Isn't This Cute?

Isn't this a cute picture? It's Little Charles at Target Photo Studio. He was fascinated by all their Christmas props, including the little Christmas tree and the wrapped boxes that looked like gifts, but were actually empty. Little Charles didn't believe they were empty, though--he kept shaking them thinking there might be something in them after all!

Best Wishes,


Jennifer

The Mirage...

We often heard it said, "They're so rich," but look here...Dubai, seemingly one of the richest countries imaginable is not doing so well. No one person or country has unlimited resources. We all have to be financially prudent. Here's an interesting online article I've reprinted about Dubai's financial troubles. Hope you like it!

Best Wishes,

Jen

Tuesday, December 1, 2009, 3:38PM ET - U.S. Markets close in 22 mins..
In Wake of Dubai, Trying to Predict the Next Blowup
by Graham Bowley and Catherine Rampell
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
provided by


Like overstretched American homeowners, governments and companies across the globe are groaning under the weight of debts that, some fear, might never be fully paid back.

As Dubai, that one-time wonderland in the desert, struggles to pay its bills, a troubling question hangs over the financial world: Is this latest financial crisis an isolated event, or a harbinger of still more debt shocks?

For the moment, at least, global investors seem to be taking Dubai's sinking fortunes in their stride. On Monday, the American stock market rose modestly, even as share prices plunged throughout the Persian Gulf. More from NYTimes.com:

• Dubai World Says Debt Negotiations Only Cover Real Estate Arm

• The Ascent, and Fall, of Dubai

• A Financial Mirage in the Desert

But the travails of Dubai, a boomtown that, with its palm-shaped islands and indoor ski slope became a potent symbol of hyperwealth, nonetheless have some economists wondering where other debt bombs might be lurking -- and just how dangerous they might turn out to be.

Big banks that have only just begun to recover from the financial shocks of last year are now nervously eyeing their potential exposure to highly indebted corporations and governments.

From the Baltics to the Mediterranean, the bills for an unprecedented borrowing binge are starting to fall due. In Russia and the former Soviet bloc, where high oil prices helped feed blistering growth, a mountain of debt must be refinanced as short-term i.o.u.'s come due.

Even in rich nations like the United States and Japan, which are increasing government spending to shore up slack economies, mounting budget deficits are raising concern about governments' ability to shoulder their debts, especially once interest rates start to rise again.

The numbers are startling. In Germany, long the bastion of fiscal rectitude in Europe, government debt is on the rise. There, the government debt outstanding is expected to increase to the equivalent of 77 percent of the nation's economic output next year, from 60 percent in 2002. In Britain, that figure is expected to more than double over the same period, to more than 80 percent.

The burdens are even greater in Ireland and Latvia, where economic booms driven by easy credit and soaring property values have given way to precipitous busts. Public debt in Ireland is expected to soar to 83 percent of gross domestic product next year, from just 25 percent in 2007. Latvia is sinking into debt even faster. Its borrowings will reach the equivalent of nearly half the economy next year, up from 9 percent a mere two years ago.

Like Latvia, the Baltic states of Lithuania and Estonia remain worryingly exposed, as do Bulgaria and Hungary. All of these nations carry foreign debt that exceeds 100 percent of their G.D.P.'s, said Ivan Tchakarov, chief economist for Russia and the former Soviet states at Nomura bank. External debt is often held in a foreign currency, which means governments cannot use devaluation of their own currencies as a tool to reduce their debt when they run into trouble, according to Maurice Obstfeld, an economics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

Few analysts predict a major nation will default on it government debts in the immediate future. Indeed, many maintain that rich nations and the International Monetary Fund would intervene if a government needed a bailout.

But there are no assurances that companies in these nations, which, like governments, gorged on debt in good times, will be rescued. Dubai's refusal to guarantee the debts of its investment arm, Dubai World, may set a precedent for other indebted governments to abandon companies that investors had in the past assumed enjoyed full state backing.

"I see very good reasons to be worried that at some point in 2010 we are going to see more cases of ring-fencing because governments realize they can't afford to guarantee the debts of these companies," said Pierre Cailleteau, managing director of the global sovereign risk group and chief economist of Moody's.

Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard economist whose recent book, "This Time Is Different," chronicles 800 years of financial crises, said: "I think right now every vulnerable country has one or two deep-pocketed backers that pretty much rule out a sudden run." But Mr. Rogoff said he expected a wave of defaults about two years from now, when the countries now serving as implicit guarantors turn their focus to economic problems at home.

One feature of the financial crisis is that some governments have taken on increasingly short-term debt. In the United States, for example, Treasury debt maturing within one year has risen from around 33 percent of total debt two years ago to around 44 percent this summer, while falling slightly since then, according to Wrightson ICAP. The United States will soon have debt problems of its own.

"In another couple years as industrialized countries' own debts -- in places like Germany, Japan and the United States -- get worse, they will become more reluctant to open up their wallets to spendthrift emerging markets, or at least countries they view that way," Mr. Rogoff said.

This might spell trouble for struggling nations. Facing a need to roll over their maturing debts, emerging markets may have to borrow around $65 billion in 2010 alone, according to Gary N. Kleiman of Kleiman International.

But while government debt may be a problem, corporate debt may set off a crisis that, in some ways, is already unfolding.

Corporate borrowing surged over the last five years. According to Mr. Kleiman, $200 billion of corporate debt is coming due this year or next year. He estimates that companies in Russia and the United Arab Emirates account for about half of that borrowing.

"This is where the Achilles heel is," he said.

Companies in several countries face immediate tests. Companies in China will have to borrow $8.8 billion in 2010; companies in Mexico $11 billion.

According to an analysis by JPMorgan Chase, Russian companies borrowed $220 billion from banks or by selling bonds from 2006 to 2008. That is the equivalent of 13 percent of Russia's gross domestic product. In the Emirates, that figure was $135.6 billion, or 53 percent of G.D.P.; in Turkey, it was $72 billion, or 10 percent of G.D.P.; and in Kazakhstan, it was $44 billion, or 44 percent of G.D.P.

In the past, if companies could not meet those obligations, governments might have stepped in. But already some companies have defaulted on payments after assumed government guarantees failed to materialize.

In Russia, for instance, the foreign debt totals more than $470 billion. But only a tiny fraction of that -- about $29 billion -- is sovereign debt. The rest is owed by Russian companies, including state giants like Gazprom.

The most troubling case in Russia is Rusal, the world's largest aluminum company, which owes $16 billion and has been in a standstill on repayment this year while dealing with creditors.

A subsidiary of a Russian state aircraft manufacturer defaulted on bonds last autumn despite a presumed sovereign guarantee. In Ukraine, the state energy company, Naftogaz, and a state railroad, have restructured or asked to restructure their debt.

"This was a trail that was blazed in this part of the world," said Rory MacFarquhar, an economist at Goldman Sachs in Moscow, referring to governments retreating from implied guarantees of state company debt, as in the case of Dubai World.

The Dubai World debt restructuring is already lifting borrowing costs for Russian companies that must repay a total of $20 billion in December, according to Vladimir Tikhomirov, chief economist of UralSib bank in Moscow.

Track and Field

High Jumphttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi9tBW-j0eE

This video (taken from an old movie film) is of a lawyer friend of mine, David Smyth, doing the high jump at a high school track meet in 1963. His brother, Andrew Smyth, still holds the record for chin-ups at John Burroughs Middle School--50 years and no one has beaten it!

Anyway, back to the high jump--at that time everyone jumped with this style, called the "straddle style" of jumping

Then in 1968 Dick Fosbury won the Olympics in Mexico going over on his
back. It did not look very elegant. The style was called "the Fosbury Flop."

A Canadian high jumper, Debbie Brill, used it first---but Fosbury got the credit.

The Fosbury Flop has so completely supplanted the straddle that one never sees
a straddle jumper at a track meet. If someone does do the straddle other jumpers question whether it is legal.

What what was once universal and admired (as a beautiful form of jumping) has disappeared and is no longer admired. Isn't it amazing how styles change in nearly every area of life?

Why did the Fosbury flop replace the straddle as method for high
jumping? That is, how is that people can jump higher going over on
their backs.

As you can see from the video, in 1963, jumpers landed in sawdust pits.
If a person used the flop back then he or she would have broken their
neck. So the first answer as to why the flop has come to dominate is that
the newer foam rubber pits let jumpers land anyway they wanted.

Burt the real answer is that going over on your back is more efficient. In the flop the center of gravity actually goes under the bar. The athlete as he is crossing the bar trails his legs down and below the bar. As soon as his buttocks clear the bar his butt goes down well below the bar and the jumper unhooks his legs just
avoiding knocking off the bar.

A jumper using a forward technique like the straddle cannot bend his
legs forwards to place his legs that far below the bar.

Russian Olympic Champion, Valeriy Brumel modified his straddle style
to have his head, shoulders and both legs (one on each side) below the
bar as he was crossing it. His style may have been as effective as
the flop in lowering the center of gravity. However it is very
difficult to learn to do the straddle as effectively as Brumel.

The flop might be more effective in the takeoff. In the straddle the
jumper must kick his leg over the bar---this kicking motion can
detract from the height of the jump. However the ancient Greeks used
weights to jump higher by throwing the weight upwards at first---maybe
a jumper (in the straddle style) uses his lead leg kick to enhance the
height of his jump.

Who ever knew there was so much technique and history behind the high jump! LOL

Best Wishes,


Jen

Grasp the Thistle Firmly

This morning I received an e-mail from a man who described himself as "a copyeditor who has been fruitlessly trying to track down a quotation."

He wanted to know if, by any chance, I knew the text from which this adage comes--I had attributed it in a previous post to Sir Walter Scott.

I sure felt sheepish! No, I have absolutely no authority that Sir Walter Scott wrote this. I explained to the copyeditor that a doctor I knew had told told me this was from Sir Walter Scott. He was a smart guy, and very literate, so I just assumed...

The copyeditor wrote back,

"Ah, but recall the first rule of journalism: If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out!"

This really made me laugh. And I guess "Grasp the thistle firmly" is just an adage that I've improperly credited to Sir Walter Scott!

Best Wishes,

Jen

Making Sense of Mass Murder, Malice and Hope

I have re-printed an online article by pscyhiatrist Gordon Livingston regarding the Texas shooting, which is so disturbing to me and everyone I know. I hope you like it...it's worth reading, the best explanation I've read about this horrible mass killing. It seems unlikely that a high status doctor would commit a mass killing, but anyone can be an angry, aliented loner of the type Dr. Livingston writes about.

by Gordon Livingston Gordon Livingston writes and practices psychiatry in Columbia, MD. See full bio November 6, 2009, Law and Crime
Murder, Malice, and Hope

We are made uncomfortable by the radomness in our lives. When something terrible happens we search for explanations in the same way that primitive people did when puzzled by the complexity of the universe. Why does one person kill another, or 13 others? The fact that murder has always been a routine phenomenon of human existence does not dispel the horror that it implies or our desire to reassure ourselves that we are less likely to die this way if only we can understand the "motive" for such acts.

We can better grasp the idea of murder in certain contexts. We accept that jealousy, or greed, or hatred drives some people to kill. We expect a certain amount of killing on the streets of the inner city perpetrated by those with criminal records. What can be said of a mass murder by a high-status professional trained to help others?

The events in Texas are not unique. We don't have to look far to find plenty of examples of alienated loners who finally become so angry at their inability to get what they want from other human beings that they purchase a gun and start killing those who they see as being what they cannot be. Columbine and Virginia Tech come to mind as do, more recently, a Pittsburgh health club and an immigrant center in Binghamton, NY. Eighteeen years ago Killeen, Texas, nearby Ft. Hood, was the scene of one of the most deadly shootings in American history when George Hennard crashed his truck into a Luby's cafeteria and began shooting, killing 23 people and wounding 20. The fact is that we live in a murderous society. These mass killings are simply the worst examples. The United States has the highest homicide rate of any advanced democracy, nearly four times that of France and the United Kingdom. Still, guns are freely available and we, almost alone among the nations of the world, cling to the death penalty. Since 1976 more than a thousand people have been executed in this country, ironically a third of them in Texas.

Does the shooter's Muslim heritage explain this crime? Or, born and raised in Virginia, is he as American as the rest of us? He apparently lived his life at the lethal intersection of religion and politics, unhappy at the stories he was told by returning veterans of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is PTSD something a psychiatrist can catch from his patients like a virus? Or did his faith finally bring him to see his fellow soldiers as the enemy. "Allahu Akbar!" (God is great!) he is said to have shouted as he fired on unarmed men and women. One imagines these same final words on the lips of the 9/11 hijackers. Was this American doctor, who apparently wrote an Internet post sympathetic to suicide bombers, a terrorist?

I fear we will be disappointed in our search for a moral to this awful story, an answer that will allow us "to make sure this does not happen again." It will happen again, of course. (As I write this, it appears to be happening in Orlando.) All manner of hatred is abroad in the land. On the same day as the Ft. Hood massacre, thousands of our fellow citizens gathered at the Capitol to wave signs accusing the president of simultaneously being a Nazi and a Socialist and threatening to come armed next time.


We are all hanging by a thread. Any of us could be a victim of inexplicable violence perpetrated by someone with a festering grievance who loves death more than life. All we can do is contribute in our own way to maintaining a respect and tolerance for those who are different from us or disagree with us. The madmen and fanatics who populate the fringes of our world retain their random ability to hurt and horrify us. But they will not prevail.


Tags: american history, binghamton ny, cafteria, contexts, crime, deadly shootings, death penalty, ft hood, george hennard, greed, health club, highest homicide rate, human existence, inner city, killeen texas, loners, luby s, mass killings, mass murder, military, nearby ft, politics, psychiatry, society, virginia tech

Happy Veteran's Day

I was so disheartened by the shooting in Texas that our family didn't really have a Veteran's Day rememberance like we normally do. I am at a loss for words in the face of such tragedy.

Instead, we just had a nice day at home and I painted these pictures on our window. It was fun!

Best Wishes,

Jen

Yule Be Shopping!

Well, here it's right before Halloween and Christmas merchandise is already available for sale at pretty much every local department store!

I love the holiday season, too, but seeing Christmas decorations out so early in the year has kind of made me stop in my tracks. I'm trying to think of things our family can do to celebrate the winter holidays that don't involve excessive consumerism.

I do love to bake, so I'll probably do a lot of baking and give special holiday cookies to friends and neighbors. We may also paint our house windows with holiday scenes, just like retail stores do. This is a fun family activity that doesn't cost much...the tempera paints used for window painting are available at craft stores for very low prices, and you don't have to be much of an artist to paint stylized wreaths, Santas and reindeer. You could also tape a Christmas card or other illustration to the inside of the window you'll be painting and just copy it. I'm also trying to establish a Christmas eve dinner that will become a family tradition--last year's cassoulet wasn't tradition-worthy, but I'll find something this year for sure LOL! Doing things like this makes for memorable holidays and, well, it's not expensive, either.

Best Wishes,

Jen