Part II

The next morning we were up very early as usual. We never really adapted to Arizona’s three hour difference. Even though the state is in Mountain Time, they do not observe daylight savings time in the state, and therefore they are on the same time as California. Our first activity was to drive up to the airport and see the morning light shining on the valley below us and the surrounding red rocks. We found the airport parking lot surprisingly empty and after taking some photographs we strolled over to the nearby Sky Top Hotel which overlooks the valley. Once finished we headed down the mountain road, drove north into Upper Sedona and then turned east to Tlaquepaque, which is an enclosed Spanish-style shopping district on Route 179. We had been there before. It was a wonderful place to relax and take pictures, but it was way too pricey for us.

Next on our agenda was a trip to the old mining village of Jerome, which is 27 miles southwest of Sedona and seven miles up a very steep mountain from Cottonwood. Jerome used to be a copper-mining town, whose population peaked at about 15,000 in the late 1880’s. The mining operation was finally abandoned in 1953, and Jerome is now a quaint area populated by about 450 individuals. It serves as a jewelry and antique center. There are numerous restaurants atop the 5200 foot precipice and one has to take a steep winding road once inside the municipal limits. The old Hotel Connor, which was built in 1896, still serves as a structure that holds many storefronts at 164 Main Street. It is a block or so from the post office, which stays open until 2 pm. It was there that I had all my post cards and letters hand cancelled by a most accommodating postal clerk. We had lunch at the Mile High Café, which is also known as Grapes Restaurant and Bar. Linda had soup and salad, and I had a patti melt, which was a hamburger with delicious melted cheese, meat and onions cooked together and served on rye toast.

Nelly Bly II is also a terrific store that is one of the many that overlooks the valley, the old abandoned Daisy Hotel and the sprawling town of Cottonwood. So after walking around and sticking our heads into almost every little emporium we said goodbye to Jerome for another year. We then made our way down the mountain and headed off to Cottonwood, and their Old Town section. It’s pretty quiet in the sprawling City Cottonwood, where about 12,000 people live. Once on Main Street in Old Town we did find an interesting book store, named Adventures Unlimited Books and I picked up a biography of the famous WWII, Pulitzer prize-winning cartoonist, Bill Mauldin and a book on the WPA. A Life Up Front, by Todd DePastino is a wonderful biography of a remarkable and unique man. Bill Mauldin was an original and he was the most important editorial news source (through his Willie and Joe cartoons) from the battlefields of Italy and France. One May 9^th, the day after VE Day was declared; Bill Mauldin opened the Stars and Stripes and read that he had been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, “for distinguished service as a cartoonist.” He even incurred the wrath of General George S. Patton, whose “spit and polish” attitude was offended by the realistic and battle weary figures Willie and Joe embodied.

Once finished with Cottonwood, we were back on 89A north to Sedona. After we reached our rooms, rested and got refreshed, we headed back out to Airport Road to see the sunset at one of the best vantage points in Sedona. Unlike the morning, the airport parking lot was quite full. It seems that people from all over knew what we knew. We met some nice folks, took some pictures and as darkness enveloped the valley we headed back down the mountain to the main drag.

We bought a little food for dinner at Basha’s a local supermarket, headed back to Sedona Pines and hunkered down for the evening with the World Series. (Even though I always root for the American League, I could never root for the Texas Rangers because of their association with George W. Bush. My father was a loyal Giant fan whose rooting went back to Christy Mathewson and Iron Man Joe McGinnity. In retrospect, I was very happy with the Giants winning the World Series. It brought back warm memories of their remarkable victory over the favored Cleveland Indians in 1954.)

The next day, we went to a time-sharing meeting at the beautiful, well-located, Hyatt, and learned that we didn’t need to buy a week in Sedona for $35,000. But we received a nice gift for our time, which we immediately blew at the local Hyatt shops. The Hyatt at Sedona is truly beautiful, but we have never found a problem finding time-sharing days in Sedona. We had lunch right there at the Wildflower Bread Company. We also bought a terrific seeded rye there. It was almost as good as any one could get in the five boroughs!

Before we headed off to Scottsdale, we drove through Oak Creek Canyon, found a rest stop with a Dairy Queen, bathrooms, and a number of Native Americans selling their silver pins and turquoise jewelry. Ten years before, I had gotten a silver eagle for my western hat from a similar type dealer on our way to Flagstaff, which is only about 30 miles north of Sedona. After a few more photos, it was back into Sedona, and south to Scottsdale.

Within a few hours, we were back in Scottsdale, at the pool in the 90 degree sun, and finally after sunset, back in the room for dinner, rest, and more baseball. The next day, our last full one, we got in another few sets of tennis and headed off to tour some of the more interesting hotel-resorts that surround the Scottsdale/Phoenix area. We stopped by the Hyatt Regency, had lunch at the JW Marriot-Camelback, walked the Cactus Garden of the Phoenician and finished our excursion at the remarkable Arizona Biltmore, which was built in the late 1920’s with the help and inspiration of the genius of Frank Lloyd Wright. Years ago we visited his Taliesin West which was Wright’s home, studios and school for architects. It’s worth a visit for any newcomer to Arizona. When Wright first built his home in 1937, it was 25 miles into the desert and Scottsdale had 200 inhabitants. Now it is not far from the middle of Scottsdale which has a population of over 450,000 souls. We were able to get back to the pool as the afternoon heat reached 100 degrees. We spent another few hours outside before going up to the room, finished our packing and found a reasonable Asian-Fusion restaurant named Flo’s not far from the Westin.

Saturday found us finishing our packing, having a little breakfast, and heading to the airport. With all the news about bombs found on board airplanes coming out of Yemen, we expected a higher level of concern at the airport check in. We dropped off the car at Avis, headed to the airport; we were there early, breezed through the security and boarded Jet Blue right on schedule. The trip was very fast, smooth and helped by an over-active jet stream. We were in NYC air space 25 minutes early, we circled for a while awaiting a landing slot, and finally touched down. What a difference a day made. Now its back to the real world, the consequences of the election and the real world that faces us all.

“The Advocates”

Discusses

“Politics and the New Voting Machines, Will Your Vote Count”

 With

Allegra Dengler

Hosted by

Richard J. Garfunkel

 WVOX – AM Radio 1460- 12 Noon Wednesday

October 27, 2010

All archived Shows at:

http://advocates-wvox.com

Wednesday, October 27, 2010, at 12:00 Noon, I am hosting my show, The Advocates on WVOX- 1460 AM, or you can listen to the program’s live streaming at www.wvox.com. One can call the show at 914-636-0110 to reach us on the radio.  Our guest is Ms. Allegra Dengler, conservationist, activist and expert on voting machines.

Allegra Dengler served as a Dobbs Ferry Village Trustee, and also was a candidate for Mayor of Dobbs Ferry, NY. She is a member of the Sierra Club’s Atlantic Chapter Conservation Committee and also serves on their Global warming and Energy Committee and their Gas Drilling Task Force. She currently is the Energy Conservation Coordinator of the Town of Greenburgh.

She currently Chairs, Citizens for Voting Integrity and distributes the election integrity newsletter CVIVoter. She also Chairs, the Election Reform Task Force of the Atlantic Chapter, Sierra Club and is a member of the Progressive Democrats of America Clean Elections Group and the New York Democratic Lawyers Council HAVA Committee
 
Allegra worked with groups around the state to try to implement a reliable, trust-worthy voting system when New York gave up its
Lever machines:  LWV, New Yorkers for Verified Voting, the Brennan Center, and the NY Democratic Lawyers Council.   Allegra travelled to Ohio, PA, NH and Florida as well as New York locations where she worked for election protection. In NH, she participated in the recount of the Clinton- Obama primary in 2008.  In FL, she worked at the polls for four days in Broward County with the FL Attorneys Election Protection effort, observing six hour lines and voter intimidation in the Obama-McCain 2008 race.
 
Meanwhile, the mission of The Advocates is to bring to the public differing views on current “public policy” issues. “Public policy,” therefore, is what we as a nation legally and traditionally follow.
 
One can find my essays on FDR and other subjects at https://www.richardjgarfunkel.com. All of the archived shows can be found at: http://advocates-wvox.com.  Next week I’ll be hosting Allegra Dengler, who will discuss the advent and impact of the new voting machines and her views on the coming election!
 
 

Election 2010, the Choice is Clear!

Richard J. Garfunkel

Let us not forget what the Republicans and their friends got us into these past number of years. We were attacked on 9/11. The country backed the President, and after years of an unfunded war, we are still practically no where in Afghanistan and the Democratic Congress and President Obama was left with a Hobson’s Choice of whether to stay or get out.  The War in Iraq, whether justified or not, has cost us thousands of lives, hundreds upon hundreds of billions and what did we attain? Very little, but a worn out army and 10’s of thousands of wounded along with huge VA bills far into the future. As bad as Sadaam Hussein was, he had less to do with 9/11 then our “friends” in Saudi Arabia. Let’s talk about the deficits, who ran them up in the first place? Who created unsustainable tax cuts, especially for the rich? Who created less than 1 million jobs in eight years? In which Administration did the Great Recession start in December of 2007? Who squandered money on faith-based initiatives? Who fell asleep after Katrina? Who pushed through an unfunded “drug bill” benefit? Who gave us Dick Cheney and Karl Rove? In fact, who was in charge when the attack on 9/11 happened and was reading a book upside down?

But let’s move on. When President Obama was sworn into office the job market was bleeding 700K jobs per month. Wall Street was teetering; the automobile industry was toppling along with the insurance giants, the investment banks and almost everything else. Who bundled the mortgages? Who invented derivatives? Who created all these exotic trades backed with worthless mortgages? Yes, the Democrats wanted easier mortgages for people, but what happened to the fiduciary responsibility of the banks, and who oversaw the wheeler-dealers like the people who ran Countrywide Financial? The so-called small government blowhards and de-regulators had a party for eight years. Where were the SEC, FINRA, and other agencies that allowed Madoff and his clones to loot and prosper? More oversight, the Party of “NO” says no!

What does the Party of “NO” want? They want deregulation, less oversight, more tax breaks for the billionaires on Wall Street, and just look at their complaints. They scream that the President is anti-business, but the Dow-Jones Industrial Average is not at 6000 or 4000, but at 11,000 and rising. Funny thing is that bonuses on Wall Street will run to $149 billion this Christmas, but the Party of “NO” wants more tax cuts in face of the deficits they scream about. Where is the money? Where are the profits? They are right in Wall Street and in the banks that won’t lend. Over 85% of the Fortune 500 companies have beaten the “street” estimates! Why high unemployment? The Fat Cats won’t hire until after the Chamber of Commerce buys the election of the House. Enter into that equation; women’s rights, civil liberties, the environment, safety in the workplace, energy dependency and China owning all our money! You know where the GOP and their Tea Party surrogates stand! They stand for flat-earth thinking and flat-tax economics!

Their solution is more service sector layoffs, less teachers, less environmental concerns, more Love Canals (more unemployment) more tax giveaways, and the cutting of Social Security and Medicare. They oppose Health Care Reform, but what is hemorrhaging the budget are overruns in Medicare and Medicaid by the elderly, the sick and poor. They would rather force mothers to give birth to unwanted babies, or a deformed fetus, or the child of a rapist than care for the sick, elderly and our indigent veterans. Let us not forget the Bush scandal and the treatment of wounded vets at the Walter Reed VA Facility in Washington!

Who are their candidates? Sharron Angle, Linda McMahan, Rand Paul, Christine O’Donnell, Carl Paladino, an anti-Semite Jim Russell, right here in NY’s 18^th CD, who writes papers on white supremacy and neo-Nazi theory, and many others who are outside the mainstream of American thought and values. They hide behind the flag, but as Samuel Johnson wrote, “the last refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism.”  Christine O’Donnell even believes that “the separation of church and state” isn’t in the First Amendment of the US Constitution! Where did she go to school? But what about the family values of Linda McMahan and her World Wrestling Federation? Has anyone looked into the “blood money” that sordid side show brings?

The party of “NO” has forced more cloture votes, (efforts to stop filibusters,) in any 18 month period in our recent history. Their plan is to stop progress at any cost. Just open up the Internet and read the comments of their “fellow travelers” on the right. These revisionists will claim that FDR started the Depression, the Democrats are “pinko communists” who started every war, and that Barack Obama was born somewhere overseas and is really a Marxist Muslim in Mufti.

The choice is clear, more Sarah Palins and her dysfunctional and greedy friends, clones and family or positive reform and progress? The choice is up to you and yours. You’ll have no one to blame but yourselves for not voting and allowing the Chamber of Commerce, FOX Noise,  the hypocritical Elmer Gantry type bible-thumpers,  the Rush Limbaughs and the Glenn Becks for being in charge of your future. Think about the consequences!

“The Advocates”

Discusses

“Politics, the Tea Party and

Governing through Stalemate”

 With

Michael A. Cohen

Hosted by

Richard J. Garfunkel

 WVOX – AM Radio 1460- 12 Noon Wednesday

October 20, 2010

All archived Shows at:

http://advocates-wvox.com

Wednesday, October 20, 2010, at 12:00 Noon, I am hosting my show, The Advocates on WVOX- 1460 AM, or you can listen to the program’s live streaming at www.wvox.com. One can call the show at 914-636-0110 to reach us on the radio.  Our guest is Mr. Michael A. Cohen, author and commentator about American politics and issues and a Senior Fellow of the American Security Project. Our subject will be Politics in NY and Washington, the influence of the Tea Party on the GOP and what we can expect on Election Day.

Michael A. Cohen is the author of Live From the Campaign Trail: The Greatest Presidential Campaign Speeches of the 20th Century and How They Shaped Modern America (Walker Books: 2008). His most recent articles: Is America Ungovernable? and Obama’s Problem is Economy,Stupid can be found at www.livefromthetrail.com.

Previously, Mr. Cohen served in the U.S. Department of State as chief speechwriter for U.S. Representative to the United Nations Bill Richardson and Undersecretary of State Stuart Eizenstat. He has worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Foreign Policy magazine, and as chief speechwriter for Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT). Mr. Cohen serves on the board of the National Security Network and has taught at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs and was recently a Senior Research Fellow at the New American Foundation.
A frequent commentator on politics and international affairs his work has been published in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, the St. Petersburg Times, the World Policy Journal, the New York Times, Foreign Policy, the New York Daily News, Forbes.com, Courier de la Planete, Talkingpointsmemo.com, Politico, Worth Magazine and he is a frequent blogger at www.democracyarsenal.org. During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign he was a regular contributor to the New York Times Campaign Stops blog.  He has also been featured on ABC News, Fox News, BBC TV and radio, South African television, Al Jazeera, Air America and XM Radio's Potus '08.
Michael Cohen’s recent articles on Afghanistan’s military outlook and their recent elections can be accessed below: http://www.tnr.com/blog/foreign-policy/78312/only-the-us-military-hopeful-about-afghanistan, http://www.aolnews.com/article/opinion-what-i-saw-at-afghans-elections/19644041
Mr. Cohen holds a bachelor's degree in international relations from American University and a master's degree from Columbia University.
Meanwhile, the mission of The Advocates is to bring to the public differing views on current “public policy” issues. “Public policy,” therefore, is what we as a nation legally and traditionally follow.
 
One can find my essays on FDR and other subjects at https://www.richardjgarfunkel.com. All of the archived shows can be found at: http://advocates-wvox.com.  Next week I’ll be hosting Allegra Dengler, who will discuss the advent and impact of the new voting machines and her views on the coming election!
 
 

“The New Roosevelt Initiative”

Reforming Politics in New York

With

Bill Samuels

 Hosted

by

Richard J. Garfunkel

 WVOX – AM Radio 1460- 12 Noon Wednesday

October 13, 2010

All archived shows at:

http://advocates-wvox.com

On Wednesday, October 13, 2010, at 12:00 Noon, I will be hosting my show he Advocates on WVOX- 1460 AM, and you can also listen to the program’s worldwide, live streaming at www.wvox.com. One can call the show at 914-636-0110 to reach us on the radio. My guest is Bill Samuels, entrepreneur, political activist and the founder of the New Roosevelt Initiative.                                             

<?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml” />Bill Samuels has a lifetime of experience as a successful businessman and CEO, high tech entrepreneur, innovative political thinker and activist. Born and raised in Canandaigua, and currently living in NYC with his wife Marie and his daughter Kitty, Bill’s family and political roots are deeply anchored in upstate New York.  His great-grandparents were from Fulton, NY, where his great-grandfather ran for mayor, and his father Howard founded a plastics company, Kordite, in Victor, just outside of Rochester.  With products like Baggies and Hefty Trash Bags, in its time Kordite (now Pactiv) was a major employer in upstate NY and today is one of the largest plastics companies in the United States.

As an undergraduate at MIT, Bill earned degrees in political science, economics and engineering, before attending Harvard Law School to get his JD.  After graduation, while growing his small business into a major international corporation, Bill became active in the movement against the Vietnam War, raising money to finance the 1971 Vietnam Veterans Against the War March on Washington, one of the pivotal moments in the anti-war movement.

As a socially-responsible entrepreneur and business owner, Bill became one of the founders of the Council on Economic Priorities (CEP).  For over 30 years, CEP was the premiere public interest organization focusing on companies’ policies on the environment, women & minority advancement, corporate disclosure of information, labor relations, family benefits, and worker rights.

He built ACTV, a cutting-edge interactive education and media company.  Working with investors such as the Washington Post, the company developed some of the core intellectual property for interactive television and the web including two of the first fifty patents issued on the internet, before being sold to an affiliate of Liberty Media in 2002.

Bill is currently working with his brother, Howard Samuels, to found the Hills Treatment Center in Los Angeles, a facility dedicated to helping people overcome addiction, and he serves as chairman of Resonant Software, Inc., a provider of creative productivity software to financial services businesses. 

While developing these businesses, Bill has remained involved in progressive politics, fundraising for Democratic candidates and speaking out on key issues.  In the 2004 Presidential campaign, many Democrats were outraged by the “swiftboating” and lies of the Republican Party against John Kerry.  Bill, who had known Kerry since his anti-war activities in the 1970’s, responded with action, producing the documentary Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry.  After the 2004 elections, Bill turned his attention to state politics, working with Eliot Spitzer to raise money to help the Democratic Party regain the State Senate.  He funded the launch of The Albany Project, one of the leading political blogs in the country, and founded the Blue Tiger Democrats, an innovative grassroots organization designed to reconnect the Party to its communities.

In the 2008 elections, Bill served as Finance Chairman for the New York Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, leading to Democrats gaining control of the State Senate for the first time in decades.   In this role, Bill developed a deep understanding of the structural problems in the legislature that prevent good people from running for office, and ultimately corrupt so many of the people who do choose to run. 

Recognizing the kind of fundamental structural change that is needed, Bill has launched the New Roosevelt Initiative, a multi-year campaign to achieve critical reforms in New York’s fiscal practices, ethics rules, redistricting policies and campaign finance, allowing our Legislature to regain the integrity, functionality and common sense the voters are demanding.  His goal is simple – through direct electoral work, elect the “New Roosevelts” – individuals who will approach government and elective office with the integrity and dedication we need to give our state the best legislature in the nation.

Meanwhile, the mission of The Advocates is to bring to the public differing views on current “public policy “issues. “Public policy,” therefore, is what we as a nation legally and traditionally follow.

My essays on FDR and other subjects at can be accessed at https://www.richardjgarfunkel.com. One can also listen to all of the archived shows at: http://advocates-wvox.com.

Next week, my guest will be Michael Cohen speech writer, political commentator, and author of Live from the Campaign Trail: the Greatest Presidential Campaign Speeches of the 20^th Century.

The Advocates

“Crisis on Campus”

Reforming Our Colleges and Universities

With

Professor Mark C. Taylor

 Hosted

by

Richard J. Garfunkel

 WVOX – AM Radio 1460- 12 Noon Wednesday

October 6, 2010

All archived shows at:

http://advocates-wvox.com

On Wednesday, October 6, 2010, at 12:00 Noon, I will be hosting my show The Advocates on WVOX- 1460 AM, and you can also listen to the program’s worldwide, live streaming at www.wvox.com. One can call the show at 914-636-0110 to reach us on the radio. My guest is Columbia University Professor Mark C. Taylor, author of Crisis on Campus,” which offers a bold plan for reforming our higher educational system before its economic and structural bubble implodes.

Mark C. Taylor is the Chair of the Department of Religion, co-director of the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life, and a Professor at Union Theological Seminary.  A leading figure in debates about post-modernism, Taylor has written on topics ranging from philosophy, religion, literature, art and architecture to education, media, science, technology and economics.
Taylor received a Doktorgrad (Philosophy) from the University of Copenhagen in 1981, a Ph.D. in religion from Harvard in 1997, and a B.A. from Wesleyan University in 1968.  The many awards and honors he has received include: Wesleyan University Distinguished Alumnus Award (1998), Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Professor of the year (1995), Rektor’s Medal, University of Helsinki (1993), American Academy of Religion Awards for Excellence for his books Nots (1994) and Altarity (1998), and Guggenheim Fellowship (1979-80).
 
He has written twenty-five books as well as several hundred articles and numerous reviews.  His books include: Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard (1980), Erring: A Postmodern A/Theology (1984), Disfiguring: Art, Architecture, Religion (1994), Imagologies: Media Philosophy (1994),  Hiding (1997), About Religion: Economies of Faith in Virtual Culture (1999), The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture (2001), Grave Matters (2002), Confidence Games: Money and Markets in a World Without Redemption (2006), Mystic Bones (2007), After God (2007).  In addition to his writing, Taylor has produced a CD-ROM, Motel Real: Las Vegas, Nevada, and has had an exhibition of the artwork accompanying his book, Grave Matters, at the Mass MOCA.  Over the years Taylor has also played a major role in introducing new technologies to the classroom.  In 1998, he co-founded a company named Global Education Network, whose mission was to introduce high-quality online education in the arts, sciences and humanities to anyone, anywhere in the world.
Beyond his scholarly work, Taylor contributes to the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and other periodicals.  He has appeared on the Charlie Rose Show and frequently appears on NPR, the BBC and the Australian Broadcasting Company.  He has been the subject of major articles in the New York Times and the New York Times Sunday Magazine.
                                            
Meanwhile, the mission of The Advocates is to bring to the public differing views on current “public policy “issues. “Public policy,” therefore, is what we as a nation legally and traditionally follow.
 
My essays on FDR and other subjects at can be accessed at https://www.richardjgarfunkel.com. One can also listen to all of the archived shows at: http://advocates-wvox.com.
 
Next week, my guest will be Bill Samuels, of the New Roosevelt Initiative, Chairperson and founder to a group devoted to the reform of NY State politics and government.
 

Niall Ferguson brings Siegmund Warburg to the Ethical Culture Society

By

Richard J. Garfunkel

Last night at the Ethical Culture Society, which is located at 2 West 64^th Street, right next to Central Park, the New York Historical Society hosted Professor Niall Ferguson. In front of a sold out audience of very attentive listeners, Professor Ferguson, who is the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard University, along with being the William Ziegler Professor at the Harvard Business School, is a Senior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford and a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institute, Stanford University, again was incredibly mesmerizing and informative.

All of his recent books have quite entertaining, readable and also extremely informative. They are also sitting right on my desk!

We first heard Professor Ferguson at Barnard College in April of 2009. At that time he was able to bring some clarity to the issue regarding the recent collapse of our financial institutions. In his book, The Ascent of Money, he carefully chronicled how the capitalist system, led by banks, insurance companies and Wall Street finally choked on its insatiable appetite for leveraging debt.

Meanwhile I had first become aware of Niall Ferguson through the reading of his massive book, The War of the World, 20^th Century Conflict and the Descent of the West.  Since I have been a World War II buff since the age of twelve, I always have had keen interest in new perspectives on that titanic conflict. Professor Ferguson chronicles and explains the causes of that cataclysmic event by tracing its roots from the early days of the 20th Century and the October Revolt of 1905, through the conflicts arising in the Balkans to the surrender of the Axis forces in 1945 and the ensuing Cold War. He brings to an end this “War of the World” with the Korean War Armistice, signed on July 27, 1953.

In his book he contends that the Second World War was a “central act of an epic fifty-year struggle between rival empires.” He concludes his book with the idea that the culmination of this struggle was not just an unprecedented victory for the Western Allies, but the start of “inexorable shift” in the global balance of power toward the East.

From the rise of totalitarianism in Germany, a consequence of what Oswald Spengler called the “Decline of the West,” emerges, a new type of financier emerges in the body of young Siegmund Warburg, the scion of an old European banking family. Niall Ferguson tells the unique story of this former outcast and refugee from Germany, who narrowly escaped the jackbooted brigands of Nazi Germany, without much of a pfennig to his name. His book is the story of how Siegmund Warburg established a high moralistic tone to his own bank S.G. Warburg, and helped re-build financially war-torn and ravaged Europe. According to Professor Ferguson, it is this unique “Warburg” style, which is sorely missing from today’s generation of international bankers and financiers.

After his lecture and the following “question and answer” period, I was able to talk to Professor Ferguson, and invite him to be on The Advocates. I told him that his colleague, and fellow British historian Andrew Roberts, author of Masters and Commanders, was on my show in August and it was incumbent on him to match his appearance.

Hopefully, Professor Ferguson will have some time in the next few months to join my show. In the meantime, see if you can get at least one of his books, they make great and informative reading. Also, make an effort to get down to the NY Historical Society’s lecture series. The museum is currently undergoing a massive renovation, and the lectures are being held at various venues. We would also love some company!

Born in Glasgow in 1964, he was a

Letter to the Journal News Editor:

October 2, 2010

In Yesterday’s edition of the Journal News, Republican State Chairperson Edward Cox, the son in law of President Richard Nixon, and the wealthy scion of four American founding families, commented that the GOP nominee for governor, Mr. Carl Paladino “will recover and get back to his plans to cut spending and taxes.” It seems easy for the rich Mr. Cox to spout platitudes regarding his support for the wealthy and unstable Paladino, who has used his monies for influence peddling in Albany. Somehow his lobbying and duplicities have nothing to do with the problems that he is railing against. Along with his uncontrollable ranting and threats, Paladino wants to cut NY State spending and taxes. Will he start with education which is basically funded at the local level, under local control? Will he slash Medicaid and close nursing homes and health care facilities for the lower middle class and the poor who have spent down their assets? Will he gut sorely needed infrastructure repairs? Will he close parks and recreation areas? Will he eliminate law enforcement personnel? He should articulate where his slashing budget axe will cut. Both Cox, who was born with a silver spoon in his grasp, and Paldino, who has scratched his way to prosperity, have quite different backgrounds. But, they have something in common, they both believe in the worship of wealth, and simplistic solutions, such as tax relief for the rich, will serve the general public. For a blue-blood like Cox to get into bed with the empty values of the Tea Party “Kool-Aid drinkers” reflects the bankruptcy of the Republican Party.

This past weekend we stayed at the Ponds of Fox Hollow Resort, walked the though the City of Lenox's Apple-Squeeze Street Fair and played tennis at Cranwell. This former estate of Henry Ward Beecher and his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe (the author of “Uncle Tom's Cabin”) the famous abolitionists, who were critical in raising the awareness of Northerners to the vile nature of slavery in the South, is now owned by one of Linda's tennis friends. The current building, called Wyndhurst was built in 1869, by the new owner of the properly, General John Rathbone. It has had a long career, which even included being a Jesuit School for generations.

Jon joined us from Boston on Friday evening and after he unpacked and relaxed, we went over to nearby Lee, MA, which was having a weekend street fair and had a light dinner at Arizona Pizza. The next morning we drove over to the aforementioned Cranwell Resort and we played three sets of spirited mixed doubles with a tennis walk-on from Lenox and Delray Beach named Dewitt Thompson. After showering and freshening up, we drove to Lenox and strolled through their annual Apple-Squeezing Street Fair. Lenox is the home to Tanglewood's Music Center and is city which has a remarkable collection of bronze statuary throughout its historic district. After a long afternoon at the street fair, we headed out to the discount outlets and then Lee for an early Saturday evening dinner at the Salmon House, before Jon had to return to Boston. Upon arriving back at our duplex at Fox Hollow, which is only a short drive away, Jon packed up and departed. We rested a bit, and got ready to see the Tom Stoppard comedy, “The Real Inspector Hound,” at the Bernstein Theater, which is also quite close. Well the play was neither funny nor interesting, and we were tired and bored enough to walk out after the first act and never looked back. We found some ice cream in quiet Pittsfield at a Ben and Jerry's and it was back to our place.

Sunday morning, was cooler, but beautiful for tennis and anything else. Therefore, it was back to the courts at Cranwell, a swim at Fox Hollow, culminating with showers, packing and our departure. We took a leisurely drive south on Route 7 to Great Barrington, where we had a tasty tuna lunch at Martin's on Railroad Street, which is one block off Main Street. From there it was back on Route 7 South though southern Massachusetts to Sheffield and then into Canaan, CT and on our way into New York State and home. It was a lovely weekend, and again we lucked out with terrific weather, good company, excellent, affordable vittles, beautiful scenery and smooth uneventful driving.

In today’s NY Times there is an article on the size of the new Steinbrenner plaque that now dominates the Yankees’ Monument Memorial Park in centerfield. One can read the article by opening the below attachment:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/22/sports/baseball/22monument.html

It was Jacob Ruppert, who really created the modern Yankees, and it was he who was the driving force behind their dynasty. In fact, in his 24 years ownership of the Yankees, they won eight World Series. (During the Webb-Topping 20 year ownership from 1945 through 1964, the Yanks won 10 World Series rings). He brought Babe Ruth, and maybe equally as importantly, his new General Manager, Edward Barrow, from the Boston Red Sox. It was Barrow, who never played a minute of major league baseball, and other than possibly Branch Rickey, he became the most famous and successful executive in baseball’s long history. It was Barrow who set the standards for Yankee excellence.

The modern Yankees are really traced to the leadership of (NY National Guard honorary) Colonel Jacob Ruppert, who owned the Rupert Breweries. He was a former four-term Congressman and reputedly worth $75 million, at the time he teamed up with one (retired Army Corp of Engineers) Colonel Tillinghast l’Hommedieu “Til” Huston to buy the team. Huston, a construction millionaire and Rupert bought the Yankees in 1915 for the astronomical sum of $460,000 from Big Bill Devery and Frank Farrell, who had paid just $18,000 for the Baltimore franchise in 1903 before moving it to New York. Of course it was the innovative Ruppert who supposedly designed the team’s brand new pinstriped uniform in the 1920’s. He thought pinstripes would make the Babe, who had a tendency to expand his belt-size to look slimmer.

Ruppert hired Miller Huggins in 1918, while his partner Til Huston was in France during WWI. Huggins who was nicknamed, the “Mighty Mite,” remained at the helm of the “Murderer’s Row” Yankees until his untimely death in 1929. The hiring of Miller Huggins was always a bone of contention between the more aggressive Ruppert and the affable Huston. After the Yankees lost to the Giants in the 1922 World Series, this disagreement over Huggins’ leadership came to a boiling point and Ruppert bought out his partner for $1.5 million dollars in cash and notes.

After a few years of searching for a replacement for Huggins, Ruppert hired Joseph “Marse Joe” McCarthy, in 1931, who led the “Bronx Bomber” Yankee era until 1946. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1957, and his winning percentages during the regular season and the World Series, of .615 and .698, are still unsurpassed.

At Ruppert’s death in 1939, and because he had no heirs, Ed Barrow, the General Manager and President of the team, took sole control of the reigns of the Yankees until 1946. At age 79, he was ousted as a result of the forced sale of the Yankees from Ruppert’s estate to the triumvirate of new owners; Del Webb, Dan Topping and the mercurial Larry “The Red Head” MacPhail. The “Red Head”, as he was called, had been fired from the Dodgers by Branch Rickey, had famous tempestuous fights with their then manager Leo Durocher, and was a bad drunk. He made life unbearable for Joe McCarthy who eventually resigned in the middle of the 1945 season. Eventually, Webb and Topping would also grow weary of MacPhail’s antics, drinking and inconsistency. His departure would open up the next era of Yankee success under the general management of George Weiss and the field leadership of Casey Stengel. Therefore, the Yankee continuity was sustained, except for two short periods in the early 1930’s and the late 1940’s.

From 1918 until 1960, the year of Stengel’s departure, the Yankees, other than a period of five years, had the continuity of three long and successful managerial reigns and two unprecedented periods of front office management under the auspices of Barrow and Weiss.

Of course, that all changed with George Steinbrenner, whose ego and compulsive personality made working conditions for almost all of his employees impossible. Next to Jacob Ruppert, George Steinbrenner had the greatest influence on the Yankees. General Managers George Barrow, George Weiss, and owners Dan Topping and his quiet partner Del Webb had an important role in the continued success of the Yankees, but they never had the profile of Ruppert or Steinbrenner. After the disastrous sale to CBS, under the management of Michael Burke, the Yankees wallowed in the “horse latitudes” of mediocrity. The aging of the Yankees in the middle sixties, (boy that is a long time ago) was not properly prepared for by management The decline of Mantle and Maris because of injuries, the retirement of Ford, Kubek and Richardson, along with the aging of Elston Howard and others, who had made the Yankees champs in the early 60’s, was either not anticipated or just ignored. In the years following their collapse, they had made some abortive runs at the AL flag, but in the era of the “amateur draft” the Yankees had made some poor choices, their farm system was not producing, and other teams were not desperate to make ill-advised trades.

Steinbrenner was able to muscle into the new world of free agency and with aggressiveness he was able to re-build the Yankees in 3 years. Unfortunately, power went to his head, and the years from 1978 through the late 1980’s were fraught with silliness, irrationality and bad sportsmanship. Steinbrenner became bigger than his team, and successes of the Bronx Zoo Era turned into the period of wandering in the arid desert of loss from 1982 though the Torre-Jeter Era. Much of the recent success, which started in 1993, could be attributed to Steinbrenner’s suspension, and the influence of Gene Michael. With success again, and the tragedy of 9/11, the character of Steinbrenner seemed to change. He was always generous, he always blustered, he was always a split-personality, and he finally learned that ballplayers are still human, and they were the show, not him. If he would have been driven out of baseball because of his second suspension, the team may have continued to develop and he would have been probably forgotten or remembered as another aberrational personality.

He was smart enough to realize that the game had started to change, right under him and other owners, in other sports, like Jerry Jones and Mark Cuban could act as boorish. Why he was driven, we may never know, but there will be many amateur and professional sport’s psychologists who will pick over his life and motives in the coming years.

Certainly, one side of him was quite charitable and unlike other owners, he re-invested a great deal of his profits back into the club. Steinbrenner was obsessed with winning, and in a way, he was quite lucky on two counts: he went out a winner, and he died in a year, the first since 1916, that there is no inheritance tax. Looking forward, I guess there will not be another dominant personality in sports like George Steinbrenner to emerge for many, many years, or in the decades to follow. He certainly was one of a kind!

Ironically, in the same week, the fate that will happen to all of us claimed a real icon of Yankee and NY sports lore. Bob Sheppard, who preceded the Steinbrenner Era by 22 years also passed into the portals of history. Sheppard was as dissimilar from Steinbrenner as one could imagine. He was stately, infinitely polite, universally well-respected, and an elocutionist of the highest order. If any one symbolized the character of the Yankees, first established by Jacob Rupert, reinforced by Joe McCarthy and embodied by Lou Gehrig, it was Sheppard. The Yankees of the McCarthy Era had dramatically changed from the Ruth dominated halcyon days of 1920’s led by ill-fated Miller Huggins.

Bob Sheppard, who was a lifetime educator, earned a regal position in the panoply of Yankee immortals. Like Mel Allen, Pete Sheehy, Bill Dickey, Frank Crosetti, and Phil Rizzuto, he was able to transcend the decades and become an important bridge between multiple generations of New Yorkers. In direct contrast, Steinbrenner was a brutish bully, who in his later years attempted to buy a place in heaven with his charitable largess. He was crass, rude, often inarticulate, and craved the spotlight, not unlike an addict who craves his next fix. He eventually obtained status as a cartoon-like character on the back pages of the local tabloids. After the eulogies have petered out, and the public gets bored with the repetition of his name, the average person, and sport’s loving public, will quickly move on to other issues.

As to memorial plaques, the Yankees erected relatively modest ones for Ruppert in 1940 and Barrow in 1954, the years following their deaths. As important as Ruppert and Barrow were, most fans understood that it is the men on the field who really count. It was their heroics that should always be honored. We all come out to see the Ruths, Gehrigs, DiMaggios, Mantles, Jacksons, Mattinglys and Jeters.

But, let us not forget the unique management style of “The Boss.” In the early 1960s, the American Shipbuilding Company acquired Kinsman Marine Transit Company, which was owned by the Steinbrenner family. As a result of the transaction, the Steinbrenner family acquired a controlling interest in American Shipbuilding. Frustrated after years of fighting with stubborn unions that balked at cost-saving work changes, the Steinbrenner's closed the Lorain shipyard in December 1983 and moved all operations to Tampa, Florida. The company began having difficulties in the 1980s, going through a bankruptcy in 1993. The company was sold in 1995.

As to baseball, “The Boss” hired and fired 12 managers, who served 19 different seasons before Joe Torre was hired. This list included Billy Martin 5 times, Bob Lemon, Lou Piniella, and Gene Michael twice. Other notables that went through the Yankee revolving turn style were; Yogi Berra, Bill Virdon, Dick Howser, Clyde King, Dallas Green, Bucky Dent, Stump Merrill, and Buck Showalter.

Not to be outdone, “The Boss” went through 18 general managers before Brian Cashman. Some of us remember names like; Cedric Tallis, Gene Michael, Lou Saban (a football coach), Bill Bergesch, Gene McHale, Murray Cook, Leonard Kleinman, Mike Luczkovich, Joe Molloy (his former son-in-law)  Clyde King, Bob Quinn, Rick Bay, Syd Thrift (he wasn’t) George Bradley, Woody Woodward Bob Watson (who was quite good and who he drove nuts!), Lou Piniella, and Pete Petersen.

Meanwhile, the new Yankee Stadium, which replaced, “The House that Ruth Built,” now is the home to a gigantic bronze plaque that weighs in at more than 700 pounds. I thought the “Bronze Age” had passed forever. Meanwhile the Steinbrenner heirs, most grateful for the loophole in the inheritance tax, and their management team, have made sure that George’s visage will be eternally looking down on the new Yankee Stadium field as long as this edifice stands. Unfortunately, during game time, it has to be covered because the reflection of the plaques distracts all of the hitters. We, therefore will always to be reminded that the blustering character, known as “The Boss,” will be vigilantly watching, but not during the action on the field.