F R O M T H E PA G E S O F
Sunday
October 18, 2009
8 p.m. in New York
Nine pages © 2009 The New York Times
fear of swine flu Pakistan Targets Militant Stronghold
impacts rituals
of everyday life
In offices, churches, hospitals,
college dorms and schools, the
fear of swine flu has ushered in
new standards of etiquette that
can be, in turns, mundane, absurd
and heartbreaking.
Students at Rensselaer Poly-
technic Institute in Troy, N.Y., are
being asked to refrain from play-
ing beer pong, a communal drink-
ing game, after an outbreak of ill-
ness that officials feared might
be swine flu. Roman Catholic
parishioners of the Diocese of Ra-
leigh, N.C., have been instructed
by the bishop not to shake hands
at the sign of peace, and wine is
not being offered for the sacra-
ment of Holy Communion.
And when 5-month-old Dani-
ca Deneault was admitted last
month to a hospital in Providence,
R.I., her older siblings were not
allowed to visit as hospitals and
health care systems in Rhode Is-
land and more than a dozen other
states have prohibited children
from visiting patients. (Some ex-
ceptions are made for terminally
ill relatives.) Health officials
worry that children might spread
the swine flu virus to patients and
staff members.
The new round of precautions,
officials say, is less rushed and
more thoughtful than the scram-
ble last spring that accompanied
the new bug’s arrival. The pres-
sure, something like an impera-
tive, is for all of society to just do
something, anything, to stave off
the dreaded flu.
According to the experts, little
changes may have an outsize im-
pact when it comes to keeping the
population healthy.
As Halloween approaches at
Rudd Equipment in Louisville,
Ky., Yolanda Ray, a personnel
manager, wants to make sure ev-
eryone takes precautions while
not completely killing the fun.
“Bring in candy, make it fes-
tive,” she said she told the em-
ployees. “But make sure it is indi-
vidually wrapped.” (NYT)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pak-
istan moved large contingents of
its troops into the militant strong-
hold of South Waziristan on Sat-
urday, the army said, beginning
a long-anticipated ground offen-
sive against militants from Al
Qaeda and the Taliban in treach-
erous terrain that has stymied
the army in the past.
The operation is the most am-
bitious by the Pakistani Army
against the militants, who have
unleashed a torrent of attacks
against top security installations
in the last 10 days in anticipation
of the assault. The militants’ tar-
gets included the army headquar-
ters where planning for the new
offensive had been under way for
four months.
The United States has been
pressing the army to move ahead
with the campaign in South Wa-
ziristan, arguing that it is vital for
Pakistan to show resolve against
the Qaeda-fortified Pakistani
Taliban, which now embraces
a vast and dedicated network of
militant groups arrayed against
the state, including some nur-
tured by Pakistan to fight India.
American officials have said
Fellow Inmates Help Ease Pain of Dying in Jail
COXSACKIE, N.Y. — Allen Ja-
cobs lived hard for his 50 years,
and when his liver finally shut
down he faced the kind of death
he did not want. On a recent after-
noon Jacobs lay in a hospital bed
staring at the ceiling. A hospice
worker, Wensley Roberts, ran a
wet sponge over Jacobs’ dry lips,
encouraging him to drink.
“Come on, Mr. Jacobs,” he said.
Roberts is one of a dozen in-
mates at the Coxsackie Correc-
tional Facility who volunteer to
sit with fellow prisoners in the
last six months of their lives. He
recalled a day when Jacobs had
started crying. Roberts tried to
console him. Then their experi-
ence took a turn unique to their
setting, a maximum-security
prison. Roberts said he told Ja-
cobs to “man up.”
Jacobs, in prison for passing
forged checks, cursed at him, say-
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the fighting there would probably
not substantially help the Ameri-
can and NATO effort in Afghani-
stan because most militants who
cross the border to fight there are
from a different area in Pakistan
and because the Taliban strong-
hold within South Waziristan is
not directly along the border.
But if successful, the operations
could put pressure on Al Qaeda, a
pivotal supporter of the Taliban
in Afghanistan, providing train-
ing and strategic planning.
The front in South Waziristan
was the fourth operation by the
army against the Taliban in a
year, and the campaigns in the
less remote parts of the country’s
tribal areas have shown that guer-
rilla tactics can bedevil an army
trained in conventional warfare
against its archenemy, India.
In Bajaur and Mohmand, two
tribal areas close to the provin-
cial capital, Peshawar, and far
less mountainous than South
Waziristan, the army has been
forced to launch repeated air at-
tacks against persistent Taliban
attacks, even though much of the
area was declared cleared of mili-
tants almost a year ago. Civilians
ing, “‘I don’t want to die in jail. Do
you want to die in jail?’”
“I said no,” said Roberts, who
is in prison for robbery. “He said,
‘Then stop telling me to man up.’
And then he said that I’m his fam-
ily.”
American prisons are home to
a growing geriatric population,
with one-third of all inmates ex-
pected to be over 50 by next year.
About 75 prisons have started
hospice programs, half of them
using inmate volunteers, accord-
ing to the National Hospice and
Palliative Care Organization.
There are challenges unique
to the prison setting. Some dying
patients, for example, divert their
pain medication to their volunteer
aides or other patients, who use it
or sell it, said Kathleen Allan, the
director of nursing at Coxsackie.
But she added that the inmate vol-
unteers bond with the patients in a
who fled Bajaur and Mohmand
have been unable to return, and
towns flattened by the army have
remained in ruins.
Even in the Swat Valley, where
the military was able to make
most cities safe enough for resi-
dents to return, the army was un-
able to knock out the leadership.
In Washington, senior Ameri-
can military officials were close-
ly monitoring the long-awaited
offensive, with some expressing
skepticism about how extensive
a ground campaign the Pakistani
Army would actually carry out.
“This is going to be much tough-
er than their offensives in Swat
and Bajaur this year,” said one
top American officer. “We just
don’t know how committed the
army will be.”
Still, Obama administration
officials said Saturday they were
pleased Pakistan at least decided
to go ahead with the offensive.
Some voiced concerns immedi-
ately after the death of Baitul-
lah Mehsud, the country’s public
enemy No. 1, that the Pakistani
military would let up in its coun-
terinsurgency efforts.
 JANE PERLEZ
way staff members cannot.
John Henson, 30, was sentenced
to 25 years to life at Coxsackie for
breaking into the home of a for-
mer employer in a robbery at age
18 and beating the man to death.
Before joining the hospice pro-
gram in 2001, he said he had given
little thought to the consequences
of his crime. Then he found him-
self holding another inmate’s
hand as his breathing slowed
toward a stop. When the nurse
declared the man dead, Henson
broke down in tears.
“I was just thinking about why
I’m in here and the person’s life
that I took,” he said. “And sitting
with this person for the first time
and actually seeing death first-
hand, my hand in his hand, watch-
ing him take his last breath, just
caused me to say, ‘Wow, who the
hell are you? Who were you to do
this to somebody else?’”  (NYT)
International
Migrants Going North Now Risk Kidnappings
TECATE, Mexico — Getting
to “el norte” has never been a
cakewalk. Along with long treks
through desert terrain, death-de-
fying river crossings and perilous
rides clinging onto trains, there
have always been con men and
crooked police officers preying
on migrants along the way.
But Mexican human rights
groups that monitor migration
say the threats foreigners face as
they cross Mexico for the United
States have grown significantly in
recent months. Organized crime
groups have begun taking aim
at migrants as major sources of
illicit revenue, even as the finan-
cial crisis in the United States has
reduced the number of people
willing to risk the journey.
Migrants may typically be
poor, but they have usually noti-
fied friends or relatives in the
United States that they are on
their way. To kidnappers, those
contacts are golden.
“They beat me and kept beat-
Western Officials Press Karzai on Election Audit
KABUL, Afghanistan — West-
ern officials have been pressing
Afghanistan’s president, Hamid
Karzai, to accept the results of a
U.N.-led audit, in a last-minute ef-
fort to smooth what has become
an increasingly contentious elec-
tion process.
A ruling on the extent of fraud
in this country’s Aug. 20 presiden-
tial election is expected Sunday,
and if Karzai’s vote slips below
50 percent as expected, a second
round would be required. West-
ern officials say privately that
Karzai seems to be balking at ac-
cepting the results.
Sen. John Kerry, chairman of
the Foreign Relations Commit-
Russia Sees Chinese Party as Template for Governing
MOSCOW — Nearly two de-
cades after the collapse of the
Communist Party, Russia’s rulers
have hit upon a model for future
success: the Communist Party.
Or at least, the one that reigns
next door.
Like an envious underachiev-
er, Vladimir V. Putin’s party,
United Russia, is increasingly
examining how it can emulate
the Chinese Communist Party,
especially its skill in shepherding
ing me until I handed over my
telephone numbers,” said a Sal-
vadoran immigrant, interviewed
at a center for migrants in Rey-
nosa, just across the border with
Texas.
In many ways, the man’s ac-
count was typical. A study by
Mexico’s National Human Rights
Commission released this year
found 9,758 migrants who had
been kidnapped as they tried to
cross the border into the United
States between September 2008
and February 2009. The commis-
sion noted that migrants were
typically terrified to report such
crimes out of fear of being de-
ported by Mexican immigration
authorities and that the actual
number of victims was probably
much higher.
The stories the commission
heard in interviews with victims
were alarming. There were fre-
quent rapes of female migrants.
Fierce beatings were carried
out. As a lesson to other captives,
tee, met with Karzai at least twice
on Saturday and separately with
his main competitor, Abdullah
Abdullah, stressing “the neces-
sity of a legitimate outcome.”
Foreign Minister Bernard
Kouchner of France went to Ka-
bul and pressed both candidates
to “respect” the audit process, the
French Foreign Ministry said in a
statement. Among the American
officials working the phones were
Secretary of State Hillary Rod-
ham Clinton and Richard C. Hol-
brooke, the special representative
for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown of
Britain also called Karzai.
The spokesman for Karzai’s
China through the financial crisis
relatively unbowed.
United Russia’s leaders even
convened a special meeting this
month with senior Chinese Com-
munist Party officials to hear
firsthand how they wield power.
In truth, the Russians express
no desire to return to Commu-
nism as a far-reaching Marxist-
Leninist ideology. What they
admire, it seems, is the Chinese
ability to use a one-party system
Sunday, October 18, 2009
the kidnappers killed some mi-
grants who did not hand over the
telephone numbers of their rela-
tives.
The amounts demanded ranged
from $1,500 to $10,000, sizable
sums on top of the several thou-
sand dollars that the migrants
had already paid smugglers to
make the crossing.
Human rights workers say
Mexican migrants are not sin-
gled out by kidnappers as often
as foreigners, mostly Central
Americans, but also Ecuador-
eans, Brazilians, Chileans and
Peruvians. The foreigners are
more vulnerable, less familiar
with their surroundings and less
likely to report what happened
to them to the authorities, advo-
cates say.
Complicating the problem, mi-
grants complain that the police
are sometimes in league with the
kidnappers, rounding up victims
and handing them over to kidnap-
pers for a fee.  MARC LACEY
campaign, Wahid Omar, denied
that Karzai was rejecting the
outcome of the audit but said that
the campaign was concerned that
the process was “being overshad-
owed by political discussions.”
Three of the five members of
the committee that is conduct-
ing the audit are U.N.-appointed
experts, but the final results will
be announced by the country’s
Independent Election Commis-
sion, whose top officials are allies
of Karzai.
A runoff could serve to bolster
the legitimacy of the election and
of the government it eventually
produces.
 SABRINA TAVERNISE
to keep tight control over the
country while still driving signifi-
cant economic growth.
It is a historical turnabout, given
that the Chinese Communists were
inspired by the Soviets, before the
two sides had a lengthy rift. The
Russians are acutely aware that
while Russia has endured many
dark days in its transition to a
market economy, China appears
to have carried out a fairly similar
shift more artfully.  (NYT)
2
in brief
Britain Deports
50 Iraqi Refugees
Britain deported 50 Iraqi ref-
ugees to Iraq, but the Iraqi au-
thorities who boarded the plane
here allowed only nine of them
to get off, and then sent the rest
back to Britain, officials con-
firmed Saturday. During the ep-
isode on Thursday, the nine refu-
gees allowed to get off the plane
were those who agreed to do so
voluntarily and who could prove
that they came from southern
or central Iraq, according to the
minister of displacement and
migration, Abdul Samad Sul-
tan, in an interview on Satur-
day. Practically speaking, that
meant that Arabs could stay but
Kurds could not.  (NYT)
Arms Embargo
A West African regional bloc
imposed an arms embargo
against Guinea on Saturday, ac-
cusing the military junta there
of “mass human rights viola-
tions” during antigovernment
protests last month. Interna-
tional pressure has increased
for Guinea’s military leader,
Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara,
to step down since government
troops fired on protesters at the
national stadium on Sept. 28.
More than 150 people died and
thousands more were wound-
ed, according to a local rights
group. The government put the
death toll at 57. A communi-
qué from the bloc, the Econom-
ic Community of West African
States, cited “the atrocities that
have been committed” and said
it was imposing the embargo
under the bloc’s convention on
small arms and light weapons.
 (Reuters)
Rally for Pardon
About 17,000 people rallied
in Bangkok on Saturday to de-
mand that the Thai government
move forward with a petition
for a royal pardon for former
Primer Minister Thaksin Shina-
watra, who was ousted in 2006.
Thailand has deployed 2,000
police officers and invoked a
harsh internal security law to
ensure that the rally in front of
the government offices does not
turn violent. (AFP)
national
Frustrated Liberal Lawmaker Seeks Balance
WASHINGTON — Rep. Earl
Blumenauer should be experi-
encing the most fulfilling days of
his more than 35 years in public
service.
The liberal Democrat from
Portland, Ore. — known for his
bowties, his Trek bicycle and
a pragmatic brand of progres-
sivism — embraced Barack
Obama’s presidential candidacy
early in 2008 and campaigned
hard alongside him, steadily
gaining confidence that the young
senator from Illinois was the ide-
al liberal remedy to eight years of
conservative dominance.
Now political reality has set in,
testing Blumenauer’s faith that
Obama’s election and big Demo-
cratic majorities in Congress
would yield quick advances in the
progressive agenda.
Instead of forging ahead, Blu-
menauer, 61, finds himself fight-
ing to retain one of the touch-
stones for liberals this year, a
Los Angeles Prepares for Clash Over Marijuana
LOS ANGELES — There are
more marijuana stores here than
public schools. Signs emblazoned
with cannabis plants or green
crosses sit next to dry cleaners,
gas stations and restaurants.
Cannabis advocates claim that
more than 800 dispensaries have
sprouted here since 2002; some
law enforcement officials say it
is closer to 1,000. Whatever the
real number, everyone agrees it
is too high.
And so this, too, is taken for
granted: Crackdowns on canna-
bis clubs will soon come in this
city, which has more dispensa-
ries than any other.
For the first time, law enforce-
Obama Lashes Back at Health Insurance Industry
WASHINGTON — President
Obama mounted a frontal as-
sault on the insurance industry
on Saturday, accusing it of using
“deceptive and dishonest ads” to
derail his health care legislation
and threatening to strip the indus-
try of its longstanding exemption
from federal antitrust laws.
In unusually harsh terms,
Obama cast insurance compa-
nies as obstacles to change inter-
ested only in preserving their own
“profits and bonuses” and willing
public insurance option in the
health care overhaul, and is
watching his hopes of curbing
global warming grow cold in the
Senate. Blumenauer, a seven-
term congressman, is bracing
for a tough vote on sending more
troops to Afghanistan while he
frets about the detention facility
at Guantánamo Bay remaining
open.
“It has been a hard landing for a
lot of the people that I represent,”
Blumenauer, referring to his
largely liberal constituency, said
as he assessed the first months of
the Obama administration.
As health care legislation
moves to the floor with other ma-
jor issues close behind, the ques-
tion for Blumenauer and those
who share his ideology will be
whether they relent on some of
their core beliefs to support less
satisfying compromises, despite
being in what, on the surface, is a
commanding political position.
ment officials in Los Angeles
have vowed to prosecute medical
marijuana dispensaries that turn
a profit, with police officials say-
ing they expect to conduct raids.
Their efforts are widely seen as a
campaign to sway the City Coun-
cil into adopting strict regulations
after two years of debate.
It appears to be working. Car-
men A. Trutanich, the newly
elected city attorney, recently
persuaded the council to put
aside a proposed ordinance ne-
gotiated with medical marijuana
supporters for one drafted by his
office. The new proposal calls for
dispensaries to have renewable
permits, submit to criminal re-
to “bend the truth or break it” to
stop his drive to remake the na-
tion’s health care system. The
president used his weekly radio
and Internet address to challenge
industry assertions that legisla-
tion will drive up premiums.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,”
Obama said. “It’s bogus. And it’s
all too familiar.”
Rather than trying to curb costs
and help patients, he said, the in-
dustry is busy “figuring out how
to avoid covering people.”
Sunday, October 18, 2009
“It is still something that I am
struggling with,” he said.
Blumenauer is just one exam-
ple of what might be called the
Frustrated Left, a substantial
caucus of Congressional Demo-
crats who dreamed that Obama
would usher in a new era of lib-
eral problem-solving only to see
Congress and the new adminis-
tration collide with the old prob-
lems of partisanship, internal
disagreement and the challenge
of mustering 60 votes to get just
about anything done in the Sen-
ate.
While Congressional leaders
try to appease moderate and
conservative Democrats who
can provide the crucial votes for
passage, more liberal Democrats
from safer districts sometimes
simmer, feeling that they are be-
ing taken for granted while it is
assumed they will get on board
when the time comes.
 CARL HULSE
cord checks, register the names
of members with the police, and
operate on a nonprofit basis. If
enacted, it is likely to result in the
closing of hundreds of marijuana
dispensaries.
Whatever happens here will be
closely watched by law enforce-
ment officials and marijuana ad-
vocates across the country who
are threading their way through
federal laws that still treat mari-
juana as an illegal drug and state
laws that are increasingly allow-
ing medicinal use. Thirteen states
have laws supporting medical
marijuana, and others are con-
sidering new legislation.
 SOLOMON MOORE
The president’s attack under-
scores the sharp break between
the White House and the insur-
ance industry as the health care
debate moves closer to a climax.
When Obama took office, he and
his advisers had hoped to keep in-
surers at the table to forge a con-
sensus. But as the months passed,
the strains grew — until this past
week, when industry-financed
studies attacking the Democratic
plan signaled an open rupture.
 PETER BAKER
3
in brief
Housing Uproar
Education officials in North
Dakota called Friday for an
audit on the construction of a
house for Joseph A. Chapman,
president of North Dakota State
University. Chapman resigned
last week amid questions about
the project’s huge cost over-
run, from $900,000 to a total of
more than $2 million. He said he
had distanced himself from de-
cisions about the construction
of the home by the university’s
foundation and had had little
sense that costs were being ex-
ceeded until after the fact.
 (NYT)
Obama Poster
Shepard Fairey, the artist
whose “Hope” poster of Barack
Obama became an emblem
of the presidential campaign,
has admitted that he lied about
which photograph from The As-
sociated Press he used as his
source, and that he then covered
up evidence to substantiate his
lie. The admission, made Fri-
day, threw Fairey’s legal battle
with the news agency into disar-
ray. He and the A.P. have sued
each other over use of the pho-
tograph. Complicating the legal
battle, the freelance photogra-
pher who took the photographs,
Mannie Garcia, filed court pa-
pers in July saying he was the
one who owned the copyright of
the 2006 photograph; Garcia’s
assignment was to photograph
Geroge Clooney, who was at the
same event, and he contended
that he never assigned his copy-
right rights to The A.P.  (NYT)
Body on Balcony
The body of a man slumped
over patio furniture on his bal-
cony in Los Angeles was mis-
taken for Halloween decor and
remained undisturbed for five
days. Sheriff’s deputies were
called Thursday to the complex
in the Marina del Rey neighbor-
hood and found the man, Mo-
stafa Mahmoud Zayed, 75, dead.
He had been shot through the
eye. Sheriff’s deputies believe
he committed suicide. “It looked
like somebody had thrown
a dummy over the back of a
chair,” said Austin Raishbrook,
33, who lives nearby.  (NYT)
Arts
Earhart’s Mystique Takes Wing Again
Fame is fleeting, but certain forms of it are
stickier than others. More than seven decades
after her death the aviatrix Amelia Earhart
still fascinates. Called Lady Lindy for her will-
ingness to attempt ill-advised, even foolhardy
feats, she has been the subject of more than
100 books, and her name is plastered on bridg-
es, Navy ships, museums and festivals. Now
she is the subject of a biopic, “Amelia,” direct-
ed by Mira Nair, starring Hilary Swank and
opening Friday, which reverently portrays a
celebrity who remained remarkably irrever-
ent and curiously humble until her death while
trying to circumnavigate the globe.
Her disappearance in 1937 and its attendant
mystery account for some of the ongoing al-
lure, but she endures because she was a pio-
neer whose adventures went beyond personal
aggrandizement. Earhart took on the laws of
nature (humans were not meant to fly) and
the conventions of the time (adventure was
a man’s business) and seemed to soar above
both. “I want to do it because I want to do it,”
she said, as a way to explain her desire to ac-
complish what no woman had.
Nair, director of Indian-theme movies like
“Salaam Bombay!,” “The Namesake,” and
“Monsoon Wedding,” calls Earhart as Amer-
ica’s first modern celebrity. A hero of the pro-
tofeminist movement for her single-minded-
ness, Earhart was also commercially shrewd
and aware that her fame had uses beyond her
own gratification.
As her flying exploits mounted, bringing
hope and adventure to the dreary decade of
the 1930s, Earhart wrote books, magazine
stories, starred in newsreels, endorsed nu-
merous products and designed her own line
of clothing. But what put her in the cockpit of
all those endeavors in the first place was an
ability and willingness to fly airplanes, often
over long distances, at a time when flying was
considered a sport, and a risky one at that.
“In the last week I have flown from Los An-
geles to Italy, back to L.A., then a few days
later I flew to Dubai, then Dubai to London,
and in two days I will be flying back home,”
An Ensemble With Many Homes Finds Another, This Time at the Met
The name of a string quartet can echo the
place of its inception, as with the original Bu-
dapest Quartet. You can find an ensemble
named for virtually any composer who ever
wrote a string quartet of consequence. And
then there is the Pacifica Quartet, named,
evidently, for a youthful pipe dream.
“The original idea was to start and live in
L.A.,” Sibbi Bernhardsson, the Pacifica Quar-
tet’s second violinist, said during a recent con-
versation with two members of the quartet.
Bernhardsson founded the group in 1994 with
the violinist Simin Ganatra, a classmate at the
Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio originally from
Southern California, and Brandon Vamos, a
cellist with whose parents Bernhardsson and
Ganatra had studied. (The violist Masumi
said Swank, who won best actress Oscars for
her performances in “Boys Don’t Cry” and
“Million Dollar Baby.” “We take all of that for
granted, but people paid a price to make that a
reality. Amelia Earhart found something that
she loved, a passion, and went after it. All of
us, especially women, are the better because
of it.”
Born in Atchison, Kan., in 1897, Earhart
was the daughter of one of the first women
to reach the summit of Pikes Peak, and her
father, although crippled by alcoholism, was
a lawyer and inventor. Earhart received her
flying license in 1921, broke the women’s alti-
tude record in 1922 and in 1928 flew as a pas-
senger across the Atlantic, writing about it in
“20 Hrs., 40 Min.,” which established her fame.
After her solo flight across the Atlantic she
became the first pilot to fly solo to California
from Hawaii in 1934.
But if her life was lived in a very bright
light, her death remains a mystery. Earhart,
who disappeared at 40 during a flight over the
Pacific, has never been found.
On July 2, 1937, Earhart and her naviga-
tor, Fred Noonan, took off from New Guinea,
about 22,000 miles into their effort to circum-
navigate the earth. They aimed for Howland
Island, a sliver of an island 2,500 miles into
the Pacific. Almost everyone, even today, is
aware that they never made it; they most like-
ly ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean.
The U.S. government spent $4 million (close
to $60 million today) looking for her, the most
it had ever spent on an air search and rescue,
but the plane was never found.
For the producers and creative team behind
“Amelia,” the forces that compelled Earhart
to take those risks are common, even if hers
led to uncommon ends.
“The more I read about her, the more I
thought she is like I was,” said Nair, who
comes from a small village in India. “Beyond
the enigma of how she died, I’m hoping that
people will see themselves in her decisions to
set aside her fears and live her life to the full-
est.”  DAVID CARR
Per Rostad, who grew up in the East Village,
joined the quartet in 2001.) “Shortly after, we
got a little residency in Chicago, at a school
called the Music Institute,” Bernhardsson
said. “So we moved to Chicago, but we were
just too lazy to change the name.”
That would have been the group’s only in-
stance of laxity. For the four young players,
home is Champaign, Ill., where they are on the
faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign. They also manage residencies
at the University of Chicago and the Longy
School of Music in Cambridge, Mass.
Those residencies establish a firm founda-
tion in a busy schedule of international tour-
ing. “All the stuff that’s happening in Europe,
it’s exciting to feel like things are expanding,”
Sunday, October 18, 2009 4
Sketching His Way
Through Genesis
Considering that barely a word has been
changed from the original, the warning on
the cover of a new, illustrated version of the
Book of Genesis — “Adult Supervision Rec-
ommended for Minors” — might seem sur-
prising.
Until, that is, one reads the name of the il-
lustrator: R. Crumb.
Crumb is known almost as much for his
bawdy underground comix featuring char-
acters like Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural as
he is for “Crumb,” the 1994 documentary
about him.
But he has been driven less by his sexual
impulses in recent years and more by the
45 minutes he spends in seated meditation
every morning in the medieval town house
he shares with his wife, Aline (they became
grandparents this month), in the south of
France.
One day 15 years ago, for no reason he can
remember, Crumb decided he wanted to read
the myths of ancient Sumer.
Eventually he found a scholarly work that
said some of the myths were similar to the
stories in Genesis. He read Genesis closely,
and the idea of illustrating it clicked.
He told a literary agent friend that if he
could fetch a big enough advance, he’d do
it. W.W. Norton & Company came through
with $200,000, which seemed enough; Crumb
thought he could bang out the project in a
year or two. It took four.
As unlikely as it may seem, Crumb has be-
come something of a Bible scholar.
In a telephone interview from France, he
bristled at a description of his book by his
British publisher as “scandalous satire.”
“I had no intention to scandalize the Bible,”
he said. “I was intrigued by the challenge of
exposing everything in there by illustrating
it. The text is so significant in our culture,
to bring everything out was a significant
enough purpose for doing it.”
 ALLEN SALKIN
Rostad said. “We just played in Australia, and
we go to Japan once in a while. The sick thing is
actually how many miles we fly a year. Even
the cello used to be Executive Platinum.”
On the evening of Oct. 24, the Pacifica Quar-
tet will lay out yet another welcome mat, this
one at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where
it was recently named quartet in residence.
Hilde Limondjian, the curator of the muse-
um’s concerts, was urged to hear the Pacifica
Quartet during its 18-concert Beethoven quar-
tet series at Columbia University during the
2007-8 season. It was love at first hearing.
“I was transported, and after all these years
it doesn’t happen all the time,” Limondjian
said. “When it happens it is so strong, so un-
forgettable, unmistakable.” STEVE SMITH
business
An Economic Lifeline Not Made in the U.S.A.
Nevada Ryan, 35, is from a fam-
ily of crop-dusters. Her grandfa-
ther, father, mother — and Ryan
herself — have all spent count-
less hours flying planes that drop
plumes of chemicals on corn and
cotton fields near her hometown
of Sumner, Miss.
Time spent as a child in those
planes inspired her to get her
pilot’s license and study engi-
neering. But the kind of job she
wanted could not be found when
she was attending college in Mis-
sissippi during the 1990s. So, like
many others, she left the area to
find employment — going first to
Charleston, S.C., then to Atlanta.
In 2006, she heard of a chance to
return to her home state, for a job
at American Eurocopter, part of
the EADS consortium, the Euro-
pean airplane and military equip-
ment maker.
EADS planned to build a sec-
ond plant in Columbus, Miss., and
make rescue helicopters for the
U.S. Army. Ryan was hired as a
How Private Can Electronic Data Ever Be?
Time to revisit the always com-
pelling — and often disconcerting
— debate over digital privacy. So,
what might your movie picks and
your medical records have in
common?
How about a potentially false
sense of control over who can see
your user history?
While Netflix and some health
care concerns say they have
been able to offer study data to
researchers stripped of specific
personal details like your name,
phone number and e-mail ad-
dress, in some cases researchers
may be able to re-identify you by
correlating anonymous infor-
mation with the digital trail that
Broadband Now! But Some Just Don’t Want It
Access to a fast Internet con-
nection has become more than a
convenience. It’s being enshrined
in some countries as a legal right
of all citizens. Finland, for ex-
ample, announced last week that
it was moving up its timetable to
next year from 2015 for guaran-
teeing broadband access to all,
according to YLE, the Finnish
broadcasting company.
Other countries have national
plans to accelerate the diffusion
flight test engineer and flew to
Germany for training. Asked how
she and her co-workers felt about
owing their livelihoods to a com-
pany based overseas, Ryan, 35,
responded, “I don’t think anybody
here has a problem with it.”
As scores of companies are
hemorrhaging jobs, closing
plants and slashing compensa-
tion, foreign employers have be-
come a lifeline for Ryan and mil-
lions of other Americans. While
they haven’t been immune from
the recession, foreign-owned
companies in the United States
have a work force of more than
5.3 million, or some 3.5 percent
of all workers, and are spread
across the 50 states in sectors
from manufacturing to retail and
publishing. If these jobs did not
exist, the nation’s unemployment
rate would be above 13 percent.
Foreign companies may touch
a nerve in American society and
may still be an object of fear and
distrust among many, who view
you’ve left on blogs, chat rooms
and Twitter.
Of course, you may be fine with
that. On the other hand, you may
not want strangers rummaging
around in your history of movie
selections or medical needs.
For example, contestants in
Netflix’s competition to improve
its recommendation software
received a training data set con-
taining the movie preferences
of more than 480,000 customers
who had been “de-identified.” But
as part of a privacy experiment,
a pair of computer scientists at
the University of Texas at Austin
decided to see if it was possible to
re-identify those unnamed movie
of broadband; America does not.
So Congress has given the Feder-
al Communications Commission
a mandate to produce a plan by
next February.
We’ve actually done surpris-
ingly well making a broadband
connection accessible to a vast
majority of American house-
holds. No less than 96 percent of
households either subscribe to or
have access to broadband service,
according to an F.C.C. task force,
Sunday, October 18, 2009
foreign investment as a threat to
the American worker and way of
life. But foreign investment isn’t
simply about helping workers
earn a weekly paycheck. Foreign
companies that invest in the Unit-
ed States are having a significant
impact on not only the lives of
workers, but also the health of the
American economy as a whole.
When foreign companies open
a factory or buy a business in a
region they also stimulate local
commerce and create a demand
for more homes, shops, schools
and restaurants. They contrib-
ute money to schools, parks and
towns, and lure consultants and
technicians who then provide
more jobs. This ripple effect ex-
plains why governors, mayors
and development officials are so
eager for foreign investors.
Without foreign investment,
says Mitch Daniels, the Republi-
can governor of Indiana, “we’d be
a Dust Bowl.”
 MICHELINE MAYNARD
fans.
By comparing the film prefer-
ences of some anonymous Netflix
customers with personal profiles
on imdb.com, the Internet movie
database, the researchers said
they re-identified some people
because they had posted their
e-mail addresses or other distin-
guishing information online.
Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokes-
man, disputed the study’s conclu-
sions. Nevertheless, some priva-
cy advocates say the study raises
questions about whether laws
governing the security of elec-
tronic health records may offer
incomplete privacy protection.
 NATASHA SINGER
which presented a status report to
the commission last month.
The most interesting question
here is the one that the F.C.C.
can’t answer: Why have 33 per-
cent of households that have ac-
cess to broadband elected not to
subscribe? A survey focusing on
the nonadopters is under way, and
it may reveal that there is an irre-
ducible core of people who simply
do not want to use the Internet.
 RANDALL STROSS
5
in brief
An Early Peek
Under the Tree
Halloween isn’t even here yet,
yet many retailers have Christ-
mas on the brain. And no won-
der: Holiday sales could spell
the difference between reces-
sion and recovery for them.
According to a new survey by
the NPD Group, 30 percent of
consumers plan to spend less
money on holiday gifts this year
than they did a year ago. Elev-
en percent plan to spend more,
while 59 percent expect to spend
around the same amount.
Which companies will be the
biggest beneficiaries of what
looks to be a somewhat re-
strained giving season? Thir-
ty-four percent of consumers
surveyed planned to buy toys,
followed by movies, books, elec-
tronics, accessories and music.
No. 1 on the giving list? Near-
ly 50 percent of those surveyed
said they planned to buy appar-
el. That means that makers of
the dreaded Christmas sweater
are likely to stay in business for
yet another year. (NYT)
Microsoft Is Coy
On Retail Plans
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Mi-
crosoft’s first store looks ready
to open in an upscale Phoenix
valley city in the next few days,
as the software maker takes its
first step in trying to match ri-
val Apple’s successful venture
into retail.
Expectations are running
high that its first store, in the
Fashion Square Mall here, will
open this week, to coincide with
the launch of Microsoft’s new
Windows 7 operating system on
Thursday.
The site was still boarded up,
but a peek through an open door
revealed lights and shelving
all ready for customers and a
large, flat-screen display along
the walls.
Microsoft has been coy about
its retail plans, and a company
spokeswoman would not offi-
cially pin down an opening date
beyond “the fall.”
The chief executive, Steve
Ballmer, teased reporters with
an imminent opening on Friday,
but also would not commit to a
date.  (Reuters)
Crossword — Edited By Will Shortz Sunday, October 18, 2009 6

THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE CROSSWORD PUZZLE

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
AHEAD OF THE CURVE
BY ELIZABETH C. GORSKI / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ 20 21 22

23 24 25

ACR O S S 50 “Big” number in 82 “Eldorado” grp. 26 27

1 “Before the Mirror” college athletics 83 Perfectly timed 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35
51 Station 85 Like some YouTube
6 Turned off
52 Year Columbus videos 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45
15 Bête ___ died 87 House call? 46 47 48 49
20 Westernmost 53 Letter-shaped
avenue in Santa 88 Landlocked
construction pieces European 50 51 52 53
Monica, Calif.
54 New Deal inits. 90 Vintage Tonka toy
21 Rewards of a 55 “___ party time!”
54 55 56 57 58 59 60
political machine 94 Water swirl
56 Legal org. 95 In need of blusher,
61 62 63 64 65
22 Schindler of
“Schindler’s List” 59 Horse and buggy say 66 67 68 69 70 71
23 With 29-Across, 60 Needing a 97 “Composition 8”
massage, say 72 73 74 75
holder of the 98 Old credit-tracking
works named 61 Be hung over, e.g. corp. 76 77 78 79 80 81
in the nine 62 Small island 99 Clytemnestra, to
italicized clues, Agamemnon 82 83 84 85 86 87
celebrating its 50th 63 Enchant
anniversary on 65 Miff 102 Light planes 88 89 90 91 92 93 94
10/21/09 103 “Peasant With Hoe”
66 1970s TV 95 96 97 98
26 One at risk of production co. 106 Subject of the
excommunication Joni Mitchell song 99 100 101 102 103 104 105
67 Symbols like @ “Amelia”
27 California wind 68 “Green Violinist” 106 107 108
28 Ready-go 108 Jazz standard
69 Gazes at whose title is
go-between repeatedly sung
109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118
72 Like a bond you
29 See 23-Across can buy with after “Honey …” 119 120 121
35 Philharmonic sect. security? 109 “May I ___
question?” 122 123 124
36 45 players 73 Savor, in a way
74 “Frasier” role 110 “Rebel Without a
39 2000s TV family Cause” actress
75 Short swim (No. 1018)
41 Many a school 118 Operatic prince
fund-raiser 76 V.P. during the
Cuban missile 119 Grand 15 Like 43-Down’s 42 Jewelry firm since 91 Autumn ESPN
46 “What’s going ___ crisis 120 Controversial design for 1842 highlights
there?” form that 23-/29-Across
77 In order (to) 43 See 38-Down 92 Sue Grafton’s “___
47 One who works on 43-Down used for 16 Org. setting for Ricochet”
a grand scale? 79 Lo-___ 23-/29-Across workplace rules 44 U.S.P.S. deliveries
80 “Today” rival, for 45 Latin 101 verb 93 Common middle
49 Game in which 121 Like some traffic 17 Swedish company name for a girl
players subtract short with a catalog 47 Drinks of liquor
122 Lummoxes
from a starting 81 Canadian-born 94 Scholarly
score of 501 hockey great 123 One who gets a lot 18 Drops from the sky 48 Sixth-brightest star
of return business? 19 Gospel singer in the sky 96 Code-cracking grp.
124 Verb with “vous” Franklin 51 “Mandolin and 98 “Time out!”
A N G L E W I N H O N U S A D A M 24 Flambé, say Guitar” signal
C O O E D J A N E O M A N I G A M E
DOWN 25 ___’acte 56 Start of a common 99 Old defense grp.
H A R T E B U R N S W E S T L O N D O N run
T H E O R E M O C A N A D A P E A K S 1 Lepidopterist’s 29 Castle security 100 Turkish bigwig
F L A P T A B O R C R E W study system 57 Joy of “The View”
101 “The Antipope”
G A F F E S W I F T W A L K E R W H A 2 Pain in the neck 30 Bygone channel 58 Showing surprise
I S O S U E M E A S T A I R E S
103 Early spring feast
3 Poetic contraction 31 “No seats left” 64 Words from Charlie
S N O W W H I T E E T A T I S T I N K Brown 104 Just love
4 Enters leisurely 32 Use (up), as time
M E T E O U T B E A D E A R O G R E 70 Dog-___ 105 Life preserver, e.g.
O R E G O N C A R R P A R K E R H I D 5 Gov’t investments 33 One for the
6 Part of some money? 71 Many a perfume 107 Spanish tidbit
B O D P O L E T R O U A I T
E M U S T E E L E M A N N D I M P L E Bibles: Abbr. 34 “Tableau 2” 75 Epps of “House” 108 Skinny
L E N D W I R E D U P M O T O R E D 7 Flight 36 Good lookers 78 Shrub that may 111 B.O. purchases
S A Y I D O C E S S S T O U T K I N G 8 Midori on ice 37 Fated cause a severe
112 “Head and Shell”
A R A P A H O E S I O U X C I E 9 North end? 38 With allergic reaction
S A N W I L D E S I N G E R G L E N S 43-Down, what 23- 80 Leaden, in London 113 Roman household
E S T D A T M A N N E R O
10 “… ___ should I” god
/29-Across was 84 Angela Merkel’s
C A R L O S C R I P P S I N A S P O T 11 Director Lee 114 Paris’s ___ Saint-
39 Player of one of one
B R O W N W O O L F P O U N D S T O N E 12 Cross shape the women in Louis
E L B A T U B A L L U N G P I C K S 13 Shell food? Robert Altman’s “3 85 Place for a stamp
115 Medium strength?
R O S Y S L O P E E T C S T O P S 14 “Seated Woman, Women” 86 Sorts
Wiping Her Left 40 Site of Spain’s 89 School popular in 116 “Huh?”
Answer to puzzle for 10/11/09 Side” Alamillo Bridge the 1920s 117 Viking ship item

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

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

opinion Sunday, October 18, 2009 7

editorials of the timeS maureen dowd

The Public Plan, Continued Fie, Fatal Flaw!

In the debate over health care reform,
no issue has produced more fury and sound
bites than the question of whether to include
a government-run insurance plan. It is not
indispensable, and its role would be limited.
Even so, we strongly support inclusion of a
public option — the bigger and stronger the
better. That is the best way to give consum-
ers more choices, inject more competition
into insurance markets, hold down the cost
of insurance policies and save money for the
federal budget.
Here are some of the basic issues to consid-
er, and the current legislative state of play:
Who Could Enroll? While critics rail against
a government takeover of health care, the re-
ality is that the vast majority of Americans
— those who have access to health insurance
offered by large employers — would not be eli-
gible to enroll in a public plan.
If Congress approves a public plan, it would
be sold only on new insurance exchanges to
people who now buy their policies directly
from private insurers, work for small compa-
nies or are uninsured.
People eligible to use the exchanges could
choose from a menu of private plans and, we
hope, a cheaper public plan as well. Subsidies
would be provided to help low- and moderate-
income people pay their premiums.
Does it Make Insurance More Affordable?
Most experts agree that a public plan should
be able to provide insurance at a lower cost
because it would have no need to earn a profit
and could either demand or bargain for low-
er prices from health care providers. That
should spur private insurers to find ways to
hold down their premiums as well, at least on
the exchanges.
That would be good news for higher-income
Americans on the exchange, roughly a fifth or
less of the total, who would pay all of the cost
of their insurance. It would benefit few, if any,
of the rest, namely the low- and moderate-in-
come people who would receive government
subsidies to help buy insurance. All versions
of the legislation would require these people to
spend specified percentages of their income
toward the premium and a government tax
credit would then pay the rest.
The real savings would accrue to the gov-
ernment, which would then have to spend less
money to subsidize purchases of lower-cost
public or private insurance.
What’s the Strongest Public Plan? That
is apt to emerge from the House, where the
Democrats need only a majority to pass legis-
lation and are constrained only by the need to
satisfy conservatives in their own party. The
speaker’s office is considering three options.
In the most robust, the public plan would pay
hospitals and other providers based on Medi-
care reimbursement rates, typically lower
than private insurance rates. That would al-
low the public plan to charge lower premiums
than private plans, and save the government
substantial money in reduced subsidies —
more than $100 billion over the next decade.
There is a danger that the low payments
might push some hospitals, especially in rural
areas, into deeper financial trouble.
A Public Plan for Everybody? Too often in-
surance markets are dominated by one or two
big companies. We believe that, after a break-
in period, the insurance exchanges, with a
public option, should be opened to virtually
everyone covered by large employer-based
plans. That would give the vast majority of
Americans a bigger choice of insurance op-
tions than they now have at most workplaces
— and a greater stake in pushing Congress to
approve a strong public plan.
WASHINGTON — One singular leader who
wrote elegantly about his ideals, was swept
into the presidency and then collided with
harsh reality had some advice for another. In
an interview with Alison Smale in The Times
last week, Vaclav Havel sipped Champagne
and pricked Barack Obama’s conscience.
Havel, the 73-year-old former Czech presi-
dent, who didn’t win a Nobel Peace Prize de-
spite leading the Czechs and the Slovaks from
communism to democracy, turned the tables
and asked Smale a question about Obama, the
latest winner of the peace prize. Was it true
that the president had refused to meet the Da-
lai Lama on his visit to Washington?
He was told that Obama had indeed tried to
curry favor with China by declining to see the
Dalai Lama until after the president’s visit to
China next month.
Dissing the Dalai was part of a broader new
Obama policy called “strategic reassurance”
— softening criticism of China’s human rights
record and financial policies to calm its fears
that America is trying to contain it.
The tyro president got the Nobel for the
mere anticipation that he would provide bold
moral leadership at the very moment he was
caving to Chinese dictators. Awkward.
Havel said, “It is only a minor compromise.
But exactly with these minor compromises
start the big and dangerous ones, the real
problems.”
Havel is looking at this not only as a moral
champion but as a playwright. Obama (who,
as Robert Draper wrote, has read and reread
Shakespeare’s tragedies) does not want his
fatal flaw to be that he compromises so much
that his ideals get blurred out of recognition.
The air is full of complaints that Obama has
been too cautious on health care, Afghanistan,
filling judgeships, ending “don’t ask, don’t
tell” and rebuilding New Orleans; that he has

A Bit of Bipartisanship conceded too much to China, Iran, Russia, the

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who has long
resisted climate change legislation, has joined
the ranks of those pushing for a bipartisan
agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
We welcome his change of heart. Graham has
sensibly decided that it helps neither the plan-
et, the country nor his party to block efforts to
solve the problem of global warming.
Graham has held extensive conversations
in recent weeks with Sen. John Kerry, one
of the main sponsors of the Senate climate
change bill. In last Sunday’s Times, the two
wrote a joint Op-Ed article that sought to de-
fine a broad approach to the problems of cli-
mate change and energy independence that
both parties and all Americans could rally
around.
In addition to supporting aggressive emis-
sions reductions, the senators endorsed strat-
egies typically associated with Republicans
(nuclear power and “environmentally sensi-
tive” offshore oil exploration) and strategies
favored by Democrats (including mandates
for renewable energy sources like wind pow-
er).
Some environmentalists hailed the new
alliance as a “game-changer” that greatly
increased the success of a climate bill. We
hope so. Graham’s conversion could encour-
age Sen. John McCain and Maine’s Olympia
Snowe and Susan Collins — all past support-
ers of climate change legislation — to come
forward again, and it could attract fence-sit-
ters like Indiana’s Richard Lugar and Ohio’s
George Voinovich.
But opposition to mandatory controls on
greenhouse gas emissions — the best hope for
addressing the problem of climate change —
remains fierce. And it is still a long climb to
60 filibuster-proof votes. What is fair to say is
that the Kerry-Graham alliance has made it
easier. They should keep at it.
Muslim world and the banks.
Senator Obama visited the Gulf region after
Katrina, promising to “keep the broken prom-
ises made by President Bush to rebuild New
Orleans.” He may be doing a better job than
Brownie’s boss, but, as president, Obama
didn’t make his first visit to New Orleans un-
til Thursday. At the New Orleans town hall,
Gabriel Bordenave, 29, complained about the
slow pace of recovery. “I expected as much
from the Bush administration,” he said. “But
why are we still being nickel-and-dimed?”
The president gave a technocrat’s answer
about the “complications between the state,
the city and the feds in making assessments of
the damages.” “Now, I wish I could just write a
check,” he added. When an audience member
yelled “Why not?” he dryly noted, “There’s
this whole thing about the Constitution.”
The president should remember, though,
that when you’re cooking up a more perfect
Union, sometimes you’ve got to break some
eggs.
sports Sunday, October 18, 2009 8

Roughing Penalties: Protection or Overkill? in brief

Indianapolis Colts quarterback
Peyton Manning took such a hard
hit to his left knee last week that it
required medical attention after
the game, even though Manning
was wearing a brace when the
contact occurred. New England’s
Tom Brady was hit near his right
knee two weeks ago with a glanc-
ing blow that did not even knock
him off his feet, leaving him up-
right to turn and wave for a flag
from the official nearby.
Both hits drew roughing-the-
passer penalties and illustrated
how wide the range of unaccept-
able hits has become as the N.F.L.
struggles to offer more protection
to players they consider vulnera-
ble to injury, especially quarter-
backs. From the moment Brady
spun around and encouraged
the referee Ron Winter to throw
his flag, there has been a debate
about whether the N.F.L. — with
For Argentines, Coach Is a Legend and a Letdown
BUENOS AIRES — After a 1-0
victory over Uruguay, Argenti-
na’s soccer team qualified for the
World Cup in South Africa next
summer, despite growing doubts
that coach Diego Maradona could
lead it there.
But Argentines also awoke
to the realization that the team
would still be coached by Mara-
dona, 48, the soccer idol known
worldwide simply as Maradona,
whose brilliant playing career
made him a national hero but
whose erratic tenure as coach
has become a source of national
dread.
Argentines fear that in one
its emphasis on penalties for
roughing the passer and unnec-
essary roughness — has gone too
far to shield players, especially
the marquee ones, from harm in
a fundamentally brutal sport.
“They’re trying to legislate
hitting out of the game,” said the
former quarterback Trent Dil-
fer, who as an ESPN analyst has
taken issue with how heavily the
people who play his old position
are protected. “It’s affecting the
outcome of games. The name on
the back of the jersey has become
more important than the team.”
The N.F.L. makes no secret
of its desire to protect quarter-
backs, who are usually a fran-
chise’s most important player.
Through the fourth week of play,
the most recent numbers avail-
able, roughing-the-passer penal-
ties had increased only slightly,
to 21 in 2009 from 18 in 2008, ac-
downward swoop, they could lose
two symbols of national pride:
the glorious legend of Maradona
as well as the nation’s standing as
a global soccer power.
Maradona is a flawed char-
acter, a substance abuser who
struggled with the trappings of
stardom and bristled at criticism.
Since he took over the team, it has
won four matches and lost four,
despite having standout interna-
tional stars.
Then in a remarkable game
on Oct. 10, a bit of the old luster
returned. In a match against a
scrappy Peruvian team, amid
a blinding rain and ball-tossing
cording to the league. But unnec-
essary-roughness infractions
— like the helmet-propelling hit
Ray Lewis put on Chad Ochocinco
last Sunday — have soared, to 64
from 51, reflecting a crackdown
on everything from the wedge to
chop blocks to blindside blocks on
a defensive player’s head.
If the current pace holds up,
the N.F.L. would have about 80
roughing-the-passer penalties
this season, a third more than last
season’s number. The N.F.L. says
it is not surprised by the spike.
“We’re not going to let up in
trying to protect the players,”
Mike Pereira, the N.F.L.’s vice
president for officiating, said.
“The clear message is being sent
— we’re going to protect the head
and we’re going to protect the
knees and we’re going to do that
on those most vulnerable.”
 JUDY BATTISTA
wind, Martín Palermo chipped in
the winning goal for Argentina in
the final minute.
On Wednesday, the team edged
past Uruguay, and Maradona
gloated at a post-match news con-
ference, lashing out at journalists
“who treated me like garbage.”
Using sexual vulgarities, he
also said, “All those that said
anything against me, keep eating
your words.”
Gustavo Sorange, 47, a carpen-
ter from General Juan Madar-
iaga, southeast of Buenos Aires,
said some of his friends were so
disillusioned with Maradona that
they rooted for Uruguay.  (NYT)
Texas and Fla. Win
Enough about Colt McCoy and
the Texas offense. The Long-
horns knocked off rival Okla-
homa on Saturday because of
their defense. Aaron Williams
knocked out Heisman Trophy
winner Sam Bradford on a first-
quarter sack, then he and Earl
Thomas picked off backup Lan-
dry Jones in the fourth quarter
to send No. 3 Texas to a 16-13
victory Saturday over the No.
20 Sooners. Meanwhile, A field
goal in the final seconds lifted
Tim Tebow and No. 1 Florida to
a 23-20 victory over upset-mind-
ed Arkansas.  (AP)
Nadal Advances
Rafael Nadal advanced to the
Shanghai Masters final on Sat-
urday after Feliciano Lopez be-
came the ninth player to retire
from the tournament. The un-
seeded Lopez said he woke up
with a right foot infection, then
twisted his right ankle on the
last point of the first set. He was
trailing, 6-1, 3-0, when he retired.
The top-seeded Nadal will play
in Sunday’s final against sixth-
seeded Nikolay Davydenko of
Russia. (AP)
Man United in First
Manchester United moved to
the top of the English Premier
League Saturday with a 2-1
home win over Bolton Wander-
ers, while Chelsea squandered a
lead and lost by 2-1 at Aston Vil-
la and Liverpool lost at Sunder-
land.  (Reuters)

WEATHER
High/low temperatures for the 20 hours ended at 4 p.m.
yesterday, Eastern time, and precipitation (in inches)
for the 18 hours ended at 2 p.m. yesterday. Expected
conditions for today and tomorrow.
Weather conditions: C-clouds, F-fog, H-haze, I-ice, PC-
partly cloudy,R-rain, S-sun, Sh-showers, Sn-snow, SS-
snow showers, T-thunderstorms, Tr-trace, W-windy.
U.S. CITIES
Yesterday Today Tomorrow
Atlanta 52/ 45 0 56/ 39 S 63/ 38 S
Albuquerque 69/ 52 0 76/ 49 S 77/ 53 S
Boise 76/ 48 0 69/ 51 S 58/ 48 C
Boston 49/ 36 0 45/ 41 R 48/ 40 Sh
Buffalo 45/ 37 0 50/ 33 PC 54/ 34 PC
Charlotte 52/ 48 0.13 55/ 39 C 62/ 35 S
Chicago 52/ 37 0 55/ 36 S 59/ 41 PC
Cleveland 48/ 39 0.33 48/ 37 PC 58/ 34 PC
Dallas-Ft. Worth 73/ 50 0 68/ 49 S 79/ 56 PC
Denver 64/ 30 0 82/ 45 S 79/ 47 PC
Detroit 48/ 33 0 51/ 31 PC 56/ 34 PC
Houston
Kansas City
76/ 55 0
51/ 42 0.03
71/ 49 S
61/ 35 PC
78/ 49 PC
67/ 49 S
Los Angeles 90/ 66 0 80/ 65 PC 74/ 62 PC
Miami 91/ 79 0.01 74/ 62 S 78/ 58 PC
Mpls.-St. Paul 48/ 33 0 58/ 37 PC 60/ 46 PC
New York City 48/ 42 0 43/ 41 R 52/ 39 C
Orlando 73/ 60 0 68/ 52 S 74/ 50 S
Philadelphia 47/ 42 0.44 44/ 41 Sh 52/ 39 PC
Phoenix 100/ 72 0 99/ 73 S 96/ 73 S
Salt Lake City 69/ 45 0 74/ 51 S 68/ 54 PC
San Francisco 73/ 56 0 63/ 56 PC 61/ 52 C
Seattle 61/ 57 1.01 59/ 53 C 59/ 50 C
St. Louis 52/ 39 0 58/ 36 S 68/ 43 S
Washington 47/ 43 0.83 48/ 39 Sh 60/ 40 S
FOREIGN CITIES
Yesterday Today Tomorrow
Acapulco 94/ 77 0.12 91/ 77 C 86/ 75 PC
Athens 67/ 61 0.28 79/ 59 S 79/ 57 S
Beijing 72/ 46 0 64/ 45 S 54/ 41 S
Berlin 47/ 37 0.09 48/ 37 C 50/ 36 S
Buenos Aires 69/ 48 0 73/ 54 PC 72/ 54 Sh
Cairo 102/ 73 0 100/ 79 PC 97/ 79 PC
Cape Town
Dublin
70/ 50 0
57/ 36 Tr
73/ 52 S
59/ 48 C
81/ 55 S
59/ 50 C
Geneva 52/ 39 0 46/ 36 PC 54/ 30 S
Hong Kong 92/ 75 0 86/ 77 S 84/ 77 R
Kingston 91/ 79 0 88/ 79 T 86/ 79 T
Lima 69/ 62 Tr 82/ 66 C 70/ 61 C
London 54/ 45 0 59/ 39 PC 57/ 45 C
Madrid 72/ 37 0 66/ 43 S 68/ 46 PC
Mexico City 78/ 55 0 64/ 50 C 70/ 48 C
Montreal 46/ 27 0 45/ 28 C 52/ 28 PC
Moscow 50/ 46 0.39 45/ 36 PC 46/ 37 C
Nassau 93/ 81 0 91/ 73 T 88/ 73 PC
Paris 57/ 46 0.02 57/ 39 PC 55/ 41 PC
Prague 42/ 36 0.06 43/ 37 C 45/ 34 PC
Rio de Janeiro 75/ 70 0.08 86/ 70 T 86/ 72 T
Rome 58/ 41 0 61/ 48 S 57/ 45 S
Santiago 69/ 45 0 70/ 46 S 77/ 45 PC
Stockholm 43/ 37 – 46/ 34 PC 48/ 36 C
Sydney 68/ 54 0 68/ 54 PC 77/ 52 S
Tokyo 70/ 59 0 75/ 61 S 73/ 59 PC
Toronto 47/ 32 0 48/ 30 S 52/ 30 PC
Vancouver 61/ 58 0.87 59/ 48 C 61/ 46 PC
Warsaw 42/ 32 0.01 46/ 32 PC 46/ 30 S
sports journal Sunday, October 18, 2009 9

Confounding Errors and Conspicuous Headgear in Playoffs

This was bound to happen, as fore heading to California, where
baseball pursues its love affair baseball actually makes sense at
with Arctic Circle baseball. In this time of year.
the capricious weather of au- The players, neither sissies
tumn, fielders have been known nor complainers, understand
to lose track of the ball that their stupendous
because of the sun, the Sports salaries come from
lights or the wind. Of playing postseason
But Erick Aybar of the The Times games at times dictated
Angels managed to lose by the television net-
George
track of a high pop-up on works. And the fans, be-
Friday night, craning Vecsey ing fans, show up, wear-
his neck to track the ball ing winter clothes.
while wearing a bright red bala- “Anybody can play this game
clava under his bright red cap. with 70 degrees and it’s beauti-
Players do not ordinarily ful,” said Mike Scioscia, a Philly
wear this garb for home games guy who manages the Angels
in Orange County, Calif. To my and has been working in Califor-
benumbed way of thinking, the nia most of his adult life.
balaclava must have had some- “When it’s going to be like it is
thing to do with the gaffe. tonight,” Scioscia said Friday,
The teams concluded their “you have to keep your focus,
teeth-chattering opener Friday keep your focus defensively,
night, with the Yanks beating and certainly on the mound
the Angels, 4-1, in the American with whatever happens with the
League Championship Series. pitcher and the catcher. Bring
They faced the possibility of your game plan out there and ex-
heavy rain Saturday night be- ecute it as well as you can.”
The Angels did not execute,
particularly on a towering pop-
up after the Yanks scored a run
in the first inning. Aybar and
third baseman Chone Figgins
paid too much attention to each
other and the ball dropped for a
run-scoring single. Aybar said
he did not hear Figgins, who ap-
peared to be shouting for him to
take the pop-up. A resident of the
Dominican Republic, Aybar said
he had never played in such cold
weather (a windy 45 degrees).
Asked about the coldest he
ever felt at a game, Scioscia re-
called catching for the Dodgers
in the final game of the league se-
ries in 1981 in Montreal, with the
roof locked in an open position.
The Expos had two runners on
and two outs in the seventh.
“Fernando Valenzuela really
pitched a gem,” he recalled. “It
was a pop-up. I looked up and I
was getting under it and catch-
ing it through the snowflakes. It
was cold.”
According to weather reports
for Oct. 19, 1981, the temperature
at Mirabel Airport ranged from
39 to 50 with winds gusting from
16 to 25 miles per hour.
Scioscia said weather can also
be erratic during the regular
season — “if you’ve ever been to
Wrigley Field and that wind is
blowing straight in.”
It was not hard to miss the
contrast. In the other league se-
ries, the Phillies were playing in
Los Angeles — a day game, blue
sky, 93 degrees — as a cold night
fell on the Bronx. “We were like,
wow, that weather looks pretty
good compared to here,” said
Joe Saunders, scheduled to pitch
the second game for the Angels.
“They’re there and we’re here.
We have to take care of business
here. We’ll get back there soon
enough.”
By then, Aybar may have mas-
tered the art of catching a pop-up
— with a stiff Bronx wind lashing
at his balaclava.

New Homes and New Hope for Some Neglected Upstate Horses
One horse is being retrained
to become a hunter-jumper in
Virginia. A half-dozen or so of
his former neighbors rollick in
the pasture and munch carrots
in Pennsylvania. Seven more are
being nursed backed to health by
inmates at a New York prison.
Then there is the aptly named
Escapedfromnewyork, who is
convalescing among champions
and legends at a retirement home
amid the plush bluegrass in Ken-
tucky.
They were all among the 177
horses found malnourished and
neglected in April at the upstate
New York farm of the prominent
thoroughbred breeder and owner
Ernie Paragallo.
Over the last six months, the
Humane Society/Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
in Greene and Columbia Counties,
with the help of rescue groups
and horse lovers from across the
nation, has found homes for 96 of
those horses.
The agency has spent $82,000
treating, feeding and finding
homes for the horses. Six horses
were too sick to recover and were
euthanized. The plight of the ani-
mals has touched the hearts and
united a disparate group of horse
lovers who have mobilized large-
ly through the Internet to give
these animals a second chance.
Paragallo, meanwhile, has
been indicted on 35 counts of ani-
mal cruelty by a Greene County
grand jury and faces up to two
years in prison and $35,000 in
fines if found guilty. He has de-
nied that he starved and neglect-
ed his horses and is free on $5,000
bail. He is scheduled to appear in
court this week, but no trial date
has been set.
“There has been an awful lot
of hard work and imagination
put in by strangers to save these
horses’ lives,” said Ron Perez, the
president of the Humane Society/
S.P.C.A. in Greene and Columbia
Counties.
The last of the adopted horses
— a colt and two filly yearlings
— left Friday from Paragallo’s
Center Brook Farm in Climax,
N.Y., for North Carolina. It is the
first step on a path that embodies
the creative thinking that has be-
come the hallmark of horse res-
cue outfits.
The horses’ new owners, An-
gelika Hala and Sean Kerr, are
sending them to Paula Turner,
who broke the 1977 Triple Crown
champion Seattle Slew, and is
considered something of a horse
whisperer for her patience in de-
veloping them mentally as well
as physically.
“We’d like to see if they can
make it to the racetrack,” said
Hala, who met Kerr, her fiancé, at
the Claremont Riding Academy,
a fixture of Manhattan’s West
Side for more than 100 years.
The couple have never owned
racehorses; they rescued two
mares that they have begun to
breed. In fact, they had no inten-
tion of adopting three racehorses.
They did, however, have a similar
reaction to that of most adoptive
owners: They were horrified at
how badly they had been neglect-
ed.
“We came to horses late in life
and are just nuts about them,”
said Hala, who lives in New York
City and is a photo editor for a
German magazine. “When we
saw the colt and the two fillies
with their ribs sticking out, there
was no way we could pick one
over or another. We just had to
take all three of them.”
Almost everyone smiles when
telling stories of the 96 adopted
horses. Christy Sheidy, the co-
founder of Another Chance 4
Horses, which spread the word
about the neglect at Center Brook
Farm, told how Jennifer blos-
somed from a sickly mare into a
vivacious one.
Jennifer grew so robust, Sheidy
suspected she was pregnant.
“She has gotten so round we
just had her palpated, and she is
open,” Sheidy said. “No baby.”
In April, Escapedfromnewyork
looked like a yearling when he ar-
rived at Old Friends at Dream
Chase Farm, the retirement cen-
ter in Georgetown, Ky. He was
actually 5 years old.
He took up residence alongside
thoroughbred icons like Sunshine
Forever and Ogygian — and
more than 50 other horses worth
tens of millions of dollars on the
racetrack.
Among them was Escaped-
fromnewyork’s grandfather For-
tunate Prospect.
Still, Snake — the horse is nick-
named after the protagonist in
the movie “Escape From New
York” — has quickly become
one of the star attractions for the
thousands of horse lovers who go
to the farm.
“Snake has grown about 10
inches and gained about 200
pounds,” Michael Blowen, the
farm’s president and founder,
said. “The tragedy is that I think
with his build and intelligence
he would have made a very nice
racehorse.” JOE DRAPE