Thought of Taleban deal alarms jihadists (Frank Gardner, 10/24/08, BBC)
There is a growing fear among some hardline supporters of al-Qaeda that talk of an eventual peace deal between the Taleban and the Afghan government could lead one day to al-Qaeda losing its foothold in the region. [...]In the shadowy world of extremist internet forums, even talks about talks are enough to provoke alarm in some quarters.
Are the Taleban preparing to sell out their old allies, al-Qaeda, as the price for getting back into government?
McCain's Hero: More Socialist Than Obama!: McCain can call Obama a socialist or he can call Teddy Roosevelt his hero. He can't do both. (Timothy Noah, Oct. 23, 2008, Slate)
When T.R. spoke of "swollen fortunes" and "malefactors of great wealth," socialism was a genuine force in American politics, perceived by many to pose a serious threat to the social order. When T.R. first called for a "graduated income tax" in his 1907 State of the Union, he was proposing a measure that the Supreme Court had ruled unconstitutional. Indeed, the federal income tax struck down by the Court wasn't even "graduated," or progressive; it was a flat-rate tax. Today, McCain demagogically attacks Obama's purported "socialism" knowing that socialism is a dead letter in the United States. He feigns shock at progressive taxation ("confiscate wealth") nearly a century after the states ratified the 16th Amendment, enabling Congress to enact a progressive income tax, and nearly a decade after he himself scolded a town-hall questioner on MSNBC's Hardball who cried "socialism" about the rich having to pay a greater percentage of their income in taxes. "Here's what I really believe," McCain said. "When you are—reach a certain level of comfort, there's nothing wrong with paying somewhat more."In his book The Great Tax Wars, Steven Weisman, formerly of the New York Times, writes that T.R.'s previous experience as police commissioner of New York City made him worry "about anarchy arising from gross economic inequality." Today, the income gap between the top 0.01 percent of families in the United States and the bottom 90 percent is greater than it was in T.R.'s day. The last time it was anywhere near so great was in 1929. The top marginal income-tax rate, meanwhile, is near its historic low in the late 1920s. Those of you seeking a cause to the current financial meltdown may draw your own conclusions. (For more on taxes and historic patterns of inequality in the United States, click here.)
T.R., of course, was no socialist. Indeed, his purpose was largely to prevent socialists from coming to power. But the trust buster got called a socialist a lot more often than Obama ever will.
Report: Brady has more surgery to fight infection (AP, October 23, 2008)
Brady confirmed for the first time Saturday that he'd undergone two operations on his injured left knee. The Herald, citing an unnamed source familiar with his treatment, said he's had two more since then because of infection.If the infection is not brought under control, the Herald reports, the patellar tendon graft used to replace Brady's anterior cruciate ligament could become compromised. If that happens, Brady could need to redo the surgery -- likely delaying his rehabilitation.
Poll: Voters Against Obama 'Wealth Redistribution' Plan (CNBC.com, 23 Oct 2008)
ATI-News/Zogby asked likely voters: “John McCain and other critics say Barack Obama is heavily influenced by people and organizations which seek social justice through redistribution of wealth in America. Do you agree or disagree with efforts to bring social justice by the redistribution of wealth?”By a more than two-to-one margin, undecided voters disagree with such efforts to redistribute wealth. In total, 57 percent of undecided voters said they disagreed, while only 24 percent said they agreed (19 percent are not sure).
A majority (52 percent) of self-identified Independent voters also disagree with efforts to bring social justice through wealth redistribution. Only 39 percent of Independents agree (10 percent are not sure).
UNH study: Hispanics make up half of US growth (AP, 10/23/08)
The study from the Carsey Institute says "natural increase'" meaning more births than deaths, is now the major reason for the growth, replacing immigration. [...]The report said Hispanics are a major source of growth in rural America, accounting for 45.5 percent of population growth between 2000 and 2005. For many rural communities, Hispanic gains represent the first population growth in decades.
Questions over health of Iranian president: A string of cancelled events has sparked rumours Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be prevented from seeking re-election (Robert Tait, 10/23/08, guardian.co.uk)
The reports will be a blow to the pride of a leader who revels in his energetic style and is known for micro-managing government affairs.They come at a time when Ahmadinejad is wrestling with acute political problems including near 30% inflation, rising unemployment, plummeting global oil prices, a market trader strike over plans to impose VAT and demands for the resignation of his interior minister, Ali Kordan, for falsely telling MPs he had an Oxford University degree.
More worrying is that the rumours appear to have given Ahmadinejad's critics a new stick to beat him with. Fellow hardliners in Iran's so-called principalist, or fundamentalist, camp are calling for the president to withdraw from the forthcoming presidential election unless doubts over his health are cleared up.
Issa Saharkhiz, an Iranian political analyst, said the reports could have been fanned by opponents, including the Tehran mayor, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who are preparing to run against the president. "I'm not sure if these health problems are permanent or just a result of tiredness," Saharkhiz told the Guardian. "But some groups, mainly moderate conservatives, may be thinking that they have found a political solution for eliminating him from the nomination for the elections."
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Gallup Daily: Obama Has Modest Lead Among Likely Voters (Gallup, 10/23/08)
Gallup Poll Daily tracking shows Barack Obama running ahead of John McCain among likely voters -- 50% to 46% using the "traditional" model Gallup has employed in past elections, and 51% to 45% using an "expanded" model that takes into account possibly greater turnout by new or infrequent voters.
...the Senator from Illinois seems more the "man with the umbrella."
Improvisation and Encores in a Search for Don Quixote (JAMES R. OESTREICH, 10/23/08, NY Times)
It is a commonplace in early-music lore that given the remoteness and sketchiness of most of the documentary sources, aspects of any performance are necessarily conjectural. But that educated guesswork is always a matter of degrees, and since scores for obscure repertory are hard to come by, it is often difficult for listeners to determine its extent. So the encore the Spanish viola da gamba virtuoso Jordi Savall, La Capella Reial de Catalunya and Hespèrion XXI appended to their splendid concert at the Rose Theater on Monday evening was a gift to old hands as well as to novices.The program, which opened the season of Great Performers at Lincoln Center and its series New Visions: The Literary Muse, was basically a distillation of the luxurious 2005 Alia Vox album “Don Quijote de la Mancha: Romances y Músicas.” It related episodes from Cervantes’s “Don Quixote” through Spanish music of the 16th and 17th centuries fitted out with texts, and through spoken readings, rendered here by F. Murray Abraham.
The encore was the number that closed the first half, the “Ballad of Count Claros of Montalban,” attributed to Francisco Salinas. But as Mr. Savall explained before the reprise, all that had been known of the music was a sequence of four notes cited in a reference. From that germ Mr. Savall and company have created a wildly imaginative and richly textured set of variations running some eight minutes.
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Republicans 'considering' Sarah Palin 2012 presidential campaign: Republicans bracing themselves for defeat on Nov 4 are already contemplating the prospect of Sarah Palin becoming their presidential candidate against a President Barack Obama in 2012. (Toby Harnden, 23 Oct 2008, Daily Telegraph)
"Sarah's the one," said one leading conservative who is convinced Mr McCain will lose this election. "The party is broken and only she can fix it. We need someone who comes from outside Washington and relates to the aspirations of ordinary Americans."Mrs Palin appears to be subtly distancing herself from Mr McCain and positioning herself for a presidential run in her own right, much as John Edwards did in 2004 as John Kerry's Democratic vice-presidential running mate.
She has repeatedly stated, often on conservative talk radio, that she would be more aggressive in making the case against Mr Obama while at the same time distancing herself from campaign tactics such as automated telephone calls.
The Alaska governor, a heroine of the Religious Right for her uncompromising stance on abortion – even in cases of rape, she believes abortion should be outlawed – recently said that unlike Mr McCain she supported a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
Mrs Palin has also contradicted Mr McCain on policy towards Pakistan, over drilling for oil in Alaska and on de-listing North Korea as a terrorist state. While some believe these are merely gaffes illustrating her uncertainty over policy, others fear she is deliberately undermining the Republican nominee.
She has also made clear she was unhappy with the way she has been "handled" by the McCain campaign, which kept her out of the media spotlight until it felt she was ready and then arranged a series of interviews with network anchors that turned into disasters.
Rove: Doubts About Obama Are Real (Connie Hair, 10/23/2008, Human Events)
Rove said, “I can’t give you any good news but the news that there is: we’ve got a chance. The reason we have a chance is the consistent deep concern on the part of the American people about whether or not Barack Obama is qualified and experienced enough to be President of the United States.”He went on from there, giving perspective on the historical progression of polling in the race on Obama’s “unqualifieds” -- the percentage of people who do not think that Obama is qualified to be president. Rove said, “The only person who has had higher unqualified numbers at this point of his [presidential] campaign was Michael Dukakis in October of 1988. I’m not going to suggest that McCain-Palin is going to take 40 states like the first Bush did in 1988, but it is a sign of difficulty.”
Rove continued, “They’ve [McCain-Palin] got the last 13 days to make the case to the American people that the doubts they have about this smart, ambitious, charming, charismatic young guy -- the doubts they have are real. He’s not ready for the job. … Democrats are desperately trying to create the sense that this is over, it’s done. Everybody else has made your decision for you, but I don’t think that’s the case. People are paying too much attention to this race, and they’re giving one last hard look at this guy.”
Cuban exile's inspiring encore: Bebo Valdes, 90, a top pianist and bandleader during Havana's golden age of music, basks in the glory of his unlikely comeback. (Sebastian Rotella, October 23, 2008, LA Times)
In black-and-white photos from the 1950s, Dionisio Ramon Emilio "Bebo" Valdes has the sleek look of a Cuban Duke Ellington: pencil mustache, wide-shouldered suits. They called him Caballon, or big horse, because he was tall and dashing and the premier pianist, bandleader, arranger and composer in Havana.Today, he's stooped and thinner. He drags his feet a bit. But he still has a towering presence, warm gray eyes and a gentlemanly, gregarious smile.
A conversation with Valdes is a voyage through the marvelous spectrum of music that has forged him: from Madrid to Harlem; from Debussy to Rachmaninoff; from Ernesto Lecuona, another Cuban pianist, to Chano Pozo, the wild percussionist who electrified Havana's legendary Tropicana nightclub when Valdes reigned there as musical director.
"He is the last man standing of the golden age of Cuban music," says Nat Chediak, his Miami-based producer and friend. "There is no one else left. He is the last master from the golden age."
Valdes has experienced enough triumph, tribulation and redemption for three or four lives. The Cuban Revolution set him adrift on the tides of exile. He washed up on the icy shores of Stockholm. He married a Swedish woman and settled into sedate anonymity, working in hotel lounges as a background pianist. Even listeners who noticed the brilliance of his elegant, understated style didn't realize he was the living ghost of a legend.
MORE:
-Bebo Valdes' Long Musical Journey (Felix Contreras, January 19, 2006, All Things Considered)
Valdes says he never expected to be doing this much at his age. He was content just playing piano in Sweden."If you are a musician, and you do one thing, you should enjoy what you do," he says. "This is my profession and it is my hobby. And I live in love with what I do. In those years in Stockholm, even if I wasn't successful, I did it because I liked it. And I would keep doing it until I die."
The long road from Havana to Stockholm to Grammy winner started in Cuba in 1925, when he was 7 years old. Valdes says he was mesmerized by a pianist accompanying a dance orchestra.
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Commodities plunge, roil world markets (Patrice Hill, October 23, 2008 , Washington Times)
"The oil crash hits oligarchs, dictators and Wall Street," said Martin Hutchinson, analyst at Breakingviews.com. "The price of oil has been cut in half from the peak, and could fall further. While U.S. consumers, Detroit's carmakers and airlines celebrate, there will be a raft of losers," he said, including "imprudent energy-fed regimes, alternative energy suppliers and Wall Street," where energy stocks such as Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips led the bull market that ended a year ago.Commodity-rich nations that enjoyed booming demand for their exports of oil, wheat, soybeans and other staples also have met sudden calamity in the past three months as commodity prices fell precipitously from record highs reached in July. Strong growth in Brazil, Russia, Mexico, Chile and Argentina in recent years was tied to their robust exports of such raw materials. In some regimes, the abrupt reversal of fortunes is testing a shaky commitment to free markets and investors' rights.
Nafta-Plus: Canada looks to Europe in anticipation of Obama protectionism. (Wall Street Journal, 10/20/08)
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France signed an agreement Friday to begin negotiations for a free trade pact between Canada and the European Union. A Canada-EU study released last week outlines the joint economic benefits of such a partnership, with two-way trade estimated to increase 22.9% by 2014.The proposed partnership goes a lot further than Nafta. In addition to allowing free trade in goods and services, it would harmonize regulations, open up the air-travel market, and boost opportunities in government-procurement. Most important, it would free the labor market so that skilled workers could move easily back and forth across the Atlantic.
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