by Bill Breakstone, January 30, 2011
The world is currently focused on the crisis evolving in Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak’s regime is coming under intense pressure to resign and allow democratic elections to install a more responsive government to address the ills of the Egyptian society.
The basis of this popular revolt is an extreme dissatisfaction with a government that has failed to serve its people, who have suffered from high unemployment, lack of human rights, and an increasingly high cost of living.
The visuals coming out of Cairo, Alexandria and Suez City are terribly frightening, with a total lack of civil security, looting, gunfire, and a population forced to provide for its own basic essentials.
This revolt was fueled by the events that took place in Tunisia over the past two weeks, and are currently continuing in Yemen. It is also feared that similar outbursts of popular resentments will spread to other Arab nations such as Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
People have questioned what is fueling these events. The answer is simple. When governments ignore the needs of their people, tensions and resentments mount until they reach a point of combustion.
Robert Reich spelled out such a scenario that could occur in America in his excellent book “Aftershock.” Here, the middle class has come under increasing pressure to provide for itself as their outlook has deteriorated over the past three decades, while those more fortunate have increased their position in life by leaps and bounds. Unemployment is at near all-time highs, and not expected to rebound for another five years, while at the same time corporate profits and earnings are setting records. The cost of living is increasing as food and fuel prices have risen dramatically, while the values of most people’s assets have continued to deteriorate, thanks no little to a housing market that continues to decline due to excess inventories fueled by foreclosures resulting from the financial crisis of 2008-2009.
Meanwhile, the American political environment is mired in a ideological conflict between an administration that is trying to address continuing high unemployment and sluggish growth and an opposition party focused on reducing the role of government and slashing spending to reduce a huge federal deficit, which most probably will result in increasing joblessness that will negatively affect the economy.
The question is when could the American people wake up one morning and witness the kind of events that we are seeing today on the streets of Cairo? What could be the tipping point when the great mass of the American middle class decides that our government is not providing for its people? Several months ago, no one could have predicted the events that are now unfolding in Egypt. They are a perfect example of what economists and political scientists refer to as “asymmetric shock,” an event that can tilt a nation’s economy off its axis with disastrous consequences.
The hope is that our opposing political factions can come together in a spirit of compromise to avoid policies that could endanger our future, as they did in the lame duck session last month. But the rhetoric being heard, regarding an extension of our debt ceiling is not promising. The last thing we need at this point is a shutdown of the government, which will only exacerbate the perception on the part of our population that our leaders cannot deal with the challenges that face us.
So, keep your eyes on Egypt. Hopefully, a new government will peacefully evolve that will care for its peoples. And, hopefully, our leaders will come to their senses to assure that America will continue to move in the right direction to assure the welfare of its population, not just its corporate leaders and politicians, but us all.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Sunday, January 30, 2011
MUSIC REVIEW--THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC--Saturday Matinee--January 29, 2011
THE NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC
Alan Gilbert, Conductor;
With Sheryl Staples, violin; Robert Rinehart, viola; Ru-Pei Yeh, cello; Satoshi Okamoto, bass; and Philip Myers & Howard Wall, French horns.
Matinee Concert, January 29, 2011
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, January 30, 2011
For those of you unfamiliar with the Philharmonic’s Saturday Matinee concerts, these are musical treats of the highest order. They feature a major work from the regular subscription concerts of the particular week, preceded by a chamber music work performed by first chair musicians and their associates from the Orchestra. This week’s program featured relatively unfamiliar compositions by Mozart and the Danish composer Carl Nielsen.
Mozart composed close to 100 divertimenti, serenades, noturni and cassations, mostly lighter fare written for outdoor musicales or indoor celebrations. However, four of these stand out as major compositions and contain serious music and length exceeding any of his symphonies. These are the Haffner and Posthorn Serenades, the Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments (Gran Partita) and the Divertimento in D Major for Two Horns and Strings, K.334/320b, performed at this concert.
This seldom-performed Divertimento is in 6 movements, is bright and cheerful, and contains a devilishly, fiendishly difficult part for the first violin, here brilliantly played by assistant concertmaster Sheryl Staples. Herbert von Karajan recorded this work with his Berlin Philharmonic back in the 1970s, using somewhat reduced string section, and that recording won high praise from critics for its lightness and transparency. However, the Divertimento was not written for an ensemble of 45 string players, but rather as a chamber work for 6,to which was added a double bass to support the horns. This septet version allows the listeners to clearly hear each part. The fifth movement is a minuet with two trios, the first of which is as lovely a musical idea as Mozart ever had.
After the intermission, the full Philharmonic took stage with their music director, Alan Gilbert, on the podium, for a performance of Carl Nielson’s Second Symphony (“The Four Temperaments”). This work had been performed only once by the Philharmonic, back in 1973, with Leonard Bernstein conducting. Although New York Times music critic Zachary Woolfe (never heard of him before!) dismissed the work alternately as “dull, relentless, slackening, meandering, and empty,” these ears found this symphony to be thoroughly engaging. It was quite unlike any romantic work I have encountered. The only leanings of another composer I could discern was of Bruckner, though Nielsen’s writing is far less heavy and without the massed brass found in most of Bruckner’s symphonies.
Gustav Mahler served as Music Director of the Philharmonic for two seasons shortly before his death in 1911. Mahler, as a composer, had an aversion to providing programs of his symphonies to critics and audiences, with the exception of his two earliest symphonies, No 1 (“Titan”) and No. 2 (“Resurrection”). His reasoning was to let the listeners form their own judgments of the composer’s intent. In this Nielsen Symphony, the dangers of programming are all the more evident. The four temperaments are labeled “collerico” (impetuous), “flemmatico” (phlegmatic, lazy, indolent), “malincolico” (melancholic) and “sanguineo” (boisterous, happy). With these four suggestions, the listener is predisposed to think along the lines of those titles while listening to the music. Yet such thoughts can be very much misleading. The first movement could just as easily be defined as energetic; the second movement, a leisurely waltz, as a relaxed dance; the third movement as a lush but somberly beautiful adagio; and the fourth movement as a happy march or jog.
In any case, this is a very interesting Symphony, expertly written and scored. Gilbert became quite familiar with Nielson’s works while acting as Music Director of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic prior to his appointment here in New York. Thus his conception of this work bears a stamp of authority. And once again, the Philharmonic was sounding at its best in this orchestral showpiece. Thirty-seven years is too long an interval for the performance of this fascinating Symphony!
Alan Gilbert, Conductor;
With Sheryl Staples, violin; Robert Rinehart, viola; Ru-Pei Yeh, cello; Satoshi Okamoto, bass; and Philip Myers & Howard Wall, French horns.
Matinee Concert, January 29, 2011
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, January 30, 2011
For those of you unfamiliar with the Philharmonic’s Saturday Matinee concerts, these are musical treats of the highest order. They feature a major work from the regular subscription concerts of the particular week, preceded by a chamber music work performed by first chair musicians and their associates from the Orchestra. This week’s program featured relatively unfamiliar compositions by Mozart and the Danish composer Carl Nielsen.
Mozart composed close to 100 divertimenti, serenades, noturni and cassations, mostly lighter fare written for outdoor musicales or indoor celebrations. However, four of these stand out as major compositions and contain serious music and length exceeding any of his symphonies. These are the Haffner and Posthorn Serenades, the Serenade for 13 Wind Instruments (Gran Partita) and the Divertimento in D Major for Two Horns and Strings, K.334/320b, performed at this concert.
This seldom-performed Divertimento is in 6 movements, is bright and cheerful, and contains a devilishly, fiendishly difficult part for the first violin, here brilliantly played by assistant concertmaster Sheryl Staples. Herbert von Karajan recorded this work with his Berlin Philharmonic back in the 1970s, using somewhat reduced string section, and that recording won high praise from critics for its lightness and transparency. However, the Divertimento was not written for an ensemble of 45 string players, but rather as a chamber work for 6,to which was added a double bass to support the horns. This septet version allows the listeners to clearly hear each part. The fifth movement is a minuet with two trios, the first of which is as lovely a musical idea as Mozart ever had.
After the intermission, the full Philharmonic took stage with their music director, Alan Gilbert, on the podium, for a performance of Carl Nielson’s Second Symphony (“The Four Temperaments”). This work had been performed only once by the Philharmonic, back in 1973, with Leonard Bernstein conducting. Although New York Times music critic Zachary Woolfe (never heard of him before!) dismissed the work alternately as “dull, relentless, slackening, meandering, and empty,” these ears found this symphony to be thoroughly engaging. It was quite unlike any romantic work I have encountered. The only leanings of another composer I could discern was of Bruckner, though Nielsen’s writing is far less heavy and without the massed brass found in most of Bruckner’s symphonies.
Gustav Mahler served as Music Director of the Philharmonic for two seasons shortly before his death in 1911. Mahler, as a composer, had an aversion to providing programs of his symphonies to critics and audiences, with the exception of his two earliest symphonies, No 1 (“Titan”) and No. 2 (“Resurrection”). His reasoning was to let the listeners form their own judgments of the composer’s intent. In this Nielsen Symphony, the dangers of programming are all the more evident. The four temperaments are labeled “collerico” (impetuous), “flemmatico” (phlegmatic, lazy, indolent), “malincolico” (melancholic) and “sanguineo” (boisterous, happy). With these four suggestions, the listener is predisposed to think along the lines of those titles while listening to the music. Yet such thoughts can be very much misleading. The first movement could just as easily be defined as energetic; the second movement, a leisurely waltz, as a relaxed dance; the third movement as a lush but somberly beautiful adagio; and the fourth movement as a happy march or jog.
In any case, this is a very interesting Symphony, expertly written and scored. Gilbert became quite familiar with Nielson’s works while acting as Music Director of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic prior to his appointment here in New York. Thus his conception of this work bears a stamp of authority. And once again, the Philharmonic was sounding at its best in this orchestral showpiece. Thirty-seven years is too long an interval for the performance of this fascinating Symphony!
Monday, January 24, 2011
BOOK REVIEW--THE POSTMISTRESS by Sarah Blake
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, January 24, 2011
A real estate colleague of mine recommended The Postmistress by Sarah Blake to me several weeks ago. This novel never appeared on the bestseller lists, for reasons I can’t understand. It was a terrific read! Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, offered this compliment which appears on the dust jacket of the book: “Great books give you a feeling that you miss all day, until you finally get to crawl back inside those pages again. The Postmistress is one of those rare books. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. It made me homesick for a time before I was even born. What’s remarkable, however, is how relevant the story is to our present-day times. A beautifully written, thought-provoking novel that I’m telling everyone I know to read.”
The relevancy of the story to today’s world I’ll address later.
This novel is about a world that I too had not yet been born into. The setting is in Cape Cod and the Europe of 1940 and 1941, before the United States entered World War II. London was enduring The Blitz; the Nazis in Germany, France, Poland and the Balkans were rounding up Jews. Hundreds of thousands of them were attempting to escape to the West, but Americans paid little attention to what Winston Churchill named “The Gathering Storm.” President Roosevelt had pledged that our boys would not be sent overseas to fight yet another war.
In the fictional Massachusetts town of Franklin on Cape Cod, in reality Provincetown at Lands End, Iris James is the postmaster of the local post office. Will Fitch is a recent graduate of Harvard Medical School and has assumed the responsibility of town doctor. He recently married young Emma Trask, and they listen on the radio to journalist Frankie Bard, an associate of Edward Murrow at CBS, broadcasting the horrors of The Blitz in London. Frankie’s roommate, Harriet, is a journalistic colleague who is focused on telling the story of the plight of European Jews that are being detained in “camps” in France. When Harriet is killed in one of the nightly bombings, Frankie takes up the task of bringing America’s attention to the oncoming holocaust.
Murrow dispatches Bard to Germany, France, Spain and Portugal, with a recorder to capture in words the story of what these European refugees are enduring. Before leaving London, Frankie meets Will in a bomb shelter, and when the all clear sounds the two emerge onto the London streets, where Will is struck down by a taxi, leaving a letter with Frankie to deliver back to his wife in the States.
The novel goes on to tell the story of all these people, and, more importantly, of the refusal of Americans to come to grips with the unfolding tragedy that is overtaking events in Europe.
As I read this beautifully written novel, I kept thinking about Kathryn Stockett’s compliments and what indeed she had in mind about the relevancy of the story to today’s times. What did she mean? Before Pearl Harbor, Americans were going about their daily lives, ignoring the world about them. What are we ignoring today? We are involved in two wars on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is that what Stockett is referring to? She doesn’t say, but I have my own personal view.
The people of today’s world are facing another Armageddon, but it is not one involving soldiers, guns, bullets and bombs. It is economic in nature, and consists of nation upon nation mired in debt, and a joblessness resulting from a financial catastrophe of epic proportions. Political constraints have thus far paralyzed world leaders from addressing what may become a crisis that will equal or exceed what the world endured during the Great Depression. There are voices out there, like Frankie’s, urging people to understand the consequences of inaction. Two New York Times journalists, one a Nobel Prize Winner, have continuously writing of their concerns about these two issues. Numerous books have also been written by award-winning authors. But is anyone listening, beyond his or her own parochial concerns?
Setting these political and economic thoughts aside, The Postmistress is a terrific story that grabs you and won’t let go!
A real estate colleague of mine recommended The Postmistress by Sarah Blake to me several weeks ago. This novel never appeared on the bestseller lists, for reasons I can’t understand. It was a terrific read! Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, offered this compliment which appears on the dust jacket of the book: “Great books give you a feeling that you miss all day, until you finally get to crawl back inside those pages again. The Postmistress is one of those rare books. When I wasn’t reading it, I was thinking about it. It made me homesick for a time before I was even born. What’s remarkable, however, is how relevant the story is to our present-day times. A beautifully written, thought-provoking novel that I’m telling everyone I know to read.”
The relevancy of the story to today’s world I’ll address later.
This novel is about a world that I too had not yet been born into. The setting is in Cape Cod and the Europe of 1940 and 1941, before the United States entered World War II. London was enduring The Blitz; the Nazis in Germany, France, Poland and the Balkans were rounding up Jews. Hundreds of thousands of them were attempting to escape to the West, but Americans paid little attention to what Winston Churchill named “The Gathering Storm.” President Roosevelt had pledged that our boys would not be sent overseas to fight yet another war.
In the fictional Massachusetts town of Franklin on Cape Cod, in reality Provincetown at Lands End, Iris James is the postmaster of the local post office. Will Fitch is a recent graduate of Harvard Medical School and has assumed the responsibility of town doctor. He recently married young Emma Trask, and they listen on the radio to journalist Frankie Bard, an associate of Edward Murrow at CBS, broadcasting the horrors of The Blitz in London. Frankie’s roommate, Harriet, is a journalistic colleague who is focused on telling the story of the plight of European Jews that are being detained in “camps” in France. When Harriet is killed in one of the nightly bombings, Frankie takes up the task of bringing America’s attention to the oncoming holocaust.
Murrow dispatches Bard to Germany, France, Spain and Portugal, with a recorder to capture in words the story of what these European refugees are enduring. Before leaving London, Frankie meets Will in a bomb shelter, and when the all clear sounds the two emerge onto the London streets, where Will is struck down by a taxi, leaving a letter with Frankie to deliver back to his wife in the States.
The novel goes on to tell the story of all these people, and, more importantly, of the refusal of Americans to come to grips with the unfolding tragedy that is overtaking events in Europe.
As I read this beautifully written novel, I kept thinking about Kathryn Stockett’s compliments and what indeed she had in mind about the relevancy of the story to today’s times. What did she mean? Before Pearl Harbor, Americans were going about their daily lives, ignoring the world about them. What are we ignoring today? We are involved in two wars on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is that what Stockett is referring to? She doesn’t say, but I have my own personal view.
The people of today’s world are facing another Armageddon, but it is not one involving soldiers, guns, bullets and bombs. It is economic in nature, and consists of nation upon nation mired in debt, and a joblessness resulting from a financial catastrophe of epic proportions. Political constraints have thus far paralyzed world leaders from addressing what may become a crisis that will equal or exceed what the world endured during the Great Depression. There are voices out there, like Frankie’s, urging people to understand the consequences of inaction. Two New York Times journalists, one a Nobel Prize Winner, have continuously writing of their concerns about these two issues. Numerous books have also been written by award-winning authors. But is anyone listening, beyond his or her own parochial concerns?
Setting these political and economic thoughts aside, The Postmistress is a terrific story that grabs you and won’t let go!
Monday, January 17, 2011
MUSIC REVIEW--NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC ENSEMBLES AT MERKIN HALL--January 16, 2011
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone
This recital was the third in a series of five featuring leading instrumentalists of The Philharmonic. I am finding these programs to be a delightful source for the discovery of unfamiliar chamber works, performed by artists of the highest accomplishment. All three compositions on yesterday’s program were new to me, and some also new to the performing artists, one of whom I interviewed after the recital.
The opening work was the Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano, in G Major by Claude Debussy. Written in 1880, when the composer was 18 years old, this work was discovered in 1980 and is seldom performed. It is easy to see why. Debussy had yet to acquire his own, unique style, and the piece is more or less a piece of puff pastry, as my Austrian professor used to refer to music of little import but genial in nature. Of the three movements, only the finale, marked Appassionato, shows any seriousness, and contains some soaring melodies much in the vein of Faure.
The recital continued with the String Quartet No. 1, Op. 25, by Benjamin Britten, another youthful composition, but one bearing the stamp of a unique musical mind determined to create an individualistic style of his own. The first movement, marked Andante sostenuto—Allegro vivo, opens with the violins playing an eerie, high pitched dissonant melody, and then moves to an energetically pulsed allegro in the violins and viola, with the cello punctuating in pizzicato. The two themes play off against each other and the movement ends with a presto pizzicato coda. The Allegretto second movement is a strident march with the cello carrying the lyrical theme. The slow third movement Andante is in a minor mode and exhibits a wonderful development of the thematic material. The Quartet concludes with a molto vivace rondo in a major key, with the four instruments imitating each others theme, as in a “round.” There’s lots of humor, driving rhythms, an adagio interlude, then back to the main theme. This is a very interesting quartet, one which deserves a place in the performing repertoire.
After intermission, Frank Bridge’s String Quartet No. 1 in E minor was presented. Bridge, who lived from 1879 to 1941, was one of Britten’s composition teachers, was an accomplished violist, chamber musician, conductor, and composer. His works are seldom performed and are infused with a Brahmsian quality. Some hear shades of Faure within his music; I detected elements of Grieg. The first movement Adagio—Allegro is in sonata form and suffused with melody. The second movement Adagio molto is in a minor mode and astonishingly lyrical, with a most elegant second theme. The third movement, marked Allegretto grazioso, is a scherzo with a dance-like trio section. The work concludes with an Allegro Agitato—moderato molto in rondo form. Contrary to its markings, it begins with an adagietto theme, and then moves to the agitato section, alternating these two sections for the balance of the movement, ending with the cello repeating the main theme from the opening movement in a molto adagio pianissimo. This is a surprisingly beautiful quartet, a real find for musicians, and audiences, who are eager to try something new and fresh.
The playing by the Philharmonic instrumentalists throughout was masterful. Special note should go to violinist Fiona Simon, a Brit by birth, who lead both the Britten and Bridge Quartets from her first violinist chair.
This recital was the third in a series of five featuring leading instrumentalists of The Philharmonic. I am finding these programs to be a delightful source for the discovery of unfamiliar chamber works, performed by artists of the highest accomplishment. All three compositions on yesterday’s program were new to me, and some also new to the performing artists, one of whom I interviewed after the recital.
The opening work was the Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano, in G Major by Claude Debussy. Written in 1880, when the composer was 18 years old, this work was discovered in 1980 and is seldom performed. It is easy to see why. Debussy had yet to acquire his own, unique style, and the piece is more or less a piece of puff pastry, as my Austrian professor used to refer to music of little import but genial in nature. Of the three movements, only the finale, marked Appassionato, shows any seriousness, and contains some soaring melodies much in the vein of Faure.
The recital continued with the String Quartet No. 1, Op. 25, by Benjamin Britten, another youthful composition, but one bearing the stamp of a unique musical mind determined to create an individualistic style of his own. The first movement, marked Andante sostenuto—Allegro vivo, opens with the violins playing an eerie, high pitched dissonant melody, and then moves to an energetically pulsed allegro in the violins and viola, with the cello punctuating in pizzicato. The two themes play off against each other and the movement ends with a presto pizzicato coda. The Allegretto second movement is a strident march with the cello carrying the lyrical theme. The slow third movement Andante is in a minor mode and exhibits a wonderful development of the thematic material. The Quartet concludes with a molto vivace rondo in a major key, with the four instruments imitating each others theme, as in a “round.” There’s lots of humor, driving rhythms, an adagio interlude, then back to the main theme. This is a very interesting quartet, one which deserves a place in the performing repertoire.
After intermission, Frank Bridge’s String Quartet No. 1 in E minor was presented. Bridge, who lived from 1879 to 1941, was one of Britten’s composition teachers, was an accomplished violist, chamber musician, conductor, and composer. His works are seldom performed and are infused with a Brahmsian quality. Some hear shades of Faure within his music; I detected elements of Grieg. The first movement Adagio—Allegro is in sonata form and suffused with melody. The second movement Adagio molto is in a minor mode and astonishingly lyrical, with a most elegant second theme. The third movement, marked Allegretto grazioso, is a scherzo with a dance-like trio section. The work concludes with an Allegro Agitato—moderato molto in rondo form. Contrary to its markings, it begins with an adagietto theme, and then moves to the agitato section, alternating these two sections for the balance of the movement, ending with the cello repeating the main theme from the opening movement in a molto adagio pianissimo. This is a surprisingly beautiful quartet, a real find for musicians, and audiences, who are eager to try something new and fresh.
The playing by the Philharmonic instrumentalists throughout was masterful. Special note should go to violinist Fiona Simon, a Brit by birth, who lead both the Britten and Bridge Quartets from her first violinist chair.
BOOK REVIEW--HALF BROKE HORSES by Jeannette Walls
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, January 17, 2011
Here is a wonderful little novel. Half Broke Horses is the story of Lilly Casey Smith and her family—her mother, Daisy Mae Casey; her father, Adam Casey; her sister Helen and brother Buster; her husband Big Jim Smith; their daughter Rosemarie and brother Little Jim. The two families were raised in Arizona and New Mexico in the early 1900s. They were dirt poor, but rich in heart, soul, smarts, savvy and perseverance.
Lily Casey is the central character. After having a fling at big city life in Chicago, where she was briefly married to a two-timing “crum bum” con man bigamist, Lily returns to her roots in Arizona. She meets Big Jim, and the two of them set out raising horses and cattle on a ranch near Flagstaff. The Great Depression wipes them out, but through luck and reputation, Jim is hired on to manage one of the largest ranches in Arizona, owned by investors from England. The land is high and dry, and lacks one crucial ingredient essential to making the ranch a successful operation—water. Big Jim and Lily solve that need with ingenuity, and they are off and running.
Lily learns early on that being a member of the fairer sex should be no impediment to living a full and worthwhile life. She becomes an accomplished horsewoman, a teacher, a college graduate, an aviator, as well as a gun toting mama that will put up with no nonsense from those trying to take advantage of her.
She and Jim have two children, a boy and a girl, who both love the open air, the horses, the cattle, and the ranching life. Rosemarie is an apple fallen from her mother’s tree—wild, sassy and unpredictable.
When war comes to Britain, the investors decide to sell the ranch to concentrate on war production back home. The family looses their beloved ranch before they can amass enough funds to buy a portion of it. They move to the big city, Phoenix, where they live for close to a decade in unhappiness, before returning to the wide open spaces in the northeast corner of the State.
The book is filled with adventure, tragedy, and lessons in life and living. It is simply written, but beautiful in that simplicity. Thus no wonder that is has remained on the best seller lists for close to two years.
I highly recommend it for a quick, leisurely read, akin to being on one of Lily’s horses and riding on forever through that beautiful high grazing pastureland that seems never to end.
Here is a wonderful little novel. Half Broke Horses is the story of Lilly Casey Smith and her family—her mother, Daisy Mae Casey; her father, Adam Casey; her sister Helen and brother Buster; her husband Big Jim Smith; their daughter Rosemarie and brother Little Jim. The two families were raised in Arizona and New Mexico in the early 1900s. They were dirt poor, but rich in heart, soul, smarts, savvy and perseverance.
Lily Casey is the central character. After having a fling at big city life in Chicago, where she was briefly married to a two-timing “crum bum” con man bigamist, Lily returns to her roots in Arizona. She meets Big Jim, and the two of them set out raising horses and cattle on a ranch near Flagstaff. The Great Depression wipes them out, but through luck and reputation, Jim is hired on to manage one of the largest ranches in Arizona, owned by investors from England. The land is high and dry, and lacks one crucial ingredient essential to making the ranch a successful operation—water. Big Jim and Lily solve that need with ingenuity, and they are off and running.
Lily learns early on that being a member of the fairer sex should be no impediment to living a full and worthwhile life. She becomes an accomplished horsewoman, a teacher, a college graduate, an aviator, as well as a gun toting mama that will put up with no nonsense from those trying to take advantage of her.
She and Jim have two children, a boy and a girl, who both love the open air, the horses, the cattle, and the ranching life. Rosemarie is an apple fallen from her mother’s tree—wild, sassy and unpredictable.
When war comes to Britain, the investors decide to sell the ranch to concentrate on war production back home. The family looses their beloved ranch before they can amass enough funds to buy a portion of it. They move to the big city, Phoenix, where they live for close to a decade in unhappiness, before returning to the wide open spaces in the northeast corner of the State.
The book is filled with adventure, tragedy, and lessons in life and living. It is simply written, but beautiful in that simplicity. Thus no wonder that is has remained on the best seller lists for close to two years.
I highly recommend it for a quick, leisurely read, akin to being on one of Lily’s horses and riding on forever through that beautiful high grazing pastureland that seems never to end.
Friday, January 14, 2011
COMMENTARY--THE POLITICS DIVIDING US
by Bill Breakstone, January 14, 2011
Paul Krugman, in his NY Times op-ed this morning, really gets down to the basics in the Nation’s political debate. He points out that despite President Obama’s call for renewed civility between the opposing sides of our ideological and political debate, America is a deeply divided Nation. He states:
“And the real challenge we face is not how to resolve our differences—something that won’t happen any time soon — but how to keep the expression of those differences within bounds.
What are the differences I’m talking about?
One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state —a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net—morally superior to the capitalism we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.
The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.”
Those differences are at the heart of the divide. Krugman is talking about a basic political philosophy. But the divide exists on more practical issues as well. One is directly related to the tragic events of last weekend in Tucson—gun control. On one side, there are those who cite the second amendment’s constitutional guarantee of the right to bear arms. They defend that right with the certitude that it means life or death for American liberties. On the other side are those who argue that second amendment rights must be tempered by the advanced weapon technologies and mental instability of so many people in this modern age. They point out the numerous mass killings that have occurred in America over the past decade and ask “how many more innocent lives must be sacrificed in order to insure a constitutional right that was written into our Constitution over 200 years ago, at a time when such weapons did not exist?”
Krugman boils the issue down to another key element which is hotly debated among our populace—the role of government in regulating the society. He sees one side taking the position that “much of what the modern federal government does is illegitimate; the other side does not.”
He then compares our divisive politics to the debate over abortion rights:
“In a way, politics as a whole now resembles the longstanding politics of abortion—a subject that puts fundamental values at odds, in which each side believes that the other side is morally in the wrong. Almost 38 years have passed since Roe v. Wade, and this dispute is no closer to resolution.
Yet we have, for the most part, managed to agree on certain ground rules in the abortion controversy: it’s acceptable to express your opinion and to criticize the other side, but it’s not acceptable either to engage in violence or to encourage others to do so.
What we need now is an extension of those ground rules to the wider national debate. . . . . . We need to have leaders of both parties—or Mr. Obama alone if necessary—declare that both violence and any language hinting at the acceptability of violence are out of bounds. We all want reconciliation, but the road to that goal begins with an agreement that our differences will be settled by the rule of law.”
All well and true, but there is a dire need for things to change less the tragedies are to be repeated again and again. And more than attitudes need changing. Though one side abhors governmental regulations, how are we to prevent Tucson from happening again without them?
Paul Krugman, in his NY Times op-ed this morning, really gets down to the basics in the Nation’s political debate. He points out that despite President Obama’s call for renewed civility between the opposing sides of our ideological and political debate, America is a deeply divided Nation. He states:
“And the real challenge we face is not how to resolve our differences—something that won’t happen any time soon — but how to keep the expression of those differences within bounds.
What are the differences I’m talking about?
One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state —a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net—morally superior to the capitalism we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.
The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.”
Those differences are at the heart of the divide. Krugman is talking about a basic political philosophy. But the divide exists on more practical issues as well. One is directly related to the tragic events of last weekend in Tucson—gun control. On one side, there are those who cite the second amendment’s constitutional guarantee of the right to bear arms. They defend that right with the certitude that it means life or death for American liberties. On the other side are those who argue that second amendment rights must be tempered by the advanced weapon technologies and mental instability of so many people in this modern age. They point out the numerous mass killings that have occurred in America over the past decade and ask “how many more innocent lives must be sacrificed in order to insure a constitutional right that was written into our Constitution over 200 years ago, at a time when such weapons did not exist?”
Krugman boils the issue down to another key element which is hotly debated among our populace—the role of government in regulating the society. He sees one side taking the position that “much of what the modern federal government does is illegitimate; the other side does not.”
He then compares our divisive politics to the debate over abortion rights:
“In a way, politics as a whole now resembles the longstanding politics of abortion—a subject that puts fundamental values at odds, in which each side believes that the other side is morally in the wrong. Almost 38 years have passed since Roe v. Wade, and this dispute is no closer to resolution.
Yet we have, for the most part, managed to agree on certain ground rules in the abortion controversy: it’s acceptable to express your opinion and to criticize the other side, but it’s not acceptable either to engage in violence or to encourage others to do so.
What we need now is an extension of those ground rules to the wider national debate. . . . . . We need to have leaders of both parties—or Mr. Obama alone if necessary—declare that both violence and any language hinting at the acceptability of violence are out of bounds. We all want reconciliation, but the road to that goal begins with an agreement that our differences will be settled by the rule of law.”
All well and true, but there is a dire need for things to change less the tragedies are to be repeated again and again. And more than attitudes need changing. Though one side abhors governmental regulations, how are we to prevent Tucson from happening again without them?
Thursday, January 13, 2011
BOOK REVIEW--"DEAD OR ALIVE" by Tom Clancy
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, January 12, 2011
Tom Clancy’s latest novel, “Dead or Alive,” is a 950-page monster, his 14th in a series that began with his classic “Hunt for Red October,” published way back in 1984. I’ve read 13 of these books, all but “Teeth of the Tiger,” and enjoyed them all. My last Clancy read was in 2000, thus it was a pleasure to return to most of the old characters, with a few new ones tossed in.
Dead or Alive is a complicated, many-layered tale of terrorism and the intelligence efforts to thwart a plot that if successful would send the United States back to the dark ages.
The terrorists are led by The Emir, a Saudi Arabian by birth, and a direct duplicate of our own Osama bin Laden. He has formulated plans to strike at six international targets, the final masterstroke being a nuclear attack on a facility near the West Coast.
Working to solve this complicated terrorist puzzle are the personnel of “The Campus,” a compilation of clandestine intelligence assets organized by former President Jack Ryan, to which his former spooks John Clark and Domingo Chavez have recently been recruited. Also on board is Ryan’s son, Jack, Jr, who has inherited all of his father’s intuition and skills in the intelligence community.
Despite its massive size, Dead or Alive is a fast and thrilling read, though perhaps not for those squeamish at heart. There is violence galore, chases, counterplots, and tales of tragedy and courage. And, there will no doubt be a sequel, which will be more political in nature. Now that is something to look forward to!
Tom Clancy’s latest novel, “Dead or Alive,” is a 950-page monster, his 14th in a series that began with his classic “Hunt for Red October,” published way back in 1984. I’ve read 13 of these books, all but “Teeth of the Tiger,” and enjoyed them all. My last Clancy read was in 2000, thus it was a pleasure to return to most of the old characters, with a few new ones tossed in.
Dead or Alive is a complicated, many-layered tale of terrorism and the intelligence efforts to thwart a plot that if successful would send the United States back to the dark ages.
The terrorists are led by The Emir, a Saudi Arabian by birth, and a direct duplicate of our own Osama bin Laden. He has formulated plans to strike at six international targets, the final masterstroke being a nuclear attack on a facility near the West Coast.
Working to solve this complicated terrorist puzzle are the personnel of “The Campus,” a compilation of clandestine intelligence assets organized by former President Jack Ryan, to which his former spooks John Clark and Domingo Chavez have recently been recruited. Also on board is Ryan’s son, Jack, Jr, who has inherited all of his father’s intuition and skills in the intelligence community.
Despite its massive size, Dead or Alive is a fast and thrilling read, though perhaps not for those squeamish at heart. There is violence galore, chases, counterplots, and tales of tragedy and courage. And, there will no doubt be a sequel, which will be more political in nature. Now that is something to look forward to!
Sunday, January 9, 2011
COMMENTARY--WHY IS JOB CREATION STILL LAGGING WHILE CORPORATE EARNINGS ARE SOARING?
by Bill Breakstone, January 9, 2011
Today’s New York Times Week In Review Section carries an intriguing article by Michael Powell addressing the question posed in the title of this Commentary. The entire article is well worth a read. Here are some highlights:
“To gaze upon the world of American corporations is to see a sunny place of terrific profits and princely bonuses. American businesses reported that third-quarter profits in 2010 rose at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion, the steepest annual surge since officials began tracking such matters 60 years ago. It was the seventh consecutive quarter in which corporate profits climbed.
Staring at such balance sheets, you might almost forget that much of the nation lives under slate-gray fiscal skies, a place of 9.4 percent unemployment and record levels of foreclosures and indebtedness.
And therein lies the enduring mystery of this Great Recession and Not So Great Recovery: Why have corporate profits (and that market thermometer, the Dow) spiked even as 15 million Americans remain mired in unemployment, a number without precedent since the Great Depression? Employment tends to lag a touch behind profit growth, but history offers few parallels to what is happening today.
“Usually the business cycle is a rising-and-falling, all-boats-together phenomenon,” noted J. Bradford DeLong, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a deputy assistant secretary for economic policy in the Clinton Treasury Department. “It’s quite a puzzle when you have this disjunction between profits on the one hand and unemployment.”
A search for answers leads in several directions. The bulls’ explanation, heard with more frequency these days, has the virtue of being straightforward: corporate profits are the economy’s pressure cooker, building and building toward an explosive burst that will lead to much hiring next year.
The December jobs numbers suggest that that moment has yet to arrive, as the nation added just 103,000 jobs, or less than the number needed to keep pace with population growth. The leisure industry and hospitals accounted for 83,000 jobs; large corporations added a tiny fraction.
But relatively few economists, even those who see signs of an improving economy, sound particularly buoyant, a concern shared by liberals and conservatives alike. Jobless recoveries followed on the heels of the last two recessions, but neither prefigured the depth of the trouble this time. After the 1990-91 recession, it took 23 months to add back the jobs lost. After the 2001 recession, it took 38 months. (And it’s worth keeping in mind that one of the great housing and credit bubbles in American history fed that hiring; no economist expects that to repeat itself).
At the current rate, the economy will need 72 to 90 months to recapture the jobs lost during the Great Recession. And that does not account for the five million jobs needed to keep pace with a growing population.
None of this has slowed the unprecedented rise in corporate profits. The reasons are many.
Many American-based corporations earn a great portion of their profits overseas. And thanks to porous tax laws, these companies return fewer of those profits to American shores than in the past.
“The big American companies are really global,” said Robert Reich, former labor secretary for President Clinton. “They can show big profits from foreign sales. G.M. is making more Buicks overseas than in the United States. There’s no special pop for the United States worker.”
Key corporate sectors, too, have undergone a Darwinian pruning during the last three years. In the financial arena, a few hyper profitable firms now stand where many more once stood.
“If you’re Goldman and Morgan Chase, and you once had to compete against Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch, well, of course it’s easier now to show a profit,” said Daniel Alpert, managing partner of Westwood Capital L.L.C., an investment banking firm. “If you have a modest reduction in expenses, and an industry consolidation at the same time, that translates into a massive increase in earnings.”
Surviving corporate leaders drew sobering lessons from their near-death experience of 2008 and 2009, when brand-name corporations nearly ran short of the cash needed to meet payrolls.
“They found the financial system was nowhere near as safe as they thought — they no longer think they can borrow as quickly,” said Simon H. Johnson, an economics professor at M.I.T. and former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund. “So the amount of cash that they think they should have for precautionary purposes is way up.”
Desmond Lachman, a former managing director at Salomon Smith Barney who now serves as a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy center, sees corporate leaders reshaping their worlds.
“Corporations are taking huge advantage of the slack in the labor market — they are in a very strong position and workers are in a very weak position,” he said. “They are using that bargaining power to cut benefits and wages, and to shorten hours.” That strategy, Mr. Lachman said, serves corporate and shareholder imperatives, but “very much jeopardizes our chances of experiencing a real recovery.”
He’s not terribly impressed. Profits for these companies “repeatedly topped 12 percent in the 1950s and 1960s,” he writes. But in the third quarter of 2010, this sector’s share of national income stood at 7.03 percent.
Market bulls applauded in November when the Conference Board revealed that consumer confidence was on the rise. But David Rosenberg, an economist at the investment firm Gluskin Sheff, noted that this increase owed entirely to the optimism of higher-income Americans, who are feeling better and better.
The housing market, by contrast, created millions of middle-class jobs and accounted for much of the wealth creation of the past decade. But that sector remains nearly comatose.
“I don’t see a pop in corporate hiring, because why should they hurry?” said Professor Johnson, the former International Monetary Fund economist. “They are paying themselves well and with demand so low, they don’t feel they are missing out on anything.”
What does all this mean? The Obama Administration and the Federal Reserve deny that our unemployment problems have become structural. However, if it is going to take 7-1/2 years before the unemployment rate reaches an acceptable number, near full-employment, these denials do not ring true.
Today’s New York Times Week In Review Section carries an intriguing article by Michael Powell addressing the question posed in the title of this Commentary. The entire article is well worth a read. Here are some highlights:
“To gaze upon the world of American corporations is to see a sunny place of terrific profits and princely bonuses. American businesses reported that third-quarter profits in 2010 rose at an annual rate of $1.659 trillion, the steepest annual surge since officials began tracking such matters 60 years ago. It was the seventh consecutive quarter in which corporate profits climbed.
Staring at such balance sheets, you might almost forget that much of the nation lives under slate-gray fiscal skies, a place of 9.4 percent unemployment and record levels of foreclosures and indebtedness.
And therein lies the enduring mystery of this Great Recession and Not So Great Recovery: Why have corporate profits (and that market thermometer, the Dow) spiked even as 15 million Americans remain mired in unemployment, a number without precedent since the Great Depression? Employment tends to lag a touch behind profit growth, but history offers few parallels to what is happening today.
“Usually the business cycle is a rising-and-falling, all-boats-together phenomenon,” noted J. Bradford DeLong, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a deputy assistant secretary for economic policy in the Clinton Treasury Department. “It’s quite a puzzle when you have this disjunction between profits on the one hand and unemployment.”
A search for answers leads in several directions. The bulls’ explanation, heard with more frequency these days, has the virtue of being straightforward: corporate profits are the economy’s pressure cooker, building and building toward an explosive burst that will lead to much hiring next year.
The December jobs numbers suggest that that moment has yet to arrive, as the nation added just 103,000 jobs, or less than the number needed to keep pace with population growth. The leisure industry and hospitals accounted for 83,000 jobs; large corporations added a tiny fraction.
But relatively few economists, even those who see signs of an improving economy, sound particularly buoyant, a concern shared by liberals and conservatives alike. Jobless recoveries followed on the heels of the last two recessions, but neither prefigured the depth of the trouble this time. After the 1990-91 recession, it took 23 months to add back the jobs lost. After the 2001 recession, it took 38 months. (And it’s worth keeping in mind that one of the great housing and credit bubbles in American history fed that hiring; no economist expects that to repeat itself).
At the current rate, the economy will need 72 to 90 months to recapture the jobs lost during the Great Recession. And that does not account for the five million jobs needed to keep pace with a growing population.
None of this has slowed the unprecedented rise in corporate profits. The reasons are many.
Many American-based corporations earn a great portion of their profits overseas. And thanks to porous tax laws, these companies return fewer of those profits to American shores than in the past.
“The big American companies are really global,” said Robert Reich, former labor secretary for President Clinton. “They can show big profits from foreign sales. G.M. is making more Buicks overseas than in the United States. There’s no special pop for the United States worker.”
Key corporate sectors, too, have undergone a Darwinian pruning during the last three years. In the financial arena, a few hyper profitable firms now stand where many more once stood.
“If you’re Goldman and Morgan Chase, and you once had to compete against Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch, well, of course it’s easier now to show a profit,” said Daniel Alpert, managing partner of Westwood Capital L.L.C., an investment banking firm. “If you have a modest reduction in expenses, and an industry consolidation at the same time, that translates into a massive increase in earnings.”
Surviving corporate leaders drew sobering lessons from their near-death experience of 2008 and 2009, when brand-name corporations nearly ran short of the cash needed to meet payrolls.
“They found the financial system was nowhere near as safe as they thought — they no longer think they can borrow as quickly,” said Simon H. Johnson, an economics professor at M.I.T. and former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund. “So the amount of cash that they think they should have for precautionary purposes is way up.”
Desmond Lachman, a former managing director at Salomon Smith Barney who now serves as a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative policy center, sees corporate leaders reshaping their worlds.
“Corporations are taking huge advantage of the slack in the labor market — they are in a very strong position and workers are in a very weak position,” he said. “They are using that bargaining power to cut benefits and wages, and to shorten hours.” That strategy, Mr. Lachman said, serves corporate and shareholder imperatives, but “very much jeopardizes our chances of experiencing a real recovery.”
He’s not terribly impressed. Profits for these companies “repeatedly topped 12 percent in the 1950s and 1960s,” he writes. But in the third quarter of 2010, this sector’s share of national income stood at 7.03 percent.
Market bulls applauded in November when the Conference Board revealed that consumer confidence was on the rise. But David Rosenberg, an economist at the investment firm Gluskin Sheff, noted that this increase owed entirely to the optimism of higher-income Americans, who are feeling better and better.
The housing market, by contrast, created millions of middle-class jobs and accounted for much of the wealth creation of the past decade. But that sector remains nearly comatose.
“I don’t see a pop in corporate hiring, because why should they hurry?” said Professor Johnson, the former International Monetary Fund economist. “They are paying themselves well and with demand so low, they don’t feel they are missing out on anything.”
What does all this mean? The Obama Administration and the Federal Reserve deny that our unemployment problems have become structural. However, if it is going to take 7-1/2 years before the unemployment rate reaches an acceptable number, near full-employment, these denials do not ring true.
Friday, January 7, 2011
COMMENTARY--A LICENSE TO STEAL
by Bill Breakstone, January 7, 2011
The drug colchicine has been in use as a treatment for gout “flare ups” for over 50 years. Its entry into the drug market predated the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration; thus colchicine existed as an unapproved product, not a generic drug.
In July of 2009, the drug company URL Pharma, a division of AR Scientific, Inc., received formal approval from the FDA for their drug “Colcrys.” I have a bottle of this drug, and the label indicates that its only ingredient is “colchicine.”
During the first week of October 2010, the FDA announced that it was ordering unapproved colchizine products off the market, and that it was granting exclusivity to URL Pharma’s Colcrys for a three year period, commencing on January 1, 2011.
The Senior Editor of the online news service MedPage Today, John Gever, wrote the following on October 6, 2010:
“With last week's announcement by the FDA that it was ordering unapproved colchicine products off the market, the year-old debate over the agency's handling of the popular gout treatment has flared anew.
The wisdom of granting periods of marketing exclusivity to the maker of Colcrys, the sole approved form of colchicine, was debated in the letters section of the Oct. 7 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine by two top FDA officials and two physicians at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
And the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) reiterated concerns first expressed in 2009 about price hikes associated with the approval of Colcrys and the impending removal of much cheaper unbranded colchicine products.
The FDA's action against the unapproved products has been expected since URL Pharma received formal approval of Colcrys in July 2009.
At the time, the FDA indicated that makers of other, unapproved colchicine products would either have to submit marketing applications or take their products off the market. It cited a decades-old policy requiring that the safety and efficacy of drugs that were on the market in the 1950s, when the agency won full authority to regulate them, would eventually have to be proven. There were dozens of such drugs, including colchicine.
That requirement was largely ignored until 2006, when the FDA began to crack down on some of these "grandfathered" drugs, such as hydrocodone-containing cough syrups.
Under the stricter policy adopted in 2006 and backed up by legislation enacted by Congress, the agency indicated that it would provide incentives for companies to submit marketing applications for drugs in the targeted classes.
Specifically, the FDA would grant three years of marketing exclusivity to the first company to receive a formal approval, or seven years if the drug was for an orphan disease.
The agency also indicated in a guidance document that it would ordinarily wait one year after granting an approval before taking action against unapproved products. That, the FDA argued, would give their manufacturers a chance to submit their own applications or take steps to wind down production and inform customers in an orderly way.
In June, Aaron Kesselheim, MD, and Daniel H. Solomon, MD, published a letter in the NEJM berating the FDA for the negative impact that patients with gout and familial Mediterranean fever would suffer as a result of this policy as applied to colchicines. Colcrys has three years of exclusivity in treatment of acute gout flares and seven years for familial Mediterranean fever, an orphan disease. The drug is also approved for preventing flares, with no exclusivity. Whereas the unapproved products cost around 10 cents a pill, Colcrys comes with a sticker price of nearly $5a pill, Kesselheim and Solomon wrote."
I personally have plenty of experience with both gout as a disease and drugs that are used in treatment thereof, a malady that I have suffered from for the past ten years. I have taken up to this point two medications: colchicine and allopuranol, and since beginning the course of using both of these drugs, have not suffered one flare up of gout.
However, when I ordered a refill of colchicine the other day, the pharmacist informed me that the drug had been “pulled” by the FDA and that she would substitute the new FDA approved medication. When I noticed the price thereof, I went through the roof! Colchecine had cost me roughly $5.00 per refill. This new medication, Colcrys, ran me $82.00!
The FDA denies any responsibility for the pricing or cost of any of its approved medications. They maintain their sole responsibility is insuring the safety of the products it approves. They also claim that the enabling legislation regarding its “crackdown” on unapproved substances put them in the proverbial straight jacket. This argument is pure bunk. If the effect of granting exclusivity to a drug company is to increase the cost of a bottle from $9.00 to $485.00, what the FDA has done is issue a license to steal from the consumer, who faced with such outrageous costs, will forego a medication that had proved effective, safe, and affordable if used as instructed by physicians.
Letters will be going out to Senators Schumer and Gillibrand post haste.
For more information on this subject, see: (1) FDA New Release of September 30, 2010; (2) Letter from Drs. Kesselheim and Solomon to the FDA published in the June 2010 Issue of the New England Journal of Medicine; (3) Letter to Drs. Kesselheim and Solomon from Dr. Janet Woodcock of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services dated March 3, 2010; (4) New York Times article “Purging the Pharmacy of Unapproved Drugs” by Natasha Singer dated March 26, 2010; and (5) MedPage Today article “Controversy Over Colchicine Price Hikes” by John Gever dated October 6, 2010.
The drug colchicine has been in use as a treatment for gout “flare ups” for over 50 years. Its entry into the drug market predated the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration; thus colchicine existed as an unapproved product, not a generic drug.
In July of 2009, the drug company URL Pharma, a division of AR Scientific, Inc., received formal approval from the FDA for their drug “Colcrys.” I have a bottle of this drug, and the label indicates that its only ingredient is “colchicine.”
During the first week of October 2010, the FDA announced that it was ordering unapproved colchizine products off the market, and that it was granting exclusivity to URL Pharma’s Colcrys for a three year period, commencing on January 1, 2011.
The Senior Editor of the online news service MedPage Today, John Gever, wrote the following on October 6, 2010:
“With last week's announcement by the FDA that it was ordering unapproved colchicine products off the market, the year-old debate over the agency's handling of the popular gout treatment has flared anew.
The wisdom of granting periods of marketing exclusivity to the maker of Colcrys, the sole approved form of colchicine, was debated in the letters section of the Oct. 7 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine by two top FDA officials and two physicians at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
And the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) reiterated concerns first expressed in 2009 about price hikes associated with the approval of Colcrys and the impending removal of much cheaper unbranded colchicine products.
The FDA's action against the unapproved products has been expected since URL Pharma received formal approval of Colcrys in July 2009.
At the time, the FDA indicated that makers of other, unapproved colchicine products would either have to submit marketing applications or take their products off the market. It cited a decades-old policy requiring that the safety and efficacy of drugs that were on the market in the 1950s, when the agency won full authority to regulate them, would eventually have to be proven. There were dozens of such drugs, including colchicine.
That requirement was largely ignored until 2006, when the FDA began to crack down on some of these "grandfathered" drugs, such as hydrocodone-containing cough syrups.
Under the stricter policy adopted in 2006 and backed up by legislation enacted by Congress, the agency indicated that it would provide incentives for companies to submit marketing applications for drugs in the targeted classes.
Specifically, the FDA would grant three years of marketing exclusivity to the first company to receive a formal approval, or seven years if the drug was for an orphan disease.
The agency also indicated in a guidance document that it would ordinarily wait one year after granting an approval before taking action against unapproved products. That, the FDA argued, would give their manufacturers a chance to submit their own applications or take steps to wind down production and inform customers in an orderly way.
In June, Aaron Kesselheim, MD, and Daniel H. Solomon, MD, published a letter in the NEJM berating the FDA for the negative impact that patients with gout and familial Mediterranean fever would suffer as a result of this policy as applied to colchicines. Colcrys has three years of exclusivity in treatment of acute gout flares and seven years for familial Mediterranean fever, an orphan disease. The drug is also approved for preventing flares, with no exclusivity. Whereas the unapproved products cost around 10 cents a pill, Colcrys comes with a sticker price of nearly $5a pill, Kesselheim and Solomon wrote."
I personally have plenty of experience with both gout as a disease and drugs that are used in treatment thereof, a malady that I have suffered from for the past ten years. I have taken up to this point two medications: colchicine and allopuranol, and since beginning the course of using both of these drugs, have not suffered one flare up of gout.
However, when I ordered a refill of colchicine the other day, the pharmacist informed me that the drug had been “pulled” by the FDA and that she would substitute the new FDA approved medication. When I noticed the price thereof, I went through the roof! Colchecine had cost me roughly $5.00 per refill. This new medication, Colcrys, ran me $82.00!
The FDA denies any responsibility for the pricing or cost of any of its approved medications. They maintain their sole responsibility is insuring the safety of the products it approves. They also claim that the enabling legislation regarding its “crackdown” on unapproved substances put them in the proverbial straight jacket. This argument is pure bunk. If the effect of granting exclusivity to a drug company is to increase the cost of a bottle from $9.00 to $485.00, what the FDA has done is issue a license to steal from the consumer, who faced with such outrageous costs, will forego a medication that had proved effective, safe, and affordable if used as instructed by physicians.
Letters will be going out to Senators Schumer and Gillibrand post haste.
For more information on this subject, see: (1) FDA New Release of September 30, 2010; (2) Letter from Drs. Kesselheim and Solomon to the FDA published in the June 2010 Issue of the New England Journal of Medicine; (3) Letter to Drs. Kesselheim and Solomon from Dr. Janet Woodcock of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services dated March 3, 2010; (4) New York Times article “Purging the Pharmacy of Unapproved Drugs” by Natasha Singer dated March 26, 2010; and (5) MedPage Today article “Controversy Over Colchicine Price Hikes” by John Gever dated October 6, 2010.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
BOOK REVIEW--"Port Mortuary" by Patricia Cromwell
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, January 3, 2011
Port Mortuary is the latest novel in the Kay Scarpetta Series by Patricia Cromwell. The title refers to the Medical Examiner’s Office that receives (thus “port”) and autopsies victims of fatal accidents, natural deaths, combat mortalities (in the case of military “ports”, such as the one located at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware), and homicides. Scarpetta fans will not be disappointed by this latest installment, though I found it to be not among Cromwell’s best efforts.
The plot is complicated in the extreme, though not difficult to follow. The regular cast of characters is all present: Kay; her niece Lucy; her husband Benton Wesley; her old sidekick Pete Marino; and her assistant chief Jack Fielding. The literary problem is that they are all getting to be old hat, their actions and attitudes all too familiar and expected after approximately eight Scarpetta novels.
The crimes involved are centered around nanotechnology being developed by an experimental Boston-area laboratory that is partially funded by the United States government and military, and whose employees include scientific geniuses from nearby Harvard University and MIT. However, it is not until the last 75 pages of the novel that the true identity of the killer is revealed, and by that point any theories the reader may have of what’s behind the killings is blown out of the water.
My other objection is that the book is just too wordy, and the action almost non-existent. There is too much psychological analysis of the principal heroes and not enough narrative dealing with the crimes themselves. When the climax is reached near the end of the novel, it is too abrupt and lacking in narrative explaining the motivation of the killer.
All that being said, it was an enjoyable read, though the ending proved a major disappointment to this reader.
Port Mortuary is the latest novel in the Kay Scarpetta Series by Patricia Cromwell. The title refers to the Medical Examiner’s Office that receives (thus “port”) and autopsies victims of fatal accidents, natural deaths, combat mortalities (in the case of military “ports”, such as the one located at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware), and homicides. Scarpetta fans will not be disappointed by this latest installment, though I found it to be not among Cromwell’s best efforts.
The plot is complicated in the extreme, though not difficult to follow. The regular cast of characters is all present: Kay; her niece Lucy; her husband Benton Wesley; her old sidekick Pete Marino; and her assistant chief Jack Fielding. The literary problem is that they are all getting to be old hat, their actions and attitudes all too familiar and expected after approximately eight Scarpetta novels.
The crimes involved are centered around nanotechnology being developed by an experimental Boston-area laboratory that is partially funded by the United States government and military, and whose employees include scientific geniuses from nearby Harvard University and MIT. However, it is not until the last 75 pages of the novel that the true identity of the killer is revealed, and by that point any theories the reader may have of what’s behind the killings is blown out of the water.
My other objection is that the book is just too wordy, and the action almost non-existent. There is too much psychological analysis of the principal heroes and not enough narrative dealing with the crimes themselves. When the climax is reached near the end of the novel, it is too abrupt and lacking in narrative explaining the motivation of the killer.
All that being said, it was an enjoyable read, though the ending proved a major disappointment to this reader.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
BOOK REVIEW--"Safe Haven" by Nicholas Sparks
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, December 31, 2011
I picked up a copy of Nicholas Sparks’ new novel “Safe Haven” the other day. I had read two of his previous books and watched the latest movie adaptation of his “Last Song,” and found them all entertaining. When a literary friend asked me what I’m currently reading, I told her the latest Sparks novel. She asked me why I’m wasting my time reading such inconsequential writing, I said because it’s fun, and that we can’t always be absorbed with serious literature.
And fun is what this novel is all about. Sparks tells a good story, if not on the level of a John Grisham, and he tends too often to mix in a little of the supernatural, when it is not at all needed.
This tale is set in a small town in rural North Carolina, about three hours southeast of Raleigh. Alex Wheatley is a thirty-something- year-old widower, a father of two delightful young children, and the proprietor of a country store/restaurant/gas station who has his hands full between the kids and the business. Katie Feldman is a recent arrival from up north, a secretive but very attractive 29-year-old. The four become close friends, eventually entering a serious relationship. Katie has a disturbing past, including a marriage to an abusive husband from whom she has fled.
The novel details the developing trust between Alex, Katie, and the two children, and the consequences of Katie’s previous marriage. No need to divulge any more than these few glimpses of the story line, except to say that the book is more than a romance novel, and that it evolves into a real thriller.
I enjoyed the read very much. It was a pleasant diversion from government, economics and literary fiction. Just a good fun read. I heartily recommend it.
I picked up a copy of Nicholas Sparks’ new novel “Safe Haven” the other day. I had read two of his previous books and watched the latest movie adaptation of his “Last Song,” and found them all entertaining. When a literary friend asked me what I’m currently reading, I told her the latest Sparks novel. She asked me why I’m wasting my time reading such inconsequential writing, I said because it’s fun, and that we can’t always be absorbed with serious literature.
And fun is what this novel is all about. Sparks tells a good story, if not on the level of a John Grisham, and he tends too often to mix in a little of the supernatural, when it is not at all needed.
This tale is set in a small town in rural North Carolina, about three hours southeast of Raleigh. Alex Wheatley is a thirty-something- year-old widower, a father of two delightful young children, and the proprietor of a country store/restaurant/gas station who has his hands full between the kids and the business. Katie Feldman is a recent arrival from up north, a secretive but very attractive 29-year-old. The four become close friends, eventually entering a serious relationship. Katie has a disturbing past, including a marriage to an abusive husband from whom she has fled.
The novel details the developing trust between Alex, Katie, and the two children, and the consequences of Katie’s previous marriage. No need to divulge any more than these few glimpses of the story line, except to say that the book is more than a romance novel, and that it evolves into a real thriller.
I enjoyed the read very much. It was a pleasant diversion from government, economics and literary fiction. Just a good fun read. I heartily recommend it.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
BOOK REVIEW--HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET by Jamie Ford
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, December 29, 2010
"Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by Jamie Ford is one beautiful novel, a first-time effort by this author. It was published in 2009 and has been on The New York Times Bestseller Lists ever since. It is the story of a young Chinese-American growing up during World War II in Seattle, his relationships with his father and mother, a Japanese-American girlfriend, an Afro-American jazz player and best friend, his Chinese-American wife, and in his middle age, his son and daughter-in-law to be.
American society has several blemishes on its historical record. Its treatment of Native Americans was among the first, along with its exclusion of Afro-Americans from the guarantees extended to its other citizens under the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Likewise is the exclusion of women as equal partners in our Democracy. The novel focuses on another American human tragedy—the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War, and the heartbreaking effects it had on so many legal citizens.
However, the novel is not about moral injustices. It is a love story pure and simple, one to bring tears to all but the most cold-hearted reader. It is a tale of a young man, maturing within the confines of a traditional Chinese home, with its adherence to familial values and honor of elders, who must make decisions on his own, often against his parents’ wishes. It is about the young man’s love of a girl whose background is an anathema to his father, and the boy’s decision to go his own way and dedicate years of waiting to his love. And it is about loyalty, loyalty to those one loves and to a Country in the midst of war, even if that country imposes unjust limitations on its citizens.
It is a terrific yarn, beautifully written and full of surprises. Don’t miss this read!
"Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" by Jamie Ford is one beautiful novel, a first-time effort by this author. It was published in 2009 and has been on The New York Times Bestseller Lists ever since. It is the story of a young Chinese-American growing up during World War II in Seattle, his relationships with his father and mother, a Japanese-American girlfriend, an Afro-American jazz player and best friend, his Chinese-American wife, and in his middle age, his son and daughter-in-law to be.
American society has several blemishes on its historical record. Its treatment of Native Americans was among the first, along with its exclusion of Afro-Americans from the guarantees extended to its other citizens under the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Likewise is the exclusion of women as equal partners in our Democracy. The novel focuses on another American human tragedy—the internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War, and the heartbreaking effects it had on so many legal citizens.
However, the novel is not about moral injustices. It is a love story pure and simple, one to bring tears to all but the most cold-hearted reader. It is a tale of a young man, maturing within the confines of a traditional Chinese home, with its adherence to familial values and honor of elders, who must make decisions on his own, often against his parents’ wishes. It is about the young man’s love of a girl whose background is an anathema to his father, and the boy’s decision to go his own way and dedicate years of waiting to his love. And it is about loyalty, loyalty to those one loves and to a Country in the midst of war, even if that country imposes unjust limitations on its citizens.
It is a terrific yarn, beautifully written and full of surprises. Don’t miss this read!
Friday, December 24, 2010
BOOK REVIEW--THE LAST ECONOMIC SUPERPOWER by Joseph P. Quinlan
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, December 24, 2010
The Last Economic Superpower is a brand new economics book written by Joseph P. Quinlan, a Senior Fellow at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. It reinforces the vast economic impact that the Great Recession is having on the world’s economy.
The narrative begins by analyzing the two eras of economic globalization that took place since 1870. The first, beginning during the last three decades of the 19th Century, was marked by rapid global growth, robust trade, and strong cross border flows of investment. The economic leaders at that time were the United Kingdom, Germany and France. With the onset of World War I, that era of globalization came to an end, nor would it return after the War. World War II finally brought an end to The Great Depression, but both wars did massive damage to the world’s economy, and it was not until the 1950s that the developed nations were finally getting back on their feet.
The second era of globalization had its roots in the late 1960s. At that time, the U.S. dollar acted as the world’s reserve currency. It was backed by gold, “meaning that the United States was committed to exchanging gold for dollars at a fixed rate of $35 per ounce. The system worked as long as foreign claims matched the size of U.S. gold reserves. Late in the 1960s, however, the fixed exchange rate came under increasing strain. As Europe and Japan healed from the ravages of war, they made rising exports to the United States the key to their recovery, and as a result their dollar holdings gradually exceeded the U.S. stock of gold. This important shift, along with rising inflation, slowly eroded confidence in the U.S. dollar and America’s commitment to the Bretton Woods system. President Nixon capitulated in August 1971 by ‘closing the gold window,’ thereby effectively ending the Bretton Woods system.”
The new era of globalization began in the first part of the 1980s, as “the holy trinity of deregulation, privatization, and trade and investment liberalization raised world output, bolstered global trade and investment, and lifted millions out of poverty in India, China, and other developing nations.”
“As globalization blossomed over the last 25 years of the twentieth century, so did the economic superpower status of the United States . . . with the America taking the lead in designing, creating, and dominating the multilateral institutions governing the global economy. It was the United States, albeit with support from Europe and Japan, that largely set the rules of global economic engagement for the rest of the world in the last half century.” With the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the disintegration of the Soviet Union a few short years later, Democracy had triumphed over communism and free-market capitalism had trumped central planning. “The world had shifted from a bipolar world to a “unipolar” world, and the United States—the world’s lone superpower—unequivocally stood above the rest.”
During the 1990s, America’s economy, one that produced steady growth, low inflation, and booming asset prices, became once again the envy of the world. As Quinlan notes “the rest of the world jumped quickly on the bandwagon. A global consensus emerged around the notion that the best way to promote growth and create prosperity was through the embrace of free-market capitalism and its central tenets. This overriding assumption helped convince many emerging markets to embrace and pursue the ‘Made in America’ brand of globalization.”
The author then proceeds to discuss the build-up of bubbles in the U.S. economy that lead to the eventual collapse of the economy of the West. His writing is full of precise economic data and references to the many other excellent economic books that have been published over the past two-plus years. It makes the point that the Great Recession threw the world’s economic axis totally off kilter, placing the economic status of the United States and its European Union allies in grave danger. With the resulting decline of the West came the rise of “the Rest.” The Emerging Market nations, notably the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) now stand on an equal footing with the western economies. The United States is no longer in a dominant position. Indeed, with its huge debt problem, which is being financed for now by China, the West’s currencies are coming under increasing pressure from both China and the debt-rating agencies.
The final two chapters of the book discuss two possible future scenarios. The first foretells an end of globalization and a coming economic cold war. The second lays out the possibility of future era of economic cooperation between the West and the Rest, but one during which a new set of road rules will apply.
The Last Economic Superpower makes excellent reading for anyone interested in economics and global politics. If read along with Ian Bremmer’s excellent The End of the Free Market, it gives a whole new perspective to the future of the world’s economy.
The Last Economic Superpower is a brand new economics book written by Joseph P. Quinlan, a Senior Fellow at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. It reinforces the vast economic impact that the Great Recession is having on the world’s economy.
The narrative begins by analyzing the two eras of economic globalization that took place since 1870. The first, beginning during the last three decades of the 19th Century, was marked by rapid global growth, robust trade, and strong cross border flows of investment. The economic leaders at that time were the United Kingdom, Germany and France. With the onset of World War I, that era of globalization came to an end, nor would it return after the War. World War II finally brought an end to The Great Depression, but both wars did massive damage to the world’s economy, and it was not until the 1950s that the developed nations were finally getting back on their feet.
The second era of globalization had its roots in the late 1960s. At that time, the U.S. dollar acted as the world’s reserve currency. It was backed by gold, “meaning that the United States was committed to exchanging gold for dollars at a fixed rate of $35 per ounce. The system worked as long as foreign claims matched the size of U.S. gold reserves. Late in the 1960s, however, the fixed exchange rate came under increasing strain. As Europe and Japan healed from the ravages of war, they made rising exports to the United States the key to their recovery, and as a result their dollar holdings gradually exceeded the U.S. stock of gold. This important shift, along with rising inflation, slowly eroded confidence in the U.S. dollar and America’s commitment to the Bretton Woods system. President Nixon capitulated in August 1971 by ‘closing the gold window,’ thereby effectively ending the Bretton Woods system.”
The new era of globalization began in the first part of the 1980s, as “the holy trinity of deregulation, privatization, and trade and investment liberalization raised world output, bolstered global trade and investment, and lifted millions out of poverty in India, China, and other developing nations.”
“As globalization blossomed over the last 25 years of the twentieth century, so did the economic superpower status of the United States . . . with the America taking the lead in designing, creating, and dominating the multilateral institutions governing the global economy. It was the United States, albeit with support from Europe and Japan, that largely set the rules of global economic engagement for the rest of the world in the last half century.” With the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the disintegration of the Soviet Union a few short years later, Democracy had triumphed over communism and free-market capitalism had trumped central planning. “The world had shifted from a bipolar world to a “unipolar” world, and the United States—the world’s lone superpower—unequivocally stood above the rest.”
During the 1990s, America’s economy, one that produced steady growth, low inflation, and booming asset prices, became once again the envy of the world. As Quinlan notes “the rest of the world jumped quickly on the bandwagon. A global consensus emerged around the notion that the best way to promote growth and create prosperity was through the embrace of free-market capitalism and its central tenets. This overriding assumption helped convince many emerging markets to embrace and pursue the ‘Made in America’ brand of globalization.”
The author then proceeds to discuss the build-up of bubbles in the U.S. economy that lead to the eventual collapse of the economy of the West. His writing is full of precise economic data and references to the many other excellent economic books that have been published over the past two-plus years. It makes the point that the Great Recession threw the world’s economic axis totally off kilter, placing the economic status of the United States and its European Union allies in grave danger. With the resulting decline of the West came the rise of “the Rest.” The Emerging Market nations, notably the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) now stand on an equal footing with the western economies. The United States is no longer in a dominant position. Indeed, with its huge debt problem, which is being financed for now by China, the West’s currencies are coming under increasing pressure from both China and the debt-rating agencies.
The final two chapters of the book discuss two possible future scenarios. The first foretells an end of globalization and a coming economic cold war. The second lays out the possibility of future era of economic cooperation between the West and the Rest, but one during which a new set of road rules will apply.
The Last Economic Superpower makes excellent reading for anyone interested in economics and global politics. If read along with Ian Bremmer’s excellent The End of the Free Market, it gives a whole new perspective to the future of the world’s economy.
Monday, December 20, 2010
COMMENTARY--Bipartisanship--A Short-lived Mirage?
by Bill Breakstone, December 20, 2010
I caught a portion of Candy Crowley’s interview with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday morning on her CNN program “State of The Union.” McConnell announced he would vote against ratification of the New Start Treaty when the vote comes to the Senate floor later this week. He thus joins fellow Republican Senators John Kyl and Lindsey Graham in declaring they will not vote for the Treaty.
Although the Treaty was signed eight months ago, McConnell stated “rushing it right before Christmas, it strikes me as trying to jam us.” Graham said on “Face the Nation” on CBS “If you really want to have a chance of passing Start, you better start over and do it in the next Congress, because this lame duck has been poisoned.”
So the question is has bipartisanship flown out the window? It was so encouraging to see the Republican and Democratic leadership come together and agree to a compromise Tax Bill. Then “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” passed by a large majority that included a good number of Republicans. However, those few outspoken Senators who were against passage of that bill made such a noise that Senators like Graham, who previously was in favor of Start passage, now are against it. And they take that position despite the support of every living Secretary of State and former President.
As far as Senator McConnell stance is concerned, his reasoning flies in the face of reality. Was not eight months enough time for him to consider the merits of the Treaty?
Thus it looks like it’s back to business as usual in Washington. In other words, No Business!
I caught a portion of Candy Crowley’s interview with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday morning on her CNN program “State of The Union.” McConnell announced he would vote against ratification of the New Start Treaty when the vote comes to the Senate floor later this week. He thus joins fellow Republican Senators John Kyl and Lindsey Graham in declaring they will not vote for the Treaty.
Although the Treaty was signed eight months ago, McConnell stated “rushing it right before Christmas, it strikes me as trying to jam us.” Graham said on “Face the Nation” on CBS “If you really want to have a chance of passing Start, you better start over and do it in the next Congress, because this lame duck has been poisoned.”
So the question is has bipartisanship flown out the window? It was so encouraging to see the Republican and Democratic leadership come together and agree to a compromise Tax Bill. Then “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” passed by a large majority that included a good number of Republicans. However, those few outspoken Senators who were against passage of that bill made such a noise that Senators like Graham, who previously was in favor of Start passage, now are against it. And they take that position despite the support of every living Secretary of State and former President.
As far as Senator McConnell stance is concerned, his reasoning flies in the face of reality. Was not eight months enough time for him to consider the merits of the Treaty?
Thus it looks like it’s back to business as usual in Washington. In other words, No Business!
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
COMMENTARY--Richard Holbrooke
by Bill Breakstone, December 15, 2010
Richard Holbrooke was as fine a diplomat as any that ever served our Nation. He may have ruffled more than a few feathers, and may not have been an Obama Poster Boy. But he was one hell of a professional. He kept his advice to himself and to those who sought them. He was discreet, he was tough as nails, he was incredibly bright, and he was true with his friendships.
Holbrooke had perhaps the most difficult job in the State Department—dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan, and their duplicitous leaders. The leak published this morning about the Af-Pak Review due out tomorrow gives one just a brief glimpse of what Holbrooke was up against.
I noticed this morning on the bottom line during the “Morning Joe” program on MSNBC that Holbrooke’s final words before his operation, spoken on the operating table, were “You’ve got to get out of Afghanistan.” He was worried sick about the future conduct of the two wars, a feeling no doubt intensified by the review process under way. He must have known he would not be there when the final decisions were going to be made by the Administration over the coming weeks. Thus his ultimate advice, aimed undoubtedly at Obama, Clinton, and the National Security team.
May Richard Holbrooke now rest in peace, assured that he had done his duty and served his Country to the best of his considerable abilities.
Richard Holbrooke was as fine a diplomat as any that ever served our Nation. He may have ruffled more than a few feathers, and may not have been an Obama Poster Boy. But he was one hell of a professional. He kept his advice to himself and to those who sought them. He was discreet, he was tough as nails, he was incredibly bright, and he was true with his friendships.
Holbrooke had perhaps the most difficult job in the State Department—dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan, and their duplicitous leaders. The leak published this morning about the Af-Pak Review due out tomorrow gives one just a brief glimpse of what Holbrooke was up against.
I noticed this morning on the bottom line during the “Morning Joe” program on MSNBC that Holbrooke’s final words before his operation, spoken on the operating table, were “You’ve got to get out of Afghanistan.” He was worried sick about the future conduct of the two wars, a feeling no doubt intensified by the review process under way. He must have known he would not be there when the final decisions were going to be made by the Administration over the coming weeks. Thus his ultimate advice, aimed undoubtedly at Obama, Clinton, and the National Security team.
May Richard Holbrooke now rest in peace, assured that he had done his duty and served his Country to the best of his considerable abilities.
Monday, December 13, 2010
SINS OF THE FATHERS
by Bill Breakstone, December 13, 2010
“The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.”
EURIPIDES (484-406 BC), Phrixus
An American tragedy played out in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 11th. Bernie Madoff’s 46 year-old son, Mark, committed suicide in his SOHO apartment on the two-year anniversary of his father’s arrest, with his two-year-old son sleeping in the next room. He had sent numerous E-Mails to his wife Stephanie, who was vacationing with her four-year-old daughter at Disney World in Florida, asking her to look after his son. She had called her father, who went to the apartment and found the body of Mr. Madoff.
In an article in yesterday’s Washington Post, the Madoff’s attorney, Martin Flumenbaum was quoted as saying “How ironic it is . . . to blame the very two individuals [Mark Madoff and his brother Andrew] who uncovered and reported the fraud, saving the state more than $170 million, for not uncovering it sooner. Mark and Andrew had no prior knowledge of their father’s crimes and contacted the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC immediately after their father told them he had defrauded his investment advisory clients.”
The Post went on to say that “law enforcement officials said Sunday that they had no direct contact with either of the brothers or with Bernard Madoff’s brother, Peter, in the last year, and said no charges were imminent. . . . In February, Mark Madoff’s wife petitioned a court to change her last name and the last names of their two children, saying her family had gotten threats and was humiliated by the scandal.”
The New York Times quoted Mr. Flumenbaum as stating that his client was “an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo.” The paper said that “charges have not been filed against any of the immediate family members, and their lawyer has said publicly that neither Mark Madoff nor his brother has ever been notified by prosecutors that they were the subjects of a criminal investigation.”
Dozens of lawsuits had been filed in recent weeks by Madoff Trustee Irving Picard. Just last Wednesday, he included the brothers as defendants in an $80 million lawsuit he brought against the London-based international arm of Madoff’s business. Mr. Picard was quoted by The Post as saying on Saturday that “This is a tragic development and my sympathy goes out to Mark Madoff’s family.”
Nevertheless, the Madoff Trustees wanted their pound of flesh, and they got just that and more—165 pounds all told. Tragic indeed!
Madoff’s suicide will leave many unanswered questions about the family’s involvement in the scandal. But the fact is, as noted above, there were no standing criminal charges, nor any pending. It is difficult for believers in fair play and judicial principles not to feel sympathy for the remaining family members, especially Stephanie Madoff and her two young children.
As Euripides wrote: “The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.” Indeed!
“The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.”
EURIPIDES (484-406 BC), Phrixus
An American tragedy played out in the early morning hours of Saturday, December 11th. Bernie Madoff’s 46 year-old son, Mark, committed suicide in his SOHO apartment on the two-year anniversary of his father’s arrest, with his two-year-old son sleeping in the next room. He had sent numerous E-Mails to his wife Stephanie, who was vacationing with her four-year-old daughter at Disney World in Florida, asking her to look after his son. She had called her father, who went to the apartment and found the body of Mr. Madoff.
In an article in yesterday’s Washington Post, the Madoff’s attorney, Martin Flumenbaum was quoted as saying “How ironic it is . . . to blame the very two individuals [Mark Madoff and his brother Andrew] who uncovered and reported the fraud, saving the state more than $170 million, for not uncovering it sooner. Mark and Andrew had no prior knowledge of their father’s crimes and contacted the U.S. Department of Justice and the SEC immediately after their father told them he had defrauded his investment advisory clients.”
The Post went on to say that “law enforcement officials said Sunday that they had no direct contact with either of the brothers or with Bernard Madoff’s brother, Peter, in the last year, and said no charges were imminent. . . . In February, Mark Madoff’s wife petitioned a court to change her last name and the last names of their two children, saying her family had gotten threats and was humiliated by the scandal.”
The New York Times quoted Mr. Flumenbaum as stating that his client was “an innocent victim of his father’s monstrous crime who succumbed to two years of unrelenting pressure from false accusations and innuendo.” The paper said that “charges have not been filed against any of the immediate family members, and their lawyer has said publicly that neither Mark Madoff nor his brother has ever been notified by prosecutors that they were the subjects of a criminal investigation.”
Dozens of lawsuits had been filed in recent weeks by Madoff Trustee Irving Picard. Just last Wednesday, he included the brothers as defendants in an $80 million lawsuit he brought against the London-based international arm of Madoff’s business. Mr. Picard was quoted by The Post as saying on Saturday that “This is a tragic development and my sympathy goes out to Mark Madoff’s family.”
Nevertheless, the Madoff Trustees wanted their pound of flesh, and they got just that and more—165 pounds all told. Tragic indeed!
Madoff’s suicide will leave many unanswered questions about the family’s involvement in the scandal. But the fact is, as noted above, there were no standing criminal charges, nor any pending. It is difficult for believers in fair play and judicial principles not to feel sympathy for the remaining family members, especially Stephanie Madoff and her two young children.
As Euripides wrote: “The gods visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.” Indeed!
Thursday, December 9, 2010
POLITICAL COMMENTARY--DEMOCRATS ENDANGERING TAX COMPROMISE
by Bill Breakstone, December 8, 2010
President Obama deserves the Nation’s thanks for working with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and coming up with a compromise on the extension of the Bush tax cuts (“the Compromise”). Instead, he has become the target of left-wing whiners from within his own Party, who prefer to stand on principle like academics in an ivory tower while the country continues to suffer the effects of the worst recession since the Great Depression. In doing so, they are endangering the welfare of over 2 million unemployed, and tax breaks that may spur the economy to renewed growth and increased hires.
The actions of these misguided Representatives and Senators mirrors those of the Republicans over the past two years—putting ideology and self-interest above the common good—and is yet another example of why the American public is so fed up with practically all politicians.
Neither the Obama Administration nor the Republican leadership was happy with everything in the “Compromise,” and both have stated so. But that’s what a compromise is all about. Both parties achieved some of their objectives and both had to back away from a few of their principles. Those Democrats that can not support their President on this should go back to their states, head for the nearest church, and beg for the Good Lord’s forgiveness.
President Obama deserves the Nation’s thanks for working with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and coming up with a compromise on the extension of the Bush tax cuts (“the Compromise”). Instead, he has become the target of left-wing whiners from within his own Party, who prefer to stand on principle like academics in an ivory tower while the country continues to suffer the effects of the worst recession since the Great Depression. In doing so, they are endangering the welfare of over 2 million unemployed, and tax breaks that may spur the economy to renewed growth and increased hires.
The actions of these misguided Representatives and Senators mirrors those of the Republicans over the past two years—putting ideology and self-interest above the common good—and is yet another example of why the American public is so fed up with practically all politicians.
Neither the Obama Administration nor the Republican leadership was happy with everything in the “Compromise,” and both have stated so. But that’s what a compromise is all about. Both parties achieved some of their objectives and both had to back away from a few of their principles. Those Democrats that can not support their President on this should go back to their states, head for the nearest church, and beg for the Good Lord’s forgiveness.
BOOK REVIEW--"UNBROKEN" by Laura Hillenbrand
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, December 8, 2010
In May of 1943, a B-24 Liberator nicknamed Green Hornet took off from an airfield in Hawaii on a search and rescue mission for another bomber that had gone missing on a flight to Australia. Green Hornet was never heard from again, and despite a thorough week-long search, no trace of the lost Liberator was ever found.
The bombardier on Green Hornet was Lt. Louis Zamperini, affectionately known as “Zamp.” He and two others had miraculously survived the crash from a bomber with a reputation that caused fellow airmen to call it a flying coffin. The three Army Air Corps flyers drifted the currents for forty seven days, surviving steaming days and freezing nights, with no food or water, and virtually no rescue kit. In addition to physical exhaustion and malnutrition, the men had to deal with the constancy of circling sharks.
“Unbroken” is the story of these men’s ordeals, both raft-borne on the Pacific, and in Japanese prison camps on Pacific Islands and on the outskirts of Tokyo and northern Honshu. The brutality of the majority of the prison guards was practically indescribable, but one in particular, known as “The Bird,” was brutal beyond imagination, and his prime target for close to two years was Louie Zamperini.
Laura Hillenbrand is the author of the 2003 best-seller “Seabiscuit,” a brilliant and inspiring book about the famous race horse and the people who remained faithful to the potential of what was once a broken-down nag. She turns her attention here to another story of faith, but also of human depravity. The book was extensively researched over a seven-year period, and is filled with myriad details about Zamperini’s youth, career as an Olympic long distance runner, his difficult post-War recovery , his friends and family, as well as his fellow airmen and prisoners. As with any survival or prison story, there are descriptive stretches that seem to go on forever. However, in the end, the monumentality of the survivors’ courage, stamina and ability to withstand the harshness of life stranded at sea and the brutality of prison camp life, overrides all else.
“Unbroken” is by no means an easy or happy read. But it is a brilliantly rewarding one.
In May of 1943, a B-24 Liberator nicknamed Green Hornet took off from an airfield in Hawaii on a search and rescue mission for another bomber that had gone missing on a flight to Australia. Green Hornet was never heard from again, and despite a thorough week-long search, no trace of the lost Liberator was ever found.
The bombardier on Green Hornet was Lt. Louis Zamperini, affectionately known as “Zamp.” He and two others had miraculously survived the crash from a bomber with a reputation that caused fellow airmen to call it a flying coffin. The three Army Air Corps flyers drifted the currents for forty seven days, surviving steaming days and freezing nights, with no food or water, and virtually no rescue kit. In addition to physical exhaustion and malnutrition, the men had to deal with the constancy of circling sharks.
“Unbroken” is the story of these men’s ordeals, both raft-borne on the Pacific, and in Japanese prison camps on Pacific Islands and on the outskirts of Tokyo and northern Honshu. The brutality of the majority of the prison guards was practically indescribable, but one in particular, known as “The Bird,” was brutal beyond imagination, and his prime target for close to two years was Louie Zamperini.
Laura Hillenbrand is the author of the 2003 best-seller “Seabiscuit,” a brilliant and inspiring book about the famous race horse and the people who remained faithful to the potential of what was once a broken-down nag. She turns her attention here to another story of faith, but also of human depravity. The book was extensively researched over a seven-year period, and is filled with myriad details about Zamperini’s youth, career as an Olympic long distance runner, his difficult post-War recovery , his friends and family, as well as his fellow airmen and prisoners. As with any survival or prison story, there are descriptive stretches that seem to go on forever. However, in the end, the monumentality of the survivors’ courage, stamina and ability to withstand the harshness of life stranded at sea and the brutality of prison camp life, overrides all else.
“Unbroken” is by no means an easy or happy read. But it is a brilliantly rewarding one.
Monday, December 6, 2010
MUSIC REVIEW--THE ST. LUKES ORCHESTRA CHAMBER ENSEMBLE AT CARAMOOR--December 5, 2010
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, December 6, 2010
Caramoor has been celebrating the music of Mozart at its Caramoor Indoor Series in the Music Room this fall. Sunday’s concert was a dandy, and featured principals of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s—oboists Stephen Taylor and James Roe; clarinetists Jon Manasse, Romie de Guise-Langlois and Pavel Vinnitsky; basset horn specialist Gerhardt Koch; bassoonists Dennis Godburn and Thomas Sefcovic; horn players Ralph J. Kelley, Patrick Pridemore, Michael Atkinson and Sarah Cyrus; and John Feeney on double bass.
By any standard, Mozart was a prolific composer, all the more so given his tragically brief lifespan. Ludwig von Kochel compiled a complete catalogue of his compositions in 1862. It listed 626 works, beginning with an Andante for Keyboard, written in 1761, and ending with the unfinished Requiem of late 1791. Of these compositions, 29 were composed as Divertimenti and Serenades. These were written as court diversions, to be performed either outside or indoors at informal gatherings, and utilized various combinations of instruments, ranging from full chamber orchestras to groupings as small as quartets, quintets, sextets, octets, or slightly larger combinations.
This concert featured wind instruments, with the exception of a double bass used as a basso continuo, and horns. The Divertimento No. 14 in B-Flat Major, K. 270 opened the program. It is a gem, in four movements, seldom performed but a pure delight. It was followed by the Serenade No. 11 in E-Flat Major, K. 375, a five-movement work featuring a rather serious Allegro Maestoso opening, two Minuets with Trios, and Adagio and concluding with a sprightly Finale (Allegro). Following the interval, the Ensemble performed the Serenade No. 10 for Winds in B-Flat Major, K.361/370a, the Gran Partita. This is one of Mozart’s finest works, composed contemporaneously with the magnificent Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364. The Serenade is a far cry from the light afternoon entertainments written for the Salzburg Court of Archbishop Collorado. It consists of 7 movements: an opening Largo which leads directly into a moderately paced Allegro Molto; an Adagio is framed by two Minuets, both with two Trio sections; the final three movements are a Romanza; a Tema con Variazioni; and the concluding Rondo (Allegro Molto). The timbre throughout is warm and rich, and the alternating slow-fast-slow-fast tempi of the movements continually engage the listener.
The performances by the St. Luke’s Ensemble were masterful, and the instrumentalists were thoroughly enjoying themselves and the music they were creating. A full house was in attendance, many listening to these less-familiar Mozart works for the first time. They showered long lasting applause on the performers, duly deserved.
Caramoor has been celebrating the music of Mozart at its Caramoor Indoor Series in the Music Room this fall. Sunday’s concert was a dandy, and featured principals of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s—oboists Stephen Taylor and James Roe; clarinetists Jon Manasse, Romie de Guise-Langlois and Pavel Vinnitsky; basset horn specialist Gerhardt Koch; bassoonists Dennis Godburn and Thomas Sefcovic; horn players Ralph J. Kelley, Patrick Pridemore, Michael Atkinson and Sarah Cyrus; and John Feeney on double bass.
By any standard, Mozart was a prolific composer, all the more so given his tragically brief lifespan. Ludwig von Kochel compiled a complete catalogue of his compositions in 1862. It listed 626 works, beginning with an Andante for Keyboard, written in 1761, and ending with the unfinished Requiem of late 1791. Of these compositions, 29 were composed as Divertimenti and Serenades. These were written as court diversions, to be performed either outside or indoors at informal gatherings, and utilized various combinations of instruments, ranging from full chamber orchestras to groupings as small as quartets, quintets, sextets, octets, or slightly larger combinations.
This concert featured wind instruments, with the exception of a double bass used as a basso continuo, and horns. The Divertimento No. 14 in B-Flat Major, K. 270 opened the program. It is a gem, in four movements, seldom performed but a pure delight. It was followed by the Serenade No. 11 in E-Flat Major, K. 375, a five-movement work featuring a rather serious Allegro Maestoso opening, two Minuets with Trios, and Adagio and concluding with a sprightly Finale (Allegro). Following the interval, the Ensemble performed the Serenade No. 10 for Winds in B-Flat Major, K.361/370a, the Gran Partita. This is one of Mozart’s finest works, composed contemporaneously with the magnificent Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola, K. 364. The Serenade is a far cry from the light afternoon entertainments written for the Salzburg Court of Archbishop Collorado. It consists of 7 movements: an opening Largo which leads directly into a moderately paced Allegro Molto; an Adagio is framed by two Minuets, both with two Trio sections; the final three movements are a Romanza; a Tema con Variazioni; and the concluding Rondo (Allegro Molto). The timbre throughout is warm and rich, and the alternating slow-fast-slow-fast tempi of the movements continually engage the listener.
The performances by the St. Luke’s Ensemble were masterful, and the instrumentalists were thoroughly enjoying themselves and the music they were creating. A full house was in attendance, many listening to these less-familiar Mozart works for the first time. They showered long lasting applause on the performers, duly deserved.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
BOOK REVIEW--"THE CONFESSION" by JOHN GRISHAM
Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, November 30, 2010
Master storyteller John Grisham has done it again. There is a reason why this novelist brings out one bestseller after another—he finds a timely topic, then weaves a fast-paced narrative that grabs the reader’s attention immediately and won’t let go.
“The Confession” is about the death penalty, the inequities of the criminal justice system, and political corruption. It illustrates how minority defendants are discriminated against by investigators, prosecutors, judges and juries, and that such discrimination is systemic. No need here to describe the plot—let the readers enjoy the tale themselves without previews.
However, it is worth noting that this past Sunday, The New York Times ran an article by Adam Liptak about the death penalty, in particular Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ decision to reverse his position on it. Stevens has written an article that appears in the current issue of The New York Review of Books in which he came to the conclusion “that personnel changes on the court, coupled with ‘regrettable judicial activism, had created a system of capital punishment that is shot through with racism, skewed toward conviction, infected with politics and tinged with hysteria.”
Liptak writes: “The death penalty in the United States has never been anything but an abomination — a grotesque, uncivilized, overwhelmingly racist affront to the very idea of justice. Police and prosecutorial misconduct have been rampant, with evidence of innocence deliberately withheld from defendants being prominent among the abuses. Juries have systematically been shaped — rigged — to heighten the chances of conviction, and thus imposition of the ultimate punishment. Prosecutors and judges in death penalty cases have been overwhelmingly white and male and their behavior has often — not always, but shockingly often — been unfair, bigoted and cruel. Innocents have undoubtedly been executed. Executions have been upheld in cases in which defense lawyers slept through crucial proceedings. Alcoholic, drug-addicted and incompetent lawyers — as well as lawyers who had been suspended or otherwise disciplined for misconduct — have been assigned to indigent defendants. And it has always been the case that the death penalty machinery is fired up far more often when the victims are white.”
Justice Stevens was not alone in his opinions about the death penalty. Liptak continues: “Justice Harry Blackmun was 85 years old and near the end of his tenure on the Supreme Court when he declared in 1994 that he could no longer support the imposition of the death penalty. ‘The problem,’ he said, ‘is that the inevitability of factual, legal and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.’ Justice Blackmun vowed that he would no longer participate in a system ‘fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice and mistake.’ In 1990, Justice Thurgood Marshall asserted: ‘When in Gregg v. Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to capital punishment, this endorsement was premised on the promise that capital punishment would be administered with fairness and justice. Instead, the promise has become a cruel and empty mockery.’ Justices Blackmun and Marshall are gone, but the death penalty is still with us. It is still an abomination.”
With this background in mind, read Grisham’s book. You will not only find it thoroughly enjoyable, but highly informative on a public issue that truly needs attention.
Master storyteller John Grisham has done it again. There is a reason why this novelist brings out one bestseller after another—he finds a timely topic, then weaves a fast-paced narrative that grabs the reader’s attention immediately and won’t let go.
“The Confession” is about the death penalty, the inequities of the criminal justice system, and political corruption. It illustrates how minority defendants are discriminated against by investigators, prosecutors, judges and juries, and that such discrimination is systemic. No need here to describe the plot—let the readers enjoy the tale themselves without previews.
However, it is worth noting that this past Sunday, The New York Times ran an article by Adam Liptak about the death penalty, in particular Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ decision to reverse his position on it. Stevens has written an article that appears in the current issue of The New York Review of Books in which he came to the conclusion “that personnel changes on the court, coupled with ‘regrettable judicial activism, had created a system of capital punishment that is shot through with racism, skewed toward conviction, infected with politics and tinged with hysteria.”
Liptak writes: “The death penalty in the United States has never been anything but an abomination — a grotesque, uncivilized, overwhelmingly racist affront to the very idea of justice. Police and prosecutorial misconduct have been rampant, with evidence of innocence deliberately withheld from defendants being prominent among the abuses. Juries have systematically been shaped — rigged — to heighten the chances of conviction, and thus imposition of the ultimate punishment. Prosecutors and judges in death penalty cases have been overwhelmingly white and male and their behavior has often — not always, but shockingly often — been unfair, bigoted and cruel. Innocents have undoubtedly been executed. Executions have been upheld in cases in which defense lawyers slept through crucial proceedings. Alcoholic, drug-addicted and incompetent lawyers — as well as lawyers who had been suspended or otherwise disciplined for misconduct — have been assigned to indigent defendants. And it has always been the case that the death penalty machinery is fired up far more often when the victims are white.”
Justice Stevens was not alone in his opinions about the death penalty. Liptak continues: “Justice Harry Blackmun was 85 years old and near the end of his tenure on the Supreme Court when he declared in 1994 that he could no longer support the imposition of the death penalty. ‘The problem,’ he said, ‘is that the inevitability of factual, legal and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.’ Justice Blackmun vowed that he would no longer participate in a system ‘fraught with arbitrariness, discrimination, caprice and mistake.’ In 1990, Justice Thurgood Marshall asserted: ‘When in Gregg v. Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to capital punishment, this endorsement was premised on the promise that capital punishment would be administered with fairness and justice. Instead, the promise has become a cruel and empty mockery.’ Justices Blackmun and Marshall are gone, but the death penalty is still with us. It is still an abomination.”
With this background in mind, read Grisham’s book. You will not only find it thoroughly enjoyable, but highly informative on a public issue that truly needs attention.
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