Added Risk with Non-US Stocks

At least 35 years ago, when I was an expert in stock market investments (generally speaking, I was much smarter then than I am now, not only about stocks but about most everything else), I invested in some publicly traded Canadian oil exploration company stocks. These stocks were somehow connected to William F. Buckley's family, and that gave me comfort. There was nothing wrong with these companies, except for one thing: they were Canadian companies about the time that Pierre Trudeau became the Prime Minister. He was the darling of the left, and one thing he did was semi-nationalize the oil companies, and the prices of my modest positions in those Canadian stocks dropped like a rock as a result.

My view of that investment is that it was money well spent, because it gave me an appreciation that I had never had before of the US stock market environment. This is not to run down Canada (we are blessed to have such a neighbor), but it is a foreign country and investment risks in foreign countries are different than the investment risks here in the US with US companies.

I was reminded of this today in reading reports in the WSJ of difficulties with stocks in Mainland Chinese companies that are traded publicly. One former "small gem," according to the WSJ, is China MediaExpress:

Boasting rapid growth and big profits from selling advertising on video screens in Chinese intercity buses, [Chinese MediaExpress] drew tens of millions of dollars from marquee investors. It listed its shares on the Nasdaq Stock Market, where its chief executive rang the opening bell last June.

Today, MediaExpress is in chaos, its shares no longer traded on NASDAQ after a turbulent few months marked by investors' concerns over the size of its business and questions over its accounting.

It is one of dozens of companies from China that have come under fire by investors and regulators for allegedly misleading investors, exposing a loophole that has U.S. regulators concerned.

This doesn't mean that one should not invest overseas. It simply requires a prudent approach. For the amateur, that means an advisor who prizes diversification, the right allocation, and low expenses, and makes a special effort to determine one's suitability to the investment recommendations he or she might make.

I can't help but observe, however, that it has always seemed the prudent approach to go easy on investments in the home of Tiananmen Square.

We are So Cutting Edge

Ann does the stand-up desk.

Alpha has a New Look

Maybe this is old news to most everyone else, but it is new news to me.

Alpha's Regional Director, Florida South, Mike Fernandez, came by to see me yesterday and brought me up to date. Alpha has produced a fresh new set of videos for its church program and has introduced versions for college and other use.

We have some new, baby Christians at FPC Miami Springs. An Alpha course this fall sounds like just what we need.

(New, baby Christians often have more non-Christians in their immediate circle than us old hands: another reason for an Alpha course.)

(I made a pitch to Mike, who lives in Orlando with his wonderful family, to do parish ministry here Miami-Dade, his home town. I am shameless.)

Coffee Schadenfruede

And speaking of Schadenfruede, I note, however unChristianly, the following:

The WSJ reports today that "Smucker Profit Falls 21% on Higher Costs."

Weiner Schadenfreude

There is hardly a congruency between libertarians and their right-wing cousins, on the one hand, and Christianity, on the other. The delight in which many in the anti-Democrat portion of the media take in the situation of Anthony Weiner reminds me of this once again.

If we must think about this "scandal," and it appears that we must, what really is the issue presented by Congressman Weiner and Huma Abedin? In my view, it is about marriage and the nearly impossible way in which they seem to have begun that relationship. Both of them have jobs that make profound, burn-out level demands on each of them as individuals. As a married couple, the demands are impossible. What, exactly, were they thinking? Was this marriage simply a career move for both of them? Is their marriage simply a failing clone of the Clinton model? Or were they looking for something more personal and real. If the latter (and I would grant them the presumption that they were looking for something more than personal advancement), I have to say that I pity them and need to pray for them.

More Lectionary: Of course, there's an APP for that.

Crushed Red Pepper: Their website. At iTunes. The price for the basic service is $.99. To get the "Daily Office" (daily Bible readings), you need to buy the $1.99 add-on. It's the Daily Office I was looking for. Because the scriptures are right there, the total cost seems very reasonable. The lectionary source is slightly different from the one on the PC(USA) website. I haven't quite sorted out the differences, but the app choices appear to me to be very satisfactory. (One has two lectionary source versions to choose from in the Crushed Red Pepper app.)

Second-Mortgage Misery

The WSJ today reports that 40% of homeowners who took a second mortgage during the last several years and had not paid it off when the economy went south are "underwater." This compares with 18% of other homeowners. Of course, it would be no surprise that the less equity one has in his home, the faster that equity disappears as housing prices go down. But the magnitude is striking.

The article is worth reading because it discusses the consequences both at the macro level ("the second mortgages are weighing on a fitful recovery") and at the micro level (its harder for a homeowner to get a credit card, etc. "There are all sorts of little, pernicious effects that you don't necessarily think about.")

The article also makes the point that while the first mortgages that the banks extended were "packaged" and sold into the syndication market, the banks kept the second mortgages. So those mortgages are presently a drag on the balances sheets of both the giants and the locals. (Not to say that the banks who sold the first mortgages are immune to claw-back liability. We haven't heard the last of that either.)

I have no special knowledge, of course, but it seems to me that we are not near the end of this unwinding.

The PC(USA) Lectionary Resource

The website for the General Assembly Mission Council of the PC(USA) has a helpful lectionary section.

In my Southern Baptist upbringing, we had "daily Bible readings," and the Sunday School Board published booklets for home or personal use. Chief among these were the "quarterlies" issued to each active Sunday School member, young or old, and those publications were "graded" for each age group. The booklets would have our weekly Sunday School lessons for the calendar quarter and scripture to read each day. The SBC was a powerhouse of Christian Eduction then, and probably still is. What a blessing it was to me and my family. So we Baptists had lectionary resources.

However, I don't remember bumping into the word "lectionary" until college, when I began singing in the choir at St. Philip's Episcopal Church in Durham.

The PC(USA) lectionary section is worth exploring, especially the Frequently Asked Questions page, if the idea of church-wide lectionaries is an unfamiliar one.

"The Search for the Historical Adam"

The cover story of the June 2011 issue of Christianity Today addresses the latest challenge to the historicity of Adam, one that emerges from "unnerving new genetic science" and argues that only a "tiny group of homonids . . . several thousand individuals at a minimum" and no single individual can account for the genetic diversity that we now see in humans.

The same magazine issue has an editorial entitled "No Adam, No Eve, No Gospel," which seems to suggest where CT stands on this question; but not so fast. The subtitle of the column states, "The historical Adam debate won't be resolved tomorrow, so stay engaged." A careful reading of the editorial suggests that at least someone on the editorial board wants to consider further the thesis that "Adam" may refer to a collective group. "Scripture often calls groups of people by the name of their historical head." That approach would reconcile "Adam" with the "complexity of the humane genome [a complexity which], we are told, requires an original population of around 10,000."

Pretty interesting.

But cuidado, CT.

Fraudulent Tricks of Some Investment "Promoters"

Beating the market is easy. Just understate its performance.

Various investment promoters are touting their stock-picking prowess by comparing their returns, including dividends, to the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index without dividends.

It is a lot easier to beat the market when you don't count its entire return. Over the past decade, according to Standard & Poor's, the S&P 500 benchmark gained an annual average of just 0.72% without dividends. But with dividends included, the S&P's total return reached 2.81% annually.

-from a WSJ article by Jason Zweig

There are Some Things Glenn Reynolds Just Doesn't Get

The matter of diet and health is one of them. Is he serious about citing the NYT as some sort of authority on this subject, where regarding politics he holds the newspaper in contempt? Or citing with approval a 6 month "weight-loss study" of 23 people when, for example, The China Study is sitting out there? When it comes to food, Glenn believes what he wants to believe. He is hardly alone.

The Moral Link to Economic Recession

Yesterday I spoke with my friend Gonzalo the banker, who lives in Hialeah and rides MetroRail. I have talked with Gonzalo about the banking side of the economic recession since it began in 2009. He continues to be appalled by the greed he sees on the micro level among bankers and borrowers, greed facilitated by government policy, and the connection of that greed to the problems we have on the macro level.

He told me yesterday of a friend of his who, during the real estate boom, moved from Hialeah to a Cocoplum mansion that the friend financed with very little down, a mansion that now is in a sort of frozen state of foreclosure. By that I mean, he pays no mortgage payments any more, because he can no longer afford it. However, because of a government program to "save" people's homes, he still is in possession of it and anticipates he will remain in possession for at least two more years before the bank can finally get it back. What is interesting about his situation is that Gonzalo's friend is not now actually living in his mansion. He has rented it and has moved back in Hialeah. Aided by the rental income, he continues his life-style as best he can. The family's educational plans include keeping their kids in private school. They are getting ready to send their oldest to NYU this fall, no doubt financed in large part by grants and loans, for which the family qualifies because of the sad balance sheet submitted by the parents.

Apparently, there is nothing illegal about Gonzalo's friend gaming the system this way. (Or would you say that these are reasonable survival tactics, under the circumstances?)

No amount of government regulation will make up for the lack of character among its citizens. When I was in law school, the sort of legal philosophy known as "positivism" reigned. That is the idea that one could change behaviors with a statute, that law was a sort of teaching tool and could civilize the heart. We see now that more laws only make the game more complicated - and that clever minds can rise to the challenge of any regulation. The problem is character, not economics.

I've read somewhere that law does not so much build character as expose it. Now where was that?

Pretty Good Comparison of the Various Deficit Reduction Proposals in Congress

From Bessemer Trust's Tax Update newsletter for May 31, 2011, entitled "Tilting at Windmills? Deficit Reduction and Tax Reform in the 112th Congress."

"The Egyptian Mummy Diet Paradox"

Dr. McDougall discusses and resolves this diet paradox, where an ancient population that one presumes is on a starchy, meatless diet, with plenty of vegetables, leaves behind mummies with obvious signs of arterial disease.

Retirement at 65? Not for Dick Mays

A hero of mine is Dick Mays. A man in his late 80s, a Sunday School teacher of mine when I was in junior high, Dick retired from Eastern Air Lines at 65 years of age, right on schedule in that then union run, government enabled airline. It was probably mandatory for him to retire, but if not, it was certainly expected. For many at Eastern that was part of the "point" of their 40 hour work week, with plenty of over-time, generous wages that enabled many of them to live in comfortable homes in Miami Springs, great health and pension benefits, paid vacations, and, of course, free flight-privileges not only on EAL but also other air carriers and not only for themselves, but also family members.

Dick said that when he went into the personnel office at Eastern to sign his retirement papers, the lady in charge of retiree processing told him this: Most of the men that she saw for that final, active connection with company were dead within 5 years.

Because, I would suggest, there was no more "point" to it all.

Dick, instead, built collector quality, small airplanes in his garage and sold them for at least the next fifteen years to very wealthy private pilots all over the world. He started teaching Bible Study classes at the prison west of Miami Springs a few miles, and still does. He became very big in "Celebrate Recovery," the overtly Christian version of AA, although I don't think he was an alcholic. (I wouldn't have thought to ask him about that, because, frankly, it was unthinkable. With Dick, you automatically know that he is either building airplanes or helping others.)

I'm reading Chuchill's account of WWII right now. He became the war-time PM of Great Britain at age 65. He had nothing on Dick.

Germany to Go Nuclear Energy-Free by 2022?

The federal cabinet is expected to make a final decision about the future of nuclear energy at a meeting on June 6.

* * *

In 2010 around 23% of German electricity output was produced in nuclear plants.

-from today's WSJ.

Hard for me to believe that this would happen.

UC Berkeley Courses on Line; Cosmolearning

Spring 2011 courses.

But after looking those over, go up to the homepage and work back into the richness of this site. For example, read the "About" page. This is access to one of the world's greatest universities!

A sort of aggregating website for on-line learning is Cosmolearnng.com.

Maybe if I were under 40, I would think that this is simply how the universe works, this sort of access to knowledge. But I'm not, and this continues to amaze me.

Mas Libros

From the guys at our Friday Morning breakfast:

Veith, God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life. (Juan)

Orr, The Last of the Horse Soldiers. (Can't remember who recommended this one.)

Etheridge, Wild at Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul. (Mike)

Zaffron and Logan, The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life. (Will)

Cloud, Necessary Endings: the Employees, Businesses, and Relationships that All of Us Have to Give Up to Move Forward. (Will, again)

From the WSJ's Five Best Column (I think the Weekend issue of May 14-15): in this one entitled "Essential Reading on WW II," Richard Snow, a former editor of American Heritage magazine, and author of A Measureless Peril: America in the Fight for the Atlantic, the Longest Battle of World War II gives his choices:

Lukacs, The Duel: the Eighty Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler.

Wouk, The Caine Mutiny: a Novel. I wasn't yet a teenager when I read this one in the 50s. I saw the movie with Juanita when I was five or six years old, and still remember scenes in it vividly. Herman Wouk is a hugely successful and respected author of fiction, and I read a number of his other books growing up.

Cawthon, Other Clay: A Remembrance of the World War II Infantry.

Weinberg, A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. According to Snow, this "is still the best single-volume history of the war and likely to remain so for a long time."

From the same WSJ issue, another review, this one by James A. Ceaser, professor of politics at UVA:

Wood, The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States. Ceaser writes, "Mr. [Gordan] Wood is our premier student of the Founding Era. He has been writing history for about a half-century, roughly a fifth of the days since the origin of the republic. He has scrupulously avoided appropriating his subject for modern-day political purposes and instead tried to understand it on its own terms and as a whole." Sounds good to me.

OK, so that takes care of the first month of summer reading.

David McCullough has a New Book!

The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris

From the WSJ: "Clinical Trial Deals Setback to 'Good Cholesterol' Drugs"

In a blow to the pharmaceutical industry's efforts to harness so-called good cholesterol as a weapon against heart disease, federal health officials halted a clinical trial involving an HDL-boosting drug from Abbott Laboratories, saying it failed to prevent heart attacks and strokes.

The news was a setback for Abbott's cholesterol franchise, especially the drug in the trial— Abbott's extended-release form of niacin called Niaspan, which recorded $927 million in sales last year.

-From yesterday's WSJ.

Dr. McDougall:

“Good” HDL-Cholesterol Is Meaningless
(April 2004)

The Real Issues: HDL-cholesterol as measured on common laboratory tests fails to help predict your risk of suffering from coronary artery (heart) disease.

Importance to You: HDL-cholesterol can lead to 2 dangerous consequences: 1) Your total cholesterol is high, but your doctor reassures you that there is nothing to worry about because your “good” HDL-cholesterol is also high – as a result, you miss an opportunity to correct the real indicators of trouble (total and LDL-cholesterol) by being falsely reassured. 2) After following a healthy diet (plant-food based) your total cholesterol falls and so does your HDL (a fraction of total cholesterol). Your doctor tells you that you are now unhealthy because of your low-HDL, or worse yet he tells you to eat more meat (cholesterol) in order to raise your HDL-cholesterol.

Action to Take: Strive to get your total cholesterol below 150 mg/dl (and LDL-cholesterol below 80 mg/dl) with a healthy diet (and in some cases, judicious use of medications). Ignore your HDL-cholesterol values – they are largely irrelevant and misleading.

Introduction to Cosmology

Free lectures from UC Irvine. Wow.

Red China Picks our Pocket

Most recently, the pocket known as "Microsoft."

The Mainland China government is not our friend.

That Paragon of Civic Virtue, the Miami Herald, Sells Out to an Asian Casino

The Miami Herald owns 14 acres of prime downtown Miami, bayfront land. Its lead article on the frontpage today announces that it sold that land to "the Asian gaming giant" Genting Malaysia.

(It wouldn't be so bad except that for my entire life the Miami Herald, in a most condescending and pseudo-Enlightenment way, has lectured the community on "doing good" and "doing better." But now that we are all post-Moderns, I know it must feel good to the Herald's owners to get such a good price for the property. And feeling good is what counts these days.)

Miami Among the Most "Well Read" Cities

According to Amazon.

I am astonished. But, then again, we do have the Heat.

I know these two train wrecks are coming, but what will they actually look like?

I refer to the break-down of Social Security and Medicare, discussed here. (Thanks, Instapundit.)

One scenario is less a train wreck than a gradual slowing down of the train to the point that its momentum is nationally sustainable. (This could well cause thousands of train wrecks among individual citizens who decided to depend on the present system for their futures.) What happens will depend in large part on generations younger than the Boomers assuming power and exercising it more responsibly than my generation has done so.

For some reason, this reminds me of two grown-up women I know, one recently divorced and the other recently a widow. In each case, they received a fund, either as a divorce settlement or a legacy. Neither had a career to sustain her economically. On the other hand, each had her respective fund. If the divorcee and the widow kept their life styles in check and prudently managed their wealth, the funds would probably see them through. But each rewarded (consoled?) themselves within a year or so after the event with very, very expensive overseas vacations. They otherwise do not appear to be readjusting their consumption levels. This doesn't seem to auger well to me. It seems like a form of denial.

The Private Sector Markets to the Pharmacy Needs of Customers: Everybody Wins

A 14 day supply of these antibiotics is available without charge at the Publix grocery store pharmacies:

•Amoxicillin
•Ampicillin
•Cephalexin (capsules and suspension only)
•Sulfamethoxazole/Trimethoprim (SMZ-TMP)
•Ciprofloxacin (excluding Ciprofloxacin XR)
•Penicillin VK
•Doxycycline Hyclate (capsules only)

Wegman's grocery stores have pharmacies with an even wider range of free antibiotics. (Here's Wegman's press release on its program.)

Walmart has a $4 prescription program.

Austin Titles

Returned yesterday evening from a great trip to Austin. Lots of good things about that trip. One of them was collecting book titles that came up during conversations. I tried to write them down, and here's my list:

Fehrenback, Lone Star: a History of Texas and Texans

De Vaca, The Narrative of Cabeza de Vaca

Bell, Love Wins: a Book about Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Everyone Who Ever Lived

Wright, Paul for Everyone; The Prison Letters: Ephesians, Philippians, Colossions, Philemon

Lehman, Nine Years Among the Indians, 1870-1879: the Story and Life of the Captivity and Life of a Texan Among the Indians

Eckert, The Frontiersmen.

Kirkegaard, Training in Christianity

Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry

Merton, Opening the Bible

And speaking of the Bible, I had along with me Wright's The Last Word: Scripture and the Authority of God - Getting Beyond the Bible Wars. What a refreshing book to read amidst the disintegration of the PC(USA).

Reynolds' "Higher Education Bubble" Meme

Over a lifetime, the earnings of workers who have majored in engineering, computer science or business are as much as 50 percent higher than the earnings of those who major in the humanities, the arts, education and psychology, according to an analysis by researchers at Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce.

-from a post on Instapundit

I think the problem with this "research" is probably that no distinctions are made between, say, sociology majors and Classics majors, between an English major at Miami-Dade College and one at Davidson.

A contemporary of mine told me about majoring in physics at UM years ago. He did so spectacularly well during his first two years that he transferred to the University of Chicago, where he majored in nuclear physics. During his senior year at UChi, his professors in that department counseled him to drop the physics track and please go somewhere like law school, which he did. In other words, whatever the case might be now, there was then hardly a comparison between a UM student majoring in nuclear physics and one at the University of Chicago.

Selling Out Miami-Dade (Updated)

The Herald reports that the family that owns Cafe Bustelo and Cafe Pilon, Miami icons, is selling out to Smuckers.

Smucker said it plans to close the Miami production facility within the next three years and relocate all production to a New Orleans plant that will be handling roasting and production for all its coffee brands, which include Folgers and Dunkin’ Donuts. The publicly-traded company also plans to consolidate distribution and marketing operations.

Some employees are expected to remain in Miami to service restaurants and other food-service operators, said company spokeswoman Maribeth Badertscher. Employees not offered continued employment will receive severance packages, ranging from 12 weeks to one year.

So much for the sad employment picture in Miami-Dade. So much for community loyalty. So much for Dad's hard work. (Dad is gone. The "family" consists of his three sons.)

This deserves a Despair poster or t-shirt of some sort. How about this

The image is the can, as indicated, but the label is retouched to say "CAFE BETRAYAL"

The legend: "Selling out Calle Ocho for the big bucks."

My critique: Crude, and clearly not up to Despair quality. But that's the message

Hollywood (FL) Declares "Financial Urgency"

The [City] Commission unanimously voted to declare the city under “financial urgency,’’ which will allow it to enter into discussions with city labor unions to renegotiate pensions and collective bargaining agreements.

Matthew Lalla, the city’s director of financial services, said the problem’s largest source is a legacy of prior pension and collective bargaining agreements with city employees including fire and police.


-From this morning's Miami Herald

Credit the city's leaders with leaving the back door open to renegotiate those union obligations. Will the courts uphold that escape clause?

Some Ob-Gyn Doctors Refuse to Treat Overweight Patients

Here. (Thanks, Drudge.)

Fifteen obstetrics-gynecology practices out of 105 polled by the [Orlando] Sun Sentinel said they have set weight limits for new patients. Some of the doctors said the main reason was their exam tables or other equipment can't handle people over a certain weight, but at least six said heavy women run a higher risk of complications.

Dr. McDougall's Testimony Before the CA Senate on the Need for Nutrition Studies in Medical Education

Discussion of California SB 380 from John McDougall on Vimeo.

Mary's Garden

All the colors in this photo from Mary's blog reminds me that she is Juanita's granddaughter.

Blogger Cracking?

Ann Alhouse is having trouble with Blogger and thinking of migrating away from this member of Google's family (empire?). Kith & Kin is on Blogger too, of course.

I noticed several months ago that the "search" function now goes back only a year or so, which I believe is the same problem (or one of the problems) that Althouse mentions. I will have to consult the brain trust, Macon, Walter, Mary, and Sean.

The Gifts in Romans 12

I’m sure that, at some point, I had read in Romans 12 of “gifts” and perhaps heard someone preach or teach from chapter 12 about "the gifts." However, I certainly would not have thought of Romans 12 when Christian conversation turned to “spiritual gifts.” 1 Corinthians 12 would always come to mind when the subject of gifts came up, or even Ephesians 4:11. But here we are in Romans 12 right now in our Sunday School class, and there they are: the gifts.

Is there something different about the Romans 12 gifts, in substance or at least in emphasis? I think there is. When Paul writes of God’s gracious gifting in Romans 12, he focuses on putting those gifts to work and not simply on the idea of our being gifted.

Here are verses 6 through 8 in the NIV (2011)

6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your[a] faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,[b] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.

This is no mere list of gifts; this is a call to them to put them to work in a way that will be effective. If I may, by way of example, paraphrase the reference to leadership in 8b, Paul writes this: “If it is your gift is to lead, then for God’s sake start leading!” Gifts, then, are not about status, as in “the young man is so gifted,” gifts are about putting them to immediate and effective use to build up the people of God.

Maybe Paul had run out of patience with people who claimed that their status entitled them to do essentially nothing except congratulate others who shared that status and dispute with those who did not. “I am a Jew, therefore I am chosen of God [and you are not], therefore treat me accordingly.” Or “I am a Roman Citizen [and you are not, you are a conquered people], therefore I have these special and exclusive rights and privileges.” But Paul is not about status or being when it comes to the people of God, he is about functioning or doing.

I began to think of the ways that we tend to gravitate toward status and away from function. This reflects a law of our fallen world, and that is inertia. We tend to run down and come to a stop. An illustration that comes to mind is the complaints of a young couple in counseling. There, before the counselor, the young man complains that his wife is not a wife in the bedroom any more. To which she responds that he is not a husband outside the bedroom, that is, he does not function in that capacity in their marriage and the main locus of that functioning, to her mind at least, is not in the bed. It is in taking care of the family.

“Husband” is a good word to illustrate the point, because “husband” is a very strong, though much less used, verb. It is not just a noun. To “husband” is to care for, to nurture, to cultivate. No man is worth marrying if he won’t do those things for his wife and family. By the same token, the writer does not say in Genesis 2:20 that Adam needed a wife, Adam, who was hard at work "naming" the animals, that is cataloging them and learning about them to the end of being God's own agent of nurture. Adam needed someone to help him. In Adam's situation, Scripture observes, “there was not found an help meet for him.” (KJV. “Helpmate” is a corruption of “help meet”.) There immediately follows God’s creation of Eve, the divinely appropriate helper. At the risk of having my feminist credentials revoked, the Scripture says that being a good wife is about helping, as it says that being a good husband is about nurturing. Both of which, I would finally argue, amount to about the same thing.

So when Paul writes about gifts in Romans 12, he writes about what God gives each of his people so that they can nurture, help, and serve the needs of others. These others are those already in the body of Christ and and also those outside of that body's thoroughly unifying, defining but always and often mysteriously permeable and beckoning cell wall.

Teeing off on Romans 12, I brainstormed this idea of nouns versus verbs. Here’s my list:

Being vs. doing

Status vs. function

Feeling vs. acting

Transformed vs. Transforming (that is, in transforming the world)

Saved vs. saving (same idea as transforming – evangelizing)

Redeemed vs. redeeming (same idea again – as in “we are involved in God’s redemptive work through Jesus Christ")

Gifted vs. gifting (same idea again - as in "gifting to or generously sharing our gifts with others"

Leader vs. leading

Servant vs. serving

Lover vs. loving

Hoarding vs. investing

Potential vs. realization

Husband vs. husbanding

Helpmeet vs. helping

Getting a degree vs. Preparing for service

Punching a clock vs. accomplishing a task

Billing by the hour vs. value billing

"Forks over Knives" Opened Last Night

Carol and I left work yesterday evening and headed for South Beach and Lincoln Road. We stopped at Whole Foods for supper (of course) and then over to the cineplex at the west end of the Lincoln Road Mall. There we attended a showing of "Forks over Knives."

The movie "starred" Drs. Campbell and Esselstyn. Dr. McDougall had an important supporting role. Dr. Esselstyn's son, Rip, a firefighter in Austin, had a big part in one of the several stories the film wove together. (Our Texan Kith and Kin will get a kick out of the conversations among the firefighters about Texan meat eating habits. Our Cross-Fit kith and kin will find interesting the strength aspects of that story and that of another story that the film weaves, that of "Ultimate Fighter" Mac Danzig. Our Kenya people will find that country referred to positively from time to time. There is also an interesting discussion of the value of stents in fighting heart disease.) The movie was very well done and we recommend it.

My favorite line of the movie was delivered by Dr. Esselstyn, a heart surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic. He recalls that one of his colleagues said that he would not recommend a vegan diet to a heart patient because it was "extreme." Dr. Esselstyn's comment was something along the lines of "Splitting in half a patient's chest and slicing open one of his legs to remove a blood vessel to transplant to the exposed heart is not extreme?"

One of the most astonishing facts that the movie shared is that if we took the grain that we feed farm animals that we raise to eat and, then, allocated it to people, we would have enough to eliminate starvation in the world.

Yet another was that the energy costs of raising and processing food animals exceed the energy costs we devote to transportation. (Carol commented that when Al Gore goes on a vegan diet, she will start taking seriously his global warming schtick.)

The Herald review complained that "[A]ny one looking for a critique of the fast-food lifestyle and factory farming from any other perspective [other than "veganism"] is bound to be disappointed or angry." Right, I kept looking for the McDonald's spokesman to give us some real balance, but no one ever showed up. Still the reviewer gave it 3 of 4 stars, which is about as high as the Herald will go for a movie that is a wholesome one. (Actually, there were two people interviewed from the dark side: a PhD who worked for a food industry organization and an MD who worked for the Department of Agriculture and whose criticism of the vegan view bordered on incoherence.)

Roger Ebert's review, however, is very thorough, quite personal, and thoughtful.

Not a lot of people were in the viewing audience with us - not as many as we would have hoped. But it was an early show. Maybe, also, word will spread about it. The people who were there, however, seemed to be impressed. During the presentation, I heard the sort of noises one hears from people when the light-bulb goes on. At the end of the movie, there was applause. As we walked out, I overheard conversations about the points made during the movie. Many of the people were young adults.

The cineplex belongs to Regal Cinema. I found the acoustic quality there mediocre. At times the sound was so loud that the voices, especially Dr. Campbell's, were distorted and a bit hard to understand. The print quality was mediocre too. The film should transfer well to DVD, however. But don't wait for the DVD, see it now!

We were running late to the theater, and as we approached the Mall, going southbound on Alton Road, we noticed a new, sort of "pocket" hi-rise parking lot also at the west end of the Mall and across from the theater. (It cleverly has retail on the ground floor, and then goes up about 5 more stories for the cars.) So we turned into the garage entrance. We should have noticed that it would cost us $20! So avoid it, if you can, and travel further down Alton to 17th Street, turn right (east) and go down to the city garage that we usually use when we go to Lincoln Road Mall. I also noticed a $10 parking lot on the north side of 17th about a block east of Alton. Of course, this was Friday night, the weather was simply beautiful, and the Mall very lively and busy.

More on the Ordination Standards Challenge in the PC(U.S.A.)

A good explanation is PFR's "Pastoral Conversation on the Passage of Amendment 10-A for Leaders of Congregations within the PC(USA)."

From this document:

"Even for those who have been following the voting, the reality of this change is a source of unspeakably deep grief."

Also from this document:

Q: What is Amendment 10-A? What does it say? What does it not say? What does it change?
A: Amendment 10-A is a change in the language of the Book of Order proposed by the 2010 General Assembly.

It calls for the removal of paragraph G-6.0106b:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman (W-4.9001), or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to re-pent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

and replaces it with:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Standards for ordained service reflect the church’s desire to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life (G-1.0000). The governing body responsible for ordination and/or installation (G.14.0240; G-14.0450) shall examine each candidate’s calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability for the responsibilities of office. The examination shall include, but not be limited to, a determination of the candidate’s ability and commitment to fulfill all requirements as expressed in the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003). Governing bodies shall be guided by Scripture and the confessions in applying standards to individual candidates."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Proponents of the changed wording will argue that the passage of Amendment 10-A, in and of itself, changes nothing for those who remain committed to upholding historic orthodox teaching. Technically they are correct. Explicit language will be removed from the Book of Order that, for the vast majority of Jesus’ followers around the globe and for many who are still within the PC(USA), remains implicit. In other words, no vote by the Assembly and presbyteries can change the truth of God’s Word, and Scripture clearly teaches that God intends the gift of sexual intimacy to be expressed only within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman. If we in the PC(USA) agreed on the clear teaching of Scripture, we would never have needed G-6.0106b. But we don’t agree, and so we defaulted to polity to find a way to live together.

Passage of this amendment does not mandate the ordination of practicing gay and lesbian deacons, elders, and ministers, although some people within the PC(USA) and the majority of people outside the denomination will read it as though it does. With the current standard eliminated, PC(USA) congregations will be free to ordain people in a variety of sexual relationships not currently affirmed for those seeking to be ordained (i.e. those living together outside wedlock as well as self-affirming, practicing gay, lesbian, bi and transsexual persons). With this change, there will be no stated sexual behavior standard for persons in church leadership. Passage of this amendment does make further attempts to redefine Christian marriage a certainty in the near future.

Bringing a Tear to My Eye

“Our members will continue to fight not just for themselves, but for the public they serve, the services they provide and for good jobs, and livable communities, for all working families.”

-from Today's WSJ: State employee union leader's response to news that the governor of Connecticut will begin layoffs of state workers in order to balance the budget, because the unions and the state government could not agree on salary and benefit reductions.

This Could Be It for the PC(USA)

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is poised to abolish a celibacy requirement for gay and lesbian clergy, after decades of debate that has divided the denomination and split Protestants world-wide.

The church adopted the new policy at its national assembly last year, but needed approval from the majority of its 173 presbyteries, or regional church bodies. The Presbytery of the Twin Cities Area, based in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., is expected to cast the key vote in favor of the change Tuesday night.

-today's WSJ

IDF's Oketz Unit

This video is as much about the women soldiers as it is about the dogs. I find the part about the young women saddening.

"[I]n the New Testament religion is grace and ethics is gratitude"

Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, quoted in Stott, The Message of Romans (IVP 1994). Stott, in turn, cites Bruce, The Letter of Paul to the Romans, in The Tyndale New Testament Commentaries (IVP and Eerdmans 1963, 2d ed.). Bruce cites Erskine's Letters. (Whew!)

The President Met the "Really Scary SEAL Dog."

Here.

A friend on mine in our Friday morning breakfaast group is from a military family (Marines). He knows something about military dogs. He told me that some of the teeth of some dogs will be replaced with metal implants. In others, their "voice-box" is removed so they can't bark or growl.

Is There a Sofa in the Oval Office?

Obama: "You do not want to be between Michelle and a tamale . . . "

(Thanks, Drudge.)

Sir Winston on Poland

Churchill describes the "dismemberment of the Czechoslovak State in accordance with the [Munich] Agreement:"

[T]he Germans were not the only vultures upon the carcass. Immediately after the Munich Agreement on September 30, [1938], the Polish Government sent a twenty-four-hour ultimatum to the Czechs demanding the immediate handing-over of the frontier district of Teschen. There was no means of resisting this harsh demand.

The heroic characteristics of the Polish race must not blind us to their record of folly and ingratitude which over centuries has led them through measureless suffering. We see them, in 1919, a people restored by the victory of the Western Allies after long generations of partition and servitude to be an independent Republic and one of the the main Powers in Europe. Now, in 1938, over a question so minor as Teschen, they sundered themselves from all those friends in France, Britain, and the United States who lifted them once again to a national, coherent life, and whom they were soon to need so sorely. We see them hurrying, while the might of Germany glowered up against them, to grasp their share of the pillage and ruin of Czechoslovakia. During the crisis the door was shut in the face of the British and French Ambassadors, who were denied even access to the Foreign Secretary of the Polish State. It is a mystery and tragedy of European history that a people capable of every heroic virtue, gifted, valiant, charming, as individuals, should repeatedly show such inveterate faults in almost every aspect of their governmental life. Glorious in revolt and ruin; squalid and shameful in triumph. The bravest of the brave, too often led by the vilest of the vile! And yet there were always two Polands; one struggling to proclaim the truth and the other grovelling in villainy.

-From Churchill, The Second World War: The Gathering Storm, (Houghton Mifflin Company 1948) pp. 322-323

Belgian Malinois

As you can see, the breed looks like a German Shepherd. But it may be comfortably smaller:

The dog is also used extensively by Unit Oketz of the Israel Defense Forces. Oketz favors the slighter build of the Malinois over that of the German Shepherd and Rottweiler which were employed formerly. Malinois are the perfect size to be picked up by their handlers, while still being able to attack their enemies and for their shorter coats and fair and neutral colors making them less prone to heatstroke, all these are advantages over the previously used dog breeds.

A Belgian Malinois is believed to be the dog which accompanied the special forces unit which killed Osama Bin Laden on May 1, 2011. [5] from the Wiki post.

More Rin-Tin-Tin

Here.

Mazda Not Giving Up on the Gasoline Engine

Zoom-zoom.

Ya-Ho, Rinty!

Military dogs.

There is nothing new under the Sun.

Isn't the Market Marvelous?

WSJ Headline today:

Oil Falls Below $100 in Commodities Rout

Oil futures ended below $100 a barrel amid a broad commodity selloff, weighed by worries about falling U.S. demand amid $4-a-gallon prices at the pump.

More from the WSJ:

Some reaction on the sharp selloff in commodities. The rout is getting deeper. Crude is now down 8%. Silver down by 9%. Copper down by 3.5%. Gold falling by 2.5%, bidding adieu to $1,500 and falling under that level. Here’s what some market watchers are saying:

Tony Crescenzi, PIMCO: The ending of a tulip-mania style move in silver will put more caution into those who would speculate in commodities markets, limiting the harm commodity price increases will cause the economy. Therefore, while moderation in economic growth has occurred, it has its benefits and it will keep the game going for longer because the urgency for central bankers to move quickly has diminished somewhat now that commodity prices have hit a much needed speed bump.

Marc Chander, Brown Brothers Harriman: A disappointing US jobs number tomorrow is likely to keep the dollar firm against the “growth” sensitive currencies, as further consolidation in equities and commodities is likely accelerate their recent losses. Overall, the NOK [Norwegian Kroner] and AUD [Austrailian Dollar] are the most sensitive to changes in broad commodity baskets, although potential NOK weakness may be tempered by heightened expectations of a rate hike by the Norges Bank next week.

Michael Shaoul, Oscar Gruss: “Today is turning into one of the uglier sessions for those who have chased recent trends in commodity and currency markets.”

It's not good to chase market "trends": Investing 101.

"Despite a booming economy and big cities full of luxury cars and glittering malls, the country is failing its girls."

This is India. If we don't abort them, then we will let them die before age 6.

A Convenient Kill (Update)

Mr. Obama's policies now differ from their Bush counterparts mainly on the issue of interrogation. As Sunday's operation put so vividly on display, Mr. Obama would rather kill al Qaeda leaders—whether by drones or special ops teams—than wade through the difficult questions raised by their detention. This may have dissuaded Mr. Obama from sending a more robust force to attempt a capture.

-John Yoo, in the WSJ today.

But maybe not. A friend speculated that BL may have indeed been taken into custody and not killed; that the story of his death and burial at sea is a convenient cover; and that he is being thoroughly emptied of his data before he will be finally executed.

Soul Surfer

As the movie ended and we got up from our seats, my thoughts were, "I've got to get out to the parking lot, into our car, and have a good cry." I want everyone to know that I got hold of myself before then.

But it was a really fine movie.

What's Dale Bruner Up To?

According to a Facebook post of his last September 10:

The final manuscript for the Commentary on John was submitted to the publisher on June 30. The next project is Romans!

(Thanks, Marlene!)

He does keep busy.

Already a Cumuppence for King & Spalding

Wow, you have to love this! (Thanks, again, to Instapundit.)

(I posted earlier on K&S.)

Nest Egg Report

We received our quarterly report from Investors Solutions yesterday. We started with this firm on November 4, 2007. The volatile way that the markets had performed that year eroded my confidence in my ability to do my own investing, although at that point the market had not hurt me. Furthermore, during the summer of 2007, our stockbroker had telephoned me with assurances that his firm had not been involved in any of the financial shenanigans that were beginning to shake the big financial institutions. I learned in the fall that his own firm had been lying to him. (His firm by the end of the year was taken over by one of the big banks.) To make a long story short, the Investor Solutions approach - wide diversification, disciplined allocation strategies, and the use of low cost index funds and ETFs - seemed the right thing to do. And one of my friends, Rob Gordon, had just begun with that firm as an adviser, and so we started and gratefully continue with him.

Our net internal rate of return (on an annual basis) from November 4,2007 through March 31, 2011, after everything that has happened during that period, is 3.72%. The actual net, internal rate of return since inception is 13.22%. I am well satisfied with that.

Our allocation to stocks is significant, and of course the portfolio was hit hard during the stock market bust. But when my friends in a panic were selling their stocks at the bottom of the market, we began to buy stocks, so that we would maintain our allocation to that sector. Who knows what the future will bring? But that discipline worked well, I see no reason to abandon it and every reason to continue to embrace it.

Here's our "target" asset allocation plan:

Small Cap 4.8%
Small Cap Value 7.2%
Large Cap 4.8%
Large Cap Value 7.2%
Int'l Small Cap 4.5%
Int'l Small Cap Value 5.4%
Int'l Large Cap Value 5.4%
Emerging Markets 4.2%

Domestic Real Estate 4.5%
Int'l Real Estate: 4.5%

Commodities 3.0%

Bonds 40%
Cash & Equivalents 0

Because of the way that the markets have moved, we are overweighted right now in every sector but bonds. (For example, in Small Cap Value, the present position is 10.2% and, interestingly, Domestic Real Estate is at 6.1%. On the other hand, Bonds are at 28.1%) At some point, Investors Solutions will "rebalance," to bring the portfolio back to target. Rebalancing is a crucial part of the discipline. However, there are transaction costs when one rebalances, so there is also a discipline regarding just when we rebalance.

Time to Stop Driving All Over Town?

Wal-Mart thinks so, and I think they have a point.

Now, with its strategy of low prices all the time back in place, Duke [the CEO] said making Wal-Mart a "one-stop shopping stop" is a critical response to dealing with the rising price of fuel.

What other trips are not necessary? Not taking unnecessary trips strikes back at our Middle Eastern and South American energy lords. Why should we put a cent in a despot's pocket, when we can avoid it? Let's put it in our own.

I also like the typical Wal-Mart customer's strategy, as described in the CNN article to which I've linked (by the way, thanks Instapundit): Shop at the beginning of the month and stock up until next month.

And, of course (of course!), there's the internet shopping option.

Wrong House Raid in Broward. Disturbing.

This is crazy. (Via Instapundit) The judge is very fortunate she didn't get shot. And, if this account is correct, she acted really stupidly. (Let's not even think about what would have happened had she been shot.) The police may have made the initial mistake, but the judge's conduct strikes me as enormously reckless.

Update on Sokol

The WSJ today reports that the audit committee of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffet's company, undertook and completed an investigation of the Sokol matter. The committee's report, as described in pertinent part in the WSJ article, is as follows:

Mr. Sokol's "purchases of Lubrizol shares while serving as a representative of Berkshire Hathaway in connection with a possible business combination with Lubrizol violated company policies, including Berkshire Hathaway's Code of Business Conduct and Ethics and its Insider Trading Policies and Procedures," the audit committee wrote in its report. "His misleadingly incomplete disclosures to Berkshire Hathaway senior management concerning those purchases violated the duty of candor he owed the Company," the committee added.

Mr. Sokol's remarks "did not satisfy the duty of full disclosure inherent in the Berkshire Hathaway policies and mandated by state law," the report concluded.

"His remark to Mr. Buffett in January, revealing only that he owned some Lubrizol stock, did not tell Mr. Buffett what he needed to know. … [I]ts effect was to mislead: it implied that Mr. Sokol owned the stock before he began considering Lubrizol as an acquisition candidate, when the truth was the reverse."

See my earlier posts on this matter, first here and then here.

I am interested in the significance of the phrase "mandated by state law" that the audit committee used to describe the standards that Mr. Sokol breached. I am also interested in the penalties under that law that would follow a breach of its standards.

Pertinent to all this is the following from an April 2 report on the Bloomberg Business Week website:

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is probing whether Sokol bought Lubrizol shares on inside information, said a person with knowledge of the matter who declined to be identified because the investigation is secret. The SEC is seeking records from Sokol’s brokerage and examining trading data from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the person said.

Hostage to One's Clients or to One's Firm

Law firm clients can be too large. King and Spalding's refusal to go forward with the DOMA defence is a large case in point.

According to the WSJ, the "likely story here is that King and Spalding began to fear a political backlash after activists at the Human Rights Campaign launched a campaign to 'educate' (read: intimidate) the firm's clients about 'King and Spalding's decision to promote discrimination.' Clients include Coca-Cola and other Fortune 500 giants that prefer to avoid hot-button social issues."

In running our little firm, we are threatened economically on both sides of the client-scale spectrum. We worry about taking clients that are too small, even though the circumstances of their cases may be compelling. These kinds of clients simply cannot afford to pay us what we need to be paid reasonably to deliver legal services of the quality we seek to deliver. We will take small cases now and then, but too many of them will run us into the ground.

At the other end of the spectrum are clients with the big cases that could shower us with money. But they threaten to soak up too much of us. If we ramp up for them, what do we do when the case is over? We turn to our other clients, clients whom we may have neglected to deal with the large case, and find that they have left us. There is, then, a sweet spot for our practice. It is dynamic and changing all the time. But the cases in our sweet spot keep us healthy and growing and still able to do good work. Turning down cases that are too large or too small for us is a key to success.

What also keeps us healthy is having the economic ability to fire a client or to let one go when that client is not heeding our advice or is using us for ends that simply are not compatible with the way we see things. It is, of course, much easier to see such a client walk out the front door when we have plenty of other clients who provide us good and satisfying work.

So now we see that the venerable King and Spalding has large, think-alike clients, clients who depend on being all things to all the people in the market place, clients who can't stand the heat of the anti-DOMA lobby. Client selection and retention for K&S is no different than it is for any of us, large or small. K&S finds itself in the position of being too dependent on these sort of clients. The firm therefore bends.

Individual lawyers in such firms don't have to bend. If they are prepared to walk out the front door, then they can do that if firm policy is not compatible with their own values. And lawyers in firms should always be prepared to take that walk. In the K&S case, the attorney in question in fact has done that. Good for him. But not all attorneys in big firms are prepared to walk out: they have not developed a client base of any sort; they are so in debt and otherwise over committed that they must have the steady paycheck; or their skills have become so specialized with regard to the "big clients" that they are not useful on the outside or those skills are simply obsolete.

More on the K&S case here at Instapundit.

He-gans, Vegans, and Vegetarians

Lo! The Miami Herald discovers low-to-no animal protein diets and their health advantages.

What's next? The free market maybe?

"Sachkritik?"

N.T. Wright uses the word Sachkritik to describe a form of literary criticism. (He is not high on the form.) This is a word I had not seen before.

Here is one definition. And another from a Crandall University course description on Pauline studies. (Crandall is a Canadian Christian institution.)

Romans Report

We are coming to the end of Chapter 11, the last of three chapters that form a section the theme of which was largely unfamiliar to me. Now that I am at the end of it, I see why Paul breaks into Doxology in 11:33-36, and I want to lift it up with him (especially this week).

("People have often imagined that chapters 9-11 are a kind of bracket, an appendix, tackling a different subject to the rest of the letter. But that only shows how badly Romans as a whole has been misread . . . " Wright in Paul for Everyone - Romans: Part Two, p. 4.)

I have been aided immeasurably by N.T. Wright and John Stott, who sometimes differ but often seem as if they are collaborating with each other. (Macon and Walter, I will get to Barth later. Sorry.) Indeed, Stott cites Wright several times in his text, particularly Wright's The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology, a collection of essays on the subject. I acquired that book especially for its chapter 13, "Christ, the Law and the People of God: the Problem of Romans 9-11." But now I am going back and reading the book from the beginning.

The book is simply a pleasure to read because Wright is so unaffectedly and attractively literate. The way he writes is sheer entertainment. Here is an example from chapter 1, where Wright deals generally with the matter of "Contradictions, Tensions, Inconsistencies, Antinomies and Other Worrying Things" that are ascribed to Paul:

To call someone inconsistent seems today a somewhat two-edged compliment. Schecter's dictum is often quoted to the effect that, whatever faults the Rabbis may have had, consistency was not one of them . . .

Wright does not concede that Paul is inconsistent and that's not the point of my quoting this passage from Wright's book. The point is that I find it entertaining to see the problem of inconsistency (or not) introduced that way. I wonder if Wright is as good in the classroom. (And who is Schecter anyway? Don't you simply want to put Wright's book down and go off and find out who that clever man was and what else he wrote? It's a great teacher who points you to other great minds and makes you want to go and make their acquaintance.)

Now Where Was I?

Your's truly is Exhibit A to this study.

(I think I would be OK if I just didn't find everything in God's creation so interesting.)

"Specialization is for Insects"

Hyperbolic, but I like it.

Mission Trip to Haiti?

Don, Van, and I are looking at this for a one week trip in June.

But the weather is sure nice here.

Headlines and synopses from the front page of today's local section of the Miami Herald:

Medicare Fraud
Couple: We stole millions from Medicare
A Miami couple charged with running the nation's largest mental health scam pleaded guilty to billing the federal program for bogus therapy.
(The article said the Miami couple stole $200 million. This approaches 2/3 of this fiscal year's savings resulting from last week's budget deal in Washington.)

Miami-Dade Transit Agency
Transit funding cutoff continues
Miami-Dade Transit's woes with federal regulators are dragging on amid questions about the county's "serious mismanagement" of grant dollars.
(The mismanagement includes not only how federal grant money was being spent, it also includes "improperly accounted for bus fare boxes" which has a sort of nostalgic feel about it. The cut-off is of "some $185 million in grant money the county relies on to fund daily operations" and "will continue indefinitely." I think not only "daily operations" were being funded with this money, but also "daily defalcations.")

One idea that Congress might consider is just cutting away both Broward and Miami-Dade Counties and letting them float away into the distance. That could go far in dealing with the deficit. (Carol and I will arrange to be in Austin or Rochester at the time.)

Aborting Little Girls in India

A very good NPR report.

Congress is Seriously Not Serious About the Deficit

The WSJ reports today that a

new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office suggests that the 2011 spending deal struck by Republicans and Democrats late Friday would save only about $352 million this year, a small fraction of the $38.5 billion touted by negotiators on both sides.

The nonpartisan budget office for Congress reports that the two sides succeeded in cutting the government's spending authority for this year by the larger amount. But because some of the cuts would be slow to take effect, and because some of the money was unlikely to be spent in any case, the reduction in actual "outlays" would come to a small percentage of the announced amount.

Not to mention, of course, the President himself.

Mojito Alert!

Rum is flowing at Miami International Airport, where the new Bacardi Mojito Bar celebrated a grand opening Wednesday. The bar, in the new north terminal, also includes food from Lorena Garcia Cocina.

The restaurant menu was designed especially for the airport and includes Caribbean and Latin American flavors.

-from today's Miami Herald.

(Adjacent to gates D52 and D53 in Terminal D)

The Allen Brain Atlas

ALLEN Human Brain Atlas

The ALLEN Human Brain Atlas is a unique, multi-modal digital atlas that integrates extensive gene expression data with anatomic information. The atlas currently features MRI, DTI, histology, microarray, and in situ hybridization data.

The latest release on March 17, 2011 adds an expanded data set and enhanced data visualization and navigation options that facilitate integration across data modalities. Updates include:

Whole Brain Microarray Survey:
Spatially mapped microarray data comprising approximately 2,000 samples covering two entire brains
Enhanced heat-map interactivity and user-defined viewing options
Enhanced differential and correlative search features


Brain Explorer® 3-D viewer:
Interactive, 3-D views for exploring the anatomy of both brains from the Whole Brain Microarray Survey
Gene expression overlay onto brain anatomy, with links back to the original microarray data
Inflated surface views to enhance visibility of expression profiles over the cortex
Side-by-side views for comparing brains


Enhanced integration across data modalities:
MRI view from gene expression heat map to conceptually localize regions of interest
Streamlined navigation between microarray, MRI and histology data
Side-by-side views of ISH data and nearest matching Nissl section for visual characterization of anatomical structures
Additional data, brains and tools will be available in subsequent releases.

Our next public release will be on June 16, 2011.

-Here.

"Common Sense Begins to Triumph Over Right-Wing Extremism"

This is a copy of an email I received Saturday from Florida US Senator Bill Nelson:

Dear Friend,

Let me bring you up to date on the government shutdown here in Washington. Thankfully, we've just seen common sense begin to triumph over right-wing extremism.

It took weeks of fighting, but we're beginning to get a spending deal that aims to be fair to everybody. The battle mainly has been against a group of right-wing extremists who tried to hold the federal government hostage in order to pass severe restrictions on women's health care.

But a last-minute compromise to avert a shutdown of the federal government occurred late Friday, because reasonable lawmakers were able to come together and trump the extremists.As the chairman of a newly created Senate subcommittee charged with finding ways to reduce the deficit and create jobs, I will be in a position to work on a plan that's good for our country.

I believe workable solutions can be reached only when reasonable people work together. That now seems to be happening in the budget talks. We all agree the government has to live within its means. But to get compromise, we all also have to give up some things we may have wanted.

In the coming days and weeks, Congress still has a lot of work ahead to pass a long-term spending bill. But I believe the temporary agreement is a step in the right direction. At the end of the day, I'm confident that with your support we'll be able to adopt a plan for spending cuts that's fair - and keeps our economy moving in the right direction, too.

Sincerely,

Bill Nelson

As Glenn Reynolds would say, "The Government is in the best of hands."

When is Abortion Racism?

John Piper answers.

Black Genocide; the Heartbeat of Miami Banquet

* Many people do not know, that since 1973 (year abortion was legalized in the U.S.) more African American babies have been killed by ABORTION than the total number of African American deaths from all other causes COMBINED. (US Center for Disease Control and the Alan Guttmacher Institute)

* Abortion services have been DELIBERATELY and SYSTEMATICALLY TARGETED towards African Americans. A disproportionate number of the nation’s abortion mills are located in minority neighborhoods. Learn more: ABORTION & GENOCIDE Life Issues Institute Black Genocide Study

* 35% of abortions in the United States are performed on African American women, while they represent only 13% of the female population of the country. (US Census Bureau)

* The abortion rate among married African American women is three times greater than it is among white women. (National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 48, No. 11)

* According to the 2000 Census, Hispanics have replaced African Americans as the largest minority group in the US. The loss of over 14 million black babies through abortion has played a significant part in this population decline. (Used by permission of Dayton Right to Life)

-From Protecting Black Life.

The Director of Protecting Black Life, Rev. Arnold M. Culbreath, spoke at the Heartbeat of Miami annual banquet this week. Carol and I attended that function. Rev. Culbreath had an electrifying message.

There were two very moving testimonies at the Heartbeat banquet, one from a pregnant young woman from Hialeah who, thanks to her visits to the Heartbeat office there, has chosen not to kill her baby; the other from a mother of two children who, with her husband, adopted the baby of a young woman who had visited the North Miami Heartbeat center for help. The adoptive mother told the story of the birth mother, and the two mothers are now close friends.

At the end of the program, mothers in the audience who had changed their minds about abortion at a Heartbeat center, came up on stage with their children. As Heartbeat has been at work in Miami for just 3 years, there were toddlers as well as babies. The Heartbeat director, Marta Avila, said that over 30,000 abortions have been avoided by Heartbeat during that period of time.

Just Love This

Are We Happy We Didn't Push the Kids to Go to Law School?

Well, yeah.

If any of them really wanted to go, that would have been OK. But none of them did. Anyway, we pretty much gave up "pushing" generally, as each reached about 12 years old. After that, we had to rely on out-smarting them.

Which we still do.

Academics, Basketball, and Ancestry in the ACC

I talked to my friend and college roommate Doug Tanner this evening on the phone. He had this to say about Duke Basketball.

Saveral years ago, a sportswriter asked Coach K how much importance he assigned to academics for his basketball team at Duke.

Coach K said that he at least hoped his players would be able to spell his name by the time they graduated.

"Remarkable," the sportswriter said, "that's exactly what Coach Smith said over at Chapel Hill."

Doug also told this story:

A young Piedmont State man interviewed for admission to Wake Forest. Asked by the Admissions Director whether he was a Baptist, he said no. "Well, what about your father?" No to that as well. "Your grandfather a Baptist?" No, sir, to that. "Then I'm afraid there is no place for you here."

Over to Duke the young man went. Because Duke is a Methodist school, the same sorts of questions were asked about Methodist Church membership: first of the young man, then of the young man's father and mother both (the mother included, as Methodists are more liberal along gender lines than Baptists) and then of his grandmothers and grandfathers. Still negative answers and the same result: no admission.

Then it was over to Raleigh and an interview with the NC State admissions office. This time the questions were whether the young man was a farmer: no. Whether his parents were farmers: no. Whether his grandparents: no to that as well. Then, "We can't admit you here, sir."

"Well, I'll be a son of a bitch!" the young man exclaimed.

"Oh," said the admissions officer, "Have you tried Chapel Hill?"

(That photo is a recent one of Doug. He was the minister who married Carol and me, and he is pictured here at our wedding nearly 41 years ago. He hasn't changed much! How does a man carry-on being so good looking? [Walter? Macon? Steven H? Cody?])

A Spade being Called a Spade

Today the WSJ headlines the Sokol/Berkshire matter as a "scandal." It certainly is a scandal.

Compare this, also reported in today's WSJ, where the FBI arrested a lawyer for years of insider trading on information he gained from merger and acquisition cases in respect to which his law firm provided legal services. (See this for a parallel article that does not need a paid subscription.)

Maybe the reason Sokol has not yet been arrested is that you get one bite of the apple free. The lawyer in the other case took several bites. Today's WSJ article suggests, however, that the peculiar circumstances of the Sokol case may mean that Sokol slipped through a loophole. But we shall see.

Drug Resistant Salmonella found in Frozen Turkey Burgers

Just sayin'.

(Thanks, Drudge)

Carol reminds me that there have been recalls of spinach over salmonella.

McDougall, SIDS, and Breast-Feeding

To follow up on Macon's comment on my post concerning McDougall's views on breastfeeding, I searched the newsletter archives at McDougall's website. That search lights up quite a few discussions, but this one, from the May 2004 newsletter, gives a reference:

Bottle-feeding Kills Babies

Breastfeeding and the risk of postneonatal death in the United States by Aimin Chen in the May 2004 issue of the journal Pediatrics found children who were breast-fed had a 21% reduced risk of death in the first year after birth compared to bottle-fed children. Longer breast-feeding was associated with lower risk of death. Even the risk of crib death (SIDS) was reduced by 16% with breast-feeding.

In underdeveloped countries where sanitation is lacking, bottle-feeding a child is equated to a “death sentence.” In modern societies with more cleanliness and modern medical facilities the adverse consequences of bottle-feeding are less dramatic, but still too real. The US is ranked 16th in infant deaths in the first few months following birth and the prevalence of breast-feeding is 22% at 6 months. Finland is ranked first, worldwide, with the fewest deaths for infants, with 60% of babies breast-fed at six months, and Sweden is second with 50% of babies breast-fed at this time.

Remember from previous newsletters, my first act when I become Surgeon General will be to make formula available by prescription only. See my January 2004 newsletter Favorite Five article, “Formula (Bottle) Feeding Causes Infant Brain Damage.”

Chen A, Rogan WJ. Breastfeeding and the risk of postneonatal death in the United States. Pediatrics. 2004 May;113(5):e435-9.

(As you can see, I have taken McDougall's reference and linked it to the publicly available article itself.)

McDougall is "take-no-prisoners" when it comes to breast-feeding.

"August: Osage County"

Carol and I saw this highly entertaining play Friday night at the Actors' Playhouse in Coral Gables. We would recommend it, if the acting company is competent, as it certainly was in the Actors' Playhouse production. This review by Christine Dolen of the Miami Herald is right on target. (I suggest that you not read the Wiki post on the play. Not only does the post give away the play's secrets ["spoiler alert"], it is simply a poor review.)

Dr. McDougall and "the Best Baby Formula"

Differential growth patterns among healthy infants fed protein hydrolysate or cow-milk formulas by Julie A. Mennella, published in the journal Pediatrics found, “…that CMF-fed (cow milk formula-fed) infants' weight gain was accelerated, whereas PHF-fed (protein hydrolysate formula-fed) infants' weight gain was normative.”1 The authors noted that rapid rates of growth during the first year increase the risk for obesity, metabolic syndrome, and mortality from cardiovascular disease later on in life. Thus excessive weight gain for an infant is undesirable. Using breast-fed babies as the “gold standard of normal,” formula feeding has long been known to cause excessive weight gain. Growth differences were attributable to differences in gains in weight, not length. Soy-based formula was not tested.

Comment: As a practicing doctor, I find it very difficult to recommend any kind of artificial infant feeding. I can only recommend human breast milk (preferably from its original container, the breast). Bottle-feeding is known to cause an increase in the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (crib death), pneumococcal pneumonia (occurring 60 times more frequently during the first three months of life), hospitalization (occurring 10 times more frequently during the first year), reduced IQ, behavioral and speech difficulties, and an increase in ear infections. Much of the research states that feeding babies formula rather than breast milk contributes to type-1 diabetes. Furthermore, recent evidence suggests feeding PHF formula rather than cow’s milk-based formula will reduce the risk of children developing type-1 diabetes.2

Soy formulas promote estrogen-like activities due to their soy proteins. Lifetime exposure to estrogenic substances, especially during critical periods of development, has been associated with cancers and several deformities of the reproductive systems, including hypospadias in male babies.3 Research published in the February 2011 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found negative effects of bottle-feeding on the health of young children’s arteries.4

My strong recommendation is that at the first hint of a problem with breast-feeding, mothers need to connect with a lactation consultant (like La Leche League). The health and happiness of the entire family depends on successful breast-feeding.

What about those rare circumstances when breast-feeding by the real mother is impossible? The next choice is a surrogate mother (a wet nurse). Unfortunately, this option is no longer the social norm in our society. Milk from a breast-milk bank is the next best choice. If left with the choice between various chemical concoctions called formula, protein hydrolysate formula is the most reasonable one to make.

Protein hydrolysate formulas are also known as “hypoallergenic cow’s milk-based formulas.” They are commonly recommended for infants who cannot tolerate (are allergic to) intact proteins (usually cow’s-milk proteins). In preparing these formulas, the milk proteins are broken down by enzymes and then ultra-filtrated to remove large molecules. Brands of these formulas include Similac Alimentum, Advance Ross Pediatrics EleCare, and Nutramigen Lipil. Thus, when parents and grandparents ask me what the best formula alternative to breast milk is; under duress, I recommend hypoallergenic cow’s milk-based formula.

1) Mennella JA, Ventura AK, Beauchamp GK. Differential growth patterns among healthy infants fed protein hydrolysate or cow-milk formulas. Pediatrics. 2011 Jan;127(1):110-8.

2) Knip M, Virtanen SM, Seppä K, Ilonen J, Savilahti E, Vaarala O, Reunanen A, Teramo K, Hämäläinen AM, Paronen J, Dosch HM, Hakulinen T, Akerblom HK; Finnish TRIGR Study Group. Dietary intervention in infancy and later signs of beta-cell autoimmunity. N Engl J Med. 2010 Nov 11;363(20):1900-8.

3) Bar-El DS, Reifen R. Soy as an endocrine disruptor: cause for caution? J Pediatr Endocrinol Metab. 2010 Sep;23(9):855-61.

4) Evelein AM, Geerts CC, Visseren FL, Bots ML, van der Ent CK, Grobbee DE, Uiterwaal CS. The association between breastfeeding and the cardiovascular system in early childhood. Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 Apr;93(4):712-8.

-from Dr. McDougall's March Newsletter.