F R O M T H E PA G E S O F
Sunday
October 25, 2009
8 p.m. in New York
Eight pages © 2009 The New York Times
A World Where Cancer Is the Norm
HOUSTON — M. D. Anderson
Cancer Center has a mission
statement, and everyone who
works there can state it like a cat-
echism: to “eliminate cancer in
Texas, the nation and the world.”
For the nearly 90,000 patients
who will go to the center this
year, that mission cannot be ful-
filled soon enough. They arrive
at the world’s largest freestand-
ing cancer hospital from around
the world. They come looking for
hope, but there is no mistaking
what this place is: the front line
of the frustrating war on a still
largely incurable disease.
The federal government gives
more cancer research money to
this hospital than to any other, and
the hospital has an abundance of
specialists in many forms of can-
cer. Medicare offers more gener-
ous reimbursement, and the hos-
pital offers treatments that often
go far beyond what can be offered
at most other places.
“I tell young physicians who
are starting out here that the big
limitation is imagination,” said
Dr. Martin Raber, an oncologist
— and a cancer patient himself —
at Anderson. “If you are good at
Constant Eyes of Surveillance Rankle British
POOLE, England — It has be-
come commonplace to call Brit-
ain a “surveillance society,” a
place where security cameras
lurk at every corner and the gov-
ernment has extraordinary pow-
ers to intrude into citizens’ lives.
But the intrusions visited on
Jenny Paton, a 40-year-old moth-
er of three, were startling just the
same.
Suspecting Paton of falsifying
her address to get her daughter
into the neighborhood school, lo-
cal officials here began a covert
surveillance operation. They
obtained her telephone billing
records. And for more than three
weeks in 2008, an officer from
the Poole education department
secretly followed her, noting on a
secret-agent-style log the move-
ments of the “female and three
children” and their “target ve-
hicle.”
what you do and you have great
ideas, we will help you find the
resources you need to make them
happen.”
With more than 17,000 employ-
ees and warrens of color-coded
hallways so vast that even em-
ployees get lost, M. D. Anderson is
its own parallel universe, where
nothing matters but cancer.
“Everyone in the waiting room
talks about ‘How did you find
yours?’ ” said June Toland, 71,
of Harlingen, Tex., who is being
treated for sarcoma.
Every patient at Anderson has
cancer. Every family member
lingering at a bedside or sleep-
ing in a Murphy bed in a patient’s
room has had the life-changing
experience of being touched by
cancer.
“It feels sometimes like the
entire world has cancer,” said
Cindy Davis, a nurse in the breast
cancer clinic who has breast can-
cer herself.
Donald Berry, a statistician
who is head of the division of
quantitative sciences, says part
of his role is to provide a reality
check.
Yes, it is true that treatment
It turned out that Paton had
broken no rules. But she has not
let the matter rest. Her case, now
scheduled to be heard by a regu-
latory tribunal, has become em-
blematic of the struggle between
personal privacy and the state.
The Poole Borough Council,
which governs the area of Dor-
set where Paton lives with her
partner, Tim Joyce, and their
children, says it has done nothing
wrong.
In a way, that is true: under a
law enacted in 2000, it is legal for
localities to follow residents se-
cretly. Local governments regu-
larly use these powers — which
they “self-authorize,” without
oversight from judges or law
enforcement officers — to inves-
tigate malfeasance like illegally
dumping industrial waste, loan-
sharking and falsely claiming
welfare benefits.
Visit The Times on the Web: www.nytimes.com
has improved. Anti-nausea
drugs have all but eliminated the
constant vomiting that once ac-
companied chemotherapy. New
drugs are attacking genes that
go awry in cancer. Most cancer
patients come and go over a pe-
riod of years, for checkups, scans,
treatment if the cancer is still
there. In between they go on with
their lives.
But there is still little that can
be done for most of those whose
cancer has spread. And, Berry
said, “that is a fact that doctors at
M. D. Anderson can have a hard
time facing, understandably so.”
An aggressive — and expen-
sive — course of treatment can
place a huge burden on patients.
Mindy Lanoux of San Antonio, a
35-year-old patient, came hoping
for a cure for her advanced mela-
noma, but got her first dose of re-
ality the day she walked into the
main lobby.
She saw patients in wheel-
chairs, their heads sunken on
their chests, patients who had
lost their hair. “I think we were
all trying to be very brave,” she
said. “But it was like walking into
a coffin.” GINA KOLATA
But they also use them to inves-
tigate reports of noise pollution
and people who do not clean up
their dogs’ waste. Local govern-
ments use them to catch people
who fail to recycle, people who
put their trash out too early, peo-
ple who sell fireworks without
licenses, and people who illegally
operate taxicabs.
The law in question is known as
the Regulation of Investigatory
Powers Act, or RIPA, and it also
gives 474 local governments and
318 agencies powers once held
by only a handful of law enforce-
ment and security service orga-
nizations.
Paton said that the Office of
the Surveillance Commission-
ers found that the Poole council
had acted properly. “They said
my privacy wasn’t intruded on
because the surveillance was co-
vert,” she said.  SARAH LYALL
small business
faces sharp rise
in health costs
As Congress nears votes on an
overhaul of the health care sys-
tem, many small businesses say
they are facing the steepest rise
in insurance premiums they have
seen in recent years.
Insurance brokers and consul-
tants say their small business
clients are seeing premiums go
up an average of about 15 percent
for the coming year — double the
rate of last year’s increases. That
would mean an annual premium
that was $4,500 per employee in
2008 and $4,800 this year would
rise to $5,500 in 2010.
The higher premiums at least
partly reflect the rise of medical
costs, which is forcing Medicare
to raise premiums, too. Health
insurance bills are also rising for
big employers, but because they
have more negotiating power,
their increases are generally not
as steep.
Some experts say they think the
insurance industry, under pres-
sure from Wall Street, is raising
premiums to get ahead of any
legislative changes that might
reduce their profits.
The increases come at a politi-
cally fraught time for the insur-
ers, as they try to fight off the
creation of a government-run
competitor and as they push their
case that they have a central role
to play in controlling the nation’s
health care costs.
Small businesses, which em-
ploy about 40 percent of the pri-
vate labor force, are a big con-
stituency for both parties.
The House speaker, Nancy
Pelosi of California, said the
sharp rise in premiums for small
businesses offered the latest
evidence that Congress must act
swiftly on health care legislation.
“This underlines the urgent
need for health insurance re-
form, including a public option,”
she said in an interview. “We need
to have competition for the insur-
ance companies to keep premi-
ums down.”  REED ABELSON
International
Henry V’s Victory Is Besieged by Academia
MAISONCELLE, France —
The heavy clay-laced mud be-
hind the cattle pen on Antoine
Renault’s farm looks as treach-
erous as it must have been nearly
600 years ago, when King Henry V
rode from a spot near here to lead
a sodden and exhausted English
Army against a French force that
was said to outnumber his by as
much as five to one.
No one can ever take away the
shocking victory by Henry and
his “band of brothers,” as Shake-
speare would famously call them,
on St. Crispin’s Day, Oct. 25, 1415.
It would become known as the
Battle of Agincourt.
But Agincourt’s status as per-
haps the greatest victory against
overwhelming odds in military
history has been called into doubt
by a group of historians in Britain
and France who have painstak-
ingly combed an array of military
and tax records from that time
and now take a skeptical view of
the figures handed down by me-
War Seen as a Fight Over Authority in Yemen
SANA, Yemen — For almost
seven weeks, Khasan Muham-
mad Abdullah and his family
cowered in their house in north-
ern Yemen while a war raged
outside. He could hear the govern-
ment’s fighter jets, and he knew
the Houthi rebels by their distinc-
tive headbands. But he could not
understand what the two sides
were fighting about.
“What do they want, what are
they thinking?” Abdullah said
wearily, sitting on a friend’s floor
here a week after escaping the
war zone, along Yemen’s north-
western border.
Those questions are being
asked across the Arab world.
Troops Capture a Taliban Stronghold, Pakistan Says
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Af-
ter a week of fighting Taliban and
Qaeda militants in the mountains
of South Waziristan, the Pakistani
Army said Saturday that it had
captured a town important for its
symbolic and strategic value.
The town, Kotkai, most of
whose 5,000 residents had fled, is
the home of the leader of the Paki-
stani Taliban, Hakimullah Meh-
sud, and one of the most feared
Taliban commanders, Qari Hus-
dieval chroniclers.
The historians have concluded
that the English could not have
been outnumbered by more than
about two to one. Henry may well
have faced something closer to
an even fight, said Anne Curry,
a professor at the University of
Southampton who is leading the
study. “It’s just a myth, but it’s
a myth that’s part of the British
psyche,” she said.
The work is the most strik-
ing of the revisionist accounts
to emerge from a new science
of military history. The new ac-
counts are attuned to political,
cultural and technological fac-
tors, and focus more on the ex-
perience of the common soldier
than on grand strategies.
Several French historians said
that they seriously doubted that
France, riven by factional strife
and drawing from a populace de-
pleted by the plague, could have
raised a large army against the
invaders.
More than two months of fierce
fighting have left thousands dead.
Villages have been pounded to
rubble. The conflict has forced
tens of thousands to flee their
homes, fueling a humanitarian
crisis.
Yet this mysterious war seems
to have more to do with the crum-
bling authority of the Yemeni
state than with any single cause.
The Houthi rebels, after all, are a
small group who have never is-
sued any clear set of demands.
They have been fighting the gov-
ernment on and off since 2004, and
it is not clear why President Ali
Abdullah Saleh decided in August
to force an all-out war.
sain. Hussain is believed to be
the organizer and trainer of the
group’s suicide bombing squads.
The army has been struggling
in the treacherous terrain in
South Waziristan. Military offi-
cials said Saturday that Kotkai
had been taken only after “intense
fighting.” Four days ago, the mili-
tants repulsed the first army at-
tempt to capture the town and
killed nine soldiers, according to
a military intelligence officer.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
“It was not the complete
French power at Agincourt,” said
Bertrand Schnerb, a professor of
medieval history at the Univer-
sity of Lille, who estimated that
there were 12,000 to 15,000 French
soldiers .
On the English side, Curry cal-
culates that Henry probably had
at least 8,680 soldiers with him on
his march to Agincourt. There,
Henry provoked the French cav-
alry into charging the masses of
longbowmen positioned on the
English flanks in a field between
two sets of woods that still exist
not far from Renault’s farm in
Maisoncelle.
The series of events that fol-
lowed as the French men-at-
arms slogged through the muddy
fields behind the cavalry were
quick and murderous. Henry V
emerged victorious, and as some
historians see it, the English
crown then mounted a public re-
lations effort to magnify the vic-
tory.  JAMES GLANZ
Many in Yemen’s government
say the conflict is less about con-
trolling terrain than about Saleh’s
struggle to reassert his military
powers.
“Saleh started this war mainly
because he wants his son to suc-
ceed him, and many in the mili-
tary and government do not ac-
cept this,” said one high-ranking
official. “With a war, people rally
around him, even the United
States, because they fear chaos
in Yemen if he falls.”
Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-
Qirbi rejected that view. He said
the Houthis had terrorized the
population and violated a cease-
fire.  ROBERT F. WORTH
It was the first notable sign of
progress in what military ana-
lysts say will be an arduous slog
for the army against a resilient
enemy. And it came as Pakistan
has been enduring a withering
series of terrorist attacks over
the past three weeks. The infor-
mation minister, Qamar Zaman
Kaira, acknowledged that the at-
tacks had taken a serious toll. But
he insisted that “the nation will
not be terrorized.”  (NYT)
2
in brief
Merkel's New Team
Chancellor Angela Merkel
of Germany on Saturday an-
nounced a center-right govern-
ment with her new coalition
partners, the pro-business Free
Democrats. A surprise appoint-
ment was the choie of Wolfgang
Schäuble as finance minister.
Schäuble, who has used a wheel-
chair since 1990 when a man
tried to assassinate him, was
the interior minister in Merkel’s
first term. The new foreign min-
ister, Guido Westerwelle, leader
of the Free Democrats, wants to
rid Germany of the remaining
U.S. nuclear weapons stationed
in the country.  (NYT)
Cairo Train Crash
An passenger train crashed
into another on Saturday south
of Cairo, killing at least 14 peo-
ple, Egyptian security officials
said. The accident took place
when a first-class train filled
with passengers rammed into a
mostly empty stationary train
that had been awaiting main-
tenance but remained on the
track, the officials said.
 (Reuters)
Civilian Deaths
A U.S. military convoy patrol-
ling in Kandahar opened fire on
a car carrying Afghan civilians
on Saturday, killing four and
wounding three others, accord-
ing to a NATO military spokes-
man and the office of the gover-
nor of Kandahar Province. The
spokesman for international
forces said the troops motioned
for the car to stop as it ap-
proached, but when it continued
to drive toward the convoy, the
soldiers opened fire.  (NYT)
Saudi Sentence
A court in Jidda, Saudi Ara-
bia, sentenced a journalist on
Saturday to 60 lashes for her in-
volvement in a television show
in which a Saudi man talked
about sex. The journalist, Ro-
zanna al-Yami, 22, is believed to
be the first female Saudi jour-
nalist to be given such a punish-
ment. The charges included in-
volvement in preparing the pro-
gram and advertising it on the
Internet.  (AP)
national
Obama Is Battling a Boys’ Club Image
WASHINGTON — Does the
White House feel like a frat
house? The suspicion flared in
recent weeks after President
Obama was criticized by wom-
en’s advocates and bloggers for
hosting a high-level basketball
game with no female players.
The president, after all, is an
unabashed First Guy’s Guy. Since
being elected, he has demon-
strated his knowledge of college
hoops on ESPN, indulged a crav-
ing for weekend golf, expressed
a preference for adopting a “big
rambunctious dog” over a “girlie
dog” and hoisted beer in a peace-
making effort.
He presides over a White House
rife with fist-bumping young men
and testosterone-brimming per-
sonalities like Rahm Emanuel,
the often-profane chief of staff;
Lawrence Summers, the brash
economic adviser; and Robert
Gibbs, the press secretary, who
habitually speaks in sports met-
Anchorage Responds to Deaths of the Homeless
ANCHORAGE — A man was
down, immobile at the edge of a
busy intersection. No ambulance
rushed to the scene. Dealing with
the scourge that has consumed
Alaska’s biggest city is often del-
egated to two men in a white van,
the Community Service Patrol.
“We have about 50 to 100 regu-
lars that we pick up on a daily ba-
sis,” said Josh Wilson, one of the
patrol workers.
The man was homeless and had
passed out, drunk. Wilson knew
him by name. The patrol would
soon take him to the city sleep-off
center; he could be free to go by
the next morning.
The police and social service
President Declares Swine Flu a National Emergency
WASHINGTON — President
Obama has declared the swine
flu outbreak a national emergen-
cy, allowing hospitals and local
governments to speedily set up
alternate sites and procedures
if needed to handle any surge of
patients, the White House said on
Saturday.
The declaration came as pub-
lic health officials began a wide-
spread vaccination program.
Flu activity — virtually all of it
the swine flu — is now widespread
aphors.
The technical foul over the all-
male game has become a nagging
concern for a White House that
has battled an impression dat-
ing to the presidential campaign
that Obama’s closest advisers
form a boys’ club and that he is
too frequently in the company of
only men — not just when playing
sports, but also when making big
decisions.
While the senior adviser Val-
erie Jarrett is undeniably one
of the president’s closest White
House confidantes, some women
inside or close to the administra-
tion complain that Obama’s fe-
male advisers are not as visible
as their male colleagues or, they
suspect, as influential.
“Women are Obama’s base, and
they don’t seem to have enough
people who look like the base in-
side of their own inner circle,”
said Dee Dee Myers, a former
press secretary in the Clinton ad-
providers say Anchorage has
as many as 400 people they call
“chronic public inebriates.” This
year, after the deaths of at least
13 homeless people, there has
been a widespread sense that the
city’s response must change.
The new mayor, Dan Sullivan,
has created a staff position de-
voted to homelessness. The police
gained the authority to dismantle
homeless encampments with just
12 hours’ notice. Citizen groups
are patrolling parks where home-
less camps have been the site of
rapes and other violence.
But in perhaps the biggest
break from how the city has
handled the problem in the past,
in 46 states, a level that federal
officials say equals the peak of a
typical winter flu season. Millions
of people in the United States have
had swine flu, known as H1N1, ei-
ther in the first wave in the spring
or the current wave.
Although no one has an exact
count of the flu’s mortality, Dr.
Thomas R. Frieden of the Centers
for Disease Control and Preven-
tion said Friday that it had killed
more than 1,000 Americans and
hospitalized over 20,000.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
ministration whose sister, Betsy,
served as the Obama campaign’s
chief operating officer.
Myers said women have high
expectations of the president.
“Obama has a personal style that
appeals to women,” she said. “He
is seen as a consensus builder; he
is not a towel snapper and does
not tell crude jokes.”
The beef over basketball was
“bunk,” Obama told NBC. “I don’t
think it sends any kind of message
or signal whatsoever.” He often
points out that he is surrounded
by strong females at home.
The administration says there
is a 50-50 gender split among
White House employees. Still,
some sectors — national security,
for instance — exude a male vibe.
Obama’s inner circle includes
Gibbs, Emanuel and his senior
adviser, David Axelrod (“The
Boys,” as they are known to some
female staff members).
MARK LEIBOVICH
a Salvation Army detoxification
and alcohol abuse treatment cen-
ter has begun accepting chronic
inebriates who have been taken
there essentially by force.
With $1.2 million in new state
financing, the facility, the Clithe-
roe Center, is accepting people
committed under a state law. A
judge can order people into se-
cure treatment for 30 days, and
potentially for months, if the po-
lice, a doctor or family members
convince the judge that the per-
son’s abuse of alcohol has made
them a threat to themselves and
others. The person does not need
to have committed a crime.
 WILLIAM YARDLEY
The emergency declaration,
which Obama signed Friday
night, has to do only with hospital
treatment, not with the vaccine.
As a practical matter, officials
said, the decision could allow a
hospital in danger of being over-
whelmed with swine flu patients
to remove them, and any emer-
gency room visitors suspected
of having the illness, to a location
such a local armory to segregate
such cases for treatment.
 (NYT)
3
in brief
Clemency Plea
In Sniper Case
Lawyers for John A. Muham-
mad, the mastermind behind
the 2002 sniper attacks that left
10 dead in the Washington area,
said Friday that they were ask-
ing Gov. Tim Kaine of Virginia
to spare his life because he was
too mentally ill to be executed.
Instead of a written clemency
request, the lawyers used an
unconventional video presenta-
tion to plead for Muhammad’s
life, compiling interviews with
lawyers, mental health experts
and witnesses to detail his men-
tal illness. Muhammad is sched-
uled to be executed on Nov. 10.
One of the lawyers, Jonathan
Sheldon, said he planned to file
an appeal with the court on
Nov. 3. The Supreme Court has
banned executing the mentally
ill.  (AP)
Clunkers Piling Up
Trade-ins from the Cash
for Clunkers program are pil-
ing up, and recyclers are seek-
ing more time to meet a six-
month deadline for disposing
of the vehicles. At some places,
Ford Explorers, Chevy Blaz-
ers, Chrysler minivans and oth-
er popular clunkers are parked
bumper to bumper on several
acres, many marked “C4C,”
waiting to be drained of fluids,
stripped of parts and eventually
flattened for scrap. “I’ve got a
parking lot of almost 4,000 vehi-
cles right now,” said Harry Hal-
uptzok, chief executive of John’s
Auto Parts in Blaine, Minn. He
hired 10 workers to handle the
extra vehicles. (AP)
Former Senator Dies
Clifford P. Hansen, a Wyo-
ming rancher who fought for
Western interests as a gover-
nor and then a U.S. senator in
what was popularly known as
the sagebrush rebellion, died
Tuesday at his home in Jack-
son, Wyo. He was 97. Hansen
had been the oldest living for-
mer U.S. senator. He repre-
sented Wyoming for two terms
in Washington, from 1967 un-
til stepping down at the end of
1978. He was elected governor
of the state in 1962.  (NYT)
Arts
Neil Simon, Broadway Bound Again
NEW YORK — Neil Simon is nervous. For
all the success of his 82 years — a Pulitzer
Prize for drama, three Tony Awards, many
commercial hits on Broadway — a part of him
still judges his self-worth by how much audi-
ences laugh during his plays.
Now the most personal of his works, the au-
tobiographical “Brighton Beach Memoirs”
and “Broadway Bound,” are being revived in
repertory on Broadway for the first time since
the original productions ran for a total of five
years during the 1980s. And they are being
directed by David Cromer, whose minimal-
ist Off Broadway mounting of “Our Town”
makes clear that he is not in this business for
the yuks.
Simon sat silently in the “Brighton Beach”
rehearsal room in August and September.
(“Broadway Bound” is now in rehearsals and
is scheduled to begin previews on Nov. 18.)
Laurie Metcalf, who plays the mother, Kate
Jerome, in both plays, recalled that Simon
would watch from his rickety wooden chair
as Cromer and the cast explored the darker
corners of the Jerome family’s struggles with
love, dreams and the Great Depression. Far
from reducing the play to its jokes and senti-
mentality — touches that many critics and au-
diences associate Simon with — this “Brigh-
ton Beach” creative team is seeking to plumb
deeper waters, even pathos.
“I know for a fact that this revival has been a
kind of torture for Neil because he’s so close to
this play and feels strongly about what the end
result of it should be,” said Metcalf.
“He’s been so patient watching us slowly,
slowly trying to find our way with not only the
humor but also the intense emotions of the
play,” she added.
Simon admitted during a recent interview
to some anxiety about what modern audiences
will think of his work. There was a time when
he would write a play and every theater owner
on Broadway was on his knees. His “Barefoot
in the Park,” “The Odd Couple” and “Plaza
Suite” were among the biggest hits of the 1960s,
followed the next decade by “The Sunshine
Willem Dafoe’s Career Includes Both Eclectic Tastes and a Full Plate
NEW YORK — Strange is a relative term
when applied to the work of Willem Dafoe,
and yet when one looks at his fall schedule, it
is also the word that jumps most immediately
to mind.
In the art-house cinemas he and Charlotte
Gainsbourg can currently be seen inflicting
unspeakable violence on each other in the
Lars von Trier suspense film “Antichrist.”
Next, at the Public Theater, he will don a
frilly 18th-century costume and lead a giant
anthropomorphic duck around the stage by
its genitals in Richard Foreman’s surreal-
ist play “Idiot Savant.” After that he can be
heard in Wes Anderson’s animated version of
“Fantastic Mr. Fox,” providing the voice of a
knife-wielding rat.
Boys” and “Chapter Two,” then the three au-
tobiographical plays in the ’80s (with “Biloxi
Blues,” a Tony winner for best play, coming
in between the other two). But it has been al-
most 17 years since his last commercial and
critical success, the Pulitzer-winning “Lost in
Yonkers,” closed on Broadway.
“I have to keep some distance from the work
on these revivals, or otherwise I’d be saying,
‘No, no, no, no, no, you don’t have it right,’ ”
Simon said in the Midtown apartment that he
uses as an office. “These folks have to do what
they have to do. I liked what I watched them
doing, but I didn’t want to interfere, because
you’d go crazy if you did.”
He did express some nervousness during
rehearsals and early previews that some of
the humor of “Brighton Beach” wasn’t hitting
quite the way he thought it should, though he
was by all accounts hardly the hands-on writer
that had alienated past performers like Mary
Tyler Moore, who quit a 2003 Off Broadway
production of Simon’s play “Rose’s Dilemma”
after he wrote to her complaining that she had
not learned her lines.
One reason for that change, Simon said,
is his trust in Cromer. But another reason,
friends and associates of Simon say, is that he
has less fight in him.
Earlier this decade Simon became ill and in-
creasingly forgetful as a result of kidney prob-
lems; in 2004 he received a kidney from Bill
Evans, his press agent and friend. His physical
health improved, but his memory was at times
uneven, and it continues to be worse some days
than others. During the interview in his office
Simon had a couple of lapses on the names of
his old plays, but he shared anecdotes about
his parents and his life in the theater.
As for new work, Simon said, “I recently
wrote about 10 pages of a new play, but I
thought: ‘Do you want to get into this? Do you
want to go all the way through it?’ I’m 82 years
old, geez. But the truth is, I don’t know how else
I’d spend my time. I’ll always love watching
the Yankees, but there’s really nothing else for
me like writing.”  PATRICK HEALY
The actor himself is not in any particular
hurry to explain how his choices should be in-
terpreted. “Nobody has to know what I think
about what I do,” he said in his gentlemanly
growl during a recent lunch. “In fact it’s very
important, I think, for an actor to keep their
mouth shut on some level.”
Sure, he has portrayed some memorably
unhinged creeps in films like “Wild at Heart”
and “Spider-Man.” But there is also his sub-
dued performance in “Mississippi Burning,”
his quiet heroism in “Platoon” and his comic
turn in “Shadow of the Vampire.” And in
avant-garde theater, his work has been even
more unpredictable and unquantifiable.
Each project is an example of an actor fol-
lowing his own idiosyncratic muse; together
Sunday, October 25, 2009 4
A Plant’s-Eye View
Of Desire and Botany
Before Michael Pollan became a guru of the
food-supply-reform movement, thanks to best
sellers like “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and
“In Defense of Food,” he wrote a book called
“The Botany of Desire.”
But it wasn’t Pollan’s growing prominence
that finally got “The Botany of Desire,” an id-
iosyncratic examination of plant history and
evolutionary science published in 2001, turned
into a PBS documentary. It just took that long
to raise the production funds. The lag resulted
from an unhappy reality of the business: Film
underwriters are skittish about topics like
marijuana, widely used but still mostly ille-
gal, which is one of the program’s four topics.
The two-hour documentary, to be broadcast
on Wednesday on many public television sta-
tions, follows the book’s conceit: It takes the
plants’ point of view in exploring whether they
control humans to ensure their survival.
To illustrate, Pollan, a constant on-screen
presence in the program, examines how peo-
ple’s desires for sweetness, beauty, intoxica-
tion and control of nature have been exploited
by apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes
to lure humans into spreading them far and
wide. Many of the ideas he developed in the
book became the “seeds,” he said, for his writ-
ing on the food supply in The New York Times
Magazine, where he is a regular contributor,
and then in his books. (He examines corn
“from its own point of view,” for example, and
looks at the perils of planting crops with uni-
form genetic traits.)
As a book “The Botany of Desire” weaves
together evolution, biology, psychology, liter-
ature, poetry, philosophy and Greek myth. In-
evitably, some of that went by the wayside in
the television adaptation, including Pollan’s
musings on Apollo and Dionysus, characters
he used to illustrate the competing approach-
es to nature, domination and abandon.
“It’s television,” Pollan said. “It doesn’t
do as well with ideas, especially old ideas.”
 ELIZABETH JENSEN
they have hardly anything in common except
that Dafoe, 54, is in them.
Yes, he is still acting for directors well out-
side the mainstream, like Werner Herzog and
Giada Colagrande, his wife of four years.
But for now Dafoe seemed most excited
about his role in “John Carter of Mars,” a new
adaptation of the Edgar Rice Burroughs nov-
els directed by Andrew Stanton (“Wall-E”).
Dafoe grinned as he described his charac-
ter, Tars Tarkas. “I’m a Martian warrior,”
he said. “Nine feet tall. Four arms. Speak the
language of the green Martian people.”
Dafoe was unwavering in his certainty that
he was right for the part. “They’ll make me
nine feet tall,” he said, “and I’ll play those
scenes.”  DAVE ITZKOFF
business
The Stakes Are Raised for Atlantic City
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Close
to the heart of Atlantic City, where
a long strand of casinos sits tight
against the ocean, a sign pro-
claims: “Welcome to Fabulous
Las Vegas, Nevada.”
What?
The billboard — a promotion by
Harrah’s, a casino operator with
strongholds here and in Las Vegas
that is offering to send frequent
gamblers out West — smacks of
an underlying and unavoidable
vibe in Atlantic City: Most people
would rather be anywhere else.
Just a few years ago, Atlantic
City was boomtown U.S.A. Day-
tripping retirees plunked quarter
after quarter into slot machines
at the casino warehouses lining
the Boardwalk. The city was in the
midst of a huge building expansion
as casinos invested billions of dol-
lars to build new hotel towers and
to dress up fading interiors. Plans
for a handful of megacasinos were
on the drawing board, promising
to bring lots of Las Vegas-style
In a 10-Year Race, Bonds Beat Stocks by a Mile
When the Dow Jones industrial
average climbed back to 10,000
this month, the achievement was
widely noted but barely celebrat-
ed, and for good reason.
“Haven’t we done this several
times before?” asked Edward
Yardeni, the economist and in-
vestment strategist.
In fact, we had. The Dow had
crossed 10,000 on more than 20
occasions, starting in late March
1999. In that year, the book “Dow
36,000” confidently declared that
stocks were “actually less risky
than bonds” and that the Dow
would more than triple in value.
But stocks proved to be ex-
tremely risky. Despite the recent
The Economic Problem With Insurance Mandates
Americans seem to like the idea
of broadening health insurance
coverage, but they may not want
to be forced to buy it. With health
care costs high and rising, such
government mandates would
make many people worse off.
The proposals now before Con-
gress would require just about ev-
eryone to buy health insurance or
to get it through their employers
— which would generally result in
lower wages.
sex and sizzle.
Today, Atlantic City, in the eyes
of one gambling executive, Tim
Wilmott, is in a “death spiral.”
Rows of slot machines stand ee-
rily empty. Over the summer, the
Tropicana was sold in bankruptcy
court; another 3 of the town’s 11
casinos are currently under bank-
ruptcy protection.
The economic slowdown has
shown that the gambling industry
is not quite as recession-proof as
was so long believed. Gambling on
the Las Vegas Strip is falling on a
par with Atlantic City, and many
other gambling locales nation-
wide are also hurting. But Atlantic
City’s challenges may be greater
than those faced elsewhere. A
second blow — and one that most
of the local casino operators here
underestimated — is coming from
gambling operations that opened
in recent years in nearby states.
Retirees who once hopped on
buses to Atlantic City to play slots
for a few hours can now happily
rally, in the 10 years through Sep-
tember, most stock investors lost
money.
Yet over that same 10 years,
the bond market produced hand-
some gains. Bond rallies have
not generated the hoopla that the
stock market customarily re-
ceives, but over the last 10 years,
investors have had more reason
to celebrate if they held bonds,
not stocks, in their portfolios.
Calculations performed for
Sunday Business by Morningstar,
using data from its Ibbotson As-
sociates subsidiary, show that the
stock market underperformed
important bond categories over
the 10 years through Septem-
Estimates of this burden vary,
but for a family of four it could
range up to $14,000 a year over
the next decade, according to the
Congressional Budget Office.
To ease the burdens of the in-
surance mandate, the reform
proposals call for varying levels
of subsidy.
As a family earns more, its sub-
sidy would probably decrease,
eventually falling to zero. But
then we are taking money away
Sunday, October 25, 2009
play much closer to home — in
eastern Pennsylvania or the
New York metro area, for ex-
ample. American Indian casinos
in Connecticut, while struggling
mightily themselves, have also
sucked business away. And some
analysts say the tough times in
Atlantic City may get worse as
states like Maryland move closer
to offering gambling and new slot
facilities open near Philadelphia
in the next few years.
So how to fix — or even save —
Atlantic City has invited much
hand-wringing and debate here.
“We need as a state and as a
community to be a little more
business-friendly with the indus-
try and do everything we can to
foster new development,” says
Jim Whelan, a former Atlantic
City mayor who is now a New Jer-
sey state senator. “When people
describe the city as being in a
death spiral, that’s a pretty big
wake-up call.”
 JULIE CRESWELL
ber — with an annualized loss of
0.2 percent for the Standard &
Poor’s 500-stock index, versus
annualized gains of 8.1 percent
for long-term government bonds
and of 7.8 percent for long-term
corporate bonds.
The S.&P. 500 underperformed
long-term government and long-
term corporate bonds over the
last 20 years as well. Over longer
periods — 30 years, 40 years, and
in an 83-year stretch from 1926 to
2009 — the Ibbotson numbers in-
dicate that stocks did outperform
bonds, sometimes by more than
three percentage points, annual-
ized. But bonds were far less vola-
tile. JEFF SOMMER
from the poor as they climb into
higher income categories.
The upshot is that the burdens
of mandatory purchase, the sub-
sidy costs and the associated im-
plicit marginal tax rates will all
increase, eventually to the point
of unsustainability.
We’re on the verge of enacting
a policy that is due to explode, pe-
nalizing many of the very people
that it was ostensibly designed to
help.  TYLER COWEN
5
in brief
Workers Using Tech
In Selective Ways
Workplace communication
used to be simple. Usually you
called or sent a letter to some-
one outside the office. And this
may be hard to remember, but
if workers were in the same of-
fice, they went over to one an-
other’s desks and talked face
to face.
Now the options have grown.
Why talk when you can e-mail,
instant-message or text some-
one? Similarly, instead of typ-
ing, using an adding machine or
just jotting things down, work-
ers can now use word process-
ing programs, sophisticated
spreadsheets and digital calen-
dars.
But a survey by Forrester Re-
search shows that many infor-
mation workers are using new
technology only selectively. The
most popular forms are e-mail,
word processing, Web browsers
and spreadsheets. While 87 per-
cent of the workers use e-mail,
only 26 percent use instant mes-
saging.
Whether that is good or bad is
an open question. Depending on
the worker, adding a new tech-
nology can increase efficiency,
or it can turn into time-wasting
distraction.  (NYT)
Parents: Ease Off
The Career Advice
Some parents are apt to put
pressure on their children about
choosing a first career, thinking
that it will determine the course
of their lives. Yet the reality is,
as adults, we often reinvent our-
selves more than once, moving
among professions. Therefore
whatever your children choose
now won’t necessarily define
their future.
As well-meaning as the ad-
vice might be, it “doesn’t take
into account what’s going to be
available to your child in the fu-
ture,” said Steve Langerud, di-
rector of career services at De-
Pauw University in Greencas-
tle, Ind.
“The market is changing so
fast there may be careers that
exist when a student gets out of
college that simply didn’t exist
when they started,” he added.
 (NYT)
Crossword — Edited By Will Shortz Sunday, October 25, 2009 6

THE NEW YORK TIMES SUNDAY MAGAZINE CROSSWORD PUZZLE

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
WISHFUL THINKING
BY BRENDAN EMMETT QUIGLEY / EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ 19 20 21 22

23 24 25

ACR O S S 52 It seemingly never 107 Astronomer’s 26 27 28 29

1 “My People” writer ends sighting
30 31 32 33 34 35 36
9 Its motto is “Under 53 Page, e.g. 109 Minotaur feet
God, the people 54 Malia’s sister in the 112 NBC football 37 38 39 40 41 42
rule”: Abbr. White House analyst/reporter
and longtime writer 43 44 45 46 47 48 49
13 ___ Errol, main 57 Wish, part 4
character in “Little 63 Table scrap 114 Flavor 50 51 52 53
Lord Fauntleroy” 117 Sudan neighbor:
65 Oxford, e.g. Abbr. 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62
19 Violent behavior
due to excessive 66 Paragons 118 Kind of penguin 63 64 65 66
use of banned 67 Garage container 119 End of the wish
athletic substances 67 68 69 70 71 72 73
71 Wish, part 5 124 More massive
20 Humana competitor 73 ___ the Laborer, 74 75 76 77 78 79
125 Magical symbol
22 Time’s 1986 patron saint of
Woman of the farmers 126 Take for a spin 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87
Year 127 Infiltrates, say
74 Hell’s Angels, e.g. 88 89 90 91 92
23 Start of a wish 76 Aside from that 128 Ballet jump
by 112-Across on 129 Soda bottle size
93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100
9/21/09 79 Prince ___ Khan,
25 Big name in tires third husband of 101 102 103
Rita Hayworth DOWN
26 ___ bark beetle 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111
(pest) 80 Wish, part 6 1 Dick who was once
House majority 112 113 114 115 116 117
27 Nita of silents 84 Transition
leader
28 Wish, part 2 88 Words of 118 119 120 121 122 123
agreement 2 Danny who
30 ___ of the Guard directed “Slumdog 124 125 126
89 Musical sense Millionaire”
34 Actress Merrill 90 Not in operation 127 128 129
3 Windbags
36 Like the best 92 Christmas hours in
wallets? 4 Whirl
N.Y.C. (No. 1025
37 Working hours 5 Long, long time
93 Law, in Lima
40 Lucy’s guy 6 ___ Harbour
94 Magazine for which (Miami suburb) 38 Nickname of the 62 Monthly 97 Lame excuse for
42 Big wheels 112-Across writes Spice Girls’ Sporty expenditures: Abbr. missing homework
7 Sayin’ no to Spice
43 Wish, part 3 101 Refuse 64 Battery, e.g. 98 Endearing
8 “99 Luftballons” 39 Porcelain
47 [Yuck … that’s 102 What can one do? pop group 67 Like most music 99 2016 Olympics
awful!] containers, maybe locale
103 Actor who said “I’ll 9 Got hitched 68 It has ray flowers
50 Parliament output? make him an offer 41 Poem with the lines 100 It’s got mayo
10 Noah Webster, for “Nobody’ll dare / 69 “Sheesh!”
51 Toward the quiet he can’t refuse” one 101 Thin
Say to me, / ‘Eat in 70 Losing tic-tac-toe
side 104 Tropical grassland 11 “I already ___” the kitchen’” combo 104 Alternative to a
12 Pullover, e.g. 43 “___ in ice” 72 Bridge expert wagon
M A N
E T A L I E N A T E D N O I R E 13 Middle-school 44 Hush-hush org. Culbertson 105 Secret event of ’45
O C E
A N P A T R O N A G E O S K A R Girl Scout 75 Member of the 106 Harvesters, e.g.
T H E
S O L O M O N R G U G G E N H E I M 45 Michelle of Brew Crew, e.g.
14 Draws a parallel “Crouching Tiger, 108 “Much ___
H E R
E T I C S A N T A A N A between 77 Dirty About Nothing”
Hidden Dragon”
S E T M U S E U M S T R (“The Simpsons”
15 Boneheads 46 Memo intro 78 Land, eventually
H I F I S S O P R A N O S R A F F L E episode)
O N I N P I A N O T U N E R D A R T S 16 Streamlets 47 Contraption 81 “___ all!” (“Fini!”)
110 Practice piece
T E N P O S T M D V I I B A R S 17 Kind of tray 48 Freud disciple 82 Hot topic in
T V A I T S A B A R I G T E N S E insurance 111 Like some
18 Hack it Alfred stockings
A I L C A Y B E G U I L E I R K
21 Starting from 49 Canada ___ 83 ___ Schneider,
M T M A T S C H A G A L L O G L E S villainess in 112 Asphalt, e.g.
A A A S I P D A P H N E O N E L A P 24 Obama’s honorary 53 Chemical coloring “Indiana Jones and 113 Run of letters
deg. from Notre the Last Crusade”
L B J S O A S R E S G M A O R R
Dame 55 Famous deerstalker 115 Germany’s ___ von
E L O O N C U E V I R A L Y E A wearer 85 “Stop your moping!” Bismarck
S E R B S E M I T R A I L E R E D D Y 29 Creator of Oz
56 Shady spot 86 Capitalize on 116 Nothing, in Nantes
W A N K A N D I N S K Y T R W 31 Dashboard stat
58 “___ thought” 87 Flight board fig. 120 Subject of many
S P O U S E C E S S N A S S E U R A T 32 “L’heure d’___”
E A R H A R T D E E D I D O (2008 Juliette 59 John Elway, for the 91 Impress lies
A S K A N A T A L I E W O O D I G O R Binoche film) Broncos permanently 121 K’ung Fu-___
T H O U S P I R A L S H A P E T H R U 33 Historic ship whose 60 Printer resolution 94 More hairy (Confucius)
O A F S T A X P R E P A R E R E T E S real name was meas. 95 Some Warped Tour 122 The Gateway to the
Santa Clara 61 Piazza dei Miracoli attendees West: Abbr.
Answer to puzzle for 10/18/09 35 Cockeyed town 96 Big name in hotels 123 Prefix with valent

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

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

opinion
editorials of the timeS
The State of Financial Reform
It sounded good when the Treasury’s pay
czar, Kenneth Feinberg, announced that top
executives at Citigroup, Bank of America and
the other five institutions surviving at taxpay-
ers’ expense would see their compensation
packages cut in half this year and their cash
salaries reduced by 90 percent.
If you read the fine print you will discover
that these reductions apply only to the re-
maining two months of 2009. Feinberg might
be equally tightfisted when he sets pay for all
of 2010 — he should be — but there is no guar-
antee. And as soon as any of these institutions
pay the government back, they will be free of
the constraints.
Feinberg’s job was always fated to be a
sideshow. Far more important are the pro-
posed guidelines that the Federal Reserve has
come up with to align the risks taken and the
rewards earned by executives, traders and
loan offers at the nation’s 28 biggest banks.
Fed officials get the basic idea, that bank-
ers’ compensation must be structured in
a way that makes them think twice before
they place bets that could lead their institu-
tions (and the rest of us) over the cliff again.
Their guidelines unveiled last week are a good
start. But we fear they may still give banks
too much leeway.
The Fed says it has also begun a review of
current payment practices at the 28 banks
and will veto payment structures it does not
like. It must be ready to impose more specific
restrictions if bankers game the system.
The Fed has not put any caps on pay. It is
Some Protection for Consumers
A proposed new Consumer Financial Pro-
tection Agency is intended to protect Ameri-
cans from abusive, deceptive and predatory
lending in mortgages, credit cards and many
other types of loans. So no one should be sur-
prised that big lenders have been working the
halls of Congress trying to weaken it.
The House Financial Services Commit-
tee passed a bill last week that would give
the agency important responsibilities and at
long last bring consumer protection under
the watch of a single regulator focused solely
on the best interests of consumers. But at the
same time, it would weaken other protections
and restrict the agency.
The biggest problem is that the bill would
allow the federal government to block states
from imposing their own tougher rules on
many banks. Such pre-emptive power —
which big banks lobbied for tirelessly — would
be limited to instances in which state law is
deemed to “significantly” interfere with fed-
eral regulatory power. But that is cold com-
fort. In the past, federal pre-emption of state
laws has almost invariably led to a lowering of
consumer protection standards.
Small banks also won their own dangerous
concerned only with how wages and bonuses
can be structured to encourage bankers not to
take excessive risks. It has offered a menu of
suggestions.
It suggests that if two traders generated the
same amount of profit, the one who took more
chances should be paid less. It suggests that
big chunks of bankers’ remuneration could
be paid out over time — to keep more skin in
the game. And if a banker’s investments were
to go sour and lose money a few years down
the road, some of the remuneration should be
clawed back.
These are all sound ideas. But they are only
guidelines — not rules. For example, the Fed
expresses concern that golden parachutes
could also lead to risky behavior, but it does
not ban them or say how they should be used.
And while some European countries are draft-
ing regulations to ensure that 40 to 60 percent
of executive bonuses for top bankers are paid
out over several years, the Fed only suggests
that these kinds of deferrals might be an ap-
propriate tool.
The Fed insists that there can be no one-
size-fits-all rules for more than two dozen
highly complex banks with different business
strategies. That may well be true.
We still worry about leaving all of these
critical details up to the banks — even with
a promise from the Fed to be more vigilant.
During the last several decades, banks have
been given far too much room to write their
own rules. The economic disaster around us
is the result.
concession, restricting the new agency’s abil-
ity to routinely examine the books of banks
with assets under $10 billion. That could be an
invitation for more bad lending.
The bill would also prevent the agency from
regulating auto dealers who receive lucrative
rewards from lenders for steering car buy-
ers into often overpriced loans. And it would
restrict the agency’s ability to impose rules
on insurance products that are tied to credit,
including title insurance and mortgage insur-
ance. Such products are overpriced for the
scant benefits they provide, but are heavily
marketed precisely because they are so prof-
itable for lenders.
The bill’s supporters say these concessions
were necessary to win enough votes to move
the bill out of committee, and they will be im-
proved upon once the full House debates. We
can’t remember many finance-related bills
that improved during the legislative process.
President Obama has said that he is com-
mitted to the creation of a powerful Consumer
Financial Protection Agency. If that is to hap-
pen, he and his aides will have to match the
banks and their lobbyists blow-for-blow as the
legislation advances.
Sunday, October 25, 2009 7
THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Eyes on the Prize
Six years after the U.S. invasion, watch-
ing Iraqi politics is like watching a tightrope
artist crossing a dangerous cavern. At every
step it looks as though he is going to fall into
the abyss, and yet, somehow, he continues to
wobble forward. Nothing is easy when trying
to transform a country brutalized by three
decades of cruel dictatorship. It is one step,
one election, one new law, at a time. Each is a
struggle. Each is crucial.
This next step is particularly important,
which is why we cannot let Afghanistan dis-
tract U.S. diplomats from Iraq. Remember:
Transform Iraq and it will impact the whole
Arab-Muslim world. Change Afghanistan and
you just change Afghanistan.
Specifically, the Obama team needs to
make sure that Iraq’s bickering politicians
neither postpone the next elections, scheduled
for January, nor hold them on the basis of the
2005 “closed list” system that is dominated
by the party leaders. We must insist, with all
our leverage, on an “open list” election, which
creates more room for new faces by allowing
Iraqis to vote for individual candidates and
not just a party. This is what Iraq’s spiritual
leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, is also
demanding. It is a much more accountable
system.
If we can get open list voting, the next big
step would be the emergence of Iraqi parties
in this election running for office on the basis
of nonsectarian coalitions — where Sunnis,
Shiites and Kurds run together. This would be
significant: Iraq is a microcosm of the whole
Middle East, and if Iraq’s sects can figure out
how to govern themselves — without an iron-
fisted dictator — democracy is possible in
this whole region.
What is tantalizing is that the Iraqi prime
minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, who emerged
from the Shiite Dawa Party, has decided to
run this time with what he calls “The State of
Law Coalition,” a pan-Iraqi, nationalist alli-
ance of some 40 political parties, including
Sunni tribal leaders and other minorities.
Maliki was in Washington last week, and I
interviewed him at the Willard Hotel, primar-
ily to ask about his new party. “Iraq cannot
be ruled by one color or religion or sect,” he
explained. “We clearly saw that sectarianism
and ethnic grouping threatened our national
unity. Therefore, I believe we should bring all
these different colors together and establish
Iraq as a country built on rule of law and eq-
uity and citizenship.”
Maliki knows it won’t be easy: “Saddam
ruled for more than 35 years,” he said. “We
need one or two generations brought up on de-
mocracy and human rights to get rid of this
orientation.”
Yes, let’s figure out Afghanistan. But let’s
not forget that something very important —
but so fragile and tentative — is still playing
out in Iraq, and we and our allies still need to
help bring it to fruition.
sports Sunday, October 25, 2009 8

Upset Bid Falters on a Blocked Field Goal in brief

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Ter-
rence Cody was too mammoth a
player to be carried off the field
on the shoulders of his team-
mates Saturday, but that would
have been a fitting ride into the
sunset for the 6-foot-5, 354-pound
nose guard, nicknamed Mount
Cody.
Tennessee, within two kicks of
ending No. 1 Alabama’s unbeaten
season and denting the Crimson
Tide’s national championship
hopes, could not move Cody out
of the way on two field-goal at-
tempts in the fourth quarter and
lost, 12-10.
Cody blocked Daniel Lincoln’s
44-yard attempt on the last play
of the game to preserve the victo-
ry as a roar of joy and relief came
from the crowd of 92,012 inside
Bryant-Denny Stadium.
The Volunteers (3-4, 1-3 South-
eastern Conference) threatened
Adding Talent, Top N.B.A. Teams Flex Muscles
Money does not always buy suc-
cess in the N.B.A., but the right
transaction can occasionally de-
liver a slice of nirvana.
On June 23, Richard Jefferson,
who averaged 19.6 points last sea-
son, was traded from Milwaukee
to San Antonio for a package of
nominal players. The Bucks’ deci-
sion was mostly financial — they
had to shed Jefferson’s $14.2 mil-
lion salary. The Spurs’ decision
was purely competitive — they
needed Jefferson’s talents to help
win a championship.
Jefferson found himself sur-
rounded by All-Stars and cham-
pionship rings, nestled in a lineup
the Tide throughout the second
half and finally broke through
for a touchdown with 1 minute
19 seconds to play, on an 11-yard
pass from Jonathan Crompton to
Gerald Jones after a fumble by
Alabama’s Mark Ingram. It was
the first fumble by Ingram in 295
rushing attempts. The Tide (8-0,
5-0) never got into the end zone,
settling instead for four field
goals from Leigh Tiffin (38, 50, 22
and 49 yards).
The Vols then recovered an on-
sides kick at their 41-yard line and
Crompton completed two passes
to get the ball to the Alabama 27.
Cody saved the victory, and
possibly the season, with his block
of the low kick, which just hit his
arms without him even leav-
ing his feet. Earlier in the fourth
quarter, he had blocked another
44-yard kick by Lincoln.
Tennessee Coach Lane Kiffin,
featuring Tim Duncan, Tony
Parker and Manu Ginobili.
“Basketball heaven,” Jefferson
said after practice last week.
The deal energized Jefferson
and instantly revitalized the
Spurs dynasty, which had grown
creaky. It served as another sting-
ing setback for the Bucks. And it
symbolized a potentially trou-
bling new trend for the N.B.A.,
which opens its season Tuesday
night.
This is the year the rich got
richer, while nearly everyone
else gave up. Six elite teams, all
recent finals contenders, added
top talent this summer:
who incited opposing fan bases
with his brash remarks in the
off-season, did not play to keep
the game close like he did the last
time the Vols played a No. 1 team,
Florida, on Sept. 19. He went right
after Alabama with a passing at-
tack and a few gambles, including
going for the first down on fourth-
and-1 from the Vols’ 44-yard line
in the third period, and again on
fourth-and-inches from the Ala-
bama 21 in the fourth quarter.
It was very nearly the signature
victory Kiffin has been looking
for to get Tennessee back among
the SEC elite. Instead, it was a big
scare that he will find some way
to use to his advantage.
Ingram, who had been carving
up opposing defenses in the last
month, was held to 99 yards and
his march toward the Heisman
Trophy hit a roadblock in the
Vols’ defense. RAY GLIER
The champion Los Angeles
Lakers signed Ron Artest, while
the Orlando Magic, winner of the
Eastern Conference, acquired
Vince Carter.
The Cleveland Cavaliers ac-
quired Shaquille O’Neal, and the
Boston Celtics, who won in 2008,
signed Rasheed Wallace.
The Dallas Mavericks, who
made the finals in 2007, acquired
Shawn Marion.
None of those teams gave up
much. O’Neal, Carter and Jef-
ferson were acquired for spare
parts. Artest and Wallace signed
below-market contracts.
HOWARD BECK
Game Postponed
Game 6 of the American
League Championship Series at
Yankee Stadium was rained out
on Saturday night. The game
between the the Yankees and
the Angels was postponed until
8:20 p.m. Sunday.
A November Series
Not long after the conclu-
sion of Game 3, or even during
its late innings, Major League
Baseball and the World Series
will go somewhere they have
never intentionally gone be-
fore: the month of November.
For only the second time since
the Boston Americans beat the
Pittsburgh Pirates in the first
World Series in 1903, baseball’s
champion will be crowned in a
month that has always belonged
to football and sports with
enough sense to play indoors.
Until now, the only time in 106
years that World Series games
had taken place in November
was 2001, when the Sept. 11 at-
tacks delayed the start of the
postseason by a week.  (NYT)
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
No. 1 Alabama 12, Tennessee 10
No. 5 Cincinnati 41, Louisville 10
Clemson 40, No. 8 Miami 37 (OT)
No. 11 Georgia Tech 34, Virginia 9
No. 12 Oregon 43, Washington 19
No. 13 Penn State 35, Michigan 10
No. 14 Oklahoma State 34, Baylor 7
No. 18 Ohio State 38, Minnesota 7
No. 19 Utah 23, Air Force 16 (OT)
No 20 Pittsburgh 41, South Florida 14
No. 22 West Virginia 28, Connecticut 24
No. 25 Oklahoma 35, No. 24 Kansas 13

WEATHER
High/low temperatures for the 20 hours ended at 4 p.m.
yesterday, Eastern time, and precipitation (in inches)
for the 18 hours ended at 2 p.m. yesterday. Expected
conditions for today and tomorrow.
Weather conditions: C-clouds, F-fog, H-haze, I-ice, PC-
partly cloudy,R-rain, S-sun, Sh-showers, Sn-snow, SS-
snow showers, T-thunderstorms, Tr-trace, W-windy.
U.S. CITIES
Yesterday Today Tomorrow
Atlanta 69/ 54 0.01 70/ 43 S 66/ 45 PC
Albuquerque 64/ 39 0 65/ 44 PC 67/ 41 S
Boise 53/ 45 0.07 54/ 34 S 60/ 38 PC
Boston 69/ 47 0.20 61/ 54 S 57/ 43 S
Buffalo 59/ 50 0.89 53/ 41 PC 59/ 40 PC
Charlotte 75/ 66 0.27 68/ 44 S 68/ 43 PC
Chicago 50/ 37 0.04 58/ 40 C 56/ 49 Sh
Cleveland 60/ 48 0.03 59/ 40 PC 64/ 44 PC
Dallas-Ft. Worth 74/ 45 0 73/ 56 PC 64/ 58 Sh
Denver 65/ 37 0 44/ 33 C 60/ 26 PC
Detroit 53/ 46 0.03 54/ 38 C 58/ 44 C
Houston
Kansas City
75/ 48
63/ 32
0
0
80/ 57 PC
60/ 46 C
77/ 67 T
56/ 43 C
Los Angeles 79/ 60 0 79/ 60 PC 86/ 60 S
Miami 86/ 75 0.16 86/ 74 T 87/ 77 T
Mpls.-St. Paul 51/ 31 0 48/ 43 Sh 48/ 37 PC
New York City 65/ 53 0.61 62/ 54 S 62/ 47 S
Orlando 88/ 66 0 85/ 66 PC 88/ 71 Sh
Philadelphia 72/ 54 0.31 62/ 48 S 63/ 42 S
Phoenix 83/ 61 0 90/ 63 S 90/ 63 S
Salt Lake City 61/ 48 0.02 57/ 40 S 62/ 38 PC
San Francisco 68/ 56 0 74/ 56 S 73/ 56 S
Seattle 54/ 43 0 54/ 41 Sh 52/ 45 R
St. Louis 61/ 42 0 66/ 47 PC 64/ 50 C
Washington 72/ 65 0.52 63/ 51 S 65/ 47 S
FOREIGN CITIES
Yesterday Today Tomorrow
Acapulco 95/ 77 0 90/ 75 T 88/ 73 PC
Athens 72/ 64 0.12 75/ 61 T 73/ 61 T
Beijing 69/ 50 0 72/ 55 PC 72/ 52 PC
Berlin 48/ 44 0.01 55/ 46 Sh 55/ 46 C
Buenos Aires 65/ 48 0.91 72/ 46 PC 66/ 48 S
Cairo 87/ 66 0 88/ 70 PC 90/ 73 S
Cape Town
Dublin
77/ 57
62/ 54
0
0.04
70/ 57 PC
57/ 50 C
64/ 55 T
59/ 46 C
Geneva 53/ 36 0.02 59/ 55 R 63/ 48 PC
Hong Kong 86/ 77 0 82/ 72 S 82/ 73 PC
Kingston 87/ 77 0.04 84/ 77 T 88/ 77 S
Lima 67/ 61 0 66/ 61 C 72/ 64 C
London 65/ 55 0.02 64/ 54 S 63/ 52 C
Madrid 72/ 48 0 70/ 57 PC 75/ 57 S
Mexico City 76/ 55 0 73/ 52 T 68/ 55 R
Montreal 51/ 36 1.02 48/ 32 C 50/ 28 PC
Moscow 45/ 43 0.12 39/ 36 Sh 39/ 36 C
Nassau 87/ 75 0 88/ 79 T 88/ 79 T
Paris 64/ 52 0.04 64/ 52 PC 66/ 50 PC
Prague 58/ 45 0 61/ 45 PC 59/ 48 PC
Rio de Janeiro 88/ 70 0 93/ 72 PC 86/ 72 T
Rome 69/ 54 0.24 72/ 55 S 72/ 55 PC
Santiago 66/ 44 0 77/ 39 PC 81/ 45 PC
Stockholm 46/ 39 – 45/ 39 Sh 48/ 41 C
Sydney 73/ 63 0 70/ 54 R 63/ 54 C
Tokyo 65/ 59 0 70/ 63 C 70/ 61 R
Toronto 56/ 46 0.51 50/ 43 PC 54/ 45 C
Vancouver 51/ 47 0.51 52/ 43 Sh 54/ 45 R
Warsaw 49/ 45 0.12 50/ 43 C 52/ 43 C
sports journal
World Is Beginning to Catch On as N.F.L. Returns to London
LONDON — N.F.L. Commis-
sioner Roger Goodell says he
remembers the early stages of
trying to showcase American
football internationally. In 1989,
the league played an exhibition
game in Tokyo, and the fans
were not exactly locked in on the
action.
“The officials threw a flag, and
the crowd would clap,” Goodell
said.
Two decades later, there is a
greater awareness of the game
itself. On Sunday, the N.F.L. will
play a regular-season game in
London for the third consecutive
year as the New England Pa-
triots face the Tampa Bay Buc-
caneers at Wembley Stadium.
The league’s increased presence
here has prompted speculation
that it is considering moving a
franchise to London.
“I think it should,” the Patri-
ots’ owner, Robert K. Kraft, said.
“I really believe it would be the
right thing to do sometime in the
Injections Can Make, or Break, Rising Dominican Ballplayers
SANTO DOMINGO, Domini-
can Republic — The effort to
build a better baseball player
begins early in this talent-rich
country, with boys as young as
14 routinely receiving injections
of over-the-counter vitamins and
painkillers from handlers who
stand to profit from their play-
ers’ prowess.
The handlers, who are known
in Spanish as buscones, are part
agent, part trainer and part
coach. They make no secret of
the injections, which are given to
the boys several times a week as
they prepare for a chance to play
Major League Baseball. The goal,
the handlers said in interviews, is
to strengthen players for tryouts
that could yield signing bonuses
of $10,000 to $3 million, of which
handlers receive 10 percent to 50
percent.
Major League Baseball offi-
cials said they believed the finan-
cial enticement, combined with a
culture ingrained with the notion
that injections can improve per-
formance, helped explain why
Dominican players test positive
for banned substances at a far
greater rate than players from
anywhere else.
Dominican-born players make
up about 17 percent of major
next decade, that there should
be a franchise here. We’ve had
great support here and in Ger-
many. We look forward to seeing
what happens.”
Goodell was more pragmatic
when discussing European ex-
pansion, stressing incremental
expansion. That includes N.F.L.
owners approving that the
league play two games overseas
next season instead of one.
And if they do, where will the
games be played and at what
point of the season? Both could
be held in London, where Kraft
said tickets sold out within a
half-hour for the Patriots-Bucca-
neers game.
Goodell also mentioned Man-
chester and Scotland as possible
sites for one of the games. “If we
play multiple games here and
we saw that reaction continue to
grow with the games, then you
would probably put yourself in
position that you would be com-
fortable that it could support a
league and minor league teams
in the United States and Latin
America, but about 38 percent of
the players who tested positive
for steroids and other banned
substances since 2005 were Do-
minican. Since 2008, when Major
League Baseball instituted drug
penalties here, more than half of
all suspensions have occurred in
the Dominican Summer League,
where many newly signed Do-
minicans begin their careers.
When investigators for Major
League Baseball asked why they
tested positive, several players
said their handlers had provided
them with the substances, ac-
cording to people in baseball who
were briefed on the interviews.
Some said they received the sub-
stances before they signed with
major league teams, the people
said.
Baseball officials have pro-
vided Dominican law enforce-
ment authorities with evidence
that some handlers provide
performance-enhancing drugs,
the people said. A spokesman for
baseball declined to identify the
handlers but said in a statement
that Commissioner Bud Selig had
“devoted a massive amount of re-
sources” to fighting age and iden-
tity fraud and drug use here.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
franchise on a full-time basis,”
he said. “That’s what we’re try-
ing to see.”
“But if they continue to react in
a positive way, then it may be a
possibility,” he added.
Goodell said it was unlikely the
N.F.L. would host a Super Bowl
here. It is rare that a Super Bowl
is awarded to a stadium that
does not have an active N.F.L.
team, he said.
Just how much resonance
a star like the Patriots’ Tom
Brady has overseas is unknown.
Brady said that he vacationed
here about four years ago and
that he was recognized on the
street only by Americans.
N.F.L. players lack the global
identity of soccer and basketball
players, but their popularity is
starting to grow.
Still, Brady is only the second-
most-recognizable international
icon in his home, trailing his su-
permodel wife, Gisele Bündchen.
Brady said he was skeptical of
Sandy Alderson, a longtime
baseball official, was appointed
to make comprehensive recom-
mendations to address the issues.
The spokesman said that “given
the scope of the problems, howev-
er, the cooperation of the Domini-
can Republic government will be
necessary to achieve fundamen-
tal reform.”
Handlers interviewed here in
recent weeks said they gave play-
ers injections containing only
vitamins and painkillers. They
said their favored solutions con-
tain vitamin B12, which they said
increases the players’ appetites,
energy and muscle strength, and
anti-inflammatory painkillers.
Some said they arranged for their
players to receive injections at
pharmacies and doctors’ offices.
“I can’t afford to give them
meat,” the handler Victor Baez
said, explaining why he injects
his 30 players.
Medical authorities in the Unit-
ed States said that regardless of
the substances’ makeup, the
practice of giving regular injec-
tions to teenagers raised medical
and ethical concerns.
“It borders on child abuse,“
said Thomas H. Murray, a medi-
cal ethicist who has written about
performance-enhancing drugs
9
the N.F.L. ever expanding here,
but did say that he hoped the
league’s recognition had grown.
“Hopefully with the last few
years with the N.F.L. being here,
it’s created some excitement,”
he said. “I know the players are
really looking forward to the
game. It’s a unique experience.”
Even the often curmudgeonly
Patriots coach, Bill Belichick,
put on a smile for the internation-
al news media on Friday. At a
news conference at the Brit Oval
Cricket Ground in the Kenning-
ton section of London, Belichick
seemed to embrace the moment.
He said, while next to an oil paint-
ing of the 19th-century cricket
pioneer Henry Marshall, that in
his 35 years in the N.F.L., he had
never been to a similar facility.
“I love coming to London,”
Belichick said. “If we get to play
a game across the ocean, I’d
rather play it here than a lot of
other places.”
PETE THAMEL
for more than 30 years, noting
that B12 would have little to no
effect on making a player stron-
ger and that painkillers given to
boys could have detrimental ef-
fects over time. “It’s saying that
the road to success is paved with
hypodermic needles.”
Murray added: “Even if it’s
only a painkiller that you are giv-
ing them, you don’t want to mask
pain of a kid at 14 or 15 because
the pain is telling the kid that they
are pushing their bodies too far.
It can have lasting damage to
the joints to push too far, and you
need to know when to stop.”
Dr. Michael J. O’Brien, a sports
medicine specialist at Children’s
Hospital Boston and lecturer at
Harvard Medical School, said
anti-inflammatories were often
injected for a short time for se-
vere pain.
“I am uncomfortable with the
idea of a doctor not overseeing
any type of injectable drug, par-
ticularly an anti-inflammatory,”
O’Brien said. “Anti-inflamma-
tory injections should be ad-
ministered in the short term
because they can lead to ulcers
and kidney disease, especially
if they are given in high doses
or for a long period of time.”
 MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT