Juice (but not in the
juice boxes). The BPA probably came from an
interior coating used in many cans.
Steven Hentges of the American Chemis-
try Council dismissed the testing, noting that
Americans absorb quantities of BPA at levels
that government regulators have found to be
safe. Hentges also pointed to a new study indi-
cating that BPA exposure did not cause abnor-
malities in the reproductive health of rats.
But more than 200 other studies have shown
links between low doses of BPA and adverse
health effects, according to the Breast Cancer
Fund, which is trying to ban the chemical from
food and beverage containers.
“The vast majority of independent scientists
— those not working for industry — are con-
cerned about early-life low-dose exposures to
BPA,” said Janet Gray, a Vassar College profes-
sor who is science adviser to the Breast Cancer
Fund.
While most of the studies are on animals, the
Journal of the American Medical Association
reported last year that humans with higher
levels of BPA in their blood have “an increased
prevalence of cardiovascular disease, diabe-
tes and liver-enzyme abnormalities.” Another
study found that women with higher levels of
BPA in their blood had more miscarriages.
Last year, Canada became the first coun-
try to conclude that BPA can be hazardous to
humans, and Massachusetts issued a public
health advisory in August warning against any
exposure to BPA by pregnant or breast-feed-
ing women or by children under the age of 2.
The Food and Drug Administration, which in
the past has relied largely on industry studies
— and has generally been asleep at the wheel
— is studying the issue again. Bills are also
pending in Congress to ban BPA from food and
beverage containers.
“When you have 92 percent of the Ameri-
can population exposed to a chemical, this is
not one where you want to be wrong,” said Dr.
Ted Schettler of the Science and Environmen-
tal Health Network. “Are we going to quibble
over individual rodent studies, or are we going
to act?”
sports Sunday, November 8, 2009 9

A College’s Rebuilding Began With Character In Brief

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — When
Joe Taylor took over as the foot-
ball coach at Florida A&M, barely
a month after the Rattlers lost six
of their last seven games to finish
3-8 in 2007, he summoned every
returning player for an individual
conference.
In each session, he asked the
same question: why did things
happen the way they did last sea-
son? And each player pointed the
finger at someone else. Not one ac-
knowledged any role.
“There was a whole lot of what
I call deflecting,” Taylor, 59, said in
recent interview.
Taylor said that he realized that
the job facing him was more than
returning Florida A&M to its cus-
tomary success. He had to oversee
a character makeover, which for
him meant a regimen of church-
going, class work and off-season
training.
Alabama Over L.S.U.; Stanford Upsets Oregon
Alabama 24, L.S.U. 15
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — No. 3 Al-
abama picked up another dramat-
ic win and a second straight trip to
the SEC championship game.
Julio Jones caught a 73-yard
touchdown pass in the fourth
quarter, the Crimson Tide con-
verted the 2-point attempt, and
Leigh Tiffin booted a 40-yard field
goal with 3:04 left to seal a 24-15
victory over No. 9 L.S.U.
The Tide (9-0, 6-0 Southeastern
Conference) clinched a rematch
with No. 1 Florida in the league
championship game in a physical
game that left the Tigers (7-2, 4-2)
without quarterback Jordan Jef-
ferson and running back Charles
As he said, “My whole idea is
that if you can improve the person,
you can improve the player.”
Less than two years later, the re-
sults vindicate the thesis. Taylor’s
2008 team went 9-3, and after last
Saturday’s 31-28 overtime victory
against Morgan State, the Rattlers
were 6-2 in 2009, with one of those
losses to Miami.
Florida A&M now ranks in the
top 25 in the N.C.A.A. Football
Championship Subdivision poll for
the first time in eight years. Before
Saturday’s home game against
North Carolina A&T, the No. 24
Rattlers were in second place in
the Mid-Eastern Athletic Confer-
ence and third in the Sheridan
Broadcasting System ranking of
historically black colleges.
Impressive as the improve-
ments have been, the Florida A&M
tradition demands even more. Tay-
lor toils here in the shadow of Jake
Scott for most of the second half.
LSU would have taken control
of the West with a victory.
Stanford 51, Oregon 42
STANFORD, Calif. — Toby Ger-
hart bowled over the Oregon de-
fense to make the Cardinal bowl
eligible for the first time in eight
years.
Gerhart ran for a school-record
223 yards and three scores, An-
drew Luck threw for two touch-
downs and Stanford (6-3, 5-2 Pac-
10) held on to beat No. 7 Oregon 51-
42 Saturday for its all-important
sixth win of the season.
The loss by Oregon (7-2, 5-1)
cost the Ducks any shot at a berth
in the Bowl Championship Series
Gaither, one of the greatest college
football coaches ever, who retired
in 1969 with a career record of 203-
36-4.
The challenge of trying to equal a
legend was largely what drew Tay-
lor here after 16 years at Hampton
Institute, where his Pirates went
136-49-1, taking eight conference
titles and four national black cham-
pionships. Over his 25 years of head
coaching at Hampton, Virginia
Union and Howard, Taylor had
nearly equaled Gaither in career
victories with 197. But statistics are
statistics. A legend is a legend.
“FAMU has always had a mys-
tique,” Taylor said, using the com-
mon acronym for the university.
“It’s Jake and what he built and do-
ing it the right way. Revitalizing the
Jake Gaither tradition was part of
the attraction. I felt there was one
more resurrection that could hap-
pen.” SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
title game.
Ohio State 24, Penn State 7
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The
Ohio State Buckeyes are back in
control of the Big Ten title race.
Terrelle Pryor threw for two
touchdowns and ran for another
in his return to his home state,
Ray Small burned No. 11 Penn
State with two long punt returns
and Ohio State (No. 16 BCS, No. 15
AP) won a duel of the league’s top
two defenses in a 24-7 victory.
The Buckeyes (8-2, 5-1 Big Ten)
got an added bonus, too: a tie for
the conference lead with Iowa
after Northwestern handed the
Hawkeyes its first loss of the sea-
son earlier Saturday.  (AP)
Zenyatta Wins
Breeders Cup
ARCADIA, Calif. — Take
that, Rachel Alexandra. Ze-
nyatta, the rugged race mare,
improved her record to 14-0 in
spectacular fashion, running
down some of the most accom-
plished racehorses in the world
to win the $5 million Breeders
Cup Classic by a length.
She completed the mile and
a quarter in 2:00.62, a time that
was even more remarkable be-
cause she had to circle the field
wide to run down America’s
best turf horse, Gio Ponti. It
was the first time a mare had
defeated the boys in the mar-
quee race of the Breeders Cup.
 (NYT)
Navy Beats Irish
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Craig
Schaefer sacked Jimmy Claus-
en in the end zone with 60 sec-
onds left and Navy held on for a
23-21 victory over Notre Dame
(No. 22 BCS, No. 19 AP) (6-3).
The win sends Navy into the
Texas Bowl and effectively ends
any hope Notre Dame (6-3) had
for a Bowl Championship Series
berth.  (AP)
NHL scores
FRIDAY’S LATE GAME
Colorado 4, Chicago 3, SO
SATURDAY
Memphis 3, Los Angeles 1
nBA scores
FRIDAY’S LATE GAMES
L.A. Lakers 114, Memphis 98
Portland 96, San Antonio 84
L.A. Clippers 118, Golden State 90

WEATHER
High/low temperatures for the 21 hours ended at 4 p.m.
yesterday, Eastern time, and precipitation (in inches)
for the 18 hours ended at 1 p.m. yesterday. Expected
conditions for today and tomorrow.
Weather conditions: C-clouds, F-fog, H-haze, I-ice, PC-
partly cloudy,R-rain, S-sun, Sh-showers, Sn-snow, SS-
snow showers, T-thunderstorms, Tr-trace, W-windy.
U.S. CITIES
Yesterday Today Tomorrow
Atlanta 69/ 43 0 74/ 45 S 68/ 50 PC
Albuquerque 66/ 44 0 68/ 40 PC 66/ 44 S
Boise 52/ 41 0 51/ 34 PC 57/ 32 PC
Boston 50/ 35 0 65/ 43 S 67/ 45 S
Buffalo 63/ 30 0 64/ 50 S 63/ 50 PC
Charlotte 65/ 30 0 74/ 37 S 72/ 43 PC
Chicago 70/ 52 0 66/ 48 PC 62/ 49 PC
Cleveland 66/ 43 0 68/ 50 S 70/ 50 PC
Dallas-Ft. Worth 73/ 55 0 75/ 59 C 76/ 58 PC
Denver 73/ 37 0 61/ 38 S 50/ 34 PC
Detroit 67/ 44 0 65/ 47 PC 65/ 50 PC
Houston
Kansas City
78/ 52
73/ 54
0
0
77/ 61
74/ 55
PC
S
77/ 62 C
63/ 55 C
Los Angeles 68/ 55 0 72/ 57 PC 77/ 57 PC
Miami 82/ 75 0 83/ 76 PC 85/ 78 PC
Mpls.-St. Paul 63/ 45 0 58/ 43 C 56/ 41 PC
New York City 53/ 35 0 67/ 46 S 69/ 53 S
Orlando 81/ 61 0 82/ 62 PC 84/ 67 PC
Philadelphia 55/ 30 0 66/ 43 S 68/ 47 S
Phoenix 82/ 58 0 85/ 60 PC 87/ 59 PC
Salt Lake City 59/ 37 0 54/ 34 PC 59/ 35 S
San Francisco 64/ 51 0 67/ 51 PC 66/ 48 PC
Seattle 46/ 43 1.24 51/ 41 Sh 52/ 42 R
St. Louis 78/ 56 0 78/ 50 S 71/ 52 PC
Washington 59/ 35 0 69/ 45 S 71/ 50 S
FOREIGN CITIES
Yesterday Today Tomorrow
Acapulco 93/ 77 0 86/ 73 S 86/ 73 PC
Athens 72/ 64 0 73/ 55 T 73/ 55 PC
Beijing 60/ 39 0 54/ 41 S 43/ 37 PC
Berlin 49/ 32 0 48/ 37 C 45/ 41 R
Buenos Aires 67/ 52 0.03 77/ 52 S 73/ 48 PC
Cairo 84/ 63 0 88/ 68 PC 86/ 66 PC
Cape Town
Dublin
70/ 59 0
48/ 39 0.12
63/ 54 R
52/ 43 PC
66/ 54 R
54/ 43 Sh
Geneva 44/ 30 0 46/ 37 C 41/ 38 R
Hong Kong 86/ 77 0 82/ 75 S 82/ 77 T
Kingston 90/ 77 0 86/ 77 R 86/ 77 R
Lima 71/ 63 Tr 72/ 61 PC 73/ 61 PC
London 52/ 41 0.24 54/ 43 PC 54/ 39 PC
Madrid 61/ 55 0 52/ 46 C 52/ 48 C
Mexico City 63/ 52 0 73/ 48 PC 75/ 50 PC
Montreal 40/ 25 0 54/ 37 PC 57/ 36 C
Moscow 37/ 30 0.16 39/ 33 R 41/ 36 Sh
Nassau 84/ 75 0 88/ 75 W 88/ 75 Sh
Paris 53/ 46 0.08 48/ 43 Sh 50/ 43 C
Prague 44/ 37 0 45/ 39 C 50/ 43 R
Rio de Janeiro 98/ 77 0 93/ 73 T 81/ 72 R
Rome 63/ 41 0.51 61/ 54 T 61/ 54 T
Santiago 67/ 43 0 68/ 34 PC 72/ 41 C
Stockholm 45/ 43 0 45/ 37 C 41/ 36 C
Sydney 75/ 63 0.20 77/ 59 PC 79/ 57 PC
Tokyo 69/ 55 0 72/ 59 PC 72/ 59 PC
Toronto 60/ 36 0 59/ 45 S 57/ 48 C
Vancouver 46/ 45 0.39 50/ 43 R 52/ 43 R
Warsaw 41/ 34 Tr 45/ 34 C 50/ 45 R
sports journal
N.F.L. Tries to Get Grip on Why Tackling Has Gone Amiss
Jacksonville Coach Jack Del Rio
was so disgusted by how many
tackles the Jaguars missed last
Sunday in a 30-13 loss at Tennes-
see that he took an unusual step
in today’s N.F.L.: He had his team
practice in full pads. Del Rio even
considered, but ultimately reject-
ed, having his players actually
tackle in practice.
“You can design it any way you
want, you can have any number
of X’s and O’s and D-linemen and
linebackers and secondary guys,”
Del Rio said. “You can distribute
them any different which way you
want, but if you can’t tackle, you
can’t stop people, you can’t play
good defense.”
Del Rio is not alone in his frus-
tration. Tackling, one of football’s
bedrock elements, seems to be
worse than ever, setting running
backs and wide receivers loose
and confounding coaches desper-
ate for a remedy in an era when
tackling has become an only-on-
Sunday requirement.
Last week, the San Francisco
49ers’ Frank Gore broke two
tackles on his way to a 64-yard
touchdown. The Miami Dolphins’
Ted Ginn Jr. was faced with a wall
of Jets, only to break free for a
101-yard kickoff return for a touch-
down. Earlier this season, Tampa
Bay Buccaneers Coach Raheem
Morris lamented his team’s 24
Strat-O-Matic Puts Stars of Negro Leagues Back Into Play
The Strat-O-Matic Game Co.,
an old warhorse in an age of com-
puter-driven fantasy leagues and
high-tech video games, usually
relies on detailed statistics to cre-
ate ratings and tendencies for hit-
ters and pitchers. But in creating
a new 103-card Negro leagues set
for its board game, Strat-O-Matic
found that the data was not easy
to come by.
Coverage of Negro leagues
games was spotty, especially be-
cause many black newspapers
were weeklies. Although stories
abound about Josh Gibson’s prow-
ess or Satchel Paige’s wizardry,
much of what has been handed
down borders on folklore.
Yet Hal Richman, who founded
Strat-O-Matic in 1961, was deter-
mined.
“I’ve wanted to do this for a long
time,” he said. “It’s a part of base-
ball history that has to be repre-
sented.”
He found an ally in Scott Sim-
missed tackles against the Buf-
falo Bills.
Missed tackles are not an of-
ficial N.F.L. statistic but Football
Outsiders, a Web site that pro-
vides statistical analysis of the
league, began tracking them this
season. In Week 4, it counted 131
broken tackles in the 12 games
that were charted, an average of
10 per game. One trend most ex-
poses how poor tackling is. Ac-
cording to the N.F.L., there were
81 touchdowns of 50 yards or more
through Week 8, the most since
1970, great for highlight reels, a
nightmare for defenses.
“We were watching the games,
and it was sickening to look at
these teams and how many big
plays are made because of missed
tackles,” said the retired safety
Rodney Harrison, who is an ana-
lyst for NBC.
From their first practice at Pop
Warner, players are taught to put
their face mask into the ball car-
rier’s chest, wrap him up with
their arms and explode with their
hips into the runner. But once the
N.F.L.’s regular season starts,
full-speed tackling happens only
on Sunday.
It was not always like that. Tony
Dungy, a former coach and cur-
rent NBC analyst, recalled that
when he played for the Pittsburgh
Steelers, Coach Chuck Noll never
kus, an aspiring baseball writer
and historian, and avid Strat-O-
Matic player since age 11. Simkus,
39, grew up in Chicago’s suburbs
hearing that his grandmother had
seen Hack Wilson play and that his
grandfather had bribed a police
officer at Wrigley Field in 1947 so
they could see Jackie Robinson’s
first game there.
When his grandfather died in
1995, Simkus went to the library
seeking microfilm articles about
his semipro baseball days. He
stumbled across some Negro
leagues box scores.
“I got interested and I slowly
built a collection,” said Simkus.
“Then it became an obsession.”
He said he thought of writing a
book with the material (and still
plans to), but he also knew about
Richman’s desire for a Negro
leagues card set. With more black
newspaper archives becoming
available online, Simkus realized
he could make it happen. He, Rich-
Sunday, November 8, 2009
held a practice that was not in full
pads, even on Friday, the lightest
day of the practice week. There
was contact every day, although
defenders were told not to explode
through their hits or bring an of-
fensive player to the ground.
“You got used to hitting and
tackling,” Dungy said.
But that was before the salary
cap and roster limits. A hard cap
and soft tissue do not mix, and
avoiding injuries during practice
is now the primary concern for
teams.
So while his players still prac-
ticed technique — taking the cor-
rect angle to the ball or at most
wrapping up the ball carrier be-
fore releasing him — the physical
aspect of tackling was virtually
absent.
“It does show,” Dungy said.
LaMarr Woodley, a linebacker
for the Steelers, who are con-
sidered one of the best tackling
teams, said: “People take for
granted that you can just go in
there, hit somebody and make
the tackle. It’s harder than people
think. It’s something you’ve defi-
nitely got to work on to prepare,
and have to practice during the
week.”
And when teams do not?
“Those are the teams that miss
a lot of tackles,” Woodley said.
Wide-open passing attacks have
man and Strat-O-Matic’s comput-
er gurus took three years to inter-
pret the statistics and produce the
set. (The company makes com-
puter versions, but it sells more
cards-and-dice board games.)
“It was a lot of hard work,” said
Simkus, who went beyond Negro
leagues box scores to study games
the stars played in Cuba, against
top semipro talent and against
barnstorming whites. He also read
about 100 books on the subject.
“Hal is a perfectionist,” Simkus
said. “I’ve gained a lot of apprecia-
tion for what goes into the game
and why it feels so organic.”
Several factors required care-
ful calibration to meet Richman’s
goal of objectivity.
“We wanted to be mindful and
not make stuff up regardless of
players’ reputations,” Simkus
said.
Each player card is based on his
peak five to seven years, an ap-
proach Strat-O-Matic used with
10
complicated matters, encouraging
complex defenses. Players and
coaches say more time is spent
teaching the nuances of a defense
than on tackling technique. And it
is much harder to make an open-
field tackle, particularly if the ball
carrier is the size of the 6-foot-4
Brandon Jacobs or has the quick-
ness of Percy Harvin, than one
near the line of scrimmage where
there is plenty of help.
The Hall of Fame linebacker
Harry Carson lamented about
how often he sees defenders, fre-
quently in the secondary, reach-
ing or lunging to make tackles,
hoping to grab a jersey or an ankle
instead of getting their bodies
into the plays. Earlier this year, a
Cleveland Browns defender was
so far away from the Green Bay
Packers’ Ryan Grant that John
Lynch, calling the game for Fox,
said, “It wouldn’t have been a
tackle in flag football.”
The mentality may be start-
ing to change back. Lynch said
he noticed that some teams held
more physical training camps this
summer. And like the Jaguars last
week, full pads are coming back in
vogue.
“The message was go back to
the basics and fundamentals,”
Lynch said. “Sometimes, it takes
chronically bad tackling. It’s kind
of old school.”  JUDY BATTISTA
its Hall of Fame set.
Simkus said he planned to re-
unite with friends with whom he
played Strat-O-Matic as a child for
a round of games with the Negro
leaguers. But he sampled the set
the moment it arrived. In Simkus’
first game, Paige wiggled his way
out of a jam by striking out Babe
Ruth and Oscar Charleston to pre-
serve a 2-1 lead.
“It was surreal, him rising to the
occasion like that,” Simkus said.
For Richman, 73, such stories
make the pursuit worthwhile.
“Many of these players are get-
ting into the Hall of Fame or other
recognition, and they deserve
all that,” he said. “But there are
things you can’t get from statues
and plaques.”
Giving the Negro leagues stars
chances to play with and against
the white ballplayers, he said,
“gives you a feeling of how good
they really were.”
 STUART MILLER