Campaign finance reform: Best we could get?
BY CAROL MARIN
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
October 31, 2009
http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/1856322,CST-EDT-carol01.article
Dawn Clark Netsch, the venerable voice of Illinois political reform, called early Friday morning even though it was going to make her late for a dentist's appointment. She was concerned I was going to get it wrong. That I was going to blast the Legislature for once again passing a watered-down, weak-kneed bill on campaign finance reform that they would hail as progress.
That's exactly what I was thinking about doing.
But I listened.
I always listen to Netsch because at 83 she has more street cred than almost anybody, having been state comptroller in 1990, the Democratic nominee for governor in 1994 and a bona fide reformer.
"They've moved incredibly far," she said of lawmakers who ended the week by passing the first-ever campaign donation caps on candidates, corporations and political action committees.
"For the first time, there are real limits to what people can pour into campaigns," she said. "Year-round disclosure, random audits. For anyone to say this is no improvement is simply not true."
And yet, it has been less than a year since Illinois took the national spotlight, not for the historic election of a president, but for the FBI arrest of a Democratic governor while his Republican predecessor was doing time in Club Fed.
Campaign cash was at the heart of the alleged crimes.
Wasn't that a signal that it was time to build a new house, not just patch the siding on the old one?
The short answer is no.
And so, while candidates, corporations and PACs will be limited in the amount of campaign cash that can be given or received, political parties and their leaders (read House Speaker Michael Madigan), will be exempt from any significant limitations. They keep their clout.
"In the end, we had to make a really hard judgment," said Cindi Canary, the chief negotiator for the reform group, Change Illinois.
"The good outweighed the bad," she said by phone from Springfield Friday. "But there are holes I don't like."
Canary, 50, has fought the reform fight in this state for more than a decade. The "holes" she doesn't like include a Clintonesque bit of legislative language that defines the "receipt" of a campaign donation as the day it becomes a "deposit" in the bank. Thus a candidate can hang on to a check and skirt new requirements for timely reporting of contributions until, say, after an election.
Cute.
"This is not how we teach our children about making public policy," Canary said. "For right now, it's the best we can do. . . . [Senate President John] Cullerton and Madigan were immovable objects. . . . The governor just parked himself in a corner and wasn't a player. . . . All those editorials, press conferences and peoples' calls did not outweigh legislative personal interest."
Like when it passed an Open Meetings Act but made legislative caucuses exempt?
Now comes campaign finance reform, and the Legislature has made political parties exempt.
Are we surprised?
If there is a bright side, as Netsch firmly believes, it is that politicians have to disclose the amounts and sources of their money more often than before.
If there is something to celebrate in this tortured process, it is that Illinois has not yet succeeded in killing off all its reformers who do this thankless work on our behalf.
"We fought like hell, we fought like hell," Canary said. "And I wish I could bring a lion back to the people of my tribe, but it's something less."
It was not for lack of trying.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Chicago Sun-Times Editorial: Veto override update is the right thing to do
Chicago Sun-Times Editorial: Veto override update is the right thing to do
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
October 31, 2009
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1856333,CST-EDT-edit01a.article
The dispute over how many Cook County commissioners should be needed to override a veto by County Board President Todd Stroger is not, at its core, about Stroger or his hated sales tax increase.
It's true we've questioned the necessity of the tax increase, given the waste and inefficiency in county government.
We have also been critical of Stroger's management of county finances.
And, of course, the sales tax increase is what prompted the effort by state lawmakers last week to reduce the number of County Board votes needed for an override.
But our concern here is more about a fundamental issue of fairness, one that transcends a single decision or political figure.
Right now, 14 out of 17 commissioners on the Cook County Board -- four-fifths of them -- are needed to override a Stroger veto. It's an usual quirk in the rules governing the Cook County Board, rooted in a time when the board was much smaller.
For all practically purposes, Stroger can kill any measure he wants, with a virtual guarantee it will stay dead.
Even his loathed sales tax increase could muster only 13 votes on the County Board to roll it back.
A legislative veto is intended to be fundamental check on executive power. But a check on power isn't much of a check if the trigger can never be pulled.
No County Board president should have that much power, whether it's Stroger or someone else.
A measure state lawmakers approved and sent to Gov. Quinn last week would lower the number needed for an override from four-fifths to three-fifths of the commissioners, or from 14 to 11.
That's similar to the rules governing other legislative bodies, from the state Legislature to Congress.
Stroger has indicated support, in theory, for rolling back the number of commissioners needed to override him, but not if it jeopardizes his tax increase.
Which from our perspective is completely beside the point.
This debate is not about one tax increase.
It's about giving residents of Cook County a meaningful voice through their elected representatives on the County Board, which Quinn will do when he signs this bill into law.
Copyright by The Chicago Sun-Times
October 31, 2009
http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/1856333,CST-EDT-edit01a.article
The dispute over how many Cook County commissioners should be needed to override a veto by County Board President Todd Stroger is not, at its core, about Stroger or his hated sales tax increase.
It's true we've questioned the necessity of the tax increase, given the waste and inefficiency in county government.
We have also been critical of Stroger's management of county finances.
And, of course, the sales tax increase is what prompted the effort by state lawmakers last week to reduce the number of County Board votes needed for an override.
But our concern here is more about a fundamental issue of fairness, one that transcends a single decision or political figure.
Right now, 14 out of 17 commissioners on the Cook County Board -- four-fifths of them -- are needed to override a Stroger veto. It's an usual quirk in the rules governing the Cook County Board, rooted in a time when the board was much smaller.
For all practically purposes, Stroger can kill any measure he wants, with a virtual guarantee it will stay dead.
Even his loathed sales tax increase could muster only 13 votes on the County Board to roll it back.
A legislative veto is intended to be fundamental check on executive power. But a check on power isn't much of a check if the trigger can never be pulled.
No County Board president should have that much power, whether it's Stroger or someone else.
A measure state lawmakers approved and sent to Gov. Quinn last week would lower the number needed for an override from four-fifths to three-fifths of the commissioners, or from 14 to 11.
That's similar to the rules governing other legislative bodies, from the state Legislature to Congress.
Stroger has indicated support, in theory, for rolling back the number of commissioners needed to override him, but not if it jeopardizes his tax increase.
Which from our perspective is completely beside the point.
This debate is not about one tax increase.
It's about giving residents of Cook County a meaningful voice through their elected representatives on the County Board, which Quinn will do when he signs this bill into law.
City enters Block 37 case
City enters Block 37 case
By Sandra M. Jones
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
October 31, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sat-sub-brf2-block37-1031oct31,0,7482699.story
The city moved to intervene in Bank of America's attempt to foreclose on Block 37.
In documents filed in Cook County Circuit Court late Friday, the city said the agreement it signed with developers when it sold the property at 108 N. State St. gives it a say in what happens to the project. The city's main interest is to get the public Pedway open next month and to make sure the retail project is completed, the filing said.
The city sold the block to Mills Corp. in 2005. It amended the agreement when Joseph Freed and Associates took over the project in 2007, according to court documents.
Earlier this month, a Bank of America-led group of lenders moved to foreclose on Block 37, claiming Freed essentially ran out of money to complete construction. Freed is contesting the lawsuit.
A judge is set to hear arguments Monday.
By Sandra M. Jones
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
October 31, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sat-sub-brf2-block37-1031oct31,0,7482699.story
The city moved to intervene in Bank of America's attempt to foreclose on Block 37.
In documents filed in Cook County Circuit Court late Friday, the city said the agreement it signed with developers when it sold the property at 108 N. State St. gives it a say in what happens to the project. The city's main interest is to get the public Pedway open next month and to make sure the retail project is completed, the filing said.
The city sold the block to Mills Corp. in 2005. It amended the agreement when Joseph Freed and Associates took over the project in 2007, according to court documents.
Earlier this month, a Bank of America-led group of lenders moved to foreclose on Block 37, claiming Freed essentially ran out of money to complete construction. Freed is contesting the lawsuit.
A judge is set to hear arguments Monday.
FDIC seizes 9 banks operated by FBOP- U.S. Bancorp purchases assets of Park National, others, which will open as usual Saturday
FDIC seizes 9 banks operated by FBOP- U.S. Bancorp purchases assets of Park National, others, which will open as usual Saturday
By Becky Yerak
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
October 31, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sat-fbop-seized-oct31,0,4621065.story
River Forest resident Michael Kelly built a banking empire over three decades, making himself wealthy. On Friday night, it all came tumbling down in spectacular fashion, as the government seized the nine banks run by Kelly's FBOP Corp.
U.S. Bancorp of Minneapolis, through a loss-sharing deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp,. will assume all the deposits and most of the assets of the nine failed banks, including Park National Bank of Chicago.
The timing was awkward. The government shut down $4.8 billion-asset Park National on the same day that its community development arm, Park National Bank Initiatives, received $50 million from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in Chicago on Friday. That money is intended to stimulate investment in low-income communities for such projects as charter schools, health clinics and stores.
The 31 branches of Park National will reopen Saturday under the ownership of U.S. Bancorp. The failure of the FBOP banks is expected to cost the FDIC about $2.5 billion.
Oak Park-based FBOP is privately held by Kelly, who built the company by making bank deals nationwide. About $12 billion of FBOP's assets are in California banks. It also owns institutions in Arizona and Texas.
FBOP has total banking assets of $19.4 billion, which made it the third-biggest bank owner headquartered in Illinois, after HSBC North America Holdings Inc. and Northern Trust Corp.
It also is the biggest Illinois institution whose banks have required government intervention since Continental Illinois in 1984. Park National and Community Bank of Lemont are the 18th and 19th Illinois banks to be seized this year.
FBOP was built from scratch by Kelly, an aggressive but intensely private entrepreneur. He bought First Bank of Oak Park in 1981 and then made a career of swooping in on ailing banks in Chicago and the Sun Belt, buying them cheap and improving their results dramatically.
Until recently, Kelly was viewed as a brilliant operator. But he had an abrupt reversal of fortune last year when the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exposed the holding company's large concentration of Fannie and Freddie preferred stock. The company unsuccessfully applied for about $500 million in federal TARP funds.
In Chicago, where FBOP also owns Community Bank of Lemont, it is a lesser player. It has 33 total offices and local market share of 1.24 percent, ranking 14th.
U.S. Bank, with $265 billion in assets, has 57 offices in the Chicago area and market share of 0.85 percent, ranking 19th. Combined, they will rank 11th in the Chicago area.
In an Oct. 21 earnings conference call, U.S. Bancorp told analysts that ideally it likes to be a top-three player in the 168 markets in which it does business. It has achieved that status in more than half of those markets.
The Park National shutdown occurred after several Illinois congressmen, including Reps. Bobby Rush and Danny Davis, and U.S. Sen. Roland Burris called the FDIC asking it to delay closing the bank for at least a week, said Marilyn Katz, a bank spokeswoman.
"At 10 this morning they were praising them and giving them $50 million, and at 10 this evening they'll be putting the padlock on the door," Rush said Friday. "There is something wrong with this picture: Wall Street wins and Main Street loses."
Davis, also a Democrat from Chicago, said Park National's fate was a "shame."
"It looks as though the FDIC is just not satisfied that the bank has the $600 million in new private equity that would take care of its capitalization needs," said Davis, who thought FBOP had lined up needed capital. "We've been engaged in it all day, and the last call I made was to the White House, but I don't know the extent to which they can get involved.
"It's like the hand that giveth, in a sense, also taketh away," he said.
Park National Bank Initiatives is redeveloping 200 acres in Pullman and has provided zero-interest loans for Christ the King Jesuit College Prep and Chicago Jesuit Academy. In West Garfield Park, it's a partner with Bethel New Life and Thrivent Financial to offer banking products to low-income consumers. It has also partnered with Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago.
Tribune reporter Michael Oneal contributed to this report. byerak@tribune.com
By Becky Yerak
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
October 31, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-sat-fbop-seized-oct31,0,4621065.story
River Forest resident Michael Kelly built a banking empire over three decades, making himself wealthy. On Friday night, it all came tumbling down in spectacular fashion, as the government seized the nine banks run by Kelly's FBOP Corp.
U.S. Bancorp of Minneapolis, through a loss-sharing deal with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp,. will assume all the deposits and most of the assets of the nine failed banks, including Park National Bank of Chicago.
The timing was awkward. The government shut down $4.8 billion-asset Park National on the same day that its community development arm, Park National Bank Initiatives, received $50 million from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in Chicago on Friday. That money is intended to stimulate investment in low-income communities for such projects as charter schools, health clinics and stores.
The 31 branches of Park National will reopen Saturday under the ownership of U.S. Bancorp. The failure of the FBOP banks is expected to cost the FDIC about $2.5 billion.
Oak Park-based FBOP is privately held by Kelly, who built the company by making bank deals nationwide. About $12 billion of FBOP's assets are in California banks. It also owns institutions in Arizona and Texas.
FBOP has total banking assets of $19.4 billion, which made it the third-biggest bank owner headquartered in Illinois, after HSBC North America Holdings Inc. and Northern Trust Corp.
It also is the biggest Illinois institution whose banks have required government intervention since Continental Illinois in 1984. Park National and Community Bank of Lemont are the 18th and 19th Illinois banks to be seized this year.
FBOP was built from scratch by Kelly, an aggressive but intensely private entrepreneur. He bought First Bank of Oak Park in 1981 and then made a career of swooping in on ailing banks in Chicago and the Sun Belt, buying them cheap and improving their results dramatically.
Until recently, Kelly was viewed as a brilliant operator. But he had an abrupt reversal of fortune last year when the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exposed the holding company's large concentration of Fannie and Freddie preferred stock. The company unsuccessfully applied for about $500 million in federal TARP funds.
In Chicago, where FBOP also owns Community Bank of Lemont, it is a lesser player. It has 33 total offices and local market share of 1.24 percent, ranking 14th.
U.S. Bank, with $265 billion in assets, has 57 offices in the Chicago area and market share of 0.85 percent, ranking 19th. Combined, they will rank 11th in the Chicago area.
In an Oct. 21 earnings conference call, U.S. Bancorp told analysts that ideally it likes to be a top-three player in the 168 markets in which it does business. It has achieved that status in more than half of those markets.
The Park National shutdown occurred after several Illinois congressmen, including Reps. Bobby Rush and Danny Davis, and U.S. Sen. Roland Burris called the FDIC asking it to delay closing the bank for at least a week, said Marilyn Katz, a bank spokeswoman.
"At 10 this morning they were praising them and giving them $50 million, and at 10 this evening they'll be putting the padlock on the door," Rush said Friday. "There is something wrong with this picture: Wall Street wins and Main Street loses."
Davis, also a Democrat from Chicago, said Park National's fate was a "shame."
"It looks as though the FDIC is just not satisfied that the bank has the $600 million in new private equity that would take care of its capitalization needs," said Davis, who thought FBOP had lined up needed capital. "We've been engaged in it all day, and the last call I made was to the White House, but I don't know the extent to which they can get involved.
"It's like the hand that giveth, in a sense, also taketh away," he said.
Park National Bank Initiatives is redeveloping 200 acres in Pullman and has provided zero-interest loans for Christ the King Jesuit College Prep and Chicago Jesuit Academy. In West Garfield Park, it's a partner with Bethel New Life and Thrivent Financial to offer banking products to low-income consumers. It has also partnered with Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago.
Tribune reporter Michael Oneal contributed to this report. byerak@tribune.com
Fall back
Fall back
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
October 31, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-daylight_savings_box_1031oct31,0,1523719.story
Don't forget to turn back your clocks tonight. Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday.
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
October 31, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-daylight_savings_box_1031oct31,0,1523719.story
Don't forget to turn back your clocks tonight. Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday.
Financial Times Editorial Comment: Iran’s last chance
Financial Times Editorial Comment: Iran’s last chance
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: October 30 2009 19:22 | Last updated: October 30 2009 19:22
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/44238500-c586-11de-9b3b-00144feab49a.html
Rarely, in the 30 years of name-calling and visceral animosity between the US and Iran triggered by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has the prospect of detente between them been so tantalisingly within reach. But Tehran is recklessly close to frittering away this opening. That would be a disaster.
The tentative deal struck at landmark talks in Geneva at the beginning of this month bought vital time to stave off what was looking like an inexorable confrontation between Iran and the west over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
Under the outline accord, Iran would ship abroad the bulk of its known stock of low-enriched uranium (LEU) for reprocessing into higher grade medical isotopes for cancer treatment. Russia agreed to enrich the uranium to greater purity, then send it to France to be packaged up for use by an Iranian research reactor in Tehran. Iran is meanwhile allowing international inspection of a previously undeclared nuclear site near Qom. There is an elegance to this deal.
First, by exporting the raw material for a bomb it denies pursuing, Iran would start reassuring its neighbours – including an alarmed and increasingly bellicose Israel. Second, Russia is co-operating with the US and Europe. The theocrats in Tehran are at last hearing one voice. Third, this deal starts down the only path that can lead eventually to a resolution of this confrontation: implicitly conceding Iran’s right to enrich uranium but under strict international oversight.
But what is now happening? The Iranian regime, as ever, is playing hard to get. While Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the mercurial president ruthlessly re-imposed by fraud in this summer’s bitterly contested elections, has welcomed a US shift to “co-operation”, Tehran wants a sort of instalment plan to phase its exports of LEU.
There is some wiggle room – not least because Iran has not set out a formal, written position. When it does, it should be clear what is at stake. Take the path to detente; the other road leads to perdition.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: October 30 2009 19:22 | Last updated: October 30 2009 19:22
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/44238500-c586-11de-9b3b-00144feab49a.html
Rarely, in the 30 years of name-calling and visceral animosity between the US and Iran triggered by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has the prospect of detente between them been so tantalisingly within reach. But Tehran is recklessly close to frittering away this opening. That would be a disaster.
The tentative deal struck at landmark talks in Geneva at the beginning of this month bought vital time to stave off what was looking like an inexorable confrontation between Iran and the west over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
Under the outline accord, Iran would ship abroad the bulk of its known stock of low-enriched uranium (LEU) for reprocessing into higher grade medical isotopes for cancer treatment. Russia agreed to enrich the uranium to greater purity, then send it to France to be packaged up for use by an Iranian research reactor in Tehran. Iran is meanwhile allowing international inspection of a previously undeclared nuclear site near Qom. There is an elegance to this deal.
First, by exporting the raw material for a bomb it denies pursuing, Iran would start reassuring its neighbours – including an alarmed and increasingly bellicose Israel. Second, Russia is co-operating with the US and Europe. The theocrats in Tehran are at last hearing one voice. Third, this deal starts down the only path that can lead eventually to a resolution of this confrontation: implicitly conceding Iran’s right to enrich uranium but under strict international oversight.
But what is now happening? The Iranian regime, as ever, is playing hard to get. While Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the mercurial president ruthlessly re-imposed by fraud in this summer’s bitterly contested elections, has welcomed a US shift to “co-operation”, Tehran wants a sort of instalment plan to phase its exports of LEU.
There is some wiggle room – not least because Iran has not set out a formal, written position. When it does, it should be clear what is at stake. Take the path to detente; the other road leads to perdition.
Barcelona’s Hidden Courtyards
Barcelona’s Hidden Courtyards
By VICTORIA BURNETT
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: November 1, 2009
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/travel/01explorer.html?th&emc=th
IF you’ve walked in the creamy Barcelona sunlight through the streets around the Paseo de Gracia, you will be no stranger to the elegant charm of the Eixample, the imposing 19th-century grid that is the city’s geographical and architectural heart. Magnificent modernist buildings gaze proudly over the tree-lined boulevards. Delights beckon from every shop front: sleek furniture, elaborate tapas, chic couture and handmade chocolates.
Hidden from view, however, behind the Eixample’s grand facades, is a little-advertised patchwork of public gardens and courtyards that offers refuge from the urban rush and an intimate view of everyday Barcelona life.
Many of these green spaces have been carved in recent years from the patios that form the center of each city block, and are reached down narrow passageways or by cutting through a building. They are the ideal place to pause between the sights of the Eixample, which stretches from the old city to neighborhoods like Gracia, especially if you have children in tow.
As you stroll around the Quadrat d’Or — the central section of the Eixample known for its modernist gems — step into the gracious garden of the Palau Robert, a late-19th-century mansion that hosts the Catalan tourist office. Filled with stately palm, cyprus and orange trees, the gardens were part of the estate of Robert Robert i Surís, a Spanish grandee. You can reach the garden through the door of the palace, at Paseo de Gracia, 107, or through two gates around the corner on Diagonal.
This is drought-stricken Barcelona, however, not well-watered Paris or London, and some of the Eixample’s gardens are paved and spare — more interesting as places to watch people than to spot flora.
If you take a few minutes out of your hunt for designer cookware at the popular shop Vinçon (Paseo de Gracia, 96; 34-93-215-6050; www.vincon.com), you can sit in the peaceful courtyard behind the shop and check out the undulating balconies on the rear facade of Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Milà. You may even catch a couple of the residential building’s lucky occupants shooting the breeze.
Or for a taste of local life, pop into the courtyard at the end of the Pasaje Rector Oliveras, where children clamber on the climbing frame in the shadow of the Gothic Church of the Immaculate Conception, which was moved stone by stone from the old city in the late 1800s. A local resident said the neighbors use the garden for alfresco dinners in summer, so, you never know, you may even snag an invitation to partake of some pa amb tomaquet.
Or cool your heels — literally — in the shallow, turquoise swimming pool reached via a dark passageway at Calle Roger de Llúria, 56, one of the first patios returned to the public by the city in the late 1980s and home to a looming brick water tower. (Entry during summer costs 1.45 euros, about $2.20.)
“The patios are like a window onto Barcelona,” said Francesc Muñoz Ramírez, a professor of urban geography at the Barcelona Autonomous University, during a recent afternoon stroll through the Eixample. “You can be an urban voyeur — watch the business of the city from the inside.”
This speckle of green in the Eixample’s urban lattice is a nod to the vision of Idelfons Cerdà i Sunyer, the progressive civil engineer whose design for the district marks its 150th anniversary this year. When he submitted his plan in 1859, the city Cerdà had in mind was to be functional rather than flamboyant, a breed of socialist utopia where rich and poor would live side-by-side in city blocks of identical size wrapped around parks and kitchen gardens.
Back then, Barcelona was a teeming, disease-ridden warren of streets, clustered around the port and hemmed in by medieval walls beyond which lay the wide expanse that became the Eixample. Life for the working class was grim and short; the average person died before his or her 36th birthday.
Onto this squalid, airless muddle, Cerdà grafted his huge, orderly grid, an ambitious expansion that was an heir of Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s plan for remodeling the chaotic center of Paris earlier in the decade.
Cerdà foresaw the needs of modern life and created a template from which the city has evolved to become one of Europe’s most vibrant and enticing.
Thrilled by the potential of railways, he designed wide streets that could handle trains and trams. To help visibility and, some believe, to allow trams to turn, he cut the corner of each block at an angle, creating the graceful chamfered corners so characteristic of the Eixample.
Cerdà’s plan became the DNA of modern Barcelona, but his detractors condemned it as vulgar and monotonous and many of its egalitarian precepts were ignored.
“Cerdà’s vision was so avant-garde, so modern that few people at the time recognized his genius,” said Lluís Permanyer, a Catalan journalist who has written books on the Eixample. “It is only today that we are realizing how important he was.”
Some streets became more equal than others, with grand avenues sprouting elaborate mansions that made the Eixample a showcase for modernist architects like Gaudí, Lluís Domènech i Montaner and Josep Puig i Cadafalch, while nearby streets languished, unpaved and without sanitation.
Greedy developers constructed more, and taller, buildings than Cerdà intended, cutting the light and public space that were supposed to make his city sanitary and pleasant (like other 19th-century urban planners, he believed good ventilation would prevent the spread of disease). The patios inside each block became cluttered with warehouses, garages and offices.
However, the green spaces that Cerdà believed would define the Eixample prefigured a very contemporary need. As part of an effort to make Barcelona greener, the city has created 40 gardens and plans to add more, as well as create a network of pedestrian-only areas.
“We’re returning to Cerdà’s original concept,” said Professor Muñoz. “The vision we have for the city now isn’t very different from the one he had, 150 years ago.”
BEHIND FACADES
Through June 2010, the Barcelona Center for Contemporary Culture (www.cccb.org) is organizing exhibitions, walks and seminars to mark Cerdà’s urban design legacy. Details at www.anycerda.org.
An extensive list of Barcelona’s often-overlooked public gardens — like the serene grounds of the Barcelona Seminary (Calle Diputación, 231) or the courtyard of the Casa Elizalde cultural center (Calle Valencia, 302), where you can often catch a weekend children’s show — can be found on the Web site of ProEixample (www.proeixample.cat), a public-private partnership dedicated to revitalizing the Eixample.
By VICTORIA BURNETT
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: November 1, 2009
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/11/01/travel/01explorer.html?th&emc=th
IF you’ve walked in the creamy Barcelona sunlight through the streets around the Paseo de Gracia, you will be no stranger to the elegant charm of the Eixample, the imposing 19th-century grid that is the city’s geographical and architectural heart. Magnificent modernist buildings gaze proudly over the tree-lined boulevards. Delights beckon from every shop front: sleek furniture, elaborate tapas, chic couture and handmade chocolates.
Hidden from view, however, behind the Eixample’s grand facades, is a little-advertised patchwork of public gardens and courtyards that offers refuge from the urban rush and an intimate view of everyday Barcelona life.
Many of these green spaces have been carved in recent years from the patios that form the center of each city block, and are reached down narrow passageways or by cutting through a building. They are the ideal place to pause between the sights of the Eixample, which stretches from the old city to neighborhoods like Gracia, especially if you have children in tow.
As you stroll around the Quadrat d’Or — the central section of the Eixample known for its modernist gems — step into the gracious garden of the Palau Robert, a late-19th-century mansion that hosts the Catalan tourist office. Filled with stately palm, cyprus and orange trees, the gardens were part of the estate of Robert Robert i Surís, a Spanish grandee. You can reach the garden through the door of the palace, at Paseo de Gracia, 107, or through two gates around the corner on Diagonal.
This is drought-stricken Barcelona, however, not well-watered Paris or London, and some of the Eixample’s gardens are paved and spare — more interesting as places to watch people than to spot flora.
If you take a few minutes out of your hunt for designer cookware at the popular shop Vinçon (Paseo de Gracia, 96; 34-93-215-6050; www.vincon.com), you can sit in the peaceful courtyard behind the shop and check out the undulating balconies on the rear facade of Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Milà. You may even catch a couple of the residential building’s lucky occupants shooting the breeze.
Or for a taste of local life, pop into the courtyard at the end of the Pasaje Rector Oliveras, where children clamber on the climbing frame in the shadow of the Gothic Church of the Immaculate Conception, which was moved stone by stone from the old city in the late 1800s. A local resident said the neighbors use the garden for alfresco dinners in summer, so, you never know, you may even snag an invitation to partake of some pa amb tomaquet.
Or cool your heels — literally — in the shallow, turquoise swimming pool reached via a dark passageway at Calle Roger de Llúria, 56, one of the first patios returned to the public by the city in the late 1980s and home to a looming brick water tower. (Entry during summer costs 1.45 euros, about $2.20.)
“The patios are like a window onto Barcelona,” said Francesc Muñoz Ramírez, a professor of urban geography at the Barcelona Autonomous University, during a recent afternoon stroll through the Eixample. “You can be an urban voyeur — watch the business of the city from the inside.”
This speckle of green in the Eixample’s urban lattice is a nod to the vision of Idelfons Cerdà i Sunyer, the progressive civil engineer whose design for the district marks its 150th anniversary this year. When he submitted his plan in 1859, the city Cerdà had in mind was to be functional rather than flamboyant, a breed of socialist utopia where rich and poor would live side-by-side in city blocks of identical size wrapped around parks and kitchen gardens.
Back then, Barcelona was a teeming, disease-ridden warren of streets, clustered around the port and hemmed in by medieval walls beyond which lay the wide expanse that became the Eixample. Life for the working class was grim and short; the average person died before his or her 36th birthday.
Onto this squalid, airless muddle, Cerdà grafted his huge, orderly grid, an ambitious expansion that was an heir of Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann’s plan for remodeling the chaotic center of Paris earlier in the decade.
Cerdà foresaw the needs of modern life and created a template from which the city has evolved to become one of Europe’s most vibrant and enticing.
Thrilled by the potential of railways, he designed wide streets that could handle trains and trams. To help visibility and, some believe, to allow trams to turn, he cut the corner of each block at an angle, creating the graceful chamfered corners so characteristic of the Eixample.
Cerdà’s plan became the DNA of modern Barcelona, but his detractors condemned it as vulgar and monotonous and many of its egalitarian precepts were ignored.
“Cerdà’s vision was so avant-garde, so modern that few people at the time recognized his genius,” said Lluís Permanyer, a Catalan journalist who has written books on the Eixample. “It is only today that we are realizing how important he was.”
Some streets became more equal than others, with grand avenues sprouting elaborate mansions that made the Eixample a showcase for modernist architects like Gaudí, Lluís Domènech i Montaner and Josep Puig i Cadafalch, while nearby streets languished, unpaved and without sanitation.
Greedy developers constructed more, and taller, buildings than Cerdà intended, cutting the light and public space that were supposed to make his city sanitary and pleasant (like other 19th-century urban planners, he believed good ventilation would prevent the spread of disease). The patios inside each block became cluttered with warehouses, garages and offices.
However, the green spaces that Cerdà believed would define the Eixample prefigured a very contemporary need. As part of an effort to make Barcelona greener, the city has created 40 gardens and plans to add more, as well as create a network of pedestrian-only areas.
“We’re returning to Cerdà’s original concept,” said Professor Muñoz. “The vision we have for the city now isn’t very different from the one he had, 150 years ago.”
BEHIND FACADES
Through June 2010, the Barcelona Center for Contemporary Culture (www.cccb.org) is organizing exhibitions, walks and seminars to mark Cerdà’s urban design legacy. Details at www.anycerda.org.
An extensive list of Barcelona’s often-overlooked public gardens — like the serene grounds of the Barcelona Seminary (Calle Diputación, 231) or the courtyard of the Casa Elizalde cultural center (Calle Valencia, 302), where you can often catch a weekend children’s show — can be found on the Web site of ProEixample (www.proeixample.cat), a public-private partnership dedicated to revitalizing the Eixample.
Obama Lifts a Ban on Entry Into U.S. by H.I.V.-Positive People
Obama Lifts a Ban on Entry Into U.S. by H.I.V.-Positive People
By JULIA PRESTON
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/us/politics/31travel.html?th&emc=th
President Obama on Friday announced the end of a 22-year ban on travel to the United States by people who had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS, fulfilling a promise he made to gay advocates and acting to eliminate a restriction he said was “rooted in fear rather than fact.”
At a White House ceremony, Mr. Obama announced that a rule canceling the ban would be published on Monday and would take effect after a routine 60-day waiting period. The president had promised to end the ban before the end of the year.
“If we want to be a global leader in combating H.I.V./AIDS, we need to act like it,” Mr. Obama said. “Now, we talk about reducing the stigma of this disease, yet we’ve treated a visitor living with it as a threat.”
The United States is one of only about a dozen countries that bar people who have H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.
President George W. Bush started the process last year when he signed legislation, passed by Congress in July 2008, that repealed the statute on which the ban was based. But the ban remained in effect.
It was enacted in 1987 at a time of widespread fear that H.I.V. could be transmitted by physical or respiratory contact. The ban was further strengthened by Congress in 1993 as an amendment offered by Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina.
Because of the restriction, no major international conference on the AIDS epidemic has been held in the United States since 1990. Public health officials here have long said there was no scientific or medical basis for the ban.
Under the ban, United States health authorities have been required to list H.I.V. infection as a “communicable disease of public health significance.” Under immigration law, most foreigners with such a disease cannot travel to the United States. The ban covered both visiting tourists and foreigners seeking to live in this country.
Once the ban is lifted, foreigners applying to become residents in the United States will no longer be required to take a test for AIDS.
In practice, the ban particularly affected tourists and gay men. Waivers were available, but the procedure for tourists and other short-term visitors who were H.I.V. positive was so complicated that many concluded it was not worth it.
For foreigners hoping to immigrate, waivers were available for people who were in a heterosexual marriage, but not for gay couples. Gay advocates said the ban had led to painful separations in families with H.I.V.-positive members that came to live in this country, and had discouraged adoptions of children with the virus.
Gay advocates said the ban also discouraged travelers and some foreigners already living in the United States from seeking testing and medical care for H.I.V. infection.
“The connection between immigration and H.I.V. has frightened people away from testing and treatment,” said Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, a group that advocates for gay people in immigration matters. She said lifting the ban would bring “a significant public health improvement.”
“Stigma and exclusion are not a sound basis for immigration policy,” Ms. Tiven said.
Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, who led the effort to repeal the ban, said it had now “gone the way of the dinosaur.”
But, Mr. Kerry added, “it sure took too long to get here.”
International health officials said lifting the ban would end a much-criticized inconsistency in United States health policy, with Washington playing a leading role in AIDS prevention in Africa and other countries with severe epidemics, but preserving restrictions that in practice prevented international AIDS researchers and activists from gathering at conferences here.
In 1989, a Dutch AIDS educator, Hans Verhoef, was detained for several days in St. Paul when he tried to attend a conference. Since then, people involved with AIDS issues have not organized meetings here.
“We think this is going to give a very positive image of where the United States is going in terms of eliminating stigma and discrimination in relation to H.I.V.,” Dr. Socorro Gross, assistant director of the Pan American Health Organization, said Friday.
By JULIA PRESTON
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/us/politics/31travel.html?th&emc=th
President Obama on Friday announced the end of a 22-year ban on travel to the United States by people who had tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS, fulfilling a promise he made to gay advocates and acting to eliminate a restriction he said was “rooted in fear rather than fact.”
At a White House ceremony, Mr. Obama announced that a rule canceling the ban would be published on Monday and would take effect after a routine 60-day waiting period. The president had promised to end the ban before the end of the year.
“If we want to be a global leader in combating H.I.V./AIDS, we need to act like it,” Mr. Obama said. “Now, we talk about reducing the stigma of this disease, yet we’ve treated a visitor living with it as a threat.”
The United States is one of only about a dozen countries that bar people who have H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.
President George W. Bush started the process last year when he signed legislation, passed by Congress in July 2008, that repealed the statute on which the ban was based. But the ban remained in effect.
It was enacted in 1987 at a time of widespread fear that H.I.V. could be transmitted by physical or respiratory contact. The ban was further strengthened by Congress in 1993 as an amendment offered by Senator Jesse Helms, Republican of North Carolina.
Because of the restriction, no major international conference on the AIDS epidemic has been held in the United States since 1990. Public health officials here have long said there was no scientific or medical basis for the ban.
Under the ban, United States health authorities have been required to list H.I.V. infection as a “communicable disease of public health significance.” Under immigration law, most foreigners with such a disease cannot travel to the United States. The ban covered both visiting tourists and foreigners seeking to live in this country.
Once the ban is lifted, foreigners applying to become residents in the United States will no longer be required to take a test for AIDS.
In practice, the ban particularly affected tourists and gay men. Waivers were available, but the procedure for tourists and other short-term visitors who were H.I.V. positive was so complicated that many concluded it was not worth it.
For foreigners hoping to immigrate, waivers were available for people who were in a heterosexual marriage, but not for gay couples. Gay advocates said the ban had led to painful separations in families with H.I.V.-positive members that came to live in this country, and had discouraged adoptions of children with the virus.
Gay advocates said the ban also discouraged travelers and some foreigners already living in the United States from seeking testing and medical care for H.I.V. infection.
“The connection between immigration and H.I.V. has frightened people away from testing and treatment,” said Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, a group that advocates for gay people in immigration matters. She said lifting the ban would bring “a significant public health improvement.”
“Stigma and exclusion are not a sound basis for immigration policy,” Ms. Tiven said.
Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, who led the effort to repeal the ban, said it had now “gone the way of the dinosaur.”
But, Mr. Kerry added, “it sure took too long to get here.”
International health officials said lifting the ban would end a much-criticized inconsistency in United States health policy, with Washington playing a leading role in AIDS prevention in Africa and other countries with severe epidemics, but preserving restrictions that in practice prevented international AIDS researchers and activists from gathering at conferences here.
In 1989, a Dutch AIDS educator, Hans Verhoef, was detained for several days in St. Paul when he tried to attend a conference. Since then, people involved with AIDS issues have not organized meetings here.
“We think this is going to give a very positive image of where the United States is going in terms of eliminating stigma and discrimination in relation to H.I.V.,” Dr. Socorro Gross, assistant director of the Pan American Health Organization, said Friday.
Friday, October 30, 2009
South Carolina Republican Caught With 18 Yr. Old Stripper, Sex Toys and Viagra In Cemetery
South Carolina Republican Caught With 18 Yr. Old Stripper, Sex Toys and Viagra In Cemetery
By Heather
Copyright by Crooks and Liars
Friday Oct 30, 2009 12:00pm
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/south-carolina-republican-caught-18-yr-old
Rick Sanchez reports on another Republican sex scandal coming out of South Carolina. Gotta' love that party of "family values".
SANCHEZ: Hey, Roge, let's see how good a move we can make over to the Twitter board real quick, because a lot of people are commenting on this. There it is. Start from the bottom if we can.
Hug bug, "What is in the water in South Carolina?" Now, let's go just above that, where it says, "Another politician with a sex scandal, that is so common nowadays and they're supposed to be role models? Ha!"
We get what you're saying, folks
Let's talk about that. Just last week, I asked this question, what's up with South Carolina Republicans? Beginning with Mark Sanford, the famously wayward governor, why can't they seem to be staying out of trouble these days? There's Governor Sanford, there's Congressman Joe "Big Scream You Lie" Wilson. We just had two county chairmen who essentially said Jews are good with money.
And as if on cue now, we have Roland Corning. Who is Roland Corning, you ask? He's a former state legislator, and as of now, his latest performance, former assistant attorney general. Why?
Get this -- a police report obtained by the "Associated Press" is saying that Corning was questioned by an officer after speeding away from a cemetery with a stripper in his car, and with a bag of sex toys. And with some Viagra, Corning, I should tell you, is 66 years old. According to the police: the stripper, 18 years old. She works, by the way, at an establishment known as the Platinum Gentleman's Club.
According to the report, Assistant Attorney General Corning and the 18-year-old stripper gave conflicting accounts as to exactly what they were doing on Corning's lunch hour? In a cemetery? It states that Corning carried the sex toys, just in case.
Neither Corning nor the stripper was charged with anything. But after word reached his boss, Corning was stripped -- pardon the pun -- of the job he'd had since 2000. I mean assistant attorney general, stripper, sex toys, Viagra, cemetery, don't look good. South Carolina -- again?
By Heather
Copyright by Crooks and Liars
Friday Oct 30, 2009 12:00pm
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/south-carolina-republican-caught-18-yr-old
Rick Sanchez reports on another Republican sex scandal coming out of South Carolina. Gotta' love that party of "family values".
SANCHEZ: Hey, Roge, let's see how good a move we can make over to the Twitter board real quick, because a lot of people are commenting on this. There it is. Start from the bottom if we can.
Hug bug, "What is in the water in South Carolina?" Now, let's go just above that, where it says, "Another politician with a sex scandal, that is so common nowadays and they're supposed to be role models? Ha!"
We get what you're saying, folks
Let's talk about that. Just last week, I asked this question, what's up with South Carolina Republicans? Beginning with Mark Sanford, the famously wayward governor, why can't they seem to be staying out of trouble these days? There's Governor Sanford, there's Congressman Joe "Big Scream You Lie" Wilson. We just had two county chairmen who essentially said Jews are good with money.
And as if on cue now, we have Roland Corning. Who is Roland Corning, you ask? He's a former state legislator, and as of now, his latest performance, former assistant attorney general. Why?
Get this -- a police report obtained by the "Associated Press" is saying that Corning was questioned by an officer after speeding away from a cemetery with a stripper in his car, and with a bag of sex toys. And with some Viagra, Corning, I should tell you, is 66 years old. According to the police: the stripper, 18 years old. She works, by the way, at an establishment known as the Platinum Gentleman's Club.
According to the report, Assistant Attorney General Corning and the 18-year-old stripper gave conflicting accounts as to exactly what they were doing on Corning's lunch hour? In a cemetery? It states that Corning carried the sex toys, just in case.
Neither Corning nor the stripper was charged with anything. But after word reached his boss, Corning was stripped -- pardon the pun -- of the job he'd had since 2000. I mean assistant attorney general, stripper, sex toys, Viagra, cemetery, don't look good. South Carolina -- again?
A new era begins for Chicago Cubs - With the Ricketts family in control, expectation are high
A new era begins for Chicago Cubs - With the Ricketts family in control, expectation are high
By Paul Sullivan
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
10:20 a.m. CDT, October 30, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-31-cubs-tom-ricketts-oct31,0,1791650.story
As the Ricketts family spoke publicly for the first time Friday after officially taking over the Chicago National League Ball Club this week, a new era of Cubs baseball is being ushered in on the North Side.
Team Chairman Tom Ricketts, along with brothers Pete and Todd and sister Laura, will oversee all aspects of the organization -- from the concession stands to the team payroll -- hoping to resurrect a historically inept franchise that hasn't won a championship in 101 years.
Their primary goal is the same as for every franchise owner -- win the World Series.
But the Ricketts know "hope springs eternal" and Cubs fans go hand in hand, and the obstacles in their path are familiar to anyone who has followed the luckless club.
"As a fan in the '80s and '90s, we'd all look at the roster at the beginning of the season, and the word 'hope' would always come out -- 'I hope they re-sign (Greg) Maddux, I hope (Ryne) Sandberg has another great year, or (Andre) Dawson,' " Todd Ricketts said in an exclusive interview with the Tribune last month, as the deal to take control of the club was being finalized. "I remember George Bell was going to save the Cubs. ... For us, hope is just not a strategy anymore."
Winning on the North Side is a tremendous challenge, and one which neither the Wrigley family nor Tribune Co. was able to meet during their respective reigns, despite some close calls over the last century. The apparent role model for the Ricketts in their new endeavor is the same one that entranced Cubs Chairman Crane Kenney -- the Red Sox ownership group that brought Boston a pair of championships while adding several creative revenue streams at cozy Fenway Park.
"The one thrown around frequently is the Red Sox, and the analogies are pretty striking," Tom Ricketts said. "(Fenway Park) was an older stadium that was saved and improved very effectively, and of course, the on-the-field performance of that team. ... But, that said, I mean, Boston and Chicago aren't the same place.
"There are things that make Wrigley different from Fenway, that we have to be respectful of as we go through and think of the things we're going to do with our stadium. I think the key is we definitely see what they have accomplished, and we'd like to emulate some of that success."
Of course, that is easier said than done. The Ricketts believe most of the pieces are in place for the club to succeed and the Cubs can benefit from what others have learned to reach the promised land.
"There are a lot of great owners doing great things," Pete Ricketts said. "We don't have to reinvent the wheel here. In many ways, we can see what other people have done and adapt it for Chicago. We have to make it a Chicago experience, but I think one of the things we want to do is go around and look at what are the best practices. What are (teams) doing that are really improving the fan experience?
"We're all believers that when we start improving the fan experience you're going to improve the bottom line as well. People will come and they'll stay, they'll enjoy it even more. Those are sort of the things we want to do."
Or, as Todd succinctly put it: "If you just win, everything else takes care of itself."
As the Ricketts era begins, here are some of the family's takes on other subjects pertaining to the Cubs:
Money mattersOne of the biggest changes will be the switch from corporate to family ownership. Many Cubs fans had no idea which Tribune Co. executive was in charge of the team over the years, and the latest company CEO, Sam Zell, did not attend games regularly. Tribune Co. executives usually remained in the background, letting top-level underlings like Andy MacPhail, John McDonough and Crane Kenney speak for the corporation.
Now Cubs fans will have someone either to credit -- or blame -- for the performance of team.
"It's going to be a big difference between family ownership and corporate ownership," Tom Ricketts said. "For one thing, as you can tell from talking to us, we all have the same agenda, which may not always be happening inside a corporation. We just want to win. We want to bring a championship back here.
"Secondly, one thing we can do that Tribune may not have been able to do -- or may have decided not to have done -- is re-invest the profits here. We're going to take the money we make and put it back into the stadium to preserve the experience for the next generation.
"And I think the third thing is, with a family ownership, you can create a culture of accountability and excellence that maybe was more difficult to do when they were just one asset under the Tribune umbrella. We want to build the best franchise in baseball, bar none.
"So everything we do is going to be world class. Everything we do is going to be first class. And we'll just keep investing in this asset, and I think if we keep doing that, there may be ups and downs in the wins and loss column, but as long as we show we're committed and people really know we're committed, then I think it will go well, the public side of this whole package."
The Cubs payroll was around $140 million in 2009, the third-highest in the major leagues. But they didn't get much of a return on their investment, missing the postseason for the first time since 2006. The Cubs aren't expected to spend freely this offseason because of the long-term contracts of Carlos Zambrano, Aramis Ramirez, Alfonso Soriano, Ryan Dempster, Kosuke Fukudome and Milton Bradley, whom the Cubs are expected to trade.
There's not a lot of flexibility going into 2010," Tom Ricketts said. "We'll leave it up to (general manager Jim Hendry) to balance out how he would take what flexibility we do have to round out the team and get us ready. We expect payroll to be comparable, if not slightly higher, next year. But, as you also know, the dollars leaving the door is not the issue. It's the third highest payroll. The issue is getting the right performance for the number of dollars you spend."
Upper managementHendry's job is safe, at least for the time being.
"Jim is obviously under contract, but we like Jim and want to give him the opportunity to bring us a winner in 2010," Tom Ricketts said.
Hendry has three years remaining on the deal he signed after the 2008 season.
"I think he has a pretty long track record of being a winner," Todd Ricketts said. "You can go back to taking over the Creighton coaching job and taking Creighton from a nobody baseball school to the College World Series."
Kenney also will remain in his current role, at least for the time being. Kenney will oversee Hendry's spending and be instrumental in any plans to revamp Wrigley Field and build a new spring training facility in either Arizona or Florida.
If Hendry wants to make a trade, he will go first to Kenney, not Tom Ricketts.
"Currently it would be Jim's responsibility to reflect that to Crane," Tom Ricketts said. "Crane keeps me in the loop. If it was a big decision, we'd get everybody to know about it."
The Ricketts will not be "hands-on" when it comes to making player personnel decisions.
"If we interject ourselves in those day-to-day decisions, then it's going to be very difficult to hold anyone accountable at the end of the year," Tom Ricketts said.
Added Todd: "Jim will have the parameters in which he'll have to work. We're going to have some payroll issues and things where he'll be limited. I mean, he can't just go out and sign everybody. But within those parameters, those decisions are his."
Wrigley FieldThe Ricketts family learned to love the Cubs by coming to games at Wrigley Field, and bought the team with the idea of preserving the ballpark for their children and grandchildren. They said they never considered buying the Cubs to build a new ballpark.
"Not if any of us ever wanted to set foot in Chicago again," Pete Ricketts said, laughing. "We like coming to Chicago way too much."
They also don't plan on selling the naming rights.
"That would be a tough one to change," Pete said. "Not sure how you'd get away with that one."
Tom Ricketts said the idea of leaving Wrigley "never would've been a thought that crossed our minds. And we also understand there's the actual game on the field and the actual experience of being in the stadium. We have to be respectful to both of those things. That's what combines to make this the magical place it is."
Do the Ricketts consider themselves traditionalists?
"You'd put us more in the camp of traditionalists, because we all have a feel for the Wrigley vibe," Tom Ricketts said. "There's something special about seeing a game here, that I think we all understand. ... We'll be open-minded to opportunities down the line to improve the stadium, but I think typically we're going to be pretty close to the experience the fans love already."
The Ricketts are interested in developing the long-planned Triangle Building in the parking lot west of the ballpark, bordering Clark Street, to provide fans with more food options and players with an expanded weight room and clubhouse. Tribune Co. shelved the original plan when it decided to put the team up for sale in 2007.
The Ricketts are not considering leaving Wrigley for a season to make any structural improvements, and the family has not decided on whether to move on the installation of a Jumbotron, either inside or outside the park, to increase advertising revenue.
Tribune Co. looked into the possibility, and portable video scoreboards were installed for the Winter Classic hockey game on New Year's Day. But there never has been any serious consideration to install a video scoreboard at Wrigley.
"We can look around and see, 'How can we adapt these things for the Cubs?' " Pete Ricketts said. "So for instance, when Crane Kenney puts the Under Armour (signage) there on the doors that lead into the garden area, or the tool shed, I thought that was a great way to improve the revenue but not to disrupt the look and feel of the ivy.
"That's a great example of how we have to look at what other people are doing -- think creatively and apply it to Wrigley Field. When it comes to things like the Jumbotron, or whatever it's going to be, we'll have to see what other people are doing, but remember we have to preserve the Wrigley experience here to make sure it's a Chicago fit."
Tom Ricketts said there will be immediate plans to upgrade the restrooms and concessions and improve the flow of traffic on the concourse after games. Long-range plans call for upgrading luxury suites, but that isn't a priority.
"There's not a lot of flexibility to really add any more suites," he said. "We can fix up the ones we have to a certain extent, but it's not like we're looking to turn any more of the space to a corporate sponsor."
Lou PiniellaManager Lou Piniella is returning for what he says will be his final season, and the Ricketts say they are happy to have him back.
"Lou Piniella is one of the best managers in baseball," Tom Ricketts said. "He has an option to come back next year and we hope he does. I think he's the right guy to improve on this year's performance."
Cubs fansThe Ricketts grew up in Omaha but consider themselves "old school" Cubs fans who care about the team's performance as much as the Wrigley experience.
"Calling Wrigley Field a beer garden is unfair," Tom Ricketts said. "Obviously, people come out here and socialize as well as watch a game. But there are a lot of people who come out here with a focus on baseball, and a lot of fans -- real fans -- when you talk to people around, it's not like they just got their season tickets.
"People have been coming here for 25 years or they came with their grandfather. Obviously there is a social aspect to Wrigley that's terrific, but I wouldn't call it a beer garden."
Odds and endsTodd Ricketts said he expects to sit in the bleachers and liked the idea of bringing back beer vendors there, while Pete Ricketts joked they will "landmark the troughs" in the men's restrooms.
As for Kenney's statement last winter that the Cubs eventually would like to increase the number of night games to 50, Tom Ricketts said it hasn't been discussed and he doesn't think the team needs more night games to be competitive.
He also said there are no current plans to start their own TV network, as the Yankees have done with their YES Network.
"The TV contracts are pretty long term at the moment, so I think it's pretty much as is," he said, referring to WGN-TV and Comcast SportsNet.
As for the importance of dealing malcontent Milton Bradley, Tom Ricketts deferred to Hendry. "That's a question for Jim," he said. "We'll just leave it at that."
psullivan@tribune.com
By Paul Sullivan
Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune
10:20 a.m. CDT, October 30, 2009
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/cubs/chi-31-cubs-tom-ricketts-oct31,0,1791650.story
As the Ricketts family spoke publicly for the first time Friday after officially taking over the Chicago National League Ball Club this week, a new era of Cubs baseball is being ushered in on the North Side.
Team Chairman Tom Ricketts, along with brothers Pete and Todd and sister Laura, will oversee all aspects of the organization -- from the concession stands to the team payroll -- hoping to resurrect a historically inept franchise that hasn't won a championship in 101 years.
Their primary goal is the same as for every franchise owner -- win the World Series.
But the Ricketts know "hope springs eternal" and Cubs fans go hand in hand, and the obstacles in their path are familiar to anyone who has followed the luckless club.
"As a fan in the '80s and '90s, we'd all look at the roster at the beginning of the season, and the word 'hope' would always come out -- 'I hope they re-sign (Greg) Maddux, I hope (Ryne) Sandberg has another great year, or (Andre) Dawson,' " Todd Ricketts said in an exclusive interview with the Tribune last month, as the deal to take control of the club was being finalized. "I remember George Bell was going to save the Cubs. ... For us, hope is just not a strategy anymore."
Winning on the North Side is a tremendous challenge, and one which neither the Wrigley family nor Tribune Co. was able to meet during their respective reigns, despite some close calls over the last century. The apparent role model for the Ricketts in their new endeavor is the same one that entranced Cubs Chairman Crane Kenney -- the Red Sox ownership group that brought Boston a pair of championships while adding several creative revenue streams at cozy Fenway Park.
"The one thrown around frequently is the Red Sox, and the analogies are pretty striking," Tom Ricketts said. "(Fenway Park) was an older stadium that was saved and improved very effectively, and of course, the on-the-field performance of that team. ... But, that said, I mean, Boston and Chicago aren't the same place.
"There are things that make Wrigley different from Fenway, that we have to be respectful of as we go through and think of the things we're going to do with our stadium. I think the key is we definitely see what they have accomplished, and we'd like to emulate some of that success."
Of course, that is easier said than done. The Ricketts believe most of the pieces are in place for the club to succeed and the Cubs can benefit from what others have learned to reach the promised land.
"There are a lot of great owners doing great things," Pete Ricketts said. "We don't have to reinvent the wheel here. In many ways, we can see what other people have done and adapt it for Chicago. We have to make it a Chicago experience, but I think one of the things we want to do is go around and look at what are the best practices. What are (teams) doing that are really improving the fan experience?
"We're all believers that when we start improving the fan experience you're going to improve the bottom line as well. People will come and they'll stay, they'll enjoy it even more. Those are sort of the things we want to do."
Or, as Todd succinctly put it: "If you just win, everything else takes care of itself."
As the Ricketts era begins, here are some of the family's takes on other subjects pertaining to the Cubs:
Money mattersOne of the biggest changes will be the switch from corporate to family ownership. Many Cubs fans had no idea which Tribune Co. executive was in charge of the team over the years, and the latest company CEO, Sam Zell, did not attend games regularly. Tribune Co. executives usually remained in the background, letting top-level underlings like Andy MacPhail, John McDonough and Crane Kenney speak for the corporation.
Now Cubs fans will have someone either to credit -- or blame -- for the performance of team.
"It's going to be a big difference between family ownership and corporate ownership," Tom Ricketts said. "For one thing, as you can tell from talking to us, we all have the same agenda, which may not always be happening inside a corporation. We just want to win. We want to bring a championship back here.
"Secondly, one thing we can do that Tribune may not have been able to do -- or may have decided not to have done -- is re-invest the profits here. We're going to take the money we make and put it back into the stadium to preserve the experience for the next generation.
"And I think the third thing is, with a family ownership, you can create a culture of accountability and excellence that maybe was more difficult to do when they were just one asset under the Tribune umbrella. We want to build the best franchise in baseball, bar none.
"So everything we do is going to be world class. Everything we do is going to be first class. And we'll just keep investing in this asset, and I think if we keep doing that, there may be ups and downs in the wins and loss column, but as long as we show we're committed and people really know we're committed, then I think it will go well, the public side of this whole package."
The Cubs payroll was around $140 million in 2009, the third-highest in the major leagues. But they didn't get much of a return on their investment, missing the postseason for the first time since 2006. The Cubs aren't expected to spend freely this offseason because of the long-term contracts of Carlos Zambrano, Aramis Ramirez, Alfonso Soriano, Ryan Dempster, Kosuke Fukudome and Milton Bradley, whom the Cubs are expected to trade.
There's not a lot of flexibility going into 2010," Tom Ricketts said. "We'll leave it up to (general manager Jim Hendry) to balance out how he would take what flexibility we do have to round out the team and get us ready. We expect payroll to be comparable, if not slightly higher, next year. But, as you also know, the dollars leaving the door is not the issue. It's the third highest payroll. The issue is getting the right performance for the number of dollars you spend."
Upper managementHendry's job is safe, at least for the time being.
"Jim is obviously under contract, but we like Jim and want to give him the opportunity to bring us a winner in 2010," Tom Ricketts said.
Hendry has three years remaining on the deal he signed after the 2008 season.
"I think he has a pretty long track record of being a winner," Todd Ricketts said. "You can go back to taking over the Creighton coaching job and taking Creighton from a nobody baseball school to the College World Series."
Kenney also will remain in his current role, at least for the time being. Kenney will oversee Hendry's spending and be instrumental in any plans to revamp Wrigley Field and build a new spring training facility in either Arizona or Florida.
If Hendry wants to make a trade, he will go first to Kenney, not Tom Ricketts.
"Currently it would be Jim's responsibility to reflect that to Crane," Tom Ricketts said. "Crane keeps me in the loop. If it was a big decision, we'd get everybody to know about it."
The Ricketts will not be "hands-on" when it comes to making player personnel decisions.
"If we interject ourselves in those day-to-day decisions, then it's going to be very difficult to hold anyone accountable at the end of the year," Tom Ricketts said.
Added Todd: "Jim will have the parameters in which he'll have to work. We're going to have some payroll issues and things where he'll be limited. I mean, he can't just go out and sign everybody. But within those parameters, those decisions are his."
Wrigley FieldThe Ricketts family learned to love the Cubs by coming to games at Wrigley Field, and bought the team with the idea of preserving the ballpark for their children and grandchildren. They said they never considered buying the Cubs to build a new ballpark.
"Not if any of us ever wanted to set foot in Chicago again," Pete Ricketts said, laughing. "We like coming to Chicago way too much."
They also don't plan on selling the naming rights.
"That would be a tough one to change," Pete said. "Not sure how you'd get away with that one."
Tom Ricketts said the idea of leaving Wrigley "never would've been a thought that crossed our minds. And we also understand there's the actual game on the field and the actual experience of being in the stadium. We have to be respectful to both of those things. That's what combines to make this the magical place it is."
Do the Ricketts consider themselves traditionalists?
"You'd put us more in the camp of traditionalists, because we all have a feel for the Wrigley vibe," Tom Ricketts said. "There's something special about seeing a game here, that I think we all understand. ... We'll be open-minded to opportunities down the line to improve the stadium, but I think typically we're going to be pretty close to the experience the fans love already."
The Ricketts are interested in developing the long-planned Triangle Building in the parking lot west of the ballpark, bordering Clark Street, to provide fans with more food options and players with an expanded weight room and clubhouse. Tribune Co. shelved the original plan when it decided to put the team up for sale in 2007.
The Ricketts are not considering leaving Wrigley for a season to make any structural improvements, and the family has not decided on whether to move on the installation of a Jumbotron, either inside or outside the park, to increase advertising revenue.
Tribune Co. looked into the possibility, and portable video scoreboards were installed for the Winter Classic hockey game on New Year's Day. But there never has been any serious consideration to install a video scoreboard at Wrigley.
"We can look around and see, 'How can we adapt these things for the Cubs?' " Pete Ricketts said. "So for instance, when Crane Kenney puts the Under Armour (signage) there on the doors that lead into the garden area, or the tool shed, I thought that was a great way to improve the revenue but not to disrupt the look and feel of the ivy.
"That's a great example of how we have to look at what other people are doing -- think creatively and apply it to Wrigley Field. When it comes to things like the Jumbotron, or whatever it's going to be, we'll have to see what other people are doing, but remember we have to preserve the Wrigley experience here to make sure it's a Chicago fit."
Tom Ricketts said there will be immediate plans to upgrade the restrooms and concessions and improve the flow of traffic on the concourse after games. Long-range plans call for upgrading luxury suites, but that isn't a priority.
"There's not a lot of flexibility to really add any more suites," he said. "We can fix up the ones we have to a certain extent, but it's not like we're looking to turn any more of the space to a corporate sponsor."
Lou PiniellaManager Lou Piniella is returning for what he says will be his final season, and the Ricketts say they are happy to have him back.
"Lou Piniella is one of the best managers in baseball," Tom Ricketts said. "He has an option to come back next year and we hope he does. I think he's the right guy to improve on this year's performance."
Cubs fansThe Ricketts grew up in Omaha but consider themselves "old school" Cubs fans who care about the team's performance as much as the Wrigley experience.
"Calling Wrigley Field a beer garden is unfair," Tom Ricketts said. "Obviously, people come out here and socialize as well as watch a game. But there are a lot of people who come out here with a focus on baseball, and a lot of fans -- real fans -- when you talk to people around, it's not like they just got their season tickets.
"People have been coming here for 25 years or they came with their grandfather. Obviously there is a social aspect to Wrigley that's terrific, but I wouldn't call it a beer garden."
Odds and endsTodd Ricketts said he expects to sit in the bleachers and liked the idea of bringing back beer vendors there, while Pete Ricketts joked they will "landmark the troughs" in the men's restrooms.
As for Kenney's statement last winter that the Cubs eventually would like to increase the number of night games to 50, Tom Ricketts said it hasn't been discussed and he doesn't think the team needs more night games to be competitive.
He also said there are no current plans to start their own TV network, as the Yankees have done with their YES Network.
"The TV contracts are pretty long term at the moment, so I think it's pretty much as is," he said, referring to WGN-TV and Comcast SportsNet.
As for the importance of dealing malcontent Milton Bradley, Tom Ricketts deferred to Hendry. "That's a question for Jim," he said. "We'll just leave it at that."
psullivan@tribune.com
The many faces of domestic violence
The many faces of domestic violence
By Amy Wooten
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
October 29, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/4025
“When people think of domestic violence, a lot of people think of a woman with a black eye,” said Lisa Gilmore, a Center on Halsted training coordinator and Anti-Violence Project therapist.
As pervasive as that stereotype is, however, there are many more faces to domestic violence. It’s just as severe a problem in the GLBT community as it is with straights. It happens with the same frequency, too, and not just in long-term relationships. Domestic violence can occur during a casual encounter that was initially arranged online, for example, or before a hookup takes place.
In October, Center on Halsted’s Anti-Violence Project launched an online domestic abuse campaign in conjunction with Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Laura Velazquez, COH’s Anti-Violence Project and Legal Services manager, said that while her team has always recognized and discussed the relationship between online cruising and domestic violence, many GLBTs don’t realize that domestic violence can occur in any relationship, and that in Illinois, there are laws that protect victims.
“Talks about domestic violence are usually very heterocentric,” Gilmore said. “So, there are myths, such as men have mutual power in relationships so they won’t abuse one another, or women are always sweet and nurturing, so they would never abuse one another.”
The frequency of domestic violence between same-sex couples is on par with rates reported among heterosexual couples. A 2007 study found that 32 percent of men who have sex with men reported experiencing domestic violence at least once over the course of their lives. This statistic, as well as older data on lesbians, is consistent with data on heterosexuals, which indicates an estimated 25-33 percent frequency over the course of a lifetime, Gilmore said. There is so far little data about domestic violence and transgender people.
The heterocentric perception means that there are very few resources for GLBT people. For example, there are no shelters for male victims in Chicago. Additionally, trans people are sometimes denied access to shelters. There are no spaces specifically designated for GLBT people.
The Anti-Violence Project has been working hard, however, to train local shelters and groups about being inclusive and informed, conducting over 35 such trainings last year. Gilmore said that they stress to agencies and shelters that they have to be ready in advance for GLBT people to access their services, and not just try to figure it out once a lesbian, for example, walks through their doors.
“We ask them, ‘Do you provide services to women?’” Velazquez said. “They say, ‘Yes, of course!’ Well, then you provide services to lesbians. ‘We do?!’”
The campaign also aims to inform the community that domestic violence has many forms.
According to Gilmore, domestic violence occurs during casual encounters, too, and doesn’t necessarily have to result in physical harm. Abusers might use coercion and manipulation, such as using pets, money or children to get what they want from the victim.
If you are chatting with a potential trick online, and that person uses coercion (such as threatening to out you to your work or family) to persuade you to meet up with them, that is a form of domestic violence. If you agree for a trick to meet you at your home, and your hookup uses the opportunity to rob you, it is a form of domestic violence.
Even from a distance, or over the Internet, abusers can use control and manipulation. Gilmore said the Anti-Violence project has heard many different stories, from abusers manipulating victims by posting naked pictures of them online to wiping out their bank accounts.
Velazquez said that many people might not come forward because they are ashamed that someone who seemed “like a total Prince Charming online” ended up harming them in some way.
Abusers might use emotional abuse, too, such as degrading a transgender individual my making nasty comments.
“Remember, there can be gay bashing in a gay relationship,” Velazquez stressed.
“A lot of people think, ‘If I don’t get beat, I’m okay,’” Gilmore added.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much data about domestic violence and online dating or cruising. However, the Anti-Violence Project knows it is out there. Velazquez said that the hotline frequently receives calls from victims that mention that they met the abuser online.
“We don’t know the frequency, but the main message is that it can happen online, too,” she added.
The Anti-Violence Project offers several services, such as a 24-hour domestic violence crisis hotline. The team is prepared to help both victims and abusers. The Center offers many other services for victims, from advocacy and legal services to crisis counseling. They also offer referrals to abusers who want to change their behavior.
In addition to informing GLBT people about domestic violence and its many forms, another goal of the campaign is to provide information to help reduce or prevent dangerous situations that can occur with online relationships.
Velazquez said the Anti-Violence Project doesn’t want people to fear online dating or hook-ups or feel bad about participating in them. “What we’re basically trying to do is let people know this is not taboo,” Velazquez said, adding that their goal is to arm GLBTs with information and options.
“The number one priority is safety,” Velazquez said.
Reach the 24-Hour LGBT Violence Crisis Hotline at (773) 871-CARE and learn more at centeronhalsted.org.
By Amy Wooten
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
October 29, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/4025
“When people think of domestic violence, a lot of people think of a woman with a black eye,” said Lisa Gilmore, a Center on Halsted training coordinator and Anti-Violence Project therapist.
As pervasive as that stereotype is, however, there are many more faces to domestic violence. It’s just as severe a problem in the GLBT community as it is with straights. It happens with the same frequency, too, and not just in long-term relationships. Domestic violence can occur during a casual encounter that was initially arranged online, for example, or before a hookup takes place.
In October, Center on Halsted’s Anti-Violence Project launched an online domestic abuse campaign in conjunction with Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
Laura Velazquez, COH’s Anti-Violence Project and Legal Services manager, said that while her team has always recognized and discussed the relationship between online cruising and domestic violence, many GLBTs don’t realize that domestic violence can occur in any relationship, and that in Illinois, there are laws that protect victims.
“Talks about domestic violence are usually very heterocentric,” Gilmore said. “So, there are myths, such as men have mutual power in relationships so they won’t abuse one another, or women are always sweet and nurturing, so they would never abuse one another.”
The frequency of domestic violence between same-sex couples is on par with rates reported among heterosexual couples. A 2007 study found that 32 percent of men who have sex with men reported experiencing domestic violence at least once over the course of their lives. This statistic, as well as older data on lesbians, is consistent with data on heterosexuals, which indicates an estimated 25-33 percent frequency over the course of a lifetime, Gilmore said. There is so far little data about domestic violence and transgender people.
The heterocentric perception means that there are very few resources for GLBT people. For example, there are no shelters for male victims in Chicago. Additionally, trans people are sometimes denied access to shelters. There are no spaces specifically designated for GLBT people.
The Anti-Violence Project has been working hard, however, to train local shelters and groups about being inclusive and informed, conducting over 35 such trainings last year. Gilmore said that they stress to agencies and shelters that they have to be ready in advance for GLBT people to access their services, and not just try to figure it out once a lesbian, for example, walks through their doors.
“We ask them, ‘Do you provide services to women?’” Velazquez said. “They say, ‘Yes, of course!’ Well, then you provide services to lesbians. ‘We do?!’”
The campaign also aims to inform the community that domestic violence has many forms.
According to Gilmore, domestic violence occurs during casual encounters, too, and doesn’t necessarily have to result in physical harm. Abusers might use coercion and manipulation, such as using pets, money or children to get what they want from the victim.
If you are chatting with a potential trick online, and that person uses coercion (such as threatening to out you to your work or family) to persuade you to meet up with them, that is a form of domestic violence. If you agree for a trick to meet you at your home, and your hookup uses the opportunity to rob you, it is a form of domestic violence.
Even from a distance, or over the Internet, abusers can use control and manipulation. Gilmore said the Anti-Violence project has heard many different stories, from abusers manipulating victims by posting naked pictures of them online to wiping out their bank accounts.
Velazquez said that many people might not come forward because they are ashamed that someone who seemed “like a total Prince Charming online” ended up harming them in some way.
Abusers might use emotional abuse, too, such as degrading a transgender individual my making nasty comments.
“Remember, there can be gay bashing in a gay relationship,” Velazquez stressed.
“A lot of people think, ‘If I don’t get beat, I’m okay,’” Gilmore added.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much data about domestic violence and online dating or cruising. However, the Anti-Violence Project knows it is out there. Velazquez said that the hotline frequently receives calls from victims that mention that they met the abuser online.
“We don’t know the frequency, but the main message is that it can happen online, too,” she added.
The Anti-Violence Project offers several services, such as a 24-hour domestic violence crisis hotline. The team is prepared to help both victims and abusers. The Center offers many other services for victims, from advocacy and legal services to crisis counseling. They also offer referrals to abusers who want to change their behavior.
In addition to informing GLBT people about domestic violence and its many forms, another goal of the campaign is to provide information to help reduce or prevent dangerous situations that can occur with online relationships.
Velazquez said the Anti-Violence Project doesn’t want people to fear online dating or hook-ups or feel bad about participating in them. “What we’re basically trying to do is let people know this is not taboo,” Velazquez said, adding that their goal is to arm GLBTs with information and options.
“The number one priority is safety,” Velazquez said.
Reach the 24-Hour LGBT Violence Crisis Hotline at (773) 871-CARE and learn more at centeronhalsted.org.
Reel advice: movie reviews and DVDiva
Reel advice: movie reviews and DVDiva
By Gregg Shapiro
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
October 29, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/4033
Reeling 2009, the 28th Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival begins Nov. 5 at 7:30 p.m. with a screening of “The Big Gay Musical” at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport (see review below). Reeling runs through Nov. 15 at a variety of participating theaters. For a complete schedule, visit reelingfilmfestival.org. Many more reviews are scheduled to run in next week’s issue of Chicago Free Press.
“The Big Gay Musical” (Embrem): A musical within a movie, “The Big Gay Musical” takes us behind the scenes of the off-Broadway show “Adam & Steve…Just the Way God Made Them,” as well as behind the scenes of some of the cast members’ lives. Paul (Daniel Robinson), who plays Adam, is a seasoned theater performer who also works at a cabaret bar called Mostly Sondheim. Inexperienced Eddie (Joel Dudding), who plays Steve, is so excited about being in his first New York production that he calls his religious parents to share his happiness, only to have it dashed when they tell him that they plan on coming to town for opening night. The only problem is that Eddie’s not out to them. The stage is set, so to speak, for all sorts of things to happen. And you better believe they do. Both the movie and the play within the movie are full of messages about modern gay life, including HIV/AIDS prevention, relationships, ex-gay ministries and religious extremism, family, friendship, the coming out process, losing one’s virginity, monogamy, online dating, disillusionment and sex work, to mention a few. As a cinematic device, the interweaving of the play and the musical work well together, and the musical numbers (a number of which include scantily clad performers) are clever. In fact, the Effie from “Dreamgirls” homage is not to be missed. Co-directors Caspar Andreas and Fred M. Caruso prove to be a successful creative team on this unexpectedly ambitious project.
Limited runs:
Wyatt Cenac of “The Daily Show” fame stars mumblecore feature “Medicine for Melancholy,” screening at 8 p.m. on Oct. 29 at Block Cinema in the Pick-Laudati Auditorium at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Dr., on Northwestern’s Evanston campus. Call (847) 491-4000.
“The Art of the Remake” series at Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, continues on Oct. 30 and Nov. 3 at 6 p.m. with “Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory.” Call (312) 846-2600.
Charles Laughton directs Robert Mitchum as “a sleepy-eyed man of God and a serial killer” in “Night of the Hunter,” from 1955, being shown at 8 p.m. on Oct. 30 at Block Cinema in the Pick-Laudati Auditorium at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Dr., on Northwestern’s Evanston campus. Call (847) 491-4000.
Michelle Monaghan, Benjamin Bratt and Jimmy Bennett star in “Trucker,” showing on Nov. 4 at 7:30 p.m. at Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th. Call (773) 445-3838.
By Gregg Shapiro
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
October 29, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/4033
Reeling 2009, the 28th Chicago Lesbian and Gay International Film Festival begins Nov. 5 at 7:30 p.m. with a screening of “The Big Gay Musical” at the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport (see review below). Reeling runs through Nov. 15 at a variety of participating theaters. For a complete schedule, visit reelingfilmfestival.org. Many more reviews are scheduled to run in next week’s issue of Chicago Free Press.
“The Big Gay Musical” (Embrem): A musical within a movie, “The Big Gay Musical” takes us behind the scenes of the off-Broadway show “Adam & Steve…Just the Way God Made Them,” as well as behind the scenes of some of the cast members’ lives. Paul (Daniel Robinson), who plays Adam, is a seasoned theater performer who also works at a cabaret bar called Mostly Sondheim. Inexperienced Eddie (Joel Dudding), who plays Steve, is so excited about being in his first New York production that he calls his religious parents to share his happiness, only to have it dashed when they tell him that they plan on coming to town for opening night. The only problem is that Eddie’s not out to them. The stage is set, so to speak, for all sorts of things to happen. And you better believe they do. Both the movie and the play within the movie are full of messages about modern gay life, including HIV/AIDS prevention, relationships, ex-gay ministries and religious extremism, family, friendship, the coming out process, losing one’s virginity, monogamy, online dating, disillusionment and sex work, to mention a few. As a cinematic device, the interweaving of the play and the musical work well together, and the musical numbers (a number of which include scantily clad performers) are clever. In fact, the Effie from “Dreamgirls” homage is not to be missed. Co-directors Caspar Andreas and Fred M. Caruso prove to be a successful creative team on this unexpectedly ambitious project.
Limited runs:
Wyatt Cenac of “The Daily Show” fame stars mumblecore feature “Medicine for Melancholy,” screening at 8 p.m. on Oct. 29 at Block Cinema in the Pick-Laudati Auditorium at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Dr., on Northwestern’s Evanston campus. Call (847) 491-4000.
“The Art of the Remake” series at Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State, continues on Oct. 30 and Nov. 3 at 6 p.m. with “Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory.” Call (312) 846-2600.
Charles Laughton directs Robert Mitchum as “a sleepy-eyed man of God and a serial killer” in “Night of the Hunter,” from 1955, being shown at 8 p.m. on Oct. 30 at Block Cinema in the Pick-Laudati Auditorium at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, 40 Arts Circle Dr., on Northwestern’s Evanston campus. Call (847) 491-4000.
Michelle Monaghan, Benjamin Bratt and Jimmy Bennett star in “Trucker,” showing on Nov. 4 at 7:30 p.m. at Beverly Arts Center, 2407 W. 111th. Call (773) 445-3838.
GLN protests LaBarbera dinner in ‘burbs
GLN protests LaBarbera dinner in ‘burbs
By Matt Simonette
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
October 29, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/4021
About 30 area activists attended a suburban protest against anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera Oct. 24.
The protest, organized by Gay Liberation Network, took place at Christian Liberty Academy, 502 W. Euclid Ave., in Arlington Heights, where LaBarbera’s organization, Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, was holding holding a banquet.
Andy Thayer of GLN told CFP that his organization takes whatever opportunities it can to denounce LaBarbera as a bigot. He said that the norm in same-sex marriage campaigns had been to extol the “normalcy” of gay relationships. “But I think we’d get a lot more mileage by labeling the opposition as bigots,” he said. “probably 90 percent of Americans don’t want to have to do with people like that.”
He added, “That’s why he has been unsuccessful in getting an anti-gay referendum on the ballot.”
“In the context of a recession like this one, it’s remarkably easy for the far-right wing demagogues to get a hearing,” Thayer said. “People are afraid—of losing their jobs, of losing their house. It would be foolish for (GLN) to be complacent at a time like this.”
For more information, visit GayLib.net.
By Matt Simonette
Copyright by The Chicago Free Press
October 29, 2009
http://www.chicagofreepress.com/node/4021
About 30 area activists attended a suburban protest against anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera Oct. 24.
The protest, organized by Gay Liberation Network, took place at Christian Liberty Academy, 502 W. Euclid Ave., in Arlington Heights, where LaBarbera’s organization, Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, was holding holding a banquet.
Andy Thayer of GLN told CFP that his organization takes whatever opportunities it can to denounce LaBarbera as a bigot. He said that the norm in same-sex marriage campaigns had been to extol the “normalcy” of gay relationships. “But I think we’d get a lot more mileage by labeling the opposition as bigots,” he said. “probably 90 percent of Americans don’t want to have to do with people like that.”
He added, “That’s why he has been unsuccessful in getting an anti-gay referendum on the ballot.”
“In the context of a recession like this one, it’s remarkably easy for the far-right wing demagogues to get a hearing,” Thayer said. “People are afraid—of losing their jobs, of losing their house. It would be foolish for (GLN) to be complacent at a time like this.”
For more information, visit GayLib.net.
New Google Maps GPS for smartphones spooks competitors
New Google Maps GPS for smartphones spooks competitors
By Rob Pegoraro
Copyright by The Washington Post
Sunday, November 1, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/30/AR2009103000753.html?hpid=topnews
Wednesday morning, Google notified manufacturers of GPS navigation units that their services would no longer be needed. It didn't say so explicitly -- the news came in a corporate blog post about an improved Google Maps smartphone program offering turn-by-turn directions -- but the company didn't have to.
The imminent arrival of a no-charge navigation service, complete with real-time traffic data and satellite and street-level views of a route, on phones running Google's latest Android software, made standalone GPS devices look suddenly redundant. GPS manufacturers' share prices promptly fell off a cliff; Garmin's dropped about 16 percent and TomTom's plunged by 21 percent Wednesday.
Wednesday was a not-atypical day for the Mountain View, Calif., Internet giant. Perhaps more so than any other company since Microsoft at its peak, Google can spook competitors and enthrall users just by introducing a product.
You could see the same dynamic in late September, when Google introduced a Web-based fusion of e-mail, instant messaging and collaborative editing called Google Wave-- and hype-intoxicated Web users who weren't necessarily sure what Wave did began groveling for invitations to try it out.
Somewhat like the late '90s incarnation of Microsoft, Google also now provides an extraordinarily wide range of services. Many are subisidized by the torrent of cash thrown off by its Web advertising business -- but if these new offerings keep you online longer and, therefore, within sight of Google's ads, the company still comes out ahead.
You can easily spend a full day on the Web without leaving its sites or applications: checking email at Gmail, uploading pictures at Picasa, updating your schedule at Google Calendar, looking up an address on Google Maps, watching goofy video clips at YouTube, skimming the headlines at Google News, writing in Google Docs -- and that doesn't count all the Google-hosted ads at many other sites. You could do all this in Google's Chrome browser, then get up to make a call on a phone running Google's Android software.
That is not to say that Google is some reincarnation of the dot-com-era Microsoft. It has yet to engage in such hubristic excesses as co-founding a TV news network, and it hasn't trampled over the antitrust laws. Google avoids locking in users with proprietary data formats or protocols; last month, it set up a site (http://dataliberation.org) to document and promote ways for users to take their data out of (and into) Google services.
As the second person to mention Google in The Post, I can attest that this company has achieved its success honestly--with help from the errors and apathy of competitors.
Gmail, for example, wouldn't have had such a fast start if Microsoft and Yahoo hadn't spent years steadily cutting the features of their free e-mail services. The same goes for Google Maps: Had MapQuest not degenerated into mediocrity under AOL's inept stewardship, users might have not jumped so quickly to a new source of online cartography.
It's also important to remember that Google's ventures don't succeed as much as people think. Google Maps may now be the number-one mapping source, according to ComScore's latest figures, but Gmail still trails Microsoft and Yahoo's Web-mail sites.
Google's Picasa may be a fine photo-editing application, but its corresponding photo-sharing site is dwared by rivals in ComScore's data. The Google Checkout payment service has drawn less support from Web retailers than PayPal or BillMeLater.
Some Google ventures rank as outright failures. Google Base, an ambitious attempt to set up a marketplace where individual users could buy and sell goods and services, didn't lure the masses away from Craiglist, despite that site's relative technological backwardness. Its Orkut social-networking site's audience isn't even a rounding error in the United States.
In other words, the wizards of Mountain View can't flick other companies off the map with their fingertips. What they can do is leap far enough ahead of competitors in a single product launch to shock them into attention. When those firms draw the appropriate "get better or get lost" conclusion and redouble their efforts, customers should benefit.
This effect may break down when Google steps into markets dominated by firms selling devices instead of software. In the time it takes a manufacturer to usher an improved gadget from whiteboard to circuit board, Google can push out three or four rounds of updates to a Web application.
You shouldn't feel obliged to avoid Google altogether because of this power to upend markets. But you should remind yourself not to discount worthy alternatives just because they're Not Google. There's also much to be said for keeping a part of your online identity -- maybe your photos, maybe your e-mail -- outside of Google. Spread your business around, and one company can't get too comfortable with it.
Living with technology, or trying to? Read more at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward.
By Rob Pegoraro
Copyright by The Washington Post
Sunday, November 1, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/30/AR2009103000753.html?hpid=topnews
Wednesday morning, Google notified manufacturers of GPS navigation units that their services would no longer be needed. It didn't say so explicitly -- the news came in a corporate blog post about an improved Google Maps smartphone program offering turn-by-turn directions -- but the company didn't have to.
The imminent arrival of a no-charge navigation service, complete with real-time traffic data and satellite and street-level views of a route, on phones running Google's latest Android software, made standalone GPS devices look suddenly redundant. GPS manufacturers' share prices promptly fell off a cliff; Garmin's dropped about 16 percent and TomTom's plunged by 21 percent Wednesday.
Wednesday was a not-atypical day for the Mountain View, Calif., Internet giant. Perhaps more so than any other company since Microsoft at its peak, Google can spook competitors and enthrall users just by introducing a product.
You could see the same dynamic in late September, when Google introduced a Web-based fusion of e-mail, instant messaging and collaborative editing called Google Wave-- and hype-intoxicated Web users who weren't necessarily sure what Wave did began groveling for invitations to try it out.
Somewhat like the late '90s incarnation of Microsoft, Google also now provides an extraordinarily wide range of services. Many are subisidized by the torrent of cash thrown off by its Web advertising business -- but if these new offerings keep you online longer and, therefore, within sight of Google's ads, the company still comes out ahead.
You can easily spend a full day on the Web without leaving its sites or applications: checking email at Gmail, uploading pictures at Picasa, updating your schedule at Google Calendar, looking up an address on Google Maps, watching goofy video clips at YouTube, skimming the headlines at Google News, writing in Google Docs -- and that doesn't count all the Google-hosted ads at many other sites. You could do all this in Google's Chrome browser, then get up to make a call on a phone running Google's Android software.
That is not to say that Google is some reincarnation of the dot-com-era Microsoft. It has yet to engage in such hubristic excesses as co-founding a TV news network, and it hasn't trampled over the antitrust laws. Google avoids locking in users with proprietary data formats or protocols; last month, it set up a site (http://dataliberation.org) to document and promote ways for users to take their data out of (and into) Google services.
As the second person to mention Google in The Post, I can attest that this company has achieved its success honestly--with help from the errors and apathy of competitors.
Gmail, for example, wouldn't have had such a fast start if Microsoft and Yahoo hadn't spent years steadily cutting the features of their free e-mail services. The same goes for Google Maps: Had MapQuest not degenerated into mediocrity under AOL's inept stewardship, users might have not jumped so quickly to a new source of online cartography.
It's also important to remember that Google's ventures don't succeed as much as people think. Google Maps may now be the number-one mapping source, according to ComScore's latest figures, but Gmail still trails Microsoft and Yahoo's Web-mail sites.
Google's Picasa may be a fine photo-editing application, but its corresponding photo-sharing site is dwared by rivals in ComScore's data. The Google Checkout payment service has drawn less support from Web retailers than PayPal or BillMeLater.
Some Google ventures rank as outright failures. Google Base, an ambitious attempt to set up a marketplace where individual users could buy and sell goods and services, didn't lure the masses away from Craiglist, despite that site's relative technological backwardness. Its Orkut social-networking site's audience isn't even a rounding error in the United States.
In other words, the wizards of Mountain View can't flick other companies off the map with their fingertips. What they can do is leap far enough ahead of competitors in a single product launch to shock them into attention. When those firms draw the appropriate "get better or get lost" conclusion and redouble their efforts, customers should benefit.
This effect may break down when Google steps into markets dominated by firms selling devices instead of software. In the time it takes a manufacturer to usher an improved gadget from whiteboard to circuit board, Google can push out three or four rounds of updates to a Web application.
You shouldn't feel obliged to avoid Google altogether because of this power to upend markets. But you should remind yourself not to discount worthy alternatives just because they're Not Google. There's also much to be said for keeping a part of your online identity -- maybe your photos, maybe your e-mail -- outside of Google. Spread your business around, and one company can't get too comfortable with it.
Living with technology, or trying to? Read more at http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward.
Dozens in Congress under ethics inquiry
Dozens in Congress under ethics inquiry
By Ellen Nakashima and Paul Kane
Copyright by The Washington Post
Friday, October 30, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/29/AR2009102904597.html?hpid=topnews
House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.
The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer.
The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations. Watchdog groups have accused the committee of not actively pursuing inquiries; the newly disclosed document indicates the panel is conducting far more investigations than it had revealed.
Shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday, the committee chairman, Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), interrupted a series of House votes to alert lawmakers about the breach. She cautioned that some of the panel's activities are preliminary and not a conclusive sign of inappropriate behavior.
"No inference should be made as to any member," she said.
Rep. Jo Bonner (Ala.), the committee's ranking Republican, said the breach was an isolated incident.
The 22-page "Committee on Standards Weekly Summary Report" gives brief summaries of ethics panel investigations of the conduct of 19 lawmakers and a few staff members. It also outlines the work of the new Office of Congressional Ethics, a quasi-independent body that initiates investigations and provides recommendations to the ethics committee. The document indicated that the office was reviewing the activities of 14 other lawmakers. Some were under review by both ethics bodies.
A broader inquiry
Ethics committee investigations are not uncommon. Most result in private letters that either exonerate or reprimand a member. In some rare instances, the censure is more severe.
Many of the broad outlines of the cases cited in the July document are known -- the committee announced over the summer that it was reviewing lawmakers with connections to the now-closed PMA Group, a lobbying firm. But the document indicates that the inquiry was broader than initially believed. It included a review of seven lawmakers on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee who have steered federal money to the firm's clients and have also received large campaign contributions.
The document also disclosed that:
-- Ethics committee staff members have interviewed House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) about one element of the complex investigation of his personal finances, as well as the lawmaker's top aide and his son. Rangel said he spoke with ethics committee staff members regarding a conference that he and four other members of the Congressional Black Caucus attended last November in St. Martin. The trip initially was said to be sponsored by a nonprofit foundation run by a newspaper. But the three-day event, at a luxury resort, was underwritten by major corporations such as Citigroup, Pfizer and AT&T. Rules passed in 2007, shortly after Democrats reclaimed the majority following a wave of corruption cases against Republicans, bar private companies from paying for congressional travel.
Rangel said he has not discussed other parts of the investigation of his finances with the committee. "I'm waiting for that, anxiously," he said.
-- The Justice Department has told the ethics panel to suspend a probe of Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.), whose personal finances federal investigators began reviewing in early 2006 after complaints from a conservative group that he was not fully revealing his real estate holdings. There has been no public action on that inquiry for several years. But the department's request in early July to the committee suggests that the case continues to draw the attention of federal investigators, who often ask that the House and Senate ethics panels refrain from taking action against members whom the department is already investigating.
Mollohan said that he was not aware of any ongoing interest by the Justice Department in his case and that he and his attorneys have not heard from federal investigators. "The answer is no," he said.
-- The committee on June 9 authorized issuance of subpoenas to the Justice Department, the National Security Agency and the FBI for "certain intercepted communications" regarding Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.). As was reported earlier this year, Harman was heard in a 2005 conversation agreeing to an Israeli operative's request to try to obtain leniency for two pro-Israel lobbyists in exchange for the agent's help in lobbying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to name her chairman of the intelligence committee. The department, a former U.S. official said, declined to respond to the subpoena.
Harman said that the ethics committee has not contacted her and that she has no knowledge that the subpoena was ever issued. "I don't believe that's true," she said. "As far as I'm concerned, this smear has been over for three years."
In June 2009, a Justice Department official wrote in a letter to an attorney for Harman that she was "neither a subject nor a target" of a criminal investigation.
Because of the secretive nature of the ethics committee, it was difficult to assess the current status of the investigations cited in the July document. The panel said Thursday, however, that it is ending a probe of Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) after finding no ethical violations, and that it is investigating the financial connections of two California Democrats.
The committee did not detail the two newly disclosed investigations. However, according to the July document, Rep. Maxine Waters, a high-ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, came under scrutiny because of activities involving OneUnited Bank of Massachusetts, in which her husband owns at least $250,000 in stock.
Waters arranged a September 2008 meeting at the Treasury Department where OneUnited executives asked for government money. In December, Treasury selected OneUnited as an early participant in the bank bailout program, injecting $12.1 million.
The other, Rep. Laura Richardson, may have failed to mention property, income and liabilities on financial disclosure forms.
File-sharing
The committee's review of investigations became available on file-sharing networks because of a junior staff member's use of the software while working from home, Lofgren and Bonner said in a statement issued Thursday night. The staffer was fired, a congressional aide said.
The committee "is taking all appropriate steps to deal with this issue," they said, noting that neither the committee nor the House's information systems were breached in any way.
"Peer-to-peer" technology has previously caused inadvertent breaches of sensitive financial, defense-related and personal data from government and commercial networks, and it is prohibited on House networks.
House administration rules require that if a lawmaker or staff member takes work home, "all users of House sensitive information must protect the confidentiality of sensitive information" from unauthorized disclosure.
Leo Wise, chief counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics, declined to comment, citing office policy against confirming or denying the existence of investigations. A Justice Department spokeswoman also declined to comment, citing a similar policy.
Staff writers Carol D. Leonnig and Joby Warrick and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
By Ellen Nakashima and Paul Kane
Copyright by The Washington Post
Friday, October 30, 2009
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/29/AR2009102904597.html?hpid=topnews
House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July.
The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer.
The ethics committee is one of the most secretive panels in Congress, and its members and staff members sign oaths not to disclose any activities related to its past or present investigations. Watchdog groups have accused the committee of not actively pursuing inquiries; the newly disclosed document indicates the panel is conducting far more investigations than it had revealed.
Shortly after 6 p.m. Thursday, the committee chairman, Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), interrupted a series of House votes to alert lawmakers about the breach. She cautioned that some of the panel's activities are preliminary and not a conclusive sign of inappropriate behavior.
"No inference should be made as to any member," she said.
Rep. Jo Bonner (Ala.), the committee's ranking Republican, said the breach was an isolated incident.
The 22-page "Committee on Standards Weekly Summary Report" gives brief summaries of ethics panel investigations of the conduct of 19 lawmakers and a few staff members. It also outlines the work of the new Office of Congressional Ethics, a quasi-independent body that initiates investigations and provides recommendations to the ethics committee. The document indicated that the office was reviewing the activities of 14 other lawmakers. Some were under review by both ethics bodies.
A broader inquiry
Ethics committee investigations are not uncommon. Most result in private letters that either exonerate or reprimand a member. In some rare instances, the censure is more severe.
Many of the broad outlines of the cases cited in the July document are known -- the committee announced over the summer that it was reviewing lawmakers with connections to the now-closed PMA Group, a lobbying firm. But the document indicates that the inquiry was broader than initially believed. It included a review of seven lawmakers on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee who have steered federal money to the firm's clients and have also received large campaign contributions.
The document also disclosed that:
-- Ethics committee staff members have interviewed House Ways and Means Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) about one element of the complex investigation of his personal finances, as well as the lawmaker's top aide and his son. Rangel said he spoke with ethics committee staff members regarding a conference that he and four other members of the Congressional Black Caucus attended last November in St. Martin. The trip initially was said to be sponsored by a nonprofit foundation run by a newspaper. But the three-day event, at a luxury resort, was underwritten by major corporations such as Citigroup, Pfizer and AT&T. Rules passed in 2007, shortly after Democrats reclaimed the majority following a wave of corruption cases against Republicans, bar private companies from paying for congressional travel.
Rangel said he has not discussed other parts of the investigation of his finances with the committee. "I'm waiting for that, anxiously," he said.
-- The Justice Department has told the ethics panel to suspend a probe of Rep. Alan B. Mollohan (D-W.Va.), whose personal finances federal investigators began reviewing in early 2006 after complaints from a conservative group that he was not fully revealing his real estate holdings. There has been no public action on that inquiry for several years. But the department's request in early July to the committee suggests that the case continues to draw the attention of federal investigators, who often ask that the House and Senate ethics panels refrain from taking action against members whom the department is already investigating.
Mollohan said that he was not aware of any ongoing interest by the Justice Department in his case and that he and his attorneys have not heard from federal investigators. "The answer is no," he said.
-- The committee on June 9 authorized issuance of subpoenas to the Justice Department, the National Security Agency and the FBI for "certain intercepted communications" regarding Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.). As was reported earlier this year, Harman was heard in a 2005 conversation agreeing to an Israeli operative's request to try to obtain leniency for two pro-Israel lobbyists in exchange for the agent's help in lobbying House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to name her chairman of the intelligence committee. The department, a former U.S. official said, declined to respond to the subpoena.
Harman said that the ethics committee has not contacted her and that she has no knowledge that the subpoena was ever issued. "I don't believe that's true," she said. "As far as I'm concerned, this smear has been over for three years."
In June 2009, a Justice Department official wrote in a letter to an attorney for Harman that she was "neither a subject nor a target" of a criminal investigation.
Because of the secretive nature of the ethics committee, it was difficult to assess the current status of the investigations cited in the July document. The panel said Thursday, however, that it is ending a probe of Rep. Sam Graves (R-Mo.) after finding no ethical violations, and that it is investigating the financial connections of two California Democrats.
The committee did not detail the two newly disclosed investigations. However, according to the July document, Rep. Maxine Waters, a high-ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, came under scrutiny because of activities involving OneUnited Bank of Massachusetts, in which her husband owns at least $250,000 in stock.
Waters arranged a September 2008 meeting at the Treasury Department where OneUnited executives asked for government money. In December, Treasury selected OneUnited as an early participant in the bank bailout program, injecting $12.1 million.
The other, Rep. Laura Richardson, may have failed to mention property, income and liabilities on financial disclosure forms.
File-sharing
The committee's review of investigations became available on file-sharing networks because of a junior staff member's use of the software while working from home, Lofgren and Bonner said in a statement issued Thursday night. The staffer was fired, a congressional aide said.
The committee "is taking all appropriate steps to deal with this issue," they said, noting that neither the committee nor the House's information systems were breached in any way.
"Peer-to-peer" technology has previously caused inadvertent breaches of sensitive financial, defense-related and personal data from government and commercial networks, and it is prohibited on House networks.
House administration rules require that if a lawmaker or staff member takes work home, "all users of House sensitive information must protect the confidentiality of sensitive information" from unauthorized disclosure.
Leo Wise, chief counsel for the Office of Congressional Ethics, declined to comment, citing office policy against confirming or denying the existence of investigations. A Justice Department spokeswoman also declined to comment, citing a similar policy.
Staff writers Carol D. Leonnig and Joby Warrick and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
Waning stimulus hits consumer spending
Waning stimulus hits consumer spending
By Alan Rappeport in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: October 30 2009 13:14 | Last updated: October 30 2009 14:37
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bc09d8e6-c54d-11de-8193-00144feab49a.html
US consumer spending stalled in September after climbing in each of the prior four months, dampening spirits, as the effects of government stimulus programmes started to wane.
Personal consumption expenditures fell by 0.5 per cent, or $47.2bn, last month, commerce department figures showed on Friday. The data were in line with the predictions of Wall Street economists, who expected that the expiration of the popular “cash for clunkers” car rebate scheme would hit spending.
In September, spending on durable goods, which includes cars, fell by 7.2 per cent after jumping by 6.7 per cent the previous month.
Incomes were flat in September, slipping by just 0.1 per cent, after ticking up by 0.1 per cent in August. Companies are continuing to freeze pay or cut salaries as they wait to see the shape of the economic recovery.
“With incomes so soft, increased spending will be a struggle,” said Ian Sheperdson, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics.
Meanwhile, the savings rate rose from 2.8 per cent to 3.3 per cent last month. The savings rate has moderated since last June when it reached a 16-year high of 6.9 per cent.
Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 per cent of economic output in the US, fuelled economic growth in the third quarter. Official figures showed on Thursday that US gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 3.5 per cent in the quarter after shrinking in each of the past four.
Economists are anxious to see if consumers, who have been feeling less optimistic in spite of the rebound in economic activity, will be able to sustain spending “organically” without federal support.
Separately, on Friday, the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer survey revealed that confidence slipped in October due to persistent fears that unemployment is unlikely to subside in the near future. The index fell from 73.5 in September to 70.6 this month but was revised up from its preliminary reading earlier this month.
“While off the lows that were recorded when panic and paralysis were the order of the day, this measure of consumer sentiment nonetheless remains severely depressed,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist at MFR.
Richard Curtin, who directs the survey, said that this economic recovery will be different than previous ones because consumers have shifted their spending preferences. Although large purchases such as houses and cars are usually in great demand during times of economic growth this year Americans are more focused on savings and debt reduction.
“These changed preferences are due to the extent of the financial reversals suffered by consumers, which spanned every aspect of their economic lives, as well as the widespread recognition among consumers that it will take years for them to fully recover,” Mr Curtin said.
In October, most consumers said that their finances had worsened and that they expected their incomes to remain flat or to fall in the next year. It was the first time in 60 years that a majority of families polled by the University of Michigan expressed such pessimism.
By Alan Rappeport in New York
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: October 30 2009 13:14 | Last updated: October 30 2009 14:37
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bc09d8e6-c54d-11de-8193-00144feab49a.html
US consumer spending stalled in September after climbing in each of the prior four months, dampening spirits, as the effects of government stimulus programmes started to wane.
Personal consumption expenditures fell by 0.5 per cent, or $47.2bn, last month, commerce department figures showed on Friday. The data were in line with the predictions of Wall Street economists, who expected that the expiration of the popular “cash for clunkers” car rebate scheme would hit spending.
In September, spending on durable goods, which includes cars, fell by 7.2 per cent after jumping by 6.7 per cent the previous month.
Incomes were flat in September, slipping by just 0.1 per cent, after ticking up by 0.1 per cent in August. Companies are continuing to freeze pay or cut salaries as they wait to see the shape of the economic recovery.
“With incomes so soft, increased spending will be a struggle,” said Ian Sheperdson, chief US economist at High Frequency Economics.
Meanwhile, the savings rate rose from 2.8 per cent to 3.3 per cent last month. The savings rate has moderated since last June when it reached a 16-year high of 6.9 per cent.
Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 per cent of economic output in the US, fuelled economic growth in the third quarter. Official figures showed on Thursday that US gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 3.5 per cent in the quarter after shrinking in each of the past four.
Economists are anxious to see if consumers, who have been feeling less optimistic in spite of the rebound in economic activity, will be able to sustain spending “organically” without federal support.
Separately, on Friday, the Reuters/University of Michigan consumer survey revealed that confidence slipped in October due to persistent fears that unemployment is unlikely to subside in the near future. The index fell from 73.5 in September to 70.6 this month but was revised up from its preliminary reading earlier this month.
“While off the lows that were recorded when panic and paralysis were the order of the day, this measure of consumer sentiment nonetheless remains severely depressed,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief US economist at MFR.
Richard Curtin, who directs the survey, said that this economic recovery will be different than previous ones because consumers have shifted their spending preferences. Although large purchases such as houses and cars are usually in great demand during times of economic growth this year Americans are more focused on savings and debt reduction.
“These changed preferences are due to the extent of the financial reversals suffered by consumers, which spanned every aspect of their economic lives, as well as the widespread recognition among consumers that it will take years for them to fully recover,” Mr Curtin said.
In October, most consumers said that their finances had worsened and that they expected their incomes to remain flat or to fall in the next year. It was the first time in 60 years that a majority of families polled by the University of Michigan expressed such pessimism.
E.U. Reaches Funding Deal on Climate Change
E.U. Reaches Funding Deal on Climate Change
By JAMES KANTER and STEPHEN CASTLE
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/science/earth/31iht-UNION.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
European Union leaders on Friday offered to contribute money to a global fund to help developing countries tackle global warming hoping kick-start stalled talks on a new agreement on climate change.
But E.U. leaders disappointed climate campaigners by making the offer conditional on donations from other parts of the world and by failing to decide how much Europe would contribute to a global pot of up to 50 billion euros by 2020.
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt insisted the E.U. now had "a very strong negotiating position" to press for a global deal at United Nations talks in Copenhagen in December that are aimed at agreeing a successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, also stressed that Europe was leading the way.
"There is no-one else among the industrialized nations" to have made as concrete an offer of climate finance, Ms. Merkel told a press conference in Brussels.
But environmental groups took a mostly negative view of the results of the two-day summit, saying E.U. leaders had chosen vague, global figures and thereby diminished chances of unblocking climate negotiations ahead of the meeting in Copenhagen.
"Europe has failed once again to say how much it is prepared to contribute for climate finance," said Sonja Meister, a climate campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe. "In every way the EU is shirking its historical responsibilities and blocking progress towards the just and fair agreement the world needs in Copenhagen," she said.
The European Commission had called on E.U. leaders to make an offer of up to 15 billion euros annually by 2020.
Mr. Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister, said leaders had instead agreed that developing nations needed about 100 billion euros annually by 2020 and that, of that sum, between 22 billion euros and 50 billion euros would have to come from public funds, as opposed to private sources like investments in carbon-reduction projects.
Mr. Reinfeldt also said that E.U. nations could make a voluntary decision to contribute to a so-called fast-track mechanism that would make funds available immediately to developing countries.
Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, put a brave face on the result, underlining that the trade bloc should not be "naive" going into the negotiations in Copenhagen that are set to begin in fewer than six weeks.
"Our offer is not a blank check," said Mr. Barroso. "We are ready to act, if our partners deliver," he said.
E.U. officials said that Ms. Merkel, the German chancellor, who had been reticent over making any European commitment, had been persuaded that the figures were only conditional on steps being taken by other nations.
By JAMES KANTER and STEPHEN CASTLE
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/science/earth/31iht-UNION.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
European Union leaders on Friday offered to contribute money to a global fund to help developing countries tackle global warming hoping kick-start stalled talks on a new agreement on climate change.
But E.U. leaders disappointed climate campaigners by making the offer conditional on donations from other parts of the world and by failing to decide how much Europe would contribute to a global pot of up to 50 billion euros by 2020.
Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt insisted the E.U. now had "a very strong negotiating position" to press for a global deal at United Nations talks in Copenhagen in December that are aimed at agreeing a successor accord to the Kyoto Protocol.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, also stressed that Europe was leading the way.
"There is no-one else among the industrialized nations" to have made as concrete an offer of climate finance, Ms. Merkel told a press conference in Brussels.
But environmental groups took a mostly negative view of the results of the two-day summit, saying E.U. leaders had chosen vague, global figures and thereby diminished chances of unblocking climate negotiations ahead of the meeting in Copenhagen.
"Europe has failed once again to say how much it is prepared to contribute for climate finance," said Sonja Meister, a climate campaign coordinator for Friends of the Earth Europe. "In every way the EU is shirking its historical responsibilities and blocking progress towards the just and fair agreement the world needs in Copenhagen," she said.
The European Commission had called on E.U. leaders to make an offer of up to 15 billion euros annually by 2020.
Mr. Reinfeldt, the Swedish prime minister, said leaders had instead agreed that developing nations needed about 100 billion euros annually by 2020 and that, of that sum, between 22 billion euros and 50 billion euros would have to come from public funds, as opposed to private sources like investments in carbon-reduction projects.
Mr. Reinfeldt also said that E.U. nations could make a voluntary decision to contribute to a so-called fast-track mechanism that would make funds available immediately to developing countries.
Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, put a brave face on the result, underlining that the trade bloc should not be "naive" going into the negotiations in Copenhagen that are set to begin in fewer than six weeks.
"Our offer is not a blank check," said Mr. Barroso. "We are ready to act, if our partners deliver," he said.
E.U. officials said that Ms. Merkel, the German chancellor, who had been reticent over making any European commitment, had been persuaded that the figures were only conditional on steps being taken by other nations.
Chirac Ordered to Face Trial in France
Chirac Ordered to Face Trial in France
By ALAN COWELL
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/europe/31chirac.html?th&emc=th
PARIS — An investigating magistrate on Friday ordered the former French president, Jacques Chirac, to stand trial on corruption charges dating from his time years ago as mayor of Paris, reinforcing the whiff of alleged malfeasance swirling around the political elite here and inspiring debate about the pace of judicial processes.
If he comes to trial, Mr. Chirac will be the first former French head of state to be prosecuted on corruption charges, offering a humiliating bookend to a political career that spanned more than 30 years. A statement from his office described him as “serene” in face of the accusations.
The order by the magistrate, Xavière Simeoni, may still be challenged by public prosecutors who have already requested that the charges against the conservative Mr. Chirac, 76, be dropped, saying that there were no grounds to pursue them and that some were nullified by the statute of limitations.
If the prosecutors appeal Friday’s order, it could take months for judges to determine whether he should face trial on charges of diverting public money, which carry a maximum 10-year jail sentence and a $210,000 fine. One of Mr. Chirac’s most prominent aides during his presidency, former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, is in court defending himself against separate charges of planning a smear campaign in 2003 and 2004 to thwart the ambitions of Nicolas Sarkozy, a political rival who is now the president.
The charges against Mr. Chirac and nine other people relate to his years as mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995. He is accused of awarding contracts for fictitious positions as city advisers in return for political favors. Public suspicion about his past followed him through his years as president.
Mr. Chirac was elected president in 1995 and remained in office until 2007. His position as president gave him constitutional immunity from prosecution, which fell away when he left office. Preliminary embezzlement charges were filed soon afterward, but he denied them vigorously in a letter to the newspaper Le Monde in November 2007.
“Never were the resources of the city of Paris used for ambitions other than to benefit Parisians,” the letter said. “Never was there personal enrichment. Never was there a ‘system.’ ” Several aides to Mr. Chirac faced trial on corruption charges while the president was still in office, including former Prime Minister Alain Juppé, convicted in 2004 of party finance irregularities.
More recently, a Paris court last Tuesday ordered a three-year prison term for a former interior minister, Charles Pasqua, and a $562,000 fine for Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of former President François Mitterrand, for their involvement in illegal arms trafficking to Angola in the 1990s.
In a statement, Mr. Chirac’s office said that the charges related to 21 contracts, but that he was “serene and determined to establish before a tribunal that none of the jobs that remained under discussion were nonexistent jobs.”
Those charged with him include a former minister, Michel Roussin; the former labor leader, Marc Blondel; and Jean de Gaulle, a grandson of Charles de Gaulle.
Friday’s ruling drew an ambiguous response from many French politicians, including an old adversary, Ségolène Royal, a former Socialist presidential contender. “These are old stories and, today, Jacques Chirac probably has lots of things on his conscience, but at the same time he has given a lot to the country,” she told Europe 1 radio. “He deserves to be left alone, but justice must be the same for everyone.”
Some of Mr. Chirac’s allies saw the magistrate’s order as what Jean-François Probst, a former adviser, called a “settling of scores at the highest levels of power,” 20 years after the alleged transgressions took place. But critics like André Vallini, a Socialist lawmaker, said that, while the order showed the workings of an independent French judiciary, “I have the feeling that this is coming pretty late.”
Mr. Chirac’s memoirs are to be published next month, and opinion surveys this month showed that, in marked contrast to 2007 when he left office, he ranked as France’s most popular politician.
A trial would place him in uncomfortable company: the last French former head of state to face trial was Marshal Henri Phillipe Pétain, who was charged with treason in 1945 for collaborating with the Nazi occupation.
Scott Sayare contributed reporting.
By ALAN COWELL
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/europe/31chirac.html?th&emc=th
PARIS — An investigating magistrate on Friday ordered the former French president, Jacques Chirac, to stand trial on corruption charges dating from his time years ago as mayor of Paris, reinforcing the whiff of alleged malfeasance swirling around the political elite here and inspiring debate about the pace of judicial processes.
If he comes to trial, Mr. Chirac will be the first former French head of state to be prosecuted on corruption charges, offering a humiliating bookend to a political career that spanned more than 30 years. A statement from his office described him as “serene” in face of the accusations.
The order by the magistrate, Xavière Simeoni, may still be challenged by public prosecutors who have already requested that the charges against the conservative Mr. Chirac, 76, be dropped, saying that there were no grounds to pursue them and that some were nullified by the statute of limitations.
If the prosecutors appeal Friday’s order, it could take months for judges to determine whether he should face trial on charges of diverting public money, which carry a maximum 10-year jail sentence and a $210,000 fine. One of Mr. Chirac’s most prominent aides during his presidency, former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, is in court defending himself against separate charges of planning a smear campaign in 2003 and 2004 to thwart the ambitions of Nicolas Sarkozy, a political rival who is now the president.
The charges against Mr. Chirac and nine other people relate to his years as mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995. He is accused of awarding contracts for fictitious positions as city advisers in return for political favors. Public suspicion about his past followed him through his years as president.
Mr. Chirac was elected president in 1995 and remained in office until 2007. His position as president gave him constitutional immunity from prosecution, which fell away when he left office. Preliminary embezzlement charges were filed soon afterward, but he denied them vigorously in a letter to the newspaper Le Monde in November 2007.
“Never were the resources of the city of Paris used for ambitions other than to benefit Parisians,” the letter said. “Never was there personal enrichment. Never was there a ‘system.’ ” Several aides to Mr. Chirac faced trial on corruption charges while the president was still in office, including former Prime Minister Alain Juppé, convicted in 2004 of party finance irregularities.
More recently, a Paris court last Tuesday ordered a three-year prison term for a former interior minister, Charles Pasqua, and a $562,000 fine for Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of former President François Mitterrand, for their involvement in illegal arms trafficking to Angola in the 1990s.
In a statement, Mr. Chirac’s office said that the charges related to 21 contracts, but that he was “serene and determined to establish before a tribunal that none of the jobs that remained under discussion were nonexistent jobs.”
Those charged with him include a former minister, Michel Roussin; the former labor leader, Marc Blondel; and Jean de Gaulle, a grandson of Charles de Gaulle.
Friday’s ruling drew an ambiguous response from many French politicians, including an old adversary, Ségolène Royal, a former Socialist presidential contender. “These are old stories and, today, Jacques Chirac probably has lots of things on his conscience, but at the same time he has given a lot to the country,” she told Europe 1 radio. “He deserves to be left alone, but justice must be the same for everyone.”
Some of Mr. Chirac’s allies saw the magistrate’s order as what Jean-François Probst, a former adviser, called a “settling of scores at the highest levels of power,” 20 years after the alleged transgressions took place. But critics like André Vallini, a Socialist lawmaker, said that, while the order showed the workings of an independent French judiciary, “I have the feeling that this is coming pretty late.”
Mr. Chirac’s memoirs are to be published next month, and opinion surveys this month showed that, in marked contrast to 2007 when he left office, he ranked as France’s most popular politician.
A trial would place him in uncomfortable company: the last French former head of state to face trial was Marshal Henri Phillipe Pétain, who was charged with treason in 1945 for collaborating with the Nazi occupation.
Scott Sayare contributed reporting.
Chevron’s quarterly profits plunge 51% - Oil company hit by falling commodity prices
Chevron’s production grows as profits fall - Oil company hit by falling commodity prices
By Sheila McNulty in Houston
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: October 30 2009 13:35 | Last updated: October 30 2009 16:38
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/db1a3266-c558-11de-8193-00144feab49a.html?catid=7&SID=google
Chevron, the second-biggest US oil company, on Friday reported nearly 11 per cent growth in net oil-equivalent production – a rise far above that of its peers.
After years of criticism by analysts for poor execution even after exploration successes, analysts say Chevron has become an industry leader in production growth.
“Chevron is currently by far the strongest volume growth story in the integrateds,” said Mark Flannery, oil analyst at Credit Suisse. ”This is the best set of results from Chevron for a long time.”
The production success came despite a 51 per cent fall in net income from the year-earlier period to $3.83bn, on plunging commodity prices that have been a drag on the entire sector’s results. Chevron’s revenue was $46.6bn, down from $78.9bn.
“This operational success helped mitigate a decline in earnings that was driven by sharply lower prices for crude oil and natural gas,’’ said Dave O’Reilly, Chevron’s chief executive.
The growth was driven primarily by the startup of new Gulf of Mexico production and was also boosted by a particularly mild hurricane season in the area.
The companies production volumes exceeded even those of BP, whose output grew 7 per cent from the third quarter of 2008 as fields such as Thunderhorse in the Gulf of Mexico came online after after severe delays.
Chevron is set to continue its production growth developing the Gorgon liquefied natural gas project in Australia.
In depth: Oil
Crude oil prices have doubled since February’s low of $32 a barrel, raising concerns that global economic recovery could be jeopardised
Mr O’Reilly said the Gorgon project represents a “major milestone in the company’s strategy to commercialize its significant natural gas resource base in Australia.’’
The production gains helped Chevron’s results beat most of its peers. Only BP matched it, with just a 50 per cent drop in profits in the third quarter.
The world’s biggest publicly listed oil company, ExxonMobil, reported a 65 per cent drop in profits, Shell revealed a 73 per cent drop, while ConocoPhillips posted a 71 per cent drop.
Chevron’s share price dropped 2.18 per cent to $76.42 at midday as the overall market fell.
By Sheila McNulty in Houston
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
Published: October 30 2009 13:35 | Last updated: October 30 2009 16:38
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/db1a3266-c558-11de-8193-00144feab49a.html?catid=7&SID=google
Chevron, the second-biggest US oil company, on Friday reported nearly 11 per cent growth in net oil-equivalent production – a rise far above that of its peers.
After years of criticism by analysts for poor execution even after exploration successes, analysts say Chevron has become an industry leader in production growth.
“Chevron is currently by far the strongest volume growth story in the integrateds,” said Mark Flannery, oil analyst at Credit Suisse. ”This is the best set of results from Chevron for a long time.”
The production success came despite a 51 per cent fall in net income from the year-earlier period to $3.83bn, on plunging commodity prices that have been a drag on the entire sector’s results. Chevron’s revenue was $46.6bn, down from $78.9bn.
“This operational success helped mitigate a decline in earnings that was driven by sharply lower prices for crude oil and natural gas,’’ said Dave O’Reilly, Chevron’s chief executive.
The growth was driven primarily by the startup of new Gulf of Mexico production and was also boosted by a particularly mild hurricane season in the area.
The companies production volumes exceeded even those of BP, whose output grew 7 per cent from the third quarter of 2008 as fields such as Thunderhorse in the Gulf of Mexico came online after after severe delays.
Chevron is set to continue its production growth developing the Gorgon liquefied natural gas project in Australia.
In depth: Oil
Crude oil prices have doubled since February’s low of $32 a barrel, raising concerns that global economic recovery could be jeopardised
Mr O’Reilly said the Gorgon project represents a “major milestone in the company’s strategy to commercialize its significant natural gas resource base in Australia.’’
The production gains helped Chevron’s results beat most of its peers. Only BP matched it, with just a 50 per cent drop in profits in the third quarter.
The world’s biggest publicly listed oil company, ExxonMobil, reported a 65 per cent drop in profits, Shell revealed a 73 per cent drop, while ConocoPhillips posted a 71 per cent drop.
Chevron’s share price dropped 2.18 per cent to $76.42 at midday as the overall market fell.
Stimulus saved or created 650,000 jobs - White House refutes discrepancies after deadline scramble/Schools Are Where Stimulus Saved Jobs New Data Show
White House: 650,000 jobs saved, created by stimulus
By Alec MacGillis
Copyright by The Washington Post
Friday, October 30, 2009; 11:07 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/30/AR2009103001095.html?hpid=topnews
Reports to be released Friday on the government Web site Recovery.gov are expected to show that the $150 billion in grants and loans made so far under the economic stimulus package have created or saved about 650,000 jobs, White House officials said Friday morning.
White House officials said the reports -- which were filed by state and city governments and other recipients of stimulus grants and loans -- will confirm their recent estimates that the $787 billion package passed in February has so far saved or created about a million jobs, putting it on track to match their estimates of 3.5 million jobs created or saved over the three-year span of the stimulus. That calculation is based on the fact that today's reports do not include much of the package's spending -- tax cuts, safety net spending and fiscal aid to strapped states, which injected tens of billions more into the economy and, in the case of the state aid, forestalled layoffs of state workers.
And because the reports were required only of the direct recipients of stimulus funding and any secondary level of recipient, the reports also do not take into account the jobs that might have been created by subcontractors or suppliers further down the chain. For instance, if a state received a grant and passed it on to a city, and the city then passed the money to a contractor or nonprofit group, any jobs created by the contractor or nonprofit would not necessarily be reported back.
More generally, watchdog groups caution that the reports ought to be taken with a strong grain of salt given the difficulty of actually tallying the effect of government spending. The reports include claims of tens of thousands of teaching and other public-sector jobs saved by the spending, but it is hard to know for sure how many jobs actually would have been lost in the absence of the stimulus. And it is hard to know how to count the job creation in, say, a road repaving project that employs a given crew for a month or two. The reports' bigger value probably will lie in the potential they offer the public for tracking specific projects.
Nonetheless, the White House is poised to make the most of Friday's numbers, with Vice President Biden appearing at noon in Washington to tout the numbers alongside Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R). The reports follow Thursday's report that the economy grew at a rate of 3.5 percent in the third quarter, which economists attribute in large part to the stimulus package and subsequent boosts such as the summer's Cash for Clunkers program.
Republicans, meanwhile, have been questioning the stimulus's impact, calling into doubt the administration's job creation estimates by noting that the unemployment rate has climbed to 9.8 percent. At the time of the stimulus's passage, administration economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein predicted that the stimulus would keep unemployment at 8 percent.
Since then, the White House has argued that the recession has turned out to be deeper than it and most others expected, with about 7 million jobs lost so far, and that the unemployment rate would have been far higher without the stimulus spending. At a speech at American University this week, Bernstein said that without the stimulus, the economy probably would not have expanded at all in the past quarter.
"There's no conceivable stimulus package that could be fiscally or economically responsibly implemented that could fully offset the magnitude of these losses," he said. "But by saving or creating 3.5 million jobs, which we're on track to do, we can put a serious dent in that pain."
Today's reports follow the release Oct. 15 of reports for a more limited slice of spending, about $16 billion in direct federal contracts that were reported to have created about 30,000 jobs.
Schools Are Where Stimulus Saved Jobs, New Data Show
By MICHAEL COOPER and RON NIXON
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/us/31stimulus.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
The best symbol of the $787 billion federal stimulus program turns out not to be a construction worker in a hard hat, but rather a classroom teacher saved from a layoff.
On Friday, the Obama administration released the most detailed information yet on the jobs created by the stimulus. Of the 640,239 jobs recipients claimed to have created or saved so far, officials said, more than half — 325,000 — were in education. Most were teachers’ jobs that states said were saved when stimulus money averted a need for layoffs.
Although the stimulus was initially sold in large part as a public works program, only about 80,000 of the jobs that were claimed Friday were in construction.
Of course, counting jobs that were saved can be a squishier proposition than counting jobs that were created. Teachers have been laid off in some areas — and budget officials say that there would have been more layoffs without the stimulus money — but it is difficult to say with certainty how many teachers would have been laid off without that money.
Indiana, for example, reported saving or creating 13,232 education jobs with its stimulus money, but Cris Johnston, the director of the government efficiency division of the state budget office, said that it was difficult to say whether the state would have actually lost those jobs without the money.
“We can’t make the statement that they were created or retained,” Mr. Johnston said. Indiana, he said had followed federal guidelines in reporting how many full-time jobs were paid for with the stimulus money, which also paid for education supplies and other expenses. And while New York City officials have said the stimulus helped them save thousands of teaching jobs, it would have been politically difficult for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to actually lay off that many teachers while running for re-election.
Hard hats could surpass teachers next year, as more construction projects get under way. In Florida, for instance, one of the biggest infrastructure projects is its plan to build the Indian Street Bridge in Martin County. But with a big, complex project like that, it takes a while before construction can start. That project, which will cost more than $72 million, claims to have saved or created just one job so far.
An analysis by The New York Times of the grants and contracts in the stimulus showed that as of the end of September, only 7 percent of the work had been completed and 9 percent was more than half done, while 46 percent was less than half done and 38 percent had not begun.
The jobs announced Friday were created by about $159 billion in grants, loans and contracts made available to the states. About $37 billion of that amount has been paid out so far.
The Obama administration said the jobs were evidence that the stimulus was on track to save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.
Officials did not count jobs that were indirectly created by the $84 billion pumped into the economy through tax cuts so far, or from the billions of dollars’ worth of unemployment benefits and aid to states for Medicaid. If those were included, the administration estimated, the tally of jobs saved or created would rise to more than 1 million.
“There is strong and mounting evidence that the recovery act is putting people back to work,” Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said at a news conference in Washington.
The figures should be taken with a grain of salt, though. They come from reports submitted by more than 130,000 recipients of contracts, grants and loans that were published on the government’s Web site, www.recovery.gov. But officials expect there to be errors; the first reports of federal contracts earlier this month contained some filings that overstated or understated jobs.
The jobs reports came a day after new figures showed the economy grew by 3.5 percent during the last quarter, ending the longest economic contraction since World War II. But while many economists credited the stimulus with spurring some of that growth, many in Washington have raised doubts about the stimulus program’s effectiveness at creating jobs.
Republicans have cited the high unemployment figure, at 9.8 percent, as proof of the failure of the stimulus, which they voted overwhelmingly opposed. Democrats said that the recession was more severe than most economists predicted and credited the stimulus with helping avert a second Great Depression.
The House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, questioned what had happened to the many private-sector jobs that the administration had promised to create.
“While Washington keeps spending and piling more debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren,” he said in a statement Friday, “out-of-work families keep asking, ‘where are the jobs?’ ”
Sensitive to such criticisms, the Obama administration invited a marquee Republican to the White House to praise the stimulus: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, whose state has faced perhaps the most severe budget crisis in the nation.
“Some of our colleagues are saying that it hasn’t done much, or was a waste of money,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said, sharing the stage with Mr. Biden. “Well, I would dispute that.”
He said the stimulus had created or saved more than 100,000 jobs in California, the most in the nation, more than half of which — 62,000 — were the jobs of teachers, professors and school administrators. Mr. Schwarzenegger noted that some people have questioned whether those teachers would actually have been laid off without the stimulus. “No, those teachers would have been gone, if it wouldn’t have been for the federal stimulus money,” he said.
Michigan, whose unemployment rate of 15.3 percent was the highest in the nation, reported creating or saving 22,514 jobs, the ninth most in the nation. But Rhode Island, whose 13 percent unemployment rate made it the third highest in the nation, ranked near the bottom with 2,012 jobs.
By Alec MacGillis
Copyright by The Washington Post
Friday, October 30, 2009; 11:07 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/30/AR2009103001095.html?hpid=topnews
Reports to be released Friday on the government Web site Recovery.gov are expected to show that the $150 billion in grants and loans made so far under the economic stimulus package have created or saved about 650,000 jobs, White House officials said Friday morning.
White House officials said the reports -- which were filed by state and city governments and other recipients of stimulus grants and loans -- will confirm their recent estimates that the $787 billion package passed in February has so far saved or created about a million jobs, putting it on track to match their estimates of 3.5 million jobs created or saved over the three-year span of the stimulus. That calculation is based on the fact that today's reports do not include much of the package's spending -- tax cuts, safety net spending and fiscal aid to strapped states, which injected tens of billions more into the economy and, in the case of the state aid, forestalled layoffs of state workers.
And because the reports were required only of the direct recipients of stimulus funding and any secondary level of recipient, the reports also do not take into account the jobs that might have been created by subcontractors or suppliers further down the chain. For instance, if a state received a grant and passed it on to a city, and the city then passed the money to a contractor or nonprofit group, any jobs created by the contractor or nonprofit would not necessarily be reported back.
More generally, watchdog groups caution that the reports ought to be taken with a strong grain of salt given the difficulty of actually tallying the effect of government spending. The reports include claims of tens of thousands of teaching and other public-sector jobs saved by the spending, but it is hard to know for sure how many jobs actually would have been lost in the absence of the stimulus. And it is hard to know how to count the job creation in, say, a road repaving project that employs a given crew for a month or two. The reports' bigger value probably will lie in the potential they offer the public for tracking specific projects.
Nonetheless, the White House is poised to make the most of Friday's numbers, with Vice President Biden appearing at noon in Washington to tout the numbers alongside Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R). The reports follow Thursday's report that the economy grew at a rate of 3.5 percent in the third quarter, which economists attribute in large part to the stimulus package and subsequent boosts such as the summer's Cash for Clunkers program.
Republicans, meanwhile, have been questioning the stimulus's impact, calling into doubt the administration's job creation estimates by noting that the unemployment rate has climbed to 9.8 percent. At the time of the stimulus's passage, administration economists Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein predicted that the stimulus would keep unemployment at 8 percent.
Since then, the White House has argued that the recession has turned out to be deeper than it and most others expected, with about 7 million jobs lost so far, and that the unemployment rate would have been far higher without the stimulus spending. At a speech at American University this week, Bernstein said that without the stimulus, the economy probably would not have expanded at all in the past quarter.
"There's no conceivable stimulus package that could be fiscally or economically responsibly implemented that could fully offset the magnitude of these losses," he said. "But by saving or creating 3.5 million jobs, which we're on track to do, we can put a serious dent in that pain."
Today's reports follow the release Oct. 15 of reports for a more limited slice of spending, about $16 billion in direct federal contracts that were reported to have created about 30,000 jobs.
Schools Are Where Stimulus Saved Jobs, New Data Show
By MICHAEL COOPER and RON NIXON
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/us/31stimulus.html?_r=1&th&emc=th
The best symbol of the $787 billion federal stimulus program turns out not to be a construction worker in a hard hat, but rather a classroom teacher saved from a layoff.
On Friday, the Obama administration released the most detailed information yet on the jobs created by the stimulus. Of the 640,239 jobs recipients claimed to have created or saved so far, officials said, more than half — 325,000 — were in education. Most were teachers’ jobs that states said were saved when stimulus money averted a need for layoffs.
Although the stimulus was initially sold in large part as a public works program, only about 80,000 of the jobs that were claimed Friday were in construction.
Of course, counting jobs that were saved can be a squishier proposition than counting jobs that were created. Teachers have been laid off in some areas — and budget officials say that there would have been more layoffs without the stimulus money — but it is difficult to say with certainty how many teachers would have been laid off without that money.
Indiana, for example, reported saving or creating 13,232 education jobs with its stimulus money, but Cris Johnston, the director of the government efficiency division of the state budget office, said that it was difficult to say whether the state would have actually lost those jobs without the money.
“We can’t make the statement that they were created or retained,” Mr. Johnston said. Indiana, he said had followed federal guidelines in reporting how many full-time jobs were paid for with the stimulus money, which also paid for education supplies and other expenses. And while New York City officials have said the stimulus helped them save thousands of teaching jobs, it would have been politically difficult for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to actually lay off that many teachers while running for re-election.
Hard hats could surpass teachers next year, as more construction projects get under way. In Florida, for instance, one of the biggest infrastructure projects is its plan to build the Indian Street Bridge in Martin County. But with a big, complex project like that, it takes a while before construction can start. That project, which will cost more than $72 million, claims to have saved or created just one job so far.
An analysis by The New York Times of the grants and contracts in the stimulus showed that as of the end of September, only 7 percent of the work had been completed and 9 percent was more than half done, while 46 percent was less than half done and 38 percent had not begun.
The jobs announced Friday were created by about $159 billion in grants, loans and contracts made available to the states. About $37 billion of that amount has been paid out so far.
The Obama administration said the jobs were evidence that the stimulus was on track to save or create 3.5 million jobs by the end of next year.
Officials did not count jobs that were indirectly created by the $84 billion pumped into the economy through tax cuts so far, or from the billions of dollars’ worth of unemployment benefits and aid to states for Medicaid. If those were included, the administration estimated, the tally of jobs saved or created would rise to more than 1 million.
“There is strong and mounting evidence that the recovery act is putting people back to work,” Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said at a news conference in Washington.
The figures should be taken with a grain of salt, though. They come from reports submitted by more than 130,000 recipients of contracts, grants and loans that were published on the government’s Web site, www.recovery.gov. But officials expect there to be errors; the first reports of federal contracts earlier this month contained some filings that overstated or understated jobs.
The jobs reports came a day after new figures showed the economy grew by 3.5 percent during the last quarter, ending the longest economic contraction since World War II. But while many economists credited the stimulus with spurring some of that growth, many in Washington have raised doubts about the stimulus program’s effectiveness at creating jobs.
Republicans have cited the high unemployment figure, at 9.8 percent, as proof of the failure of the stimulus, which they voted overwhelmingly opposed. Democrats said that the recession was more severe than most economists predicted and credited the stimulus with helping avert a second Great Depression.
The House Republican leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, questioned what had happened to the many private-sector jobs that the administration had promised to create.
“While Washington keeps spending and piling more debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren,” he said in a statement Friday, “out-of-work families keep asking, ‘where are the jobs?’ ”
Sensitive to such criticisms, the Obama administration invited a marquee Republican to the White House to praise the stimulus: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, whose state has faced perhaps the most severe budget crisis in the nation.
“Some of our colleagues are saying that it hasn’t done much, or was a waste of money,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said, sharing the stage with Mr. Biden. “Well, I would dispute that.”
He said the stimulus had created or saved more than 100,000 jobs in California, the most in the nation, more than half of which — 62,000 — were the jobs of teachers, professors and school administrators. Mr. Schwarzenegger noted that some people have questioned whether those teachers would actually have been laid off without the stimulus. “No, those teachers would have been gone, if it wouldn’t have been for the federal stimulus money,” he said.
Michigan, whose unemployment rate of 15.3 percent was the highest in the nation, reported creating or saving 22,514 jobs, the ninth most in the nation. But Rhode Island, whose 13 percent unemployment rate made it the third highest in the nation, ranked near the bottom with 2,012 jobs.
U.S. May Be Open to Asylum for Spouse Abuse
U.S. May Be Open to Asylum for Spouse Abuse
By JULIA PRESTON
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/us/30asylum.html?adxnnl=1&hpw=&adxnnlx=1256918531-V2YftGAGssYOMpIOHV++tA
In an unusually protracted and closely watched case, the Obama administration has recommended political asylum for a Guatemalan woman fleeing horrific abuse by her husband, the strongest signal yet that the administration is open to a variety of asylum claims from foreign women facing domestic abuse.
The government’s assent, lawyers said, virtually ensures that the woman, Rody Alvarado Peña, will be allowed to remain in the United States after battling in immigration court since 1995.
Immigration lawyers said the administration had taken a major step toward clarifying a murky area of asylum law and defining the legal grounds on which battered and sexually abused women in foreign countries could seek protection here.
After 14 years of legal indecision, during which several immigration courts and three attorneys general considered Ms. Alvarado’s case, the Department of Homeland Security cleared the way for her in a one-paragraph document filed late Wednesday in immigration court in San Francisco. Ms. Alvarado, the department found, “is eligible for asylum and merits a grant of asylum as a matter of discretion.”
An immigration judge’s order granting the asylum is still required, but Ms. Alvarado’s lawyer, Karen Musalo, said that since the government had raised no new opposition, it was highly likely that the judge would approve her claim.
Ms. Musalo, director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at Hastings College of the Law at the University of California, said Ms. Alvarado’s “has been the iconic case of domestic abuse as a basis for asylum.”
Jayne Fleming, a lawyer specializing in asylum at the San Francisco office of the law firm Reed Smith, called the recommendation “a giant step forward.” Advocates and immigration judges, Ms Fleming said, “now have some pretty solid guidelines from D.H.S.”
In a phone interview Thursday, Ms. Alvarado, who has not been detained and lives in California, where she is a housekeeper at a home for elderly nuns, said she was pleased but also a little dazed and disbelieving.
“I thank God it came out well,” she said, speaking in Spanish. “But it wasn’t easy to wait this long for immigration to make a decision.”
She said she hoped the outcome in her case would mean that other abused women would receive quicker decisions from the courts.
Homeland Security Department officials were cautious in assessing the implications of the administration’s recommendation. The department “continues to view domestic violence as a possible basis for asylum,” a department spokesman, Matthew Chandler, said. But such cases, Mr. Chandler said, continue to depend on the specific abuse. The department is writing regulations to govern claims based on domestic violence, he said.
After enduring a decade of violence by her husband, Francisco Osorio, a former soldier in Guatemala, Ms. Alvarado came to the United States in 1995. Over the years, immigration judges have not questioned the credibility of her story. According to court documents, she married when she was 16, and became pregnant soon afterward. In a beating that he apparently hoped would induce an abortion, Mr. Osorio dislocated her jaw and kicked her repeatedly. He also “pistol-whipped Ms. Alvarado, broke windows and mirrors with her head, punched and slapped her, threatened her with his machete and dragged her down the street by her hair,” a court filing states.
In 1996, an immigration judge in San Francisco granted Ms. Alvarado’s asylum petition, but an immigration appeals court overturned that decision in 1999. In 2001, Attorney General Janet Reno threw out the appeals court decision, but did not grant Ms. Alvarado asylum. (Because the immigration courts are part of the executive branch, not the judiciary, the attorney general is the highest legal authority.)
In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security, which represents the government in immigration cases, argued for the first time in favor of asylum for Ms. Alvarado. Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered a new review but did not reach a decision. In September 2008, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey sent the case back to the immigration appeals court, encouraging the court to issue a precedent-setting ruling. Such a ruling can come only from an immigration appeals court or a federal court.
The large legal question in the case is whether women who suffer domestic abuse are part of a “particular social group” that has faced persecution, one criteria for asylum claims. In a separate asylum case in April, the Department of Homeland Security pointed to some specific ways that battered women could meet this standard.
In a recent filing, Ms. Alvarado’s lawyers argued that her circumstances met the requirements that the department had outlined in April. Now the department has agreed, in practice making the case a model for other asylum claims.
In a declaration filed recently to bolster Ms. Alvarado’s argument that she was part of a persecuted group in Guatemala, an expert witness, Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey, reported that more than 4,000 women had been killed in domestic violence there in the last decade. These killings, only 2 percent of which have been solved, were so frequent that they earned their own legal term, “femicide,” said Ms. Paz y Paz Bailey, a Guatemalan lawyer. In 2004 Guatemala enacted a law establishing special sanctions for the crime.
“Many times,” she said, violence against Guatemalan women “is not even identified as violence, is not perceived as strange or unusual.”
The resolution of her case is coming too late for Ms. Alvarado to be able to raise her two children, whom she has not seen since she left them in Guatemala. The children, now 22 and 17, were raised by their paternal grandparents, whom they call Mama and Papa.
“It has been tremendously painful for me to know that they do not see me as their mother,” Ms. Alvarado said in court papers.
By JULIA PRESTON
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 29, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/us/30asylum.html?adxnnl=1&hpw=&adxnnlx=1256918531-V2YftGAGssYOMpIOHV++tA
In an unusually protracted and closely watched case, the Obama administration has recommended political asylum for a Guatemalan woman fleeing horrific abuse by her husband, the strongest signal yet that the administration is open to a variety of asylum claims from foreign women facing domestic abuse.
The government’s assent, lawyers said, virtually ensures that the woman, Rody Alvarado Peña, will be allowed to remain in the United States after battling in immigration court since 1995.
Immigration lawyers said the administration had taken a major step toward clarifying a murky area of asylum law and defining the legal grounds on which battered and sexually abused women in foreign countries could seek protection here.
After 14 years of legal indecision, during which several immigration courts and three attorneys general considered Ms. Alvarado’s case, the Department of Homeland Security cleared the way for her in a one-paragraph document filed late Wednesday in immigration court in San Francisco. Ms. Alvarado, the department found, “is eligible for asylum and merits a grant of asylum as a matter of discretion.”
An immigration judge’s order granting the asylum is still required, but Ms. Alvarado’s lawyer, Karen Musalo, said that since the government had raised no new opposition, it was highly likely that the judge would approve her claim.
Ms. Musalo, director of the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at Hastings College of the Law at the University of California, said Ms. Alvarado’s “has been the iconic case of domestic abuse as a basis for asylum.”
Jayne Fleming, a lawyer specializing in asylum at the San Francisco office of the law firm Reed Smith, called the recommendation “a giant step forward.” Advocates and immigration judges, Ms Fleming said, “now have some pretty solid guidelines from D.H.S.”
In a phone interview Thursday, Ms. Alvarado, who has not been detained and lives in California, where she is a housekeeper at a home for elderly nuns, said she was pleased but also a little dazed and disbelieving.
“I thank God it came out well,” she said, speaking in Spanish. “But it wasn’t easy to wait this long for immigration to make a decision.”
She said she hoped the outcome in her case would mean that other abused women would receive quicker decisions from the courts.
Homeland Security Department officials were cautious in assessing the implications of the administration’s recommendation. The department “continues to view domestic violence as a possible basis for asylum,” a department spokesman, Matthew Chandler, said. But such cases, Mr. Chandler said, continue to depend on the specific abuse. The department is writing regulations to govern claims based on domestic violence, he said.
After enduring a decade of violence by her husband, Francisco Osorio, a former soldier in Guatemala, Ms. Alvarado came to the United States in 1995. Over the years, immigration judges have not questioned the credibility of her story. According to court documents, she married when she was 16, and became pregnant soon afterward. In a beating that he apparently hoped would induce an abortion, Mr. Osorio dislocated her jaw and kicked her repeatedly. He also “pistol-whipped Ms. Alvarado, broke windows and mirrors with her head, punched and slapped her, threatened her with his machete and dragged her down the street by her hair,” a court filing states.
In 1996, an immigration judge in San Francisco granted Ms. Alvarado’s asylum petition, but an immigration appeals court overturned that decision in 1999. In 2001, Attorney General Janet Reno threw out the appeals court decision, but did not grant Ms. Alvarado asylum. (Because the immigration courts are part of the executive branch, not the judiciary, the attorney general is the highest legal authority.)
In 2004, the Department of Homeland Security, which represents the government in immigration cases, argued for the first time in favor of asylum for Ms. Alvarado. Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered a new review but did not reach a decision. In September 2008, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey sent the case back to the immigration appeals court, encouraging the court to issue a precedent-setting ruling. Such a ruling can come only from an immigration appeals court or a federal court.
The large legal question in the case is whether women who suffer domestic abuse are part of a “particular social group” that has faced persecution, one criteria for asylum claims. In a separate asylum case in April, the Department of Homeland Security pointed to some specific ways that battered women could meet this standard.
In a recent filing, Ms. Alvarado’s lawyers argued that her circumstances met the requirements that the department had outlined in April. Now the department has agreed, in practice making the case a model for other asylum claims.
In a declaration filed recently to bolster Ms. Alvarado’s argument that she was part of a persecuted group in Guatemala, an expert witness, Claudia Paz y Paz Bailey, reported that more than 4,000 women had been killed in domestic violence there in the last decade. These killings, only 2 percent of which have been solved, were so frequent that they earned their own legal term, “femicide,” said Ms. Paz y Paz Bailey, a Guatemalan lawyer. In 2004 Guatemala enacted a law establishing special sanctions for the crime.
“Many times,” she said, violence against Guatemalan women “is not even identified as violence, is not perceived as strange or unusual.”
The resolution of her case is coming too late for Ms. Alvarado to be able to raise her two children, whom she has not seen since she left them in Guatemala. The children, now 22 and 17, were raised by their paternal grandparents, whom they call Mama and Papa.
“It has been tremendously painful for me to know that they do not see me as their mother,” Ms. Alvarado said in court papers.
Deal Reached in Honduras to Restore Ousted President
Deal Reached in Honduras to Restore Ousted President
By ELISABETH MALKIN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/americas/31honduras.html?_r=1&hp
MEXICO CITY — A lingering political crisis in Honduras seemed to be nearing an end on Friday after the de facto government agreed to a deal, pending legislative approval, that would allow Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, to return to office.
The government of Roberto Micheletti, which had refused to let Mr. Zelaya return, signed an agreement with Mr. Zelaya’s negotiators late Thursday that would pave the way for the Honduran Congress to restore the ousted president and allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term. If Congress agrees, control of the army would shift to the electoral court, and the presidential election set for Nov. 29 would be recognized by both sides. Neither Mr. Zelaya nor Mr. Micheletti will be candidates.
On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the deal “an historic agreement.”
“I cannot think of another example of a country in Latin America that, having suffered a rupture of its democratic and constitutional order, overcame such a crisis through negotiation and dialogue,” Mrs. Clinton said in Islamabad, where she has been meeting with Pakistani officials.
The accord came after a team of senior American diplomats flew to the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, from Washington on Wednesday to press for an agreement. On Thursday, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Thomas A. Shannon Jr., warned that time was running out for an agreement.
Mr. Micheletti’s government had argued that the Nov. 29 election would put an end to the crisis. But the United States, the Organization of American States and the United Nations suggested they would not recognize the results of the elections without a pre-existing agreement on Mr. Zelaya’s status.
“We were very clearly on the side of the restoration of the constitutional order, and that includes the elections,” Mrs. Clinton said in Islamabad.
According to Mr. Micheletti, the accord reached late Thursday would establish a unity government and a verification commission to ensure that its conditions are carried out. It would also create a truth commission to investigate the events of the past few months.
The agreement also reportedly asks the international community to recognize the results of the elections and to lift any sanctions that were imposed after the coup. The suspension of international aid has stalled badly needed projects in one of the region’s poorest countries.
Negotiators for both men were expected to meet Friday to work out final details. It was not clear what would happen if the Honduran Congress rejected the deal.
Passage could mean a bookend to months of international pressure and political turmoil in Honduras, where regular marches by Mr. Zelaya’s supporters and curfews have paralyzed the capital.
Latin American governments had pressed the Obama administration to take a forceful approach to ending the political impasse, but Washington had let the Organization of American States take the lead and endorsed negotiations that were brokered by the Costa Rican president, Óscar Arias. But those talks stalled in July.
New negotiations began this month but broke down two weeks ago. With the Honduran elections approaching, the United States chose to step up pressure and dispatched Mr. Shannon, along with Dan Restrepo, the senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council.
Some Honduran political and business leaders have argued that the military coup that ousted Mr. Zelaya on June 28 was a legal response to his attempts to rewrite the Constitution and seek re-election. But that constituency was also concerned by his deepening alliance with Venezuela’s leftist president, Hugo Chávez.
Mr. Zelaya, who was initially deposited in Costa Rica, still in his nightclothes, sneaked back into the country on Sept. 21 and has been living at the Brazilian Embassy since then. It was unclear when Mr. Zelaya would be able to leave the embassy, which has had Honduran soldiers posted outside. The de facto government had said it would arrest him if he came out.
Mark Landler contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.
By ELISABETH MALKIN
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 30, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/31/world/americas/31honduras.html?_r=1&hp
MEXICO CITY — A lingering political crisis in Honduras seemed to be nearing an end on Friday after the de facto government agreed to a deal, pending legislative approval, that would allow Manuel Zelaya, the deposed president, to return to office.
The government of Roberto Micheletti, which had refused to let Mr. Zelaya return, signed an agreement with Mr. Zelaya’s negotiators late Thursday that would pave the way for the Honduran Congress to restore the ousted president and allow him to serve out the remaining three months of his term. If Congress agrees, control of the army would shift to the electoral court, and the presidential election set for Nov. 29 would be recognized by both sides. Neither Mr. Zelaya nor Mr. Micheletti will be candidates.
On Friday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the deal “an historic agreement.”
“I cannot think of another example of a country in Latin America that, having suffered a rupture of its democratic and constitutional order, overcame such a crisis through negotiation and dialogue,” Mrs. Clinton said in Islamabad, where she has been meeting with Pakistani officials.
The accord came after a team of senior American diplomats flew to the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, from Washington on Wednesday to press for an agreement. On Thursday, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Thomas A. Shannon Jr., warned that time was running out for an agreement.
Mr. Micheletti’s government had argued that the Nov. 29 election would put an end to the crisis. But the United States, the Organization of American States and the United Nations suggested they would not recognize the results of the elections without a pre-existing agreement on Mr. Zelaya’s status.
“We were very clearly on the side of the restoration of the constitutional order, and that includes the elections,” Mrs. Clinton said in Islamabad.
According to Mr. Micheletti, the accord reached late Thursday would establish a unity government and a verification commission to ensure that its conditions are carried out. It would also create a truth commission to investigate the events of the past few months.
The agreement also reportedly asks the international community to recognize the results of the elections and to lift any sanctions that were imposed after the coup. The suspension of international aid has stalled badly needed projects in one of the region’s poorest countries.
Negotiators for both men were expected to meet Friday to work out final details. It was not clear what would happen if the Honduran Congress rejected the deal.
Passage could mean a bookend to months of international pressure and political turmoil in Honduras, where regular marches by Mr. Zelaya’s supporters and curfews have paralyzed the capital.
Latin American governments had pressed the Obama administration to take a forceful approach to ending the political impasse, but Washington had let the Organization of American States take the lead and endorsed negotiations that were brokered by the Costa Rican president, Óscar Arias. But those talks stalled in July.
New negotiations began this month but broke down two weeks ago. With the Honduran elections approaching, the United States chose to step up pressure and dispatched Mr. Shannon, along with Dan Restrepo, the senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council.
Some Honduran political and business leaders have argued that the military coup that ousted Mr. Zelaya on June 28 was a legal response to his attempts to rewrite the Constitution and seek re-election. But that constituency was also concerned by his deepening alliance with Venezuela’s leftist president, Hugo Chávez.
Mr. Zelaya, who was initially deposited in Costa Rica, still in his nightclothes, sneaked back into the country on Sept. 21 and has been living at the Brazilian Embassy since then. It was unclear when Mr. Zelaya would be able to leave the embassy, which has had Honduran soldiers posted outside. The de facto government had said it would arrest him if he came out.
Mark Landler contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.
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